Voting for Fear

          As I sit in my apartment, working on a project for school, I find my mind wandering to a subject I've been somewhat obsessed with for the last few months, and that is the possibility of Donald Trump becoming the next president.

          At first his campaign was a joke, and we laughed. "My God, President Trump? Could you imagine?"

          But he kept going. We stopped laughing and he... just kept going. He was serious. He is serious. He wants to be the president.

          Fuck.

          FUCK!

       

          For the last few months I've been trying to understand it. He has alienated HUGE percentages of the total vote, he's promised to make life a living hell for anyone with brown skin and/or a vagina. God help you if you have both in Trump's prospective America. And yet here he is, the likely republican nominee to run for office. How the flying, walking, and swimming fucks has this been able to happen? The sheer math of it should render it impossible!

          I wracked my brain trying to figure out how people can stand to vote for what can be called the embodiment of the worst things about white people. I couldn't understand it, who would actually want Trump's america to come to fruition?

          Then it hit me. Scared people.

          This is a scary time to be alive, I get it. Especially for those who aren't used to change happening in such quick succession. They want a rock to hold on to in this time of ever-changing society, where what was normal or acceptable yesterday has been brought to a scrutinizing light today. They want a reason things have been so crazy. They want a scapegoat.

          It happens, though I'm ashamed to say it seems to happen more often in this country than anywhere else. The Salem Witch Trials were basically exactly this. People who sought a positive change in their world, be it by science, medicine, or just a new life philosophy, and so they were a prime candidate of someone to blame for everything bad that happens.

          These people just want a quick answer, one person, or people, that they can label as the bad guy and turn all of their hatred towards that singular target. They want to believe that if we get rid of everyone that doesn't look like they came from a 1950's commercial, everything will go back to normal. Life will settle, and they can rest knowing that tomorrow will be the same as today.

          I'm no stranger to wishing there was an easy solution to a huge problem. But that is and will never be the case. There is no big answer, because there is no big problem. A big problem isn't a huge lead ball that crushes everything beneath it, rather it's more of a giant ball of tangled barbed wire; it needs to be dealt with from many fronts and by many people doing many different jobs. And it never goes away overnight.

          But Trump insists that the big problems are really just that simple, and that his simple solutions will make everything ok. And that led to the biggest revelation;

          Trump is scared.

          He's scared of everything and everyone that doesn't remind him of himself. He wants to make sure that he can walk out of his massive house every day and be surrounded by nothing but carbon copies of himself.

           That's not a president. That's barely a human being.

           So I ask you, if you're reading this; don't let this happen. Don't let Trump destroy every ideal that this country stood for for the sake of making it a "safe haven" for the select few he deems worthy. Get out there and vote, vote for anyone that looks at Trump and sees him for what he really is; a coward that believes he can hide behind "good old fashioned values" while ignoring every idea that this country was founded on.

          "Give me your tired, your poor
           Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
           The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
           Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
           I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
                                                      -Emma Lazarus, from "The New Colossus"
                                                                (Inscribed on the Statue of Liberty)

Dear Star Wars...

          Well, here we are again. The day we see each other for the first time in ten years. We didn't leave off on the best terms, you seemed to believe that expensive special effects and heavily choreographed fight scenes made up for your bad story (what actual story there was), gaping plot holes and extremely hateable characters, and I disagreed.

          Yet despite all the faults, despite the fact that you felt I had to be there for trade route talks and murder of children, despite the cumulative hours my friends and I have spent picking your latest trilogy apart as well as the repeated instances of unnecessary changes you keep making to your original trilogy, and even despite your decision to disregard over 20 years of really excellent writing by many talented people, despite all of that, I'm excited to see you. No, excited isn't the right word to describe it; I'm nervous, I'm happy, I'm doubtful, I'm optimistic, and I'm uneasy.

          You've been a part of who I am for as long as I can remember; since early childhood I've played with plastic swords and made lightsaber noises, I've player out whole scenes with my friends, and I've gotten my ass kicked for how much I loved you, but I never quit loving you. You helped me understand that just because someone is stronger doesn't make them right, that looking out for others is better than just looking out for yourself, and that power not tempered with morality and compassion can corrupt, but redemption, though hard, is not impossible.

