Hi Hubski.
Once upon a time I wrote a poem that started, "I live inside my memory. I cannot help it." Who knows what happened to the rest of that poem but that much is true. I enjoy revisiting the past. I especially enjoy revisiting the events of the past on the anniversary of the date they happened. I love being able to remember, for whatever reason, exactly where I was and what I was doing a year ago. I love considering where I was, and what I didn't know was in front of me, and contrast it to where I am now. It's a silly practice, but it's what I enjoy.
Today is the six year anniversary of a momentous, if strange, occasion in my life. It is not only the DATE anniversary but the DAY anniversary, which is especially important because today is Friday the 13th - and the day of this event was Friday the 13th. We have spooks and ill-luck about. (Actually, I love Friday the 13ths.)
I wanted to share the story of that day with you. I hope this isn't too personal. I wanted to tell you guys about it. I wanted to tell my friends.
I put it up on my blog online and I'm linking it here because I think the formatting is going to be easier on the blog than on Hubski, also the full text is like 4 pages. OK, five and a half. It won't take that long to read, though, promise.
OftenBen this is the story I mentioned I was working on for you guys during the IRC Monday. I forget if I talked to anyone else about it, maybe 8bit? Anyway I don't want to just bomb y'all with shout-outs, you'll find this if people like it, you won't if they don't.
Best - feel free to start a conversation about any part of this or anything else here -
_ref_
You’re cutting your hair. No - not cutting it - you’re shaving your head. It’s a ritual of renewal, of reincarnation. It is like a farmer who lights his fields on fire so the crops grow. Your hair” – he pointed to my head, then tugged his own short tuft of dark hair – “is literally your history. Why do you think they use it for drug tests? It holds everything. It is built up of years and experiences. It is the shed record of your life, but it stays with you forever - unless you do something to it.
I love your character "Dan" and I'm sure there's a lot to be said about hair - I have hair stories myself -- that I won't go into here. The line that really grabbed me was this: I live inside my memory. I cannot help it.
because I recently came across these lines, apparently from "an anonymous Japanese poem" if there were in the world
no jeweled chariot
drawn by a lovely white ox what would coax us out
of the burning house
(translated by Patrick Donnelly and Stephen Miller) of our mind?
Oh, we're doing hair-related poems? My favorite: I whip my hair back and forth (just whip it) I whip my hair back and forth I whip my hair back and forth (whip it real good) I whip my hair back and forth I whip my hair back and forth I whip my hair back and forth I whip my hair back and forth Hop up out the bed, turn my swag on Pay no attention to them haters Because we whip 'em off And we ain’t doin' nothin' wrong So don’t tell me nothin' I’m just trying to have fun So keep the party jumping So what's up? (yeah)I whip my hair back and forth
I've had hair past my shoulderblades since... 1991. I've kept it in a ponytail since '93 or so. In '96 I had a girl clip the stuff on the back of my head under my ears; my reasons were entirely pragmatic as I went everywhere in an open-topped Suzuki samurai I'd modified with SJ-410 hinges so that I could fold the windshield down and by shaving the back I was able to contain most of it in a bandanna. That haircut has been maintained by $70 Aveda ninjas; it's currently clipped by a talented guy named Marty on the Compton/Westchester border. I think I'm one of the few white guys whose hair he cuts. It was the back, I think, that allowed me to maintain it throughout my professional career. One nice thing about being in concert sound is a long ponytail generally means you know what you're doing. Location sound, not so much; another sound mixer buddy of mine has referred to me as "the only pony tail in Los Angeles." Depending on my mood, I refer to it as either an "un-mullet" or "a garden-variety skatertrash 'do." About six months ago the pizza boy commented that his brother had cut his hair like mine and asked me how long I'd had my hair like this. I told him. He emitted a low whistle and said "you've had your haircut for longer than my brother has been alive." "So what you're saying is I've rocked an uncool haircut for so long it's becoming cool again?" I asked. "I wouldn't go that far," he said, and laughed.
I had hair not quite to my shoulders when I was 18 (I'd been listening to too much Led Zeppelin). The thing is, I couldn't be bothered to actually care for it, so it always looked like a bit of a mess. When I got it cut to a normal length, pretty much everyone I knew complemented me on it and I realized pretty quickly that long hair wasn't a look I could do. I actually like the idea of having long-ish hair though. I like the feeling of the wind blowing through it (no, really), and I even enjoy having to blow my bangs away from my eyes. Every couple of years, I let it grow out a bit before I realize that I can't quite make it look good, and I think I'm in the process of doing that right now. That, or I've just been too busy to make it to the barber.
