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Ah yes, the douchebags, the douchnozzles, the asshats. They’re all around us! Have you seen a douche of one sort or another in action lately? I have!

Douchebag Number 1: This morning I stopped at the local Target to hit Starbucks. Most days I take my own coffee, but every now and then I treat myself with the actual ‘bucks. So today, I’m behind this tool in line. He orders a grande (he actually said “medium” – what a rube!) brewed coffee, pays for it, then takes it over to the condiment/napkin/cupholder stand and proceeds to do whatever it is people do to coffee to make their own ghetto lattes. At least, that’s what I assume he was doing, because it took him freaking forever. I saw him pouring at leat two types of milk or creamer into his coffee, and he was still standing there, hogging up the entire space (which, in the Target Starbucks, is very small) with his mad coffee science experiment by the time my chai was ready. I had to say “Excuse me” in order to get in there and grab a cupholder, and then HE had the nerve to throw ME the stinkeye!

Reality alert incoming, Mr. Douchebag! If you’re going to be cheap and make your fake latte I guess that’s OK, as long as you don’t mind looking like a tool to every other customer. If you don’t mind, well more power to ya. But do NOT hog up all the counter space and condiments and freaking cupholders in your quest for the perfect drink that cost you half as much as a real latte! Some of us are real paying customers up in here!

Douchebag Number 2: I actually observed this douche yesterday, at a place where asshattery is so often on display – the elevators. I have a theory that people just don’t know how to behave when it comes to using elevators anymore (corollary to this theorem is “parents just don’t raise kids right nowadays”). Unfortunately, my theory gets proven time and time again. Yesterday Mr. Douchebag proved it for me. First, he was about 10 feet in front of me entering the building where I work. He surreptitiously glanced behind him and I could tell he saw me and then started rushing because he didn’t want to have to hold the door open and wait for me to get closer. You know how you can just tell when someone is doing that? So already he’s looking like a real douche. Alas for him, he was foiled by the elevators and had to wait, so I had plenty of time to enter the building and saunter up next to him where he waited. Mr. Douche was apparently in a big hurry to get upstairs and ply his douche trade, because as soon one of the elevators (there are four) opened, he charged into it, totally body checking the elderly lady exiting in the process. Yes! A true tool hallmark – don’t wait for people to exit the elevator before boorishly entering it yourself. To his credit, he did seem slightly embarrassed. And I won’t lie to you – I got inordinate pleasure out of slowing him down even more – he was going all the way to the fifth floor, while I was getting off at 2*. No express ride for you, Mr. Douchebag!

(*Yes, I ride the freaking elevator up one floor. I don’t want to, but I have to, because all of the doors onto the floors in this building are locked from the inside, so there’s no way to enter from the stairwell. It’s asinine, but that’s just the way it is. At least I walk DOWN the stairs every day.)

You know these people, the douchebags. They’re everywhere. Maybe you call them something else:

Douche nozzle (and his nastier cousin, rusty douche nozzle)
Asshat
Twatwaffle
Fucktard
Fartknocker
Dillhole
Jerkwad

Yes, they’re out there. And they’re always trying to douche it up for the rest of us.

Here’s a blast from the past, still one of my favorite songs. Every relationship seems to go through this stage at one time or another. Some recover, and others…well, they don’t.

“Kingdom of Rain”

Six Underground. This is one of those songs I could listen to about 12 times straight, and still not be sick of.

So I got my hair cut. A lot.

I’ve experimented with a lot of hair lengths, styles, and colors over the past 20 years or so, but for about the last 8 I’d pretty much settled on a very short style. You might call it a pixie, I called it “zero maintenance” (other than very frequent haircuts). Then I had my daughter, and I had less time (and money) for going to the salon, and for a while my husband was unemployed, and I really felt like I needed to cut back on the frequent, expensive salon visits. At that time, I started growing my hair out.

My hair grows REALLY fast. I don’t know why, it’s not like I eat anything special or take any vitamins or anything. I guess it’s a genetic thing. If you’re a person who feels her hair doesn’t grow fast enough, let me say this to make you feel better: ALL my hair grows really fast, which means that yeah, I can change hairstyles quickly, but I also have to get my brows waxed frequently and shave my damn legs every damn day. So there’s that. Well, anyway, I grew the hair out, but I wasn’t crazy about it. I tried getting a perm, and I still wasn’t crazy about it. I used curling irons and hot rollers and flat irons, and I still wasn’t crazy about it.

A few months ago I settled on an updated version of the classic, slightly asymmetrical, Louise Brooks bob. And that I was pretty happy with (at least the way it looked). I don’t think I look good with long or even medium-length hair, but the bob suited me. And it was kind of dramatic and severe, which I liked. What I didn’t like was all the maintenance involved in the style. I had to get a haircut every six weeks and usually have my bangs trimmed in between those appointments. It had to be blown out EVERY DAY (whether I washed it or not, and I had taken to only washing it every other day to speed the process and keep my hair from completely drying out). Static electricity was my mortal enemy, and stalked me all winter. Finding the right products was a real drag – shine drops or sprays were necessary, but something too heavy would make it greasy. Too light and it had no effect. Mousse worked on the roots, but didn’t give enough control to the ends. The Bumble & Bumble styling creme that I started using near the ends worked GREAT – but it made me break out, so I had to find something else. And on, and on.

So I got it cut, and here’s the before and after:

Now, aside from the fact that neither of these are very good pictures of me (the first was taken with a web cam in horrible lighting conditions, and the second was taken using a better camera, but by myself and with equally horrible lighting conditions), it’s a good contrast of what the two looks are like. From the Louise Brooks bob to what Glamour magazine called “the piecey pixie” and I call “Keira Knightly without the overprocessing.”

Have I had any regrets? Occasionally. I really liked that bob, and if there wasn’t so much damn maintenance (always at least 15 minutes of blowdrying and styling in the morning) I probably would have kept it a bit longer – at least until it got hot this summer. But overall, I’m happy. First of all, I think I just look better with short hair. It’s maybe not so obvious from the photos, but in the mirror every morning I look much better. It’s way less maintenance: I’m back to shampooing every day, but by the time I’ve finished with whatever makeup I’m going to wear for the day, my hair is almost dry. Then I just put in some product (so far, I’ve tried lots of leftover things I have sitting around — mousse, cream, gel — and they all seem to work equally well), sort of wave my blowdryer at it for about 30 seconds, then apply a little Redken Water Wax (miracle product for short hair!), a spritz of hairspray (if it’s windy), and I’m done.

I also feel confident enough to wear my hair short again. I’ve been on Weight Watchers since last spring and I’ve lost about 30 pounds so far. Besides the fact that getting my hair cut was sort of a reward to myself for reaching a goal, I don’t feel like I need to hide behind hair anymore. See also my skin, which has improved really dramatically since I had those laser treatments (another thing that’s not very obvious in the photos). My sun damage is almost completely gone, my overall texture has improved, and I hardly break out at all anymore.

There are only a few drawbacks to having my hair short again:

1. It’s cold, but that won’t last forever, and until it gets warm I have lots of scarves and hats and so forth.

2. I really can’t get lazy with my brows now. Frequent waxing and vigilant plucking is a must.

3. I also can’t take shortcuts or get lazy with my makeup (OK maybe on weekends, but not during the week) since my face is not obscured at all.

For me, the benefits definitely outweigh any drawbacks. Besides, after Posh Spice got her hair cut it was only a matter of time – she’s my style idol!

Speaking of leisure, I would kill for a nap right now.

Here’s “Mirror.”