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Once more, with chip clips

It’s now less than a week until I go back to school for my second year of college. At the beginning of the summer — it seems so long ago now — I unpacked all of the boxes that pretty much filled my room. Now I have to fill them up again. I haven’t really, uh, started that yet. But I still have my list of things to bring from last year. I typed it on two sheets of paper and left space to write in the many things that didn’t come to mind right then. Ultimately, it was very comprehensive. I think the only things I forgot to bring were chip clips.

Back-to-school time is clean-up-your-look time, and I’m still deciding what I want to do with my hair. As you may recall, it’s long, and I might want to cut it short or at least style it in a different way. I’ve been asking my friends for their opinions, but I was surprised to receive an unsolicited opinion today. I was standing at the counter at the library with my mom when I smelled cigarettes. A middle-aged woman with dark, leathery skin moved in next to me. She had blonde hair. It was probably dyed that way, but I couldn’t bring myself to look long enough to know for sure.

“Someone who still has long hair,” the woman croaked. She was impressed. She rasped that she was a child of the ’60s — although pretty young then, she assured me — and grunted about how awesome the times were back then, as well as how bad today’s men look with their “square heads.” The one-sided conversation had begun without warning, and I was trying to figure out how to get out of it while providing an occasional “yeah” or “oh” in acknowledgement. The woman gravelly imparted to me that she turned down a man because he didn’t have long hair. Or something like that. Just then, my mom was leaving, so I had a good reason to abruptly end the most awkward conversation ever.

I was kind of flattered that someone took time to point out how much she liked my hair, although I would have enjoyed the conversation a lot more more if she were thirty years younger and didn’t have a cloud of tobacco smoke floating around her.

Questionable accolades from frog-throated ex-hippies notwithstanding, I do think I look good with long hair, and I worry that I wouldn’t look as good with short hair, which might throw my newly unburied facial features into high relief. Maybe parting my hair almost right down the middle isn’t the best thing, but most people are shorter than me, so they shouldn’t see too much of it anyway.

I have decided to get new clothes, though. I recognize the need to replace my uniform of plain t-shirts and jean shorts. Last weekend, I got some new patterned shirts of the polo persuasion as well as new shorts that are non-jean. Most of them are khaki, but the ones I’m wearing now are like fake corduroy or something. Anyway, I plan to phase out most of the plain clothes I’ve been wearing at least since I started high school. The simple way to do this is not to bring them with me to college. I’ll still have them, but I can’t wear them all the time. Hopefully, my new clothes will advertise me as interesting; the supporting act will be my long jeans and T-shirts that have things on them.

Sometimes, the media gets things wrong, and the results can be embarrassing. Here’s a long list of premature obituaries.

In the US, we make a big deal about the President and Congress. But that third and ever-so-important branch of government, the Supreme Court, often flies under the radar. But they’re still there, all right, and they’ve been holding on to some quaint traditions.

A blog featuring poorly chosen photos from real estate listings: It’s Lovely! I’ll Take It!