          I've seen you at your best, and I've seen you at your worst, and now I'm getting ready to see you again. I've blinded and deafened myself to any outside sources, leaks, theories, anything that would color my impression of you one way or the other. I'm going to get dressed up to see you, something I never do with anything else, I'm going to show you just how much you mean to me. But I need something from you;

          I need you to be great.

          You've burned me before, Star Wars, three times in a row. Four if you count Clone Wars. We're older now, we're supposed to be beyond what petty thoughts provoked that schism between us, we're supposed to be better. The bar isn't set any lower since the original trilogy, don't expect me to walk out saying "well it's at least better than phantom menace..." because that's not how this works. You need to make me care about the characters, you need to engage me in a story that doesn't have a big nonsensical twist just so you can say I didn't see it coming. You need to be genuinely good; not just sort of good but bad in hindsight, but the sort of good that gets discussed later among friends.

          I need you to show me that you care about us too.

          I'll see you tonight Star Wars, and regardless of everything, I'll always love you.

Well-meaning frustration

          Ok, real-talk for this post. Whether or not you may be aware, I like many many others live with Major Depression Disorder. This is a real, diagnosable mental illness that while research on it has made leaps and bounds in the previous years, there is still a veil of ignorance around the subject (and I don't mean that in a bad way, nobody knows about everything).

          There are multiple probable causes of Major Depression, as well as its natural cohort, General Anxiety, which can stem from traumatic events which can also lead to PTSD, or a chemical imbalance in the brain that just causes you to feel terrible and also causes you to obsess over unpleasant thoughts or memories. I'm 26 and sometimes I still lie awake at night reliving embarrassing moments that happened a decade ago in my head. It's a truly awful bag of issues I would give literally anything to be without.

          Now there are people out there to help, trained professionals who have studied these symptoms to death and while there is no actual cure, there are a wide variety of treatments available to help people deal with their mental illnesses.

          But I'm not talking about those today. Today I'd like to focus on the people who might fancy themselves savvy to the inner machinations of a depressed mind and think themselves a therapist.

          These people are all very well-meaning and just want you to feel better, but this is way WAY outside their wheelhouse of understanding.

          Ok, imagine for a minute that everyone is running in a race, and at first it's just a regular race, but then all of a sudden a giant monster just pops up in front of you and pushes you to the ground. Everyone else is completely unfazed and runs right past, meanwhile every time you get up the monster pushes you back down. After a while people who run past attempt to help you by offering unsolicited advice;

          "Just push through it"

          "It's all in your head"

          "Have you tried just ignoring it?"

          "You know everybody has problems, your monster isn't as big a deal as you're making it"

          "It's up to you to say 'this monster isn't going to stop me from doing what I want to do'."

          Meanwhile the people offering this advice might as well be enjoying a leisurely stroll through the park. My point being that if you know someone dealing with depression, the only advice you should offer is to help that person to get professional help. I know you may mean well, and the advice you doll out may make some sense, but like any other job; computer programmer, surgeon, welder, you can't just do it because you have an idea of what it is. Therapists are trained professionals, they went to college specifically for this purpose. Watching doctor phil does not equate to a diploma in psychology.

          Now if you'll excuse me, I still have to find a therapist.

Star Stuff - A Short Story

       

          I was twelve when my best friend Henry died.

          I remember our last day together; it was Friday after school let out, and Henry and I had made plans for a sleepover at my house. We stayed up late playing our favorite games, watching our favorite movies, and eating our favorite snacks. It was the definition of a perfect night that can only be experienced in the company of your best friend.

          And to be perfectly honest, even if I had known it would be Henry's last day, I probably couldn't have planned a better send off.

          I woke up the next morning to see an ambulance leaving the house, my mom was crying on the phone and my dad had his look. A lot of parents have a look when something really terrible happens, but the look on my dad's face that morning was something I'll never forget. It was a twisted mess of grief, anguish, and absolute misery. It was, by leagues worse than the face he had when his own dad, my grandpa, had passed away. This was the face of a man who had to tell his twelve year-old son that his best friend had died during the night.

