The Year of Men with Hair

(The author has planted a cute story about Benjy in here somewhere in order to entice you to read his ramblings about life. Ed.)
I am currently walking around with a big mop of hair that is weighing me down physically and psychically. I keep saying I am going to get a cut and then not following through. Now that it is so big, my hair will require weeks in the barber's chair once I get there and the thought of all that time spent wearing the funny plastic apron and making inane chit-chat (in Hebrew) with a person who is touching my head (!) makes me defer and it just gets bigger.
This is the story of my life. Towit -- my neuroses (aversion to chit-chat, fear of being judged for having let my hair get too long, hating to make appointments, not liking having my head touched by people outside my family) makes a bad situation worse till I am left with Tina Turner hair.
Then I saw a picture of Bernie Madoff being marched into court the other day and I thought "Look at that hair. Look at those sable curls. I wish I had ten million dollars so I could give it to him to invest for me." The other issue with getting my hair cut is that after all that time wearing the plastic apron of shame, I end up with a standard short-on-the-sides-little-longer-on-top haircut because that's the only haircut a short, Jewish guy can get away with... unless you're Bernie Madoff (I don't know how tall he is but I'm guessing from the pictures he's not more than 5'8"). That guy has money hair, hair that both cost a lot to coif and hair that makes you think it's a good idea to give him your retirement fund. "If I give him my last penny, one day I will have hair like that." And the magic is even more powerful for the tribe of Hebrew elves of which I am a charter member who generally have such a hard time pulling off any 'do longer than two inches without looking like fraggles. They should indict his stylist as a co-conspirator because he would never have gotten away with any of it if he'd gone to Eitan Avshalom for the 65 shekel off the rack Jewish short guy haircut. Even with a blow dry.
By contrast, consider Rod Blagojevich, former governor of Illinois soon to be guest of the state in a whole different capacity. That guy has hair that screams guilty. Federal wiretaps? Save your money! Look at his hair. That is guilty man's hair. Guilty of what? I don't care, he did it.

I am feeling less regretful than in my previous post, butbut still want to share a piece of poetry that I found in a book called 'Company C' by Haim Watzman (who is a neighbour of ours here in Talpiyot, though I haven't met him).
He quotes a poem called "Regret" by Sharon Dolin
"Owl-necked looking back
to where you might have been
or what you should have done."
Don't know how, when thinking about regret and owls, I could have failed to make the connection to those amazing necks. Sorry. I regret the oversight.

Finally, since I have been told I don't include enough family news, we went over to friends for apple pie and Benjy told our friend Michael that he had read a whole Curious George book himself. Michael said, "Wait. Is it the one where George is curious and his curiosity gets him in trouble but eventually it all turns out okay?" To which Benjy replied, "They're all like that."