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Show by Tori Gomes Shoulder length or longer There are poodle cuts, Beatle cuts, bowl cuts, buzz cuts, Annie cuts, punk cuts, Farrah cuts and all of them are haircuts. Sometimes the best thing you can do for hair is to cut it. Delilah knew that. Twiggy guessed it. And Streisand has recently relearned it. I have, much to the dismay of those around me, been trying to let my hair grow. Something different. Studied, yet casual. Chic but touchable. Inviting, In-viting, say like Christie Brinkley's trademark tresses. Unfortunately, I am not built just like Christie; I am not 12 feet tall with legs which account for 11 feet of that. My skin more resembles chopped liver than peaches and cream. I am short and round and I have never been the kind of woman men gush over and say, "Isn't she BEAUTIFUL?" I am more the pat-on-the-head, "Isn't she CUTE" type, at best. Every once in a while I get this crazy notion that if I grow my hair longer my entire body structure will change. My legs will look longer, my rear end less pronounced, my eyes wider and my skin clear. It never happens. Instead I have these uneven hunks jumping out all over, hunks that once were trim little layers on my head. I have tried parting my hair in the middle, mid-dle, on the side, and brushing it straight back to reveal a very prominent widow's peak. I have tried combs, barrettes, pins and headbands. I have used blow dryers, hot rollers and curling irons to produce A Look. Mostly what I have created is A Mess. But don't take my word for it, ask my friends, some of whom have been more subtle than others. "I bet you're trying to let your hair grow, aren't you? "asked one. "Are you mad at your hairdresser?" asked another. This past Friday night my friend Lenore observed, "Your hair.. .it's, it's, well, it's really grown since I last saw you." But the classiest was my friend Mim. Last week both of us ended up at Sneakers for separate business lunches. Hers ended before mine. As she left the restaurant she walked past my table and, so as not to disturb my lunch meeting, said professionally, "Do call," as she handed me her business card. On the back she had written, "When ARE you going to get that hair cut?" All of us can recount hair-raising (and hair-losing) tales at the wrong end of a pair of shears the just-cut-off-a-little that became a scalping. But I don't have too many tales that are so awful. And since I've come to Park City and gone to the crazies at the Gazebo they have always done things that worked out O.K. Honest. It's just that now I'm afraid of coming out with some styling gel gunk stuck on the ends of my hair which will be left long on the left and shaved on the right, a style which seems to have hit hairdressers in epidemic proportions propor-tions lately. Everywhere I look, New Waves are setting around town faster than you can say Dippity Do! Which is fine on young girls who are prone to experiment ex-periment with style, and fine on model types who can carry it off. But punk haircuts on women who have given birth and have growing punks of their own look just plain silly. Don't misunderstand the new rum pled Look in clothes and hair is perfect for me. It's the first time in years there has been a Look I can easily pull off. I never had the silver and turquoise jewelry for the Santa Fe Look. I never had the Blue Chip portfolio for the Preppy Look. And I never, ever had the figure for the taunt, hardbelly, I-exercise-a-lot-and-you-don'tLook. Ah, but the rumpled Look. It's me. In fact, it's a good many writers I know. An absent-minded turtleneck with a pair of should-have-been-ironed pants all topped off with an ill-fitting sweater or blazer. And the hair-it should be the kind you can stick a pencil behind one ear without fear of something breaking off in the process. You should be able to sit endlessly on the phone without fear of squishing one side of your "do." And more than anything else, you must be able to put both hands into it, grasping your temples firmly and scratching often. I ran into Cathy Morris at the post office of-fice last week. Cathy usually cuts my hair. She stopped, tried to say hello, but all that would come out was, "How 'bout that hair?" I mumbled I was trying to let it grow but maybe I should come in for a trim. She nodded. A lot. And it struck a vein with me that all friends see something a great deal plainer than I. I am not destined to have long hair right now. It looks more than unkempt it looks unexcusable. So after spending a couple of months thinking that by summer I could pass for Christie Brinkley's twin by simply growing my mane a few inches, I'll concede, I'll cut. But you know, she probably couldn't carry off the rumpled rum-pled Look if she worked on it for years. So there. |