Teddy Roosevelt and I Cut Our Hairs

Among the many things Teddy Roosevelt and I have in common is our mutual phobia of haircuts.

I’ve never - ever - had a haircut that I liked when I left the salon. I usually like a haircut less once I’ve gotten it home where I can get a look at it. I sustain a kind of low-grade haircut hate for the next few weeks and then, from nowhere, I’ll get a three week period of terrific hairdays - like the eye of the cowlick. From there it is a pretty steady decline into shaggy and frizzy and so back to the salon to take my medicine.

I always assumed it was like this for everyone until I met Tim, who gets a haircut every two or three weeks. Tim is happiest with his haircut at the salon the very moment after it is shorn and - like a car driven off the lot - it almost immediately declines in value as soon as he leaves. Every millimeter of growth kills his perfect head of hair a little bit more.

Me, I have to come home and have Chiara perform haircut triage, snipping and trimming the peculiar topography, trying to salvage what we can from the debacle.

Still, I think Tim denies himself something. I think he denies his hair its natural life cycle. A haircut begins as a tight laced, buttoned down, wide-eyed kid and becomes, over time, a confident individual. It then, inevitably, goes too far off the deep end and ends up a crazy mountain man.

It’s a weird character arc, I admit.

I have only once had the courage to go beyond this third stage and discover what lies beyond the shag. It was a wild ride, but I wouldn’t go back (much like Burning Man).

Anyway, it’s a long, indulgent read for one man’s haircut neuroses. I promise the next time I compare myself to Teddy Roosevelt, I’ll just turn in a short paragraph about our endearing love of the pince-nez.

The Tao Te Cheese

If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.

If you give him a pizza, he can eat for two or three.

Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate

A number of people have asked me what it was like, studying for the bar. At best I can give a sort of half-answer, since I only sort of half studied. I usually offer some trite, unthinking response.

“It sucked,” I’ll say, or “It’s hell. I hated it.”

And mostly this is the answer they expect and so they are content. But I think a more vivid analogy could be nice:

Studying for the bar exam is just like having anvils dropped on your genitals.

And then those anvils ask you to recite the exclusions to the hearsay rule and the various means by which an executory interest can run afoul of the rule against perpetuities.