I think you're oversimplifying there -- that wasn't an old-lady hairstyle when the Golden Girls were young, they just kept their younger-adult hairstyles and didn't update them. Whatever looks normal to us now, in forty years is going to look old-ladyish.

I've made a policy decision not to give a damn. But I'm getting way, way frosty. Outdoors on a sunny day, there's a whole lot of sparkly gray stuff in my hair.

My temples are starting to gray. I'm going for distinguished.

This came up at a party we were at recently, where it was determined that within a reasonably large mutual friend set of 50-60ers (more than were at the party) my wife and one other woman were the only ones who just let the gray hair show. I really do not tend to notice that stuff and was frankly quite surprised at the result. But sitting here at my desk, I realize it holds pretty well here also.

I found my first grey hairs when I was in junior high, so I couldn't really believe they were a sign of aging. Since then, I've gotten a conspicuous lock of grey right at my part, so you definitely see grey hair when you see me. But people usually guess my age in the late twenties (which I think has more to do with my shoes and goofy demeanor than my hair), so I can't bring myself to introduce a new maintenance regime into my life.

I actually did consider coloring it once. I made an appointment, but when I hung up the phone I doubled over with stomach cramps. I took that as I sign that I didn't mean it yet, called back and cancelled. I like my natural hair color. I'll be sad when it substantially goes.

Are you suggesting that Nora Ephron is wrong?

Put me down for "women with dashes of gray look hot."

It's something to do with a prejudice on my part that says mature women are more direct and less tolerant of bullshit. Plus if you can see gray hair you know they aren't dying it, which to me reads as "comfortable in her skin."

Now I'm wondering if I'll ever think an A-line bob is old-ladyish. I think it might be the perfect haircut (although not great for me), and I can't imagine it being associated with any age.

When Marvel launched Ultimate Spider-Man in 2000, intended to be a younger, hipper, purer version of the character, among other things, they changed the hairstyles of Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Uncle Ben got a ponytail and was revealed to be an ex-hippy. Aunt May, who once would have looked geriatric even next to the Golden Girls, got a makeover with a neat, short haircut parted to the side. "Boyish" might be the term, maybe.

8: Presumably, if Uncle Ben had survived his encounter with the criminals, he would have turned into a Republican.

7) The associate with older people probably isn't so much that the older people keep using a style, as that younger people stop using it...

There's a genetic something that causes hearing loss and also a white forelock. Kids at Gallaudet dye the forelock pretty colors.

Sorry, grey hair makes you look old. You can counteract this by (quite appropriately) not caring, or by pairing your grey hair with a younger look, or by seeming vigorous, but there's no way getting around the fact that grey hair makes one look old.

Now I'm wondering if I'll ever think an A-line bob is old-ladyish.

Heaven forbid. More women should be encouraged to adopt the A-line bob. Looks great with a shift, laydeez.

12: Colorist!

12: Sorry, grey hair makes you look old.

Generally true, but which reveals the question behind the question. Is there a problem with looking old? (Am curious if anyone will go veldty in response.)

Have you any gray hair yet, Becks?

We should do a survey:

a) gray
b) grey
c) gr/y
d) halfway between black and white

Sorry, grey hair makes you look old.

older, at least. but why "old"?

But there is an interesting effect going on. There is some sort of age distribution for the graying of hair. If I had to guess for men, I'd say it's centered somewhere around 30 or 35. Which is hardly old. If I had to guess for women though? I have no idea. Do you?

Which is sort of the point. If almost all women dye the gray out of their hair through middle age and even into undeniably old territory, the whole thing becomes associated only with fairly old women, making it impossible to avoid that.

So we live in a culture where middle aged men often have some graying of the hair (although of course men dye too, but it's hardly universal) and middle aged women don't. If you grow up with that expectation, it hardly matters if it's unnatural, you're going to associate gray hair with elderly women only....

"although of course men dye too"

Only my barber knows.

I'm not especially worried about looking older, but I do care whether I like the way my hair looks. Some people look great with gray hair. It depends on skin tone, natural hair color, location and quantity of gray. My dad has that very silvery gray hair that looks good on many people.

9: Until May's heart attack, that is. I don't think Ultimate Ben and May were old enough for Medicare.

Re: the original post, I tend to gel my hair to be a little spiky, and I've found an unintended effect of that is that it hides the fact that I have a fair amount of gray hair. My sister is only 23 and dyes her hair to hide noticeable gray.

I'm getting 4:1 on Noticeable Gray in the fourth race.

15 -- There's nothing wrong whatsoever w/looking old. In fact, I think this is one area where Americans are demonstrably insane.

However, my own fashion sense (and, like most blog commenters, I am truly a master of the fashionable, so take this with a kiloton of salt ) is that older people need to put more of a premium on style and preparation in order to look good -- most 18 year olds will look good in sweatpants, but 50 year olds will not. Not dowdy clothes, just attention to detail. Unfortunately, 50 yr olds are also way more likely to have decided to say "fuck it, I'm giving up." In cultures where they don't do this, you can see the difference. It's really incredible how much better older people in France look than those in the US -- the difference is much more striking than for people under 35.

On the other hand, at the farmer's market last week, I did see a guy who looked like he was in his 70s wearing a mesh t-shirt and short shorts, which was kind of awesome.

Only my barber knows.

The non-apparent dye job is a bit like the non obvious toupee. If they exist, how would the typical person estimate the numbers?

"In fact, I think this is one area where Americans are demonstrably insane."

You should get out more.

24: I would bet the number of non-obvious dye jobs is far lower than the number of people who think they have non-obvious dye jobs. Same goes double for rugs.

26: absolutely. I'm having trouble estimating the lower bound though.

My mom, in her mid-60s, has retained her natural color almost entirely. My hometown, while not a hippie town per se, has a very low-maintenance aesthetic, and Mom is finding that she's being judged for what people assume is an unseemly regime of gray-hiding dye.

I just found my first gray hair last month. I blame the dissertation.

You should get out more.

To observe other areas where Americans are demonstrably insane?

29: It's fun and informative.

Sorry, grey hair makes you look old.

I've had a noticeable amount of gray hair at least since I was 16. Maybe longer.

20: Good point. There is also a pretty broad spectrum of "grey," from a very attractive silvery-ash to opaque white; different shades suit some people better than others.

?for what people assume is an unseemly regime of gray-hiding dye.

There is obviously a huge variation in the population (though you wouldn't know it from advertizing). I knew a guy with notable gray hair and pattern balding by age 18 or so --- he wasn't pleased.

I used to have quite a bit of grey hair.

how much better older people in France look

Until they turn into the hunched over crone in all black.

location and quantity of gray

I wonder if part of the gender shift in expectation has to do with hair length too. A bit of salt-and-pepper coloring to a short hair cut is probably easier to pull off in an aesthetically pleasing way than with shoulder length hair or whatever.

31 -- You looked old since you were 16, then.

I'm not saying that a wisp of grey hair automatically makes a 20 year old look like a 70 year old. But grey hair is something that we associate with "old" people (which, in one sense, is the binary opposite of being young, even if we all understand there are lots of shades of difference between old and young). It's possible to offset the grey hair with lots of other characteristics that will preserve an impression of youth. But it's silly and kind of denialist to say that grey hair doesn't make you look old. That's a totally different question than whether and how one should worry about looking old.

