In Which mrpeenee Brings You Tales of Old Age and Terror

As I crossed over the threshold into old age, I realized, with great annoyance, that while my head hair has retreated into non-existence, my pubic hair has continued to thrive. Wispy, straggly, and long-ass long, it exists solely to irritate me. I could braid it if the whim so moved me. It creeps me out. I am concerned that eventually it will get tangled up in my shoelaces and then where will I be?

So occasionally I break out the pruning shears and lop off the top. I’m not shooting for some kind of manscaping, I just want the mess to look less like something out of a Lovecraft story. Eldritch pubes, that’s what I got.

I also don’t try for anything fancy or too close to the boys, cause I am not crazy. And yet, and yet…. You can see where this is going, can’t you? Yes, tonight I nipped my nutsack.

I’ll pause here to let my male readers unclench. Fortunately, or as fortunate as that situation can get, it was no big deal. I didn’t castrate myself, the skin just got caught in the scissors and caused a tiny, little cut. It didn’t even really hurt, just a sharp pinch. It is possible I screamed like a little girl, a little girl who has just pecked the ball bag, but if ever there was a screamy moment, it was that.

But oh baby jeebus, did it bleed. Reminiscent of one of those chocolate fountains at some pretentious buffet. It turns out your man pouch is thickly covered in veins. Why? So that when you cut your nuts, your melodramatics are justified. The bathroom wound up looking like a set from a slasher movie and my testicles are now sporting a band aid.

Okay, so maybe this is difficult reading, or at least it is for those readers equipped with low hanging fruit. Maybe they are slightly pale around the lips, possibly light-headed. Sorry. Did you want a widdle trigger warning? Suck it up. I’m the one with my poor little huevos bleeding. I suppose this exemplifies the difference between empathy and sympathy.

Guys with unnipped nuts:

Watch out where you’re slinging that blade, buddy.

Maybe I should look into waxing.

Thick

What a piece of work is man.

I really hope this is not PhotoShop; it would reinforce my belief in god.

Speaking of god….

More White Lady Problems

This afternoon, I was having a Day of Beauty/Spa Life in the Castro.  Got my hair cut and exchanged insights on the Walking Dead and proper zombie evasion techniques with my beauty operator, Jeff (who refused to see the brilliance of my theory that zombies can’t lift their feet high enough to climb steps, so just run upstairs.  Also, a fire axe is always handy.  Anyway Jeff’s an idiot.)  Went to the chiropractor and got well and throughly cracked.  Also, got my nails did.

That’s when the trouble hit.  Doesn’t it always?  The nail place was hushed, with quiet spa music noodling in the background, and I was ensconced in my favorite massage chair thinking how much I like someone else filing my hooves when this queen and her two lady friends busted in.  Miss Lady Queen Thing proceeded to expound in a booming voice to her gal pals just how to get a manicure.

What the fuck?  It’s not exactly a participatory event.  You sit back, let the manicurist go at it and then leave.  About all you have to remember is to only stick out one hand at a time.  I tired to keep my eyes shut and ignore the bitch, but immediately all the manicurists, who had been quietly going about their jobs and probably dreaming about the day they rise up in revolution, started chattering and giggling.  Sweetie, you can drop as far into Vietnamese as you like, but we all know who you’re gossiping about.

Still, it was a great manicure and on the way out, I saw the braying queen had picked the ugliest pukey green polish in the world.  Stupid bitch.

I swiped this from Jason’s Tumblr, over at Golden Fleecing  .  I realized what a fussy old queen I have degenerated into when the first thing I thought of on seeing it was “That boy needs a pedicure, stat.”

Out of the Darkness

So I meant to post on Wednesday, Sept. 25 that it was the fifth anniversary of my wedding to R Man, but before I could get around to it, the power went out, so instead Secret Agent Fred and I wandered around the house, lighting candles and tripping on things.

I was going to whine about living without R Man, but you know what?  I don’t want to.  I’m doing better now than when he died then and I expect to continue that way.  Instead of writing some droopy, sad little post about missing R Man, I went to bed early.

Then this afternoon, I took Saki down to get his claws clipped on Castro while I went across the street to get my own nails done at Handjob.  I don’t know why he pretends manicures are so traumatic, I like them.

I have no idea what’s going on in the photo above.  I just find it amusing.

Ironic Hair

Polk Street is an odd San Francisco thoroughfare.  It runs through several very schmancy neighborhoods and yet it manages to be shabby.  Castro is the more well known gay center, but Polk was the original gay ghetto.  We lived near it and I got to know it well enough to realize every block had a liquor store, a dry cleaner, a cheap diner and a gay bar.  Every block.  A very short hop down from the center of what was the rentboy stroll is the front door of City Hall.  It’s San Francisco, there’s not a lot of room to spread out.

But the last decade of skyrocketing rents has routed pretty much every bohemian or louche or plain old funky neighborhood and Polk Street is no exception.  Almost all the old gay hustler bars have given way to guys with oversized glasses and teeny tiny hats drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon.

It’s Hipsterland: expensive, ironic and grimy.

Pretty much I don’t care, they got to go someplace, I suppose, but this week my barber called to say his back had given out and I needed my hair cut and somehow I wound up at the People’s Barbershop on Polk at Bush Street.

