I’ve been going to a nearby barbershop run by some Latino women, and they don’t really know how to cut my hair– well, any black man’s hair. But that’s the rule with any hair shop that has posters of white hair models on the walls, right?
My only options there are a zero or a double zero, and their edge-ups are uneven more often than not. Especially now that I find myself wanting to grow an afro (yeah!), or just do something else unusual (viz., anything that doesn’t involve cutting it every two weeks) with my hair, I don’t think that I should keep going there. I haven’t cut my hair in over six weeks, so it’s gone wild. I’ve used texturizer, and I like the way it makes my hair easier to comb, but it doesn’t do much about those wild hairs that pop out, indicative of my need for a nice leveling off. Plus, I feel like I’m ‘betraying my race’ by doing that– stupid I know, but I’ve semi-seriously thought that black women who get perms have racial issues, so why should black men and texturizing be any different?
Maybe I should get over my reluctance to talk to strangers, and just ask a random black guy here on campus what barber he goes to.
So, I was supposed to come in this morning and go pick up tickets for the Steven Hawkings lecture with a friend, but she never showed, and I felt too lazy to walk over to the ticket place when it’s not even clear that we need tickets. I ended up listening to some music files I transferred over to my school account, especially Rufus Wainwright songs. My favorite song of his is “Go or go ahead”. It’s apparently about a point in his life where he hit bottom dealing with a crystal meth addiction and the emptiness of his life. The instrumental alone is incredible; the lyrics are typically poetic– “vanity fairgrounds and rebel angels”– and atypically clear.
Go or go ahead
Thank you for this bitter knowledge
Guardian angels who left me stranded
It was worth it, feeling abandoned
Makes one hardened but what has happened to love
Got me writing lyrics on postcards
Then in the evenings looking at stars
But the brightest of the planets is Mars
What has happened to love
So I will opt for the big white limo
Vanity fairgrounds and rebel angels
Can’t be trusted with feathers so hollow
Heaven’s invention, steel eyed vampires of love
You see over me, I’ll never know
What you’ve shown to other eyes
Go or go ahead and surprise me
Say you’ve lead the way to a mirage
Go or go ahead and just try me
Nowhere’s now here smelling of junipers
Fell off the hay bales, I’m over the rainbows
But oh Medusa kiss me and crucify
This unholy notion of the mythic powers of love
Look in her eyes, look in her eyes
Forget about the ones that are crying
Look in her eyes, look in her eyes
Forget about the ones that are crying
Go or go ahead (x3)
And surprise me
Go or go ahead (x3)
And just try me
Hmmm. I just had a thought listening to “Vibrate“; there’s a line Pinocchio is now a boy, who wants to turn back into a toy. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? Clever, clever.