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How do I know summer is officially here?

It’s not the 101-degree heat index. Or the fact that I have to make Sam rehydrate after walking the short distance from the car to the grocery store. Or that I have to wake up in the predawn hours if I want to get a run in without risking heat stroke.

No. I only know that summer is officially here when my hair starts to look like this:

A few months ago, my sister called. “I’m getting my hair cut tomorrow,” she said.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Don’t laugh. I want a style where it looks good without my having to do anything to it,” she said. “I want wash-and-go hair.”

And I laughed. Because she and I have the same hair – wavy, kinky, curly, unmanageable hair. The sort of hair that people with gorgeous straight hair always say they’d love to have, but only because they’ve never had to actually wrestle it into a pony tail. And the wash-and-go hairstyle? It’s an urban legend. A fantasy that curly haired women dream wistfully about.

The last time I saw my stylist, she asked how I wanted her to cut my hair.

“I’ve always wanted a slinky bob,” I said. “With bangs. The kind that Uma Thurman wore in Pulp Fiction.”

“Um . . .." She picked up a lock of my crazy, out-of-control waves, and examined it critically. "I don’t see that working.”

"I didn't think so." I sighed. "My hair's too curly for bangs, isn't it?"

"We always want what we can't have," my stylist said sagely. And then she put down her scissors, got out her pruning shears and went to work de-poufing me.

Posted 13 July 2007 at 02:00 PM