hair apparent

i can't decide if i look cool or evil. or cool and evil. i just got my hair colored. the color is called "onyx" and it's supposed to be black with a hint of blue in the sunlight, like a raven. . .and i guess ravens are sort of cool and evil but i'm not a bird, i'm a human. and i don't think i want to look evil even if i have to sacrifice being cool. i mean, i was pretty sure my hair was black before, but it wasn't, apparently.

but that's not why i wrote. i actually wanted to share a story about the best haircut ever.

my dearest friend, kateigh, spent the summer of 2001 in boston interning for a a high end clothier called louis boston. to give you some context: during that time, we, with our friend, joanna, all wore a lot of eyeliner and a lot of black. we said we would form a band one day and call it the 'dirty nuns'. kateigh and i stayed up many nights planning the wardrobes for the inhabitants of the white house and planned out how a soccer tournament, sponsored by the UN, would facilitate world peace. no fighting, just penalty kicks.

during this time, we were also obsessed with finding a hair salon (domestic and abroad) that would offer the most forward, most abstract haircuts imaginable. so that summer of '01, joanna and i went to visit her and decided to have our hair cut at a salon on newbury called yumi. we were to have our hair cut by the stylist, john, who had previously tried to persuade kateigh to allow him to "erase" her hair (a euphemism for "basically shave one side").

so after exploring the back bay district that afternoon, we waited anxiously for our follicular destinies to unfold. a few minutes later, a guy who called himself jason walked up and offered to shampoo kateigh's hair. she left and after another 10 minutes, jason, a sort of neo-james dean, rock-a-billy type with sleeve tattoos and an expansive collection of silver rings, came back for me.

he asked me typical questions before he commenced: how hot do i like the water, do i use conditioner, is my hair colored. . .hot, yes, no.

kateigh would later tell me that she was glad the music was loud because she started involuntarily humming. for me, my toes curled inside my shoes and i couldn't open my eyes.

i can't exactly describe the experience - he basically skipped the light cranial massage and opted to dig his nails and knuckles (and those rings) into my scalp for about 15 minutes. it was excruciating, it was borderline violent, it was, in a word, euphoric.

i don't even remember what my hair ended up looking like. it may have been short, it might have been asymmetric, it could have been texturized. i have no idea. but it was, for sure, the best haircut ever.