Not Going Down in this Town

I generally build posts off a small idea or memory I keep returning to. I had one the other in the shower, but didn't write it down after I got out and now it's gone forever. For some reason, I keep coming back to the idea that the post was going to be about the Crime in Stereo guy, but I've already written about that story. It was from that era of my life though, I think. Will it ever come back? Who knows.

I haven't gotten a haircut during the pandemic so far and my hair is now the longest it's been in 5 years or so. When I got a fade then, I was super worried about how long hair looked with my receding hairline and I conceded to myself that my glorious days of being a long hair were over. One of the times that I saw the Sidekicks, frontman Steve Ciolek's hair was doing similar things to mine and it felt a little like the Ghost of Christmas Future. I had seen a few unflattering pictures of myself where my forehead/hairline looked humongous and I didn't want to look like a washed up metal singer, still clinging to his long hair because it was integral to his identity, but looked like shit. I didn't want to be a huge forehead/long hair guy and even though I loved having long hair, I accepted that 1. I didn't need long hair to look cool. 2. Short hair cuts looked good too.

I got a fade the week that COVID hit, so I was good through March, but my hair quickly got to the point where I normally get a cut. I avoided the barbershop because getting a haircut seemed like a frivolous treat during the pandemic. I mean, it would have been totally fine, but I just never did it. I put off deciding what to do about my hair and then just accepted that it was long again. Some days I stressed about it, but some days I actually really like how I looked with shaggy hair again.

Now my hair is fully long again, in that's past my jaw, but not yet at my shoulders, and to my shock it is fine. All of my fears about looking stupid with long hair turned out to be dumb anxieties. I don't know if I'm going to commit to fully growing it out to the point that I used to be at in my early 20s, but at the same time I don't know that I'm going to go to the barber any time soon.

Some all of this long hair thinking has made me reflect on is how self-conscious I was about experimenting with my style when I was in university. When I started to wear skinny jeans, I felt the need to point out how tight my jeans were and make fun of myself for having girls jeans.* When I grew my hair out, I felt the need to say that I looked like a girl. I guess that in both cases I figured that if I said it first, then no one could say it to me. This urge died with time, and I stopped caring, but kinda weird that that was my first impulse, eh? Masculinity is a hell of a drug.

*TBH, I only ever had one pair of actual girls jeans and they were super uncomfortable because the crotch was super shallow and it hurt my balls, so I barely wore them. By the time I started with skinnys you could get guys ones everywhere.

Like a true IMU post, this one has no ending, so I guess I'll just add that it's NYHC week in the Humongous Brain Album Exchange. Duff gave me Born Against and I gave him Burn. One day I will get him to love the chug like I do.