Dan sounds like he'd be annoying as shit for long periods of time. My hair is pretty much perpetually shaved. It's awesome. You didn't talk about the first time you ran down a hallway and felt the wind breeze over your aerodynamic-ass head! Also, you don't use nearly as much shampoo, and (at least for me) no conditioner at all. But whenever I start a new class and my hair happens to be grown out and curly, and then I get it shaved, I always have the same "YOUR HAIR IS ALL GONE (!?!?)" conversation with people in that class. Kinda like when I decide to wear my contacts/glasses for the first time around people. It's not weird to me that people are attached to hair and glasses and stuff - boys and girls - I get it, but it's just never been very important to me. I've told three different girls that I bet they could pull off short hair super well. Two shuddered and recoiled in horror. The other was my sister, who was interested, but too scared to try it - her hair goes past her waist when she straightens in, and reaches the length of her back when it's curly.
I did not get along well with Dan over time. Yeah, I definitely used less shampoo. I also was lazy and (don't be disgusted) would take "rain showers." AKA if I went out in the rain with a bare head I was like "OK, don't need to wash my hair now!" I had very interesting reactions to shaving my head. It's definitely not accepted for a girl to do. I had a former high school teacher (who I'd been close with) reach out to me, get coffee with me, and tell me that seeing I'd shaved my head had alarmed him and he wanted to make sure I was okay. Later that year I went to visit the school and saw another teacher I'd had, with whom I'd also been close, and she reiterated how worried he was by my sudden hairlessness. Typically, I'd be first to call "sexism" or whatnot, but unfortunately, I wasn't in a sound mental state at the time and he was spot on. I remember talking to my parents about it some time afterwards and apparently it's not surprising for mentally unbalanced women, in particular, to shave their head. It can also be a grief reaction. Just look at Britney for a modern/current example of the shaved head/mental disturbance thing, I guess. However that's backed up in the ideas of the society my parents were raised in, idk about actual psychological facts there. I also did find I was thought to be gay a lot more, but then again I also had a girlfriend so there was like half one, half the other. I DID try to grow out a mohwak. My job finally came up to me when it was about an inch long and told me I needed to "stop with that business." Over the summer as it was growing out I bleached it and dyed it blue. Another thing I'd always said I wanted to do with my hair. I prefer my hair longer but I also think haircuts are horrendously expensive and I'm not paying $50 every 2 months to maintain a shorter cut. I like to get it cut every once in a while (last time was about 1.5 years ago) and then just let it grow-grow-grow from then on. I do admit when I cut it, it is usually still for some sort of reason, a desire to demonstrate change, a desire to move on, usually. The last time I cut it was when I cut out a boy I'd cared about deeply, and I needed to signal to myself that it was done, done, done.
Hair is the one aspect of our self-image that we can most easily influence. It has a lot of "youth" and "vitality" in its payload and hair grooming carries a lot of the conformity signals within society. That's one reason why the Abrahamic religions tend to have assorted taboos against cutting hair - it's a vanity cue and by leaving hair in its natural state (or protected from the world under a turban etc) one is showing austerity for God. With social baggage like that, the act of attacking one's hair is justifiably seen as a socially-deviant act, just like vandalizing empty buildings. Worthy of note - you didn't go to a salon and say "I'm thinking of going shaven; make me look good" you went to your Crowlian friends 'cuz they had clippers. Worthy of note - I had friends that would shave their heads before they opened for a big headliner. But they were in industrial bands. Not very good industrial bands. And in that crowd, walking around in a G-string with electrical tape over your nipples was considered normal, so the context needs to be considered.
It's even more interesting to examine what I did, 6 years ago, with the context of time and insight like this. It makes perfect sense that I would chop off my hair. That group of people was my 'core group' for a while. I really, really don't like them now. I did opt to go by my middle name after shaving my head and since joining the business world I reverted. That's about 4 years ago I guess. Anyway, now I sometimes wryly comment that I know if I like someone based on what they call me: if you call me by my middle name chances are good I want nothing to do with you, because you knew me then. Used to sometimes get drunk and tell boys it was what I went by. I'd catch myself at that and realize whoever I was talking to already didn't have a chance.