Hair Manifesto :: Personal Narrative Creative Writing Essays

Hair Manifesto Whenever I travel to another part of the US or another country in the world I find myself taking on the vocal and speech patterns of a native speaker. I lose my own way of speaking, and adopt that area's accent. I am an Accent Chameleon. I find it a fun little linguistic/sociological game. And so, this summer while working in a restaurant deep in the heart of Dupont Circle in Washington DC, an area known far and wide for its dense Guppie (gay male + yuppie) population, where 80% of the staff was gay, it seemed only natural that I should adopt this Guppie mode of communication, behavior, self-representation. I was a Sexual Identity Gender Expression Chameleon. SIGEC, for short. I became a gay boy. It was a sociological extrapolation. Further beyond the reach of any autonomy I possessed. And afterall, who doesn't simply adore another acronym in their life? So much of my demeanor changed. I incorporated that flipping of the wrist thing into my every interaction. My body developed a certain poise, as I flowed gracefully, melodramatically from room to room. I oozed sass. And to uphold just a few more stereotypes about gay male culture of the 21st century, it was during this SIGECian period of my life when I first discovered my Inner Hair Dresser. It started with a minor compulsion to do hair. I found myself spending more time than ever before staring into the mirror, strategically situating each strand. But it quickly escalated, infecting the realm of my desire: I wanted to cut hair. Mine, my housemate's, that guy who walked by me in the park and so desperately needed to trim off his mullet. Anyone. I found myself nightly snipping off different pieces of hair, my wastebasket mounding with black, brown, bleached little trimmings, the cast-offs of my art. I became irked easily when people paid $9.99 for a shoddy Super Cuts do. The judgment of a hair snob. I became restless, itching to conquer hairdos of all genres. Strolling on busy streets, I was a flaneur, constantly taking in the hairstyles moving past me. In the supermarket, I insatiably devoured the hair concepts sprouting atop all the shoppers. I was a machine, always, everywhere calculating length and luster, shade and sheen and type of sheers used. I had undergone a pop-cultural metamorphosis, emerging from my cocoon a hair person.