The Benefits of Balding

In recent years, my forehead has rapidly advanced in the battle of the receding hairline, so much so it's surprising I don't wake each morning to a pillow covered in fallen folicles. I'm not particularly bothered by the idea of balding, with the possible exception of not being very fond of the shape of my head. Modeling and movie stardom might never have been in the cards for me, but it would be nice if my dome didn't resemble a semi-deflated ball of room-temperature mozerella.

Alternatives to balding are available, toupees and hair transplants being the most obvious options. Unfortunately, I've never wanted to look like my hair was installed by the Home Depot carpet department or planted neatly in symmetrical rows by some subcutaneous farmer. And there's something about all those chemical scalp treatments that scares me. The hair is surrendering willingly. Who am I to keep it from making a graceful exit?

This all got me to thinking recently about the many reasons to celebrate going bald and I came up with the following items. Feel free to add more in the comments.

1. Hair cuts are much, much quicker. Gone are the days of trimming here, blending there, feathering the crown into the back and sides and wondering if bangs are manly. Grab the trimmer and buzz me like a farmer shears a sheep. So long as I leave with two ears and most of my blood, it's a job well done!
    
2. No more hair product. I have no need of mousse, gel, spray, conditioner -- hell, I barely need shampoo at this point.
     
3. No longer needing any of those products makes packing for trips a much simpler task, and there's one less bottle of liquid that needs to be checked with my baggage or inspected during the security screening. I was lucky I didn't get pulled for a cavity search the last few times I traveled with a can of mousse. You could see the incredulity on the faces of the TSA workers as their eyes darted suspiciously between the shiny metal canister and my shiny head.
    
4. Temperature control is a breeze. It was easy to overheat and difficult to cool down when a bushy head of hair was the norm. Without that extra layer of insulation, all I have to do is find a shady spot and let the wind do its job. And if your head gets cold, just grab a hat.
    
5. Speaking of which, baldness allows you to build a kick-ass hat collection. I prefer baseball caps, but you can use your sun-exposed cranium to justify everything from a fedora, to a gatsby, to a pith helmet -- whatever makes you feel good about yourself and helps you avoid a melanoma or two.
     
6. Bed head is less of a problem, and eventually not a problem at all. Back when I had a full mop on top, I woke each morning to the most horrendously interesting nocturnal stylings. My favorite was the one where the hair on the left side of my head was smushed tightly against the scalp, while the hair on the right side of my head stuck straight out. I used to call that one "Exit Wound."

© 2016 Mark Feggeler

Shining, Gleaming, Streaming, Flaxen, Waxen

A long time ago, on a scalp far, far away, there once grew a dense forest of straight blonde hair.

When I was a little kid, the poofed mass of yellow on my head turned near white in the New York summer sunshine. My Mother always would comment how easy it was to spot me if I wandered away from her in a store, or was sitting on stage under the bright lights of a public school band concert. Not long after, the quintessential 1980s hair helmet formed like a protective biosphere when I entered the hygienically self-aware stage of my teen years. Cans of AquaNet and bottles of hair gel fell like spent soldiers as each long, blonde strand was carefully lacquered in place.

I got a bad rap in college for growing a mullet, which really wasn't a mullet, but rather a failed subversive attempt to grow my hair long, like some kind of neo-hippie, proto-grunge granola-age-punk. A lack of commitment to the experiment resulted in an unfortunate hairstyle equaled in unsightly aesthetics only by my inability to match clothing colors and patterns. Who says a gray and purple button-up sweater vest doesn't go with acid-washed, parachute cargo jeans and a pink dress shirt? Pretty much every member of the sighted world.

As we tumbled through early adulthood, marriagehood and parenthood, developing technologies made it easy to avoid hair envy. Nothing quells concerns over a receding hairline better than shared social media pictures of your high school friends sporting scalps more barren and devastated than a clear-cut rain forest. This guy was bald in his twenties, that one in his thirties. By the time I reached forty, I felt like the lone survivor of some horrific folicular pandemic.

Not anymore.

