Ready? Did you guess?

Hey, do you still have "the hair"?

Now, I suppose I can't blame people for asking, since for years my defining feature was my tangled mass of hair. Combing? Who needs that? Just run your fingers through it in the shower and you're fine.

As a result, I had days where I looked like this:

And days where I looked like this:

And days like this:

But unfortunately, I was balding. And it didn't seem to be improving. Gini kept coming up to me and giving me subtle hints, like:

"Hey, you look bald. Get a haircut," or:
"You know, the long hair was cute when I met you. You're old now. Get a haircut."

With these loving words, I finally realized the truth: Between my receding hairline and my balding top, I was coming to look like my archenemy - a record executive. Yes, I could tie it back and try to keep my cool quotient... But untethered, my hair would shout, "Hey! He's thinning and vain!"

Thus, I resolved to have it cut. This was not an easy decision for me, as - and I really am not exaggerating here, as excruciating as it is to admit - to cut my hair was to face death.

Seriously. Once I cut my long hair, it would not grow back. Everyone gave me a big line of horseshit about yeah, it grows faster when you cut it, and when it's in better shape without all those split ends you'll be fine, but I knew they were just fuckwads without a clue. Really. (And for the record, it's grown just as slowly since I cut it, proving me absolutely right.)

I first grew my hair in my youth, mostly to be cool. Then I realized an important factor: It was easier to get chicks when you had long hair. Then, later on, it was so enscribed in my identity that I could scarcely imagine not having it.

My ridiculous bouffant had been with me since my youth... And once shorn, it would never return. In other words, cutting my hair would be acknowledging that I was no longer young... And could never go back. From now until my death, I would never have hair that long again.

"That's ridiculous," splutters Gini. "It's just hair."

"Oh yeah?" I ripost. "Then why aren't you going to Pearle Vision to get those bifocals you're pretty sure you need?"

"Well, um... It's..."

Fucking thought so.

I tried to have it cut back last March, but I needed hand holding - and Gini did not understand how traumatic this was. I made an appointment to have the hair cut, nervous and on the edge of bolting, and Gini required an hour-long appearance at her after-work party before we went... Completely breaking my nerve. I fled, unable to do it.

But when I went home in January, I knew that a) it was time, and b) I could do it in secret, thus surprising Gin when I returned, and c) my mother, who had fought me O these many years regarding my hair, would understand completely.

"Mom," I said, "Do you know of a good hairstylist? Someone you trust?"

"Why?"

"I think I want to cut it off."

Mom leapt to the phone and made an appointment right then and there, locking me in, and promised me a hearty lunch afterwards.

Good ol' Mom. Sometimes wives screw it up, but Moms always understand how stupid you can be.

So we went, digital camera in hand to record this momentous occasion. Here is a rather sullen picture of myself, showing the last time I nervously fluffed my hair.

Nervously fluffing my hair had become a habit - whenever I got antsy or excited, I'd run my fingers through my hair real quick. I never really realized it was a habit - contrary to popular opinion, my little quirks like my "woo hoo!"s or my rubbing my hands together are not affected gestures, but geniune examples of fucking strangeness - until the day I was at a Magic tournament and the three guys next to me screamed, "DO THE FERRETT!" and started fluffing their hair in syncopation.

Whoops.

So anyway, this was my last fluff - and man, was I nervous. They brought me in to this hair parlor, which had free coffee and chocolate - I needed that chocolate - and sat me down in the chair.

Then began cutting. As the hairstylist began slashing and gouging at my head, she asked, "Have you had brain surgery recently?"

WHAT?

"Well, I mean... Did you hit your head? Stitches? What happened?"

Apparently my tangles and knots had been pulling out gigantic clots of my hair in the shower - running my fingers through was not the Gordian detangler one required for healthy hair - and I had clumps and bald patches which made it look like I had recently had open wounds on my head.

She called other hairstylists over to look, who nodded grimly and agreed she had a Job To Do. She put the shears to me and annihilated....

And I was terrified - hey, look at that picture! It's the picture of terror! - mainly because without my glasses, I had no idea what I now looked like. Did I look like a fuzzy melon? A mustached chia pet? No clue. All I knew was that somehow, I had been scalped....

Ironically enough, now that I had less hair than ever, they felt the urge to dry it. (This was a classy joint, remember?) They stuck me under this hair dryer for about thirty minutes; all the while I just sort of stared at my mother like a lost puppy, saying, "It looks okay, right? It looks okay? Right?" My mother smiled and said I looked wonderful...

Which was not reassuring, because she hated my old hair with such a passion that I couldn't trust her. To my Mom, anything would have been better than my old hairstyle. They could have slashed down through my skull so that my new head had actual windows cut into it that actually showed pulsing chunks of brain matter... And my mother would have nodded in approval and said, "Yes, it looks wonderful, Billy!"

