the hairbrush and i have never been friends. as a child, my mother would pull and prod my tangles into submissive braids while i'd yell, "you're killing me!" with all the drama a seven-year-old can muster.
though the hairbrush may have done it's job in childhood, by middle school it only served to intensify my hair's tendency to "pouf." bad cuts in eighth and ninth grade only exacerbated the problem, and no amount of blow drying or anti-frizz products could really alleviate the pouf. the flat iron and 0% humidity helped, but really, who has the time, and i sure as heck have never lived anywhere that wasn't humid.
sophomore year in college i discovered that if i basically stopped brushing my hair, and "scrunched" it wet, i could let it dry in waves and it looked halfway decent with essentially no effort. perfect!
well, nearly. the downside to this near-perfect strategy was an increased tendency to shed. in college, i lived in a house with six long-haired beauties, and no one really cared much--we all had a lot of hair. that mess of hair in the shower could have belonged to anyone!
but now, living with jim and dylan, there is no escaping the fact that the hairballs are mine. and it is worse than ever--even than in january when my sister was here. she, who's hippie leanings and hairbrush anathema so exceed my own that she discovered the undersides of her long red locks were naturally dreading from lack of attention!
evidently, pregnant women do not shed much hair, and so several months postpartum, the head makes up for lost time and sheds with a vengeance. it is out of control. we are constantly pulling hairballs from the laundry and the bottom of fleece pants. i find strands on our pillows and in the baby's tiny fists. it's so awful that i actually have taken to using the hairbrush again, but i can't even keep up! so i really ought to go and grab the vacuum. and the hairbrush.
