Clean your act up and don't be a slob

[austin_dern]

I went for a haircut. This is after a surprisingly short, for me, interval: barely two months since my last haircut. In college once I managed to go eight months without -- one thing or another kept me from my barber -- and the difference afterwards was so dramatic everyone asked me about it. I don't just mean friends or my roommate; I was asked by professors, by the person working by the change machine at the student center game room who couldn't give change just because the machine was broken, and by one of the food servers at the dining hall. It reached a point that when people asked me if I'd had a haircut I started saying ``no'' just to have something else to talk about.

So Thursday I called my barber -- he doesn't take appointments, but it's worth making sure he hasn't decided to skip the afternoon -- and he said it would be a great day: it was a bit of a haircutting lull. I got there just as he was out for lunch, and there was another person waiting for him. I provided my usual level of conversation, which he finds extremely satisfying. That is, I sat and made vaguely agreeable noises while he told me that he figured I'd eventually hook up with a Chinese woman about seven years younger than I am, and that he Knows People at a half-dozen colleges around the state so if I applied to them he could tell them that I'm a genius and they'd be lucky to hire me. He also promised that if I ever needed to do something a little wild I could call him and he'd swap cars with me so that I would have, uh, deniability, I suppose. I can't emphasize enough how much he enjoys having me as customer.

Today, it turns out, my father went to him too. He learned there that I had been to the barber shop and reported this to my mother, who looked at me and agreed that yes, I had gotten a haircut yesterday. And they hadn't noticed me yesterday? Nope. Or this morning when my mother explained to me that she had bought a Swiffer broom mop thingy and showed how you wield it at floors? Nope. I wonder if they were joking.

Trivia: Germany's representatives brought their own fountain pens to sign the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919, avoiding the pens provided by French patriotic societies. Source: Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed The World, Margaret Macmillan.

Currently Reading: The Siege of Eternity, Frederick Pohl.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I get my hair cut about every two months. That's the point when it starts to go in my eyes. It's a compromise between when I should get it cut (every month with the style I wear) and when I'd get it cut if my laziness won out (practically never, which is why I wore my hair long for many years).

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I probably should get my hair cut more often, because I look better -- even taller -- with it cut, while wearing it long I look more like an unsuccessful Muppet than anything else. But it is really easy to just keep letting it grow and not worry about the cut.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I'm about to get my hair cut, which I usually do before vacations of significance, when I want to impress relatives or potential romantic partners. That should of course be interpreted as an XOR, though one haircut could serve the function twice or more. My head's been known to move in different circles. But then I get dizzy.

I can picture you eventually hooking up with a Chinese woman about seven years younger than you are, and in fact, at elevated probablitity from.. say.. a Finnish girl five years older than you. Still, odd choice of statements.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, so you just keep the one head about for any and all needs? It's sometimes worth specializing, you know, even if it does mean more luggage.

I don't really know how I'd estimate the probabilities of either event. Either seems really unlikely for me, though.