The last pugilist left in Stockholm

"Dave what did you do to your hair?"

"Where is David and what have you done to him?"

"NO,"

"Wow!"

"Why?"

"It'll grow, David."

"Boy what the Hell happened to you?"

"That's what happens when you go to bed with Delilah."

"You finally look like a boy!"

"I hope you donated it to locks of love."

"Well, I think it looks sexy." (lone compliment outside my mom. thank you samantha. remind me to immortalize you in a book someday.)

Yes, beloved Captain Pony Tail holder is no more. For the first time in over half a decade, my beloved autumnal tresses no longer hug the back of my neck. I'm discovering how to re-apply globs of translucent gel again. No longer will I pad down the sides of my pockets and bitch about not having a pony tail holder on me. No longer will I be considered the cool hippie in the room. No longer will people honk at me offer peace signs from their side windows as I walk down the road. No longer will I saunter off into nocturnal oblivion with the cool wisps of damp hair slivering down my back as I think about the girl of my dreams.

No longer will I have beautiful, middle-aged females accost me in supermarkets check out lanes and tell me that they are envious, holding a brown stream of my hair, like a ribbon, a suspension bridge to my brain, in their paws.

It'll grow, David. It'll grow back.

Been the week from hell. Recovering from a breakdown. My student loans will finally come through in a couple of weeks, but I had to borrow cash from my mom. Long story. I was scared shitless about asking my mom for cash. Shitless. Mom's never been fond of my long hair, so rather than having to go through an additional lecture to accompany my already precipitous emotions, I pulled a Jo a la LITTLE WOMEN brandished the garden sears and took an earnest chomp from my ponytail this morning, watching with awed lips as the thick brown suitcase handle that once served as my identity, a social icebreaker (and an occasional chick-magnet) fell listlessly into the sink.

It'll grow back David. It'll grow.

This is how the concourse works. And just when I'm about ready to offer my fellow cyberbloggers a little self-indulgent sulk, the phone reverberates and it's Uncle Mike.

"I got the loan."

"Great."

"Haven't you looked on the dining room table."

"Yeah."

"Did you see anything."

"Well there was a dead squirrel but I threw it away."

"....."


"......"

"Funny Mike."

"Well now that your hair is short I don't think you'll be able to write."

"Funny Mike."

" Really, I don't think you'll be able to write with short hair. Your literary legacy is over. Your magnum opus might as well be your obituary."

"pmfdffffff."

*

Such is life. There was a pastor I really liked once who got his PhD (phD stands for Please Hand me more Debt) in Psychology. He used an analogy in his sermon I really liked once. He talked about that when he worked in this mental hospital in New York there was one ward that no one wanted to monitor. It was where the 'Mutants" were kept. It was human beings who were born with half-fledged skulls. Some would have tiny fins for limbs, but most had notable facial impediments.

The pastor (incidentally the same pastor who gave my father's eulogy) said that there was nothing more sad than looking at a viable creature that has for some reason stopped growing.

So that's my advice to you, over looking the carcass of captain Pony Tail holder (sniffffffff)....Times are globally pretty shitty. Human beings have been deduced to numerical statitics or commercialized as marketable commodities (yes, even on the realm of academia where this author likes to hide). It's so fucking hard sometimes to make something of yourselves esp. when you want to be creative and society sees you as a decimal point on your pay stub. Don't give up. Do whatever it takes, but NEVER stop growing.

Promise me that and I'll be your friend for life. No matter the length of my hair.