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Saturday, August 09, 2003 A few days back, I dragged myself into Montpelier for a haircut, something that almost always feels like a major deal to me, something I tend to put off until my hair -- my thick, wavy, blessedly abundant hair -- has become a hulking, aggressive mass of badly-behaved cranial adornment. I hadn't been sheared since April, when I went to a clip joint a few blocks from my piso in Madrid and a slightly chunky 30ish woman gave me an excellent cut. Clip joints, for some reason, are unbelievably plentiful in Madrid -- they're everywhere, seeming at times to pop up overnight like mushrooms -- and almost every one I've walked into has given me a disastrous cut. So disastrous that I've needed to flee home immediately afterward, grab a pair of shears, attempt damage control. The cut this last April was the first decent one I've received in all my time in Madrid. The very first, a smart-looking job leaving me nothing to repair. I was not bright enough to get the woman's card, didn't remember her name, and when I stopped at the shop for a trim before heading back to the States in June I didn't see her around. Rather than try a different person and risk another disaster, I went home and trimmed it myself, which turned out okay. And remained okay until sometime in July when it grew big, bulky, rude, unkempt. I like change. I like contrast -- at least once I make the move away from whatever rut I've settled into. I tend to get into a comfortable place, stay there for a while, then as the time approaches to make a change of any real size -- haircut, beginning a new writing project, heading across the Atlantic for several months -- I tend to drag my feet until they can no longer be dragged. And once I've lurched my way through whatever the shift we're talking about, I discover all over again how great it is to have a change of scenery/routine. So my hair. It grows at an amazing rate, and the weeks and months post-cut see it going all sorts of phases, loads of 'em phases I like. The longer it gets, however, the more unfavorable the ratio between nuisance and great visuals becomes until we arrive at the point where another cut is unavoidable. At which time I usually get a drastic shearing and rediscover how much fun the so-short-it's-spiky look is and how little care it needs when it's that length. It had gone well beyond the point of manageability by the time I made the trip to Acme Hair this last week. Tamsen -- proprietor, source of haircuts and nonstop entertainment -- gave me a fast, short shearing that I went home and improved upon, leaving me with an extremely, extremely short do. So short that a couple of nights later, mid-early-hour shuffle to the bathroom, I turned on the light, got a fast glimpse of a stranger in the mirror and jumped in half-asleep surprise. Literally jumped, as if I'd just spotted an ax-murderer. I've adjusted. I jump no more. My hair is totally bitchen. Life goes on. rws 2:49 PM [+]
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