The Tortise and the Hair

Well, a lot has happened since my episode with Cassie, or Carrie, or whatever my pseudonym for Amanda was. I graduated, moved to LA and joined my two older sisters, and got down to the serious business of finding work in the food service industry.

I immediately set about having charactaristic LA experiences: looking for celebrities, getting stuck in traffic, staring wide-eyed at the women whose body parts were younger than their children. But those are all passive experiences. My first active defining Los Angeles experience was getting my hair cut.

I'd grown a delicious white boy afro in the last months at school. Honestly, it was a thing of beauty. The kind where when people say, "That guy has an awesome white boy afro going on," I'm that guy. But it was getting a little out of hand, and I knew it had to go. I had to shrug off the links to irresponsible college past, I needed a cleaner look. A more professional look. A look that didn't scream "put me on a broom handle and clean up spills."

So my sister took me to her stylist, Melissa. My thinking was that if I needed a haircut, I could do what I'd done every six months for two years, which was go to a barbershop, have someone put a no. 8 guard on a razor and mow my head. I don't know why I needed a highly trainined stylist to do a job for which anybody who didn't suffer from Parkinson's was qualified. However, as Josey repeatedly reminded me, I was an idiot. I knew nothing about living in a trendy city. Like paying $40 for a haircut.

"What!?!" was my reaction. "In Boston I could just go to a barber shop and get it cut for $10!"

"But you can't just go to a barber out here," Josey said.

"Why not? Are they lepers?"

With that question unresolved to my satisfaction, we got to Melissa. She sat me down in the chair and Josey took a reconnisance position near the magazines.

"What do you want?" Melissa asked.

"A haircut," I said. I really didn't want to be sarcastic, but it was hard. Melissa looked at Josey for guidance.

"Something a litte more...presentable," said my sister. Admittedly, she wasn't being unreasonable. I looked like a prize you'd win at the state fair.

"I usually just get it trimmed down with clippers and a no. 8 guard," I offered.

But they don't use clippers at salons. I may as well have suggested eating sushi with a fork. Melissa gently waved my suggestion away and put in one of her own:

"I was thinking about cutting it short on the sides, and leaving some height on the top."

"....Ok." I think I knew what she meant. She meant a normal, God-fearing haircut on the sides, but on the top of my head I'd have some mutant blond astroturf resembling the character Paul from Tekken. I also knew that if I got this haircut I would hate myself.

"Can you convince him to use product?" Josey requested. "Tell him it's very manly."

Product. Product means gel. Gel is not manly. I don't like gel. Now I'm predicting this haircut will send me into a bout of self-loathing that might require two or even three pints of Ben & Jerry's to cure.

Melissa proceedes to give me this haircut, using clips and screws and whatever follicle-torturting devices these people go for. And I'd already decided I wasn't going to like the haircut, because I was pretty sure I was getting the astroturf, so I was eagerly anticipating the awkward moment when Melissa would make her final cuts, say "well how do you like it?" and I would say, "..........."

As she was getting pretty much done, I noted with some dismay that she was leaving quite a bit of height on the top, to where it seemed I was growing a wheatfield on my head. After I suggested Melissa took that down a bit, so I could go through doorways without ducking, she spread some 'product' on her hands and ran them through my hair. That part actually felt pretty good. I might have gone for this haircut if I had a nice girl to apply the grease everyday. She finished and asked me: "So what do you think?"

I looked in the mirror. I had been clipped, sheared, and gelled into this guy. My hands wandered unconsciousy to the turned down collar of my polo shirt. I jerked them down.

"I look like an asshole."

Wait, that was just in my head. "It's certainly a nice haircut," I said. "It's a little different for me, so I'll have to give it some time."

"It's very cute," one of the other stylists assured me. The sentiment was echoed around the room.

But I look like an asshole. I really did, and I do not care what anyone else's opinion may be at this point.

I got out of the chair and went to pay, all the while telling Melissa it was a terrific haircut with all the casual honesty of a rejection: "Do you like it?" "It's very well done. I just need to get used to it." I just need some time. "It's certainly very stylish." You're really nice. You'll make a great haircut for some other guy.

For the rest of the day, I could not look at my reflection, which is pretty much pure agony for me. I'd look at the mirror the same way I watch horror movies. I understand that this hairstyle was very popular. I realize if you have this hairstyle you can still be intelligent, nice, even humble. If you have this hairstyle and we meet, I might not dislike you. We could even become good friends, and we'll hang out together and I'll tell everyone how cool you are, and write about you in my blog, but for your entire life I will want to hit you in the neck.

Fortunately once I took a shower and got that goop out of my hair, things looked pretty normal. So maybe I'm a little slow on fashion trends. I'll admit that sometimes I can act a little ornery, even though I'm 22. But even if I'd received reliable information that if I walked down the street with that coiffure, women would throw themselves at me like kids chasing the ice cream truck, I would have rejected it. I honestly could not look in the mirror without cringing. Even now, thinking about the hypotheical situation of rubbing gel on my fingers and fluffing my hair up, I want to slap myself.

Josey really wanted to know why I didn't like that haircut, and I had a hard time justifying it to her. It's hard to explain something that is to me a painfully obvious slight against the senses; like exlaining why I don't like open sores. Possibly it's because the haircut seems to shout "Look at me! Look at me!" Yes, we all want to look good. Yes, we all want attention. And I'll certainly admit that I want people to look at me, but not because I'm shouting at them.