Dear diary

Cutting my hair and buying the sausages and a realisation that will surprise nobody except me

It’s 11pm and I’m just back from the big supermarket. I’ve been foraging for Twister lollies. We ran out. The original ones, not the new flavours. Important. Apple juice too. Also gone. And sausages. Oh, and Walkers prawn cocktail crisps and white sliced bread cut super thick, for toast apparently.

This isn’t the usual shop. I don’t want to come over all holier than thou, but processed pig based products (the carcinogenic ones) have been banned in the house, apart from special occasions, for maybe 6 months now. And having a virus for 10 days including on your 12th birthday, that’s a special occasion for sure. Maybe more filed under extenuating circumstances than special. Put it this way, sausages are back on the menu for the short term.

(I wrote the above yesterday, it’s now the morning).

Before I tried to sleep last night I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. All I could see were split ends. So, I took the bathroom scissors to my hair. Do we all have bathroom scissors? For years we didn’t and then I decided to allocate a pair given how much product opening is required in the pursuit of cleanliness/beauty. I thoroughly recommend having an extremely sharp pair.

The first time my boyfriend noticed I’d done a DIY haircut in the bathroom he seemed surprised. Was I short of time? Short of money? Nope. Well yes obviously to both, but they’re not the reason for my refusal to book a hairdresser to cut my hair. I just can’t stand it. I can’t handle the anticipation, the possibility that my life might be more chic with a bluntly cut bob. That a fringe could make me more interesting. I hate myself for lying in the consultation when asked how long I can spend styling my prospective new cut each morning. Why do I say 10 minutes to the unimpressed hairdresser when the truth is zero? I can’t abide the hot drink that isn’t possible to consume without ingesting hair. I can’t be doing with the noise and the smells. I definitely can’t be handling the small talk because I am inherently polite and British and will try to make the hairdresser feel comfortable by agreeing with them about everything; politics, music, holiday destinations, the school system, benefits, flowers, drugs, anything. I will betray myself to ease the interaction. And that brings me to the haircut. Given how infrequently I book in I will try to get my moneys worth and have a proper chop. And then hate it. I will tie it into a scrunchie as soon as I leave and make a promise to myself never to go again. A year later I’m back in the chair, punishing myself. No more.

So now I cut my hair every few months, usually after 11pm, standing in the bathroom. I brush it. Then chop from one side. Then the other. Then a bit shorter around my face. Then pull up the bit at the back and chop the section a tiny bit shorter. Brush it again. Faff about twisting strands to shear off split ends. It takes about 10 minutes. The hospitality is dreadful; no hot drinks on offer. The aroma is variable depending on the previous user. There is silence save the cat crying to be let in. The chat is internal, kind of annoying, but all my own fault. It’s just better this way. And it’s not that I’m immune to vanity. I visit my Russian Botox practitioner twice a year to try and stave off time. I pluck my eyebrows weekly, stray hairs elsewhere on my face too. But visiting the hairdressers is too much.

Then this morning I was perusing the substack app, mainly to see the furore over their summer party. For those not trying to earn a crust from this place, essentially substack HQ held a summer party in London and invited the great and good of substack, but it turns out that to get an invite you didn’t actually need to be a bestseller, you just needed to be one of the in crowd. I can’t tell you how upset this has made some people. I get it. I’m mildly irritated but luckily I used to work in advertising where all the cool kids were invited to Cannes each year to forge friendships snorting coke together and comparing how many toilets they had in their London abodes WITH STAIRS. It may come as no surprise to you that I was invited not once.

I am a bestseller (ha! I mean you need over 100 paying subscribers to be one so it’s not like we’re talking Daily Mail volume readership) but of course I wasn’t invited! I live in Leicester and I am not good at playing the game, so hey, on the night of the party I went to TK Maxx in search of colouring pencils and then watched Tip Toe on Channel 4 rather than eat Ottolenghi cake flavoured with sumac. Not going to lie, I don’t think I’d have liked the flavour combo anyway. Sorry. I like simpleton cakes. Coffee and walnut is a winner for me.

Anyway, there I was, feeling amused at my little substack note I posted last night and a little disappointed at the likes:

And I came across a piece about autism. As the mother in a neurodiverse household these articles always hold so much hope, I gulp them down hoping for solidarity. What I wasn’t expecting was my own positive diagnosis. The piece is excellent. You can read it here.

Suddenly my late night hair cuts and my need to wear PJ bottoms in the day and pass them off as trousers, (I do have allocated night time and day time PJ bottoms, I’m not a complete slattern) and my previous extremely unhealthy relationship with alcohol and my jealously at not being invited to the party but also my pleasure at not having to go and be uncomfortable in proper clothes and chat to proper people and then worry that everyone hates me. All that, plus the fact my 12 year old asked me last week when I knew I was AuADHD, all that means I think I’m autistic.

Anyway, as you were. Here’s a photo of the party. God that straw looks itchy and uncomfortable doesn’t it? And a sleeveless dress needing a strapless bra? Heaven forbid!