i walked up to my regular barbershop today and discovered that it was no longer my regular barbershop. the man cutting hair was young, in his late 20s maybe early 30s. he had a tattoo on his neck and he was wearing a white smock of some kind. these were all clear indicators that he wasn’t george.

george is an older white dude with a texas accent and a sincere smile.

george owns, er, owned “george’s barbershop.” okay, actually, i guess i don’t know if he actually owned the place, maybe he was renting it or… whatever, it doesn’t matter. for approximately the last four years, george has been the only person i’ve trusted to cut my hair.

see, apparently my hair is really easy to fuck up. all those places like supercuts or whatever, it wouldn’t even matter what i said to them, i’d always end up with some weird cowlick outcroppings on the back of my head when i left. always. without fail. either that, or they’d try to give me the generic asian dude haircut (of which i realize my current hairstyle is merely a derivation). and after they’d fuck it up, they would always say, “oh, well that’ll be easy to mousse down” or some such nonsense. yeah, or you could’ve cut my hair right in the first place.

but then i found george. the first time i went in there i gave the same preamble i always gave to people about to cut my hair. i’m prone to cowlicks. i don’t want the asian buzzcut. barbers always fuck up my hair. please don’t fuck up my hair. et cetera. george took all this in with a smile, and replied with the earnest question, “so… what? about a medium?”

i was shocked because i’d never heard anyone refer to a haircut, or a style of haircut, as a “medium.” i’d become well-versed with barber slang over the years prior to meeting george. the clippers have a numerical system corresponding to shortness. i wanted my hair tapered using clippers at about a 2. that’s what i had learned to say that would give me something close to what i wanted. but george didn’t have time for that kind of bullshit. he wanted to give me a “medium” haircut. and i figured i had nothing to lose.

it was perfect. well okay, not “perfect.” women passing me on the street wouldn’t be like, “damn, that’s some well-cut hair.” but my hair was even. clean cut. no outcroppings or patches of hair staging a rebellion against the collective. it was shorter than i was used to, but i knew that in a week it would be fine. he asked, “how’s that?” and somewhat speechlessly i said, “um, yeah. that’s… that’s perfect.”

and then he shaved the edges with a straight razor.

i knew right then and there that i’d found my barber shop. because george was a motherfucking badass. and every time i came back, i didn’t even have to tell him what i wanted. he just remembered. i’d come in, we’d say hello, talk about the weather for a second, and then he’d cut my hair. five minutes tops. $10. “okay, see ya next time!” or “okay, be careful out there!” yes, george, i will be careful out there. thank you. no really, thank you.

and george is a nice guy. once i came in to find george just chilling out in one of the barber chairs with his arm in a sling. (around this time he’d added one more barber to his roster, which previously had consisted of, well, him. i forget her name. she was nice enough, but she wasn’t george.) it turns out he was helping one of his neighboring storefronts with some kind of lighting or… the deal was he was on a ladder helping one of the neighboring stores with something. and he fell and fucked up his arm.

i remember that day, because three other guys came in after me and they each went through the exact same sequence of reactions. concern for george. inquiry about the incident. then growing worry on their face as they realized george wouldn’t be able to cut their hair that day.

so today when i walked up to find some imposter barbershop where george’s should have been, i could barely deal with it. i was just standing in the doorway, unable to cross the threshold lest i lend credence to this cruel illusion. my question came out as, “this isn’t george’s barbershop anymore?” and they said no, they were under new management. i turned around and walked outside. my mind wasn’t operating. how could this happen? surely there must be some kind of mistake. i walked into the barbershop and looked around, trying to understand. it looked about the same. except the lighting was brighter. and everything was a little, well, cleaner. and the two barbers were wearing white smocks. i looked at the one barber who was chilling out on the wait-bench, and asked, “how much is a haircut here?”

i want to make it clear that i wasn’t even considering getting my hair cut there. these people had something to do with george’s disappearance, and i would have no part in supporting them. i just wanted to know how much i would not be supporting them.

$18. ha! i laughed out loud. “eighteen dollars?!” the guy just kind of looked at me like i was nuts and simply said, “yeah.” i shook my head and left in disgust.

i couldn’t even think straight. as i was driving around, i thought in hindsight that i probably should’ve asked if they knew what had happened to george. and then i worried that maybe he’d gotten sick, or died or something, but then i shook off those dark thoughts because they were too hard to bear.

george had to be alive and well somewhere, just so i could be mad at him for selling his barbershop. how could you do this, george? i know you probably made some cash selling out your place, but who’s going to cut my hair? then my thoughts turned irrational. maybe i could pay george $18 and he could cut my hair, um, wherever. was there any way i could get george to come back to the barbershop and kick these other jokers out? what the fuck was i thinking? i didn’t even know the story of what had happened.

i went to shady grove to regroup and eat lunch. i go to shady grove sometimes when i’m having a bad day. because the waitresses there are always lovely, and i really like their chicken fried chicken. and i find that combination comforting, which probably scientifically proves i grew up in texas.

it helped, but i’ve been in a daze all afternoon. i vacillate between worrying if george is okay and selfishly wondering where i’m going to get my hair cut now.

because i certainly won’t get my hair cut at that imposter barbershop. with their white smocks. pretending to have been there for years.

