Wednesday, my day off of sorts, a hundred different errands...
...a Haircut first amongst them.
And when I begin, the initial primer of thrift shops having failed and faced with the expenditure of hardware stores and a thousand other errands that once begun have no hope of completion until spring, I end up at the Barbers.
Nicks, but he's full up, with a line up in the chairs.
I knew I should have left earlier.
It's a day off, and while I have some sort of hairdresser loyalty it doesn't extend so far as waiting an hour or more in line for a haircut.
More thrift shops, and I end up finally in a strip-mall hair cut salon - "Ultracuts", or some-such.
They take me in right away.
This is one of the suburban hair salons, popular amongst those who've given up on any sense of youth, fashion or style. Not that I got any of this from Nicks, but at least he was a classic barber.
I'm led to my chair by a plump, no, fat, 50 something female barber.
This is where hairdresser's end up who didn't open their own salons.
And she cuts my hair, not just competently but well, cheap, 20 minutes all told for $20.00. $30.00 with tip.
She does well, finds and follows the original line of the haircut, it's been 4 months but she knows what she's doing, doesn't waste my time in idle patter. I study the decor, it's bleak, antiseptic, suburban. I feel for her, for the gay hairdresser across from her, how did they end up here? The most modest of ambitions, to own your own chair, have your own clientele, somehow thwarted, there are so many good hair salon ideas that need exploring.....
She trims my ears with a special clipper she has, the inside of my ears, the outside, and for a moment I'm seized with the impulse to tell her that I'm growing those out, to leave them alone.....
She wouldn't get it.....
20 minutes, I'm in and out, the haircut, it's good, passable, no one at work notices, I do, an inch and a half off, it's been 4 months.