So while I was there, I decided to get the whole nine yards. I decided to get my hair highlighted. They sat me down and immediately began tin-foiling me, preparing for the acid burn.

I risked a look with my glasses. I have had some pretty loony pictures of me, but this one has to rank pretty high.

While I was having all the foil laced into my hair, I casually remarked to my mother, "Will this help stop the aliens from beaming transmissions into my head?"

"No," she replied, "It amplifies them."

The hairstylist, a rather nice and normal middle-aged woman, looked shocked at this exchange - then smiled tautly. "That's right," she said, recovering smoothly, "He's the science fiction writer."

So I walked out. Wanna know what my new hair looks like?

Well, I dunno myself anymore. Because I got it cut closer.

Not that I wanted to - but two months after my initial haircut, it was starting to look shaggy. (That's right - I said two months. Wanna tell me how my healthy hair grows back quick? Hanh?) I didn't know any hairstylists in the area, so I asked at my local comic shop where a salon was.

Those who understand Comic Shop Coiffeurs will realize the disaster in the making here... Yet I digress.

So I asked, and they told me there was a SuperCuts in the mall - but they didn't recommend it. Guiseppe the haircutter was their choice for everyone there, a little old man who only charged eleven bucks a haircut.

And only drove those haircuts on weekends.

So I walked in, knowing that my friend Jeff also had his hair cut by Guiseppe, and had said he was a nice guy. The parlor was old-fashioned, all right, right down to the plastic jar of lollipops for the kids and the combs in that Mysterious Blue Fluid. Guiseppe was happily snipping about the ears of an older gentleman with thinning white hair, making conversation in a thick Italian accent I associated with old Nintendo games.

"It's a-me! Guiseppe!"

He eventually called-a me over, and asked-a me:

"So! You wanta hair-cutte, right? What kinda haircutte ya want?"

"Ah, just a regular haircut," I said. "You know, short, but..."

"Right!" he interrupted, whipping the white cloth around my neck in an experienced sweep. "I give-a good haircutte!"

(This is not exaggeration, by the way. Ask Jeff.)

He began asking me questions, and vowmp - with a flick of his clippers, a fist-sized clump of hair settled on the cloth in front of me. I grimaced, but realized that like a roller coaster or a bad acid trip, there was little I could do but wait until the end of the ride.

"So where-a yu frum?" he bellowed. Vowmp.

"Alaska," I said. Vowmp. He was wielding the electric clippers like a lightsaber.

"Alaska!" he cried joyously - and vowmp. "I hear that's a pretty area!" Vowmp. "Why yu move-a here, hanh?"

Vowwwwwwwwwwmp.

There was a breeze on the back of my neck. I had not felt cold air against the back of my neck for years.

The thing is, for what it was it was a pretty good haircut. I've spoken to other victims of Guiseppe - we formed a support group - and he has basically one style, which he has honed to perfection. No matter what you ask for, you pretty much come out of Guiseppe with a close-cropped nape, a thatch of hair on the top, and a tightly-clipped boundary about the ears.

Gini loves it. I'm not so sure, but as long as she keeps making that sweet sweet love to me and my head, I guess I can deal with it.

There's only two real problems with the short hair; the first is that I have begun to have Bad Hair Days.

Now, when I had The Hair, which was all over the place, a thing like a Bad Hair Day didn't exist. Every day was a bad hair day... Or a good hair day, depending on how you looked at it. It was a tangle that defied conventional analysis, simply because it was just me. The only thing that was a given was that I had to wash the sucker every morning - otherwise, it would stick out in all directions in an Alfafian nightmare.

Now when I wake up, I have to wash it and comb it. If I don't, then it looks funny... And not funny like I'm used to. It looks bad. So I have to add hair care to my morning palette of brushing my teeth, cleaning my nipple, taking my medicine, and...

What? I didn't mention my nipple?

Oh, that's right.

The other problem was that after I shaved my head, I felt really odd. I was used to getting weird looks on the street continually - so used to it, in fact, that I only noticed it when I didn't get them any more. I walked into stores and nobody paid any attention to me. Mothers ceased shielding their babies when I walked by.

Furthermore, I had lost cred. I used to be able to sway past gangbangers and metalhead alike, giving them a wary eye - and they would look back at me, marking me as One Of Their Own. Sure, a fat and elderly One Of Their Own, but nonetheless I was someone Not To Be Fucked With.

Now with my cropped tonsure, I was simply another person, and potentially muggable. This irritated me.

And what irritated me more is that the cute Goth chick at Joseph-Beth, who had always made a habit of flirting outrageously with me every time I had shown up, ignored me callously after the haircut. I had lapsed into utter and bland normality - and between that and my sudden and terrifying yearing for solid lawn care, I was becoming an alien to myself.

