Update on the Twins

Some of you will remember that early on (it was around the time of my first or second retite) I got two pairs of new locks at the front of my hairline and at the nape of my neck. I playfully declared them twins and named them.

Well, as problem-free and well-behaved as the rest of my locks have been, those four are giving me fits. I don't know if it is because they are so much smaller and shorter or what. The two up front (Artemis and Apollo) both want to stick straight up all the time now - they must be hitting adolescence - and the ends have been open and scraggly-looking as opposed to the neat coils I am used to with all of the rest of my locks.

Apollo just formed a knot, not a ball, mind you, a knot. I am resisting the urge to cut it in hopes that it will become a ball and thicken and close. It is a true micro-lock and at the end it terminates in about 10 strands of hair, so I had this teeny-tiny knot and then about another half inch of wild ends. It wouldn't be too terribly bad if the lock would lie down and blend in with the rest, but it really does stick up like a genuine, bona fide cowlick!

I finally couldn't take it anymore and cut the half inch off back to the knot.

I didn't want to, but I will have to rely on bobby pins to hold these babies down for who knows how long.

Then there are Sergei and Svetlana. My consultant has had to put them back in at every retightening. Those two have slipped out like clockwork each time between the third and fourth weeks. I'm not sure what happens, but I think it is something to do with the ratio of locked hair to new growth. Because that hair is shorter and thinner than the rest, but grows incredibly fast, it's like it reaches this point where I have a lot of new growth and it sort of wiggles it's way out of the pattern because there's a lot of 'play' or 'give' or 'slack' with that inch or so of unlocked hair.

This happened three or four times before and last time I decided I would just go back and have Phyllis retighten those two at three weeks. She kindly obliged. I had several additional little coils at my nape - little ringlets of hair that kept pulling free from their assigned locks.

Now that I have locks, I am really bothered by having any loose hair at all. It really bothers me, so I had twisted them myself just so they weren't tiny beady puffs. (It was really not that serious and I should have just ignored them.)

I wanted to ask Phyllis to see if she could make them into locks, but I felt silly because they are such tiny tufts of hair and no one ever said it all needs to be locked up...and I didn't want her to think I was being a ridiculous perfectionist, so I didn't ask.

But she knows me so well now that she did turn them into locks without me having to say a word. She chuckled a little as she did so, and I didn't even want to know what she was thinking. I know I amuse her with some of my silly little hang-ups, but she loves me anyway.

I now have a total of 9 locks that have been started since my initial install. All of them are at my hairline and are formed from strands of hair that kept pulling free from surrounding locks. They are all very short and very thin and I am interested to see what will happen to them, whether they will develop and mature or whether they will need to be combined later on. I think it is very funny too, because I was so adamant about not having any very thin locks and now I have 9 - all at my own insistence!

I am one week from my 6 month anniversary. I suppose I will post new pics around about then. Assuming I have not run myself completely ragged....More to come on the entrepreneurial efforts.