No assassination attempts here, I'll take a desk job instead?

My cut in Myanmar was the only one
I took pictures in.

I'm rumbling along, too vaguely happy and scatterbrained to have much on my mind to share, unless I go a little further up and get all literal on you.

It's only been two months since the stern woman in Thailand mowed my head-lawn, but I was eager to try a haircut beyond the usual: make buzzing sounds while pointing at the sides and back, then point at the top and hold fingers an inch apart.

I took a seat in a real-deal modern hairdresser's chair, hardwood floors under orange and green-accented walls, and Bobbi asked what I wanted. Oh. Um. If not The Usual Haircut, then what? “You don't even know, you gonna leave it up to me,” he said.

Bobbi reminded me of another cool cat who had cut my hair so that was fine by me. 

The other two chairs held women whose conversations revealed long-term relationships with their hairdressers. They talked about how the vacation to Mexico went, husbands, and a misadventure with some paint. I tried to chat with Bobbi, and told him about the chiropractic work that comes with a cut in Nepal, but soon enough the pseudo-massage of getting my hair cut lulled me into silence.

Now that was a chair.

The hypercolor zebra-print pants of one of the other stylists sent me on a psychedelic trip that ended when another guy came in and asked when Bobbi would be ready for his next customer. “In about 45 seconds, soon as I get Mr. Tim ready for his engagement.”

But there was one other thing. “I have a pet peeve against ear hair,” Bobbi confided, as he jammed the buzzer into my flappers, “It's just a part of gettin' older, we start gettin' hair places we never expected to. I understand.” I admitted that I appreciated the help, it's getting jungly in there in my old age.

Then we were done and he held up the mirror so I could see. To be honest I was looking for something a little more...exciting; I kind of feel like I'm applying for an office job; but I guess that's today's lesson, if you're going to have preferences, you have to figure out what they are, even if you are scatterbrained and happy.

Welcome to the Man Shack.

With the Ecuadoran sun overhead I wear my hat every day, and the Hat Hair was just getting too painful (for K) to look at, so it was time to get another haircut.

Ecuador was Haircut Country #10, which is pretty cool. I do so like them round numbers. The decathlon of man-tenance was completed in a 6 foot cube made of weathered boards whose blue paint was submitting to the elements at a graceful yet relentless pace. It looked like a storage shed you'd find in a train yard. Or the little box my old public high school used to store the hurdles in (after they stopped letting kids use them for fear they'd get hurt) that we walked past for three years without noticing until the door fell off during my senior year.

There she is, all closed up for the day.

It sat in dignified solitude on a dusty lot opposite the market. I found it yesterday, but couldn't get a haircut because the entire town's power was out. Again. The older gentleman barber looked up at me through his bifocals and shrugged. "Come back tomorrow."

So this morning, while the power was still on, I walked over, waiting outside while he finished shaving the jowly neck of a septagenarian who looked a bit like a Latin Ernest Hemingway. The gentleman barber himself had the calm eyes of a man who knows his trade and has known it for decades, watching the world outside his wooden cube change a little each year. When I asked his name he presented himself with dignity and formality, extending his hand with a smile at making my aquaintance. His name was Francisco de la Piedra.

I took a seat in the creaking wooden chair with black leather cushions just lightly cracking in the heat, ready to give the customary terse description, "short on the sides and back and a little longer on top." I always suspect I could just say "generic male haircut" and get the same, and today I was right. Don Francisco didn't ask, just picked up the buzzer and ran it into the hair on the back of my head.

Where it jammed.

Not sure if it's my hair itself, or the abuse of sun and salt it's been receiving, but my hair was too thick for his veteran tools. He adapted, coming at my apparently overwhelming head of hair in little swipes, a fighter plane reluctant to fully engage the enemy, sweeping off small pieces each time, though the motor would labor and quaver even still.

I sat watching the market across the street, where a stout fellow in a dirty apron carried a massive fish over and dumped it on his table with a thump and a grin. (The fish did the thumping, he did the grinning.)

Soon I felt the wind on my neck in that beautiful haircut freshness, and it was time for the scissors. The buzzer had barely handled my hair, and the scissors graduated in the same class, but Don Francisco managed. Of course, this being a Man Shed, he didn't dilly-dally around with any pampering frills like water, and the antique shears did a fair amount of pulling in addition to cutting, but the hair kept falling to the floor as he worked his way up to the top of my head.

