I need a haircut.

In college I started going to a hair salon down the street.  I started with a junior stylist named Fawn, and when Fawn left and went to another salon, I went there too, and when Fawn started her own salon, I went there for the next fifteen years.  As we ping ponged around the state to north Jersey and south Jersey and back again, I kept going to that salon, even though by then it was over an hour away.

After I had children I found that it was becoming nearly impossible to make the trip--a haircut and highlights was usually at least three hours time in the salon, plus two hours driving there and back added up to a prohibitive amount of babysitting time, plus the cost of the services.  I got recommendations from friends and tried a number of salons closer to home.  None of them were very good, and some of them were truly terrible.  After the world's most horrendous mullet, I gave up.  I kept going to Fawn, although instead of every six weeks it became more every four or five months.  I gave up being blond and went back to mousy brown/just cover up the gray color, which lasted much longer between visits.

Last week Greg found a picture of me from a few years ago, where I had a shorter, edgy blond cut and was wearing makeup.  "Hey Mom! Look! Its a picture you when you were pretty! That was before you had kids, right?"

I have been thinking lately that I need a haircut and my gray hairs need some covering up.  I guess that was the confirmation I needed.

Unfortunately, this means I have to try a new salon. My luck in that department for the last twenty years has not been great.  I am dreading getting a new cut and color.

There is a lot of Very Nice Hair here.  I notice, however, that nearly everyone has Very Long Hair here.  Not even medium long hair.  Its not quite Krystal Gale hair, but its definitely middle of the back, long, shiny, healthy, lustrous hair.

I do not have long, shiny, lustrous hair.  I have medium-ish, thin, scraggly, split-endsy hair.  Clearly I would prefer shiny, lustrous hair, but as Greg so aptly pointed out, my children stole both my youth and my hair.

Getting a portrait of your own hair from the back is not all that easy.

I generally wear the Ponytail of Defeat most days.

Have you ever had a keratin treatment on your hair?  You know, the Brazilian Blowout kind that gives you cancer?  There are no lengths I will not suffer for beauty, unless of course it involves wearing makeup or uncomfortable shoes or pants that are not sweatpants, but still, I am willing to pay lots of money for pretty hair.

Do I just cut it off? I have spent two years growing this mop out, but am less than thrilled with the results. I want to walk into John Frieda and say "do what you will!  Give me a haircut that makes me HAWT and disguises my large posterior!" but rumor has it that John Frieda charges $750 for haircuts.  Although I would totally pay $750 for a haircut that makes me hot and disguises my posterior.

Advise, invisible internet friends.