A bum's life

This morning I got my hair cut. As I was sitting in the big barber's chair the State College town bum walked in to the shop. He inspected his sideburns in the mirror before leaving the shop and the trademarked bum smell of urine soaked clothing behind him. The barber informed me that the bum does this about once a month. I wonder what he was looking for? Was he just checking to make sure he still exists? Or was he checking that his personal grooming was still it at its usual high level? Or was he just a very lazy narcissist who enjoyed looking at himself in the mirror? Who knows?

For the record, as I was standing and admiring myself in the mirror this evening. I thought that the haircut made we look somewhat homosexual. For some reason the barber's interpretation of "and get the rest as short as you can with the scissors" was to leave it rather long. Still the homosexual aspect might have come from the fact that it is laundry night and I was wearing my lovely pinky-purply linen shirt.

When I look for a new apartment in Columbus, I'm going to make sure that it has hot and cold running water. Now I realize this doesn't seem like much to ask for being as this is the 21st century and I live in the world's richest country. However, this simple requirement has proved far beyond the capabilities of my current apartment. For the second time in as many weeks the water, both hot and cold, has stopped for over an hour. And then on those occasions when the water has deigned to work, what I've had is luke warm and warm running water. Which is not ideal for anything really. How I miss being able to drink cold water from a kitchen tap.

On the subject of hair, even though we weren't. Tonight's The Daily Show featured a man who was modelling one of the truly great hairstyles of the ages, which I had feared was in danger of extinction. The man in question was Sen. Carl Levin and the hairstyle, the come-over. Praise be to a man with such conviction to make himself look a bloody fool. He's bald. He knows he's bald. We know he's bald. And yet still he tries to hide the fact.