I have long since come to terms with my British Hobbit heritage, complete with hairy feet and "modest" height, but in parts of Latin America my 5'8" gets me straight onto the basketball team. This was one of those times. The wooden chair scoffed at new-fangled upstarts that rise and lower, but I got the feeling Don Francisco was kind of approximating where the top of my head was as he reached his arms up over my seated form, scissors crunching.

In the market across the way an old woman sold a young boy a massive bunch of bananas, still on the stalk, which he hefted onto his narrow shoulder and walked away, though I don't know how he could see, much less walk under the burden.

Then it was time to tidy up the edges. I negotiated the line between relaxation and nervousness as he came at me with the straight razor held in hands that themselves seemed to be negotiating the line between assurance and trembling. I remembered Don Francisco shaving the jowls ahead of me and relaxed. Not much I could do about it anyway.

But he was flawless, and soon I was walking through the market with that feeling of invincible beauty that comes with a fresh haircut. I am sure all the market vendors watched me pass, the women with lust and the men with envy. I could hear my own theme music matching my steps as I strutted through the chaos. Women shoppers stood with plastic bags hanging forgotten from their wrists as they gazed at my passing beauty, and the young men wanted to do things to make me like them, wondering where I got that killer 'do.

Hat Hair decimated, cooler noggin temperatures, and an afternoon swagger. Not bad for $2.

No me gusta.

Fastforward to Cartagena for a minute.

Too hot, even for the fruit vendors.

The city wants to make sure I know the meaning of the word “enervating.” Apparently it often rains during this month, but none this year, so the city swelters, humidity like a punishment, sweating in the shade and stunned in direct sunlight.

I got a haircut in Leon less than two months ago, but they say your hair grows faster in hot places, and already it feels like a warm washcloth riding around on my head. Plus, K flies down here in a week, and I’d like to look sharp for her first sight of me in months, so off to the barber shop.

This one melted entirely.

Colombia is the ninth country I’ve gotten a haircut in, and all of the other ones went well (Nepali barberji’s assassination attempts notwithstanding) so I wasn’t nervous as I took a seat in the hair-covered chair and told the guy my usual bit about short on the sides and back, and longer on top, with gestures. Since I speak Spanish, I assumed if it went well in Poland, it would work out in Colombia.

The guy grabbed the buzzer and quickly took off most of the hair on the sides and back of my head, standing a pace back and reaching the buzzer towards me like he was offering meat to an alligator. He was fast. Really fast.

Okay, I thought. Feels cooler already.

Then faster than you can say “dagnabbit“ he put the guard one size longer on the buzzer and chopped off the rest. He never even touched the scissors.

I now have basically a buzz cut. Military style. Bullethead.

It wasn’t a haircut, it was a sheep sheering. And it looks baaaaaaad.

I haven’t looked like this since college, and there was a reason I stopped.

I sat in front of the mirror, covered in my own dearly departed hair, slightly wide-eyed, telling myself “well, ain’t shit you can do about it now” as he picked up the straight razor, clearly NOT changing the blade from the 637 guys before me, and scraped bare my sideburns and neck.

Now I hope all I got from him was a bad haircut. How do you say “hepatitis” in Spanish?
(It’s “hepatitis” just with Spanish “titis”.)

The whole incident can’t have taken longer than 4 minutes, and then I was slinking back to my hostel, where thankfully I have a private room. Suddenly all I can think about is our old family dog, Tila, a big old sweetheart with long red-brown hair, including big haunches of it behind her back legs.

We used to take her to the groomer now and then, and she would come home stinking of perfume and with those haunches shaved off, and would immediately slink away to hide in the corner, an expression of embarrassment and reproach in her gentle brown eyes.

So I guess it could be worse…at least he didn’t spray me with perfume.

I’m sorry for my appearance K. I’ll be the army recruit waiting outside your gate in Bogota next week.

International Haircuts, Part 8.

Hair cut country number…eight, I think. Nicaragua.

I had Nepal’s barberji on the mind as I walked into PIAF Internacional Peluqueria half an hour ago. In the door, reading a newspaper in a florescent green plastic stacking chair was a large fellow whose sleepy eyes didn’t resemble barberji’s burning orbs in any way. I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or pleased by my appearance, a confusion that lasted the duration of my visit.

