NEXT STOP: ROGAINE
I am in denial about a lot of things -- e.g., the long-term health effects of emptying out the reserves of the Napa Valley every weekend -- but every now and then something comes along and slaps me with the harsh steel mail glove* of reality. This weekend, that slap came in the form of this photograph taken at a rooftop party on Friday night:



The picture itself isn't horrible, really; I've taken far worse. But I spent the weekend obsessed with the fact that my forehead is becoming a fivehead. That right temple (your right; my left) wasn't bare a year ago, and I'm not liking this follicular regression. Granted, it could be worse -- I could be the friend I cropped out of the picture, who sports a positively Britneyesque head of non-hair -- but it's still not the direction in which I'd like to see my hairline go.

The balding, obviously, is symmetrical, but you can't really see it on the other temple because the hair has fallen over it, which is what hair is supposed to do. Which gave me two ideas on how to hide my expanding forehead:

1.) Yesterday's experiment was to cut back on the product. My hair lays straight and flat without help, but I'm the first to admit that I tend to overdo the gel. Using half the usual amount, my hair did tend to fall forward and cover that huge, gaping open spot, but it was also unmanageable.

2.) Today's experiment is to try to move my part a bit and brush the hair on the offending side forward. This way, I hope to equally distribute the forelock and hide the hairline at both temples.

If neither of these strategies work, there is always prayer. And Minoxidil.

Reasonable people might ask why I'm so obsessed with this, yet I'm so nonchalant about hitting the gym more than twice a week to try to get rid of these twins I seem to be carrying. To them I say: screw you.

I have my priorities, and hair comes first. And as soon as I get this situation under control, it looks like I'll have another emergency, since last night my boyfriend informed me for the first time that my nose is asymmetrical.

It never ends. With every year that goes by, I understand Joan Rivers just a little bit better.





* By the way, if you type 'steel mail glove,' then wonder if, in fact, such things exist and Google the phrase for confirmation, don't be surprised to end up here. Marginally NSFW. Those wacky Californians!