A haircut, considered on its own merits, really isn’t significant enough to warrant more than a passing glance. The stuff coming out of your skull, it just keeps growing and you need to tame it. End of story. Nature schedules barbering sessions by its own accord, on a daily basis, without a need for appointments. Snakes slough off their skin discreetly. Birds moult regardless of whether there are coupons. Chipmunks get sucked into lawnmowers with little to no provocation. Why is our grooming any different?
One reason, I think, is because we’re largely incapable of doing it ourselves. I suppose you can try to cut your own hair, but you’ll probably succeed only if you’re shaving it. Any other style will force you to buy a hat or shave anyway, so you turn to others for help. That’s where things get unnatural. I mean, does your cat meow incessantly to other cats when it’s about to shed? The moment you reach out to someone, the quest for a well-coiffed head becomes an embarrassing bodily function, kinda like incontinence, but more like incontinence of the follicles.
You climb into the salon chair, maybe there’s conversation and maybe there isn’t, and within the hour the deed is done. Now, the day after your cut, this is what’s interesting. People will make it a point to indicate your hair is shorter. I’m not talking about compliments or even insults. Some peers will simply point out the reduction of your glorious mane. This is a scientific phenomenon.
“Hey, you got a haircut!”
“Looks like someone got a haircut.”
“Ah, haircut.”
It’s confounding, you know? Someone took the shears to the shit on my head, easy as that. The stylist didn’t trim my eyes or break my bathroom mirrors, thereby blinding me to her meticulous handiwork. Would this brand of observation work in other situations?
“Let me guess. You showered?”
“Looks like someone got a divorce!”
“You are wearing a shirt.”
“Pants. You are also wearing pants.”
“So, tumor.”
Preliminary testing points toward the negative.
The tender portion of my brain responsible for coherent thought has been shaken to its roots, rattled straight unto the very ends of Aunt Tilly’s stockings, but this handicap won’t stop me from communing with you tonight. Let me tell you, there were some sharply delicious bass frequencies during the wee hours of the morning, for which this building was essentially a box seat. They’re finally done with paving the roads, though, and I’d be thankful were it not for the fact that I’m mentally incapable of gratitude at this point.
If I put aside all talk of headaches and brain trauma, then I’m left with one image culled from yesterday. I was at Home Depot, such is the expansive framework of Internet advertising, trying to buy a gallon of blue paint for the office. It wasn’t a simple task, contrary to what I first assumed, and the half-hour trip dragged on to well over an hour. The long line certainly didn’t help.
The mere sight of dowels and miter saws will fairly ruin the pants of some people, so to those individuals I offer an advanced apology. I hate going to Home Depot, partly because I’m supremely ignorant about home improvement. The moment I step into the store, I wonder why they couldn’t have whittled an entrance that wends straight back to my car. Again, understand, I’m not given to the craft. I mean, I have trouble replacing light bulbs without having the damn things shatter in my hands. Turning on light switches? Forget about it.
But the hour went by quickly. Why? It was hypnotic watching the guy mix paint. His name was Dick. He was probably as old as paint itself, which implied he had a reason for being here. I mean, you can’t be 100 years old and work at a Home Depot because, you know, first job. Maybe he was trying to keep active, maybe he loved paint, I don’t know, but it was apparent he had the process ingrained in him. He seemed to go about it with a palpable sense of pleasure. Get the base, plug the codes into the machine, unscrew the lid of the paint can, mix, reseal, shake, show the finished product to the customer, send off the customer with a few wooden paint stirrers.
“Lifetime guarantee,” he’d say to every customer who bought Behr paint. “It’ll live as long as you will.”
I’m not sure what was so appealing. I think it was the repetition, the unhurried rhythm of the whole picture. Now, watching paint dry? That’s an entirely different matter. I also detect you wish to talk about grass and the growing thereof.
OH HELL NO THE CONSTRUCTION HAS STARTED AGAIN. MY HEAD IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE. GOOD THING IT’S ONLY GOING TO LAST ANOTHER EIGHT HOURS.