          Henry had a disease - well more of a disorder, probably best called a biological glitch. I was young at the time and had no idea what a lot of the medical terms meant, just that apparently Henry would sometimes just stop breathing in his sleep. Most of the time he'd cough or gasp and be perfectly fine, but for whatever reason last night he just... shut off.

          I spent most of the following years alone after that, save for the interchangeable therapists that all insisted, no matter what I was doing at the time I started therapy with one of them, that I wasn't properly dealing with my emotions. However I was reacting to my best friend's death, according to Dr. Whoever, it wasn't the healthy way. After a while, I just stopped going to therapy, it just seemed pointless.

          I can't say any time after that was spent in a healthy way; when your best friend dies you just break inside. Any time you think about a fond memory or see something you used to do together, it brews a cocktail of emotions that usually aren't socially acceptable to express in public, so for the rest of my life I mostly kept to myself. I sure as hell didn't intend on making any new friends, lest I go through all of that mess again.

          Years after my parents passed away I was living in their old house, telecommuting to an accounting firm and living my life in self-imposed isolation. For a while it was the best I thought I could manage, but when my own health started to fail, I started to fear every day could be my last. As days went on, I could swear my vision was starting to go, every so often I would just lose picture in the center of my field of vision. It wasn't white or blurry like a cataract, it was darker. Kind of like a void in my vision, but not all black; it also seemed to be speckled with white spots. I had no idea what it was, and neither did any doctor.

         In my final days I felt myself feeling more tired more often. I was going soon, that much was clear. I wasn't too scared though, I was tired of being scared, tired of this terrifying cruel world filled with people that can just disappear overnight. I spent my last day, I think when the time comes we all know it's our last day, sitting on the couch. It was a relatively new couch, but all I could remember was the old couch Henry and I spent his last day on. As a rerun of his favorite movie began to play on the television, I felt a hot tear stream down my cheek as my eyelids suddenly felt too heavy to lift anymore.

         I opened my eyes to the sound of someone calling my name.
         "Jim? Jimmy, is that you?"

         I looked around, confused. Nobody'd called me Jimmy since...

         "Hey Jimmy! Come on, don't tell me you don't remember me..."

         That voice was so familiar, like an adult version of- no, no it was impossible...

         "He-... Henry?" I asked cautiously.

         "There he is! I was wondering how long you'd keep me waiting. Just over..." I heard the voice give an impressed whistle, " sixty years! Six decades I've been waiting for you to get here, you're lucky I don't have anywhere to be." I heard him laugh, it was his laugh, he was here, wherever here was.

         "How- where are we?" I asked, my vision was blurry but starting to focus.

         "Well that's easy enough to explain" he said. "We're dead. As disco. I guess you could call 'here' heaven, or the afterlife, the other side, whatever you wanna call it."

          It was easier to accept this news than you'd think. As my vision finally came back into focus I saw Henry, only it wasn't really Henry, more like his shape filled with a field of black, speckled with white and smeared with a tiny bit of color. I looked down at my hands and saw I was in a similar state, no more skin, no body, just this... space... stuff.

          "What, what are we? Ghosts?" I asked, honestly not knowing the answer.

         "Honestly I have no idea" he said, "I think it's sort of a one-with-the-universe kind of thing. We're all a part of it, and it's a part of us. Star stuff."

          "And you waited all this time? For me?" I asked.

          "Well I'm not about to leave my best friend behind twice." The star-filled outline of Henry stretched out a hand to me, I took it without a second thought. "Now that you're here, we can go."

          "Go? Where?"

          "Anywhere we want, I've been waiting in this spot for you to get here so we can explore together, and there's probably a lot to see."
 
          I nodded and smiled, "I missed you, Henry" I said like it had only been days since we talked.

          "I missed you too, Jimmy." Henry replied, just the same way.

          "I'm sorry I kept you waiting so long."

          "It's alright" he said. "You're here now, and I'm not going anywhere."

