I somehow found myself at a Christmas formal for the MassGen hospital’s cardiac unit, surrounded by shiny-haired couples wearing red ties and black velvet. Nat King Cole crooned from behind sparkling trees, and somewhere, someone made an inside joke involving prosthetic limbs.

“How do I wind up in these fancy things,” I thought to myself, poking at the salmon. I’d worn a dress that had been a big hit at the latest public radio party I’d gone to, but which seemed strangely out of place in my current location. I felt kind of like a twelve-year-old spy.

Meanwhile, my former roommate was fending off questions about her sexuality. “That’s what you get!” her boss laughed, “for bringing her as a date!”

A few weeks ago, Geoff and I decided to meet up at a bar after work to catch up on one another’s lives. Neither of us go to bars very often: I can count on one finger the previous times I’d gone to a bar before 9pm, and neither of us are real drinkers, but the concept struck us as “grown up”. We decided on Toad, a bar that is, for me, notorious for squeezing far too many people into far too small a space to play far too loud a gig.

“Holy crow!” I cried as we peeked in the window. “It’s completely empty in there!” Two men sat at opposite ends of the bar, reading newspapers. The bartender was lazily polishing a glass. We wandered inside as if we were entering the Bermuda Triangle, hesitantly ordering drinks and then . . . we sat down at a table. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a table at Toad before. It doesn’t take too many customers to create this problem: there’s probably a grand total of four two-person tables in the place.

“So!” Geoff said, squeaking in his chair. “How are ya, Addy.”

He is the only person in the world who I let call me Addy. It’s a remnant from our very brief dating career, before I felt comfortable enough to be honest with him. It’s funny, the secrets we can choose to keep: to this day I haven’t told him that I prefer to be called by my full name (because it’s my name, and I like it) but a little over a month into our dating I felt comfortable enough to tell him that our relationship was “fun and all” but it wasn’t “going anywhere.” We were in the car and he started talking about getting serious. “Look,” I said, “here’s the thing: you’re always going to be number two for me. I like this other guy a lot. More than you.”

It’s hard to explain to someone who has never had long hair how horrible and annoying long hair can be, but let’s give it a shot. Imagine a cloud of gnats, hovering around your head. Like hair, gnats are drawn to exposed, moist areas, and like gnats, hair is retardedly difficult to shoo away. Your nose is constantly tickled, your vision blocked, your lips pursed.

“You have some beautiful hair!” the stylist cried in a thick Boston accent. “Oh my gawd, does it do this naturally? Like, it just air dries this way?”

“Yes, yes it does,” I smiled. Not for frickin’ long.

“Ooooooh my gawd. I hate you!” She tucked the bib into my collar. “So! What are we doing today, just a trim?”

“Ahh . . . nope. I want to look like this picture.”

“Whoa!” She jumped. “Um, that’s really, really short.”

“Yes.”

“Like, really short.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure about this? Maybe we could go a little longer? I mean, you don’t want that length on the sides, do you?”

It’s funny, how growing your hair out necessitates the development of certain character traits. I’d become patient to a fault, rooted in indecision, helpless. It had been an attempt at conventional beauty and femininity, one that I could never quite get right. It represented uncertainty, and the desire to fit into a system I didn’t technically support. It represented all the days I’d fruitlessly waited for things to get better. I was sick of waiting.

Also, to be perfectly honest, I was just terrible about combing it — and I remembered the way my mom had handled that particular problem with me, some fifteen years ago.

“Bring it on,” I said.

She started lopping, inches at a time, and my head floated up to the ceiling like a helium balloon.

Before, before, and after.

It was pouring black rain outside, and all the Anthropologie sales girls were going completely out of their minds. I was in the dressing room when it really started coming down: all thunder and violence, it was flooding the streets outside and making its way onto the second floor, beating holes into the roof.

“Omigod, omigod! Look at the sewers!”

“Ohhhhh. My. God. Are they totally overflowing?”

“They’re totally overflowing.”

I have a love-hate relationship with shopping. Mainly, I love acquiring pretty things, and I hate everybody and everything else in the store — shoppers and employees, loud club music, advertising tricks and suggested outfits. I’m hoping that this is an age thing, and as soon as I start shopping with adults I won’t be subject to overhearing the inane Los Angeles dialogue; but I’m not quite ready to wear blazers and matching loafers. No, unfortunately, for now these are my people.