View from the North 40: Skip the Bette Davis eyes, I wanted Farrah hair

It’s been been almost 40 years, so I should let it go, plus it’s not right to speak ill of the dead, but I'm saying it anyway: I still really, really, really dislike Farrah Fawcett for making several decades of my life miserable. I still keep a secret stash of resentment tucked away in a little fold at the back of my brain. The bottle has her name on it.

It was in 1976 that Farrah Fawcett’s iconic swimsuit poster hit the stands. You know the one: red swimsuit, hot bod and that famous big, naturally swoopy-curly, sun-kissed hair. She was the total girl-next-door package whom all males wanted to date and all females wanted to be.

I was 11 that year. I didn’t care. I could barely part my stick-straight straw-hair evenly. I raised two great horned owlets to adulthood that summer, and trying to see puberty from that point in my life was like trying to see the dark side of the moon from my front porch. So really. Why. Would. I. Care?

I should have cared.

Eventually, I became a teenager. Eventually, I hit puberty. Yes, in that order. And eventually, that hormonal drive to look attractive to the opposite sex kicked in — even for little socially malformed me.

And that Farrah Fawcet hair was still the rage, taunting the straight-haired girls like me. I got my hair cut into layers and I got a curling iron, and I tortured my hair into submission. It looked like the wilted-flower, second cousin twice removed of the gorgeous Farrah Fawcett hair — my nemesis.

By the time I got off the humid school bus each day, about a quarter of the hairs would be coming out of my carefully cooked curls. I swear I could hear a resounding “ping” as each hair sprung straight again. It would not be denied expression of its true rebel nature.

Eventually, I took over the cutting of my own hair. It gave me another avenue of torture, and I wasn’t as bad at it as one might believe from knowing me.

Sure, I cut it in about twice the time a beautician could get it done followed by a full seven days of pecking at it with a comb and scissors, to get it right. I got as close to Farrah Fawcetting my hair as the beautician did, though, which is to say I failed, but I did it for free.

It took a decade or two, but Farrah hair did go out of style, and by out of style I mean people simply didn’t rave about it anymore — but we still would've been happy to have it.

It doesn’t matter. Not to me. Not anymore. I gave up somewhere back in the ’90s.

The entire beauty industry would collapse and die of malnurishment if it relied on income from me.

I’ve gone through several different hairstyles, some high-maintenance that I refuse to try again because I will not commit that daily time investment. Most have been low-maintenance, though. I’ve cut each one of them, so now it only takes me one week to nitpick it into a style, if style could be defined as semi-coherent flow of not entirely stupid hair.

This time I went for short when I cut it. Not short short, like porcupine quills sticking out of a jack-o-lantern, but my hair barely rests on my shoulders, so a good 7 inches shorter.

It's the shortest I’ve had it since a new phenomenon has occurred over the past couple decades: naturally curly hair.

Yeah, I know. It’s weird, right? After all those Farrah years with straight hair, now this. I’m not bitter.

They’re not Farrah Fawcett, layery, feathery, swoopy curls and only the hairs at my neck and up the back of my head do it, leaving the front and the top layer straight. It’s weird and difficult to deal with, but I try my best to be thankful that those curls represent some portion of the old Farrah Fawcett dream-hair come true.

I always try to remind myself it could be worse, too. Instead of the back half being curly, it could be only the left half.

(I don't know, I might need to seek professional help for this ’do at [email protected].)