My usual vague description of “shorter on the sides and back, the buzzer is fine, and longer on top” was met with the customary familiar grunt. I should just say “the generic male, please” but I’m not sure how to say “generic” in Spanish.

To start, he combed my hair into something like a cross between a mohawk and an old school DA, then set about fine tuning the edges I assumed he was about to buzz away. He seemed to enjoy combing my hair, and continued doing so periodically throughout the procedure, which grew odder as the hair got shorter and the comb made less and less difference.

His fingernails were perfectly manicured, and they flew around above my head with little sweeps and flourishes like a somewhat sedated flamenco dancer.

Credence Clearwater Revival sang Born on the Bayou from the little radio on the desk, followed by a Spanish group heavily inspired by Pink Floyd.

I’ve never seen a barber so concerned with tidiness, frequently wiping his scissors and clippers off on my shoulders and jiggling the plastic cape thing, which was covered in Japanese script and odd line-sketches of severe women with bad haircuts.

We chatted about Leon, Nicaragua in general, and how it’s better to travel alone than with a guide. He informed me that the climate here has gotten hotter due to all the cotton they’ve grown in this part of the country.

And that was about it. I never know what to say in response when someone says “muy amable” (basically “you are very friendly”). You too? Iqualmente? Nice manicure? I settled for “thank you” and left, enjoying the breeze.

Nepali Shave

I'll try to stay away from the off-putting mega-blogs, which should be easy since the "cyber" kid is blasting techno remixes of Eminem.  (Why would you take a perfectly good song like that "Watch Me Burn" one and speed it up and umph-chss-umph-chss it to death?)

Last weekend we went to Chitwan National Park, where you ride elephants and look for rhinos and tigers, but that's a mega-blog waiting to happen, so I'll come back to that later.

I got back from Chitwan with a beard that was a jungle in itself and would have needed a three day/two night tour package commitment to hack off with my tired little razor, so, remembering Barberji's gestured question if I wanted a shave too, I went back to my new favorite barbershop as the monsoon began to rain on a typical Tuesday morning street of smoking bus exhaust pipes, scraps of pavement, and a few scrawny and patient cows ignoring the stray dogs who only occasionally notice their bovine cohabitants.

My buddy, Burning Eyed Barberji, was again not in evidence as I walked up, but his son/apprentice, Cautious but Stern Eyed and Incredibly Tan Barberito nodded at my shaving gesture and returned it with an open handed sweep to the chair.  He draped the same faded pink towel over my front, which still bore the leftover hairs of an unknown quantity of previous customers on it, but I hypothesize it's not too many since, judging by the degree of mildew smell (only moderate/non-overwhelming), the towel is washed regularly.

He started energetically rubbing some sort of preshave liquid on my chin, paying a lot of attention to my neck and not much attention when he swept further up, where he tended to poke me in the eye.  After the third near loss of my depth perception, I shot him a look in the mirror to find he was watching the TV in the corner.  I think the preshave liquid was water.

Barberji came in, and Barberito grabbed a big tube of caulk and squeezed out an appropriate amount for toothbrushing onto my cheek and whipped it into shaving cream with the little brush.  It was the first time I've felt shaving cream since 2008.  Barberji sat down and started watching TV.  When Barberito lathered my other cheek I got a glance at the screen and was deeply shocked to see a Bollywood-looking conversation going on...in a strip club!

The culture here is not as severe as the Middle East, but women's clothing is utterly unrevealing of any sense whatsoever that there's a body under there, and holding hands across gender lines is absolutely scandalous.  Yet here were some lass's yams twitching up on the screen!  I think a swatch of her bum was originally visible, but they had blurred it out.

(We watched a Nepali show the other week that apparently involves mild political satire at times, which you can detect when the sound cuts out entirely.  Nepali censors don't bleep, they mute.)

Luckily the scene was over by the time Barberito got out the straight razor and started methodically removing my facial chaos with short precise strokes that reassured me that he is in fact his father's son, and practiced wipes of the resulting funky lather onto his palm, which quickly looked like he was holding a rat meringue pie.

He did the razor thing twice, doing an impressive job over the impractical angles of my chin, and a much-appreciated job on the super-upper-lip hairs that, if left untended, fraternize with and impersonate nose hair to my chagrin.  Then he hosed my face down thoroughly and without warning with the sprayer thing (of the type we use for applying pesticide to a mid-sized garden).

