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Executive Porn

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So pardon me while I burst into flames
I've had enough of the world
and its people's mindless games
So pardon me while I burn
and rise above the flame
Pardon me, pardon me
I'll never be the same

-- Incubus

Introspection

It's been two weeks since I cut my hair. I was back-and-forthing with Gravity a bit about this the other day -- I've become anonymous. Before, especially when my hair was around waist-level, I was in a place nowhere near anonymous. Random people out of the blue often complimented me (which bugged my wife -- not for the attention I was getting, but because no one complimented her long, red hair when she was out with me). Children were fun; some would hide behind their moms, but others would stare in slack-jawed, unselfconscious awe...in the innocent way only small children can behave. To a certain extent, I miss the attention. I miss the compliments. I miss the subconscious stiffening some people display when confronted with the...ummmm...departure from normality. I'm a polite guy, I'm a bright guy, I used to love holding intelligent conversations with random strangers who, at first glance, took me for a drug dealer. The revision of their opinions was sometimes so transparent I would feel almost ashamed at fucking with their heads.

I still have a couple of earrings, and no one who knows me would ever describe me as 'normal', but still...I'm almost invisible now. On the other side of the equation, in a perverse way, that anonymity is kinda fun, too.

Is it perverse that I think anonymity...a modicum of normality...is perverse?

I've learned a lot in the last couple of weeks about myself and appearances. I take care of how I look. I'm not necessarily materialistic...I dress well, but nothing I own is above the Gap/Banana Republic/J Crew level of fashion. I own no Armani, no Calvin Klein. Yet, my hair and my black clothes were always a trademark -- as distinctive as George Burns' cigar. "You want a good engineering consultant?" my recruiters would pimp, "contract that guy with the long black hair. Yeah, the guy that dresses in black all the time, you know who I'm talking about." For years, my reputation preceeded me throughout the Atlanta computer telephony industry (which, though a small niche, is my profession). I got jobs, sometimes, because of the way I looked -- "If he looks like that and has that kind of experience, he must be good". Cutting my hair, moving away from the black clothes was, for me, more than a fashion statement -- it had the potential to affect my career...so I thought.

But, when you get right down to it, I was bored with it. Long hair is a bitch to keep in shape. All-black clothes can be trendy and rad, but it gets old after a while. It can be unique, but not if you keep it up for over a decade. It's a lot of work; you have to constantly change textures, otherwise people think you wear the same clothes day after day. After a while, 'the look' isn't making a statement anymore -- it's a trap...it holds you in place.

Yet, who am I? Appearances don't necessarily make the person, but they can sometimes be a circus-mirror reflection of the person. Sometimes, such as issues of personal hygene, it can be an accurate representation. Sometimes, with things like extra pounds, hair color, height, muscle mass, tits...it isn't. I had been (for lack of a better term) radical for so long, that the radical identity became a part of my actual identity -- to the point where I feared changing the image. It would almost be like removing an appendage...losing a sense.

Fuck, I like the new look now, even though it still catches me by surprise every few...hours. And yet, I'm not exactly comfortable with it, either.