7-list: Personal Hairstyles Since Thanksgiving (both past truth and futuristic projection)

So I had dreadlocks for a good five years, growing them when I worked for this asshole at a place that did trade show exhibits for big pharmaceutical companies, because he was a straight-laced full of shit fuckface with a sexy wife and almost-sexy teenage daughter, and I was the guy in the finishing department who did the work of three men, so I figured I’d force his straight-lacedness into uncomfortable realms by looking as fucked as I could while still being an invaluable cog in his license to print money and throw me pork chop bones. What a stupid fucking reason to grow dreadlocks - to scare squares, not that being a white dude into deracialized Rastafarianism is any better.
Anyways, I got sick of them, sick of people asking me about weed, sick of cops mad-dogging me in vehicle passing, sick of having lumps of my own tangled hair disturbing the perfect softness of my pillow reaching my aching brain-encasing skull at night. So I cut them the fuck off, going from dreads halfway down my back to hair an inch or two at the longest. This was difficult because growing up with a longhaired redneck father figure, I hadn’t actually had short hair since I was like 11. No shit. I have always been afraid I had like giant lumps in my head from milk crates being thrown against me or falling down flights of stairs while drunk to even entertain having short hair. But there was no choice. It had to come off, all under the plan to grow it back long as quickly as that shit will grow. My wife was dead-set against me cutting it, but once it was cut, she loved how cute I was (and in fact, I’ve had a lot of regular-looking women double take me since cutting it, but I’m more into the retarded poetry-writing dirtbag teenage girl types working at Subway who like longhair) and wanted me to keep it short. But it ain’t staying short. The day after Thanksgiving when I cut my hair off might have been the last time I ever cut the hair on my head, ever (except my mustache hairs which have to be trimmed or else I have pussy-juice smelling fishing wire getting into every bite of food I try to put into my mouth). So here are the seven stages of my hair since shorning away my locked dread...

STAGE ONE: SHORT UNKEMPT HAIR (aka the Jimmy Fallon) - The one major misconception about having dreadlocks is that you don’t wash your hair. I did, all the time, because if I didn’t that shit would stink. But you have to squeeze the water out or else they get all mildewy (bleach solves that though, in case you were wondering). But I washed them every time I took a shower, at least twice a week. But once I had short combable hair, I remembered the high grease content of my hair (due to intense fried chicken eating, not to Italian or Mexican heritage), and I’d have to remember to wash it at the worst every other day. But the added grease, even in minimal amounts, would make my hairs stick out and over or up and sideways in odd manners. It was kind of like being a budding mad scientist, except there was no science I was tinkering with obsessive compulsively to cause it to happen. Luckily, my hair grew.

STAGE TWO: SLIGHTLY LONGER BUT STILL SHORT UNKEMPT HAIR (aka the Indy Rock Douchebag) - Basically the exact same cut as above, but slightly longer. It was a good experience in personal judgemental nature though, because I automatically hate on all those indy rock fuckers with that look. But I have slightly oily hair, and when sleeping on the couch watching The Price Is Right because I didn’t go to work (Drew Carey sucks as the new Bob Barker by the way, and I like Drew Carey; he’s trying to hard to be like Bob Barker; he needs to just be like “fuck it, let’s do this shit” in his own way), my hair would stick three ways in uncaring manners. It looked funny, but I never let myself leave the house on purpose like that, because I know there’s people who actually style themselves to look unkempt like that, and that is the most atrocious beer bottle upside the head (with the beer bottle being full of gasoline and a rag wick and it going upside your head from afar) activity I can think of, at this moment at least. So I would hand comb it down, since I didn’t own a brush. This is when I realized, much to my amusement (and my wife’s chagrin) that by wiping your hands over your hair in the Indy Rock Douchebag stage, you could easily achieve the 67% Redneck, 33% Wigger look, with the short greasy bangs going straight down your forehead. I would always do that look and roll into the living room, singing some Dr. Dre lyrics, and my wife would flip out and tell me not to ever do it again. But I did it again. I got mind control over my wife.

STAGE THREE: MOP-TOP HAIR (aka the Beatles Come to America) - Man, this is the absolute worst stage. Anyone who has been forced by lice or jail or hallucination or employment opportunities to chop off their beloved longhair will tell you this is the worst in-between part, too long for looking good really but too short to hold back with a child’s sized hair tie. Unfortunately, this is where I currently sit, which has been good for business, because people trust me, as I don’t look like I’m going to creepy crawl my way into someone’s personal wealth, yet I don’t look like some fratboy con artist. I would say in the construction industry, this is the most prosperous hairstyle you could possibly have - long enough to show you too busy and competent to be fucking around with haircuts, yet short enough to prove you are not some carefree idealistic flake bound to flip out and disappear at any point.

