Amy Lu's View

Sometimes all it takes is a trivial accomplishment to make me feel quite proud: I felt rather successful recently when I made my hair really big. 

I have aspired to “big” hair in some incarnation throughout my life (I WAS a teenager in the 80’s). Of course “big” is relative, especially in regards to hair, and varies greatly by time and place. My definition of Big Hair probably wouldn’t even get on Tammy Faye Bakker’s radar (yeah, I could have gone in a lot of directions with my choice of a Big Hair Celebrity icon but decided not to spend too much time agonizing over my selection so please just accept it and move on). 

Most recently, I have sought a version of Big Hair that is some variety of messy hair “bun”. Perhaps part of me is trying to embrace the librarian stereotype. 

My attempts to construct this look are usually thwarted–I don’t have the skills or hair texture to achieve my dream. Or maybe I’m just too lazy–I’m sure I could get lots of bun creation tips on YouTube, but I really resist doing research or following directions. I also don’t want to use too much hair spray. 

But somehow, all the hair stars aligned recently and I experienced Big Hair Triumph and created a big (at least for me) “bun” for my Zoom coffeehouse performance. (Disclaimer: I am using “stars aligned” with artistic license and NOT to imply that I believe in fate, destiny, true love, or double spaces between sentences). 

My best guess at the hair bun equation looks like this:

Unwashed hair (X 3 days) * 2 minutes of teasing + a smidge of hair spray = maximum Amy Hair Bun Height

Hmm, maybe a recipe would have worked better to capture the process. Or a haiku. Either way, I doubt I’ll be able to recapture the glory. 

At least my unicorn Bun can live on in selfies. 

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Which leads me to another quasi-mathematical/artistic/spiritual mystery: Why am I so frequently wearing my one and only plaid flannel shirt in my best selfies? I DO like the shirt (it sports a big She-Ra Warrior Princess design on the back) and it is in some of my favorite colors, but plaid flannel is not my usual look. (I did deliberately choose it for this particular coffeehouse performance because I felt flannel fit the hoe-down feel of my song, “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros).

I guess my She-Ra flannel shirt is just so awesome that donning it increases the chances that I’m going to feel snazzy and be more likely to think I look stylin’ in selfies. (I won’t say wearing the shirt makes it more likely for me to take selfies because that would be like saying the shirt makes me more likely to breathe).