How Not To React

It's no secret I really want to be nominated to be on TLC's What Not To Wear.

I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be a problem with getting good footage of me. I think it's perfectly acceptable to run out to the supermarket in ratty shorts and a t-shirt, no make up, hair in a sloppy ponytail and cheap sneakers. Would I like to dress better? Sure. Do I want to spend my own money on fabulous clothes when I refuse to believe that being a size 20 is a permanent state? No.

Yes, Stacy and Clinton can be over the top while trying to make their point. But that's their job. I look at them like guerrilla stylists. I love the passion they bring to the show and how they make their "victims" feel great about their bodies no matter their size.

The part of the show that grates on my last nerve is the hair makeover part. No, it's not Nick Arrojo. I think he's great. I'd like to pick him up and put him in my pocket so I can have him with me at all times. What bothers me is the way some of the subjects react to the concept of hair change.

I'm admittedly behind on my DVR watching. I'm watching an episode of WNTW that aired in mid-June featuring a single woman from Texas in her fifties. To say she had quintessential Southern hair is an understatement. You know the saying "The higher the hair the closer to God"? Well this woman should have been canonized in her bedazzled leopard print.

She took to the rules about clothing from Stacy and Clinton better than I thought she would. I was on her side - I really wanted to see the reveal.

Then she sat down in Nick's chair. He explained to her that he wanted to tone down the brassy hair and make her 'do sleeker. When he was done I thought she looked great. She cried for the balance of the show because her hair was shorter and that men wouldn't like it. Seriously - that was her main concern - a man's reaction to her hair.

Huh?

I dumped a guy because he kept at me to grow my hair out from a chin length bob. I explained to him that if he liked long hair so much he could feel free to grow his out, but that I wasn't at a point in my life where I wanted to spend 45 minutes a day washing and drying my hair. He didn't let up. I suspect he is still living in Johnstown, PA, now with a Crystal Gayle look alike.

Getting back to the show, Carmandi, the makeup artist, had to get someone else to restyle the woman's hair and she was still bitching, again citing that men wouldn't find her attractive. Mind you, she didn't get a Sinead O'Connor circa 1989 buzz cut, but an age appropriate chin length do.

The show ended with her going to her salon in Dallas and getting extensions (Great Lengths, which cost $3k - I once priced them out while growing out my own hair), pushing aside the reactions of her friends and family about how great she looked, including the new hair style.

Maybe I'm the strange one, but I just don't get it. I can count on one hand the number of times I've cried about my hair (and I cry about other things a lot). The last time I got overwrought about a hair cut was in 1995 and I had a style I couldn't figure out how to do - I threw the brush at the mirror in frustration. I decided then and there that it wasn't worth it. Guess what? My hair grew back.

I abuse my hair - I cut it, blow it dry, flat iron, curl and color it. I once tried to chemically straighten my heavily highlighted hair with a DIY kit. I had a pixie a week later which I am just now growing out. Did I love how my fried hair look before I got the salon, and was I happy with an uber-short cut after trying to grow my hair for a year? No on both counts. But I dealt with it and a super cute cut.

Sometimes my hair looks good, other times it doesn't, but I try not to let it define me. If I had the opportunity to have a well known stylist who charges 3 figures for a cut do my hair free of charge, you can bet I'd let him (or her) do whatever the heck they wanted.

You have that on record now. Feel free to start taping the submission reel for TLC.

I can even lend you a video recorder.