How to clean up mid-length wavy hair?

Hi, this is my first post here and I don't know much about hair.  Here's a picture of my hair:

http://img151.imageshack.us/my.php?image=achair20070721cm6.jpg

I'd like to know if anyone can suggest a way to clean up this hair without having to cut it really short, which I usually do around now.  The messy parts I'm talking about are the stuff around the ears, the edges, and the bottom of the back.

For the parts in front of my ear, I'll just cut like an inch off, but it looks weird because I don't cut anything else.  I really don't know what I'm doing.  I figure it's messy around the ears so I'll just cut a little bit, but I'm sure there's a better way to do it to make it blend better.  Basically, I want to clean it up a little bit along the edges, but I want to keep the curls because everyone likes it.

Another thing that complicates things is that I really don't like to put anything in my hair or spend much time at all with it.  I pretty much just shower, spray in some leave-in conditioner, and push the hair back with my hands.  It just dries into place like that.  So, I don't want to put gel or mouse or whatever in my hair.

Any advice is appreciated, thanks!


Edited by superhair - July 22 2007 at 12:16am