I got married in May of last year to my partner of seven years. That was great. It continues to be so. It was a decision to recognize certain things about our relationship (the biggest being that it wasn’t optional or casual anymore, something either of us could walk away from without massive consequences) and to express (commit to) that fact in a positive sense. That, in turn, changed some things in way that are hard to articulate. The wedding itself was hella fun. Lots of great people, nice clothes, good food, great music, drinking. Many people who were there have also gone out of their way to tell us how nice it was, how personal and fun. In all the photos we are beaming, me more drunkenly so as the evening wears on, as visual evidence of the good time had.
Also beaming? The back of my fucking head. Shining, that is, in the photos. Cuz my hair is thinning like mad. Fuck fuck fucking fucking fuck fuck fuck. I really don’t want to care, but I do. Somewhere in the many years I shaved my head my hair got thinner. Then I think the definitive thinning happened from the time I worked at the union through the long and torturous un(der)employed period leading up through last spring. The stress, at least I think so. It feels better if I can hate someone for it, add this as one more, well, hair’s breadth of guilt that the bosses have to pay for.
I don’t know of too many pictures of me from the time I grew my hair back out a bit, to be respectible looking for making housecalls and other jobstuff, then leaving it that way for the wedding. But in the wedding photos… damn. I look like (because I am) a dude who is losing his hair.
So I’m shaving my head again (and if I come into some unexpected cash I may splurge for a new set of boots and braces, and maybe the bomber jacket I always wanted and some more Fred Perry gear and some of the requisite records … but what kind? Oi? Ska? Newer punky bands? Some mix thereof?) This time I’m using a razor instead of clippers. I have to admit it’s partly on a bit of a hope that the idea that shaving makes your hair grow thicker is actually true and not an urban myth (that seems to be the case for my facial hair, and many other folks have said this too, re: facial and leg hair), I hope so. I dunno, though. If it’s not true, well, then… if I shall be without hair, it will be by choice for fuck’s sake. But also for fuck’s sake, I’m not even 30. Doesn’t seem fair. I’m a decent person. Why can’t some maniac or union busting lawyer lose his hair instead? It’s particularly galling as hair seems to grow happily and rapidly all over the rest of my body without any encouragement at all. Like there’s some sort of hair diaspora going on here. Ugh. Stupid body. Traitor.
At least I landed the smart lovely partner when I was younger, prettier, and more charming. And perhaps one upside is that as this hair loss thing continues I can really let my inner grumpy old man out. I’ve been practicing shouting “hey you kids, get off my lawn!” and muttering “in my day…” to the mirror and scowling (but not too hard, don’t want wrinkles in the increasingly less supple skin of the face…). Quite satisfying. And that seems a much more fun persona to cultivate than the Foucault turtleneck smart guy thing. But as cool as I think it will be to be the grumpy old man, I’d still totally trade the ability to enact that persona for hair that could support a Morrissey cut. *sigh* It is not to be.
Nate, I can sympathise, because although I am insistent that I am not losing my hair, I live in continual fear that I am starting to.
Shaving your head is the way to go -gracefully. I can’t remember if he’d succumbed yet when you last saw him, but Dr. Tim now has started shaving his dome instead of combing the hair forward.
You make the valid point that you don’t really need hair now that you have got married, and therefore neither need, nor are allowed, to attract other women (obviously, sucks for Angelica, but she now appreciates you for less tangible qualities which don’t thin and disappear with the passing years).
Mark
Comment by mark — January 26, 2006 @ 11:35 pm
Hi Mark,
Yeah dude, getting old sucks. Qualities that thin, and others that get flabby and fat. Ugh. Angelica is very kind and tells me that I look better than ever. Clearly a lie motivated by love, which I appreciate all to pieces. She, on the other hand, really genuinely does look better than ever. I think partly due to the time she spent making exactly what her bills were at part time jobs rather than full time, and probably also just better genes. Ah well. If nothing else, I continue to become a better cook. That gets more mileage on the homefront than my abilities to speak Spanish or interpret Negri, which indicates that perhaps I should re-evaluate where I apportion my time and energies.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — January 27, 2006 @ 3:35 am
I think I managed to avoid my father’s Kojak gene. Instead, I seem to have got my grandmothers’ Madam Mean gray streak. It’s kinda cool. I’m trying to cultivate more of a slavic accent to go with it.
