Hair dryers of my mind

While I was taking an (unusual) afternoon bath & shower just now, I started thinking of hair dryers.

My parents aren't very image conscious people, and my mom has always had simple hairstyles - long and easy or short and easy. When I was small, we had a blow dryer. It was black, hard plastic and was kept in a storage case. It had attachments - a directing nozzle, a comb, and a brush. It was rarely used. I remember a babysitter (whose name is lost to history) from when it was just me and JD, in Woodland Hills, saying that I shouldn't use that hair dryer, as it was a man's hair dryer. In all honesty, it probably came into the household with my dad - he was a VERY clean-cut guy when my folks met (you should see some pictures).

When I lived with my great-grandmother, Gram, she had a completely different kind of hair dryer - a bonnet, like a shower cap, that you placed over your whole head. If you put it on, you couldn't hear anything but whooshing around you. It was probably designed for roller sets, but I was a little kid with long and easily tangled hair, so we sometimes put that bonnet on my head to get my hair dry after my bath.

My aunt Cathie had the "real" women's blow dryer, with a nozzle and switches and the whole she-bang. That's probably the first place i ever used a woman's hair dryer, other than having my hair styled post-haircut at the SuperCuts or whatever place mom took us to.

The first blow dryer I ever owned myself came courtesy of my Aunt Victoria, when we were roommates. She had gone on a date (with the man who is now her husband) to the horse races, and they had won. And with her winnings, she bought me a hair dryer. Because she lived together, and she knew I needed one. It was one of the most thoughtful and surprising gifts. And I had that dryer for a long time. At one point before my sister Colleen came to live iwth me, I thought it had died, and bought a replacement dryer at Target. When Colleen moved in, she revived that hair dryer, and it lived in her bathroom. When I was dating B, I took that dryer to his place, and left it there, so I could actually make my hair look decent if I bathed there.

As a little kid, you don't care about your hair so much, as long as it is (relatively) clean and not in your way too much. And when my hair was long, I didn't need to blow dry it to make it do something - ponytails were great. But I keep my hair shorter now, and a blow dryer is key.

I don't know that there was a point to this, other than I remembered the weird blow dryers of my youth. I guess it is about memory lane, and the weird details we remember.

I haven't had my nap yet, and it is over 90 degrees outside. I'm going to lay down and enjoy some rest.