We split up…
…but just for this week!
My blog covers the trials of hair styling as a hearing aid wearer, with Brad’s contribution in this post as well.
Be sure to check out Brad’s blog post this week as he is covering the upcoming HLAA Walk4Hearing happening on Sunday, October 6, 2024 in Boston, MA.! Please consider a donation to the cause – and read all about it here: https://bradmckenna.wordpress.com/2024/09/02/walk4hearing/
I have spent the majority of the summer months with my hair piled mostly on the top of my head, secured with an elastic, as the untameable curls and waves are no match for the humidity and sea air of a Maine summer season. A variety of baseball hats and sun hats were also drawn into service to manage the Medusa-inspired locks that tumble off the top of my head when the temperature climbs above 71 degrees. I did employ my beloved trove of hair products and my flat iron – that thing climbs higher in temperature than what you would use to bake some cookies in your oven – on several occasions in an effort to “neaten up” a bit when friends came to visit or when a situation called for me to look like a functioning adult as opposed to a troll that lives under a bridge.
The arrival of the day after Labor Day heralds the start of my 29th school year as an educator – and while that holds its own excitement, the dread sets in as it is also the renewal of my having to do my hair. I have to wrangle the tresses into some working order to simultaneously appear professional and minimize terrifying the children.
I am sure most of you are reading this and thinking, “Well..what’s the big deal? Most of us have to ‘do’ our hair daily?”
Let me break it down for you…
It all starts with the hair washing – shampoo, rinse, apply conditioner, wait a few minutes, rinse. Squeeze excess water out of the hair, then quickly grab a wide tooth comb and untangle the rising curls that have waged war on one another and do not want to come apart easily. Hair product comes next – squirt the goop into your hand, rub your palms together, distribute evenly from roots to ends (resume the battle of the curls which have now gone after one another with the ferocity of a bench clearing brawl during a Bruins game).
Due to the texture of my hair, I am not able to dive right into heat styling as I have found that the unruly mop requires some air dry time to chill out for a bit before it is confronted by a hot brush and a flat iron (sometimes a few blasts of a hairdryer, depending).
So I wait. And wait. And wait some more.
In complete silence.
I cannot put my hearing aids in while my hair has any hint of dampness in it as we all know by now – everyone say it together – “Water is the enemy!”
I wait a little longer, unable to hear anything – and then I start getting antsy and frustrated by all of the things that I cannot do while I am dealing with the “in between time” in the hair styling process:
-watch TV
-listen to music
-have a conversation
-make necessary (and unnecessary) phone calls
-chat with family and friends on FaceTime (especially my littlest niece who is my best FaceTime buddy!)
-go for a walk
-play with Rocky in the yard
-drive my car
-shop outside of the home
And the list goes on. I am literally stuck in time and place at the mercy of my hair and its needed air drying time. I try to use that interval between washing and styling to get something done around the house or some computer-based work that doesn’t require communication, but it is not always possible.
It is so annoying.
The moment arrives where my hair is blissfully damp enough to withstand heat styling and while there is a feeling of glee at the prospect of this laborious process coming to an end – My joy is tempered by the reminder that I still need to remain in silence for another stretch.
Hearing aids, heat, and protectant sprays to prevent hair damage from heat styling do not get along, either. One slip of the wrist and the flat iron grazes the hearing aid tubing or the over the ear computer mechanism, and it is a world of damage that I shudder to even consider. If I miss my aim at my hair clusters with the misting protectant spray and land anywhere near the hearing aid microphones, then there is a risk of a short circuit and costly repairs.
I remain annoyed.
I start the ritual of prepping my hair for heat styling, heat up the tools, and begin working on my hair section by section, bending it to my will – all in silence. I have no option to pop on “Good Morning America” or a podcast or an audiobook or my beloved Frank Sinatra to distract me and move this process along.
The annoyance is great.
After about 30 minutes I am either:
- Satisfied with the results
- Have had enough of not being able to hear my world
Whichever the reason, all of the hot things are unplugged, the final goo is applied to hold the style in place, the hearing aids are popped back in, and the world comes back to life – I celebrate by turning up some ABBA and dancing my way down the hallway to the start of another day, while blocking out the necessity of having to do all of this again in another 24 hours.
Brad’s Hair Care Routine
Cut it once a month himself with clippers he bought.
Exit stage left.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s infinitely easier being a guy. I used to get my hair cut at Great Cuts or Great Clips or Cut Clips or whatever they’re called these days. But I can’t do a damn thing with my hair; it grows up, not down. If I let it go, I’d have an afro. So I would just tell the stylist, “Sides with a #2 and as low as you can go with the scissors on the top.” Nothing fancy or even all that difficult.
But they always tried small talk.
Trouble was, I can’t have my bionic ears in whilst getting groomed. Remember, water is the enemy. And the spray bottle holds water. To say nothing of getting little hairs in there or the cacophony that is clippers next to my aids’ mics. I used to wait until they put the cape on and then ostentatiously remove my aids. Hoping this would clue them in and they would either speak up or shut up. All too often they’d do neither.
With my aids out, even with them standing behind me, they wouldn’t speak loud enough for me to hear. With their head down, looking at what they were doing, they would obscure their lips so that I couldn’t read them in the mirror. It was nerve racking. But like most things in this world, as a guy, I had another option.
I stopped going and started cutting. My own hair that is.
I’m not great at it. Even with a triptych mirror, it’s hard to get the back of my head. Fortunately, I’m tall enough so it’s not all too apparent. Or if it is, I’m scary enough (LOL) that no one says anything. To my face at least.
Once I’m groomed, the hair is short enough that I need neither goo nor comb. When I start to get the faux-hawk that Weezy gave me by licking my head so much he taught it to grow sideways, I know it’s time for another cut.
The only whisper of hair-care troubles I have is my beard.
I didn’t have to start shaving until my sophomore year…of college. And my attempts to grow a beard in my 20s and early 30s resulted in a briar’s patch of many colors; brown, blonde, a smattering of gray even that young, and red. I kid you not. It was hilarious. Then I tried again in my mid-30s and it came in fuller. The coloring is quickly evening out. To all gray. I just wish I didn’t have the philtrum gap in my mustache.
I still only have to shave and trim every couple of days. When I do, I take extra care to keep my lips clear. In the DHH world, lip-reading is life-saving. I know this and make sure my mustache doesn’t get in the way.
And that’s it. That’s my haircare routine. Oh, woe is me, right?
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