Tag Archives: charity

A baldness which is full of grandeur

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Late last year, I shaved my head. A few days later I went to a doctor for a physical and as she was taking my medical history, she kept glancing at my head until finally she couldn’t take it anymore and she said, “So, what’s the situation with the… um…”

I wondered if I ought to be offended. Can’t a woman have a shaved head? Didn’t Sinead make that inroad for women’s liberation back in the 90s or something? But medically, I guess it was a fair question. I could’ve been withholding a secret headlice infection or something.

So I just said, “It’s nothing medical, unless poor judgment counts as a medical condition. Hey, is there a medication for that? Anyway, it was a charity-related incident.”

 

Normally I wouldn’t call shaving my head to raise money for pediatric cancer research to be an act of poor judgment, but it was autumn in the Rocky Mountains and my head was already cold. I had begun to dread the winter. Plus, I was having a hard time getting anything done because every few seconds I had to rub my head. Had to. It was mesmerizing. But there were down sides (like people wondering if I’d joined a punk rock band and having to face the disappointment of realizing I should’ve also joined a punk rock band). Without my hair it became painfully obvious to me that my ears stick out and also that my glasses have carved permanent grooves into my flesh. Once again people are calling me “sir” all the time, but that might just be a side-effect of living once again in Utah. (Oh Utah, I love you and I hate you simultaneously, but most days it’s like 70% hate at least.)

Plus, I’m now at that stage of re-growth where my hair has become its own independent being and refuses to bow to my control. Every morning I look in the mirror and think to myself that while my long hair was higher maintenance, it was also not quite as gravity-defying. In another few months, I will undoubtedly have an almost-afro.

I am beginning to understand Joe Flanigan’s hair-pain on a deep and personal level.

Still, having your head shaved in a pub full of drunken strangers is certainly a unique and rewarding experience, and in all seriousness I haven’t regretted it for an instant since. (Well, more than an instant anyway.) It’s such a small thing to deal with when you consider that the people you’re helping have to deal with much greater challenges. And also, it’s a great story to tell at parties. I mean, it would be. If I ever went to parties.

What I’m leading up to here is that having yourself sheared like a sheep is just the sort of behavior I admire, so I was chuffed when my BFF Deborah decided to throw in her lot with friends Chris and Karin for a ritual hair-shaving in aid of St. Baldrick’s. I hope you’ll consider making a donation in support of their team or an individual shavee, and help Team Blissfully Bald shatter their fundraising goal. (As of this writing they are incredibly close!) You can also read Deb’s blog about her epic undertaking over here, and presumably she’ll keep us updated on all the latest in baldness as this story develops. Personally, I’m hoping for lots of baldness pictures from all three of them. I expect that, as the poet Matthew Arnold once wrote, they shall be “Bald as the bare mountaintops are bald, with a baldness which is full of grandeur.”

Pics, my friends, or it didn’t happen.

The Desolate Landscape of My Very Bald Head

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A few days ago, I shaved my head.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I had my head shaved. In a pub. In front of a happy and drunken crowd. With a Celtic band playing a merry tune while the barber sheered me like a sheep. All in all, I’d have to call the evening a success, because if you’re going to go out and have a few drinks and do something inadvisable, it’s surely better to be compared to a sheep than to wake up next to one.

But okay, if you must know, the experience was not at all like getting wasted and  waking up with a new tattoo… though a few of the participants were just sauced enough that it made me wonder whether they’d wake up the next morning wondering what exactly happened to all their hair. What we were actually doing was a fundraiser for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing research into pediatric cancers. The rather novel approach that St. Baldrick’s takes is to have people raise money by pledging to shave their heads in solidarity with cancer patients. And for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, their events tend to be staged in Irish pubs, which frankly I think is genius. I also chose to donate my hair to an organization that will turn it into a wig for someone who needs it. All in all, it was a win-win. I got to help a couple of good causes, have  few drinks, and enjoy the fellowship of other people who think that getting shaved in public constitutes a good time.

In the run up to the big event, people kept asking me if I was nervous or if I’d changed my mind. Even our fabulous barber — Robert from Euphoria Salon in Durango — asked me if I was sure before he started cutting.

What have I done? And why does my head feel SO MESMERIZING?

I was sure. I was pretty sure I was going to have a really silly-looking bald head, but I was also quite sure all that hair would grow back again. I was ready to join the ranks of the bald and beautiful. My friends online and off had pledged a staggering $1,323 to see the deed done. And sure, most of the bald-and-beautiful people who came to mind were guys, like Patrick Stewart and Hugh Dillon, but Sinead O’Connor and Demi Moore had certainly proved that women could pull off the look, too. Plus, once I was bald, there would be a new kinship between us. I would be initiated into a sacred society: a society of increased light refraction and a yearning for warm hats.

The obvious next step would be me and Hugh Dillon — because since we’re both bald, we’re totally tight now — forming a bald-headed detective agency and fighting crime together.

But failing that, I knew I’d at least get an evening’s entertainment out of it, and anyway I’d been reliably informed that if I went to this pub I’d be able to get a shepherd’s pie (and it was delicious, by the way).  I was committed. And I haven’t regretted it. I watched a steady stream of brave souls — some with more hair to lose than others — take their turn in the chair, and it was crowded enough that you practically had to fight for your chance to be shaved. There were people getting shaved who’d only just signed up on the spot. It was a madhouse of the best kind. I finally got my turn in the chair and Patrick Crossing played on in the background like I had my own personal theme music while Robert took the clippers to my head. And when it was all over, I didn’t feel like I’d lost anything. Together we raised $5933 for St. Baldrick’s, but just as importantly, we addressed the important problem of cranial ventilation.

