Bad Hair Day
2002-07-30 20:59![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chipotleSo for a while I'd been saying to myself, if I actually got the axe, actually ended up unemployed, I'd cut my hair.
If you've seen me before, you know that this prospect isn't trivial. I had hair down well past my shoulders. Now, I don't. I also shaved off the beard and mustache.
This wouldn't have been traumatic--well, it'd have been only mildly traumatic--if the haircut wasn't a bad haircut. No, I don't think it's just the shock of seeing my hair like that. The sideburns aren't quite even, the woman didn't shave off my hair correctly. In the back it's shorter than I asked for and in the front she basically just combed it down and cut it straight--which works if you're trying to do a Christopher Robin imitation, but I'm not. My hair doesn't fall that way naturally.
I've also decided that I don't look good without a mustache, that my skin is not in great condition now that it's all exposed to the harsh light of day, and that the old can of shaving cream that I have is crappy. (I used to shave with an actual shaving brush and soap, but the brush fell apart, and getting a good shaving kit--once you finally find one--is frightfully expensive.)
Combined with an earache that was apparently a reaction to ear drops I'd used in the morning, the tone for the day was set. I got two bills in the mail, both large--one for cable service with past due balances on it, and one for a credit card that decided to raise my APR from 10% to 25%. I cancelled the card, so I get to pay it all at once, too. I can't find the information on my AT&T card to activate the "credit protection service" it has.
I also got the notice from the unemployment agency about how much money I can make by not working. Without going into sordid details, don't let the Dittoheads buffalo you into thinking people live high on the hog this way: it's not enough to keep me from having to use my savings to cover living expenses.
So here I am finishing dinner at a Waffle House: chili and BLT, only water to drink, $4.38 before tax and tip. I'm considering having pie and coffee. It disturbs me that I have to think of them--and of eating at Waffle House in general--as splurging. This is after buying some shaving gel and medicated aftershave, something I wouldn't have thought twice about a month ago.
I'd originally come here to sit around and write and drink coffee in an environment that wasn't the apartment. Sometimes that helps me wake up my muse; she's been perhaps understandably absent this last week, but I'm just about at deadline for an APA submission. I think I may end up going back home now in spite of myself, though. Sadly, there's no pie there, but the coffee's better--and it's free.
If you've seen me before, you know that this prospect isn't trivial. I had hair down well past my shoulders. Now, I don't. I also shaved off the beard and mustache.
This wouldn't have been traumatic--well, it'd have been only mildly traumatic--if the haircut wasn't a bad haircut. No, I don't think it's just the shock of seeing my hair like that. The sideburns aren't quite even, the woman didn't shave off my hair correctly. In the back it's shorter than I asked for and in the front she basically just combed it down and cut it straight--which works if you're trying to do a Christopher Robin imitation, but I'm not. My hair doesn't fall that way naturally.
I've also decided that I don't look good without a mustache, that my skin is not in great condition now that it's all exposed to the harsh light of day, and that the old can of shaving cream that I have is crappy. (I used to shave with an actual shaving brush and soap, but the brush fell apart, and getting a good shaving kit--once you finally find one--is frightfully expensive.)
Combined with an earache that was apparently a reaction to ear drops I'd used in the morning, the tone for the day was set. I got two bills in the mail, both large--one for cable service with past due balances on it, and one for a credit card that decided to raise my APR from 10% to 25%. I cancelled the card, so I get to pay it all at once, too. I can't find the information on my AT&T card to activate the "credit protection service" it has.
I also got the notice from the unemployment agency about how much money I can make by not working. Without going into sordid details, don't let the Dittoheads buffalo you into thinking people live high on the hog this way: it's not enough to keep me from having to use my savings to cover living expenses.
So here I am finishing dinner at a Waffle House: chili and BLT, only water to drink, $4.38 before tax and tip. I'm considering having pie and coffee. It disturbs me that I have to think of them--and of eating at Waffle House in general--as splurging. This is after buying some shaving gel and medicated aftershave, something I wouldn't have thought twice about a month ago.
I'd originally come here to sit around and write and drink coffee in an environment that wasn't the apartment. Sometimes that helps me wake up my muse; she's been perhaps understandably absent this last week, but I'm just about at deadline for an APA submission. I think I may end up going back home now in spite of myself, though. Sadly, there's no pie there, but the coffee's better--and it's free.
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Hrr.
Date: 2002-07-31 06:52 (UTC)I used to do the whole greasy spotty teenager thing, but getting into the ritual of shaving, taking cod liver oil and spending a few minutes in the sun as often as possible's cleared up my complexion. I used to have a goatee, but at the best of times it looked stupid, and worst I looked like a terrorist, so I kind of know the stigma that comes with and without facial hair.
Re: Hrr.
Date: 2002-07-31 07:46 (UTC)The medicated after shave I got is medicated with an acne medicine, actually; I'll see if it helps. (Not that my face is covered with zits, but I am prone to acne--even at 34!--and it's been years since some of that skin was exposed to full sunlight.) I don't think I looked like a terrorist when I had a goatee long ago, although I was told I looked like a beatnik.
Re: Hrr.
Date: 2002-07-31 08:35 (UTC)*HUG* I know I say it a lot, but, well, *HUG* anyway...