Monday, September 26, 2011

HAIRY SITUATIONS by Diane Kelly




That's me and my mother in the photo. The photo reveals several things about me:

1) I'm not a real blonde. (Is anyone???)
2) I'm from Texas, also known as The Land of Big Hair.
3) I have a mother who's such a great sport she allowed me to use this photo in my blog! (Thanks, Mom!)

The hair. Wow, huh? I can't imagine why this hairstyle hasn't come back!

My mother's hair must have been the subconscious inspiration for the beehive worn by Lu "The Lobo" Lobozinksi, Tara's stuck-in-the-sixties boss in my Death & Taxes series. Lu's beehive plays a major role in Death, Taxes, and Extra-Hold Hairspray, which will be book #3 in the series and will be out next summer.

I've never worn a beehive, but I have sported some other questionable haircuts in the name of fashion. I was in high school in the '80's, during the New Wave/Punk Rock era. I once had my hairdresser cut the top of my hair in one of those spiky hairdos that made the strands stick up like a palm tree on top of my head ala Kajagoogoo. (Remember that band? I Googled them. They're still around!) My high school boyfriend had long bangs that he bleached to an odd shade of orange-blond.

I once got a spiral perm. The rollers were so heavy they nearly broke my neck during processing. Between the bleach in the blond dye and the chemicals in the perm, my hair was fried beyond repair. I looked like I was wearing a tumbleweed on my head.

Got a bad hair story? Share it with us! One lucky poster will win an ARC of my debut novel, Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure. The winner will be announced here at 9 PM central time, so be sure to check back! Thanks for stopping by to visit us at Killer Fiction!

14 comments:

Pamela said...

Naturally curly hair doesn't like to be super short. I know this now because I have a 6th grade picture of myself looking as surly as I felt after a haircut from heck.

Visualize it - with it being so short, it kinked tight, making me look like a refugee from clown school. Needless to say, I never wore my hair that short again.

Refhater said...

When I was around 10, I begged and begged to be allowed to have a perm. (It was the 80s and everyone, but me had them.) I finally talked my mother into letting me get one, but being a typical kid didn't listen to the "rules" of perm. So later that same day, I dove head first into a cholrinated pool and all of my long blonde hair turned a vivid green color. I ended up having to get 80% of my hair cut off to get rid of the stupid green. So my perm lasted less than an entire day.

krisgils33 said...

look no further...I am a real blonde. okay, not as "real" as I was in my youth, but I'm pretty sure it's still considered blonde.

this past weekend, we went to see an 80's cover band and everyone dresses up. I had the really big 80's hair going for me. I am SO glad those days are long since past...I couldn't wait to get home and wash it!!

Sarah S. said...

Back in the late 80's (of course) my mother made me get a perm (for no other reason than to torture me I imagine). It was so tight it could have been considered a fro. I had never been so mortified in my life. For years afterward I refused to have anything done to my hair except for the ends trimmed ocassipnally. I had hair down to my butt until about 2 years ago.

Unknown said...

I have very thin fine hair, so I used to keep a perm in it and then it got the were the perms wouldn't stay in so I decided to cut if all off. I hated it at first because my mother always kept me is really short hair. Now I wear it that way all the time. I can remember one time my mother gave me a home perm when I was a child and I looked like a big fuzz ball, it was really bad.

Diane Kelly said...

Sounds like we've had some curl catastrophes and perm panic! The joys of womanhood, huh? : )

The 80's party sounds like a blast! Everything on my iPod is totally 80's. It's like a time warp.

Thanks for sharing, everyong! I hope all of you are having a "good hair" day today! (Mine's so-so. I'm due for a dye job so my dark roots are making me look a bit skanky.)

Vicki Batman, sassy writer said...

That is one big secret as I would have NEVER guessed you aren't a blonde.

And my mom wore her hair like that too. All the ratting, teasing, and super glue hairspray. LOL

Terri Osburn said...

That is some serious hair. Wow. Aquanet - defying gravity for decades.

I still have my Kajagoogoo 45. *sings* To shy shy, hush hush....

I did the spiral perm a lot in the 80s. Hair was so long and thick, had to have double rolled. Talk about HEAVY! Thankfully, I didn't color my hair until college. :)

Now I'm curious how the beehive plays into the story! (And I think I'll be meeting you this week. At M&M. *g*)

Lenasledgeblog.com said...

Your mom had a great beehive. My worst story was my hair falling out and having to go bald in the 8th grade. I cried but eventually came into my own and by tenth grade it was shoulder length and very healthy.

Diane Kelly said...

I've heard that hair can grow back healthier after it's fallen out. Like it gets a new life or something. I have a friend from Mexico who said that parents there sometimes shave their children's heads when they are very young (like two years old) so that it will grow back thicker. I'm getting mine colored and cut tomorrow and am debating about chopping it off or growing it out again. In some ways, longer hair is easier. When my hair it short, I have to spend more time styling it.

Brandy said...

I have brown hair. Not very remarkable brown, unless I'm in direct sunlight. Which, when you're a teenager you don't appreciate. I decided I wanted highlights (for the first time ever-and also the last) and bought one of those kits they sell at the drugstore. (Do they still sell those?) The plan was my mom would do the highlights for me. Only she ended up working a lot that week. Teenagers are not known for patience. I decided to try it myself. Around this time there were a lot of romances out about hero's or heroine's with a white or blonde streak in their hair. I decided I wanted one and after applying the solution at home by myself figured that if the direction said wash off in 20 minutes 30 minutes would give me that white streak. Um, no. I looked like the bride of frankenstein and wore hats for a long while after that and my Mom thought it was the funniest thing ever and my due since I wouldn't wait for her to help. Because of that episode I swore I would never color my hair or get highlights. And I haven't. *g* (Even though silver hairs are popping up all over my head these days.)

Barbara E. said...

I was so gullible when I was young, I used to let my older sister cut my hair (with mixed results), and even iron it straight once - with an iron! Luckily she put a damp cloth over it so she didn't burn my hair, but it didn't stay straight long because my hair is curly.

Barbed1951 at aol dot com

Diane Kelly said...

Thanks to all of you for stopping by! The winner of the ARC and SWAG is "Refhater!" Please email me at diane@dianekelly.com with a snail mail address. (And sorry for this late posting - I lay down on my bed, still dressed, at 8:15 to just rest my eyes for a moment, and next thing I knew it was 3:25 AM!)

Christie Craig said...

Love it!

CC