1999 march 31

the hair on his head

gene has the thickest, fastest growing head of hair i have ever run my fingers through.

he also has an aversion to other people touching his head so as a consequence, his hair gets rather long and shaggy between haircuts. it had gotten so wild that this weekend i threatened to cut it myself if he didn't pop into the barber's. unfortunately for the both of us, he took me up on my offer.

saturday we went to target and bought a set of clippers, complete with instructional video and last night i watched it three times before finally sitting the man down in a chair with a towel wrapped around his neck. the bloody things vibrate so much my hand was numb after five minutes but like the intrepid girl i am, i kept at it. starting at the top, i thinned and thinned and trimmed and trimmed until the hair was about an inch long; with the hair on the front, back and sides still long, poor gene looked like some sort of punk monk.

as amusing as he looked, he wasn't up for keeping the new do so i thinned and trimmed some more until i got to the scary part: the front, where everything i did would be immediately visible to the public at large. when i cut my own hair, the curls hide a myriad of mistakes and uneven layers, but, completely unlike my unruly mess, gene's hair is dead straight. i put down the vibrating clippers, deciding the control i would have over an ordinary pair of scissors might work better. it took me an excruciatingly long time, but i finally cut them to both of our likings, and we were done.

gene was very happy with it, and even happier he didn't have to make conversation with the barber to get the haircut. and as we got the clippers on sale, the price was about the same, which means every cut he can persuade me to give him will just compound the savings. of course he is going to have to persuade pretty damn hard to get me to pick up those wild clippers again. the threat of disaster that hovered over his head the entire time i was cutting his hair has left me one traumatized little girlfriend; a beautician i am not, nor a hair technician or whatever they prefer to be called these days.

at least he didn�t want a pedicure as well.

snippily, claire