Baby, no, just leave it. I don't think it makes me look old. My mom said it makes me look mature. No, I don't love my mom more than I love you. Yes, I want to look good for the honey harvest festival. OK, OK, but do you promise to cut just a little?

37: see, that's exactly the old/older distinction I'm trying to draw a line around.

Graying of hair, like pattern balding, skin wrinkling & spotting, etc. are undeniably signs of *aging*, which isn't to me the same thing as "looking old".

I think mentally associate gray hair in women as much "older" than in men, which doesn't mean that other cues don't counteract it, just that I don't associate it with typical middle age the way I do for men. I thought it was interesting the degree to which this might be entirely a construct of fashion.

although of course men dye too

I'm not sure that I know any men who dye. I kind of like my gray silver, for which I blame my children, but I'm always a bit surprised at how much of it there is in the sink after I cut my hair.

It's possible to offset the grey hair with lots of other characteristics that will preserve an impression of youth. But it's silly and kind of denialist to say that grey hair doesn't make you look old.

I think these sentences contradict each other. One will give off an impression that, after the instantaneous balancing has happened, either be youthful or old. Grey hair weighs on the old side, but if one looks youthful overall, it hasn't made one look old.

40: You cut your own hair over the sink?

1. Do you think all those French women over 50 are blond naturally? Non.

2. I've had a lot of grey hair since I was 12. Never thought a thing of it. More and more and more and more grey until let's say about 30, when I realized, holy smokes, I am going to be an entirely grey-haired 30-year-old. No thanks! So I dye it, and you wouldn't know unless I told you, since my hair and my eyebrows are the same color and I didn't decide, comme toutes les Mariannes, that I would magically be a blond or something.

3. I'll do the Sontag thing when I'm 50.

I'm not sure that I know any men who dye.

Therein lies the rub, no?

I knew a few who obviously did, but like the toupee crowd, they were in active denial (and tended to be in sales \& marketing)

You cut your own hair over the sink?

Doesn't everyoneman ?

You cut your own hair over the sink?

Once every three months or so. Easy-peasy.

My hair is turning not grey but white, ghost white. It started getting noticeable when I was in my late teens. My beard is starting to turn now, as well, which bothers me a lot more than my hair ever did (mostly because it's turning not in an aesthetically-pleasing salt-and-peppery manner but instead in a weird streaky or stripey manner that looks a bit skunkish, but skunkish on my face, which is just weird).

I'm astonished by how many people dye their hair. I think my astonishment mostly relates to the fact that my mother always dyed her hair, but did so in a very obvious manner, clearly artificial, so I ended up with a mental understanding of dyed hair as clearly-artificial-looking hair, and I don't see all that much clearly-artificial-looking hair around, so I sort of assume (without really thinking about it) that not all that many people are dyeing their hair. But then it comes up in conversations and I learn that nope, somewhere between lots and damn-near-all the people with grey hairs dye them away. But I'd never even consider it. Not even for my (unsightly, skunky) beard. I'm not sure why; I just wouldn't.

45: Flowbee? Clippers? Scissors?

39 -- Well, it's interesting. I was thinking of "old" as the opposite of "young," where one thinks of someone as either a young person or an older person. I think that grey hair is a strong indicator that you're on the "old" side of the young/old line. In other words, it's hard to call someone with grey hair young, unless, as in Essear's case, there's lots of other evidence that the person in question is young. So in that sense, grey hair makes you look old. There's probably some kind of Sorites thing going on here that the philosophers can sort out in pedantic detail.

It's interesting that in the modern US, being "old" has become such a pejorative that there's now a huge range of people who are clearly no longer "young" but who can't conceive of themselves as "old," either. I mean, I know people in their 70s who would get offended if you called them "old" and act accordingly -- being "old" has become essentially an insult to anyone under 80. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing I don't really know.

46: The beard is definitely a different deal for me. I don't mind the gray temples, but when I see my grizzled self in the mirror after not having shaved for a few days, I think, dude, you look old. (Solution: refrain from looking in mirrors. Problem solved!)

47: Clippers, with scissors and razor for touch-up.

48:

Another weird thing about the US cult of youth is that you have a largish number of people actively "not looking old" in very obvious ways. Unsurprisingly this affects women more than men, but there are certain very common looks that I think are emergent from the process of trying to not look old; people with very unnatural looking hair, skin, body parts. They certainly don't look young, but they look old in a very particular `done' way.

I suspect they almost universally look aesthetically worse than they would have if they hadn't done the body mods and tanning and products and dyeing for so many years previously, but don't know how that balances in their minds against the look they would have had for the previous 20 years or whatever.

It is true that the way the dyeing dynamic generally works out today among women, it tends to accentuate the oldness of "grey" hair. I saw this with my own mother who "highlighted"/dyed until her late '70s. Then when she stopped, it wasn't grey, it was absolutely white.

... but it looks good on you, Brock.

49: If someone is happy with their haircut from clippers, I really wonder why they *wouldn't* just do it themselves. Same goes for really long hair too, I guess.

Count me in as another who started getting grey hair at a young age - 22 or so, when I was applying to grad school. But it has stayed constrained to one lock so I don't think it is very noticeable.

My mom used to leave her greying hair untouched, but my younger sister talked her into dying it. I hate to say it, but she does look better with the dyed hair - she has a good stylist, but the real issue is that her hair simply did not match her face, which is very youthful for her age. I think in another 15 years she should start letting the grey show through.

51: yes, this seems to be the sort of catch-22 that the "beauty" industry just loves.

48.2: My grandmother continued to talk about the things "those old ladies" would do, with the clear implication that she was not an old lady, until she was at least 80 or so. I think she finally became old in her own mind after having a stroke.

I am old, very very old.

My dark blonde hair has mostly turned white, with a full bushy beard like snow. I don't see much gray, but don't look very close.

I think a full total gray head of hair looks pretty old, and maybe people want to control the transition, umm, dye the streaks so they don't have to do a complete and obvious dye-job at a later date.

52: That was a minor revelation. You mean I don't have to waste time and money going to the barbershop? Huh.

How old are you, McManus, if you don't mind saying? (If you do mind, I'd be curious why it bothers you to say.)

since we clearly have a large range of ages here, we should conduct front page polls, and from their extrapolate the positions of the nation(s).

Perhaps some science-type person can shed some light on this anecdote (which anecdote sounds like I'm, er, making it up but is absolutely true):

I had white hairs and now I don't any more, yet I didn't dye my hair. And even more weridly, last weekend I combed out a hair which was white in the grown out part but had about three inches of my normal brown color at the root. No hair dye is involved! But I actually have substantially, visibly fewer white hairs now than I did three years ago. It's the damnedest thing--did I have some kind of nutritional deficiency which was whitening my hair? Do I now have some kind of nutritional deficiency such that my normal hair process is interrupted? Am I in such deep denial that I am actually hallucinating?

57: my hair went from 3ft to 3mm, no barbers needed at either end.

58:I don't like to put out specific identifying information like DOB, specific towns.

Very late fifties.

Been doing ductwork in my attic this week. 105 degrees in Dallas. I feel old.

60: Alien abduction is the only possible explanation for what you describe. Something about the probing process reverses aging ever so slightly in humans.

A friend of mine with thick, straight, long brown hair went totally gray (silvery-white) in her late 20s. Really striking. Hot, actually. Then she decided to cut it short, and she looked much older. (n=1)

60: Have you considered the possibility that you're now aging backwards?

