a good clip

Thursday, apr. 10, 2008   |   0 comments

I’ve misplaced many precious things over the years: a perfect pair of 501s (dropped somehow/where between my house and car…who? huh?); the perfect scoop-necked, puff-sleeved black shirt (stolen from the laundromat, jerks); and, most painful of all, my great-grandmother’s delicate sage green-sparkle costume necklace (left, I think, in the pocket of a shirt I gave to Goodwill, ugh!).

But, by some great miracle, I’ve managed to hold on to these barrettes throughout the many thick and thin years since I first scraped together enough allowance to buy them:

You remember these, right? They were a very big deal in the late 70s, or at least they were at my grade school, right up there with googly-eyed puffy vegetable stickers and orthodontics…my best friend and I wanted retainers so badly, we unwound a paperclips and tried to wind them around our front teeth.

The barrettes came in the most inspiring array of truly good colors, so it was always very difficult to choose — a young person could spend hours thinking on which ones to invest in…the delicate peachy-orange one, or the deeper, darker, truly orange one? So hard to know!

Some girls, in particular the Horsey Girls, would get the whole rainbow and wear their entire collection all at once, right down the side of their heads, which always seemed so fantastically decadent to me.

Best of all, these clips were big and strong enough to actually hold my hair, which was and continues to be a beast that few clips have the fortitude to rein in.

(As you can see, my hair has grown beyond all reason. Now when I wear it down like this, it actually feels like I’m trapped inside some hot, heavy costume…a lion outfit maybe, or a rubber Sam Kinison head.)

And, as anyone who wore these glorious clips will remember, they always leave a very distinctive mark, both on your heart and your hair:

Maybe, what with the resurgence of high-waisted jeans (look! Dittos!), one of you time-traveling entrepreneurial geniuses will also re-release these wonderclips into the wild? I hope? And hey, while you’re back there, could you also pick me up some metal-slide Village Lip Lickers balm? Thx.

PS: How about that do-it-myself ten-minute Clairol Nice ‘n’ Easy Perfect 10 dye job? It was indeed nice and easy, and cheap! Just $14! (Or $28 for those with OED-thick hair like me who need double the amount of blonding agents, yay.)

more words on: my favorite things

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