Today’s seemingly harmless topic is something that has plagued Lily, 9 and me our entire lives. I’m talking about hair.
None of us are endowed with the thick, shiny, flowing tresses touted in commercials. To illustrate:
Hair, c. 1960. The baby-fine characteristic has been with us from the beginning. . .
Mine nearly flows. It’s not thick but it goes all the way to my waist. I set it on pink sponge curlers every other night to give it body.
Brave of you, Lily, to suffer so for beauty. 9, you’re still trapped in Mom’s House of Bangs and Ponytails, right?
Right! But she let me wear it down for school picture day this year.
A good sign of better hair to come! Speaking of which, this is my most recent “do” snapped just after my hair appointment on Wednesday. It was a day of note, as my stylist shifted me from highlights to lowlights.
New this week: Lowlights!
Hair: Last time around with highlights. . .subtly different?
What’s that?
With highlights, strips of your hair are made lighter to provide contrast and body. Lowlights are the opposite.
What necessitated this change?
The short answer is age. My hair is getting lighter with the passage of time, not exactly gray, more like transparent. An easy shift to make, but it does have consequences. The issue has been building for years.
I’m talking about clip-ons.
Hair: Clip-ons, fresh from the current Paula Young (R) catalog.
Oh! Those are pretty!
Very festive, but what do they have to do with highlights and lowlights?
You of all people should know, Lily. It has to do with performing.
A few years ago I was invited to play the grandmother in a production of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. I accepted, after driving a stiff bargain: Only if I could be a trophy grandmother! The show was set in the Victorian Era. I needed a quick, practical, inexpensive way to turn my short style into something historically appropriate. As I later discovered, women of the Victorian Era often augmented their natural hair with hairpieces, so there was even historic precedent!
At that time my hair passed for blonde, and I purchased this:
Hair: Blonde curly ponytail
The color my hair is now is not blonde, or at least not that shade of blonde. And even though I haven’t been in a full blown production of The Nutcracker for a few years I do still use the clip on for my Greek goddess book signing adventures.
Hair: Look closely at your peril! With Juilie at Book & Game, 8/8/2026.
Fortune smiled upon me the day before my hair appointment in the form of the current Paula Young (R) wig catalogue. I’ve been buying hair add-ons from this source for years when shows and presentations require time travel to more hair-prominent epochs. I took the catalog to my appointment the next day, and asked the stylist to help me pick the color closest to whatever hue my hair would be for the indefinite future. She very kindly agreed to do this, but with the usual post-cut and high/lowlights excitement (as in “Wow, my hair looks great when someone else styles it!”) we both forgot about it.
Fortunately, I was having dinner with a friend that evening (because let’s not waste that nicely styled hair if we can help it, right?). This friend is good with color. They held the guide next to my hair, mumbled Not white, not silver, and pointed to the rectangle marked “Platinum.”
Our mission: order one of these beauties before the next clip-on worthy public event. I anticipate this will be the release of Justice in Big-G City, book five in my contemporary fantasy/mythology series. It’s listed at the publisher’s website for the 2026-27 cycle:
https://www.wolfsingerpubs.com/submission-status (scroll to the bottom of the page. . .)
Wow, 2026 is right now!
Amazing, isn’t it?
And, unlike the recent book signing for the 10th birthday of Big-G City, this time I’m going to be ready!