(n=1)

If she only had one hair, that's going to attract attention regardless.

Somehow I knew that McManus had " a full bushy beard like snow. "

I guess it's the Old Testament prophet vibe.

Doing ductwork in the attic in the heat is a better reason to feel very, very old than being in your late fifties. I only asked because I was wondering whether my vague impression of you is off by decades.

60: I used to see hairs doing this (before I dyed them all into submission), but not enough for a true volte-face.

If she only had one hair, that's going to attract attention regardless.

Really? You'd have be very close to see it at all!

62:I guess I didn't answer why I'm vague.

Maybe I don't know. Shy, careful, protect my partner who doesn't approve of blogging, reasons I don't want to discuss, paranoia, unsocialibility, aversion to relationships, contrarianism, preference for generalizing my particular experiences, whatever.

70: Since JM said 'Really striking', I was assuming an unusually thick strand of hair.

My dark blonde hair has mostly turned white, with a full bushy beard like snow.

Photo of McManus

I'm just hoping to keep my hair until it has a chance to become grey. In my personal "bald vs. grey" race, bald is winning.

I'll just have to make do with a grey beard.

60: It probably is some change in your diet/body chemistry. Since hairs grow for a while and then fall out and are replaced by new ones (unless you are balding), you should soon have no white left at all if it is past.

I'm going for distinguished.

I've often thought you could make a fortune by selling a reverse Grecian Formula that would allow 20-something lawyers, consultants, and investment bankers to add a little grey in the temples.

Put me down for "women with dashes of gray look hot."
I'll second that.

Until they turn into the hunched over crone in all black.

Especially true of Italy. Females seem to be bimodally distributed between impossibly cute and chic young things and wrinkled old ladies with dowager's humps. I have a theory that Italian women are incarcerated in a secret camp from the time they start to show signs of age until they are well past eligibility for an old age pension.

72: or an extremely long hair, coiled about her head.

Once I get more grey, I'm going to stop trimming my eyebrows and go for the Gandalf look.

and are replaced by new ones (unless you are balding),

iirc, even then (balding).

Oh, late fifties was plenty specific for me. I was more wondering at people who are averse to telling their age for the same reasons they don't want to look old. Didn't seem like that would be you, so I asked.

(I am a little tone deaf on this stuff. I'll tell my age and my weight readily and forget that others don't like to.)

77: Right, a sort of minimalist Rapunzel look.

I have to admit, that would attract attention.

My father's very black hair didn't gray appreciably until he was in his mid-60s, but once it did it went from black with a light sprinkling of gray to completely white in two or three years. "You've gotten Dorian Grayer," I used to say when I saw him again.

(Speaking of gray hair, is it just me or does Jeff Sessions look remarkably like Johnny Carson?)

Speaking of gray hair, is it just me or does Jeff Sessions look remarkably like Johnny Carson?

If only a monkey would piss on Sessions...

84: That's pretty harsh, pain. Where's your empathy?

83: Average "hair cycle" is ~3 years, so it was probably an even quicker change at the roots and then the 3 years to rcompletely eplace the old with the new.

79:Yes, just learned something I did not know, that for pattern baldness at least, it is driven by follicle miniaturization with the hairs becoming fine vellus hairs and having a much shorter growth phase before they fall out.

That's pretty harsh, pain. Where's your empathy?

You expect someone named "pain" to have empathy?

Plus if you can see gray hair you know they aren't dying it, which to me reads as "comfortable in her skin."

I made this argument about five years ago, then dyed my way through the divorce, and am now just about a year back into not coloring. For now, the gray just looks to me like highlights, and I am fully convinced that by the time I'm fully gray it will be utterly striking (if only because so, so few women go fully gray anymore). On the other hand, Rory will from time to time play with my gray hair and mutter pityingly, "You must have alot of stress."

Conventional hair-dying for middle aged women is funny -- I'm 10-15 years younger than the two other women I work with most, but I'm greyer than either of them if you don't count the weeks when their roots are showing. If you look at a crowd of professionals, most of the men are greyish, and very few of the women.

(Also, even among people too young to grey, hair color isn't strongly sex-linked, is it? Counting male and female blondes is funny; it's one thing knowing that blonde is a popular color to dye one's hair, it's another to do the comparison and realize that five out of six blondes are dying it, and that naturally occurring blonde hair is quite rare in a white adult, at least in NY.)

85: Indeed. Do you have any idea how traumatic it is for a monkey to be in the presence of horrible old white guys?

"naturally occurring blonde hair is quite rare in a white adult"

Isn't it even rarer in non-whites?

If you look at a crowd of professionals, most of the men are greyish, and very few of the women.

My other delusional graying theory is that gray hair will make me look more serious and worthy of respect in the professional sphere...

I was trying to correct for region to region differences in ethnic distribution -- like, I don't mean blondeness is rarer in NYC than elsewhere because white people are a smaller percentage of the population, but that it's not a common hair color even among the ethnicity where it's possible. (Well, in Emerson/Frowner land, I'm sure undyed blondeness is common. But even there, I bet there's a lot more blonde women than men.)

Isn't it even rarer in non-whites?

How would I know? I don't even see hair color.

93: I was just joking. And I agree. I left the midwest thinking I had dark brown hair and was surprised to hear people call me blond once I got somewhere where Swedes, Germans and Poles weren't a clear majority of the white people.

In my personal "bald vs. grey" race, bald is winning

Balding early is some straight-up bullshit. I'm just lucky I have a good head shape.

My mother went gray super early, sometime in her early 20s, and dyed it through until about 50. Since then (so 5-6 years now), she decided that she should move to her natural gray, and has slowly dyed it ever lighter shades of brown and then blonde. It's been a really nice, steady progression and I think helped ease her into it. Looks good this way, too.

Balding early is some straight-up bullshit.

All out bald on a guy is downright hot. Of course, that awkward thinning stage maybe not so much, so I'll grant you that phase as the straight-up bullshit part.

Balding early is some straight-up bullshit.

I have no idea how I'm dodging that bullet, as all the men over 25 on both sides of my family are going bald. For the moment, my hair is way overgrown and getting-out-of-hand long, although the other day my grandma told me she thought it looked sexy. So that was weird.

98: Your grandma may be using reverse psychology to see if she can't get you to cut your hair.

My mom started to go gray in her early twenties and dyed until we moved to Albuquerque when she was around 40. She had been thinking of stopping the dyeing for a while, but refrained because she thought it would look weird while it was growing out. When we moved, though, she figured it would be fine since no one would know her and she could just be the new lady with crazy hair for a while.

She's been totally gray ever since, and keeps her hair quite short. It looks very good on her. It also seems to give her more gravitas and authority, particularly with the parents of her students.

99: I don't think so. She's an artist and mentioned she'd like to do a new portrait of me with longer hair (she did a shorter-hair portrait two years ago). She did not, however, invite me to look at her etchings.

96: Buck got his last real haircut at nineteen. He's got a strip of hair around his ears, but he's been really bald since then. It looks fine on him, and has since I met him, but it was apparently really depressing being an undergraduate who people kept on calling "Professor".

98: Isn't balding supposed to descend through the maternal line? So your maternal grandfather would be who you're looking at for your own baldness potential. (Or at least that's what Newt's hoping. My dad's seventy, and finally getting a bald spot, but it's still thinning rather than shiny.)

