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Changed my mind. I think Shara's crop adds youthfulness. Or am I deluding myself? |
What force has encouraged me – at 86 - to think that shorter hair (somewhat limp from chemo) is desirable or even necessary? When I was a working editor, bestriding the world and wringing truth out of captains of industry, I forsook the Caveman Look. Now, who cares?
Is it habit or vanity? I can only think of one practical advantage. On rare occasions – when sulphurous tints outweigh the silver – I reluctantly wash my hair. Long hair takes longer to dry. Makes sense.
And… ah yes, one other irritation. When my fringe is long enough to tickle my eyeballs.
Might long hair be considered an opportunity? I have lived my life in what is laughingly called The Developed World; suppose I reverted to Neanderthal practices? Hair down to my navel, perhaps plaited into a sporran. Threatening my enemies not with a flint spear but with shockingly bad hygiene. Infecting them to death.
Just not caring, that would be worth a trial. Watching pedestrians coming towards me on the pavement (US: sidewalk) and seeing them hurriedly cross the highway in case I brushed against them. Definitely a sense a power but I suspect such childishness would eventually pall. I’d have incurred another habit.
A sudden flashback to this morning. Shara herself is growing her hair much longer! I should have asked.
What could be more appropriate: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
* Courtesy, Beyond The Fringe.
I am a big fan of Neanderthals. When I got my 23&Me report back, I was disappointed to find that I have less Neanderthal in me than 76% of other 23&Me testers. I wanted to be so much more. I think about getting my hair cut every now and then. My step-daughter did it for me a year or so ago. I had forgotten how fast it grows. It must be that tiny part of Neanderthal in me.
ReplyDeleteNewRobin13: Aren't we all related to the Neanderthals? And would you really enjoy their full-time existence? Returning to the cave at 4 pm, when it was getting dusk: no telly, no smartphones, just someone telling interminable actualité stories in the dark, most of which you'd heard many times before.By about 6.30 pm you'd be desperate: "Just change the ending of the story for God's sake," you'd bleat.
DeleteInto this new world of neediness would arrive the entrepreneur: someone who could invent stories, a fictionalist. It could be me in another guise; I have a track record; I've written about thirty short stories for Tone Deaf. But, naturally, I'd want paying - the thick end of a mammoth haunch, and not so damn rare. Thus you would be exploited.
Just not caring might be the best reason of all.
ReplyDeleteI had a short bob before Covid... now I have long braids or a mess of long wavy hair. It takes me back to my scissors phobia of childhood, when unbraided hair tickled the backs of my knees. Discovered I don't care! Go for it, RR!
ReplyDeleteColette/Marly: Letting hair just grow has consequences, at least for unpretty men like me. As the hair got longer I'd slip back through the centuries, Darwinian evolution in reverse. Eventually, I suppose, I'd arrive back at the stage known as The Missing Link, the point where mankind decided becoming a more efficient chimp/gorilla/orang-utan was all very well but not if one wanted to read books or, even more so, if one wanted to write them. The Missing Link offered newer options - a more upright stance, a vertical forehead rather than one that angled sharply back like a ski-slope, and an expression that suggested its owner was more suspicious about the world as we know it.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, looking like The Missing Link has its attractions (and I don't have to worry about writing books - I've already written several). For one thing, I'd look terrifying. I'd get on to a bus and the driver wouldn't even ask me to show my free bus-pass; "Take any seat," he'd say nervously. In a pub I'd probably be able to draw my own pint of bitter - for free! And at the bookseller chain Waterstone I'd have unrestricted choice of the chicklit titles.
On the downside, music might be problem. Were I to attend a concert of The Late Quartets my appearance might disturb the lead violin. Elsewhere, women whose presence I would have enjoyed, might decide to stay in and watch telly. Animals on leashes would become hysterical.
I enjoy power as much as anyone and long, dirty - especially dirty - hair would be a definite power base. Decisions, decisions.