Ornoth

It’s been a long time since I had a normal men’s haircut.

I first grew my hair out long in 1991, soon after my wife left, and wore it long—sometimes down to my hips—for the next ten years. I was buying Pantene in two-liter jugs, but it was worth it. All the girls loved it, and the inevitable offers to brush it out or braid it were welcome at a time when I really needed some affirming attention. It was like discovering I had a hidden super-power!

The years passed, and my first grey hairs began to appear. They came in much coarser and wiry, and it didn’t make any sense to keep it long that way. I wasn’t even getting the girls anymore! So I figured it was time to get rid of it.

But before I did, I had one trick left that I wanted to try: I went and bleached the whole mane blond. It was ridiculously expensive and looked pretty terrible, but it was something I’d never be able to do again, so I went for it. To my friends’ consternation, it lasted about six months before I finally cut it down.

Naturally, I went from one extreme to the other, opting to keep my head close-shaved for the ten years that followed. Fortunately, my skull seems to be pretty reasonably shaped, so that look worked well for a long time, and it did a good job hiding the advancing grey.

Last summer, I decided to finally let my hair grow back out to a normal men’s length, so that I could get through the awkward intermediate-length stage while I was between jobs. I was finally beyond the point of trying to convince anyone of my youth, and I figured the grey would look “distinguished”, as my family have told me since childhood.

I grew up with the story that my father’s hair had gone grey by the time he graduated high school, and I’ve never known any adult on my father’s side of the family whose hair was anything but completely white. To me, it’s more surprising that my brother and I haven’t followed suit, staying salt-and-pepper the whole way. So although it wasn’t the greatest thing in the world, my going grey wasn’t any big, emotional trauma.

But growing it out last summer still presented a problem: it had been over twenty years since I’d had a normal men’s hair style. I had no idea what to do with normal hair, nor what my hair would do once it grew out!

So I kicked around ideas and experimented a little. I don’t want to have it long, because long grey hair looks horrible and ratty and sad, rather than distinguished. Think Riff Raff from Rocky Horror: not the image I want to cultivate! But I don’t want it too short either, because where’s the fun in that? Maybe I’d keep it short, except let it get a little longer in back, like a mullet? I dunno…

It was during one of those internal debates that I decided to look at the back of my head for the first time since I stopped shaving it. And that’s when I saw the great big thin patch on the top. Even after my hair has grown out very fully, I could still see my scalp! While I’m not bald (at this point!), there’s no arguing with the evidence that my hair has thinned. A lot!

If there’s one thing that doesn’t run in my family, it’s baldness. Although I did have two bald uncles, both of them married into the family and thus were not blood relations at all. The only cueball anywhere in my family tree was my maternal grandfather, Albert, whose name I inherited after he died a few months before my birth. I never even met the guy, yet I may have inherited his barren skull! Now that *would* be grounds for big, emotional trauma!

Is thinning hair that big an issue? Plenty of men wind up balding or with thinning hair, after all. And it’s not even a practical concern, because I just finished ten happy years with a shaved head, and I’d have no problem going back to that look.

Part of why it shocked me was that it was a sudden discovery, rather than a gradual one; I really hadn’t looked at my own artful dome since I stopped shaving it, so it was pretty disturbing to see it poking through the hair I’ve spent a year growing out.

And, of course, it’s another big chunk of undeniable (and sadly irreversible) evidence that I’m aging. Is aging such a bad thing? Well, I’ve spent most of my adult life taking pride in looking and acting as young as—if not younger than—my coworkers and friends. It’s been a big part of my self-image. But going bald really does put the lie to the saying that “You’re only as old as you feel”.

And writing about it doesn’t really help, either. This isn’t the kind of topic that you’d expect to read about if you visited a young man’s blog! And it’s not something I’d ever expected to write about, either…

I find that pretty ironic, because for me, aging feels a lot more like puberty than my teenage years ever did. As a teen, I was given several mysterious books full of frustratingly vague warnings of the confusing changes ahead for “our bodies”. I never did learn what all the fuss was about. Somehow, getting through adolescence never seemed like that big a deal, while the changes I’m going through now—dry skin, deteriorating eyesight, thinning hair, failing organs, ear and nose hair, skin tags, and other delights—are much more disconcerting than puberty ever was!

There’s one last little needling bit of irony, too. Years before the divorce and my accompanying decision to grow my hair long, my college friends got together and bought me my first CD player as a wedding gift.

