My hair, I love you. More than that I am grateful to you for sticking around for so long.
I know 42 years doesn’t sound much. Certainly not when Canadian Redwoods can live up to a thousand years and Bruce Forsythe’s grip on life seems to be eternal. But if I’m honest I didn’t think you’d make it through my twenties.
My dad showed distinct signs of male pattern baldness in his early twenties – receding hairline at front, sides and rear. The monk’s pate soon revealed itself.
I felt that Fate was surely waiting in the wings to cruelly crop my luscious tawny brown curls. It would only be a matter of time.
In my late teens I made the decision to grow my hair long. I’ll make the most of it while I’ve got it, I thought. And for the next decade I wore my hair down to my waist.
It thinned a little I’ll admit. I braced myself for that first small tell-tale hole in the carpet to appear.
But it didn’t. It wore thin. It got a little threadbare. But full depletion never occurred. I outgrew my long hair. In my thirties I got it cut and went for a more respectable, shorter, office friendly length.
I feared this sudden change in volume and weight might trigger off a seismic follicle reaction which would see my locks leaping off my head like hirsute lemmings.
But no.
Here we are over ten years later and – though various stray fibres make escape bids daily in the shower or on my comb – largely my riah has remained securely in place.
And now I’m getting my hopes up. I’m beginning to get confident that maybe my lugs are here for the long haul. That me and my quiff are destined to share a worm-eaten box together in God’s good brown earth, destined to be examined and carbon dated by a hologramatic version of Tony Robinson in the year 2678 (a date that I have just typed in at random).
I know that the odds are stacked against me: work stress, youngest boy about to start school next September, eldest boy approaching teen-hood, my complete and utter contempt of Grecian 2000... all agents of the dreaded demon of depilation... but I feel that the roots of my hair run deep. We are bonded in ways that are unbreakable. Unassailable.
Not even Delilah herself would dare mess with my mane.
My ruff is too rough to be ravaged by mere Philistines.
So take a good look at me, Old Age! I’m coming for you permed and preened like Jon Bon Jovi in his heyday! Look upon my locks and weep oh poor denuded ones!
Hair today. Hair forever.
Amen.
This was a public service announcement brought to you on behalf of my hair. Thank you for bristling.
25 comments:
Feeling very happy for your head of hair :)
Hair, hair!
I hair wotcha sayin, Steve and hairs to it!
Down the hatch!...no, up the...no
Thatch enough fur now
Suzanne: Thank you. I'm even feeling bushy eyed.
Matt: back, crack and sack. That's all I'm saying.
You've hit on a nerve here, Steve, not because I suffer from Male Pattern Baldness you understand but because the gene is alive and well, nay thriving, in the gene pool of The Husband. His thatch has been thinning for the past 10 years and is nearly at the point where a full-on shave is the only answer. Mind you, the barber doesn't give him a discount despite the lack of locks. My stepson went from Ryan Giggs style curly locks to snooker ball by his early 20s so I am hoping to god that it doesn't strike down The Boy. He just doesn't have the ears for it
What .... no photo??
It's so cute when an adult human expresses pride in his wispy little tufts! If a bare patch ever develops on the bonce, just snip and glue some of your chin-pubes, no one will notice the difference.
Wylye Girl: I doubt I'd look good with my head shaved either but hopefully should it come to that my beard will distract the eye of the more hirsute viewer...
Libby: I don't want the soul of my hair to be stolen by the camera and then have it die and all fall out. I'm very suspicious like that.
Gorilla Bananas: no can do. My cuffs don't match my collar.
Amanda: yes. They're slapheads.
Hair today, gone tomorrow!Did I tell you about the one where some men shave their nether regions to make their dangly bits look bigger - someone told me that, I haven`t actually witnessed it for myself!
Nana Go-Go: that explains why my face looks so small.
Here here to your hair !!!
May you never part ways...
May your scalp and your locks remain inextricably braided, and your ends never split, yes may your future shine with the sheen of youth... may the ravaging snowstorms of winter dandruff fall elsewhere, and the mane remain untamed...
Brother in law had a hair transplant...cost a fortune and he was, of course, the one in ten thousand whose head rejected the new hair...or vice versa, I no longer remember.
So enjoy your free hair.
Should we look forward to a pubic comb-over?
Wait. I went from rejoicing for you to all confused (again) from reading all your comments so far. Now I've got images of one of those monkeys with the small faces and overly large noses in my head. You don't look like a monkey with a big nose, do you? Just because you have hair?
Blessed are the big-noses.
And rightly proud you are. It's not every man in his 40s who can boast about having retained his luxuriant locks. By that age, my dad was already cultivating his infamous combover (what the Japanese cuttingly call a "barcode"). I just thank all that is good that Dad never discovered a particular product I saw evidence of in Japan - men with thinning hair would use what was effectively spray paint on their scalp to create the illusion of a thicker thatch. All was reasonably ok until the temperature went up and black sweat beads started running down their temples...
It's not just the genes that count. Fresh air, wholesome food, cold baths and not playing with yourself are all common causes of male pattern baldness. It would seem.
A 'good hair day' today then?!
I have spent the last 49 years thinning straightening, blonding and generally getting my hair to be less King Tut like and more flat. But now when everyone I know is losing great gobs of it, I'm having my time! (well one day anyway...)
Owen: you old coiffured poet, you.
The fly in the web: I'm sure Cameron will put a tax on it soon enough.
English Rider: I doubt I could grow my hair that long...
Being Me: I am now round these parts as the funky gibbon...
Katriina: barcode? Ha ha! Love it. Now I want to bleep one in a supermarket and see what price comes up.
Jon: I am proof positive of all those, yes sirree.
Suburbia: every day is a good hair day.
About Last Weekend: ain't nothing wrong with having a King Tut bonce, trust me.
Steve, you missed an opportunity here, I was so expecting to see a link to a hair restoring clinic, the kind favoured by the likes of Elton John, Wayne Rooney and some Aussie cricketer whose name escapes me.
Very Bored in Catalunya: maybe I could make money growing surrogate hair for celebrities?
Still holding onto mine at 43. Although I have a few bits of silver here and there.
Great post Steve.
Dicky: silver is fine. Silver is good. It is the absence of any colour at all that bothers me.
Curcumin vitamin tablets are the latest recommended thing to prevent hair loss - better than Rogaine and cheaper. It is the active part of teh spice Tumeric, only you'd have to eat tons of Tumeric for the same effect!
Laura: commencing Google search right now...!
Post a Comment