So, of course, I did the only thing a wise young man like myself could expect to do - I shoved a steel spike through my nipple.

Yes, yes, I know - much like Dance Dance Revolution, this really isn't something you should do when you're old and saggy. And yet I'd always kind of wanted to do it, and discovered that it was fairly cheap - only thirty bucks to disfigure yourself professionally? Count me in!

So I went. It was a combination tattoo parlor and piercing shop, and had the usual tattoo acoutrement - shaggy fat guys with more metal than cartilage in their face, pasty teenaged girls getting rose tattoos that they'd regret during their midlife crisis, and a row of generic tattoos that you could get cheap, drawn on wax paper and tacked to the wall.

I myself have never gotten a tattoo, mainly because I have never really had an attachment to anything that I would want on my body for life. I mean, I'm fond of skulls with snakes coming out the eyeholes... But do I really want to look at one until I die? Likewise, I love my mother, but having her emblazoned just above my ass doesn't seem like a fitting tribute. And while I know there are hundreds of people with Ren and Stimpy inscribed on their flesh, I sort of felt that any cartoon character would quickly lose its luster once the show was cancelled. I just didn't want to be sitting around explaining to my grandchildren:

"Granpappy, what's that?"

"Why, that's Spongebob Squarepants, young Ariel!"

So my loathing goes double for the generic tattoos on the wall. I mean, if you're going to christen your skin with a design to symbolize your uniqueness, do you really want the same design on someone else? Shit, I'd pay the extra and have the tattoo guy create me something original - but knowing that they were churning out replicas of my celtic knotwork by the day would just sicken me.

The one advantage of generic tattoos, however, is undeniable: They can't screw it up. A friend of mine, who will remain nameless because he thinks his tattoo is really rad, got some ink slung on him that looks like it was done by a diabetic convict in the final throes on insulin withdrawal. It's shaky, it touches his other tattoo because the artist apparently didn't center it properly on his arm, and the drawing pretty much sucks. "But it's an original!" he claims.

Sure is, dude. Good for you.

Anyway, so I went in and was glad to see that all of the equipment was factory-packed. He had me take off my shirt, and I had to make the decision: Which nipple? I chose left, mainly because I tend to sleep on my right side - and because I figured for the drive home, I'd want the nipple that wouldn't be covered by the seatbelt.

He took out a toothpick and dipped it in some ink, then leaned over and made two marks on my nip. "It's gonna go through there," he explained. "That look fine to you?"

I had that uncomfortable feeling you get when the waiter asks you to sniff the cork of the wine bottle. What is it supposed to smell like? Hell if you have an idea. So you snif and nod sagely, and the waiter, who really could give a rat's ass about your opinion, goes back to the kitchen and laughs himself silly.

(Yes, I know, sniffing the cork is an outdated fashion. I know something about wine, thankyouverymuch.)

So I mumbled a yes, and he proceeded to clamp my nipple between a set of small tongs that had a triangular hole on each side to slide the needle through, mashing the flesh together like a breast in a mammogram. He lined up the needle... I closed my eyes...

Now, keep in mind that I had always thought the concept of a piercing would be erotic. My friends swore by their piercings, and said they loved getting pierced, and I kind of wanted Gini there because I thought that immediately after I would want to fling her to the floor and make that mad passionate Limbo Of Love.

Have you even been stung by a bee on the inside of your nipple?

Ow.

It wasn't excruciating, just a real intense sting. It was simultaneously less painful than I imagined, and more painful than I had fantasized.

He eased a metal bar through the fresh hole, got a pair of pliers and squeezed the bar into a rough ring shape, then got a small ball that he wedged the ends of the bar into to make it stick.

"Well, you're set," he said. "Here's your kit. See ya!"

I got a bag of sea salt, some disinfectant, and antibacterial soap, which was supposed to ward off infections... Which sounded good to me. The last thing I needed was to have Emergency Nipple Surgery because I hadn't cleaned it right.

For the first three weeks, it pretty much stung and itched all the time. I cleaned it religiously, first applying the disinfectant, then soaping it up and working it back and forth - and if you're wriggling in your seats right now, imagine how I felt - then soaking it in salt water for five minutes.

How did I do this? I took a shotglass my old friend Bryan had given to me, filled it with salt water, and clamped it over my nipple to form an airtight seal while I flossed and brushed my teeth. At one point early in the morning, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror; there I was, one hand with a small jar pushed into my chest, the other with a toothbrush in my mouth and foam dribbling down my chin, and my early morning, Guiseppe-hacked hair sticking up like Yahoo Serious standing in an electrified bathtub.

Well, I wanted to look alternative....

NEXT: My Fantabulous Writing Career