unforth | Doing Terrifying Things

I've been writing this post in my head all day, and now the time comes, I still don't know how to start! So I might as well just get to it. I have a story, and a picture to go with it (multiple pictures, actually, but just one for now), and a request: before you read the cut, take a look at this picture from today.. Trust me, it's more interesting this way. :)

Did you look at the picture?
Did you?

Good! Now for the explanation!

So yesterday, I was walking through Asakusa, and my hairwas in the way, and I flipped it out with a disgusted sniff, and thought to myself how nice it would to just not have it any more. It was annoying to wash, took forever to dry, and looked crappy once it was dry. My ends were a mess, and I never liked wearing it down any more - even though I often did. Whenever I got ready to take a walk I would concoct new and more intricate ways to keep it off my neck. In short, it was making me crazy, and I could no longer think of any good reason why I had it. It was making me nuts. And as I had this disgusted, frustrated thought, I had another: wait, what was keeping me from just cutting it?? Nothing! That's what. Absolutely NOTHING. The only reason I didn't cut it back in February was because I wanted to keep it long for fantasy LARPs. You know what I'm not doing any of any more??

So I spent a couple hours on the phone with my mom, and we looked at scads of pictures, and we picked a few likely styles, and I decided to do it.

It's amazing how frightening this decision was. I barely slept last night, and that was at least a part of it. It wasn't that I didn't want to - I really, really did want to - it was just, what if it went wrong? What if it looked awful? What if I hated it? This was WAY scarier than coming to Japan - if I hated Japan, I could catch a plane home the very next day. But if I hated my new hair cut, I was just flat stuck! It'd take literally years for it to get that long again!!

Still, I'd made up my mind, and I was so frickin' sick of my hair, that when I gave up on getting any sleep at 8 AM, I got ready, and headed out to the salon I'd found in one of my books.

Yuko, my new hairdresser, is very nice, and I plan to go to her again. Her English is passable, and her advice was very good. She recommended to me enough product to do what needs to be done, but not so much that I thought I was being taken advantage of. She made sure I was absolutely certain about 4 times before cutting it off, and told me that while they don't do Locks of Love in Japan, I can get in touch with them and set it up. I haven't measured it, but the braid looks to be about 50 cm long, and I will be sending it in to charity if I possibly can.

We picked out a look from a book, and she said I shouldn't go TOO short yet, but if I wanted to shorter in the future that could be done. She also suggested highlights at some point, and I'm thinking I might as well. With short hair, I can finally play around - with long hair, if you play around you're stuck for ever and ever, but short hair just grows right back out. I'm planning on grabbing some colored hair gels to spike it with, to, the wash out stuff - I think it'll be fun. :)

So yeah. Today I did something that scared the piss out of me, and it turned out great. I love my new hair cut!

More Photographs:
Before, Front
Before, back, Right after a shower
The First Photo, which sucks. :)
After, Front
After, Side
So, uh, what do ya'll think? Did I do good?