97: I finally bit the bullet and went bald a couple weeks ago. It definitely helped that my roommate's been shaving his head since high school, so I felt better that it wasn't solely done by doughy middle-aged white men (which is mostly where I encounter it in finance people).

My hair still looked reasonable in the longer style I had it, but my days of looking relatively normal were definitely getting more numbered and I was starting to get self-conscious about going swimming, strong winds, etc.

So far, it seems to have worked out quite well. Still getting fully used to it. Oddly enough, it actually looked better and younger with the full-beard scruff I had before yesterday.

All that said: still some bullshit at my age. And about 15-20 years older than my age, for that matter.

About half my pubic hair recently turned snow-white. The skin under those patches seems albino-pink, too. My doctor doesn't think it forebodes anything, but it's perturbing considering I'm in my mid-twenties (and no gray hair anywhere else).

Tons of grey (white, actually) in my beard, but almost none on my head. The obvious solution would be to shave my beard, which did indeed make me look younger, but made just how badly I need a chin tuck much more obvious. Unacceptable.

97: When my family history started to catch up with me on that front I started shaving my head cue ball smooth. One nice thing about doing that is that the scalp is really quite sensitive, so I end up rubbing my head all the time. I started growing it out not long ago, because I miss playing with my hair, but I was informed by a reliable friend* that it made me look like a child molester, so it's back to smooth.

*Seriously, people: if a friend asks how they look and they look like a goddamn child molester, don't say "you look great!"

Dye your beard? Green?

President Leland Palmer

This made me laugh.

103: I'm not generally a big beard fan, but if you're newly bald it's a good time to mess around with facial hair. If you aren't classically handsome with strong chiseled features (and really, how many people are?) no hair at all on your head has some risk of leaving you looking like a thumb.

Dye your beard? Green?

Actually, I like the white beard. So I'm growing my hair long, like a child molester.

If I go bald, I'm guessing I have some pretty bad chicken pox scars up there. My mom said not to scratch the pox or I'd have scars. The fact that I would age didn't occur to be, so I really raked above the hairline.

I've often thought you could make a fortune by selling a reverse Grecian Formula that would allow 20-something lawyers, consultants, and investment bankers to add a little grey in the temples.

I've speculated that Bill Clinton had some gray added to his hair during the '92 race to make him look older.

I am fully willing to believe that his rapid graying while he was president was completely natural.

My dad's beard started to go noticeably gray long before his head, so he shaved off the beard and went clean-shaven from then on. He looked a lot better, actually.

I think that's standard for men -- they seem to gray from the mustache outward. I've never seen a man with hair grayer than his facial hair.

My dad's hair actually never went totally gray. He eventually started getting a few gray hairs, and his hairline started to recede a little, but he still had basically a full head of brown hair until the chemo.

109: I think a big part of it is that I didn't fully shave my scruff to smooth skin, since my facial hair seems to be made out of some strange razor-destroying alloy and ingrown hairs suck. Thus I end up with a not-quite-clean face, but also one that doesn't have well-trimmed scruff of a decent length.

I figure the one thing this will really be good for is keeping me on a decent workout schedule. As I figure it, there are three archetypes of bald white dudes: middle-aged doughy dudes, cancer patients, and Mr. Clean. And I already have all these white t-shirts...

116: Beards appear to differ in strength. I remember my brother complaining about the cost of blades. I said, sure, they cost a bit, but they last a couple of months. Which turned out to be not universally true.

114: Right now the one side of my mustache is the least grey of my hair (did not start that way, but the head has now surpassed it). Actually it is rather asymmetrical and not very pleasing to me when i look at it in the mirror (not that I really care that much).

102
Isn't balding supposed to descend through the maternal line?

That's what I've heard too, and it's working for me.

My dad is mostly bald; he's got that fringe of thin hair around behind his ears and a few wisps on top, but that's it. Sometimes with a beard or mustache, sometimes not. My mother's brother, on the other hand, still has a nearly full head of hair. He's getting to have a bald spot on top now, but that's only noticeable if he bows or whatever and even that wasn't there five or 10 years ago. So far I'm taking after him.

All the men on both sides of my family had quickly receding hairlines by their 30s, including my younger brother. I'm the genetic outlier, apparently.

Mr. Clean.

I am litigating against this complete lunatic with a blog about his legal practice interspersed with pictures of his bald, flexing, T-shirt-clad Mr. Clean-esque self. Very amusing.

102: Yes. Androgenic alopecia (male pattern baldness, although it affects women as well) seems to be primarily controlled by genes on the X-chromosome. There are some good veldlty hypotheses on how it might have evolved via sexual selection as well.

I've never seen a man with hair grayer than his facial hair.

Huh. All of my stubble seems pretty dark, despite the grey scattered through the rest of my hair. But I shave daily, so maybe I just don't have a good sense of my facial hair's true color.

Plaintiff's attorneys do tend toward self-dramatizing personal presentation.

102, 119: My maternal grandfather has his full head of hair at 80-something. Don't believe their lies!

121: Ah crap. So much for my anonymity.

125: Your other maternal grandfather?

In fact, you can probably find it by googling -- [Italian word for soup]'s Pit is the name of the blog, and if you scroll down you'll see the funny picture. Not the guy with the fish up on top, Mr. Clean down below. I don't want to link or use the name here, obviously.

Heh. Back in [old town -2] there was a guy who wan an uncanny double for Mr. Clean. He played it up (used to have t-shirts with Mr. Clean on them) but it was really astonishing without the reminder. He could easily have done live version of the marketing (was it all cartoon?) with the exception that he had one leg amputated at the knee.

Still, uncanny.

126: Right, you could be taking after your maternal grandmother's father. Or maternal-line great-grandmother's father, and so on all the way back.

with the exception that he had one leg amputated at the knee

Tragic accident involving an electric floor buffer?

The guy in that [LB's ] picture though? Not even close.

Funny, though, no?

Tragic accident involving an electric floor buffer?

iirc, he had a bunch of stories about it.

This guy milked it for all it was worth, had the same gold hoop earing, white eyebows ...

132: Funny, yes.

Not the guy with the fish up on top, Mr. Clean down below

If you click the dashes above the guy with the fish, you get a bonus Mr. Clean pin-up.

I said, sure, they cost a bit, but they last a couple of months.

Wow! Truly, you have a beard of butter.

Wow, that guy may have the craziest lawyer website I've ever seen. He also links to onlinebootycall.com and adultfriendfinder.com, which, hmmm.

135: Maybe one month on the face and then one month on back-hair duty.

Which turned out to be not universally true.

Absolutely, this varies. On the other hand, if the cost of Magnum-Super-Extra-Bestest-Ever-12-blade refills is getting you down, you can always learn how to use a straight razor. They'll last anyone a lifetime (and are fine with beards, contrary to popular opinion).

Old style safety razors last longer too....

116: 109: I think a big part of it is that I didn't fully shave my scruff to smooth skin, since my facial hair seems to be made out of some strange razor-destroying alloy and ingrown hairs suck. Thus I end up with a not-quite-clean face, but also one that doesn't have well-trimmed scruff of a decent length.

Dude. You seem to be me. Except my beard, if it grows out, is blonde, red, brown, black and now some of it seems to be going stark white. No gray.