A temple to hipster’s fetish of guy-ism with a hearty dash of steampunk thrown in for decor, if it was any more hip, I would have been issued a monocle and a wool vest.  Who am I kidding, if it was any more hip, I would have been barred at the door.

So now I have a $60 haircut I don’t like.  The sides are fine, but the top has sort of a poufy roll which, considering how little hair I have to work with, is pretty amazing.  I look sort of like Julie Harris in Member of the Wedding, but not as attractive.  Or butch.

A Day of Beauty

What a lovely, San Francisco kind of day. It rained all night, but today is crisp and fresh washed, the perfect day for an elderly poof, such as I, to go down to the Castro to get my hair did and a mani-pedi. Loved it.

Castro Street was at its most charming.

Some guy was sprawled on the side walk so I asked “Are you all right?” He replied indiginanatly “Of course I am.” Of course he was, and all was right with the world.

Is there anything better than gossip to go with your hair-do? My beautician, Jeff, was in rare form because a big muscley thing was in one of the chairs on the other side of the very small shop and Jeff had to practically whisper the dirt to me, which just improved it, n’est-ce pas? Seems Miss Muscle Thang has recently divorced his wife the better to pursue his sideline of snagging rich old men. He looked sort of like this, but more or less in clothes.

On behalf of old men everywhere, I say if you look like a gold digger, if you gots the gold digging equipment, go dig the mother fucking gold and make some old man happy. Plus, for some reason, Jeff does a better job cutting my hair when he’s distracted with gossip, so yay.

Then, on to Hand Job for my nails. Although I never specify who I want, I almost always wind up with Malwani. I have the impression she is not the most popular girl there, possibly because she is one of the homeliest trannies I’ve ever seen. But really, I’m not there for a date, so what do I care?

She does have spectacular nails, which is encouraging.

There used to be a kind of nice looking guy here who has vanished and my dragdar tells me he may have grown his hair out, rooted through his mawmaw’s jewelery box and emerged as Malwani. There are some Ladies who go through the change and give it their all, attempting to be the most feminine creature possible. Others make no effort to hide their more masculine voice and profile, who decide that they are all the girl they need to be and they are the ones I applaud and that seems to be Our Girl Malwani.

Also, Malawani understand my cuticles.

At the other end of the Hand Job spectrum, their receptionist/esthetician is this terribly cute boy named Frank.

I think a little eye candy improves any beauty regimen, don’t you? One of the services Hand Job offers is a Boyzilian Wax, the very idea of which makes my nuts retract into my body cavity and which I think Frank may be modeling here:

He’s also a model, you can see his site at Nakkid youth

I have no idea if his facials include a happy ending; I’m simply happy to live in San Francisco, where the guy booking your pedicure is possibly an up-and-coming porn star, or should be anyway.

Hair Don’t

Gosh golly, quick, somebody call The Hair Hall of Fame Hotline, I got a hairdo emergency.

It all started so innocently. I went in to get my hair did cheerful as all get out, totally unaware of the horror that lay ahead. That’s when it all went so wrong, so tragically wrong: my regular beauty operator was not there. I was so stunned by the catastrophe, I actually agreed to let one of the other beautician take a crack at my coiffure. What a fool I was. I should have known no one understands my hair like Jeff.

And now, now that it’s too late, all I can do is weep bitterly. I’ve tried voodoo, the Psychic Friends Network, pulling on it, but nothing helps. I have to go find my goddam turban.

More Beauty Tips

I wandered into middle age resigned to a receding hairline; the sheen of my scalp was obvious early on. One of my strongest vows to myself was to never try to hide it. Comb-overs, rugs, plugs: ick, no thanks. Still, one day when R Man and I were trying to buy me a suit I was stunned to look in the three way mirror and find a bald spot in the back. I felt betrayed by my own follicles. Wasn’t it bad enough they were fleeing from the front? Did they have to sneak out the back as well?

But even once I capitulated on the top of my head, I was not prepared to realize I was also losing my eyebrows. What the hell? In all the cultural bitching about aging we have, I don’t every remember anyone touching on the topic of eyebrow loss. More than the sparseness above, I think my patchy brows is my most aging feature, with the few remaining hairs all old-man shaggy and gray, the worst of both worlds.

Before

After

My recent sojourn at the spa/salon brought to light the idea of eyebrow tinting. What do you think? I wouldn’t go for the Joan Collins circa 1963 thang, but I think just darker brown than the washed out gray I’m working with now might be just the ticket. It’s bound to be cheaper than a Botox party.

Clip Job

I smell good. In fact, I smell fabulous. I needed to cut my fingernails this afternoon, but instead of standing over the toilet with a pair of clippers and a blank look on m face, I decided to go get a manicure.

I had seen a nail salon in the Castro named Hand Job; where else could I go?

Let me point out now how very disappointed I have been in my female friends, none of whom will go with me to get a manicure. What’s with that? They all claim to be squeamish about people touching their nails. I adore it. In fact once I got into the shop, I decided to spring for a pedicure and then for a foot massage. It’s all about taking care of yourself. My manicurist told me so, along with about an hour’s worth of excessive personal information. Aside from that, it was heaven, especially the tuberose/citrus moisturizer the slathered on.

I smell fabulous.