[LEMONS] 4.20.2004
I Got More Rhymes Than I Got Gray Hairs
I was 24, and standing in my friend Troy's kitchen. He grinned, and his eyes lit up and focused in on me. He pointed at my head, laughed, and said "so you've got some gray hairs, too." It was the first time anyone had noticed. I had noticed them, just a few all in the same place. I told myself they grew over an old scar. That there was some forgotten head wound below--which was totally plausible--and that this was just an anomaly. I didn't have gray hair, really. I just had a scar borne of reckless youth; a bike wreck, a camping trip, a keg stand.But then I noticed another old scar. And another. And for a year or two it was still possible to imagine myself young--staggering and bloodied--with yet another head wound, which I would soon forget like just another A-Team episode.
But by the time I was 28 or so, reality began to set in. You wouldn't notice it, unless you're some sort of creep, but little colonies were starting to take root all across my skull. One hair would appear. And then it would have a neighbor, and a few more. And I kind of liked it, to be honest. It was fun. It was a novelty, like Madonna was when "Like a Virgin" came out.
But remember when you first heard "Papa Don't Preach," you were all, like, "oh yeah, right, whatever, Madonna, like you care. How about you don't preach?" And then the next thing you know she's in, like, every other movie and all the movies suck and you think, well it can't get much worse than this, she's about done now, she must be at least around 14.5 minutes or so, and then you turn on MTV and see "Like a Prayer" for the first time.
And that's sort of what it's like right now, at 31. Except the difference is that I know about Vogue and The Sex Book and the dirty videos and the Brittney kiss and the fake British accent and the decades of your life that would roll past you from childhood to, well, gray hair, from "Border Line" to that Che Guevara thing, and just how much worse it would all get with no end in sight until--you have to assume--you just wake up one day and find that there's nothing left but Madonna. I know. I see it. Every time I look in the mirror; there's that miserable gap-toothed bitch. Don't look now, motherfucker, but you're creeping up on Evita.
It's all I see now, this impending headfull of gray hair. My temples, my bangs, the sides of my head and (I have to assume) the back have all been colonized. People are starting to call me "sir." It's a mess. I panic now every time I brush my teeth. Yet every time I complain about my hair going gray, somebody--usually Harper--tells me that at least I'm not getting bald.
"My hair's turning gray!"
"Hey, at least you're not losing it."
But in some ways, I think going bald might be preferable. The thing is, my gray hair doesn't bother me from a vanity standpoint. It's not like I think it looks bad. It looks sort of nice, even. And I don't care if it makes me look older. I've been getting carded for something like fifteen or twenty years, now, and I'm tired of it. No. It bothers me because it's like seeing my grave site. It's an inescapable reminder that time keeps on moving by, and that you never get a second of it back. People go bald at all sorts of ages. I knew a few kids in high school who were already exhibiting fairly advanced male pattern baldness. By the time you graduate from college, you have all kinds of friends with nicknames like "curly" and "cueball." But nobody's gray in high school. Nobody. Only old people are gray. Old, old, used-up human beings who have to worry about calcium and fiber and grandchildren. Grandchildren!
I look in the mirror, and I see that I'm dying. Forget that I've never been healthier in my whole life; I'm dying, okay? And I look back at the mirror and I think, "shit how can I be dying, I'm only 25!?!" And then I remember (because it reminds me) "You're not 25! You're dying! You're old! You're old!"
And then I remember we're all dying. All of us. One day, we'll drop dead. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe health has nothing to do with it. A bus, a comet, a car crash, an apocalyptic event unforeseen. And so maybe it makes me live, dying. Makes me get up and go, suck the marrow, and all that. Go see the world, get yourself attacked by lions and cobras and muggers and French people. Maybe the reminder of death keeps me from settling for a job I hate, and coming home to the television (What the fuck is on the television these days anyway? Friends? Is that shit still on? How about Will & Grace? I'm glad to have no idea, other than my beloved Simpsons. And King of the Hill. And Arrested Development. And sometimes Survivor. And the News Hour. And crazy Gary Radnich on KRON. Fuck! I watch too much TV! I'm going to die, die! Why am I watching TV?) and a half a six pack and perfectly coifed head of chestnut hair. Or maybe the two things are totally unrelated. Maybe the gray is just there. And the way I live is just the way I live. And life is just as short or as long as you make, no matter how much time you're given.
And what do you want to do, before you die?
- l i n k -