STAGE FOUR: SHAGGY EUROTRASH HAIR (aka the NBA Whiteboy) - I’m actually looking forward to this stage, as I’m way into art lately, and I figured once I hit this stage in the next month or two, I’m gonna start hitting as many art shows as I can with my wife and kids in tow and create this aura of “This guy is for-real” to the fake ass pseudo-strugglers that populate events like that. I am a committed married man, happy to have found a woman who not only tolerates but encourages my personal inane insanities, so I’m not going to jeopardize that for other pussy. But having other bitches, hot or not, flash googly eyes (which is the female equivalent to man drool) at me makes me feel like a big man and makes my little penis fill with alcohol-stained blood much faster at the end of the night. I totally understand this haircut too, because in an effort to get back in shape at age 35, I’ve been playing basketball lately, and the shaggy hair is a white man’s genetic advantage at times. It accentuates head fakes and makes the tuck-under-a-jumping-other-dude-and-do-a-finger-roll move so much easier. In fact, if Allen Iverson had been born white, I doubt he would’ve ever felt the need to develop his crossover dribble. He could’ve just tossed his hair one way, bolted the other, and added two points to his team’s total on the motherfucking regular. Also on the scoreboard.

STAGE FIVE: IF YOU FORCE IT MOST CAN BE KEPT BACK BY A HAIR TIE (aka the Primus Fan) - This is a tough one too for a lot of people, because you can keep most back, but you have some at the front of your head that’s too short and falls out of any hair tie you try and enslave your folicle growths inside of. I have always thought that this stage was the cause for a lot of dudes like Primus fans, and ferret owners, and bike messengers, to shave that little bit on both sides of their head, to prevent those short parts that couldn’t be held back in a nice full-head ponytail. Except this prolongs the problem rather than solving it. Thus, you have to keep shaving those two parts on the side of your head. This is a really bad stage in hair growth I’m not looking forward to, because you can’t just play it off like you have an extra-long stage four cut, because it’ll hang in your eyes and look like a Mexican metalhead rapist from 1987 (aka the Adam Morrison). I wear glasses so the Mexican metalhead rapist is counteracted by the glasses (which no Mexican metalhead has ever worn, regardless of how much they might have needed them) and just makes me look like a fucking fool. And that’s what I’ll be. But luckily, my hair will grow.

STAGE SIX: THE THIN PONYTAIL (aka the Birkenstocks) - Another tough one, even worse because like I said, I wear glasses, which means I’m going to look like any asshole ever picking through overpriced organic fruit in the Whole Foods produce section. I have briefly though lately that a neck tattoo would be a good way to counteract against the negative visual effects of the thin ponytail, which has yet to get the full hair girth needed to make a chunky ass fistful of longhair behind your head, but what do you get tattooed on your neck? The only thing I thought of that wouldn’t be stupid to me forever was getting, in cursive handwriting, wrapping around the back three-quarters of my neck, “CURSIVE HANDWRITING FOREVER” so on my right neck it would say “CURSIVE” and on my left neck it would say “FOREVER” and underneath my eventual awesome mane of machismo redneck hippie with a penchant for self-destruction hair would be the “HANDWRITING” part. The only problem is if I turn into a total fag and decide to rock short hair for the rest of my life like a total fag, I’d have that wrapping around my neck.

STAGE SEVEN: BRAIDED PONYTAIL (aka the Willie Nelson) - Basically, this was the whole reason I cut my hair. I was raised much more of a braided ponytail man than a dreadlocked man, so I was faking my own personal funk. And when I was younger, I would rock the braided ponytail, or even the double braids like Willie himself. The only problem was I was younger, with a fresh face, and just looked like I was looking for an ass-kicking. And actually I was at times. But now, I’m 35, have plenty of scars, including a couple of facial ones, a goofy beard that hasn’t been trimmed or shaved in almost a decade (but still isn’t as long as like a David Allan Coe or Jimmy Valiant... but that’s a separate seven-list completely, about my beard and long beard envy), the braided ponytail or the double Pippy Longstockings would be nothing but perfect. And the fact I have grey hairs popping out my beard now only adds to that. In fact, it would look fucked and premeditated if I didn’t. Of course, it is premeditated, because you can’t not cut your hair for that long unless you think about it. But I try not to think about it. I just hope once I get to the longhair like this and can braid it, I don’t get all stylish and stupid like the opposite but equal of an indy rock douchebag and shave my facial hair into a fu manchu. That shit is the worst.