Hi, Anxiety by Kat Kinsman

Author:Kat Kinsman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

IRRATIONAL FEAR #5

GETTING MY HAIR CUT

My hair goes down to my waist and I trim my bangs myself. Very few people know how long it is because it’s almost inevitably up in a bun. It’s my signature look at this point, and has been since I wore it live on CNN one Fourth of July while talking about competitive eating. People took notice, and I do actually like it. It’s also my anxiety, hiding in plain sight, high atop my head as a statement of personal style.

I can’t stand to get my hair cut. It’s not the loss of length (I’ve shaved it almost down to the skull with a Bic razor, burned most of it off in a pathetic home-bleaching incident the night before a first date, and can lop seven inches onto the bathroom floor with minimal trauma) or the fear of a rotten cut. (I’ve weathered plenty of those: see me ages two to eighteen. It grows back.) It’s that all the moving parts that make up a salon visit cause me to grab the scissors myself.

Booking the appointment: it’s been made easier by the Internet, but this action sets the clock ticking. If the appointment is on a weekend, that means that I have to be at a certain place at a certain time, and all the hours before it are effectively useless. I can’t start writing, working, relaxing, reading a book, cooking a meal, or doing much but muck around on social media until it’s time to leave my house. Sure, I could schedule the cut for first thing in the morning, but then I’d be unable to sleep, worried that I’ll miss the alarm. If the appointment is during the week, I’m terrified I won’t be able to tie up loose ends before I would need to leave work. And then work will be mad and I’ll get fired and then I’ll just have to sell my hair for cash anyhow.

I’m not exactly sure what I think is going to happen if I stroll into the salon a little late. Yes, it’s disrespectful and has a domino effect on the stylist’s other clients, but do I think I’m going to be berated? Shamed? Stabbed with pinking shears? That’s never happened to me before, but there’s always a first time. Plus, Sweeney Todd.

Chatting: I fear being insufficiently delightful when speaking to the stylist—especially with someone who holds my visual fate in their hands. If I cannot sparkle and charm, will I be issued the dreaded Dorothy Hamill ‘do that haunted my youth? I fear that if I point to a Dita Von Teese or Bettie Page, I’ll hear an intake of breath through the teeth, “Oh, honey, no. Not with your [an up-and-down scan] everything.”

Pop culture paints modern womanhood as a decoupage of manis, pedis, blowouts, spa treatments, and other aesthetic services lacquered onto one’s person by a gaggle of “Oh, gurrrrlll!” divas, but that’s never flown with me. It’s reductive and unkind to make someone into your Greek chorus, your flock of Cinderella-dressing bluebirds.

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