introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K

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"NEVER AGAIN"~robert k. matchett

before the witching hour - seventh of april, 2001-full moon rising,

"got a devil's haircut..."~beck, the gorgeous boy with the beautiful lips

i woke up earlier than i have in a long time...for a saturday. the clouds must've had better places to be, more ground to saturate with the slow spring rains, for there were none in sight when i climbed out of bed and half blindly took verbil out for the first time of the day.

i know its been a few days since my last post. i had written for an hour about sitting on the porch at five a.m. and watching the rain for nearly a half hour before i couldn't stay awake anymore. i had written about a trip to the coney and how much i realize how i hate that resteraunt, even still. how it reminds me of the glass hearted boy; how his hands were so beautiful that i didn't even notice how he destroyed me some days; how his blue eyes were so clear that i never looked at the sky nearly enough. how it sliced and cut me when the napalm of my heart exploded in me. heh. thats so vivid. i can't stop thinking lately, and i like that. i like the things i think of, usually. sometimes, i get the old skrewed up thoughts kickin' in, but i have gotten to be pretty good at kicking my own ass. i think i do a better job than medicine.

when i got up, i woke the animals: spraying zeus good morning, watching my fish swim around happily as they munched on the goldfish pellets.

i got in the shower, realizing for the first time how much i was digging on those tapes i'd mailed to tennessee t. i listened to one of nacho's mixes instead of going back to my room to get one of mine. it had some tori on it and i was very impressed....boys for pele style. it had a great mix of gin and juice. i like that song in the morning. especially on a saturday spread before me like today.

after my shower, i woke nacho, as instructed. i pulled on khakis cargos and a lilac tank top and hoped it would even out the line of the scoop necked dress that the sun had left indellibly on my flesh in the thursday afternoon splendour. nacho dressed and i gathered some things and headed to the carriage house to see tim about some plans. he was still asleep at 2pm. i was amused. nacho and i waited outside for a half an hour, basking in the afternoon sun like pastey albinos trying to get our vitamin c in the sunrays that bombarded us. it was so warm and breezy. then, we headed up to the regency mall (aka the dirt mall: you can smoke in it, there is ne'r a trip without seeing a pleothera of mullets, and the stores include ames, goodwill, the state liquor store, and backstreet records. backstreet is rad, but the rest of it....tres dirt mall.) to wait for the bus to take us to the Indiana Mall, equally behind in its line up of stores. Still, there are a few more modern shops and a BoRics hair salon. Since I've come to indiana, i have gone to the said salon approximately once a semester for a haircut. i have trusted them. in the words of robert k matchett the second, i say, "NEVER AGAIN."

i sat in the chair with all the trust that one can give a woman in tight khaki uniform pants and uniform standard green 'borics' polo. i sat in the chair with the trust that only five years of committed patronization can scrape up. i knew the woman probably would rather have been outside. i knew that maybe this was not the way she'd choose to spend her saturday and that, more likely than not, she wanted to be at home with the two little boys that starred in the colour photograph (probably taken at the photographers in that very mall in one of the department stores, no doubt). they were dressed in cowboy hats and cowboy boots and jeans. typical townie. but i try not to judge. maybe that wasnt' her station at all. but for the sake of the story, lets assume it was, shall we? right. so she was obviously not happy to be working today, a steady stream of college students and mullet headed townies coming in for haircuts. maybe she was so busy that she didn't get a break. i think i'd like to believe that it was something more than she didn't like the looks of me. so i sat. i trusted.

"how do you want your hair {squint at the writing on the reciept that had been written when i came in that would later be used as my bill}.....carol". No E. All I could think was "no e." Sometime along the line, I stopped fighting for my silent e. sometimes, i think i should start fighting for it again. i'm hardly a carol. i am a carole. i am a c'arole. dammit. I pointed.

"Like that," i said as i pointed at nacho's hair. "only a bit shorter. can you do that, please?"

"sure."

Did i mention i *TRUSTED* her? I trusted her. i didn't pay much mind as i sat back and listened to her plan of attack.

