At this rate, I'll be bald by November

A trim.

After impulsively green lighting a seven-inch chop seven weeks ago, I intended to ask at the outset of yesterday afternoon's appointment - my first touch-up since my long-to-short transition - for nothing more than a routine trim. A quarter, maybe half inch. After all, my hair had only just begun to accommodate a behind-the-ear tuck, not to mention allow for a more workout-friendly, less Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai looking half-ponytail.

Anything more than a cleaning up of the ends would be wholly impractical, I decided.

But like last time, I had a lady on the brain and no matter how hard I fought against her, that cute little smile and wispy, longish pixie just wouldn't let me be.

And thank God for that, because I am so very much in love with my new Katie-Holmes-cum-Audrey-Tautou 'do -- a 'do whose channelling powers are already proving helpful in my me-want-me-get inner dialogue:

"It's been nine weeks, and I still can't go five minutes without thinking about those Jean-Michel Cazabat Vita pumps..."

"Think, Johanna, think -- what would Katie do?"

Slipping into vacant-eyed submission...
"What do you mean there was 'life' in my lifeless look? Really? Damn. Okay, onto Plan B."

"Channeling Audrey, channeling Audrey..."

(batting eyelashes)
"Donnez-moi mes chaussures fo**ues, s'il vous plait."

Because I owe all this short-haired magic to him, please offer your most sincere golf claps to my stylist Rodney at the Andre Chreky Salon on the corner of 16th and K. Yes, the one next door to the Burger King. Whether you favor pixie short, a shoulder-length bob or long and glamorous Hollywood hair -- Rodney is your man. Loquacious he's not, but what he lacks in a penchant for small-talk he more than makes up for with pure, efficient skill; he's deft, he's decisive and he will blow your 'effing mind with his perfect blow-out.

"Take me right down the middle..."

As I stared at myself in the familiar bay-window-sized antique mirror, Rodney, my stylist at Andre Chreky, stood directly behind me with the base of his chin resting lightly atop the crown of my head. He playfully chided me for waiting more than four months to clean up my ends ("at least you don't do a daily blow-out or use color"), explained to me why Britney's extensions looked so awful ("it's Britney, honey, not the hair") and then, more out of routinization than the expectation I might actually deviate from the same cut he'd given me since I discovered him just under two years ago, said:

"Nicole Richie Fall 2005, I presume?"

"Actually...no."

(pause)

"No?"

"No."

"Really? I mean, okay...where are am I taking you then, Miss Johanna?"

"Rodney, I want you to take me right down the middle between this...

...and this."

And down the middle he took me.

Posh from the side...

Katie from the front...

And my own familiar brand of self-adoration......from every other angle.

And the answer to your question is "yes" -- yes, I typically do spend the hour before going out giving myself a closeups-only photo-shoot.

But only after I feed the homeless, read Charlemagne and say a prayer for those women with less of an aptitude for eye makeup application.

To pixie or not to pixie?

That might just be the question.

Cutting your hair as pixie-short as Elisha Cuthbert, Michelle Williams and the woman I saw exiting Andre Chreky at the corner of 16th and K at around 6:15 yesterday evening is tantamount to declaring to the world, "My face is flat-out gorgeous."

And in their respective cases, they're right. They are that pretty. And Natalie, Halle, Sienna, Charlize and my fedora-adoring friend C? All of 'em, forget about it, they'd be gorgeous completely bald.

While I'm confident enough to know I'm not stuck in Kirsten Dunst, Jennifer Aniston or post-Good Will Hunting Minnie Driver territory, I also know my limits, and when it comes to hair, that's about two inches below my ears. Any shorter, and I'm right back in that chair at the JC Penney salon in Lansing with trainee stylist "Gessica," a boy's bowlcut (complete with side-buzzing) and a tear-stained picture of Demi Moore from Ghost I had carefully torn out of YM magazine and constantly, though unsuccessfully, reminded Gessica to reference throughout my 11 minute cut.

Michelle (pictured below) claimed the decision to chop was made for her -- a role in an upcoming film required it. Equally practical, Elisha (above) said it was the years of styling damage that finally convinced her to trim a good nine inches off her long-ish bob. Unfortunately, I didn't ask the woman I spotted yesterday why she had taken the Mia Farrow plunge, a decision in retrospect based on how comfortable she seemed with her daring 'do. A woman who's just followed through on a decision most of us think about but never really take seriously when our stylists ask us, "So...what are we doing today?" depending on the outcome, either wears the proud but giddily excited look of a woman who's just returned to work after an on-a-whim hour-long "lunch" in room 416 at the Mayflower, or she looks like an eight year old who's lost her Mommy in a Super Wal-Mart: trembling lip, tear-brimmed eyes and in a state equal parts disbelief, remorse and abject fear.

This woman wore neither expression. She just looked pleased. It was clear she had gone in for a touch-up, not a lop-off. She wasn't particularly well-dressed, nor was she memorably striking, but as she strode out the front door of my salon, I had to quickly skip from "Ode to..." to Ralphi's Hot Freak remix of "Don't cha" so I could stop and admire the confidence behind that haircut with just the right soundtrack. If successfully executed, I imagined myself walking about town making every man who passed me nod in admission that they did, in fact, wish their girlfriends were hot like me.

Still, there is the potential, even with a trusted stylist, for all this to go very, very wrong.

When it comes to love, I've always been a proponent of holding off on making important decisions when the two of you are still in that face-to-face-three-times-a-day, saying-"I-love-you"-every-10-minutes-and-meaning-it happy bubble. Yesterday, upon seeing this woman, I realized that same logic applies to dramatic haircuts as well.

So instead of showing up for the appointment I have with Rodney after work today armed with these two pictures of Elisha and Michelle, I'm going to postpone my trim a couple of weeks and see if my fondness for boy-hair is sincere or simply a passing fancy brought on by listening to too much god damn Snow Patrol.