         We smiled and held each other's shoulders as we walked into the infinite light.

I Could Bail

          You know, there are a lot of people who claim to know "what's wrong with this country", and even more people who criticize the lack of outrage for a specific happening, or even go so far as to say that attention for one subject is wasted in lieu of another. There's so much evil in this country, and it honestly feels sometimes that a good-natured collective can do about as much to fix it as popsicles might do against global warming.

          I try to make life a little better while I'm here, I really do. I learn about things I don't yet understand, I talk to people with opposing views than my own, I try to find a decent middle road to walk without stepping on anyone else. But against everything that happens in this country, and as often as it happens, and as nauseatingly evil as it all seems, the clear fact remains that I'm just one person, and there's no amount I could do to make me feel any less sick to my stomach that I volunteered six years of my life to defend a country that seems to want to tear itself apart. I might as well try to empty the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific, on foot, one bucket at a time.

          And so the thought returns time and again;

          I could just bail.

          I could leave, move to Canada, get citizenship, and wash my hands of everything I've had to watch the country of my birth do for all the years I've been aware. It wouldn't be hard, save for the probable mountain of paperwork, packing up my stuff and making the drive. And at times it feels like the idea is a lovely glowing 'I Quit' button that I could press at any moment.

          I Quit... it's those two simple words that snap me back to reality. That's exactly what I would be doing, quitting. Admit defeat, toss up my hands and saying "that's enough, you got me, I'm done, I quit." How could I live with myself after that? Sure my life itself might be improved by leaving, but where does that leave everyone else? What about the people who risked everything just to get to the states and now have to live with the harsh truths that 1. They are not wanted by the "natives", 2. They cannot express any sort of individuality outside the unwritten rules of what is "normal", and 3. They most likely cannot go anywhere else. Unlike me, they bailed into the wrong place.

          There's too much wrong with this country. There's so much, that anyone who can even attempt to put a dent in it, ought to at least give it their best shot before quitting.

          I don't know how much I have left in me, or how much longer I can stomach the potpourri of terrible doings in this country every single day, but I can still stand. I can still talk. I can still listen. And against all my better judgment, I'm not giving up yet.

EDIT: Literally the day after I wrote this post, marriage equality was passed nationwide. I'm glad I didn't bail.

The Barber's Chair

          Sasha Green loved being a barber, everything about it made her revel in joy from opening the shop in the morning, to the long walk home in the evening. She would spend any moment not spent barbering imagining new and better ways to cut hair, shave stubble, and what lotions would go best with which people, because she believed that each concoction of oils and lotions was much like the people she applied them to, no one exactly alike and each of them beautifully special in its own way.
          The customers, oh how she loved the customers; the smell of their hair, the sometimes nonsensical contours of their skin, and her job afforded her a level of intimacy that would certainly not be abided in any other profession. People listened to her when they sat in her chair, and why not? When she spoke to someone in that chair, her word was practically law; she would have the very last word on any new style a client wanted to try, any brash and daring colors they wanted their hair to be, and no one dared question her. After all the decisions were made, she would delve deeper, beyond and below the fragile surfaces that she sculpted and repaired, and partook in deep and meaningful conversations with the customer, from the monotony of their weekly lives, to their fondest memories, their deepest hopes and their darkest fears. They trusted her implicitly, their head cradled in her tensile and deliberate fingers, fingers holding the sharpest instruments you'd ever hope to find, and yet in Sasha's care, not one customer in her tenure had left with so much as a scratch.

          Snip Snip

          Her chair, the only chair in her cozy little studio, was a fine restoration of an old Prohibition-era model, with solid polished oak frame, and upholstered with a warm chocolate-brown leather that made it seem so inviting that it might as well have a voice of its own, beckoning every passerby to come and have a sit. She had a large window installed to replace the wall separating her studio from the street outside, in the building's old age, the wall had become infested with nasty molds of various colors, and rather than spend exorbitant amounts of time and money to remove the molds, she'd simply had the wall removed entirely to be replaced by a large pane of solid (and quite mold-proof) glass. This seemed to help her business in other ways, with the natural light coming in during the day, her customers could see their new looks as the light of the sun hit them, a sensation she equated to "seeing yourself for the very first time", and her customers loved the sense of rejuvenation and renewal that it granted them.

