October 3rd, 2008

What the Buzz Is About

It seems the list of things that virtually every other person in America has done and I never will is one item longer today. That brings it to three.

I never went to a summer camp. During summer vacation, Kate, Kevin, and I were pretty good about getting up, eating breakfast, and immediately vacating the house for the backyard or the neighborhood pool, giving my mom with some peace and quiet for at least a few hours a day. There was probably no real motivation for my parents to send us.

I never played little league baseball. I had no interest and my parents had no interest in forcing me to develop an interest. Growing up, neither myself nor my siblings were particularly athletic. There was a good chance we’d get hurt out there! No, we were much better off spending our time under a car being held up by jackstands braced at their tallest setting, helping Dad lower a 500-lb. transmission on a hydraulic jack with a home-made holder fashioned out of 2x4s attached to the top of it.

And…I never got a proper haircut. In other words I never ventured into a place whose business model is based around cutting hair and remitted currency to have this stuff growing out of my head trimmed, shaped, or (God forbid) styled.

Until recently, every haircut I’ve ever received was given at home by my mother. By her own admission, Mom only knows how to do your run-of-the-mill, basic haircuts. But she’s good at your run-of-the-mill, basic haircuts and I’ve never felt I needed anything other than your run-of-the-mill, basic haircuts. Therefore, I’m sure this seems ridiculous to you, dear reader, but, I have no idea how one conducts oneself in a barbershop or salon. I’ve never been inside one. Is it advisable to bring in a photo-montage of the look you want for the person doing the scissoring? Should you bring alternates, in case what you want won’t work with your hair? How many? As the scissoree, do you make conversation with the scissorer, or is it understood that they need to fully concentrate on the task at hand? There’s tipping involved, right? How much? When?

I thought these mysteries would be revealed to me when I went away to college, but, once there, I found that an unruly mop was something of an art school badge of honor. It showed that you preferred to spend the time when you should have been grooming working on your art, and that you were committed to being countercultural and unemployable. There was no need for me to get a haircut any more than once a semester. And I went home at least once a semester.

Thus for my four years at ECU, I looked like this:

These days I cut my own hair with an electric trimmer set just above the notch marked “First Day of Boot Camp.” The reason I do this is the same reason the “S.S. Setting Foot in a Supercuts” has set sail: things are looking pretty sparse on my frontal and crownal regions.

“What!?! Nah, man! I mean, I can’t even tell! It looks fine! Coulda fooled me!”

Folks are quick to reassure when I mention this fact in casual conversation. I’m fairly certain the thinning is noticeable and they’re just trying to comfort me ’cause they assume I’m bummed out about the whole descent into baldness. Or perhaps they really are unaware of my problem areas, as my relative height keeps them out of view for many. Wait, shorter people, ’til you see me crouched down changing an electrical outlet. There is significantly less coverage up there than there should be. No denying it.

I have the luxury of saying this now I suppose, because there is still something holding on, but I’m not that distressed about this development. Honestly I’m just thankful that my follicles waited — stuck around until I got a full-time job and a house and moved to grown-up-land where everyone’s physical appearance is taking some kind of abuse. If they want to wither and die at this point, can I really complain?

And there is a silver lining here. The last time I had my hair as tightly-cropped as I do now it was sprouting out of my head for the very first time (which, according to my mom, was when I was about six), so I’m just now discovering the world of the zero-maintenence-’do. It is awesome. I have not had to bother with finding the comb or wetting my hands for months now. And with my curbed shampoo use and shorter showers, we’re saving valuable cents per day.

And what am I giving up? My hair’s coloring is not dark and mysterious, but also not light and fun-loving. It’s just medium-brown. Nondescript. Middle-of-the-road. The longer it gets, the more I feel like it’s drawing attention to the fact that I have a really large forehead, and texture-wise, it’s an unfortunate blend of frizzy and poofy on the top, wavy in the back, and extremely curly on the sides. It’s always been impossible to corral into a non-doofy-looking, even-remotely-fashionable hairdo, as can be seen in every school picture of me from kindergarten through my senior year.

Yeah, I don’t think my hair has ever been much of an asset for me, anyway. Possibly because I never got a proper haircut.

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