So last night I shaved my head. Came home from school, snapped the #1 guard on the old electric clippers, and went to town. I was walking around yesterday thinking, “Man, my hair looks stupid. All long and poofy and foppish. I don’t know what look I’m going for with this, but it sucks. I’m going to be thirty this summer. Time for a change.” (I’m not sure exactly how my age correlates with my hairstyle, but believe me, it does.)

The whole thing sort of came to a head (I swear I didn’t even realize that was a pun until I was typing it—sorry) a few weeks ago when Tara caught me fixing my hair in the rearview mirror while driving and told me that I fuss over my hair more than any boy she’s ever known. That’s when it hit me: She’s right. What is this effete, high-maintenance bullshit? What happened to being low-maintenance and classy and cool in the summer? Form and function had not only failed to meet, they’d hurtled past each other going in opposite directions.

I’ve been a long-hair enthusiast throughout the years, rocking a ponytail in 1995 (because I’m pretty sure there was legislation mandating that all 18-y.o. males have ponytails in 1995) and again in 1997 and then, most tragically, in 2003. (In many ways, these were also my most misguided years, so you think I’d learn.) Which is not to say I haven’t shaved my head before, most notably in the Perhaps I Should Have Used One Of Those Plastic Guards After All! debacle of 2001.

The Buddhists and the Marines both shave their heads for the same reason: to subsume the individual into the collective, and to do away with the narcissistic attachment to personal appearance that gets in the way of the discipline.

To a lesser extent, my goal was the same: I wanted to stop fussing over my hair in the rearview mirror every twenty minutes and having it take an hour to dry after I get out of the shower and hearing people say, “Are you ever going to get a haircut?” and “You look better with shorter hair,” and “I thought you were done having long hair.” As much as I hate copping to Caring What Anyone Thinks, I do. Many of my friends say, “You look great with short hair!” No one’s ever said, “Hey, remember when you looked like Oscar Wilde, except shitty? You oughtta bring that back around!”

Wow. So that was apparently an entire blog entry about my hair. Um, you’re welcome.