A few months back, I changed up my hairstyle a bit: while leaving the top the same floppy length I’ve stuck with for most of my life, I now started fading the sides and back.  It’s a more modern look, and one that gives me pleasingly precise instructions; ask a barber to fade the sides from a 1.5 to a 3, and the results are reliably perfect.  The top, however, remains a bit more subjective.  So when I got a haircut three weeks ago, while the fade was indeed excellent, once I headed home and took a shower, I quickly realized the top had been left annoyingly long and over-floppy.  In the hopes of getting a full month out of the haircut, I therefore headed back a couple of days later, and asked that my barber trim the top a bit further, too.

Turns out, I should have been more specific about how much I meant by ‘a bit,’ as I left that afternoon with an inadvertent buzz.  Now, even three weeks later, it’s still one of the shortest haircuts I’ve had in my entire life.  And, as I recalled from a year ago, when I also ended up with an even shorter unintentional buzz, once my hair is below a certain length, it all just kind of sticks straight up, in a look I’d refer to as ‘plucked chicken.’

But what I’d forgotten from a year ago is, it then takes a surprisingly long time to get past that plucked length, to where my hair regains its normal appearance: a part on the side, with some going to the right and more going to the left, rather than all of it just sticking out in prickly uniformity.

Still, I’m hoping that, in another week or two, I’ll again reach the point of directionality – basically, that I’ll have a very short normal haircut, rather than a lengthy buzz.  After which, I should still have a month or two until I need to get the top trimmed again.  Which is good, as that should give me time to come up with more precise instructions, and to save myself from again getting wildly over-sheared another year hence.

When it comes to getting haircuts, I have a few simple rules: I look for barber shops, not salons. I don’t pay more than $20. And ideally, I choose places that have a revolving pole out front, straight razors on the wall, a pile of old Playboys in the corner, and a cadre of regulars who sit around for hours discussing the best boxing fight they ever saw.  (Cf., Coming to America.)  Ridiculously enough, I’ve discovered this almost always yields a better haircut than what I’ve received in fancy spots for literally ten times the price.

On the other hand, when things go wrong with this approach, they can go quite wrong indeed.  Like this past week, when I made an emergency stop at a new barber.  I had gone literally months since my last trim, and when the urge to have it sheared suddenly hit me, I couldn’t wait.

I sat down in the chair, and the barber asked me how long I wanted the sides.  Or, at least, that was my understanding.  But, as is often the case with my rules, there was a bit of a language barrier.  In fact, he was actually asking me how long I wanted the top.  I realized as much from his first trimmer swipe, which went not above my ear, but rather straight down the center of my head, leaving me with an inverted Mohawk.

Perhaps from my shocked expression, the barber appeared to suddenly realize the miscommunication, too.  “Oh,” he said somberly, “this isn’t what you wanted at all.”  Still, what was done was done, and there’s no use crying over spilled clippings. I laughed and told him, no, it wasn’t, but that he should nonetheless just buzz away.  It’s only hair, I told him.  It grows back.

So, now, my hair is very, very short.  Military short.  Went out yesterday and bought a lightweight baseball cap to run in because you can see my scalp and it’s definitely going to burn otherwise short.  And, more positively, so short that my already brief ‘styling routine’ – combing my hair after I shower – has now further reduced to doing absolutely nothing, because at this length even combing doesn’t matter.

I don’t suspect I’ll be going this short again any time soon.  Instead, I’m planning to wait a couple of months (until it reaches a point I’d previously have considered my “I just got a pretty short haircut” length), to get it shaped up a bit, and to roll forward per usual from there.

But I’m also kind of glad this happened.  Because, for years, I’d wondered what I would look like with a buzz, but had always been too much of a wuss to actually find out.  Now, I know.  And while, to be honest, it’s not what I’d call my best look, I can also say, modesty aside, that I still look pretty damn cute.

A month or two back, I introduced myself to a guy I see frequently at the gym – a big black dude in his early 50’s, who’s usually lifting about five times whatever I am.  We had already reached the head-nod stage of recognition, but had never actually talked.  And I’m very glad we finally did, as he turns out to be tremendously nice, and very funny.

He had recently been having should issues, and so a few weeks ago asked me for some mobilization and rehab exercises and advice.  Which led a mutual friend to point out the irony of one of the biggest guys in the gym getting advice from a guy who looked like the gym’s accountant.

Somehow, that evolved into a line of Steve Urkell jokes.  Which, in turn, led to me to saying that I preferred to be called Stefan (Steve’s suave French cousin, for those behind on their 90’s television).  And, from there, the nickname stuck; he’s been calling me Stefan ever since.

A few days ago, however, he came over to confirm my real name.  He had apparently seen me with Jess and my parents, and had wanted to say hello, but didn’t want to call me Stefan, given that they weren’t in on the joke.

And though I told him they wouldn’t have minded either way, apparently his caution stemmed from having once been burned in a similar situation.  A friend had jokingly started calling him “Big Head,” and, in return, he had nicknamed the guy “Stupid Face.”  So, inevitably, at one point he came across the friend, along with his friend’s children and elderly parents.

And, without even thinking, he waved hello and said, “what’s going on, Stupid Face?”

Apparently, not a big hit.

Went with Jess this past weekend to hike the Great Stairs / Peanut Leap Cascade loop in Palisades Park, arguably the most challenging hike in New Jersey. It’s relatively short – only about three miles – but with very steep descents and ascents, and a whole lot of scrambling. Highly recommended.

This is how you know you’ve found a good hike:

This weekend, I went with Jessie to Palisades Park, just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, to hike the Giant Stairs route to Peanut Leap Cascade.

While the hike is only four miles in total, it drops down the entire 600 feet of the Palisades bluffs in less than 1/5 of a mile, proceeds for several miles of scrambling and semi-technical climbing over long stretches of riverside boulder, then ascends back up the bluffs as quickly as it came down.

All told, the trek took us just under three hours. Or possibly seven, if you count in the four hours we spent lying on the floor exhausted once we got back home.