7 inches don't none matter.

It's going to frustrate you that I don't have any photos to accompany this post, and I'm sorry. I got home late last night--well, later than I wanted, and my plans of eating mashed potatoes and then grading papers and then going for a run instead just turned into mashed potatoes, other food, other food, then grading, which was about three hours of [insert fart-poop noise here].

On Friday some weird synapse fired in my brain to remind me that I hadn't had a haircut in awhile, and then some other synapse fired that said: CUT IT OFF and I had the idea of cutting it off all day, so on my way back to Albertville I stopped in an Aveda salon and said: I'm scared as hell, but let's cut it off. Seven inches later, I have shoulder length hair; I have hair that hasn't been this short in four years. I cut off grad school. I spent so much time growing out my hippie-long hair, my blonde locks, and I became a long-haired girl in grad school, and now it's gone. It looks good, and I like it, but it's still hard not to think that all of the "work" of growing out my hair is now sitting in some weird "hair garbage" in a salon dumpster, that seven inches of Jean was on that floor and swept away. I asked if I could donate the hair, but it has to be twelve inches of locks to give to the hairless--and that would've left me with little left of my own--so it went to waste.

I have a thing about hair that I let myself suppress in Mankato. The thing is that I get in my head that something about me has to change, and the quickest thing to change is hair--so hair gets the sacrifice. In high school, if I came to school with a new haircut (or, in college, a new haircut or color) you could tell that there was something up with me. You could know there was something wrong, or I wasn't happy with how I was, or I was so happy with how I was that I had to show it on the outside. It's a weird thing, hair. I said my long hair was the source of my power: now it's gone. Maybe I've decided that in this job, teaching, in my office, being around high schoolers--that's my new source of power.

Or, maybe I was just sick of buying all of that shampoo and conditioner. Maybe I was just sick of untying hair knots all day.

Maybe I need to talk to my school counselor, as I tell the students.

I went home, dyed it blonder, closer to the real color. But it doesn't look changed, really.

And the cut doesn't look changed, really. Because nobody, um, noticed. I went home, chatted with Rich, the dad, for awhile. The dad, I said. Didn't you notice my haircut? I had seven inches of hair cut off!

Looks like it always does, he said. Not that I would ever expect the dad to notice. (And, side note: The dad changed my oil this week, and then he noticed that the driver's side headlight of the Intrepid keeps coming out. Oh, I'll take care of that, I'll fix it, he said. I didn't notice until the car was parked outside of David's house yesterday that "fix it" meant putting a little tiny piece of duct tape in the corner--a piece that has obviously and very carefully been cut into a square. It's the cutest little square I've ever seen, and I laughed at that little tape for about 10 minutes. I called the dad and said, the dad. Your idea of fixing the light is to put a piece of duct tape on it? Nice. He said: Hey, that's not tape. I said, of course, that it sure looks like tape, but dad said it's a special aluminum holder and I said a special aluminum TAPE? and he condceded.)

(Another side note: Because I sometimes act like I am five years old, I invented a game this weekend called: GHOST DOG that consists of taking Bourbon, the brother's rat terrier, outside at night and having the little white thing chase after me as I tear through the yard screaming: GHOOOOOOST DOOOOG! Travis played too. I did the oooooohhh a ghooooost voice that Jenny loves so much.)

Where was I? Oh yeah. My mom didn't have anything to say about the haircut other than it didn't look much different, and David didn't have anything to say about the haircut because it didn't look much different, and my students didn't notice the haircut, except for a couple of them who asked as an aside. The students did notice that I wasn't wearing my glasses today--did you forget your glasses! --Yes, student. I can't see who is asking me that right now, because I forgot them. And another girl noticed that I had my cartilage on my ear pierced (it's been pierced for a good four years).

I don't really give a shit if people notice my haircut, but it's really got me thinking about what changes when you just cut seven inches of yourself off and leave it on the floor. I mean, I feel like a chunk of me is missing, and when I go back to move hair from my eyes I am physically reminded of that loss. How can someone just lose such a big part of herself and nobody else sees it? Is this not the literal equivalent of some emotional loss?

Am I going crazy? Mostly, I don't know anymore. I've run out of the medication I've been taking for the last six months, and it has caused some pretty severe vertigo, dizziness, confusion, for the last couple of days. I feel like I'm floating, drunk, not on this Earth, not moving in time (in fact, suspended in time) and there isn't really anything I can do about it. A weird thing, feeling as though your brain is like a balloon in your head that keeps filling and then deflating--as though you're losing the air you need just to stand up. My head is floating away, and there is something hiding behind my eyes. How long does this last? I can feel my brain right now. I can feel it, and it's gross.

Issues with the head this week, apparently. Issues with the head.