          Sasha's daily routine was always the same, and yet always different; from open to close her chair was full of people who wanted touch-ups, trims, shaves, dye jobs, and at odd intervals the "complete change-up makeover". None of which ever happened without Sasha's approval, she'd never allow someone to leave her studio looking foolishly groomed. Today was the second Tuesday of the month, and aside from the steady stream of tourists seeking her skills, her regulars would include Tom Rinner for his bi-weekly hair cut, Ida Moffat for a trim of her much-hated split ends, Susan Nolton for another phase of an ongoing technicolor dye job, the end result of which would make her hair appear to be a cascading rainbow that Sasha found immense fun in undertaking, and finally Old Man Jenkins for his weekly application of Dr. Gold's Beard Taming Oil, a ritual he'd remained faithful to since his sixtieth birthday at which he decided that he would grow a beard and answer only to the name Old Man Jenkins, rather than his previous Ivan Pharrel. Of all Sasha's clients, he was one of her favorites.

          With her in the studio, as always, was Sasha's assistant, secretary of appointments, hair sweeper, coffee getter, and idle debate opponent, the multi-talented yet slightly overworked Jacqui Lawson. Hired around the time Sasha's independent venture had blossomed into a legitimate business, it was Jacqui's duty to see to all affairs while Sasha's hands were full, that being a rather large portion of the day, and as conversations with the clients only lasted until they left the chair, to help in exercising Sasha's mind (which on the slower days was prone to wander) with stimulating conversation and intelligent debate. The fact that this also kept them both cheery through the day was a most welcome side effect; before long into Jacqui's employment, the two had fostered a unique and highly cherished friendship.

          As with most second Tuesdays of the month, today seemed as predictable as always, with just a few small wrinkles. Sasha couldn't exactly identify what it was, but something on this day was definitely peculiar, in that vague, itchy, shifty way that told you your day was strange. It took the two of them about three hours into the day, being sidetracked by regulars and conversation, before they realized what one of the particular oddities was; glancing out the large window, everyone walking the street outside was walking in the same direction. Odd, since a variety of businesses peppered the neighborhood and pedestrian traffic was always an erratic dance of dozens of people going from personal point A's to point B's. What could be happening to draw everyone to the same direction? This confounded Sasha, and while Jacqui knew she was free to simply step out of the studio and ask someone, it was much more fun to try and come up with increasingly preposterous explanations while Sasha performed her craft, trying not to laugh too hard at Jacqui's silly theories.

          Snip Snip

          "A mind-controlling fungus, Jacqui?" Sasha began to argue, "honestly I thought you said you were going to give those old sci-fi movies a break. And besides, the nearest lake is east of here, why would fungus living in people's brains move west, away from the nearest source of moisture?"
          "Well obviously the fungus knows everything that the people know," Jacqui retorted, "and one of those things happens to be the fact that we have irrigation systems and handy bottles full of water, the nearest stockpile of which is the grocery store, the one just a few streets west of here."
          "Oh my god, what do you think will happen when the Mushroom People find their way to the produce section?" Sasha began to laugh, "When they see all the little mushrooms sliced, diced, and shrink-wrapped and- and probably on SALE, no less!"
          "It'll most likely be a complete overreaction on their side." Jacqui began to hypothesize, "They'll most likely declare a full scale war on humanity and quickly conquer the world a-la Planet of the Apes. Honestly though, I didn't see Mushroom People as a possible apocalypse; mushroom clouds, but not Mushroom People."

          Even after noticing the odd foot traffic of the people outside, something still made Sasha itch about today. She looked at the calendar, decorated with circles and arrows denoting important dates, but today was completely bare, there was nothing to forget, so why did she feel like she was trying to remember something?

