When I was a kid, I was always plagued with questions about my hair. Conversations in elementary school tended to run something like this: Girl: Why do you always wear you hair in little pigtails? You should wear it down. Me: But my hair’s too thick. Girl: (scoff) My hair’s thick, too, and I wear it down. And look at Chelsea over there. She’s black and she wears her hair down. Me: But your hair’s thinner than mine and Chelsea’s hair is 3 inches long and looks like she stuck her finger in an electric socket. My daddy says straightening your hair like that [with a hot comb] isn’t healthy.…

So I mentioned a while back that I had decided to go natural–that I wasn’t going to perm (straighten) my hair any longer. I thought about cutting all my hair off ans starting fresh, but I backed off of that idea initially, although the urge never went away totally. Now I’ve got a few inches of unpermed hair and I’ve been trimming at the permed ends steadily. Sunday I plaited up my hair like I used to wear in high school and enjoyed that for a few days. I wanted to take ’em out this afternoon, and I had this driving urge to cut my hair. Not trim, not clip,…