Step 1: Buzz your head down to the scalp for the first time in at least 8 months.

Step 2: Stop at work for a few minutes to pick up some stuff on the weekend.

Step 3: Run into several co-workers who are also at the office. Try to pretend not to notice them noticing your ‘new’ haircut while they pretend not to be completely distracted by it.

Step 4: Leave work imagining the conversations that started immediately after you left.

—

What’s funny in contrast to this is my friends: one dropped a Lex Luthor crack when he walked into the house last night, and another recounted a joke about bald black guys looking cool and bald white guys looking like cancer patients — having gotten that out of their system, it was never mentioned again.

Though they have an advantage, I suppose, in that this is nothing new to them, merely something they haven’t seen in awhile.

I recall being a bit ... surprised when I first met Doyce, when he came over to chat about the Amber campaign of his I wanted to get into. Instead of the pudgy pasty-faced RPGeek I might have expected (especially, ahem, with a name like "Doyce Testerman"), this tall, fit, shaven-headed guy with sunglasses climbed out of his pick-up. Mercifully he didn't have his baseball bat with him, or I might have turned and run for the door.

The short/shaved look works for Doyce.

On the other hand, I'm working on a decade with no cuts or trims.

Sorry Doyce, I'm a bad friend, I didn't make any comments about your hair yesterday. I noticed but that's just you so I didn't think anything about it. I can make some stupid remarks though if you'd like. ;-)

I have to admit that I did have thought of ruffling your non-hair last night.