Hair Affair

Now, I was thinking the other day about hair, and that the weird thing about it, is that people will touch other people’s hair. You will actually kiss another human being, right on the head. But, if one of those hairs should somehow be able to get out of that skull, and go off on its own, it is now the vilest, most disgusting thing that you can encounter.              -Jerry Seinfeld

People are very sensitive about artists “selling out.” They want creative folks to succeed, but if money or advertising becomes involved, artists get accused of losing their integrity and identity.

Take my thick hair. It has quietly dedicated its career to dropping strands on household items such as novels, yogurts, keyboards, and mouths. Lately I’ve been thinking Coke might sponsor my hair. That way, the strands could sell out and stop shedding like they used to. I close my eyes and try to imagine what it would be like to wrap a birthday present—just once—without getting a piece of hair caught in the tape. Being the nostalgic type, I’d probably miss it, like that single, wiry chin hair that “some people” still reach for after it’s been plucked.

However competent my shedding, I’m no expert. While living in Venice during grad school, I witnessed the skill of a true afficionado: my roommate. She dropped keratin with an artistry worthy of the Old Masters at San Marco. Every night before bed, I’d sweep up her daily wig to avoid wrapping hairs around my toes and cutting off their circulation. They were oddly beautiful, the mounds of black strands in the dustpan. I had no problem letting them go, though, because there would be plenty more tomorrow.

“It would be good for us to see other people,” my college boyfriend said. He could do three things at the same time: talk, roll up his floor futon, and break up with me. We had a strong bond, but not as strong as the bond between my waist-length hair and his staticky carpet. Through my tears, I watched a good sixty strands lift from the carpet fibers and glom onto the futon as he stashed it, like a jellyroll, between his guitar amp and his copy of 9 1/2 Weeks. Though I was heartbroken, it was comforting to think that one of his “other people” might find herself unwinding my hair from a certain ice cube in the not-too-distant future. Or spy a strand emerging from my ex’s nose in the morning light, like the world’s longest nostril hair.

On second thought, my hair won’t be selling out to Coke. Nor to Dyson.