Its funny the comments I’ve gotten as I’ve traveled, regarding my “looks”. As I come and go around the country, my hair, both on my head and my face changes with my mood, my ability (or lack there of) to attract women, and my access to such minor things as running water.
I’ve never been a fashion follower (okay, you can quit laughing now), so basically if I was clothed and didn’t smell, I was content (wait, what do I mean “was”, those are still keen indicators in my world of social graces).
After college I got a good paying job, a new car and a girlfriend. Julie was a real lesson in personalities (all of them), which you would have thought I would have learned from. No such luck. But I digress (as is often the case when the fingers get to spewing all over the keyboard). She was also very interested in image. Something that didn’t interest me. So, once I moved Jules (and Jeepers the cat) out of my apartment, I promptly sold the fancy car and bought a $400 Buick Skyhawk (with a hole in the driver’s floor – some people own cars for their entire lives before any worries of the front seat falling thru the floor, eh Russ?), brought my brother’s bike out from Michigan and started skydiving. I figured it was a sure fire way to guarantee that no self-respecting gold digger (is that an oxymoron?) would be interested in me! Well, it appears that wasn’t the case. Or perhaps I met women that are the type that find a stray puppy on the road and feel some need to bring it home and nurture it, but some women still wanted relationships. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, that wasn’t my thing, back then either.
Anyone that knew me back in my Clear Communications days in
So, once I landed the job at this start-up company, I figured I wasn’t “customer facing” AND I was working around the clock and the hair thing just kinda got outta hand. Add to the long hair what it would look like after wearing a motorcycle helmet, and well you can imagine. Now figure what it looked like on those times (don’t tell Mom) that I didn’t wear a helmet when riding to work.
Well, pretty much since then I left the rest of the fashion industry behind. Blue jeans, t-shirts (typically with writing from either a blues fest or bike bar) and hair that, well, was clean but not neat was my statement.
Now gets to the fun part. Some women actually seem to be attracted to it (you women sure are interesting creatures). My ex- not only liked the longer hair, but convinced me to grow a mustache. Now, whether I looked decent in a mustache was never an issue. If that’s what she wanted, that’s what I was going to do. I’m now convinced it was a cruel joke to make sure that no other woman would talk to me in public. And it worked (but frankly, I don’t think it was the mustache).
But, since women talking to me was the LAST thing I wanted after the divorce, I kept it. I even attempted to trim it on occasion. One time, after not shaving for a week or so, after a few drinks, I even attempted to shave a go-tee, to see how it would look. I believe that turned into an email story about shaving my entire head, but that was in the days before blogs. Maybe I’ll dig it up and share it. Anyway, I kept the mustache until the night I had been drinking (go figure) and I attempted to trim it, but forgot to put the trimmer head on the razor, and well, next thing I knew I had half a mustache. Frankly, to me, it didn’t look any worse than a full mustache, but deep down inside I knew THIS look just wasn’t going to fly so I shaved the entire thing off. The ironic part was that this was AFTER I had been laid off. And, since I was tired of buying both shampoo AND conditioner, I got my hair cut shorter (I said shortER, not short). And, since I only go out in public every couple weeks and I make a special effort to put on nicer (cleanER) clothes, everyone is commenting about the fact that now that I no longer have a job, I’ve cleaned up my act and finally look respectable. (Notice no one has said anything about me looking good, just respectable).
So, I have this dilemma. Ya see, I have no clue what actually looks good on me. I surely can’t trust my so called friends to tell me. And I don’t want to look like some old dude trying to look young and hip. And do I REALLY trust a women’s input? After all, it was one of those that got me to grow the mustache. So, when its hair cut time, I stroll into a place and say “please do what you can” and they end up cutting it basically the way it was. Is that cause it looks good, or cause they don’t want to upset me, or cause they don’t know any better (most likely the case)?
So, even though recently I had an attractive woman tell me that my hair “looks good long”, I still had this sinking suspicion that she was just telling me what she thought I wanted to hear so I’d buy her a drink and leave her alone. And, knowing it was time for at least a trim, I decided to go to a “salon”.
I walked in at 5 minutes after closing (hey, the door wasn’t locked) and asked the lady if she was open. She looked at me, said “you need a hair cut, come over here and sit down”. Notice that was NOT a question. I told her I was ready to move into the 90s, and did she think she could help. She informed me it was 2008, and yes she could help. Perhaps at this point I should tell you that I found her to be quite attractive, so frankly paying her to run her fingers through my hair didn’t seem like all that bad of an idea, regardless of the outcome (remember the mustache?). She had all kinds of ideas and called over other women that were trying to scurry out of the shop, to point out my request to come into the nineties, and the need to get out of the 80s. She actually seemed to CARE about me. At this point, I was noticing pictures of kids, dogs and flowers around her station. No men. She made comments about us being about the same age. THEN I found out she OWNED the shop and I was instantly in love! I figured who better than to know a modern hair style for a guy “my age” than a woman that owned a hair salon? After all, if you wanted to buy a used car, you wouldn’t go to your butcher, you’d trust a used car salesman, right? AND a business owner to boot! It wasn’t till half my head was shaved (here we go again!) that she tossed in the dreaded “my husband blah blah blah” line. And this wasn’t as in “my husband left me for a younger woman so I buried him in the backyard and collected the insurance money” or “my husband that died of old age and left me the insurance money”, but more like “my husband will be showing up any minute to show me his new hunting rifle, complete with bayonet. Do you have insurance?”.
But, at this point it was too late. I was madly in love (there’s hope he’ll fall on the bayonet) and she was having her way with my hair. And besides, do I REALLY know what looks good anyway? Obviously not.
So, once again, I have a new hair “style”. Am I in the latest decade? Is it age appropriate? Will women still avoid me in the blues clubs (I know, it has nothing to do with the hair)? All I can say is, who cares! She was cute and I’m going back every 2 to 3 weeks for a trim.
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering how I got onto this tangent to begin with. Actually, I’m more sure that you quit reading this about 10 paragraphs ago when you realized there were no pictures of cool fall colors or campgrounds, but I’m going to continue anyway. Tonight I got a call from a research agency for a project titled “Beer Survey” (I know, I’m about as qualified for that as I am for….wait, I AM qualified for that!). Anyway, she was asking lots of questions, which I had to indicate my level of “agreement or disagreement”, which basically amounted to “Sir, you are cheap and drink too much”, BUT one of the questions was “I look to my favorite celebrities to show me the latest styles and fashions”. Well, I basically spit out my beer all over the phone laughing. She got the idea.
And it got me to thinking, who ARE my favorite celebrities?
Life is good. Send shampoo.
