How long until that grows out?

I got The Haircut again.

The ancient barber chair in Nyaung Shwe

In Nicaragua, Morocco, and Myanmar I liked it, described it as “Much lighter, now I won’t sweat so much” and “my tiny shampoo bottle will last longer.” Here, it’s more “I am applying for the job of Faceless Peon in the soulless depths of your accounting corporation” and “you can call me Penis Head.”

Maybe my standards are just too high now. After all, in those places, I was just happy I could describe The Haircut without a shared language: point at the sides and back of the head while making buzzing noises, point at the top and hold thumb and forefinger an inch apart, and any peluquero or barberji will know what you mean. Gracias, shokran, and chezu tinbade.

Whereas here, I got demanding. “Can you leave the top long, and just thin out or trim the sides and back so it’s not so shaggy?” We differed in our interpretations of that request, the hair butcher and I. I was thinking “dignified, adult, but still warm for winter.” She was chuckling “White boy gonna look like one big boring peepee.”

The bridge in Frankfurt, where I spent an inordinate
amount of time listening to Elliot Smith

Was it my imagination that people on BART were less friendly after my cranial misdecoration? No one wanting to talk to the guy with the dickhead haircut? Or was it a vibrational consequence of an afternoon reading journals from my first awkward days abroad? Either way, I felt sweaty when I got off the train.

But riding home was restorative, as always. The music in my ears was still perfect, my friend the night heron was perched in hunch-shouldered brooding on his normal set of buoys in Lake Merritt, and the night air felt perfect on my naked neck, dumbass hairchop or not.

And it made me realize one other thing. One other priority. One you can perhaps help me with:

Anybody know a Halloween costume I could pull off, one that includes a hat of some sort?

I don't know who he is, but I like his style. (Thank you, google image search.)