Last weekend was sort of horrifying in a home-haircut sort of way. Maybe I deserved it after stepping off the path of self-righteousness and paying for another salon do. I guess I had a weak moment after realizing that, through the usual neglect, my hair had slid down the scale of come-hitheriness from Marcia Gay Harden to Lucy Van Pelt.

I had no idea what to do with it, so I went to Cowboys and Angels with a blank check, let Girlfriend pin a cape around my neck, and said, "You fix it." Well, let's just say I have a history of putting my well-being in the hands of those who see me as someone who needs curly Can Do! hair.

I actually went home laughing at what she'd done, then stuck my head under the tub faucet hoping that a little Cachuma Cocktail would miraculize her work into something that neither of us had had the wit to imagine on our own.

When it didn't, I got out the scissors. When I stopped, I looked like Phranc. Then I really started crying because I have done the same thing to myself at least once every ten years of my life and each time someone on the street either called me "sir" or a "fucking dyke." I kept trying to fix it, standing in the bathroom crying and hacking off more hair and flushing it down the toilet. (My wonderful neighbor, Tess, later helpfully reenacted Frances Farmer as played by Jessica Lange doing the exact same thing. Don't you just love how life imitates art? I know I do.)

In the end, Jack's cool-headedness prevailed, and by Sunday night I had helplessly taken his advice and cropped my hair to within an inch of my addled brain. And then . . . it actually looked okay! I mean, I was still shocked as shit, but for the first time in probably ever I felt like I had a grownup sense of individual, feminine style. So now, depending on whom you ask, I look like either a chic hedgehog, a Helmut Newton model (thank you, darling), or Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby.

And people keep smiling at me.