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+<p>I finally gave in and gave myself a haircut today. Surprisingly, the results
+were not terrible. Along the way, I have learned a little bit about the process
+of cutting hair, and realised that very few parts of this process are in any way
+possible to do well when cutting your <em>own</em> hair.</p>
+<p>I&rsquo;ve had short (or very short) hair for most of my life. In my mid-teens, I
+tried for a while to grow my hair long and adopt a tousled, curly style, because
+I wanted to look like Kate Bush. It was not a success. When long, my hair has an
+odd wave that is neither straight nor curly, and which resists doing what I want
+it to do. I also found that I don&rsquo;t like the way that long hair looks on
+me, and find managing and styling it tedious. It blows in your eyes constantly
+when you are outside, gets straggly in the rain, takes forever to dry
+naturally, and I generally find it annoying.</p>
+<p>So the fact that I haven&rsquo;t been able to get my hair cut by a trained hairdresser
+for about 9 months has meant that I&rsquo;ve rediscovered again why I dislike having
+long hair. Of course, since I started with a short, layered style early in 2020,
+my hair has looked lumpy and ungainly as it has grown out, but it has
+been the practical issues of dealing with long hair as much as the aesthetic
+ones which have started to grate.</p>
+<p>Last weekend, I got to the point where my natural terror about trying to cut my
+own hair and the potential to make a complete hash of it started to be
+outweighed by how sick I was of having long-ish hair. I watched a lot of videos
+on YouTube of fantastically talented stylists showing you how to create
+beautiful short styles. In the process, I got addicted to the mesmerising videos
+of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBZI3R9yfKU">Sanja Karasman</a>. I could (and pretty much have) watch the calm and precise way
+she sections and snips hair all day. It&rsquo;s incredibly soothing watching someone
+who knows exactly what they are doing and is highly skilled and experienced. I
+also watched videos made by people like me &mdash; untrained amateurs who either
+regularly cut their own hair, or have been forced into this position by the
+impossibility of visiting a salon in lockdown. I learned quite a lot from both,
+but it is one thing to have theoretical knowledge, and quite another to be
+sitting in front of a mirror, scissors in hand.</p>
+<p>Today, I finally plucked up the courage. I had bought two pairs of hairdressing
+scissors (a straight pair of shears, and a pair of thinning scissors), and some
+clips to keep sections of hair out of the way. I sat on a small stool in the
+bath, propped a mirror at either end of the bath (which didn&rsquo;t work very well),
+and took a deep breath. We have a set of hair clippers too (which Mr. Bsag uses
+to cut his own hair), so I had that as a fall-back position, but I wanted to try
+with scissors first.</p>
+<p>I quickly discovered that it is pretty much impossible to cut the back of your
+own hair in a careful and precise way. I had hoped to graduate the length of the
+back with layers made by cutting sections vertically, but soon realised this
+would be impossible. I had quite a lot of length to remove to get it to a
+manageable state, so I resorted to blindly hacking chunks off the length at the
+back more or less by feel, and getting Mr. Bsag in briefly to level it up a bit
+at the end. The top and sides were a little easier to handle, because I could
+comb the hair forward and see what I was doing better when trimming. I also
+reduced the weight a bit by &lsquo;point cutting&rsquo; the ends roughly and also using the
+thinning scissors to blend sections together.</p>
+<p>It took ages, and more by luck than skill, I ended up with something that
+doesn&rsquo;t look too bad. I&rsquo;m sure that my hairdresser will be doing her best to
+tactfully conceal her horror whenever I am able to get her to do a professional
+job on it, but I don&rsquo;t think a non-expert would immediately think I had
+obviously cut my own hair. Either way, I don&rsquo;t really care. I&rsquo;m overjoyed to
+have the length of hair which suits me best again, and keep marvelling at the
+fact that it is not getting in my eyes and irritating me. If I build my courage
+up again, I might try using the clippers on the sides and back to graduate the
+length a bit more smoothly, but it&rsquo;s fine for now.</p>
+<p>When it&rsquo;s possible to book salon appointments again, I will be eagerly waiting
+my turn to get an expert to work their magic on my hair, but until then, It
+feels good to know that I can perform emergency maintenance with a reasonable
+outcome.</p>