Back in Black

I’m still scratching my head about the plot of Inception, which I finally got around to watching New Year's weekend, but otherwise, I have no complaints about my vacation. I did a total Internet detox and stayed unplugged for a full ten days. It was good for my liver.

Here's what I got for Christmas:

Back in Black on CD: Because you can’t get it on iTunes and because I want to personally put more money into the Angus Young Self-Inflicted-Concussion Recovery Fund. That guy has got to have whatever is the equivalent of shaken baby syndrome for lead guitarists, and I need to know he’ll be looked after during his retirement, whenever that day may come.

I used a pair of stunt feet for this photo.

Black Converse All-Stars: I’ve had several pairs of these in my lifetime, but I haven’t worn them in awhile. I’m sure I’m too old to be wearing 'em now, but you know what? I don’t give a good goddamn. There’s got to be some advantage to being a writer, and I think I’m long overdue to cash in some of my eccentricity chips at the casino window. Maybe next year someone will give me a white Fedora or better yet, a monocle.

A first edition copy of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own: I’ve decided that I’m going to start telling people that I work as a Stay-at-Home Bomb Defuser. This is why I must work in total quiet, without interruption. Maybe then people will get it. Maybe then they will think twice about disturbing me. In fact, next time someone knocks on my office door, I’m just going to call out in a tremulous voice, “About to cut the green wire. Keep your fingers crossed!”

Better than a light saber

Oh, and how could I forget? I got one other gift that I'm certain will transform my life for the better. It’s this thing here, which is a device that supposedly smooths frizzy hair.

Just so we’re all clear, my profile picture? It’s a giant lie. A complete hoax that I’ve perpetuated on the unsuspecting public. If I had an ounce of genuine courage, I’d post what my hair really looks like. I once had to delete almost all the pictures of a trip I took to Seoul just because I could not face the sight of my own hair in its natural state. I ruined photos of imperial palaces, that’s how bad it was. (In my defense, the Korean peninsula is officially the worst place on earth for someone prone to humidity-induced frizzy hair syndrome [HIFHS]. Second to that? Washington, D.C., which is where I happen to live.)

I will buy just about any kind of snake oil that calls itself “frizz control,” despite the 100% failure rate of these products. No doubt what I need to tamp my hair down is something designed by NASA, maybe some futuristic polymer as yet undiscovered by science or mankind. Something distilled from Martian polar soil and returned to Earth by robot probe once every 4 years and then blended with dried marmoset saliva. Let me know if you've got any leads.

Anyway, my profile picture was taken within hours of returning home from a haircut, and I’m fairly certain the hairdresser laminates every strand of hair for me. I have no idea how she gets it so straight. I am embarrassed to admit how much time I spend trying to tame my unruly mane. I’m sure I could have gotten several doctoral degrees and really advanced the state of my kung fu by now, but instead I’ve thrown away years of my life smearing unguents on my scalp trying to get my coif to not look like Muppet hair.

Though I consider myself a hyper-realist in all other aspects of my life, when it comes to my hair, I still believe like Linus in the pumpkin patch on Halloween night that whatever new hair intervention I try, IT WILL FINALLY BE THE MIRACLE I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. And this hair-smoother thing I got for Christmas – yes, this will do the trick at last. I’m sure of it.

And that’s where I begin 2011. In a willfully hopeful state. Wearing Converse low-tops and listening to Back in Black while re-reading Virginia Woolf.

How about y'all? What are your irrational hopes for 2011?