Oh, to be Mr. fabulous. You know the type, lives under the illusion that they are just gorrrrrgeous regardless of the state of them. That is one of my favourite Irish expressions, “The state of ye.” It is a great Irish leveller, so when Mr. Gorrrgeous comes into a room with his flowing locks, white shoes and the auld baby blue jumper trun over his shoulders, some woman in the room will quickly say, “would ya look at the state of yer man.” I love it and forgive me the odd phonetic spelling or two above, I was in the zone.
Of course, some might think I’m jealous…oh no! Not me. Many’s the lady has had occasion to say, “would you look at the state of yer man” in reference to me, I can tell ya. I am not one for standing back to step forward, if you know what I mean. I like clothes and suspect I have multiple fetishes, from shoes to hats and watches, and particularly jackets. I literally struggle to not try on a jacket every time I visit a clothes shop. There are jackets in my wardrobe that never see the light of day…yes, I have a problem.
But you see, my internal Mr. fabulous is a construct. Despite what I suspect most people believe about me, I am rather shy by nature and don’t actually have a very high opinion of myself. My counter to that, is to outwardly pretend I do and then try to have fun with it. It’s all one big cover up. I suspect there are many just like me, but of course none exactly like me .. sure, aren’t I uniquely fabulous. Even if I’m getting a little creaky.
Getting older doesn’t help. At my age, I have already become invisible to the fairer sex. Not that I want to attract anyone, I am happily and blissfully in love with my darling Jo, but the odd glance to reassure me that I still have ‘it’ wouldn’t be a bad thing. I have to satisfy myself with the knowledge that octogenarian ladies do occasionally think I’m fit for an auld lad, and strangely enough, a lot of Indian women give me the head to toe once over. I don’t think it’s out of admiration, more in the way of a ‘where do I know him from’ thing. I’ll take what I can get and pretend it’s because I’m irresistible. Lord knows I’m Irish through to the bone, but there are some sordid rumours about my great grandfather and great grandmother who spent time in India. I was once told by waiter in an Indian restaurant, that I looked like a former Indian prime minister! I googled the bejesus out of that one but couldn’t make sense of it. Mind you he fancied my daughter, so maybe it was his way of trying to impress me.
Now when I was younger, I experimented with my hair as many young men do. It was flung about with abandon whenever it was long and I went through multiple hair phases. For example there was my Leif Garret phase, my “Don’t give up on us baby” David Soul phase and so on. Of course both examples were icons to the girls in my neighbourhood, they fancied the arse of those lads, so I tried to capitalise and failed with my own iconic versions of their hairstyles.
The hair of course, eventually got shorn and for pretty much the last twenty or thirty years, short has been best for me. From a practical stand point, I have a shower, shake my head and it’s dry. No styling required. Ah men, we are lazy baxtards aren’t we?
But Covid-19 has changed all that. They closed the barbers for months! My usual barber only opened last Monday. It’s by appointment only and now it’s done with all the PPE and shielding, social distancing etc, so there is potential for queuing outside. I’ve never been one for queuing. Now I will let you in on a writing/editing secret here. I originally wrote I’ve never been a queuer, but it looked wrong. Coincidentally, a queuer is also a braid of hair usually worn hanging at the back of the head – how apt. Where was I – yes, I don’t so queues, so I decided to leave it for a couple of weeks until the rush dies down.
Now here’s the problem. My longer hair is back. I won’t say I’m quite the aging hippie just yet, but it’s a lot longer than I am used to. It actually blows in the wind when I walk the dogs…You are picturing it aren’t you… me in my fabulousness … think prince charming from Shrek… got it… now add a few decades, a few pounds and a lot more grey and wrinkles and you are heading in the right direction.
It’s very odd. My hair has been so short for so long, that I forgot just how flicky it gets as it grows. I was even eyeing up Joanna’s straighteners the other day, I swear. She thinks it’s great or perhaps funny, one of those, I’ll stick with great. Jo keeps urging me to keep it and grow it until I have to go back to working from the office in October. Jebus can you imagine? It’s bad enough now! She loves me, but I suspect she might be having a little secret laugh at my expense here. What’s the expression…taking the… something?
The beard was bad enough. That got so long it was annoying me and I’ve gone through three versions of beardyness since this whole pandemic began. My hair on the other hand, has lost the run of itself completely. I think it has become a conscious, sentient, independent thing. I may write a horror story based on it. It has a sense of itself, it’s becoming arrogant though not yet overbearing, if you get me.
I wake up every morning, wondering what will greet me in the mirror. It can be quite a fright some days. Styling is possible, but only if I apply tonnes of product and aim for a look akin to A Flock of Seagulls or maybe even Albert Einstein crossed with Christopher Lloyd. I can eventually sort it out to look somewhat normal, but I never know if I’m heading for an old version of David Cassidy or a current Willie Nelson. I’m telling you, this thing has a life of its own. As I write this I was just thinking – anybody under the age of eleventy-seven will have no idea who these people are. I’ll throw in Chris Hemsworth for the young folk… What? Can’t I exaggerate a little? Leave a man his fantasies!
The easy thing would be to get it cut, but like I say, I don’t like queues or if the truth be told, maybe there is a piece of me, just a little piece mind you, that secretly wants to know where this goes. Who knows what possibilities lie ahead for an aging piece of fabulousness like myself – if I just wait that little bit longer… Maybe I’ll just cut it.. Maybe.. Maybe tomorrow… Maybe…
You can find details about Max Power’s books here : –
http://www.amazon.com/author/maxpower
https://maxpowerbooks.wordpress.com
http://facebook.com/maxpowerbooks
twitter @maxpowerbooks1
Universal book links
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood
http://getbook.at/Darkly-Wood-II
http://getbook.at/Little-Big-Boy
http://getbook.at/Larry-Flynn
http://getbook.at/Bad-Blood
Maxpower's Blog 