That's excellent, thank you. (Megan's link, not oldskool sexism.)

Okay, my ultra-progressive housemate has just admitted that there was a time when he wouldn't have dated a girl with short hair. WTF?

I can send you the name/number of a lawyer in the area. If she can't give you personalized information, she can send you to someone who can. But I don't feel comfortable talking about anything more precise in a public place.

Cass, thanks. They have a lawyer all set, so I think we're okay. I'm just helping Drew sift through a mountain of paperwork, and we started worrying about his mom.

Okay, my ultra-progressive housemate has just admitted that there was a time when he wouldn't have dated a girl with short hair. WTF?

I had waist length hair as a teen when my boyfriend said he would break up with me if I cut it. Of course that resulted in my going with the popular at the time Mia Farrow super short cut. He didn't leave me. But it was a clue that it wasn't going to last forever.

my ultra-progressive housemate

The one who, if memory serves, is bald?

Yeah, there's a family lawyer that has all the documents, I'm just going though Dad's records so that I have a vague idea of what I'm looking at when I talk to the lawyer.

When my father died in '83, my mother ran into a lot of problems because her name wasn't on the deed to the house.

oldskool sexism

Yeah, my raised-by-wolves Hubby has some unpleasant swirls in the ice cream of his psyche.

Hah! Truth be told, he shaves his head. I don't know what his hair would look like if he didn't.

Frankly, I'm still terrified of the pixie cut. If I ever got one

JZ, what do you call the style you have now? Because I saw pictures of you (from Suzi's going-away party, I think), and I thought it was a pixie cut. It looks like your hair is already pretty darned short. (And, I might add, pretty darned pretty!)

But it totally could have been the angle of the pictures.

ION (well, still the hair-length issue, just not related to JZ's hair), I guess the thing that bothers me so much when it comes to men getting all obsessed and weird about women's hair length is that I just don't like someone telling me how I should look in order to be considered attractive.

Which, er, is something that everyone already knew about me, so I *should* just shut the fuck up about it, but I'm exiled from the internet almost all day now, so I have to post, dang it!

But seriously. "Your [waist-length/shoulder-length/pixie-cut] hair is sooooooooooooo gorgeous! I mean, like, really really really AMAZING! You must NEVER CHANGE IT EVER/GROW IT LONGER/CUT 10 INCHES OFF RIGHT NOW. Because, you know, women with [short hair/long hair/whatever] are unfeminine/ugly/DOOMED TO A LIFETIME OF LONELINESS AND SELF-PITY CORN FRITTERS AND YOU WILL BE, TOO, UNLESS YOU CHANGE YOUR APPEARANCE TO THE WAY I SAY RIGHT NOW!!!!"

That's, uh, how it reads to me when someone (generally a man I'm involved with, but not always) tells me I should grow my hair/cut my hair/color my hair back to blonde (I love The Boy, but that hurt)/wear more makeup/stop wearing makeup/wear heels/dress up/dress casual/whatthefuckever.

Which I realize is my own fucked-up, get-some-Prozac-now issue, but all the same, I don't think I've ever told a man I was involved with that I thought he should change his appearance. Because it feels like it would be a criticism of his current appearance, and therefore insulting and....my issues.

(Plus, the whole "Don't ever cut your hair, baby," thing feels so POSSESSIVE. Uh, dude, you do remember that it's not actually YOUR hair, right? It's MY goddamn hair, and I'll do whatever I want to it, 'K?)