That feels really weird.

I’m not a hairy guy. Not at all. Hair just doesn’t seem to be a part of my genetic makeup. Which explains why, though I haven’t cut my hair since December 2006 (on the occasion of my daughter’s wedding, which is how I remember) it never grew quite to my shoulders. It got so long and no longer; just long enough to get in the way and look really bad whenever it wasn’t perfectly clean, which was almost always. Tended to stick out at the sides, like unto Bozo.

I had great plans for my hair when I moved out here. I pictured a great rabbinical bush of a beard, but it wouldn’t grow right at all. And gradually over the past year or so my beard has been subjected to the scissors more and more often, because every time I let it grow out it just looked awful. And today, almost impulsively, I cut my hair. Didn’t do a real bad job, either.

But it feels really weird.

Curiously, I also seem to have given up cigarettes. That wasn’t really part of any plan, but gradually I’ve noticed that I don’t enjoy smoking the way I used to. For years I’ve rolled my own, because clearly I can’t afford store-bought. And I smoked because I enjoyed smoking, in full knowledge that there might be health penalties. Lately, though, it was as though I could feel them harming me. Maybe it’s my imagination but emphysema really isn’t the way I want to go, especially at high altitude. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago to my neighbor H, and she handed me this old e-cigarette and said, “try this.” I did, and from that day to this I’ve smoked exactly half a cig. It made me sick. The tobacco and rolling stuff is squirreled away in a cabinet now. My mustache is already less yellow. I bought my own e-cig, and mostly just run water through it. Maybe I’ll taper off on that, too, as time goes by. Doesn’t really make a lot of sense, it’s just habit. Weird.