The day felt like
I was driving an automatic car in third gear instead of in
D(rive). It is
possible to drive like this; you can easily drive short distances and race on
the highway if you so wished without any problem. The engine runs at full
speed, you could even keep driving it like this forever, but there is no point
in doing it. The feeling that I was operating at less than peak performance,
was pervasive.
I had been
waiting all morning long to go to a new hairdresser. In fact, I was wracked
with doubts the night before. With uncertainty comes nothing but doubt, so I also
started wondering if going to the hairdresser was necessary at all. For it was
only four months ago that I had my haircut. The reflection in the mirror showed
centimeters of outgrowth, so it could definitely use some hydrogen peroxide,
the big question was the length. It is always the length. In essence, you know
that the hairdresser cuts your hair shorter, well it could never get any longer
during a cut, could it?
While waiting, I
called Tiny, a seamstress (this is along story, involving launching a business,
which is in fact taking even longer than you expected etc. What I can reveal is
that Tiny is not as fragile as her name suggests). To my dismay her phone is constantly
giving me this electronic voice stating: ‘The subscriber you have dialed is
unavailable at the moment.’
And again and
again. And again!
Meanwhile, I was trying
other number combinations in case I misdialled, but then the voice said,
‘This number doesn’t
exist.’
Maybe it was
because of my new phone. So I grabbed my old phone out of the same pouch.
Nowadays I carry along two phones since some people, agencies, the dentist! only
have my old number. Phones, new phone numbers and added to that neither phone
is fully charged. You either hate cellphones, or hate them but secretly harbour
a deep love for them. But I had luck on my side.
So I texted Tiny using
my old phone.
As I waited for a
response, my new phone tinkled. A text message!
I thought, ‘Hey
that's a funny coincidence!’, and read:
"Hi Tiny
(...)"
And I said 'Oh,
yes of course!' Then I yelled an unmentionable swear word I also recently used as
a password for Gmail when I couldn’t log on for the 888th time because I had
forgotten the password and of course, I had not calligraphed it on a piece of
folded origami.
Excellent
password, "strong" said Gmail and I thought ‘Na na na na na’ for the Federation Against Swearing can’t see everything.
In this great
mood I changed into D(rive) and headed to the new hairdresser. But not before taking
a picture of the length of my hair with my iPhone in a complicated corner reversed
in the mirror.
No, of course this is a joke (haha). I actually could have done it though.
The hairdresser
told me she was undergoing her first chemotherapy treatment. She showed me her
breasts (not openly, only through her t-shirt) that they had recently removed
her breasts. She wanted to start a blog about it, but she was not actually in
possession of a computer and it was all very sad and yet I still had presence
of mind to think about the length of my hair. So I admonished myself, since it
was not at all appropriate to think about my hair at this moment, but on the
other hand, the hairdresser had chosen to work inspite of her illness.
It was all rather
difficult and caused - perhaps partly due to the highlights - a rather hazy
condition in my head, while on top of my head things were actually going pretty
well.
And so I promised
myself solemnly that I would make sure my password never included any hint of
disease. Even though my password does not consist of any disease in any way,
shape or form.
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