Every day begins as a really bad hair day. (Every day also begins as a really good hair day, as the key to good hair is having it.) But now that I’m in the Hairdo With No Name phase, morning bedhead is alarming enough to start Bernie’s day with a good chuckle. Last night, Brodie noticed that my hair finally resembles the pre-chemo cut, and he giggled while he ran his hands through it because Mommy With Crazy Hair is apparently hilarious. Teddy wants to know when my hair will be long again. Like, exactly-put-it-on-the-calendar when? All of these mane musings remind me that my boys (like me) haven’t entirely put this behind them, and that maybe they’re sensing (like me) the Big Bummer Anniversary.

But instead of waxing maudlin about life changing, terrifying Cancer stories, I’ll share a picture that elicited Bernie’s trademark, Scooby Doo sniggering last night:

What Bernie thinks of my current hairdo.

Yup. That’s familiar. And vain as I am, I’m finding it difficult to look chic when I cannot escape the trappings of a teenager in 1961. I should don swirly skirts, sweater sets, cat-eye glasses, and all the spunky cheer of a girl that says, “golly.” And in a few months I will be trying to match an outfit to this hairdo from 1977:

Many hours logged under a hot hairbrush for this look.

Over the next year, I’m bound to post many complaints as Britt’s Phylogeny of Hair pauses for a few weeks at every calamitous coiffe I ever sported. Who knew that after the year I’ve had, and the body parts I’ve lost, the thing I’d want most for Christmas is… a ponytail?

Because I’ve mentioned it a million times, you know that I am the Christmas Market co-chair at the Church of the Redeemer (insert link to mass schedules, Lessons and Carols, and other sneaky evangelism). My main job is to recruit local jewelers, clothiers, toy makers, chocolate bakers, fancy towel embroiderers, and the like to peddle their wares in our undercroft… and pocket 15% of their sales to distribute to wonderful causes. Many of the returning vendors were aware of my Big Crappy Year, and so when they arrived for the 2012 Market, did what any loving, caring salesperson would do: they gave me free stuff. I left with chocolate Santas, a preppy tie, heavily discounted cashmere, a gorgeous breast-cancer-pink pearl necklace, and… a hat.

You might think I’d welcome a new hat, having grown quite tired of mine, and enduring a series of unwelcome hairstyles for the foreseeable future. But you’d be wrong. I’ll never wear a hat again. I’m hoping for another mild winter so that the freezing bus stop will not require this woolen reminder of fear, ugliness, and death. But when my sweet, darling mohair purveyor urged me to choose between a beanie and a beret, I was flummoxed. I should have admitted then and there my aversion to this accessory, but I didn’t want to answer her sweet gesture with a lecture from an ingrate with more post-traumatic stress than hair. Instead, I chose politeness over cancer-y gift suggestions, and I ended up with this:

Does this hat make me look cancerous?

Try as I might to snap a grumpy picture of me at my Marge Simpson best, I cannot pretend for even one iPhoto second that this thing doesn’t make me laugh. And though I don’t recommend this as a freebie to any pink be-ribboned girl, it has provided more than a few giggles during Big Bummer Anniversary week when we’re all a bit fixated on last year. Also, this fuzzy blue abomination does a wonderful job of making my hair seem quite fabulous in comparison. And for his Scooby Doo sniggering last night as he uploaded this Parent Trap still to poke fun at my not-quite-Hamill-hair… payback will be a pic of Bernie in this beanie.