And I have no hair, except for the strangely brown stuff on the back of my head. (If it grew out to any length, it would turn blonde. But it doesn't. So I have people telling me I have brown hair. WTF?)

I would like a cure for baldness, so I can go back to dying it jet black with a white or blond stripe and/or having mohawk or a chinese topknot.

max
['I can wish, can't I?']

Otoh, max, there is an entire range of products for you ....

[I hear the racing stripes ones are faster]

OK, I'm falling in love w/LB's opposing counsel. I love it how he refers to his attempt to drudge up some super-questionable class action as "OPERATION U/R/G/E/N/T F\U\R\Y."

136: Litigating against him is a constant source of joy and merriment. Actually, he's weird, but very decent to deal with on scheduling and such.

Isn't balding supposed to descend through the maternal line? So your maternal grandfather would be who you're looking at for your own baldness potential.

I believe this is a common misconception--it's only true for Male Pattern Baldness, which is hair loss in a characteristic circular pattern starting on the crown of one's head (and spreading outward over time). It's not true for, e.g., receding hairlines, or for thinning hair generally.

Also, count me among the head-hair-turned-whiter-earlier-than-facial-hair crowd that LB doesn't believe exists.

Except my beard, if it grows out, is blonde, red, brown, black

Nah, I've got that too. It's pretty funny-looking when I use clippers to get rid of multi-day growth, since the clippings look like they came from three or four different people. The color variation is less noticeable on my face, except that the scruff seems to change color between days 2-6 of growing out.

Agggh, some admin go back and googleproof OUF in my last comment, please.

141 may have defeated LB's attempts at avoiding the link....

141: Maybe he needs to invade Grenada as part of the case.

Graying for more than a decade, beard and hair dying for the past two years. Mostly because I don't like being confused for grandpa when I'm with my son. Beard and men's hair dye take up quite a bit of shelf space in the local drug stores so I'm sure I'm not alone. They are in the shaving aisle, or course, not in the hair care section, to spare us girl cooties when we shop.

Bonus issue: What is the difference between male hair dye, female hair dye, and beard dye? I have no idea but we guys pay lower prices (usually), and only have to wait five minutes for the stuff to work before rinsing. Maybe it's because we're trying to darken, not lighten, but I'd just as soon blame the patriarchy.

62: Been doing ductwork in my attic this week. 105 degrees in Dallas. I feel old.

bob, dude. You don't feel old because you're old, you feel old because when it's 105 outside, it's 135/140 in an attic. Working in an attic made me feel old, when I was like... 20.

max
['You must be in decent enough shape, since you aren't, you know, dead.']

145: Not a problem. If you google it, what pops up is the actual code name for the invasion of Grenada. The linkage between Grenada and Mr. Clean is, admittedly, obscure, but it means that this page shouldn't show up anyplace visible.

Or, just delete 141. Sorry.

Also, count me among the head-hair-turned-whiter-earlier-than-facial-hair crowd that LB doesn't believe exists

I am, apparently, wrong.

148.2: Not really sure what the difference is, but that "Hey! It is so brisk and masculinely efficient and not at all fussy, messy, or feminine!" Grecian Formula/Just for Men stuff seems to turn hair brownish red. No matter what. Think Ronald Reagan.

150: good point. Still, you could google proof it by permuting to "operation urging furries" , just because.

154: For now that's a safe Google search, but its days are obviously numbered.

To 127: Wow.

I grew up in a milieu that regarded dying one's hair as a particularly foolish vanity deserving of only scorn and derision. I carried that prejudice well into adulthood* until I came to realize that all the color jobs I had seen growing up were either DIY or rock-bottom salon versions. The existence of well-crafted, attractive dye jobs was a revelation to me on par with the existence of breast augmentation: once you learn how to spot them, you see them everywhere (except, that is, in the milieu in which I was raised).

My MIL invests a fair amount in her salon treatments, and I can't imagine she would look better if she let her hair return to its natural color. Part of the reason may be that she otherwise looks a lot younger than she is, so the youthful hair color doesn't look out of place.

*I always carved out a narrow exception for otherwise cute, moderately punky girls with obviously unnatural hair colors, because... hott!.

You know what the best thing about that guy is, as a measure of my practice? He doesn't count as one of the crazy ones. Flamboyant, unusual, peculiar, and so on, but probably not acutely in need of mental health services. Many of my other plaintiffs, on the other hand, do.

Grecian Formula/Just for Men stuff seems to turn hair brownish red. No matter what.

Also known as the Full Pacino.

Head hair tends to grey uniformly, or at least that's been my experience. Beards grey patchily. I have some clumps of pure white at the angles of my jaw. Interestingly my body hair (like Esau, I am an hairy man) has hardly greyed at all.

#127. So that's what Joe the Plumber is doing these days. Always with the schemes that guy.

Speaking of hair and age, I saw Angelyne yesterday at the grocery store. It's amazing how successfully big blond hair and a trim figure signals youth -- M, who is not from Los Angeles, didn't know who she was and couldn't believe she was 50 years old. She really does look great. We didn't see much of her face though, as it was hidden behind blond bangs and big sunglasses.

160: Jim is a hyrax?

144: Nah, I've got that too. It's pretty funny-looking when I use clippers to get rid of multi-day growth, since the clippings look like they came from three or four different people. The color variation is less noticeable on my face, except that the scruff seems to change color between days 2-6 of growing out.

Hah. I grew it out a bit to see if it would look worth a damn (no, I needed to wait six more months), so I'm looking at the collected hairs after running the trimmer over it and Look! Viking! Bright fuckin' red. Whoa.

soup: Otoh, max, there is an entire range of products for you ....

That looks weird and would probably result in cutting my scalp. Trimmers work fine. Really.

148: Bonus issue: What is the difference between male hair dye, female hair dye, and beard dye? I have no idea but we guys pay lower prices (usually), and only have to wait five minutes for the stuff to work before rinsing. Maybe it's because we're trying to darken, not lighten, but I'd just as soon blame the patriarchy.

Blame the patriarchy, I say. Just go into the damn women's aisle (that's what it is) and buy the good shit. I mean, hey, you're either manly enough to buy goddamn tampons in the grocery store, or you ain't.

max
['And if you ain't, pretending isn't going to help.']

||

Wooo

Le Doulos in the afternoon.

Belmondo has a really big nose. The platinum flips(?) get tiresome.

There were places (of the heart) in the early 60s that were particularly cold and dark.

|>

"Hey! It is so brisk and masculinely efficient and not at all fussy, messy, or feminine!"

Just for Men stuff

Seriously. Why don't they just call it I'm Not Gay!?

Seriously. Why don't they just call it I'm Not Gay!?

Just speculating here, but it might be because that name would alienate a significant fraction of their consumers.

167: There could be two competing brands! I'm Not Gay! and Speak for Yourself.

LB may have missed a calling in marketing....

168: 167: There could be two competing brands! I'm Not Gay! and Speak for Yourself.

'For when you're feeling insecure in your manhood.'

max
['It could have some studly dude Mr. Clean on the front of the box!']

