Hair

A female relative of mine had long shoulder length hair which in the course of time had turned quite grey and definitely moved toward white.  One day she had it styled and shortened so that she now wore her hair cropped relatively close to her skull maybe an inch, two or three or so (I'm not so good with measurements) long, and the effect was dramatic.  From my perspective it was all good; instead of hanging hair that fell now here now there around her face, which she had to push back from time to time, and which was a spread of a kind of dismal color, she had a head of hair that approximated her skull, that was neat and good looking.  But she reported to me that almost all women she met, at the library, in the store, wherever in the small town she lived, said (and it was only women; what male notices a woman's hairdo unless he is gay?) "oh, so now you're a lesbian," or "what are you trying to advertise?"  I was dumbfounded but evidently if you are going to look trim, handsome and intelligent like Rachel Maddow, you must be, well, you know.  Does that explain all those ridiculous women on morning television news or evening for that matter, whose hair is down to their shoulders and falling around them, as though they were all set to go out on a date instead of talking seriously about the world situation?  And especially when they are with male presenters on the same program, who not only wear suits and ties as a rule, but wear their combed and short in a business-like way.  That is to say, they do not call attention to their personal appearance.  Are women afraid that if they look business-like at all, they will be immediately judged a lesbian?  Are lesbians the only women in our time who are allowed to look intelligent, as though they are not about to be judged in a beauty contest?  Thank God for Angela Merkle as opposed to Hillary Clinton, who is a relatively old woman, always behind the podium with all that hair hanging down around her face.  Don't women get tired of flicking the stuff out of their eyes, nose and mouth?  Watching a seventeen year old girl deal with the strands of hair that have settled at her mouth can be very appealing, but then one does not expect much from a seventeen year old girl but to excite the fantasies of males.  But when you grow up and talk national news, hey, it's time to get that hair cut.  My husband and I have our own maneuvers with the bits of hair left to the elderly male.  He saw his growing grayer and sparser, and then really disappearing completely on top, and took the intelligent way out of that dilemma which was to shave his head.  Look at Stanley Tucci, that mouth watering confection of stage and screen, who has a shining bald head, which as one always knows with Italians or those of Italian descent,  is a sign of maximum testosterone and a very hairy chest.  Yummy!  Whereas I, with still a covering of hair that suggests the growth that was mine in my youth, have followed the instructions of my once upon a time hairdresser daughter-in-law, and comb it back which forces it to fluff up a bit.  More recently, I have been instructed by my soon to be granddaughter-in-law, to apply mousse to this fluff, not so much that I become like all those eighty year old women my age who have created impregnable and impervious helmets for their heads, but just enough to give it what they all call "body."  Well, I know from chance viewings in mirrors at funny angles, that there isn't all that much on the back and maybe sides, and pink, pink scalp shows through a lot of places, but head-on in the mirror, particularly with an overhead light shining down on it, I look as though I had a full bodied thick head of hair, and at the end it's only my view that matters.