I actually forgot to mention - my mom gave me a haircut when I visited yesterday. Today was the “debut” when I would actually show my new barnet to the world outside. This was not too daunting. My mother is a very good hairdresser, having been one all of her working life. Admittedly, she has been a women’s hairdresser all her working life. But even this once had a certain era of advantageous synchronicity. When I went through my teenage rebellion years of long hair she was able to put a lovely perm in my locks.
I consider myself very fortunate to have bypassed the hairdressing salon throughout my life. Aside from all the money I’ve saved over the years (which is a MASSIVE plus), I have avoided being forced into an obligatory awkward one-on-one stilted conversations with strangers cutting my hair (this is most convenient as it is my ultimate ambition to eradicate all conversational exposure to service-providing human-beings completely. I have long intended to start convincing my dad to become a taxi driver). Also, I have never had to take any responsibility for my hair. If I’d had to book my own hair appointments, I doubt whether anything would ever actually happen to my hair at all. I once managed four years without seeing a dentist, by all but forgetting about dentists. If the thought of dentists happened to crop up into my mind I’d simply make it go away by telling myself I ‘really should genuinely make an appointment and definitely might do so tomorrow’. As it happens, I can just allow hair to sort of hang there, paying it little heed until one day my Mom will suggest giving it a trim. Like I said, no personal responsibility - it is a great arrangement!
Or at least it used to be. In my twenties, my unkempt style seemed boyish and scruffy. But in my thirties, my frontal receed has become such that thin strands of hair hang limply down an ever-inflating dome of forehead. Recently when I caught sight of myself in a shop window, the best I hoped for my appearance was one of a mildly eccentric train-spotting. I am not a vain man. I could live with this, if it wasn’t for the nagging doubts that my hair is fast-becoming something more sinister; like the archetypal style that a stereotypical paedophile might fashion. This is clearly not a good look, either personally or professionally.
Ideally, I’d like to just have done with it and get her to shave it really short, but my Mom always refuses to oblige my wish. I suppose for a hairdresser, shaving a head is much like admitting defeat, but she maintains she is more concerned I’ll look like some sort of Nazi thug from the late seventies. I keep telling her not to worry about it, and how confident I am that given time, we’ll be able to adapt to the look. Obviously, it’d be better all round if I wasn’t going bald, but now it’s happening, I’m sure I can manage a bit of Nazi ideology if it’s necessary to fit an easily managable hairstyle.
So now I’ve got this hairstyle which sort of self-consciously acknowledges my receed but avoids either paedophilic or Nazi territory. The trouble is that I now need to ‘maintain a look’ using ‘hair products’ and all that hassle. It is short round the back and sides but needs to be made spiky on the top so it doesn’t start spindling down the front of my cranium.
So… as I mentioned at the start of this entry, today I debuted this new look. How did it go you ask? Well the response was positively underwhelming (which is actually more favourable to me than you might be assume – in fact, I’d say it was close to best-case scenario). There was slight derision half-way through the day, when I re-applied the mousse as my mother had instructed. I was gleefully informed how my hairdo was reminiscent of Steve McDonald, the hapless clown-figure from Coronation Street. Clearly, I had not been the only one who’d been inspired by watching the soap yesterday.
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