Current location:	Hershey Tire (thank you VA inspection)
Current mood:	perplexed
Current music:	MC Frontalot - Listen Close
Entry tags:	family, hair loss, social commentary

"My lyrics are obtuse...
...and, yo, I'm losing my hair."

About November of '06, I discovered that the irritating bit of bangs that always grew quickly down my forehead seemed thinner than I remembered it being.  I'd only just started working at The Stone, but even in that brief time, I could look back through my test shots and detect a, shall we say, thinning of the crop on top my head.  This was also about the time I went to V & Randy's wedding and, upon seeing my dear friend Brandi, had her exclaim immediately [as in the very first thing she said to me in three years] "Wow, you've lost your hair."

Yeah, thanks, Brandi.  I hadn't yet really even noticed it myself, but golly, that confirmation sure was helpful.  So I responded as a man in my position does...with pith.  I cribbed Joshua Lyman and self deprecatingly responded, "Are you kidding?  It's been routed."

This was almost immediately before I started simply shaving my head every two weeks. I also grew a full, oddly red, beard.  This is the style I've now been sporting for almost two years, and I'm pleased to say that I feel it suits me.  Friends and family seem to generally agree at odd times and, thankfully, without my prompting.

I point to MBC's graduate program as the catalyst for this change on my cranium.  Look at photos of me before I entered.  Then look at photos of me after I missed my first MFA.  Then look at photos of me as I juggled The Roaring Girl and full time employment.  The progression is quantifiable.  I traded my locks for the ability to recognize meter from passing sentences on the radio and a sound knowledge of how beer made a country.  I'm not really that upset at the exchange.  My hair always stayed "as close as it would go and still lay down" since my Freshman year at college.  But I'd never expected to see quite such a thorough example of stress related symptoms in my own reflection.  As a peculiar side benefit of the hirsute migration down my countenance, I now resemble some very dapper comic book villains.  From Grigori Rasputin in Hell Boy to Obadiah Shane in Iron Man, I see my look staring back at me.  There are worse comparisons, certainly.

What brings up this reflection is a comment from my uncle Steve at my Grandmother's 85th birthday party this last weekend.  Steve, much like my aforementioned pal Brandi [who still possesses all of her gorgeous, amber, curly tresses, I might add], seemed cut from the same cloth.  I hadn't seem him in years, probably an even longer span of time since seeing Brandi, and as I shook his hand and said, "Hi," he pointed and repeated the words of a 29 year-old theatre major whom he's never met.

Am I missing something here?  Did society create a new greeting while I was slogging through higher education?  Did "Smell you later" replace "Good-bye" and was I just asleep at the wheel?  Such a greeting would never have even occurred to me to make.  I'm not offended or anything like that.  I'm simply surprised and a bit socially worried.  Am I making a faux pas somewhere?  Should I be welcoming old friends into my arms after years of separation with "My God, that heart attack did you fantastically.  You've really shed those unhealthy pounds"?  Or perhaps I could croon, "Awesome, the years that smoking put on, your over-enthusiastic plastic surgery came impressively close to removing."  "You look so sad.  Was I right?  Did you get married too early?"  I'm happy to hurl completely unveiled personal observations as salutations if that's the status-quo.  I'm a clever guy, and I only need to be told twice.  God forbid I should be left behind.