The Haircut, 6 Weeks Later

I woke up this morning and still had short hair. It's a bit of a novelty even now, a full 6 weeks or so since Joe and Terry took the clippers to it in early October. I'm not pulling the no-longer-there ponytail out of my way when I put on a coat. But I look in a mirror sometimes and blink before I realize it's really me looking back at me.

There's another article in this Musings section about "My Heroes Have Always Been Longhairs", which must look pretty obsolete now. But it's not obsolete at all. I still like men who choose to let their freak flags fly, a lot. A few years ago I coined an acronym, PTA -- Pony Tail Alert -- for whenever I saw a guy with a pony tail. It still grabs my attention.

But I also like the look of a guy who chooses to be bald -- younger guys who shave their heads or go with a cut much shorter than the average. There was one guy I saw at lunch today, maybe 25 or 28, with maybe 1/8th inch of hair all over his head--you could definitely see the scalp. I spent a lot of time looking at him out of the corner of my eye.

I like what I call "alternative hair." That is, really long and shaggy or really short or bald. Conventional-length hair isn't a turn-on to me.

When put in that terminology, maybe my haircut makes more sense. I had a few long-haired friends gasp in disapproval over the haircut. In fact, I lost one completely when he just couldn't handle it. But here's how I view it: Having long hair is one extreme, one way to thumb your nose at society's rules about hair. Going the other way and having short-short or no hair is another. Unless you're older and bald or in the military that is (and some of those military types look good in their crewcuts, I must admit).

By the way, I dig mohawks too. Sometimes I wish I had freaked my folks out and got a mohawk and dyed it green when I was 18. But that's a different story....

The other reasons

It was mid-September that I started thinking about cutting my hair. Before that it was completely out of the question. To be considering a haircut after going six years without one was a radical change, and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why. I didn't figure it out until well after the cut and shave, at least I think I've figured it out. The hair cut and the shave 2 weeks later were both exciting and erotic even.

Beyond that... even considering a hair cut was a bit freeing in a way. If I could consider that change, what else could I do?

In fact more change was in the way. At the end of September I signed the purchase agreement on my new house, starting the process toward completing a goal I've had for most of the last two years. And I started making some other changes in my personal life to try to get out of some mental ruts I'd been in most of the year. I have a ways to go there, but it's a start.

The hair cut, besides being exciting, was a symbol of all the change, a symbol of the new me if you will. Not that I'm radically different, but some things are more different than they used to be.

The short and the long of it

The hair was short for two weeks, then I shaved it completely and kept it that way for two more weeks. The last day I shaved it (so far) was the day I closed on the house, October 27. That seemed really appropriate, to go into the consummation of the deal cleanly shaved. I've let it grow since, and it's nearly back to where it was when I originally got the hair cut.

I'm letting the hair grow back, at least that's the plan. It's not that being cropped or bald is bad. In fact the look is pretty good on me, I think. But I've thought that through too, and it seems natural for me to have hair. I might never have a 21-inch pony tail again, but I imagine it'll be fairly long, like at least below the collar. Unless I get the clippers out again come spring, when it warms up in these parts again.

—Charlie Songdog
November 20, 1997