I needed a haircut. I’m usually rushing around so much that needing a haircut is my usual state.  Also, being a kid in the seventies, my internal tolerance for shaggy hair is pretty high.  My spouse, who is a few years younger, does not share that same tolerance.

“It looks like it’s getting to be that time, again,” she said.

Now, if I had really wanted to grow out my hair, I know that she would never stand in my way, but that was not the case.  I mean, I had grown my hair out in the past, but it doesn’t ever grow down.  It’s so thick it just grows horizontally outward until I become a big blob of hair, with a nose sticking out of it, just walking around.  Not a good look.  Trust me on that one.

So, I happened to be on vacation in Stockton (Yeah.  That’s another story) and decided to go to one of the barber shops there.  Everyone was very nice, but I noticed that all of them, the barbers, and the customers, all had the same haircut.  The back was a fade and the top, just a mop.  I’d seen that haircut before in the Bay area about two years ago.  It was very popular for a little while, and then went away.  Apparently, it was still going strong in Stockton.

“I’d like a scissor cut, please.”

The barber looked at his electric razor.  “You don’t want me to use this?”

“Um.  Maybe on the neck, but, no, not really.”

“No?”  Tears welled.

“A scissor cut,” I repeated.

The barber picked up the pair of scissors as if it would bite him.  He looked at the older, more seasoned barber next to him.

The other barber smiled and said, “You’ll be fine.”

I came home and walked into the kitchen.  My spouse stared at me without blinking.

“It’ll grow out,” I said.

She burst into laughter.

For the rest of the week, at random times, I’d catch her staring at the top of my head.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She’d say, grinning from ear to ear.

I came back to work.

“Nice haircut, Art,” someone said.

“Really?”

“Um.  Yeah. Nice.”

“It’ll grow out,” I said.

“Sure,” they said, but refused to make eye contact.

At every meeting I went to, which was quite a few, people looked me in the eye whenever I spoke, but, inevitably, their eyes would float up to the top of my head.

It’ll grow out, I thought to myself.

Now, at last, three weeks later, it really has grown out.  It’s even, shorter in the back and sides, and longer in the front.  It actually looks pretty good.  I mean, for me.

But there’s only one tiny problem.

“It looks like it’s getting to be that time, again,” she said.

At long last, I’m returning to my blog.  I’ve been writing and living and avoiding the blog for some time now, and, hopefully, I will have stored up enough interesting stuff to write about.

There are a few things I’d like to get out of the way:

1. I hate to blog. Just saying. I’m a pretty private person, so writing the truth about my life is uncomfortable.  It also feels narcissistic, and, frankly, kind of whiney.  Why do it, you ask?  If there’s one thing I’ve figured out about my life it’s that when I focus on what makes me uncomfortable, and directly confront it, Giants are felled, Demons are defeated, and it all seems so easy that I wonder why I hadn’t done that terrifying thing before.

2. I won’t write about work. I mean I probably will, but in shifting, surreptitious ways.  People have confidence in my professional ability to keep my mouth shut.  Good thing I’m typing.

3. My wife. I love her. She is super private and would kill me if I revealed anything about her on this blog.  If you see her, please don’t tell her.

See you soon (I hope).