My barber is a little late today. I sit on the couch amid a few Vietnamese ladies and prop my arm up on the cushion. Upon being made to wait due to someone else’s lateness, my first instinct is usually anger. But I have been concerned recently at my inability to be present. Or at the very least, to lose myself in thoughts as opposed to Reddit. Recently, therefore, I have decided to actively attempt to use my phone less. And unfortunately, once I did that I found there was nothing to keep me from this horror show called ‘thinking’.
Now, I sit quietly and watch the mall people go by. When they prove distressingly real, I let my mind wander. Burke and I have decided to play hooky this afternoon and are going to a restaurant for some beers and pizza. At this moment, the world is my oyster and it will come on bread with mozzarella. But after three months of daily busyness to the point of exhaustion, an afternoon hidden in the garden of some off-the-beaten-track restaurant is exactly what the doctor ordered.
I am irritated with myself for wasting May and June this year. This is one of my favorite times of year – we are no longer teaching but only testing and doing other work. This year, however, I have bitten off more than I can gobble and the time has passed in a blur of stress and short fuses. It was in an attempt to rein that in that we came up with our hooky day.
Paní July – my barber – is still not here. Though I don’t know her well, she must have a medical condition which results in her believing that I am 21 years old. As a result, she cuts my hair as one would someone who is hip to modern trendiography™. She leaves my hair longer on top – as Burke has assured me is the fashion. And while I was disconcerted at first, the number of compliments I got from my 21-year-old students seem to support Burke’s thesis and Paní July’s follicular tactics. The one time I asked Ms. July if she could cut my hair on top a wee bit shorter, she replied, in a somewhat startling but not altogether unpleasant way, ‘No.’
For this reason, I cannot forego haircuts lest I begin resembling Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein in 1995. So while I usually let my hair go for two months, Paní July has convinced me that I should come every month. So here I am for the third time in three months like some Prima Donna. So I’ll get twelve haircuts a year instead of six. I’m trying to reckon with the extra time push. It’s a 100% uptick in time. Let’s say each haircut is 30 minutes, I will now spend six hours a year getting a haircut. I marvel a little at that – how the small things add up. And then there’s how the small things add up over the course of your life, not in hours, but in how many more times of an activity or a object your life amounts to. I make the mistake of doing math in my head. Let’s say I have 35 years left on Planet X (bringing me to a lucky, if irritable 85 years old) at twelve haircuts a year, including this one, that brings me up to 425 haircuts left in my whole life.
I wonder if Paní July will give me all of them. As she still hasn’t arrived, I wonder if Paní July will give me this one. I guess the only things I have quantified my life with are years and books (≈1,050), which is why I give books a 30-page chance to wow the fuck out of me before putting it back on the shelf for something else. I try to rein in my brain, but it’s too late. I’m off to the morbid mathematical races.
All of the below quantifications of this mortal incarnation of existence are based on the possibly hopeful idea that I will live until 85. If I do, I have 140 notebooks in me, 7,280 beers, 595 pens, 51,100 times left to cross the street. I have 70,019 emails, 24,501 cups of coffee left, and 260 pairs of underwear (let’s hope none are rubber). I have 2,625 people left to meet once and never see again. I have 182 bugs left to swallow accidentally and then 182 times to make the joke ‘Oh well, good source of protein’. I have 140 doctor visits left (unless one of them is really, really bad) and I have 840 pizzas left to eat (but if I eat too many, then we can up the doctor visits). I have 280 shampoo bottles left to buy (assuming I keep my hair and if I don’t, then my number of haircuts and visits to Paní July also drop…best not pull at that thread). I have 175 Chinese takeaways, 11.67 pairs of shoes, and 280 tubes of toothpaste.
When I come out of my rabbit hole of morbid mathematics, Paní July has still not arrived. She’s 25 minutes late, and I am now panicked that I am not making the most of my time. I have to go have one of my 840 pizzas. Maybe two. A woman calls Paní July and they converse, no doubt, about my presence and her absence. I wonder why this call wasn’t made 20 minutes ago. The woman hangs up and informs me that my appointment is cancelled. OK, I tell her, and I leave.
Normally, I would be furious and such a waste of my time, but not now. I walk past DM and note a person buying shampoo and I wonder if she’s done the math. What about conditioner? Deodorant? Hot pepper flakes? I leave the mall and hurry towards the first of my 7,280 beers. And then it dawns on me. I have 426 haircuts left. Paní July just gave me a month of my life back! This calls for a shot. I take out my book and order a Becherovka, the first of the 1,129 I have left, followed quickly by a second.