          The gentle jingle of the studio's doorbell broke Sasha's concentration as her eyes darted to see her next client, and to her surprise, the probable cause of the itchy feeling. It was Marcus Feldman, once one of her regulars, but for the past four months had not so much as set foot in the studio, or anywhere within sight of her window for that matter, how delightfully odd.

          "Marcus!" Sasha and Jacqui shouted in happy surprise. With his brown hair down to his shoulders, it was clear that the young man hadn't been to see Sasha, or any barber for that matter, any time in the last third-year. Sasha had thought he'd simply moved to another town after his 18th birthday, as was the custom of many college-bound teens. To see an old regular again after such a long hiatus was something that always made her smile, but something about Marcus' demeanor told her that the feeling wasn't entirely mutual at the moment.

           "H-hi Sasha... um... any chance you've got a walk-in slot available?" Marcus asked, his nervousness couldn't be any more obvious. "I... kinda need a haircut."

           "Well lucky for you Marcus, today's been kinda slow. Everybody seems to be making their way west for some reason."

           "Oh that's for my Grandpa's wake, he passed away last week and well, you know how everyone knew Grandpa Feldman, they're all off to pay their respects."

           "Oh Marcus, I'm so sorry. I loved your grandpa, hell everyone did. He was practically the heart of the whole town, always had a smile on his face, inviting people to his barbecues, and as far as the rich and retired go I've never seen anyone as generous with their wealth as him." Sasha was about to ask if Grandpa Feldman went peacefully, but judging from how off Marcus looked, decided it probably wouldn't be very polite to prod any further.

           "Yeah..." Marcus sighed, "Grandpa was a really awesome guy. Even up until he passed he insisted that nobody be sad on account of him, so instead of the whole traditional black funeral clothes he insisted nobody be let in unless they're wearing something they'd normally wear on a Tuesday, he even has my dad and uncles working grills so people can treat it like another one of his big barbecues. It's easier to remember the good times with him that way, which I guess is the way he would've wanted it. He even gave instructions to auction off his stuff and give all of the money to the local homeless shelter. Well, everything that he didn't specifically give away in his will. I suppose he wanted specific people to have special mementos of their time with him, he even left me his big armchair that he used to read stories to me in when I was little." Marcus casually thumbed away a tear at the memory as his voice cracked. "I never realized how much that chair meant to me until I saw that he left it to me."

          The three of them stood in silence for a few moments until Jacqui spoke up. "Well someone once told me that some people bring joy wherever they go, some whenever they go. You're gramps really set the bar, Marcus. We're all gonna miss him"

          "Thanks, Jacqui." Marcus said, cracking a polite smile. "That's actually a pretty good one, I might use that at the picnic to lighten the mood a little. Actually that's why I'm here, I'm supposed to give like, a speech or something in honor of Grandpa, I figure I owe it to him to look my best, so who else but Sasha Scissorhands?"

          Sasha smiled at the mention of her nickname, it reminded her of people spreading rumors that the scissors stayed in her hands for such a long time that they bonded to her fingers.

          "Well have a seat Marcus, we'll get you all gussied up for your big speech." Jacqui said, gesturing towards the only chair in the room.

          "Thanks ladies, I really appreciate it. If either of you ever need a last minute favor-"

          "Actually, there's something I'd like to know." Sasha cut Marcus off. "Marcus why haven't we seen you around lately? You used to be a regular but then you just up and vanished, and by the looks of it you haven't seen any other barber in the last four months and correct me if I'm wrong but I never took you for the type of guy who grows his hair out on a whim, what gives?"

          Marcus lowered his gaze to the floor while Sasha fitted the large black canvas over every part of him from the neck down. It wasn't until she began cutting his jagged edges of hair that he finally started to speak again.

          "I'm sorry Sasha, I wanted to tell you but... I was afraid."

          "Afraid of what I might think? What do you mean?"

          "Not afraid of what you might think, afraid of you."

          "Why would you be afraid of me? We've known each other for... what's it been, Jacqui, seven years?"

          "Eight years, I'm pretty sure." Jacqui confirmed.

          "Whichever, still a long time Marcus, why would you just all of a sudden start being afraid of me?"

