If you see me with scissors, run away.

Once upon a time I used to be the queen of haircuts. I gave haircuts to my roommates, my sisters, my friends - whoever requested. And it always looked good. I astutely observed the techniques of my own hair stylist and mimicked her like a parrot gone bad. Everyone I gave a haircut to had pretty much the same style. But! It was a good style.

Until...my roommate asked me to give her the Meg Ryan. You remember. Chin length, shaggy bob, very cute. The cut would've looked great on her, but...I didn't think I could do it. "Sure you can", insisted Caroline. How hard can it be? Having heard horror stories of short haircuts, I apparently let my pride overtake me, because the next thing I knew I was chopping her beautiful hair into what can only be described as a mushroom. We both cried. I helped her put a bag over her head and go fix it into her only option---old lady haircut. The only upside of that story? Short hair grows back fast.

Three years later, still shaken up from the titanic of haircuts, my sister asked me to give her a trim. Sure. How hard can a trim be? Ten minutes later, she looked like a 4th grad version of myself. She hated it. I hated it. We both retreated into self-loathing for awhile.

Thus, again, the haircuts stopped.

Until a year ago. TH needed a haircut. I'd never done boys hair before. How hard could it be? (Do you see a pattern forming here?) My cutting tool was to be a beard trimmer and I figured things would go swimmingly. WRONG. Ten minutes later and after repeated "oops" and "umm" (I'm surprised he let me continue) his hair looked like a cheetah or a leper. Spotty, shagged in the wrong places, long on bottom. Baaaad. He had to go to the barber and basically get it shaved.

I'm not great at haircuts.

So imagine my surprise when last week, TH asked me AGAIN to try giving him a haircut. We had proper tools this time and I assumed I'd learned my lesson of not using bad haircuts, and not taking style risks. I was sweating. I'm sure TH was too. Slowly, and methodically, on #2, I buzzed the hair. I went over it again and again to make sure I'd gotten all the longer pieces. Trimmed the back making the straightest line I could. Thought about getting a ruler, but trusted my poor judgement instead.

And what do you know - it turned out ok! Can you tell? All hairs were even!

For now I'll stick with what I know - TH's short hair. But maybe in the future I"ll branch out Maybe even try another Meg Ryan! ...Who wants to be my guinea pig?