“under new management,” my ass. i know, motherfucker. you know how i know? because the old management was george. the old employees? george.

and what self-respecting, legit barbershop charges $18? it’s a fucking haircut.

i don’t want their $18 haircut, their white smocks, or their bright lighting.

i just want a “medium.”

my world was flickering.

my weekend festivities took their toll when i woke up yesterday morning feeling sick. or not so much “sick” as “definitely not well.” my head felt heavy. my breathing felt thick, syrupy. and the sound and contrast of the world was muted, grey with noise reduction. i sat up and noted that it wasn’t merely a hangover; that “sick” smell was present.

you know that smell the first morning you wake up sick? i don’t know if it’s some change in the makeup of your saliva, or maybe your lung passages are tainted with some kind of chemical which alters the smell of your breath. but when you’re sick, or at least when i’m sick i can smell it.

a few hours and many pharmeceuticals later, i felt a little better. except the world was even duller; my senses were numb. i ventured out of my apartment to eat lunch, some hot vietnamese soup (or “pho,” for the initiated) to aid my staggering health. i only finished about half of my order.

i ended up at the record store, obstensibly shopping for presents for other people. but after ten minutes or so, that noble goal was forgotten and i had gathered a growing batch of personal indulgences. and i don’t know if it was the dust of the “used” new arrivals, or the spirit of christmas seeking to curb my selfish behavior, but i suddenly buckled. or rather, my body did. i had to lie down.

right now.

i abandoned my vinyl selections. i got into my car and made it home and into my bed. i didn’t even manage to take off my socks or empty my pockets.

i woke up hours later. and my world was flickering. at first i thought there was something wrong with the christmas lights in my room.

they were fading and brightening at odd intervals. but then i figured out it was just me.

i turned on a legitimate light, my halogen lamp, and at first it broke through the cobwebs. but as i sat there in my bed half-bundled in blankets, soon enough that bright light would flicker as well. it was a peculiar sensation. i realized that, logically, it was only my senses which were fading and intensifying, but even with this knowledge the resulting effect seemed no more comforting.

because my world was flickering. the light of the world was waxing and waning in time to an unseen clock, languid and diminished. and no combination of soup or pillows would remedy the situation tonight.

i walked out my door this morning and my first thought was, “you gotta be fucking kidding me.”

i knew that it had cooled off during the night. when i woke up i could sense the wintery-air pressed up against my windows. and knowing that it had rained for a good portion of the night, i figured it would be jacket weather.

but when i started my car and noticed that the dashboard thermostat read thirty-six degrees, i cut off the engine and headed back into my house because i realized that a t-shirt/jacket combination wasn’t going to cut it. no, this called for some sweet, sweet layer action.

i have a problem gauging temperature. upon initial contact with the outside world, i have a hard time recognizing the difference in temperatures between 30′ and 60′. basically, i can recognize if it’s under 60′, or over 90′. cold, hot. or, you know, “medium.” i don’t know what this sensory deficiency says about me as a person really, other than if this were prehistoric caveman times i probably would have died off years ago.

i just find it startling that in the course of a single evening, the tempertaure cut itself in half. don’t get me wrong, i’m not bitching. i like the cold weather, because at this very moment i am enjoying a freshly-bought cup of hot chocolate. and nothing accentuates crisp thirty-six degree weather like hot chocolate. except whisky. and i’ll add that layer after i get off work.

i woke up this morning at 9am. okay fine, 9:30am. mostly, i woke up because i was hungry. i neglected to eat dinner last night because i fell asleep. i awoke a few times in the middle of the night and thought about eating something, but ultimately i decided that since i so rarely have a full night’s sleep, i should go ahead and ride it out.

a full night’s sleep didn’t really make me feel “rested.” i mean, i had a shitload of dreams, most of them mundane. but it’s not like i woke up and was like, “boy, i sure did have a good night’s rest. let’s start the day.” though i was less inclined to snooze-button for an hour.

i stood up and convinced myself that i was awake. it was chilly and crisp. i could sense cool air being held at bay by my windows. and i came to the half-conscious conclusion that a portion of the light-headedness i was experiencing might be attributed to hunger.

i rarely eat breakfast. usually, i have a cup of coffee. maybe some candy, or potato chips, or basically whatever is lying around that doesn’t require any preparation.

but this morning i was excited because of a rare combination of circumstances. i was hungry for breakfast. and i had breakfast materials in my fridge.

so there i was cracking open eggs into a bowl for imminent scrambling. the first egg was uneventful. crack, bloop, egg yolk. all as it should be.

but along comes the second egg. crack, bloop, “what the fuck?!”

there was blood in my egg. in the egg yolk there was a disproportionate amount of blood. because normally, there should be none. but in this egg, there was blood. there was also yolk. there was that yellow blob. but the surrounding egg-white wasn’t really clear or yellow-tinted. it was tinted red. or red-ish, i suppose. and on top of that, there was a small concentrated liquid mass of “not-egg-white” that had the color and consistency of blood.

the point is there was blood in my motherfucking eggs.

for a second i tried to scoop out the blood. but then some part of my brain took over. “what the fuck are you doing?” i dumped the contents of the bowl into the disposal. i actually had to take a moment to compose myself.

first, i confirmed in my head that this had actually just happened. yes. there was just blood in that egg. you weren’t imagining it.

next, for some reason i tried to search my memory for what blood in eggs might indicate or foretell. i had some vague recollection of some voodoo ceremony from a movie where there was blood in an egg. but since i couldn’t reassemble the full context of the scene, it was no help to me.

was it an omen? was it bad luck? am i going to die today? i was pretty sure it wasn’t a good thing. generally, good omens don’t come floating in blood. i had no actual knowledge upon which to base this assertion, but it seemed reasonable.

the second attempt at making scrambled eggs was bloodless. the toast too.

i sat there dazed, eating my breakfast, the autumn morning tranquility marred by an egg of potential evil prophecy.