          Snip Snip

          "Well, if you want the simple truth, it was something Izabelle told me. She said I'd meet my end in a barber's chair. She didn't say when, but when my time came, I'd be 'sitting in the chair of a barber' her exact words."

           "Oh... I see." Sasha said, suddenly pensive in her combs and cuts.

          Izabelle was a relatively old fortune teller and palm reader, normally a career that Sasha would shrug off as just an expensive way to kill fifteen minutes and get no useful advice or accurate forecasts even as far as an hour, Izabelle had an uncanny accuracy rating. So much so that it was rumored that she was the real deal. Sure some of the predictions she made never came true, like the winning lottery numbers spelling out the time of the mayor's death down to the minute, which prompted the mayor to hide in his office for 24 hours straight until that time had passed in every single time zone. But Izabelle's predictions were normally on point, which meant if she had something to say to you and you had a single brain in your head, you'd do well to listen. And unless you were a complete degenerate, you'd at least tip her enough to get some lunch.

           "And so what prompted this sudden act of bravery? I've never known you to be one to tempt fate Marcus, always playing it safe, hell you never even crossed the street without the 'walk' signal on."

           "Well actually, during the last few days of his life, Grandpa kind of imparted a lot of advice to me. He told me 'Marc, don't you ever let fear of death keep you from living. Trust me, the Grim Reaper's a nice guy, and if you got some good stories when he comes for you, he'll probably take you the scenic route on the way to the other side.' So I decided that even if I died here today, I'll probably just make some wise crack to the Reaper like 'whoops, looks like she took too much off the top!'"

          Sasha and Jacqui both started laughing at that thought.

          "Besides Sasha, you're the best barber the town's ever had, you've had literally thousands of people in this chair and you've never so much as nicked an ear in all that time, after a while I figured if I died in your chair, it'd probably be from something I couldn't avoid anyway; like an atom bomb or a fire or-"

          "Or pissed off Mushroom People." Jacqui added, followed by a short pause, followed by laughter.

          Snip Snip

          "Well Marcus, I'm glad you could bring yourself to stare death in the face." Sasha said, spinning the chair around so that Marcus could face the mirror, "And I think you'll find the reward for such bravery is a pretty damn good haircut, if I do say so myself." And it was true, Marcus marveled at how, even with complete absence of instruction, Sasha had made him look exactly as he imagined he would.

          Marcus let out a sigh of relief, "Well, this time at least, I guess I'll be tempting fate every two weeks for the rest of my natural life, huh?" Sasha gave a small smile as she removed the canvas and collected her fare, with a rather generous tip. "I'll see you both again next next Tuesday, go ahead and start putting me on the schedule." Marcus said as he strolled out the door, walking as though he had just dropped a giant boulder off of his shoulders.

          "This town gets stranger and stranger every day, seems like." Jacqui said, sweeping up the loose hair on the ground. "But I suppose it's better than stagnating in some boring city."

          "Exactly why you'll never catch me working at a Paul Mitchell." Sasha replied, "I live for days like these."

          Again the gentle ring of the doorbell broke Sasha's and Jacqui's concentration as they saw their next client.

           "Old Man Jenkins!" Sasha happily shouted, "The same old oil treatment again?"

          "Damn skippy, maybe a trim too, I'm s'poseda give a speech at Old Feldman's wake, seein's how I knew him the longest of anyone else in town."

           Sasha's face saddened at the mention of Grandpa Feldman's passing again.

          "Oh now don't you start gettin' all sad on his account. Last thing he ever wanted you young'uns to do when you thought of him was frown."

          Sasha took a deep breath and forced a smile out of her face, "You're right Mr. Jenkins, tell you what, you're my last appointment today, so after we get your beard in order we'll close up shop and all head over to the wake together."

          "First of all, I don't know where this 'mister' business is coming from, you know damn well you say the whole thing; 'Old Man Jenkins'. Second, yes, a nice walk with you lovely ladies sounds pretty nice, provided those sons o' his don't run out of those pulled pork sammiches."

