In all fairness, my sisters have been pretty nice to me (though the constant nagging could be reduced), and I don't mind my grey hairs. In fact, I believe with every new grey hair that sprouts on my head, I become one step closer to being Ira Glass. Unlike my parents, who dye their hair (my dad stopped a few years ago after embracing his grandpa status), I will not be ashamed of going grey. I look pretty young as it is, and I think the grey hairs will bring me a sense of class that you can not buy.
For some reason I've yet to understand, my family is obsessed with hair, specifically my head of hair. My parents have accepted the fact that I will wear pink polos, rhinestone rings, and hoodies with monkeys on them, and drink scotch with the brother-in-laws, but every time I cut my hair really short, my parents act like I've taken up drug dealing. Perhaps it's because I never had a vice like smoking that they could come down on, but for some reason how I get my hair cut is a hot topic of discussion on our household.
I've never come home with an outrageous hair cut, like a mohawk, and I've never had words or pictures buzzed into the side of my head. I've had blue hair before, back in college, but my parents never actually saw that. So it's not like we're talking about Madonna-esque changes here. There is no cone-bra era hair style in my life and there hopefully won't be some sort of last ditch Hard Candy attempted renaissance. Honestly there's been very little evolution in the hairstyle of Ryan. It's been "okay", "too short" , or "it makes your face look fat".
The main issue with my hair is the difference of opinion on what makes me look good. As much as my parents appreciate cool things (Nirvana's Unplugged in New York, Jack Black movies, and mp3s), they also think I should wear a suit to church and that I should be wearing my pants to my belly button, so perhaps I have good reason to be skeptical whether my hair should be "their way" or "my way". Really, this shouldn't be a big deal at all, since my hair grows back and it grows pretty fast, so if it looks bad, in theory, I can just wear a hat for a month and give it another try, but to my parents it's a big deal. They don't just tell me they don't like my hair, it becomes the focal point of conversation for the weekend.
Not to say there's a huge rift between my parents and me. We get along great. This is why I find it so fascinating that my hair can be such a polarizing force, while they've been fine with so many of my perplexing choices in life (film major, wardrobe, spending habits, refusal to move back to San Diego). This debate about my hair has been on going for the vast majority of my life. I got in trouble as a child for cutting my own hair (I had gotten paint on my bangs) and my parents and my oldest sister have made attempts to cut my hair at home. My sister accidentally cut my ear with the razor, which prompted me to snap at her "now you need to cut the other one so they'll match." This haircut at home experiment must've been an epic failure since it was extremely short lived.
Since moving to Irvine, I've been looking for a good barber/hair stylist/whatever the politically correct name, and my search has been pretty fruitless. My friend recommended a salon to me the other week and the haircut went pretty well for the most part. I was pretty happy with the length of hair but then he decided to style my hair and spiked it all up, which is not really the look I was going for. He himself had his hair spiked up, so perhaps he was going with the only look he knew. His hair was also bleached so he looked like a Super Saiyan, so I guess I can't really be surprised that he did what he did with my hair. I'll probably go back there again and just have someone else cut my hair, but I'm not sure if this is going to be my go to place for hair cuts yet. I also haven't seen my parents yet, not that their opinion truly matters, but it would be nice to finally find a salon that makes both parties happy.
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