Next he picked up a brick of white stone and came at my face.  I could only hope there were no strip clubs on TV at the time.  It was definitely a rock, but it was the smoothest and slickest rock I've ever had close personal contact with.  As the pores on my face stung into obedience I remembered seeing rocks that serve as styptic pencils in the hippy shops in Santa Cruz.  Homeopathic!  Cool!  The water streaming down my face after the rock tasted like a slightly mineral benign nothing.

It was preferable to the aftershave that came after, with it's alcohol sting.  Or the deep pore cleansing lotion he dabbed onto my face like chicken pox medication that followed that.  He even put a spot on my nose, which felt kinda flirty.  Then he paused to watch some TV.

It was, of course, at this point, with my face covered in white dots, that our school bus came by, slowed to a crawl by the jigsaw puzzle remnants of what may once have been pavement.  Dozens of little eyes looked over at me, though mostly of kids too small to have my classes.  I did make eye contact with Nishan, grade seven, who gave me his familiar shy and contagious smile.

I swear there were at least 4 more courses of antiseptic and pleasant-smelling treatments, which he topped off with a thorough rub down with the mildew-smelling towel, complete with all those previous clients' hairs.

I have been trying futilely to introduce the concept of Critical Thinking into the Nepali classroom.  But more on that some other time.

Because it was time for my beating.

He held his hands in the same loose namaste posture that Barberji had used, slapped me in the head with it, followed by a quick tap to the shoulder, then 6-8 practiced whacks around my noggin, followed by the bonking fists that left me a tad woozy.

I gestured a smiling request to omit the neck snapping attempt, since last time I woke up two days later with my neck muscles locked in a brick wall of agony.  I think it was a good idea, because instead he gave me an abrupt (and oddly stern) manly shoulder rub, gripping the (what muscle is that?  The trapezious?) shoulder muscle and giving it a single concerted squeeze.  I expected to hear him say "harrumph" for some reason.

I'm learning this country, bit by bit. Next time I'll skip the namaste-prayer noggin-bonks too, since I spent the afternoon and evening with a pounding headache, no pun intended.  And I learned that I want a straight razor.

Nepali Haircut

I got my hair cut yesterday.  I think that makes 7 countries where I've gotten one, 8 if you count the emergency beard removal in Guatemala.

There is a barbershop in between the veggie market and one of the convenience-y stores that has stacks of eggs and bags of potato chips hanging on long strings.  It was of course empty when we got there, but the vigilant barber soon showed up with his burning eyes and scruffy white coat.

His haircutting was speedy and precise while feeling chaotic and rushed.  The scissors never stopped snipping, usually in a rhythm of three, the first in the hair, the last in the air, and the second wherever it needed to be.

Then he got out the straight razor and I tried to monitor my attention and reactions for racism.  Did I feel more reassured when he changed the blade than I would have in America?  Did I pay extra attention to the authenticity of opening the packaging?  Would you find that justifiable?  Do I?

He tidied up the edges with expert strokes, which made me understand why barbers were the surgeons in the Middle Ages.  Those guys know how to use a blade.  Then it was aftershave powder with one of those little brushes, followed by a ferocious pinch at the nape of my neck that felt almost punitive...what did I ever do to you, Barberji?

Then he started beating on my head, karate chops before fists that made my vision bounce epically while I tried to hold my neck firm.

Once my vision calmed down he apparently forgave me and we made up with a brusque but enthusiastic massage, sweeping his hands up and over my noggin, down the sides, then around my ears in a precise and practiced pattern that felt like a very confused form of reiki.

He put one hand above and behind my ear on the left side of my head and the other reached around under my chin on the right, and then tried to kill me by breaking my neck.  Like Antonio Banderas in that one bar brawl scene in Desperado.  Luckily my manly sinews were too much for him, and he stopped just past the point where my uppermost vertebrae crunched like a car accident.  He tried again on the other side while I focused on not flexing a muscle, trying hard to avoid thinking about the damage we might inadvertently cause.  The second time, on the other side, he went a small amount further before the skeletal implosions began, though a millimeter feels like serious business at that point.

My neck didn't hurt beforehand, but after I swear afterwards I could turn my head like a damn barn owl.

Leaving the barbershop to pick up some okra for tonight's curry and cookies (digestives of course) for tomorrow morning's tea, I felt that I got more smiles than normal; I think the locals approved of my local barbershop participation.  And of course found my delirious smile highly entertaining.