Shave your head

In or around 1994, I had taken to cutting my own hair. It was rather simple, as I had taken to wearing my hair quite short.  I simply ran a razor with a guard over my head.  After a few passes, I was done, and I had saved myself a few bucks.  I enjoyed cutting my own hair, and it soon became part of my Friday night ritual.  Another part of this ritual was the consuming of one or two 22 oz. Steinlagers.  Usually, I did the haircut first. Once I didn't.  On this particular occasion, after cleaning the guard about halfway through the job, I neglected to put it back on, and promptly shaved a two-inch wide, five inch long swath down the middle of my head.   

I stared at this little mistake for about five-minutes.  Oops.  I then decided that the only fix was to shave it all. Which I did.  Best move I ever made.  It makes cycling, and motorcycling much easier (no helmet hair). It's cool in the summer, and in the winter I can wear hats without worrying about how my hair will look.  My girlfriend digs it.  It looks REALLY cool with a henna "tattoo". And I was going bald anyway.

My advice? Shave your head, and NEVER operate anything with a blade after drinking.

 

So I shaved my head. I went from 18" to 0" in half an hour. As I consider it my personal duty to maintain my general strangeness level so as to keep the masses from being too bored with their daily lives, I made the bold decision to remove all hair from my cranium (excluding eyebrows anyway).

A simple question comes to mind: why does this change my assumed political affiliation? While the occasional "hippie!" was heard when travelling through the rural or southern areas of the country, I didn't get too much slack for having 1 1/2' black hair. But all of a sudden I get strange looks from minorities and white folks alike now that I decided to run a razor over my head. I mean it's not like I feel like I'm being victimized here--I just don't like having people assume I hate them from the start. I feel pretty awful knowing that some people feel afraid of me, rather than having the urge to beat the living crap out of my skinny, pale ass. I am a generally very friendly, reserved guy with reasonably little hatred toward anyone, especially on the basis of skin color or appearance, and yet all of a sudden I am assumed to have a big poster of Der Fuhrer on my wall.

The entire situation has come as something of a surprise to me. While I never had any doubts about the xenophobic tendencies of most people, I wouldn't have thought that there was such a McCarthyist movement to root out the hordes of racists and bigots in our society.

Of course this also means I can't be horribly politically incorrect for cheap laughs anymore. That's a shame too. Guess I'll have to find my old Dead Kennedys T and start wearing it again, just to affirm that I was at least once a rabid lefty.

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In reference to the instructional section below, be sure, if you have incredibly long hair, to *trim it first*. I realized, before shaving, that this would probably be intelligent, but my decision making process tends to favor convenience over wisdom. Getting your hair nice and short first will save you a lot of cuts and scrapes.

One problem I've always had with the armed forces is the double-standard there is in the military relating to head-shaving and gender.

All men entering the military are required to shave their heads. This serves several functions. It helps control hygiene. In the close quarters communal living environment of basic training, it is important that each recruit be clean and free of lice and other parasites.

Head shaving also has a psychological impact. The change in appearance helps facilitate the change in identity that occurs during basic training. It also helps in fostering a team-spirit which carries the individuals as a team. Head-shaving is also common among sports teams for the same reason.

The problem being that female recruits are not required to shave their heads. They are required to keep hair pinned up and off of the collar, but that is hardly the same.

I've never been in the military but I grew up in a military community and I've heard this discussed among soldiers often. Most of the men feel like women should be required to keep short hair just like the men, and for the same reasons.

I believe requiring women to keep short hair would also, in the long run, aid the women in their search for equality in the military. As long as there is a separate set of rules for women, they will never truly be considered as equal.

I shaved my head yesterday. It's something that I had had in the back of my mind for a while, but I never really considered it for real. Anyway, me and a friend of mine were sitting around our really shitty high school during lunch, bored as only you can be with nothing to do in a really shitty high school. In the name of spontaneity, I suggested we shave my head. The rest, as you can imagine, is history.

I've been attached to my hair for as long as I can remember, and the sudden realization that I was sitting in my friends kitchen wearing a towel around my waist with a half head of hair hit me in much the same manner I imagine the sudden realization that your penis was missing would hit you. It hit me hard. I was almost bald. I felt like I'd lost a loved one.

So it goes.

I've been pseudo-bald for a day or so now, and I've gotten as used to it as I can imagine i will. It's much less hassle then my hair, and it feels great with a hat. Oh, and it looks really nerdcore with a hoodie and black rimmed glasses. Shaving your head is something I believe everyone should do at least once in their life- to cleanse the spirit, if nothing else.


There was at one point much more to this writeup, concerning how to go about shaving your head... however, sideways has covered that below, rendering my wu obsolete.