There’s a hole in daddy’s haircut

Ah, male pattern baldness. The old man bring-down that makes it impossible to hide your decrepitude. Yes I know some guys go bald when they’re in their teens, and I feel bad for them. I am trying very hard to throw out my own self-pity and vanity over the sad state of coverage on the top of my scalp, but despite my efforts to rise above it, I keep looking in the mirror and sighing.

But why should I be so forlorn at the great hairline retreat? Fear of how I’ll look as a balding dude is the first part of it. All of my mental self-images are built around a guy with a full head of hair, so seeing the plain truth will be quite a shock. How am I currently compensating? barbershop avoidance. If I don’t go to the barber, I don’t have to find some way to say ‘make me look as good as you can with the little you have to work with on top’. My three options are to swallow my pride and go to the barber, pull out the clippers, admit total defeat and shave my head, or just let it grow. Tonight, I’m firmly in the ‘let it grow’ camp. I’ll be a long hair, balding, creepy hippie. I call this hair style “The Denial”. It’s not a comb over, it’s a comb back. Still lame, I know.

This is the most obvious indicator of my shift into a new social category. I was at the Knights Hockey game last night, and I realized that I belong more in the group of older guys with grey hair (or bald dudes) than the smug looking 20 something dudes. The good news is that both groups turned and watched two hot girls walk by, so we are all brothers of a sort.

 

I felt good for a minute there…

But it passed. Whew! I was frightened that I would be malady-free and without physical complaint, but luckily a tension headache came in to take the burden of my discomfort from my fading cold. No downstairs computing for me tonight. Why? Well, my computer ‘desk’ (salvaged wooden banquet table) is wildly unsuited for this purpose, and my chair is uncomfortable and the arms are too low. These elements work together to strain my neck and pinch a nerve in my back. I’m done complaining for now. Moving on!

Max’s friend Bryson came over for another playdate today, and things went well. Bryson is getting more accustomed to paying attention to me when I talk, instead of assuming I’m just a noisy piece of scenery. The boys spent over half an hour chasing each other through the kitchen and living room. Our main floor layout is really suited to running tiny laps, and they had a great time circling by me. I am struggling a little bit with restraining my urge to correct language errors. Bryson has a little difficulty with his verbal skills, and he’s already receiving  speech therapy for it. I am compelled to meddle in the  situation and try to give him my untrained help, but I think it might be better if I avoid focusing on it. It’s hard to let it slide though. He uses ‘me’  instead of ‘I’ so there’s a lot of tarzan talk: ‘Me want to help”. The important thing is that his speech is much, much better than it was 6 months ago, and he’s a great kid who Max likes.

This company does not produce wisdom

I mean myself, of course. I have a cold, either again or still, depending on how you define ‘healthy’. My nose has been running heartily since yesterday afternoon, and in a fit of laziness I have been using the closest paper product near my computer as a nose wipe. What is it? Oh, paper towel. Good old abrasive paper towel. The folly of pummicing away the skin of my nostrils is becoming painfully evident.

For those waiting for an after-party report, I can say that things went well. Fantastically, in fact, once you take the surprise snow storm into effect. Light flurries my big white hiney. Everyone we were expecting to show up did show up, even if the snow made them a little late. The venue was great for the kids; I can recommend the Boys and Girls club to anyone with a kids party to throw.

It was great to watch Max in a pack of excited kids, all of them running and squealing and laughing and occasionally crying. My worries about his socialization are now officially put to rest.

And if you ever want a harrowing experience, try being in charge of the presents at a 3-year-old’s birthday party. We waited until the end of evening, so the kids were already crazy from the proximity to bedtime and the excitement of the party. They circled around me and Max to ‘help’ open the presents, and it felt like a swarm of zombies reaching out to grab me and eat my brains. Max was too wound up to even look at the presents as he opened them, and he just wanted his loot bag. By the next morning he was calm enough to actually look at the gifts and play with them. The wife and I needed at least 2 days of recovery. Unfortunately, we got about a day each, and I had this cold roll back in to bother me.