Archive – March 4, 2008

Ironic or just unfair?

I have a love/hate relationship with my hair. All of it. I have been cursed with hair so thick that I was never able to style it in any fashionable way. My hairstyle has always been somewhere between buzzed and Poncherello, with the slightest threat of Jewfro. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise as my middle school and high school photos were never prone to spiked parts or Caesar cuts, just frequent comparisons to Kevin Arnold (sans Winni).

No matter how uncool I felt by never having a fad-cut, I was always told by my parents and barbers, “You may hate it now, but you’ll love it when you’re older and all of your friends start losing their hair…”  So I learned to love it. Or at least appreciate it.

Well, guess what? I hate my hair again, but for different reasons now. It’s running out on me like Waylon’s dad. I guess I missed my “just thick enough to love it, just thin enough to style it” window. I can feel my scalp right where my newly found part has been sitting, quietly, not warning me for shit.

And my hair hassle doesn’t end there. I wanted a goatee all through high school, and I finally saved up enough for one in college. I’ve worn it for almost ten years now, having shaved it off only three times or so in the last decade. I thought that a goatee would bring me much needed machismo, and I was proven right when the last time I shaved it off I was mistaken for a lesbian.

Now, maybe it’s because I’m such a huge “LOST” fan, but I thought a few days’ growth would look pretty cool. A few weeks ago, struck with the flu, I had about nine days’ worth of stubble and couldn’t believe what I saw: a nice beard growing in on the right side, and some Keanu-shit loitering on the left. It looked like I lost half a beard in a bar bet, and the winner took his sweet, careless time to collect. Mind you, I come from desert people on both sides of the family. Traditionally, Jews and Persians have been very proud, very bearded peoples.  A full beard’s growth for me should be as natural as morning breath and eye crust. I should get 5 o’clock shadow by 9 AM. But I don’t. The two places were I would like there to be hair, my scalp and face, have quit the hair business. But no worries, because my shoulders, back, throat and ass have volunteered to pick up the slack. I don’t mind having a hairy chest. I’ll be Magnum G.D. P.I.; I just don’t want to be Magilla Gorilla too.

I took the first steps in getting rid of the extra hair last year after some stares at the community pool. I heard all about Laser Hair Removal on the radio and at my doctor’s office, and decided that it was necessary for my full transformation. I’ve lost nearly 60 pounds since last year. My goal is to lose another twenty, get tan and get rid of this extra hair. For once in my adult life, I want to be presentable. Scratch that. I want to be more than presentable. I want to be desired, lusted after. I want women, besides my wife, to be disappointed that I’m a married man.

I met with the aesthetician (fancy word for Laser-girl), paid my fee and got facedown on the table. Do you know what they use for Laser Hair Removal? F-ing lasers. Could you guess that?   Because I sure as hell did not. And lasers hurt. It’s not a laser-pointer tickling your back for 40 minutes; it’s a Pink Floyd Laser Light Show zapping the shit out of you for an hour, once every six weeks. After that first visit, I was in pain and in shock…shocked that there was that much pain.

The price we pay for being pretty, huh?

So let’s recap: I’m paying a ton of money to remove hair from one part of my body, and it looks like I’ll be paying much more to add hair to my head. The bitch of it is that God won’t let me feel 100% attractive, ever. I spent the majority of my twenties being fat, unhappy and feeling repellant. Now that 30 is closing in and I’m taking care of the weight once and for all, the hair wants to ditch me. I’ll be ripped and bald, and we’ve already got plenty of those guys in Dallas.  But just you wait. In a year’s time, I’ll be totally cut and tan with a pharmaceutically-enhanced full head of hair.

For a day. And then I’ll get hit by a bus.