This is The Thing

This Post was originally begun on January 4, 2006. Thanks to my Commenters, it will finally appear.

Strangely (not so strangely) it has become pertinent again, for reasons I will divulge after June 3rd, 2006.
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WHY I HAVE NOT SHAVED MY HEAD (RECENTLY)

Well, at this moment in time, to answer honestly, I think mainly because it’s cold.

Until you shave your head, you really have no idea how much warmth this built-in hat provides.

Likewise, until you shave your head, or go bald, you do not realize that you have never actually felt your scalp (or at least, maybe since infancy).

After you shave your head, every little breeze seems to whisper . . . . (No, not “Louise”)

. . . . . every little breeze seems to whisper:

“I’m touching your head! I’m touching your head! Nah-nah-nah-Nah Nah!”

Okay, you’re thinking “What the fuck is she talking about? Why is this entry about head-shaving?!?”

I’m having a hair dillema. That’s why.

I have had hair.
Lots of Hair. Lots of ways

Blonde i was. Later Brunette.

Hairy i was

Shaved i was

Then Blonde.

Again.

This time, fake.

I shaved my head for the first time ten years ago, on my fortieth birthday. I had hair down to my ass. I had kick-ass hair down to my ass. It was long. It was luxurious.

It was heavy.

I shaved my head for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, I wanted to do something that would clearly demarcate my entry into my forties. I think I accomplished that.

Additional reasons had to do with the significance of personal history with hair, and there was a lot of crap I wanted to get rid of at the time.

I gathered with friends at the nude beach outside of Portland, Oregon (where I had celebrated many birthdays in my 30s), and with their assistance, first snipped off a long braid, then progressively cut to many styles — china-chopped, page-boy, fabulous mohawk, then shaved down to the scalp.

I drove home from the beach alone. I hung my head out the car window like a labrador retriever, marvelling at the wind on my pate.

I stopped at a quik-mart to buy a Pepsi, and was surprised when the woman behind the counter backed away from me oh-so-subtly (I had forgetten that, to the outer world, I now appeared to be a possibly-deranged punk, rather than Dorothy Gail of Kansas).

The following day was Gay Pride day. I marched in the parade and had my photo taken with two fabulous drag queens.

I was going to try to describe that photo, but perhaps you’ll agree — it defies description.==========Amusing side story about this picture:My friend was going to “surprise” me on my 44th birthday by enlarging a copy of the photo and framing it in all its fabulousness. Mind you, I’m living in a small town — 8,000 souls on a busy day. She took it to the printer’s and copy/enlarged it. Then off to the local pharmacy to find a frame. Somewhere on the journey, she lost the original photo — the only copy I had. She was mortified. She retraced her steps three or four times. It was nowhere to be found. After she presented me with the framed enlargement, she apologized tearfully. I forgave her. I didn’t worry too much about the original because I had this beautiful blow-up.

Fast forward six months. I am standing at the counter at Don’s Pharmacy with three or four other people in line, and I look up to see the photo scotch-taped above the register.

“Is this your picture?” a sticky note next to it inquired.

“Hey!” I exclaimed, “That’s my photograph!”

The clerk, and the other four customers, turned to look, first at the photo, then at me.

Remember that I am no longer shaven-headed, and I am definitely not wearing motorcycle leathers (or a black leather chest harness from which one could conveniently be suspended from the ceiling).

The clerk peers at it more closely, and says “Why, I believe that is you.”

I grab my photo, and the old guy next to me drawls: “Was that taken at that Mardee Graw?”

“Uhm, no,” I say, and tuck the photo away.

End of amusing side-story.
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Needless to say, that summer, the beginning of my fortieth decade, was a sensual and shocking time, what with the wind not-in-my hair, the retreating quick-mart staffers, and the many people who hadn’t seen me in a while who greeted me with the ultimate objective statement:

“You shaved your head.”

(Or, more commonly, “Oh my god, you shaved your head!”)

Here I am, closing that decade. I will turn 50 on June 21. And I think something simply must be done about my hair.

For the past few years (ever since our trip to Mexico in ‘04) I’ve cut my hair myself, doing what I think is a passable and consistent job of creating a “do” that is manageable, not too much of a “statement”, yet distinctly me.

But it lacks pizazz — oomph — zeitgeist.

I thought about shaving my head again (when I started this post in January it was just too freaking cold), but that’s so been done — even by me. Even shaving my legs seemed more radical, at this point.

I think that hair is a funny thing.

• Powerful (Samson + hair + jawbone of ass = Dead Philistines, Samson – hair = Gouged-Out Eyes) . . . AND . . .
• Goofy (Imagine yourself in the morning mirror, with your coiffure standing out at pillow-influenced angles.)

Hair seems to me to be, at one and the same time, taken for granted (until you don’t have it, or might lose it), and yet a crucial part of personal profile and identity.

