I haven't lost all of my hair. Many cancer patients who have to sit through the ravages of chemotherapy lose all of it, but I haven't. I look more like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'s Baby Herman than Popeye's adopted son Swee'Pea. It's hard to tell, though, how much hair Swee'Pea actually had, because the drawings were so crude and he always seemed to be wearing a bonnet, which I suspect existed merely as an excuse for the animators not to draw hair. Anyways, I still technically have most of my hair, but it now has the awkward patchiness and pathetic vestigial presence of a junior high student's pitiful peach fuzz.
I'm glad I shaved it, unlike a few people I saw who opted not to do this. Like I've said, they came to look like newly indoctrinated cult members. However, the problem is that it's fall--my favorite season, by far--and the brisk air necessitates a hat. It doesn't matter if I'm outside, with occasional gusts of wind, or inside, with nothing going on but what I can feel from heating vents. The slightest hint of a change in air currents can make me shiver.
Throughout the day, I will wear a plain black knit cap at different times, depending on how cold I am. You know that old grammar school teaching that says that something like 75% of your body heat comes from your head? I always scoffed at this, and thought it was just another manipulative ploy to make kids wear hats. This may be true, but I must say that a high percentage of palpable body heat comes from your head. Remember--I'm not totally bald, but I may as well be. (I just had to reach for the hat, by the way, because I'm fucking freezing, and I think it's around 70 degrees in my room.)
Realistically, a tonsure would provide at least a little more warmth than a completely shaved pate. Honestly, I think this is why Hare Krishna acolytes are scarce when compared to Franciscan monks. Maybe it's also why the former love airports so much. The air is controlled, for the most part. Now that I think about it, though, I'm not sure if Franciscan monks even do the tonsure thing anymore.
The allure of a tonsure vanquishes any brand of pity I may have felt for balding men. They don't need it. If anything, these guys are very shrewd not to hide their baldness by shaving their heads because they aren't completely freezing when the temperature drops. Besides this, guys who shave their heads to cover up their dwindling hair tend to be dicks.
My wisps of hair provide some insulation, I'm sure, but it is not nearly enough to make me comfortable consistently. It's only fall, mind you, and the biting cold of winter in the Midwest is right around the corner. Hopefully by then, though, I'll have enough length to guard my skull reasonably. Plus, I'd wear a hat anyway, because it gets cold, and I'm way beyond the too-cool-for-school phase of adolescence.
Until then, I'm stuck with a combination of the knit hats and the hoods that I pull over them. Just so you know--I'm not the reincarnation of the Unabomber or a member of some outlying religious faction.
I'm just cold.
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