You saw Angelyne?!!?! I am vicariously starstruck.

three archetypes of bald white dudes: middle-aged doughy dudes, cancer patients, and Mr. Clean

In my experience, powerlifters are almost all chicks, who either cut hair or do policy analysis for the state. But I am given to understand that in other gyms, nearly all powerlifters are stocky bald men with goatees.

||
Who invented the standard apparatus that allows one to hang hanging file folders in a file cabinet? I'd like to know because that person is a goddamned moron and deserves a swift kick in the pants.
||>

171: I once worked in an office with a body builder. I never saw him out of work clothes, but he was short, bald, visibly huge even under a suit, always eating something, and given to telling me about how he made sure he had enough protien in his diet.

172: You're talking about the horribly designed little frame that resembles a set of parallel bars for gymnastics, right? That thing is from hell. I feel your pain.

171: I have seen exactly one (1) episode of Wife Swap in my life, but it involved a switch between a family of power lifters (mom, dad, and two daughters) and a family of super repressed, supposedly "genteel" Southerners (mom, dad, sometimes-you-really-can-tell son). The southern mom taught etiquette classes to small girls. Power-lifting dad did not like that she, as he saw it, was trying to teach his girls to be helpless.

visibly huge even under a suit,

Are you certain he just wasn't glad to see you?

I've been dismayed at how much protein has taken over my thoughts. It is definitely invading and colonializing thoughts that used to be more interesting.

176: Nobody is ever glad to see me.

You saw Angelyne?!!?!

I was pretty happy about it myself. We were at the Albertson's and we passed this insanely striking woman. We wondered who she could be, and then in the parking lot, we saw the pink Corvette with the ANGELYN license plate. And then it was like, of course!

She's much more petite that she appears on the billboards.

-t
+n

177: Just be sure to discuss your protein intake with friends, family, coworkers, people trapped next to you on airplanes, etc.

When I was a kid, one of our family friends had what looked like purely black hair in her late sixties. My mom asked her if she dyed it, she said no, and pointed out a few gray hairs. That night, my mom had dream where women put in a few grey threads to make dye jobs look more authentic.

Nobody is ever glad to see me.

Aw, don't beat yourself up. In context, probably just impotence.

that's only noticeable if he bows

Is your brother often granted an audience by royalty?

184: (a) I don't have a brother. (b) I also said "or whatever."

I also said "or whatever."

123: On further investigation, the hair under my chin on the left hand side seems to be all white, or would be if I let it grow.

Oh, I do. I can sense that they're fascinated by getting enough protein. Who wouldn't be?

I quit dyeing my hair a couple of years ago and I'm fine with the white hair, but I wish I could dye my eyebrows.

Don't people? Q-tip of dye or something?

I don't know. I guess what I mean is I wish I could pay someone to dye them for me, but it's illegal here in MA, on account of all the people who went blind having their eyebrows dyed.

191: You know, I don't know whether or not it is legal in NY, but I have seen my salon do it (and they acted like naughty children while they were doing it, so I'm betting it isn't legal).

Huh. I've seen my stylist dye eyebrows, and she's generally super conscientious about not blinding people. Seriously, I had no idea that was a risk!

My dad had a full head of dark hair with just a few white strands up til he died at 68. Slightly receding hairline. Salt and pepper beard. At just about 40 I'm not seeing any gray, receding slowly, but I can't grow a beard at all.

I'm thinking of dying my hair black so I look like Snape Reznor, though.

On further investigation, the hair under my chin on the left hand side seems to be all white, or would be if I let it grow.

Navel gazing brought to a new high.

195: or chinwagging to a new low?

Maybe I just have to bribe my stylist. Except that since I decided to stop coloring my hair and to grow it out, I don't really have a stylist any more. And I'm sure a stranger walking in and requesting illegal eyebrow-dyeing would be met with suspicion. Maybe I'll try the Q-tip. Or try New Hampshire. I bet it's legal there. Live free or die!

Turns out that the very first product seized under the FDCA Act in 1938 was "Lash Lure" and apparently it and other dyes with a known dangerous ingredient (PPD) were one of the key drivers for expanding oversight to cosmetics.

I'm thinking of dying my hair black so I look like Snape

I was wondering when we were going to get around to Harry Potter...

193: I don't think it's much of a risk, actually; it's just one more example of the nanny state gone wild. Seatbelts, motorcycle helmets, and no dyeing eyebrows! Also you can't bring your gun to the salon. And they hate us for our freedom?

199: I was wondering when we were going to get around toHarry Hairy Potter...

185: Uncle, brother, whatever.

200: This is a relief, as I helped the stylist talk my friend into doing it...

200: Need a hug, mcmc?

NO HUGGING. GO TO YOUR ROOMS.

NO HUGGING.

You might go blind!

GO TO YOUR ROOMS.

A nice summary of the last twenty years.

max
['Jetset kulturkamph.']

Surely one could hang from gravity-boots and have one's eyebrows dyed safely? Then some quick crunches, and a lunch of skinless chicken-breast!

There are many stylish gray-haired women in the Bay Area, but I am holding down the grad-student classic of one long braid with 'dove's wings'. I should go back to putting it up.

182: It can be done. I get lowlights and asked, at my beau's urging, that the stylist not be too conscientious about covering the grey. Said beau apparently finds the bits of grey striking. (I find his sprinkling of salt similarly appealing, but have never heard of it going the other way 'round.)

Okay, so I took a shower to get the old fiberglass off me (didn't work, need another) and having dried. I took a look in the mirror at my hair. I hate looking in the mirror. Anyway, like twenty shades of light brown to light blonde in my very fine hair and I can't tell if there is grey there or not. Probably.

I usually wear a ponytail. When clean and dry and not tied, my middle-parted hair is around six inches longer on the left than the right, the right about inch beneath the nipple and the left barely above the navel. This is weird.

the right about inch beneath the nipple and the left barely above the navel

Maybe your body's crooked.

Maybe this is an OK time to ask. A friend of mine recently told me that he addresses himself in the mirror. Do any of you guy talk to yourself in the mirror? What kinds of things do you say?

I ask him to make a change?

addresses himself in the mirror

Maybe he's confused about the common shipping phrase "please write your complete address on the package".

211 --

"It doesn't matter what they say on Unfogged. It doesn't matter what they say on Unfogged."

"Damn, you're sexy."

What's with the old men and the orange hair? Can't they see it? White has got to be better than a dye job that makes your hair look orange.

I recently met a very famous, very wealthy older gentleman recently and he had orange hair.

damn, strike one recently.

I make so many typos in Unfogged comments that I hardly bother to correct. Indeed, some might see my comments as one long typo.

It seems to be orange, or blue are the choices.

My orange hair is 100% authentic, PGD.

a very famous, very wealthy older gentleman recently and he had orange hair.

You met Mahna Mahna?

I only address myself as another in the mirror.

He was telling me how surprised he was to meet a woman who says nice things to herself in the mirror, because he says terrible things to himself in the mirror. I didn't know people said anything to themselves in the mirror.

I didn't know people said anything to themselves in the mirror.

I don't, but it seems a lot of people do so as a way to psych themselves up.

He was telling me how surprised he was to meet a woman who says nice things to herself in the mirror,

A therapist will often urge this particular practice to counteract negative thoughts.

because he says terrible things to himself in the mirror.

His mom/or dad wasn't so much with the nice, huh?

max
['Tell him to knock that shit off, it's bad for him and eventually the other people around him.']

Do any of you guy talk to yourself in the mirror?

Yes. Also when not in front of the mirror.

What kinds of things do you say?

"Stop talking to yourself you crazy motherfucker."

