turtle's friends and relations

Last summer, my favorite cousin moved from across the country, to a city in range of easy weekend visiting. So I went to visit him, and met my little cousins, and we all went to the aquarium together (and I found my daemon, but that's another story. Ask me if you want it.) Unfortunately, one of my little cousins broke my nose, and that ended up causing me spectacularly intense pain for weeks. I figured it must have been a freak accident -- I can't think of a 4 year old, no matter how ill-mannered, as being responsible for that kind of thing. I saw them again last year at Thanksgiving, and had a hard time understanding why I found the children's presence so grindingly unpleasant (I was, at that time, living with a 2 year old. Not a perfect child, by any means, but I remain quite fond of her nonetheless.)

For reasons unrelated to relatives, I want to spend this coming Thanksgiving elsewhere. It occured to me that if I don't see my cousins at the big family-gathering holidays, I'm not likely to see them at all...and they're my main connection with any family. Every time I cut an individual thread in the web of family connections, it seems clear to me that I'm better off without this one. But when I step back and look at the unraveling whole, I sometimes worry about my isolation. There are friends I choose to connect with, on one level or another, but there's supposed to be something special about family. I'm not sure what, honestly, but I hesitate to cut myself off from it.

My cousins stopped off for dinner the other day, on their way between thither and yon, and we had a little chat between the shrieks and whining. It turns out that the younger of my little cousins (3) dislocated his mother's thumb in a recent tantrum. And that I no longer feel guilty about not wanting to spend long weekends with them.

haircut

I had 6" of hair cut off this afternoon. Nobody noticed. I wonder how (if?) this relates to any of the gender discussions that have been floating around various live journals the past few days. Would 6" of hair be a trim for you, a major haircut, or would it require several iterations of shaving to the scalp and growing it out to make up the length? How drastic does a change in hairstyle have to be before you notice it or comment on it?