Haircut

I've got this seriously thick head of hair. It doesn't grow long so much as it just gets thicker, like a Chia Pet. I've tried growing it longer, trying for cool rock star hair, but it just ends up getting bushier and bushier. Drives me nuts. When I was a counselor at Orkila in 1985 or 1986, everybody in my unit decided that the way we were going to kick off the summer -- the way we were going to show the rest of the camp how tight our bond was -- would be to get our heads shaved. It was a guy thing. The four of us would look tough and cool and everything.

Thing is, I loved it. No muss, no fuss. Since then, I've kept it pretty much clipper cut short (at least on the back and sides), with a few variations here and there. Had long bangs once with the rest shaven. Did the flat top. Used to get free haircuts at beauty salons by letting new hairdressers practice with the clippers. Didn't matter to me. Just shave it all off. Easy to manage, easy to clean. A little gel for extra spikage and you're good to go.

Heading into chemo, we knew that I'd be losing my hair. It's a given. I'd been a bit lazy about getting my haircut while I was in England (plus maybe it was better to spend my money on beer and pool and fish and chips than on staying well groomed), and it was shaggier than normal. Never very long, but thick and over my ears and everything. So we had a family friend come in, Michael, who'd been cutting Dad & Jane's hair for years. Laura's too, recently. He brought scissors. He came to visit, to pay his regards, but also to trim my golden locks.

There was this off chance that I might not lose my hair. Really rare. Almost never happens, but some people react differently to the chemo. So why go bald if you don't need to? Instead of shaving everything off ahead of time, Michael and I decided to just trim it back nice and short. And even if the chemo did what it was supposed to do, at least I'd make less of a mess when the clumps of hair began to fall out.

Michael brought his scissors and a set of clippers and we chatted while he snipped and clipped. We'd moved a chair into my bathroom. We put a towel over my shoulders. My hair turns brown when it falls on the floor. Big bushy piles of brownish blonde hair. I'm not sure who swept everything up afterwards. The hair fell from my head and landed on the tiled floor and somebody came in later to take it all away.