Utah Hair

My friend Kimberly recently posted some pictures of herself and her husband back when they were in high school in Orange County. I was surprised to note how normal looking her hair appeared. Her hair was long and flowy with soft bangs and so pretty. I pulled out some of my old pictures to gasp in horror at the Extra Super Hold Aqua Net nest that was my hair circa 1992-1996. Jeff tells me Utah is so behind the times and my hair is proof. I remember everything that went into achieving my look. First there was the perm with the hours of small curler rolling and strange smelling burny chemicals administered by the stylist. I had special brushes, a blow dryer diffuser, a curling iron with just the right size barrel for the bangs. In addition, I had a propane run curling iron for girl’s camp when electricity couldn’t be found. I also kept the suppliers of Aqua Net in business by purchasing 2.5 bottles per week.

Just looking at these pictures brings back so many memories and so many feelings. Those years were wonderful and they were awful. On the one hand, I had the best friends ever. In German class my friends Katie and Elise introduced me to the wonders of the trashy romance novel. I remembered we would dog ear the really good pages and pass it around. We had sleepovers complete with toilet papering, shaving cream fights, water fights, and naughty games. We sluffed school, we ate Skittles for lunch, we wrote funny notes, we cruised Spanish Fork main looking for cowboys. I remember laughing so much and so hard. There was also the drama and tears. The wanting to fit in and be popular but never quite measuring up to what I believed my older siblings had been. I remember the not being asked to Senior Prom by either of the two guys I liked era and crying my eyes out. (I still can’t see kids going to prom without feeling a rock in my stomach.) I remember the big fight with my mom over the pink key holed dress I wore to Seminary graduation. (I guess the dress showed a slight amount of cleavage. But geez, shouldn’t she have been relieved I graduated from seminary?)

Anyway, enjoy the pictures of my hair in all its glory and a picture of now. I don’t know if I like my style now much better but at least if something laid eggs in it, I would know.