I always disliked my hair. It was not thick enough, straight enough, blond enough, luxurious enough. I wanted Todd Johnson’s hair. In the 80s heyday of Scott Baio, (you know, the day of the center parted perfectly feathered hairstyles) it was my high school classmate, Todd who had that hair exactly. He would stand in the mirror of the Binghamton High School bathroom combing his dark, shiny Scott Baio-esque hair and I was filled with envy. My hair, for some reason, would never feather—and god knows I tried. My mother (who was a beautician by the way, cutting my hair every week in her little salon in our basement) used to say “you have to train your hair to do that.” But no matter what I did, it just wouldn’t feather, and I finally gave up. I settled for a reasonably preppy side part that worked out fine, wore my hair the same all through college, and kept it the same when I moved to New York. Haircuts always gave me anxiety, more than any dentist visit. I loved going to the dentist but the barber just gave me the cold sweats. What devastating thing would they do to my hair to make me not look my best, or god forbid, reveal any of my faults.
By the time I graduated from college and moved to NYC I noticed that my hair was receding at the temples. It wasn’t until a few years later that I noticed a bit of thinning