I had not planned to go out on January 27, 2005, but of course those nights always take a turn for the most memorable. I wore a black Lacoste polo, Seven jeans, and red lipstick. I stepped back from the mirror, that sparkling, never smudged Delta Gamma bathroom looking glass, and decided that my look needed something. Kick. So I took my comb, and I staked out the point smack dab between my eyebrows and a couple inches above, and I raked the comb back, plowing a line a la Moses between the creative and analytical sides of my cranium. Thus was born my unconditional, oft-volatile love affair with the center part.
The bash, by the way, was a phenomenal affair hosted by several strapping young varsity baseball players. We ripped hot pink Bacardi shots and snapped many incriminating photos, a few of which you see above. One dude remarked (inaccurately) that I looked like Nicole Kidman, and I obviously never forgot it (having been flattered of course; remember that this was four years ago and her face didn’t resemble a wax replica of a balloon puppy).
Aside: When these were taken, I was twenty pounds lighter. Fuck you, metabolism. I can run and run and run till I bleed and eat lettuce till I sprout rabbit ears, and my ass still expands. This is bullshit.
Anyway over the next two years my part moved back and forth across the top of my head, forming a follicular barometer for my mood at any given moment. A far right part complete with swishing bang suggested fraternal convention; didn’t I want to look like every other gal in Greektown? I shifted to the left upon reading that one should always place her part on the side of the face she’d like to look thinner; the line created an optical illusion. But by senior year I was convinced of the center part’s cool factor and determined to make it part of my “mystique.” A trademark, much as my red and hot pink lipstick (and pill-popping crazy) had been in the DG house. And when I cut my bangs on January 12, 2008, I cast a controversial die: as they grew out and in my attempts to hide the regrettable chop, my part would have to fall squarely down the middle, and it was then that the familial squawking began.
My mother to this day literally corners me and shove her hands in my face, mussing the perfectly Chi-ed locks, brushing the bangs to the side. When she lined us up on the dock at Irvington for the annual family Christmas card ninth ring of hell, she actually paid me to forgo the center part. At the dinner table even Daddy chimed in. The family took a vote: lose the Red Sea tress divide. But there was no budging for that line.
Until Sunday when I, hungover and bloated from two weekends of straight beach boozing, scrutinized MAM’s photo documentation of our exceptionally awesome Fourth of July and realized, finally, that while the center part looks cool to me in the mirror, it’s awesomeness, its edginess, its incredible transformative power of elevating me from “just another blonde with her Southern sororal side swoop” to icon of individual style on par with CZ Guest (center) and Jackie O (center), was all - literally - in my head. Standing in front of his mirror, Hall and Oates blasting from the iPhone speakers, blow dryer in one hand, nose beginning to peel, heart as full as my chipmunk cheeks, I stuck a thumb in my hairline just above the iris of my left eye and raked it back.
