Showers are different now, too. I put some music on the little stereo in the bathroom. I turn the shower on, and turn the heat up to it's usual near-scalding starting point. I get in. I feel a moment of shock as the water hits my scalp. I briefly contemplate how to wash my scalp, settle on using shampoo anyway because, well, I don't know. I do the usual body washing. Then I stand there for a minute and get bored. It just feels... done. It used to take me a while to wash the thick head of hair I had, to say nothing of the time I'd spend washing my beard. Now that's gone and it feels like the relaxing little ritual nature of the shower has gone with it.
See, I've always spent a lot of time in the shower. It's kind of like a decompression chamber for me. I could turn on some music, crank the hot water way up and just turn my brain off, with my thoughts drifting off lazily into what's probably the closest I've ever been or will ever come to having a moment of mental stillness. An occasional thought will form here or there, but even then it's usually noted only briefly before being filed away for actual use later. I'll often emerge looking like some kind of overgrown seared jumbo prawn, steaming and pink, except quite alive, and quite refreshed.
In a way, it was one such shower that started this whole project. While I'd had the idea to shave my head in early December, I'd let that thought kind of wither on the vine. It was an exciting thought when I'd had it, but as time wore on, it just seemed somehow less vital. Something clicked while I was in my little steam chamber though, and the thought took hold and wouldn't leave. It seemed bizarre and alien, and worse yet, mad: What if I didn't shave just my head? What if I shaved the beard, too? It was a scary thought, but also an exciting one. And it made sense.
I don't usually do daring, surprising things. I don't usually do anything that takes me out of my comfort zone. This is something that's pretty well known about me, so other people don't really expect much from me in that regard either, I don't think. While I'm not one to do something just to fish for reactions, I had to admit that the shock I knew this would bring would be pretty entertaining.
I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it. Imagining myself without the beard was next to impossible. The beard did something to mitigate a jawline I had never been personally very happy with and aside from that, I'd always had an untested certainty that I'd look like an idiot with a shaved head. Then I realized that I thought I'd look like an idiot with muttonchops, and that didn't stop me. I thought I'd look like an idiot with beard, and that didn't stop me.
Even the timing made sense, really. There's always all this talk about using the new year for a time of regrowth and renewal, or self-improvement or something like that, and really, while I've always wanted to be optimistic, it's always been hard for me to buy into it. If I shaved on December 31st and made an honest effort to chronicle what comes after starting the next day, that would force me to buy into it, but with a wink and a nod. I could treat the whole idea with a sense of absurd sincerity at that point, and best of all, it provided me a sort of no-fail option. I mean, after all, it's all going to grow back whether I do anything or not. For once, it would take me more effort to screw something up than actually get it done. That had a certain appeal.
So when I emerged from the shower, it was with a rather uncharacteristic nervous and manic glee. I'm not sure what was going through Rhiannon's mind when I approached her on the couch and said "Alright, I'm going to tell you I want to do something. You're going to think I'm crazy, and you're going to think I'm lying, and you're going to think that there's no way I'm going to follow through with it, but here it is: Tomorrow, I want to go to the barber and I want to get rid of it. All of it. Even the beard." To her credit, she certainly seemed shocked, but she didn't tell me I was a crazy liar with no follow through. She grinned (perhaps with a touch of doubt, it's hard for me to say) and said... something supportive. Sorry. I was pretty wrapped up in myself at the moment.
I wasn't sure what to expect the next day. I got up a little later than I had hoped, but after a surprisingly small amount of the usual brainless dithering that comes after waking, I was dressed and we were ready to go. My initial plan was to go to the same barber shop I'd been visiting since moving here in the summer of 2007, but as I half-expected, they were closed. We briefly considered my options. We noticed that a lot of the chains would be open and settled on Great Clips.
Now, I have a confession here: a big part of the reason we chose Great Clips was because it opened up the way to making some crack like "And so we went to where all great hair goes to die," but now I feel that's a pretty disingenuous thing to say. The lady that shaved me did a fine job, which I suppose isn't all that surprising, since it's largely a matter of putting clippers to scalp, but it's still worth noting and not worth insulting. What's really important is that the lady was absolutely thrilled to shave me. We engaged in witty banter that, to my memory, Deadpool and Spider-Man, at their best, would both be proud of. Having someone do the deed who was not only positive about it, but was actively having fun with the whole event really did a lot to put me at ease and keep the actual loss from being anything traumatic. I think it did a lot to kick the whole project off on the right foot. Had it been someone who just, y'know, shaved me and asked all the usual boring stuff, I think I would have tried to back out after we shaved my scalp. I don't think I could have gone all the way. Plus, I think she only charged me half price. I dunno. I tipped well either way.
And, well, that's how this all started.
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