Delisa
Mulkey A Microcosm of the Human Condition
Girls with straight hair always wish they had curls, while the girls that already have them will find some chemical or heat-induced solution to the problem. You'd think the girl with waves would have it made. But you'd be wrong. We are, after all, talking about the human condition, where a man's baldness can indicate virile testosterone levels and a girl with wavy hair might, for no apparent reason, start pulling out her hair one strand at a time. Hallopeau named it trichotillomania. Sometimes it takes a Frenchman who's not afraid of Latin to see our urges, our compulsions, and to label them for us. Otherwise, we end up with names that state too directly our illness, like Body Integrity Identity Disorder for those who request elective amputation and finally end up taking dry ice and a hacksaw into their own hands because they see the necessity of empty spaces and crave the absence of their limbs. And what else do we all want except mystery and meaning? Oh, but a meaning implied, mysteriously rendered in a dead language that remains our truest because no one speaks it, a beautiful language that allows the girl to continue throughout her life, hair by hair, constructing a straw man of herself-- one with shiny red hair--until her own only grows back coarse and white.
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