209: When clean and dry and not tied, my middle-parted hair is around six inches longer on the left than the right, the right about inch beneath the nipple and the left barely above the navel. This is weird.

I dunno, bob, it might just mean you cut your hair unevenly. *Really* unevenly. Which might be a little weird, yes.

In The Sims, you can have your characters practice a speech into the mirror. If you make them do this long enough, they will gain a charisma skill point. Charisma skill points can lead to career advancement, if a character is on a career path that requires charisma.

I did tell him that he shouldn't talk like that to himself, but I don't think my words got past his filters.

I just talk to myself. I don't need a mirror to do that.

225:Uhh, I haven't had a haircut this decade. And I don't cut it myself.

The Lady says I play with my right side more than my left (straight line set-up, dudes), nervous habit of pulling and running my fingers thru it etc. She also says tying it up with rubber bands is terrible, but the alternative little pink thingamajiggies...no way. And I don't know why that would put me out of balance.

I think it may a ventricle thing, or bad kidney. I have other assymmetries. Righthand dog is 10 pounds bigger.

Who in literature adjusted pocket coins for balance and symmetry? Dickens character? Never mind. I'm just being silly.

228: Yes.

Someday some fancy researcher is going to do a paper on how narrating your life, thinking aloud, and muttering to yourself are actually extremely effective tools for transmitting social capital. Meantime, I'm going to keep wincing at the high cost of instilling that capital in adults who were not fortunate enough to get it growing up.

Muttering is a good way to transmit social capital?

Thinking aloud in group situations I can see, but the sort of continuous to-oneself-talking I assume Jesurgislac is talking about (and that I do), less clear.

"Antoine Doinel, Antoine Doinel, Antoine Doinel"

229: Do you wear the ponytail off to one side? If you're using rubber bands and you consistently wear it to one side, you're probably pulling out the hair on one side more than the other, just in daily moving around as well as when you pull the rubber band off (I know you get hair all stuck in that rubber band when you take it out, don't deny it!)

Btw, they have these rubber-band-like things, about an inch and half or two in diameter, that have a sort of fabric cover/coating on them -- they come in black and brown and such, and are sold in little packages of like 20. You should use those. They don't look girly.

Like most everyone here, I do most of my muttering to myself on the internet. Also, when I am not near the internet, I mutter the same thing over and over again, until I can get on line, and type out the thing that I have been muttering to myself.

"I am a star. I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star. I am a big, bright, shining star. That's right."

Brock and I are the same person?

Actually, 235 aside, I don't really talk to myself in the mirror, but I do have a variety of odd habitual mirror-gestures. Like, whenever I walk into the bathroom at work intending to shit, I'll check to confirm that my choice stall is open, and if it is I'll always turn to the mirror and give myself an exaggerated fist-pump. (Usually with a bit of a knee-kick as well.) Presumably to congratulate myself on my timing. I think I did this for a few months before I really even became fully consciously aware of it, but even with full awareness it's not something I seem to be able to prevent myself from doing. Although it's not clear I really want to prevent myself, even though I recognize it's absurd and deeply weird. And that's just one thing--like I said, there's a variety.

I think this is pretty good evidence that I'm insane.

168-170: I know this has moved on, but this just hit me. "I can't believe he's straight" brand desensitizing cream. It's a natural.

I talk to myself plenty, but I was rather alarmed to be informed that the speech is often accompanied by gestures. Um. Really? Uh-oh. One of the things I'm looking forward to about having kids someday is that they'll provide me with a cover story. Gesturing? Why yes, I was gesturing to little Trieste II here.

237 is hilarious.

Brock, that is all kinds of awesome. Do you still do the bathroom-stall fist-pumping thing if there are other people in the bathroom who can see you? Or do you know?

I talk to myself whenever I'm alone. Usually with gestures. If I step into an elevator alone and see someone else approaching, I'll usually try to discreetly press the "door close" button before they get on, so I can have a few moments alone to talk to myself and gesture wildly. I'm sure the building security people, who have videos of the elevators, crack up at this--or, maybe it makes them nervous. Hard to say. Regardless, I prefer not to think about them, because I like to pretend it's my alone time.

See 237 last.

237 is great.

241: I try not to fist-pump publicly, but the bathroom is oriented in such a way that's not really a problem (meaning, even if there are other people in the bathroom, they couldn't generally see me or the mirror). The only exception would be if someone literally walked into the bathroom right behind me, but I won't usually walk into the bathroom if I see someone else approaching--I'll circle around the hallway until the coast is clear.

227: I did tell him that he shouldn't talk like that to himself, but I don't think my words got past his filters.

Good. I agree that what you said probably had little impact, but it no doubt had some.

Like most everyone here, I do most of my muttering to myself on the internet.

I talk to myself regularly, but I don't stand in front of mirrors and heap abuse on myself. (Left hanging there...)

Also, when I am not near the internet, I mutter the same thing over and over again, until I can get on line, and type out the thing that I have been muttering to myself.

If I did that, I'd be typing out 50K words a day or something like that.

max
['10% of that output would consist of the word 'fuck'.']

I won't usually walk into the bathroom if I see someone else approaching--I'll circle around the hallway until the coast is clear.

It's so reassuring to know I'm not the only freakishly and irrationally neurotic person in the world.

Brock and I are the same person? (By transitivity and 236, Bave and I are the same person?)

What do you say to yourself when you're alone, Brock? Is it just the kind of stuff that would normally form an interior monologue, or do you reserve certain topics for vocalized autocommunication?

says nice things to herself in the mirror . . . . A therapist Al Franken will often urge this particular practice to counteract negative thoughts.

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darnit, more people voted for me than for you, douchebag.

249: Why is he calling himself a douchebag?

248: usually just nonsensical muttering. The sort of thing you hear from homeless, unmedicated schizophrenics on the subway.

250: Good point. That comment needs a good edit.

251: So the usual interior monologue stuff, then.

When I talk to myself, which is often, I address myself by my last name.

To be clear, 248 was a "No" response to the question "Is it just the kind of stuff that would normally form an interior monologue...?"

255 before I saw 253. I think 253 was a joke, but I realized 251 was completely unclear on this point.

I talk to myself frequently, often at the grocery store, which always embarrasses me. No idea about the gestures, but I bet I do that when I'm home (alone).

In regards to bob's asymmetrical hair, my hair simply refuses to grow past my shoulders. It splinters, fragments, just STOPS, no matter what the condition of the hair above it. Perhaps bob's right side is similar. (Or is it the left? I can't remember).

253 was kind of a joke, but after doing a bit of meditating I've realized that my own interior monologue is a good deal crazier than most of what you hear from homeless, unmedicated schizophrenics on the subway, and I figure most people are about as crazy as I am.

It may be that the homeless, unmedicated schizophrenics on the subway are much, much crazier than the rest of us and are actually keeping quite a bit of the crazy to themselves.

249:

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darnit more people voted for me than for you, douchebag. that's Senator Franken to you, Coleman.

max
['There. All better.']

One of the things I'm looking forward to about having kids someday is that they'll provide me with a cover story mercilessly distill my least-endearing traits into a caricature of truly cringeworthy accuracy.

Or so I hear.

I actually will do the gestures for my interior monologue more readily than I will actually voice the monologue.

In ordinary situations, I will silently gesture to myself as I'm thinking. If I'm a little agitated, key words will be spoken aloud, like "douchebag" or "unwarrented." Only when I'm really fixated will whole sentences actually leave my mouth.