I don’t want to sound like an advertisement, but they really have antihairloss medicines now that work. I have a friend who was losing hair pretty fast until he started fertilizing his scalp with whatever the hell that stuff is. I think in Australia you might even be able to get it prescribed. Another invincible argument for social democracy!
Comment by TCO — January 28, 2006 @ 4:18 pm
Mine is in retreat from the front, but it seems to have camped out in the same spot for several years. Luckily I was blessed really thick hair, and my maternal grandfather (who I think you’re supposed to look to for these things) died at 81 with a full mane. Like TCO, I’m getting some grey streaks, in my beard and on my temples. I like it.
I think it’s funny that you are cultivating your grumpy-old-man-ness. You remind me of a friend of mine a few years ago who was not yet 30 but was really looking forward to being an old codger. The irony was that, like you (though I only know you virtually), he was one of the least old-fogey people– ie, nonjaded and open to new things–I’ve ever known.
Comment by Eric — January 28, 2006 @ 4:58 pm
hi Thiago, Eric,
I’m not cool with the aging thing in some ways, but in others it’s really nice not to feel like a kid. (Like when I go to punk shows, I see tons of teenagers who are really cool in a lot of way but also seem to be still figuring out a lot of things in ways that I remember very clearly.) I feel much more in control and settled on a lot of stuff. And there are some cool looking older people (Utah Phillips, for one, though I don’t think I could pull of the hat), though frankly none that I can think of that I find particularly attractive. Ah well. Like I said, luckily I’m already married.
Thiago, I’m avoiding the medical route with shaving (I like what my head looks like shaved anyway). Plus I was always pretty unkempt with hair. It’s not the ‘no hair’ thing, it’s the ‘balding’ thing, if that makes any sense. Eric, thanks, you’re kind. Friends a few years ago used to call me “Old Man Holdren” as a joke. My wife has commented that she gets on really well with the quite old (like the doormen when she worked at the Royal Mail in Edinburgh), because they tend to also dislike the world as it is. For very different reasons a lot of the time, but they can share their dissatisfaction and bracket the reasons for dissatisfaction, and have reasonably friendly mutual gripe sessions. As for gray, I found a few in my chest hair (absolutely white, really starkly so) a few years ago when I was losing my job for union activity, I think that was stress. I found my first in my head the other day, think after I posted this. I pulled it out.
take it easy,
Nate
Comment by Nate — January 28, 2006 @ 9:59 pm
wait till you’re in your late forties
. My maternal grandfather was as bald as the proverbial bowling ball, although family legend has it that this came from painting cars in an auto plant. Anyway, the ‘Ads by Google’ in the sidebar are as instructive as ever …
Comment by Steve — January 29, 2006 @ 10:32 am
yuck - my 3 key knowing wink was turned into an emoticon!
Comment by Steve — January 29, 2006 @ 10:33 am
hi Steve,
That’s what I hear. I’ve got nothing but bald on all sides of my family. Bastard ancestors. None of them were rich either. The nerve! To bequeath me neither genetic nor material wealth…
Those google ads are a trip. I’ve got a gmail account, and was arguing with a friend about, basically, questions of working within the business unions vs building rank and file bodies regardless of the presence of a business union. The ad at the top of the page was for an anti-union consulting firm. Really ridiculous stuff, in that instance we were clearly a case of a niche market that google’s not tapped into yet. Not so here, though. I’d actually be more taken with an ad for pictures of good looking bald men, to try and recode my encroaching condition. (Among other things that’d be cheaper.)
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — January 29, 2006 @ 6:03 pm
Hello,
I can relate to your problem of thinning hair. I’m 33 and bald on top. I have found that you really don’t lose hair, it just goes elsewhere. Like your back, toes, ears, and inside your nose. Although having 3 kids (ages 12,10,7) doesn’t help, it does make life more interesting. I thought about having hair grafted from my lower back, since there is none on top, but then I thought, when my wife called me “butthead”, it would be true. Shot that idea down. Father time catches up with us all. Sit back and relax, enjoy your children,if you are blessed with any, because through them, you can trully live. Nothing greater than being a bald DAD. Best of all, I save money on shampoo, don’t have to fix my hair, don’t have to worry if the weather will mess up my hair. BUT trully best of all, I like it when my wife rubs my bald head. In short, as time goes on, and you lose more hair and find yourself bald, remember, not every head can be perfect, they are just covered with hair. Take care.
Comment by Scott — February 6, 2006 @ 4:19 pm