After much preening, I surmise that shaving my head was a terrible idea. One minute, I catch a glimpse of myself in the door of the microwave, with a little bit of soft light behind me and my chin tilted just so, and, Ahhh, there she is. 1990s Sinéad O’Connor. Then I go take a piss, and as I’m reaching for the toilet paper I glance up into the mirror, Jesus Christ! What’s Gollum doing in my mother’s bathroom?

Also, Char lied about the lumpiness of my head. The “cow licks” that Mama used to plaster down with a swipe of her licked fingers, that I artfully styled around, now nakedly protrude from my scalp for the world to see, along with the remnants of my Eddie Munster widow’s peak, my mismatched ears, and the creeping neck hairline of an old Italian man. This is why head shaving was used as a punishment for loose women. This is why most women only ever talk about doing it. This is why a shaved head on a woman is a mark of complete IDGAF or all-out insanity. It’s crazy hard to face yourself, never knowing if it will be Gollum or Sinéad staring back.

It wasn’t long after things went down the crapper with Dave this past winter that I stood in front of the mirror in my pristine glass and marble bathroom, my hair clenched in my hands, thinking, I’ll show that bastard how much I hate his guts by hacking and discarding the part of me he loved most. Then I will. Be. Free. My pseudo-friend Ami was there, egging me on, even though she was the one who set me up with her dear friend Dave in the first place. She was fresh off a yoga retreat in India and was all “let go of your attachments,” and “re-align to your life’s purpose,” and “unleash the cosmo-licious power of your crown chakra” and shit. Which was ultimately what helped me make my decision that night: if Ami thought I should do it, there was no way in hell. This is a woman who’d glide around the Viva Rica office wrapped in a purple shawl, bowing with her hands in the sacred Anjali mudra, saying Namaste to everyone. But as soon as she put on her fur coat and started sashaying down the street, she was all flying elbows and nasty sneers at anyone who walked too slowly. A woman who loudly called squeegee kids and panhandlers disgusting. A woman who changed her name at the age of thirty-two, because Ahhhh-meee sounded more spiritual and exotic than Krista. Plus, she had professionally straightened fake burgundy tresses all the way down to her arse, and I didn’t see her rushing to end all her self-cherishing and liberate her ego by hacking it all off in the bathroom with a dull, squeaky pair of scissors.

Now that it’s done, I swing recklessly between feeling fierce, brave, and liberated, and ugly, shallow, and helpless. I want to call Char and tell her she’s a liar. I want to Instagram Ami a picture of my best Nothing Compares to Sinéad angle and tell her it feels. So. Ahhhh. Mazing. I wonder if there are any earrings in the world big enough to balance out what my bald head is revealing.