darlin', don't you go and cut your hair.

I've been cutting Josh's hair for the past couple of years. This is not to say that I am good at hair stuff. Hair Stuff is Girl Stuff, and I'm good at none of it. But I like to cut his hair, because it lets me pretend that I am good at Girl Stuff, that I am providing necessary services to my man in the form of Girl Stuff. I am fulfilling a role in our relationship; I imagine he feels the same way when I ask him to squash a bug. Luckily for me, his hair is mercifully forgiving. It's curly, and so you can't really tell that it's not cut in a straight line at all.

This is how haircuts go. He sits down in the bathroom and we get the special scissors that are just for cutting hair and have never cut anything but hair. He starts off facing the mirror, but then I tell him to face the other way because he freaks out about the great hunks I'm chopping at. He obliges, but then sneaks peeks in the mirror in between snips. He complains that it's uneven and I explain that it's because I haven't gotten to the other side yet. He continues to make comments that are neither encouraging nor helpful. Finally, I'm done, and he shakes his head and tousles it one way and then the other with his hands, looking fretful. I make him wash it. He does, and when it's dry, he goes to look at it in the mirror every ten minutes or so, saying every time, "Well, it'll grow back." After another six hours of that, he declares that he likes it.

Back at the end of February, there was much debate between us whether he should get one last haircut before he left. He finally opted against it, since he felt his hair was at that perfect place: it had grown a bit since the last time I hacked at it, but was not yet too long. It would get long and uncomfortable, but at least for now, he looked good. And that's what is important to a rock star.

"Besides, you can always get a haircut on the road if it bugs you."

"Yeah."

"When you are at Kelly's in Chicago, I bet she could do it."

"Yeah."

"You know what, nevermind. Kelly is not allowed to cut your hair." That was stupid. I know Kelly, I trust Kelly, and I trust him. What did I think a haircut was going to lead to? But somehow the idea of another girl doing Girl Stuff for my man bugged me. He laughed at me. I think he is flattered when I get jealous.

Fast forward to some night in the middle of the tour. I had a dream that some girl that he met on the road had cut his hair. I awoke angry. I resisted the urge to call him right then. He might not be so flattered if my jealousy caused him to call him in the middle of the night and yell at him over some haircut he got in my dream. However, I did ask him about it when we had our regular evening call. He sighed at me. Maybe jealousy is less flattering over long distances.

In the wee small hours of Sunday morning, he came home. His hair was long and wild from a couple days of not washing it. I asked if he wanted a haircut now. He was indecisive for a while, trying to trick me to into telling him what to do with it, interpreting my pauses as meaning the exact opposite of the very direct words that followed them. Finally, we got out the special hair scissors and wheeled a chair into the bathroom.

"About two days after you asked me whether I'd had a haircut, a girl tried to get me to let her cut my hair."

"What? Just some girl you met?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that's kinda flirty."

"Yeah. After I wouldn't let her, she tried to cut Trevor's hair."

"Moving right along then."

"Yeah, she just wanted a hook-up. She wasn't interested in Dave for some reason."

"Because Dave looks like he's growing a beard for a cause. He will shave when Tibet is free. Would you have let her if I hadn't told you about that dream?"

"Probably. I wanted a haircut. She talked a good talk, said it would be good for the band. She said we sounded great, but we needed a different look."

"Uh, right."

"It would have been a bad idea. I found out later that she had a boyfriend in prison and another one in the army."

"Nice girl. You would have been able to extricate yourself before anything happened."

"Yeah. It's better not to get in those situations."

"Plus, I would have freaked out a little bit."

I suppose the lesson here is to always act on your irrational dreams. Also, don't let strange girls give you a haircut.