Look over to the right a few inches. You see that picture over there? Uh-huh, that one. The one in the black square with my name written in white. Yeah, that’s me, but I don’t look much like that anymore.

I’ve found the cool thing about column pictures is that they allow one to remain sort of ageless. In a picture that small, you can’t make out any wrinkles. And with it being just a head, no one sees saddlebags or bad posture or those really big “freckles.” I think I was 37 or 38 when that was taken. Now I’m 42. I don’t look like I did in that picture. At least, not anymore.

This is where, if I was feeling mischievous, I might try to convince you that I now look just like Britney Spears with a shaved head, but that wouldn’t be true. In reality, I went the complete other direction. I look like I copied Cousin It.

If you wanted to get a more accurate idea of how I look now, you could take a brown pencil and draw hair over approximately two-thirds of my face. To complete the drawing, you might want to then take a gray pencil and add a few wiry lines in with the brown, then take a black pencil and shade circles under my eyes. (I’ve always had circles, but they’ve grown more aggressive and powerful these past few years, and are now capable of overpowering even the strongest concealor in a fraction of the time it used to take.)

About six months ago, at my daughter’s prodding, I decided to grow out the bangs that I’ve worn since junior high. Celeste insisted bangs were on their way out, and that I should–for once in my life–try to be stylish. I lifted my hair to show her the tremendous forehead and wooly worm eyebrows that prompted me to have bangs in the first place, but she couldn’t be swayed. My bangs needed to go. 

There is no cute or graceful way for a woman my age to grow out her bangs. The Pebbles look only works with preschoolers, and headbands and barrettes are for schoolgirls. During this stage, I’ve basically had two options–the sheepdog look, or the pulled-back, oh-my-God-that-woman-has-caterpillars-on-her-Frankenstein-forehead look. Neither were attractive.

Going into this, I didn’t realize the excruciatingly long time it would take for my bangs to grow out. I tried everything to try to make myself presentable during this time, but mostly I’ve been brushing my hair back, then pasting it in place with enough hair spray to make my cats sneeze from two rooms away.

Many times I’ve been tempted to grab the scissors and snip-snip away. The heck with what Celeste wants. Fashion be darned! I’ve had essentially the same look for two decades. What harm would a few more years do?

I was standing at the bathroom mirror, scissors in hand, when I remembered a little episode from my 20-year high school reunion.

I had been at the reunion, talking with my friend Don Patton, who now lives in Atlanta, when a former cheerleader rushed up to hug him. After gushing on about him for a bit, she decided to acknowledge my presence.

“Oh, Karin,” she said, after making a point of having to read my nametag. “Wow. You haven’t changed a bit.”

I smiled. Until she continued.

“Actually, nothing about you has changed,” she said. “Not even your hair. But that’s okay. I’ve heard that style is coming back.”

Then, with a satisfied flip of her head, she flounced off.

I put down the scissors. That memory was all I needed to stay the course. I would draw strength from it.  That aging cheerleader would help me. I will be free of these bangs. I will no longer be the antithesis of fashion.

And if I end up not being patient enough, I expect Britney will likely have made that other option fashionable once again.

My daughter had little trouble persuading me to stay home one recent day when school had been canceled. It was bitterly cold, and the ground and roads were covered with snow.

“We can watch movies and drink hot chocolate and build a fire,” she said sweetly, handing me the phone so I could call work.

I pictured us snuggled under a blanket watching Indiana Jones movies while the fireplace crackled and popped. I imagined a mid-day nap, our bellies full of tomato soup and grilled cheese. I pictured a board game or two, some time with a book, perhaps even the two of us concocting some sort of sinful dessert. 

What I experienced instead was a nine-year-old who could find not a single thing appealing about staying indoors, who relentlessly called the time/temperature number to see if it had gone above ten degrees, and who was willing to agree to any terms I proposed if it meant she and I would go out in the snow.

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It’s my husband’s fault I don’t have a column this week, but I’m not complaining. I’m actually pretty happy about what had me distracted.

Every Thursday night, Geoff teaches a novel-writing class in the newspaper’s conference center. It’s an 8-week course, and I wanted badly to get in. Over the past few years, I’ve started a few novels, carried around ideas for novels, read books about writing novels, but still floundered with my own. I needed a class, but there’s never anything offered in this area, so I had to find a great writer, marry him, and then convince him to move to town and start teaching.

Geoff prefers to keep his classes small, usually stopping with 12 students, so once he told me he’d signed up 16, I thought I was out, but he apparently got tired of my begging/pleading/whining and let me in.

I’ve been having such a great time in this class. He breaks this huge, intimidating undertaking down into do-able steps. He’s especially good at where to start a novel and how to develop characters, which even though I get it, I’m still having a hard time putting what I’m learning into practice. Action sequences I can do, but descriptive settings and characters–not so good. My head is too caught up in the story to stop long enough to include details, which he says I can add later so I’m trying not to let that slow me down.

Last weekend, I got started writing and couldn’t stop. I even got out of bed in the middle of the night just to add a few paragraphs (that I later deleted).  Hopefully, I’ll figure out how to do both kinds of writing–columns and the novel–at the same time. I don’t want to stop doing either. This is so completely different from anything I’ve attempted before.

I’d love to try to organize Charleston’s writing community, to get writing groups started and maybe even stir up some competition between the groups. Maybe someday…

Years ago I read that men should never buy a woman any present with a power cord attached.  

Since I’m a practical, power-tool-loving woman, I wasn’t too fond of that “rule.” But as I’ve grown older (and my power tool collection more complete), I’ve come to recognize the wisdom behind that advice. At least where February 14 is concerned. 

Valentines Day is meant for romance, not practicality. It’s a day when those of us who pretend to scoff at romance secretly nurse a desire for something sweet.  

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I’m having one of those days.

Celeste didn’t finish her homework last night, so she set the alarm to get up early to do it. We differ in a big way on the definition of “early,” but that extra four minutes she gave  herself should’ve still been enough since it was only one paragraph. Somehow, though, that one paragraph took FOREVER, and it was total insanity trying to get out the door.

Since our house is on the market and we never know when it’s going to be shown, we usually try to straighten up before leaving. No way could that happen today. Sometime during the night, Chewie (our pup) apparently got bored and decided shredding a box would be good entertainment. When that didn’t suffice, he shredded an eggcrate mattress as well. To add to the mess, while carrying in some firewood, the carrier handle slipped from my hand, dumping chunks of bark and dirt all over the carpet. What’ll you bet the realtor will be calling any minute, wanting to show the house.

So as we’re trying to get out of the house, I hurried to the door and stepped into my shoes. I thought they felt a little strange, but there wasn’t time to investigate. We had stoplights and traffic to contend with and only six minutes to get from our house to the school. We made it with seconds to spare, then I drove on into work, forgetting all about the strangeness of my shoe until I stepped out of the car. That’s when I learned that Chewie had snacked on one of them, too. And why my left shoe is now being held together with packing tape.