"we'll just use a number four on the clippers and take it down a little and then blend it in. it'll be short but it'll be nice." I nodded.

I nodded. I sat back, fully expecting to come out of it with a responsible haircut: one free of the black dye of winter when things weren't so pleasant; one free of the red stripe that i had dyed into it when my roots started coming in. it was so lovely at first, the burgendy and black hair. i've since noticed my hair taking a turn for neopolitian. i was hoping to thin it out gradually and find my natural colour. "we all have to grow up sometime," i'd been thinking all week. i was ready for a small step.

i relaxed. i watched as my hair was clipped and pulled and sprayed wet and clipped some more. i watched in horror as my hair, which i've been letting grow so diligently for months (since i last shaved it; since my heart broke) disappeared. i'd meant to keep a lock. i never looked back as i watched my hair disappear and turn into the bowl cut haircut of the eighties. kohl is sporting that look now. i hate it. i liked it when i was in seventh grade. but this was no ordinary bowl. this was more of a saucer. if i would have seen me on the street with that haircut, as big a girl as i am, i might have mistook me for a boy at first.

i sighed. i felt on the brink of tears when she handed me the hand mirror and spun me around in that way that hairdressers do when they want you to see the back of your head. she had even botched my horrible cowlick. i looked like one of those troll toys that someone had cut the hair short and left a strand sticking up. the look of horror in nacho's eyes and written all over her face was enough.

"you know," i said to her, half ready to cry, half ready to stampede her and slice her short neck with hair shears, "could you just take it all off. i know you have been trying to blend it, but i'd really rather just start over again, i suppose".

"sure," she grunted. and i say she grunted only because she did.

i paid my money. i asked for a manager. there was none. i am shaved headed again. i can only hope that with summer so close, my hair will grow so rapidly that it will reach the most comfortable length of an inch in no time.

i took the budgeted money that i'd set aside for my summer sandals and checked every shoe store and every department store in the indiana mall for the teva sandals i've been lusting for. they were on sale (sometimes, i'm so lucky) at american outfitters. i don't know why i can never be comfortable when i shop for shoes or clothes. i get panicy and sick feeling and i despise it. i know that that shoe guy doesn't want to put a shoe on my fucking foot. i can see it in his eyes. i can see it in how he doesn't want to look across the store at me or ask me if i want help. and i know that i am more intimidating?...no...just ridiculous looking with my shaven head. i don't care, though. i just want my damned sandals, Curtis, so bring me an 8, won't you please? I just want my sandals and I'll go peacefully and ask nothing more of you, i promise.

he brought the shoes. they were a perfect fit. they are glorious chocolate brown leather that will fade into a lovely tan by end of summer, no doubt. they've got the heavy duty velcro that only teva produces, they've got the lovely padded sole and triangle joints to the overtechnological straps. these are the perfect summer shoe. they'll go nicely with khakis and will be wonderful on the trails that i will walk in summer with my dog.

we left the shoe store, my parcel in hand and made for the bus stop. the bus was there as we walked out of the mall and we made it home without issue. i felt the panic subside as we made our way out into the sunshine again. we got off at the grove, the closest stop to our treehouse. nacho stayed while i went home to get my dog. i love for her to be outside on days like today. i made it halfway back to the grove before i realized how badly my skin had scorched.

i began to ache and turned around. i met punk rock brian along the way and agreed to take verbil home and meet him at his house for a little bit. we talked about the possibility of getting a place together, a possibility i'd rather not really consider. i need something permanent and for a year: a year of saving before i make the biggest move in my life. its all i think about when i'm not thinking about something else. more often than not, that something else is really someone else.

i am aching for him to get the tapes. i get so excited. there were some townies mowing their lawn in our residential area today. it made me think of him.

anyway, i'm skortched and riding out the adrenaline of the day. i hope i catch him soon....nobody aol toothy smiles quite like he.

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.what came before. - .what happened next.

a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017
baseball season to football season, abbreviated - 25 september 2017
the doodles - 11 july 2017
at arm's length - 4 july 2017
like a sea-mammal needs a bicycle - 30 may 2017

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