Saturday, October 9, 1999October Country... that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain....- Ray Bradbury, "The October Country"
A foggy, misty, dark day here today. Definitely an October kind of day, seeping into my head, turning my mind into a foggy, melancholy mush.
Perhaps that explains my impulsive decision this morning to let a woman not my wife actually touch my hair for the first time since I was married in 1982. It was a terribly good feeling, too, my strands slipping eagerly between her spreading and tightening fingers, her nails brushing lightly against my ears. When she asked me if she could have her way with my eyebrows as well, how could I say no?
Of course she was a barber - or a trained beautician. The thrill was scarcely reduced for being the result of a professional service provider-customer relationship rather than a more personal one. I've waited 17 years for this, after all.
Had she offered to shake my hand when she was done playing with my head, I would have gone cartwheeling over the edge....So, all in all, not a bad experience for this longtime barber hater.
Or, more accurately, this barbering hater.
I just can't stand the idea of paying someone money to do something like cut my hair. It's not as if I'm having a terrific time here, growing hair, and so have no moral right to complain about having to pay someone to clean up the resulting mess. The damn stuff just grows, you know? And far from bestowing fun, it is strongly suspected of taking a lot out of me. At least by me. Balzac once said something to the effect that a night of love making comes at the cost of who knows how many pages of great writing. I'd be very surprised if this constant oozing of hair from my head isn't responsible for at least a few of the things I've forgotten to jot down on my grocery list over the years....
I admit to also feeling more than a bit put-upon by nature and society. My cat, Jester, has been with us almost an entire year now and he still looks great despite not having gone to a barber once. Birds don't have to go pay other birds to periodically yank their unkempt feathers out, either. As for fish and bugs - well, you get the idea. Only humans, it seems, have to regularly pay to sit in a chair while a stranger darts around their sensitive sensory organs with scissors and razors, and I for one am extremely allergic to the whole idea. Sure, monkeys and apes may have to groom and pick nits off each other, but no money actually is expected to change hands, no sharp instruments are involved, you get to pick as well as be picked, and you get to eat anything tasty that you find. If the barbers in your area allow you to cut their hair while they cut yours, drop me a line - it sounds like it could be fun. I checked with all those in my yellow pages. Not even those who described themselves as liberal-minded were open to giving this particular social experiment a go. As for mutual nit-picking - well, even I knew better than to ask....
Almost as bad for me as going to the barber is shaving. For years I had a full beard and mustache just to avoid being a slave to mirror and Norelco for the first ten minutes of every morning. Shaving is better than haircuts in that you can usually do it yourself without people pointing and laughing at the results, but it's much worse in that you have to do it every day instead of just once a month. Me, I probably should do it twice a day, but the hell with that. If anyone is that bothered by that five o'clock shadow of mine which usually shows up around noon, they can just make a note to themselves to only see me prior to lunch. Those Post-It products of 3M make it oh so easy these days....I once read that 7 out of every 10 American women preferred men with shaved faces. Why? I have no idea. One would think that such an obvious secondary sexual characteristic would come with built-in appeal, but no. One would think that modern women would miss such a blatant aspect of the male animal they had come to know and love so well over the course of millions of years before the birth of King Gillette in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, in 1855, but one would be wrong.
Go figure.Almost as remarkable is the fact that most men have agreed to this daily mutilation of their physical natures. Especially when you consider that most young children (in my experience, anyway) are afraid of beards. Anything that can keep young children afraid and away from me and has the added advantage of being legal is just great, in my opinion. Why so many of us males regularly scrape our faces raw when it increases the risk of rug rat attack becomes an ever-deeper mystery....
And for the record: Yes, I happen to like women with unshaved legs and armpits. Or at the very least, I simply don't care if they shave these areas or not. A beautiful mind and soul will shine through even the thickest mat of fur, I'm sure.
Especially if the woman in question takes the time to brush my own hair out of my eyes with her kind and gentle fingers....
(©1999 by the oddly well-coifed Dan Birtcher)
