yup, i'm male.....

i'm not your 'typical' guy. while i don't have scientific evidence to back this up, it's an opinion not wholly unfounded. i've had several "man" type discussions about outlooks on various things (dating, one night stands, alcohol, sports) and my views/attitudes/ideas don't line up too much. plus i have if on authority from 5+ women i know that i'm "not your typical guy". ok, so one went so far as to do the whole "you're like having a gay friend" routine.... painful, humiliating, and scarring. apparantly my pedestal worship of her had gone unnoticed. anyway.... i digress.

from smart, sexy, wonderful, vivacious women, i've been told. not your typical guy.

i try to plan things. i try to prepare for projects. ok, my sense of time is terrible, but that's not just a male thing. i try not to go ballistic like my father when something doesn't go right - things never go right! after 30 years, why the hell could you never NEVER figure that out?!?!? sorry. again. i digress. (fodder for a different blog entry.)

sometimes, my testicles get in the way. or i guess you could say the best laid plans of mice and men?

i cut my hair short. 1/8". any shorter and i'd lose the velcro effect that keeps my hat on. hat. not cap. no baseball cap, thank you. hat. fedora. aussie outback style. austrian. real hats. 60's hats. (again, i digress). i got tired of paying someone $15 bucks for a haircut. i bought a pair of clippers with the kit of spacing attachments. for $30 bucks, i've been doing my own hair just fine for 12 years now.

i like it short. it's comfortable. it's easy to look after. i cant' tear it out when i'm stressed. it looks better than the mullet i sported during the 80's and part of the 90's. oh yes - hair down to the middle of my back in art college. it's a wonder my in-laws let me in their house, never mind date their daughter. oh ya... hides the white that began cropping up.

anyway - testicles. right. so.... picture this. my hair is too long. i've been meaning to cut it for days, but my weekend rocked and i was busy. so i decide to do it before turning into bed. i get started - have the lower back right quadrant under way, when i get frustrated because it's not cutting smoothly. do i finish? struggle on valiantly? fight the good fight? nope.

i decide at 11pm at night, with nothing open to save my sorry ass - to fix the problem. which in this case, is to sharpen the cutting parts. no problem - i sharpen all kinds of edge tools. have lots of gear to do this with. and proceed, like a man, to thoughtlessly, fearlessly, plunge forward.

and now, now...... they won't cut at all. well, crap. that's not right. and i can't stop - somebody's going to notice. i have and inch and a half of hair missing on a quarter of my head. can't wear a baseball cap to work - i don't own one.

ok, i'll end the suspense - i fixed it. so now, my hair is short. i can survive the next round of work. well, i won't be able to pull my hair out anyway. and now, i'm off to bed.

not that i need any beauty sleep (someone as dashingly handsome as i). i'm just tired.

(insert semi-boring technical stuff here: i stayed on too coarse of a stone. when you sharpen a kitchen knife, you want to use a 100 grit stone to hone it - the knife needs the burr formed to effectively cut. stroking it on a steel lines up and restores that burr. when you cut with an edge tool, such as a chisel or plane, you want the intersecting surfaces to be at a mirror polish. in grit, that would be at about the 4000 or 8000 if you're serious. i stopped at 250. couldn't get it to cut anything - just kept bending my hair. once i got to 8000 and a mirror finish - my hair was jumping off in fear.)