I hung around and watched some more of the shavings, took a ridiculous cell phone photo of myself and sent it to some of my friends, and then facing an hour’s drive home again, I made my way back to my truck. The moon was ridiculously huge in the sky and I sang along to The Swell Season all the way home and was very bald and very happy.

Since then, I’ve learned some important things about being bald. Well, buzzed anyway. Like for instance, when you step out of the shower and the cold air hits your head it feels kind of like your entire scalp has been covered in a thin layer of Icy Hot. It’s surprisingly pleasant. Your head will be cold but you will also find it surprisingly difficult to put on a hat because suddenly your scalp is nothing but sandpaper-like friction. Also, people are going to want to touch your head. They won’t be able to help themselves. (I’m fine with it, but I do charge $1 for the experience.) And regrettably, you will not magically transform into G.I. Jane or discover your inner Spartan warrior just because you got rid of your hair, which frankly I find kind of disappointing. (I’d been standing at the mirror and practicing my “This. Is. SPARTA!” all week.)

I’ll be glad to have my long hair back… in a few years time, which is how long my hair takes to grow. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the change (I’m a changeaholic, and just shaving my head is probably an easier change to adjust to than, say, shaving my head and moving to a Tibetan monastery to find my inner zen), and I’ve got to say that I’m loving the increased airflow.

Many thanks to Sharon Tiesdell Smith for taking these fab photos of me and my new baldness! Her blog is awesome, go there and read about her adventures with her awesome horse!

A Shaved Head… For the Children.

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I suppose I should point out a few things right off the bat: I’m not usually a very altruistic person. And I don’t really like children.

There, I said it. At the risk of sounding like Scrooge McScroogeypants, it can fairly be said that I am typically focused on my own survival, and that I find children to be strange, alien organisms who exist in a world that is beyond the scope of my understanding. That’s not to say that I won’t help a friend in need or that I wander the streets looking for children to terrorize, but I’m not usually big on things like contributing to fundraisers or, for instance, babysitting. (Woe betide the person who thinks I should look after their children. Seriously.) So it’s a bit out of character for me to be doing what I’m doing: participating in a fundraiser for childhood cancer research. By shaving my head.

If you'd like to sponsor my new Sinead O'Connor look, please click on the image above to go to my participant page at St. Baldrick's!

As fundraisers go, shaving one’s head strikes me as particularly punk-rock, and since I occasionally experience a strong urge to shave my head anyway, it kind of seemed like the universe was sending me a message when I saw that my local Irish pub was holding a St. Baldrick’s fundraiser, and that they were looking for volunteers to have their heads shaved to raise money for charity. I dithered a bit, but the idea had snared me. My little niece has been in hospital getting a tumor removed and I’ve been waiting to hear whether she’s going to need chemotherapy, unable to really do anything to help from halfway across the country. At least this way I could do something to feel like I was contributing, like I was standing with my family and all of the people who have to deal with this. I consulted a few friends to make sure I hadn’t gone crazy, and then I signed up. On September 17th, I’ll be headed to The Irish Embassy Pub to have my hair shorn right off, and I’ll also be donating my hair to an organization that uses it to make real-hair wigs for those who need them.

Quite a few people have already told me I’m brave to do it. I don’t really see it that way, though I can see how it would be a big sacrifice for most people. (And I expect it really won’t help my odds with dating. :D) But I figure it will grow back, and I’ve never been all that attached to it. For most of my childhood and young adulthood, I had very short hair, to the point where when I told hairdressers how short I wanted it, they typically insisted on checking with my mum first to make sure I wasn’t going off the reservation. Long hair isn’t generally a good idea for me — it brings out my compulsive, hair-twisting, ends-chewing side — but I grew it out essentially so that people would stop calling me “sir” or asking me whether I was a girl or a boy. (I am not even kidding you right now. Apparently I’m super-butch. Maybe one of these days I’ll write a blog about my gender-related traumas.) I’ve never really known what to do with it — being a girl isn’t my strongest skill — and it’s never really felt like something that I did for myself.

I guess that’s what really appeals to me — aside from the obvious helping-kids-with-cancer part — about actually shaving it all off. I have grown attached to it, and consider it my best feature (it’s so luxurious and curly and curly and luxurious!), and when it all grows back again (we can rebuild it! Better! Stronger! Longer!), this time it will be entirely my idea. It will be because I want it back, not because I feel like I ought to grow it out to make my life easier. And while I’m working on that — and all my self-esteem issues, I imagine — I plan to indulge myself with sweet hats for the bald phase, and sweet new hair accessories for when it gets longer again.

I’ll post again with some photos of my bald cranium when the deed is done, and together we can point and laugh heartily, as I suspect I’m going to turn out to be one of those people who looks truly ridiculous when bald. Until then, if you’d like to make a contribution to help fight childhood cancer and you want to sponsor having me shorn like a recalcitrant sheep (this is an Irish-themed event, after all :D), please make a donation to help me reach my $1000 fundraising goal!