           "So what do you think you'll say at the wake, Mist- Old Man Jenkins?" Jacqui asked, flipping the "OPEN" sign on the door to "CLOSED". "You probably got a lot of good stories about Mr. Feldman, right?"

          "Missy I got enough stories about that old coot to fill one big-ass book, I swear that man never took a damn day to rest, even after he got the bad news from the doctor, it was like he was in a race with time over how much he could get done. He took classes, online lessons, got his PhD in Mathematics, his CPA, his real estate license, hell he was even a licensed barber!"

          "A barber?" Sasha asked, while combing oil into Old Man Jenkins' beard. "I never knew he wanted to be a barber."

          "Oh he didn't, never planned to actually do anything with it at least, figure gettin' the license was just something he could do in the amount of time he had left."

         "Hey Sasha?" Jacqui piped, "I just got a shiver... you remember what Marcus said Izabelle told him? About the barber's chair?"

          "I do." Sasha said, still combing Old Man Jenkins' beard.

          "And what he said about his grandpa leaving him that old armchair?"

          "...Well I'll be damned," Sasha said, with her smile completely vanished. "Sounds like I owe Izabelle a lunch."



          Snip Snip

Happy Valentine's Day?

          I've always felt a little iffy about valentine's day; maybe it's the fact that it's another Hallmark holiday designed to sell overpriced rocks, flowers and chocolate, maybe I'm just not a fan of being reminded that I'm single. It's likely a bit of both, but that's not what I want to talk about.

          Valentine's day has always felt like a proverbial double-edged sword to me; on the one hand, being single is no fun on a day when couples seem to be at their lovey-doveyest, left with nothing but a sinking feeling that there was a memo that you just didn't get when all of humanity decided to pair off. On the other, if you are indeed in a relationship, there's that weird societal pressure to pull out all the stops to show your significant other how deep your love for them goes, and if somewhere in the "surprise" gift exchange, your demonstrations of love don't seem to match in depth, you find yourself panicking on the hidden meaning of a singing stuffed bear vs. a reservation for a romantic carriage ride through one of the more scenic neighborhoods.

          In some ways, I really feel worse for the couples that feel compelled to go the extra mile on an arbitrary day in February. Even the gifts that seem to emanate from the heart, such as a lovely poem composed to capture the lustrous beauty that hides deep within your beloved's eyes, or maybe a special picnic of the reddest strawberries you could possibly find to nibble on in audience of a perfect sunset that you two gaze upon in quiet contemplation of how you want this perfect feeling to go on forever, seem somehow cheapened by simply occurring on this one stupid day.

          Why? Because you feel expected to? Because if you can't set a date to pull off a grand romantic gesture that your beloved will wake up from a magic spell and discover what an absolutely insensitive and self-absorbed asshat you are? You're smart, I'll vouch for that myself, because you're a rational human being. So what is that fear that keeps us up in the days leading up to February 14th?

          I don't like valentine's day. Not even a little. Frankly I believe we'd all be better off without it; those that are single, and those that are lucky enough to have someone to warm the sheets with would all benefit from valentine's day simply disappearing. Think about it for just a moment, if there was no day that we felt obligated to empty our savings on a single day of blinding romance, if instead of the big, loud, flashy moments we instead had quiet, intimate moments, where two human beings could find themselves finally comfortable enough to drop the elaborate facade and let themselves be seen as they truly are, and connect on a level deeper than they themselves knew existed, if those who've yet to find that special someone could be brought to understand their singlehood not as a curse, but a small part of a grander adventure, wouldn't we be happier?

          Wouldn't we feel less alone?



          All arguments aside, know this; if you are alive, you are loved. And though we as logical beings crave to quantify everything so a chaotic world makes sense, love dodges that category of numbers and equations. A random day, named for a random saint, with random customs, has no bearing on how you should feel about yourself or anyone else. When it comes down to the very bare bones of it, Valentine's day is what you make of it, and it's no one's decision of how much or how little it means but your own.

          And it may or may not count for much, but if you're reading this, consider it a special valentine, from one person who's view of the world may be a tad askew.

          I love you, happy valentine's day.