Weeks earlier, in anticipation of that present, I’d gone into a CD store and bought my very first compact disc. Although CDs are old technology now, they were the big, exotic new audiophile thing back then. The store had the same bleeding-edge cachet as a 3-D printer “maker” shop might elicit today.

The album that had my attention at that time was an oldie even back then, but newly remastered and released on CD: Rush’s 1975 album, “Caress of Steel”. The memory of buying my first CD was burned into my mind during the two weeks I spent just staring at it while I waited to receive the gift I could use to actually play it!

One of my favorite tracks on the album… Well, Geddy Lee begins and ends it something like this:

I looked in the mirror today;
My eyes just didn’t seem so bright.
I’ve lost a few more hairs.
I think I’m… I’m going bald.
I think I’m going bald!
…
My life is slipping away.
I’m aging every day!
But even when I am grey.
I’ll still be grey my way, yeah!

All answers. Two words. Got picture? Now go!

1. Explain what ended your last relationship? Thermonuclear war.
2. When was the last time you shaved? Carpe diem.
3. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.? Reading clock.
4. What were you doing 15 minutes ago? Presto change-o.
5. Are you any good at math? Radical one.
6. Your prom night? What prom?
7. Do you have any famous ancestors? Your gran'mama.
8. Have you had to take a loan out for school? Not really.
9. Do you know the words to the song on your myspace profile? Haha FTN!
10. Last thing received in the mail? Credit offers.
11. How many different beverages have you had today? OJ Simpson.
12. Do you ever leave messages on people's answering machine? Stupid question.
13. Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to? Ailsa Loverboy.
14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach? Fucking egotism.
15. What's the most painful dental procedure you've had? 30,000 dollars.
16. What is out your back door? Newbury Street!
17. Any plans for Friday night? QUITTING JOB!
18. Do you like what the ocean does to your hair? What hair?
19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns? Ewww no.
20. Have you ever been to a planetarium? Yawn. Yeah.
21. Do you re-use towels after you shower? Before, too!
22. Some things you are excited about? Munny! MUNNNNNY!!!
23. What is your favorite flavor of JELLO? Dead kelp.
24. Describe your keychain(s)? Null set.
25. Where do you keep your change? Under scotch.
26. When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group of people? Work award.
27. What kind of winter coat do you own? Leather, suede.
28. What was the weather like on your graduation day? Schoolkid question.
29. Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed? Nasal passage.

Bonus points if you get that reference!

I have to say this for Pope John Paul II: the little bugger's a better visual comedian than Jim Carrey! Last year I came across a photo of him posing with a gaggle of schoolchildren. Completely inappropriate for the situation, the old guy was making a face like he'd just been poked in the eye while eating a communion host that had gone bad. The photo was so funny that I had to feature it in a series of collages I was doing for art school, even though it completely violated the series' theme...

At the time, I thought it was a one-time fluke, but recently I was proved wrong. Our Man JP's recent trip to the Americas provided a couple particularly wonderful images of ecclesiastical humor. In one image (here), JP is being escorted from the PopeJet by a young priest, but his body language and expression say "Let go of me ya damned cardinal! I'm outta here I tellya!" That was followed up by another photo (here), where an attractive adolescent girl in colorful garb is presenting herself to the pontiff. His beanie is knocked askew, and he's holding his head as if to say "Oy, and I took a vow of celibacy?"

But the point of this post isn't to make fun of the chosen representative of God on Earth. No, really! After all, anyone who can type "http://images.google.com" can do that!

But this was the topic of conversation between my friend Rhonda and I when we went down a particularly interesting line of inquiry. We got onto the subject of her "version" of Heaven differing from the standard interpretation, and she described to me a recent Robin Williams movie entitled "What Dreams May Come".

Now, before I get into it, let me tell you that the movie is bad. I'm about to describe its only redeeming feature, so there's no need for you to go out and see it. Fair warning.

Rhonda brought it up because the movie's basic premise is that the afterlife we'll experience is a reflection of our expectations of it. If you believe that the afterlife is what el papa says, then that's what you'll experience; if you believe the afterlife is going to be one big orgy, then for you it will be; if you think you'll be punished for your transgressions in this life, you surely will be; and if you don't believe in life after death... Well, the movie doesn't really address that question, but I'm sure you can imagine. The basic plot of the movie is that Robin Williams dies and finds himself in the world he and his wife had always dreamed about; his wife, a needy, self-absorbed neurotic, commits suicide shortly after, and resigns herself to an eternity in her own personal hell. The basic conflict is Robin Williams' quest to be reunited with his wife and show her there's another way.

