I knew some of what to expect. Some people would stare. People who know me personally would have a
cornucopia of opinions that they will gladly share. Others might
assume I am gay and move on. But I've also noticed that I don't get panhandled anymore. I guess they're afraid I will make it into an issue and therefore make the act harder on everyone, when they could easily beg from the nice, normal looking chick in front of me.
Not that I mind.
I would never have done it. You are much braver than me. A woman who works in our office but does not work with us stands in my doorway and laments that she has "sold out" while I have not given over to the corporate whore. She has a cut out photo of Trent Reznor taped to the keypad of her laptop, but that, these days, is as risky as she gets. And I believe her.
I still check out the boys in the park, but I'm invisible to them now. I'm just another health-conscious untouchable, not unlike any woman pushing 30. I might be a lonely lesbian on the track alone, or someone who is just really, really confused.
Aww…why did you go and do that?
Do people ever think when they speak? Like I did this by accident, that it wasn't precisely what I wanted, that I'm not (obviously) a five year old that was left alone with Daddy's clippers in the bathroom for too long? For all my efforts to convince people that I indeed have a brain and an intellect, it is all lost in a single question, one whose answer is automatically followed by a thin smile and a shrug.
Often, I feel now, that I am expected to do something else different. I'm expected to be unpredictable when merging into the right lane. I'm expected to be more violent at the drive thru window at Wendy's, or just more likely to do something people can't prepare for, simply because I have less hair. Like they can't figure me out now. I may look like a skinhead, or someone stepping out into some new religious path, maybe even someone who is dying and instead of waiting for the hair to fall out, killed the hair. Punks on Decatur Street look at me more like a fellow punk, while college kids at the Rue find themselves watching the back of my head in line. I don't dress any different. Other than my hair, I'm pretty dull looking.
In finite games, you play within the boundaries. In infinite games you play with the boundaries.
All around me, I am becoming aware of not the setting up or tearing down of stereotypes but the dismantling of them. I don't act any different, but maybe soon I will be. I never saw the shave as an effort to redefine myself, that it would envelop me in a costume so that I could be someone different. I just wanted to know what it felt like. And so, now I do.