01/02/11 Haircuts and Near-Strangers

(At my other blog, I call myself The Leaf Guy)

My sisters and my aunt are all coming back tomorrow. So today, I cleaned house.

Nah, just kidding. Will I ever do that?

Well, probably. Sometimes I get this impulse which involves brooms and sweeping the place up. But that rarely happens. :D

Work starts tomorrow too, I got the 10am-6pm shift but starting Tuesday, it’s back to 6am-2pm. We had the reshuffling last week. It’s okay. I’m used to waking up at 4am now.

Today. 01/02/11.

I woke up at about half past seven in the morning. Since it was a Sunday, people had license to go old-school and play the oldies.

Bummer.

I checked my clothes and found I was running out of wearable underpants. Cool, it’s laundry time. It’s weird that even though I wasn’t actually looking forward to it, I like washing my dirty underwear.

I don’t know why. I guess I was one of those people who find housework calming. That’s why some of them clean and wipe and polish and sweep everything every day, just coz it feels good. I imagined me doing exactly that one day.

And I shook my head, “Not gonna happen”. I listen to my Shuffle while I work, so I guess that makes it bearable.

Whatever.

I found out that Ma loaded our SmartBro with enough to register to UnliSurf. I sent her a thank-you text. Then, I spent most of the morning on Tumblr fiddling with my page, downloading ET by Katy Perry andChillin’ by Wale and Lady GaGa. When it was almost 11, I took a deep breath.

Time for my haircut.

I hate haircuts. I always don’t look good after; in fact, I look downright foolish. Once, when I was in high school, I got home in tears because the haircutter didn’t do it right. I got over it but I spent two long months praying and waiting for it to grow back.

I pulled on a black T-shirt, got my wallet and ambled to the salon. I look like this before I left:

I sat on the chair in front of the big-ass mirror, waiting for it to begin. “Bawasan lang po ng konti sa gilid,” I told the haircutter.

“Ahh, so trim?” he asked and I nodded. He sprayed some water on my hair, got the sharp scissors.

Snip, snip. I looked down; I don’t like watching him work. I stared at everything but the mirror. Clumps of hair settled on the cloth they used to cover me and I winced.

In a brave moment, I snuck a peek. My heart sank. It’s so short.

I inhaled in resignation. Whatever.

Hair grows back, anyway. 

Snip, snip and snip, the scissors go. I relaxed. It was actually kind of pleasant to have someone playing with my hair, I found out. I felt like a cat being scratched behind the ears. I almost purred.

The haircutter sang along to the radio while he worked. But there was something funny with the way he does it. He kept putting ‘s’ to the lyrics where it shouldn’t be.

“Alls through your life, I’ll be by your side, Till deaths do us part…”

The song ended, another one started and he just kept doing it. I tried hard not to laugh. I mean, he’s the guy with the sharp scissors. One angry snip and I’d leave the salon, bald.

So I bit my lip and focused on the floor.

Now, I look like this.

Sigh. It’s like night and day. Like yin and yang. Like Zekrom and Reshiram.

Love you in about a month, Hair. 

Late in the afternoon, my cousin— who’s an engineer— stopped by. He was with his girlfriend.

Kuya JR was my Tito Rey’s son. Tito Rey was the oldest of the siblings in my father’s side of the family but he’s been gone for a long time now. In fact, I don’t remember him at all. He died when I was very young.

My aunt from next door came up to our room while I was Tumblr-ing and told me Kuya JR was here. I looked at her blankly. Who? And then I remembered. I went down the stairs and shook his hand, mumbled something, nodded and then I came up to our room again with the excuse that I’ll text my Ma about his visit.

He’s a stranger to me. It’ll be awkward to talk to him. This was probably the third time I saw him in person.

Shrug. I texted my Ma and my sister and told him who’s at the house.

Ate Jing: Bahala na si Tita Bibi saiya.

Mama: Itext mo si Tita Bing mo.

I felt kind of guilty not entertaining the guy, though. Probably I should’ve gone the extra mile and ask how he is, ask where he works, what he’s been up to.

Shrug. Again.

I went down the stairs a while later and found out he already left. 

K.

Now, I’m just hungry.

- The Leaf Guy