The idea that everyone could be a god ruling a world created by their own imaginings was the basis of the first story I ever got paid for, "In Our Infinite Wisdom", published more than 20 years ago. The premise was a late-night wargaming session, where the players began theorizing that if there were an infinite number of worlds, there'd be a world just like Earth, only we'd all live in castles, that one could get to simply by thinking about it. Shazam! There it is. The characters wind up continuing this line of thought, essentially incrementally thinking their way into their own individually-tailored Heaven. To give away the ending, the twist comes as they all gradually realize that there'd also be an equivalent Hell that one would be transported to simply by thinking of it, and their brief but vain struggle to not think about it.

So all this talk got me thinking about my own idea of Heaven, and how it might look. Not what I believe is after death, because I think I made than abundantly clear in my 2/24/2002 LJ article "Philosophy for Dummies" (here), when I wrote "When we die, like any animal, we die. There is no essense or spirit which survives when our brain activity ceases", but what I would like: what world I'd design if I were given free reign to create a Heaven of my own devising.

Interestingly, despite having written a story that dealt with the topic, I really have never thought about what my Heaven would be like. I decided that'd be an interesting line of inquiry. At the same time, I'm also curious about the kinds of worlds other people would create. Would they just give the universal answers of "flying angels, no disease, no hunger, no conflict", and so forth? I think you could learn a lot about someone by the unique things they'd do to create their own world and how it'd be different from everyone else's. In "What Dreams May Come", Williams' world is full of saturated colors and things made from wet paint, since his hobby is painting. I think it'd be an interesting question to ask people over beers. I also think it'd make a cool assignment -- create a ten-minute videograph of your idea of the perfect afterlife -- although in some of our cases getting willing and appropriately-endowed actors and actresses might be a bit of an issue...

So let's consider this question. Let's get the base assumptions out of the way: we're all going to prohibit things like disease, pain, conflict, hatred, inequality, injustice, and fear, right? Let's not restate the painfully obvious here. But in what less straightforward ways would your world differ from Earth? Here are some of mine...

• I would have the time to do everything I want to do
• "Do what thou wilt, and it hurt none" would not just be the whole of the law, but would also actually be practical and meet everyone's needs
• Travelling from place to place would be both free and instantaneous, allowing you to go anywhere anytime you wanted
• There would be the ability to travel to different destinations in time; you could easily visit the 1970s or the 14th century or ancient Rome if you so desired
• Seasons would be more discrete; summer would be more summerlike, autumn more autumnal, and you'd know when you passed from one to the next
• Similarly, urban areas would be more urban, and rural areas more rural; the two would mix less
• There would be no economy, in the sense of no currency and no need to work just to maintain one's standard of living
• Creating things would be quicker and less error-prone; things like baking, programming, and art would be much less labor-intensive
• Things would be less pre-fabricated, and everything would be more "designed"; all housing, in particular, would demonstrate more architectural and artistic appeal
• There would be very, very few smells; most odors we know wouldn't exist, and there'd be a cap on the strength of all odors
• There would be no children, noisy, smelly, hateful little things that they are
• Everyone would appear to be the age at which I knew them, e.g. my high school friends would be circa 1982, my college friends circa 1986, my co-workers circa 1998, and so forth
• No one would have any body hair, save normal hair on the top of their head
• One would have the ability to experience life as a member of the opposite gender if desired
• People would be free to express their affection to one another, without fear of any kind
• Sex of widely diverse flavors would be much more common; inhibiting factors such as social acceptance, rape, STDs, performance issues, and unwanted pregnancies would be alleviated
• People would be able to intuit and accept (and, of course, act on) one another's turn-ons
• True non-consentuality would not exist

I don't think there's any real need for me to comment any further on these. The point isn't to justify them to you, but just to noodle around some vision of what life might be like in my perfect world. And I'd hardly advertise this as an immutable list, just some brainstorming.

Now, unlike my previous postings, I'm going to open this one up for public response. However, I want to emphasize that I'm not interested in your comments about my Heaven, or the thinking that got me to this point. What I'm interested in is your description of the Heaven that you would create. I'd appreciate it if you limited your comments to that topic.

It's one part imagination, and one part character; so show me what you got!