The turn of the century brought with it a desire for streamlined simplicity that included My Lovely Wife buzzing my hair to within a centimeter of its life. (Somehow, I still manage to achieve righteous bedhead.) Every once in a blue moon I get the notion lodged in my brain to try growing my hair out a bit. By "a bit," I mean more than an inch. Right around the time the next buzzing is due, I'll catch myself grabbing the mousse to direct my hair along its long-abandoned part. It looks pretty good, too, if I do say so myself. Then two things happen.

The first is when my hair reaches a certain length and suffers what I call the Bozo Effect. The listless and lazy hair on the very top of my head collapses under its own weight while the hair on either side of my head sticks straight out as far as it can possibly go without leaving the scalp -- an unintentional and pathetically sad Flock of Seagulls impersonation, without the benefit of futuristic music video lighting and underrated guitar playing.

The second thing that happens is I catch an occasional glimpse of what my hair really looks like to others. You see, each morning when coiffing my golden locks in the mirror I'm staring blindly at an optical illusion. Where I see a reasonably handsome head of hair, others see glistening scalp gleaming at them from under a few delicate, wispy strands. One photograph of the top of my head is all it takes to bring me back to reality.

Twenty years ago I told My Lovely Wife if my hair started abandoning me then I would buzz it off. Better fire up the trimmers.

© 2016 Mark Feggeler

Thinner By a Strand

Two months ago, I tried behaving myself.

"No more pizza, French fries, or beer," I said.

Our spring break Disney cruise was fast approaching and I didn't need a scale to tell me I was overweight. When your "skinny" jeans won't button and your shirt collars make your head feel like it's about ready to pop off, you know you've been over-indulging. Fortunately, I wasn't too far gone. Maybe just 10 pounds would do the trick, get me into the zone in which I could kid myself into thinking the lack of love handles meant I was in good shape.

One month ago, I made a second attempt at behaving.

"Stop dropping handfuls of dark chocolate into your fat free yogurt," I told myself.

I had managed to nix the beer, fries and pizza, but the chocolate kept throwing itself at me, demanding to be eaten while simultaneously preaching to me about the many suspected health benefits of two ounces daily of dark chocolate. And, if two ounces is good for me, then ten ounces is like a super strength multivitamin with a V8 chaser and a few laps around the block thrown in for good measure.

Portions were also undermining my efforts. I was reminded of a time, long ago, when I went to a salad bar with a friend who was trying to diet. He layered his plate with lettuce, then piled it high with eggs, cheese, croutons, bacon bits, and full fat thousand island dressing. Hey, it was a salad, right?

Two weeks ago, I started giving up.

"Just try to maintain the weight you're at now," I said.

Maybe if I hold at my present puffiness, I can pull a desperation fast at the last minute and board the ship with a few pounds of wiggle room. I gain five pounds once my feet leave the gangplank, so I've got to give it some kind of effort before hitting the buffet, the formal dinner, the cocktail hour, the poolside cantina, the breakfast buffet, and the room service.

One week to go, and the hard reality of a failed effort presented itself in the form of a half dozen pairs of shorts that no longer fit comfortably around the waist. I could try kidding myself into thinking there must be something wrong with our storage bins, because these all fit fine last summer, but what's the point? Besides, we bought enough new clothes for the trip that I don't have to worry about running around the ship pantsless, which is a good thing since this is a family cruise.

At the very least, I feel better about myself since yesterday because my Lovely Wife cut my hair, and not a moment too soon. No longer thick enough to be called shaggy at any length, my hair was nonetheless far too long and becoming increasingly unruly. It either poofed out in ways that made me look like I'd been dropped on my head at birth, or it was shellacked into place like I'd combed it with buttered toast. Now at a much more reasonable length, it draws less attention to the chubby roundness of my face.

But maybe it isn't just a trick of the eye. Maybe this magical haircut actually did help take off some of that excess weight I'd been trying to shed for the last couple months. A quick trip to the bathroom scale proved my assumption correct. I had lost four pounds since that morning, all thanks to my Lovely Wife's tonsorial talents!

Of course, keep in mind the scale is psychotic. On Saturday, it said I was 211. This morning, it told me I was 164. Regardless, I choose to believe my haircut makes me look four pounds thinner, and therefore I am.

All I need to know now is which deck has the midnight buffet...



© 2011 Mark Feggeler