I was born with naturally curly hair. Very curly hair. When I was little, I looked like a brunette Shirley Temple. My mother’s hair is straight, so when people would ask me where I got my curly hair from, I used to say, “I got my turly hair from my Daddy.” Since my father was bald, this used to get us some strange looks.

In high school, many of my friends were Asian. I coveted their  straight, shiny hair, and they in turn coveted curls, and went to the salon for perms. Straight irons had yet to be invented in the 70’s, and there was no “permanent” solution for curly haired girls to go straight; however, one of my friends used to lay her head on the ironing board and iron her hair. I was tempted to try it, but since I couldn’t iron a blouse without burning it, it seemed like I’d better stick with what I had and not burn it all off.

Living in San Francisco presents some challenges for those of us who are “cuticle-y challenged”. Ocean breezes make our hair frizz. The damp weather means that a blow-out can barely make it out of the salon before one’s hair flips it’s ends and goes back to it’s roots. I have left the house after flat-ironing my hair to take my dog for a walk in the fog, and by the time I got home, my hair was as wild as a twenty-one year old co-ed in Mexico on spring break.

You know that commercial where the model has straight, shiny hair and then damp weather appears and she looks like she stuck her fingers in an electrical socket? That would be yours truly.

Recently I discovered the beauty of really nasty chemicals called “aldehydes” that are used in a straightening process called a “Brazilian Blowout”, not to be confused with “a Brazilian”. One is for the curtains, the other for the drapes, people.

A couple of years I decided to ante up and fork out the dough for a Brazilian Blowout. I walked into the salon a curly-girly and walked out with straight shiny hair. People at work didn’t recognize me from behind. I could now take a walk in the fog, mist, and rain without returning home looking like the Bride of Frankenstein.

The downside is that when you have a Brazilian Blowout to straighten your hair, it will not curl. At all. Even if you want it to. Even if you pay a professional to curl it, it just won’t hold.

So, now that I’ve gone straight, why do I feel like being at least a little bit curly again? I’m not really sure why we always covet what we don’t have. I’ll have to muse on that further in future blogs. But in the meantime, my husband is having fun having a curly haired wife, and a straight haired wife. Two for the price of one, or rather, two for the price of the occasional visit to the salon.