Pop. Pop. Pop pop pop pop pop...pop pop.

Ah, The Fourth of July. Or, more accuarately, it's the Third of July, and the fireworks can be heard in the distance. I haven't been to a display of fireworks in ages. Probably because...well...they just don't interest me anymore. It's the same thing with parades, really. They lose their appeal after you reach a certain age early in your teens. And then, and I'm only guessing here, the appeal comes back somewhat after you watch them through the eyes of your children.

If I climb behind the television and the lamp, push up the screen window, and balance myself on the window ledge and stick my head out, I could see a few of the fireworks. But I won't.

By the way, I'm thinking about cheating on someone, and I'm not sure if I should go through with it.

Oh, knock it off! I'm talking about going to a different hair stylist. "Hair stylist." At what point in my life did I switch from going to a barber to a hair stylist? My current hair stylist is a woman, and I've been seeing her for almost 15 years. 15 years. That's longer than any other relationship I've had with a woman who wasn't in my immediate family. She knows certain parts of my body (again, get your mind out of the gutter - I'm talking about the top of my head) better than I do. I don't have to tell her how I want my hair because she knows me that well. Oh, and my hair has gotten to the point where I don't have a "style," I have a "cut."

I mean, think about it: I've been seeing this woman every single month and a half for 15 years! But now it has grown...I don't know...stale? Stuck in a rut? It has nothing to do with her competence or her cutting method or her suggestions about my hair. They are all fine. It's just that I "feel" I need to go to someone else, to make a change. Sometimes we make little changes in our lives. Changes we can handle, small changes that build and build until we can make bigger changes. Changing a hair stylist is a change we can handle with ease. Or can we?

I just feel that I need the same type of change that made me go to this woman in the first place. It was 1985. I was 20. I felt like I needed to get something that didn't scream "teenager who still sees the barber shop guy down the street." I wanted to get away from 20 years of and enter the world of mousse and gels and slicked back hair and electronic dance music coming from the radio. Oh, and the girls running their hands through my hair was a BIG factor too.

Yet I think I've gotten to the age where I'm not even sure how I would go about finding a new person to cut my hair. How do you judge these things? At 20, it was a matter of going to someone nearby, and getting a stroke of luck that she did a fantastic job (her big suggestion: shave it closer on the sides, above the ear - it changed my life that year). Do I really want to chance getting someone else who might screw things up? Why ruin a good thing? Can I just try someone else new this one time without her finding out about it? A momentary indescretion?

Good God, it's come to this: I'm talking about my hair. Wow. And believe me, if you saw how much hair I had to work with now, you'd say "you're worried about THAT?"

I really should get back to that short story that's been giving me trouble. I have the characters all set, and the plot is a good one, but now I've reached a certain point where it's going NOWHERE. Wimbledon is on the TV...Wimbledon, short story...Wimbledon, short story...Wimbledon, short story...

Wimbledon wins! Have a happy 4th. Don't let my opinion of fireworks and parades influence you in any way.

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