The Corduroy Carrot

On my 23rd birthday I stopped smoking cigarettes. Picking my birthday made for an easy target and has since made remembering the occasion a lot easier. At that point in my life I needed to quit. If you’ve ever tried to quit, you’ll know what I mean when I say that there has to be a need. This year I needed to cut off my long hair. I’ve been planning to do it for about 6 months now and, again, picking my birthday to do it made the most sense. Since I had mentioned my plan to a few people I was hit with the suggestion of donating my ponytail. It seems there are organizations which turn unwanted long locks into wigs for cancer patients. A very noble and gratifying endeavor. Except when I did the research on how to accomplish the donation it turns out that the demand for gray hair is about zero. And that’s about all the further into that topic I want to go in the interest of my, well, probably, ego. I’ve drawn a comparison between having a ponytail at 58 and the people who are depicted on the TV show “Hoarders”. The experts who council these hoarders say that people retain certain items in order to connect with their past. In itself, that’s not an unhealthy thing. But your home (or in my case, my head) is not the only way of maintaining a link with pleasant memories. I know it’s been over 10 years since I last cut my hair (yes, I cut my own). The pony tail holder I put in every morning has been slowly trimming all my hair to one very awkward length. When the wind blows, most of the hair on top of my head flies into my face. So, I cut it off today and it went in the trash and maybe, if I’m not too old, it’ll start to grow again. I played my new Sonic Youth album really loud while I cut it and shaved and it went pretty well. I figured I’d have to have a couple shots of Tequila but it didn’t come to that – at least not yet.