prior. Feeling as if I’d found some forbidden clue to the secret life of my perpetually big-haired mother, whom I had never seen wear a wig, I found myself overcome with the desire to put it on.
And so I did.
When I looked at myself in the mirror, I was amazed. Believe it or not, I actually looked like a girl in it. This was not major news to me because at that time I had rather long hair anyway and was constantly being mistaken for a girl by the old waitresses at the Canadian diner my mother and I used to eat in when we’d stay at my family’s cottage. This was always a source of much angst for me. I’d be sitting at the table, dressed in a cool new jeans jacket that I was sure made me look like the kind of boy who would have girls throwing themselves at him, only to have some grandmotherly waitress come up to the table and say, “Oh my, aren’t you a pretty little girl?” My mother would always correct the waitress, which felt even worse because it would bring on a chorus of “Oh, I’m sorry, you just look so much like a girl” and “With that long hair of yours, I could have sworn you were Elaine’s daughter.” Which would drive me into ten-year-old indignation. Didn’t these women know what the style was these days? Weren’t they up on the trends? Did they encounter no other men, right there in the early 1970s, who also had long hair? What a backward, one-horse hick town this place was, I would fume.
But suddenly, as I stood in my mother’s bedroom wearing her wig and staring into her mirror, I was seeing what all those old waitresses were seeing.
I really
did
look like a girl.
I stared at myself a long time, then started mincing around, tossing the hair back and forth with a flick of my head, pretending to be a shy woman at a ball, declining offers to dance, and obscuring my face coyly with my new, thick, long, luxurious blond hair. I did this for quite a while until the telephone rang and I immediately became self-conscious, certain that the caller could see through the phone and was now shocked at the state in which he or she had found me. I tore the wig off my head, stuffed it back in the tube, returned it to its home between the dresser and the wall, and ran away from the bedroom phone to answer the extension in the kitchen, in order to prove to the caller that I hadn’t been in my mother’s bedroom experimenting at being a girl.
Over the next several months, when I had the house to myself, I would pull out the wig and put it on. More than anything, I simply liked the way I looked in it. After a few times, I put on a string of multicolored beads my mom had in her dresser and decided that the addition of this accessory only enhanced my girlish qualities. This led to additional sessions that found me looking through my mom’s closet, trying to spot a dress that I thought might complement my hair and beads. One afternoon, when I knew my parents would be away until dinnertime, I pulled out a short blue sleeveless dress and, feeling like I was going to have a heart attack, slipped out of my school clothes and tried it on. The transformation was even more startling to me. I could pass for a girl, I thought. From this came a search through my mother’s shoes until I found a pair of high, white go-go boots that I had never seen my mother wear. I put them on and the transformation was complete.
I was a girl.
And, incidentally, I was a girl whom I found to be quite attractive.
Some geneticists say that we are drawn to potential mates who are physically similar to us, that it’s part of our survival instinct to stay among and breed with like kinds. And as I stared at myself in the mirror, I was on my way to proving that theory true. I went cautiously out to the full-length mirror in our hallway and looked myself up and down. I had nice legs. The wig was extremely flattering and looked as if it were my own hair. And my rather full face suddenly seemed to make sense, framed as it was by the long
And so I did.
When I looked at myself in the mirror, I was amazed. Believe it or not, I actually looked like a girl in it. This was not major news to me because at that time I had rather long hair anyway and was constantly being mistaken for a girl by the old waitresses at the Canadian diner my mother and I used to eat in when we’d stay at my family’s cottage. This was always a source of much angst for me. I’d be sitting at the table, dressed in a cool new jeans jacket that I was sure made me look like the kind of boy who would have girls throwing themselves at him, only to have some grandmotherly waitress come up to the table and say, “Oh my, aren’t you a pretty little girl?” My mother would always correct the waitress, which felt even worse because it would bring on a chorus of “Oh, I’m sorry, you just look so much like a girl” and “With that long hair of yours, I could have sworn you were Elaine’s daughter.” Which would drive me into ten-year-old indignation. Didn’t these women know what the style was these days? Weren’t they up on the trends? Did they encounter no other men, right there in the early 1970s, who also had long hair? What a backward, one-horse hick town this place was, I would fume.
But suddenly, as I stood in my mother’s bedroom wearing her wig and staring into her mirror, I was seeing what all those old waitresses were seeing.
I really
did
look like a girl.
I stared at myself a long time, then started mincing around, tossing the hair back and forth with a flick of my head, pretending to be a shy woman at a ball, declining offers to dance, and obscuring my face coyly with my new, thick, long, luxurious blond hair. I did this for quite a while until the telephone rang and I immediately became self-conscious, certain that the caller could see through the phone and was now shocked at the state in which he or she had found me. I tore the wig off my head, stuffed it back in the tube, returned it to its home between the dresser and the wall, and ran away from the bedroom phone to answer the extension in the kitchen, in order to prove to the caller that I hadn’t been in my mother’s bedroom experimenting at being a girl.
Over the next several months, when I had the house to myself, I would pull out the wig and put it on. More than anything, I simply liked the way I looked in it. After a few times, I put on a string of multicolored beads my mom had in her dresser and decided that the addition of this accessory only enhanced my girlish qualities. This led to additional sessions that found me looking through my mom’s closet, trying to spot a dress that I thought might complement my hair and beads. One afternoon, when I knew my parents would be away until dinnertime, I pulled out a short blue sleeveless dress and, feeling like I was going to have a heart attack, slipped out of my school clothes and tried it on. The transformation was even more startling to me. I could pass for a girl, I thought. From this came a search through my mother’s shoes until I found a pair of high, white go-go boots that I had never seen my mother wear. I put them on and the transformation was complete.
I was a girl.
And, incidentally, I was a girl whom I found to be quite attractive.
Some geneticists say that we are drawn to potential mates who are physically similar to us, that it’s part of our survival instinct to stay among and breed with like kinds. And as I stared at myself in the mirror, I was on my way to proving that theory true. I went cautiously out to the full-length mirror in our hallway and looked myself up and down. I had nice legs. The wig was extremely flattering and looked as if it were my own hair. And my rather full face suddenly seemed to make sense, framed as it was by the long
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