I was watching a documentary filmed in the 70’s the other day, and realized how precisely certain hairdos “placed” the people of the film in the era for me, regardless of how generic or timeless their clothing was (a very specific type of afro, a particular greasy drape of bangs across the eyebrows).

Hair seems to inspire unusual passion and creativity in its wranglers, too. Beauticians and barbers across the country — people who in their homelife might be as hum-drum as you could imagine — title their tonsorial parlors with panache-ful names like “Whip the Do!”, “Darlene’s Cut-n-Strut”, and “Curl Up and Dye” (these are all names of real establishments) — and they seem to feel no embarassment in doing so.

I have had many a beautician/barber run their hands through my hair and pronounce “You have good hair,” . . . . and I have wondered: “What does that mean — ‘good hair’? Is my hair ethical? Strong? Does it have leadership qualities that I’m not aware of? Is it saintly? Will it go to heaven when it dies?”

Alas, I think that these professional karatenized-protein-whackers were simply saying that my hair will do what they want it to do (which may be only a dim echo of what I have told them I want it to do). In other words, “good” hair is compliant, well-behaved hair. Which is odd, as many of these hair-dressers did their utmost to make my hair look wild and mussed, as if it were about to burst forth from my head and foment revolution.

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Amusing side-story #2 — My first haircut in Port Townsend

I had moved from Portland (half-a-million without the suburbs = thousands of hair-dressers) to Port Townsend (8,000 with the suburbs = many fewer hair-dressers). I had a “dykey” hairdo when I arrived, and I didn’t know where to turn for a haircut.

I was directed to a small parlor in a downtown “mall-lette”, where, I was told, there was a woman who was good with “short cuts”.

I told her that I wanted my hair short.

She began to cut, and to ask me questions. I quickly suspected that she might be trying to figure out how short I meant by “short”.

She asked me: “So, what do you do?”

These were the days when I was not forthcoming to everyone about my profession as a psychic, and I was also doing some carpentry work at the time, so I said “I’m a carpenter”.

Her question seemed to be answered. Yes, I was definitely a dyke — which probably meant that when I said “short”, I meant SHORT — really short — make me look like a man!

She began to snip away with confidence “SNIP, SNIP, SNIPPETTY SNIP”.

Her next question was: “Where do you live?”

“Gary and I have a place in Uptown, ” I answered.

Her scissors stalled in mid-stroke. She began to cut more conservatively, more carefully. Sniiiipp, sniiiiiiiiiip, sniiiiip.

“His wife and he split up, and he needed some help with the rent, and we’ve been friends for a while, so I moved in for the Summer, just till I find a place of my own. Gary got me some work hanging dry-wall for his friend.”

Confidence seemed to return — I was, probably, a dyke again. “Snip, SNIP, SnipPiTTY SNIP”.

“I like Port Townsend, but my sons are in Portland, so that’s kind of hard.”

Sniiiipp, sniiiiiiiiiip, sniiiiip.

(Okay, now I was just fucking with her. My “sons” are step-sons, and at the time, I hadn’t seen one of them in three years, and the other, for eight months. But the process was amusing me, and I just had to know whether it was an orientation issue or just her particular cutting style. I don’t think I’d do that now — it just seems mean.)

As might be imagined, and in accordance with karma, I got a really weird haircut out of the experience.

End of side-story #2
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So I’m not going to shave my head, — I don’t think. There is a haircut that I’ve always wanted, and that I’ve never completely had

– and it’s like this:

Although I think I’ll forego the piercings.

At least the ones on the side of the mouth.

There is something very appealing to me about this ‘do. Come to think of it, there is something appealing to me about Amazonian tribes-people in general — their body types seem sleek and muscular without being stringy — rounded without flabbiness — like walking seals.

You can’t see it here, but the back and sides of the hairdo are shaved very short.

I also find this particular photo very beautiful, and stirring in some way that I don’t fully understand.

For those of you who have never shaved your head, I recommend it highly.

There is the revelation of the actual shape of your head, for one thing.

There are the unique sensations of feeling the wind, rain, ambient air temperature, and the brush of a fleece pullover on some of the thinnest and most sensitive skin on your body.

Plus, about two to three weeks after you do it, your scalp is usually covered with this velvety plush stubble that it is virtually impossible not to compulsively run your hand over. I spent many an hour petting my own head at this stage.

And, for the socially adventurous, there are the numerous encounters with other human beings, ranging from those who walk right up and ask “can I touch it?” to those who gaze at you from afar, eyes clouded with misgivings, trying to figure out whether you are undergoing chemo-therapy or planning to steal their purse.

I realize that it’s not for everyone.

I like that it’s still something that I would consider doing. Somehow, that feels liberating — just one more thing that I haven’t eliminated as a possibility for myself because I’m too “scared” to do it.

Right now, though, I’m not going to shave my head.

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