245: ['10% of that output would consist of the word 'fuck'.']

I hear you. That is: word. Excess of internal muttering comes and goes, though, does it not?

I just noticed, via The Poor Man, that there will be no more masturbating to hilzoy's blogging (she's retiring from blogging, there's no actual death involved).

263: Yeah, doesn't it suck? I was going to post about it, but was distracted by my shiny new bike. Everyone go look at my bike!

263: I saw that, via Bitch's blog. I think Hilzoy has to uphold the family honor by winning a Nobel prize or becoming Secretary General of the UN or something.

263: Yeah, I was shocked and wanted to tell someone, but no one in my vicinity would have been receptive, so.

LB, could you put a picture of your bike on Flickr, please? (Speaking of which, the latest photos make Ranger Teo's charms quite evident.)

237 makes me so, so happy.

You can try to spin it any way you want, but a gray-haired women looks older than her non-gray contemporaries. And for most women I know (and men, for that matter), looking older than necessary is not desirable.
I know one woman in her sixties who won't wear makeup, perfume, or any other cosmetic product, and buys into every hippie health-nut contrivance Whole Foods can sell for $50 a bottle, but wouldn't be caught DEAD with a head of gray hair because she doesn't want to look like on old lady. And she's correct - gray hair would push her into the senior discount category where she still passes for a comfortable fifty-something. I just don't like her hypocritical disdain for makeup, which offers some fairer complected women the same age-defying boost. But to each his own.

267: You can just hear teo saying "ma'am" in this photo.

269: The problem is that it's an arms-race. Gray hair and not much other visible aging looks like fortyish on a man, because most men don't dye, but older on a woman, because most women do. So the net result is that women who dye their hair don't look younger than their age, they just look their age, because all the other women their age are dyeing too.

It's harmless if dyeing your hair amuses you, but kind of pointless as a general practice.

And for most women I know (and men, for that matter), looking older than necessary is not desirable.

Your point? Is that women with graying hair should dye it?

Shave it.

RE: Your point? Is that women with graying hair should dye it?

Sure, if they want to. They shouldn't feel pressured either way, and I'm sure as hell not going to going to let my hair go gray to prove some political point.

271: "The problem is that it's an arms-race."

This is why men mock men who dress nicer than they do. For the greater good.

Further to 272: What LB said, basically.

274: For heaven's sake, dye your hair if you want to. It'll give you a youthful-appearing leg up on those who don't, as you say.

Right. I decided I wasn't going to not out of principle, but more because gray roots look terrible, and I'm just not reliable about doing things like dyeing my hair every three weeks or whatever you have to do to keep the grey covered -- I'd have four inch roots half the time.

But more power to anyone who wants to bother.

This photo speaks for itself:

http://theimponderableone.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/a_lgray_0910.jpg

The Condi on right wouldn't raise eyebrows on a night on the town with a 35 year old fella. The Condi on the left could pass for the same fella's mom.

Oops, got the right and left backward in 279.

280: I just assumed you meant stage left/right.

regina, we know all this.

RE: 282
Hmm, was this supposed to enlighten me, parsimon? I was having a bit of fun. Me thinks I detect the scent of an accomplished smartypants.

283: I'll have to pass on this.

237 has to be Ogged in disguise.

I was having a bit of fun. circling back to the first twenty comments or so....

I would prefer it if women didn't dye their hair just because after I pick them up in a bar I don't have to steal their driver's license to find out how old they are. If they're over 60, I like to give them the "Senior Citizen's Discount", if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

287: You like to turn geriatricks?

Who doesn't?

Parsi: I hear you. That is: word. Excess of internal muttering comes and goes, though, does it not?

Well, not really, no. Muttering is usually my way of translating whatever I think in into english. The frequency of 'fuck' varies a lot though.

max
['From none to 50%!']

I've been slowly going gray -- or is it white mixed with the dark I've got left -- since junior high. Haven't regretted it a single minute. I'm sure I'd look absolutely ridiculous if I ever dyed it.

Like, whenever I walk into the bathroom at work intending to shit, I'll check to confirm that my choice stall is open, and if it is I'll always turn to the mirror and give myself an exaggerated fist-pump.

...unlike Labs, who saves the fist-pumping for after the defecation.

"Is there a problem with looking old? "

My other half daren't risk it, she dyes to remain employed. As an accountant. Working for a charity. London is a hellhole in this way.
Strangely she only gets it dyed after the grey starts showing through, and after the dye-job noone seems to remember that whe was grey.

I'm a little disappointed to learn that none of you shout "You talkin' to me?" in front of your mirrors.

I just realized that a fair fraction of my talking to myself involves the use of the word "we." As in:
"That's a bad idea"
"Are we going to do it anyway?"
"Yes, because we have poor impulse control"
"We should work on that"
"Indeed. Not quite yet, though"

IOW my interior monologue is a dialogue. This disturbs me. OTOH, it explains why my favorite character in Lord of the Rings is Gollum.

202: In my family, there's a difference. I take it they do things differently where you come from?

I just realized that a fair fraction of my talking to myself involves the use of the word "we."

Same here. At least the "we" of my self-talk seems generally to reflect a "we're all in the same boat, let's pull together" attitude. I think it's better than a scolding second-person monologue: "What are you thinking!" is less friendly than "What are we thinking?"

It seems to be orange, or blue are the choices.

This phenomenon is so common in the UK that "blue rinse brigade" is used to describe elderly women as a group.

It's common in my mind, but in reality it's not really very common at all these days, is it? Sadly. I always preferred the lilac to the blue though.

I've been slowly going gray -- or is it white mixed with the dark I've got left -- since junior high. Haven't regretted it a single minute. I'm sure I'd look absolutely ridiculous if I ever dyed it.

In our business, having gray hair is an asset for a man. Or, at least, not a liability.

The stark gender differences in this practice sadly mirror some of the just-so stories for the evolution of male pattern baldness. (Women's roles to be young babes; for men OK to be an older kinder, gentler, wiser man who will stick around and be nurturing. The young babes find this Hott! committment-wise, maybe fuck the young stud on the side, but come back to wise man for resources.) Everyone can dye as they wish in the context of the overall practices of society, but to me the status quo is a stark reminder of the continuing fucked-uped-ness of gender roles in modern Western society. Grumpy (also see Sotomayor hearings).

It's common in my mind, but in reality it's not really very common at all these days, is it?

Not on an absolute basis, no, but a) a lot more than you'd expect on a "How many people would you expect to die their hair bright blue?" basis, and b) common enough that it's used as a generic term for old people of a certain generation.

I'm getting white hairs in my mouse/dark blonde hair, but it looks more like highlights than grey. My mother went white, never passing through grey at all - given that she was white-blond as a child, there's a neat full-circle thing there. I've also had a white streak since childhood, running from a scar acquired from the flying debris of a grenade attack. It became more obvious as I grew older and my hair darkened.

Lately, I've been considering a multi-colour streak job, using Kool-aid.

Re: Angelyne: I used to live down the block from her, near the Viper Club [River Phoenix, RIP]. Her nearer neighbours disliked her, tho' I'm not sure why. When my son was about 14, he and a friend ran into her at a local drug store, where she gave them cards inviting them to join her fan club for $25. My son reported 'She's really old, Mom, even older than you!' I am heartened to discover that she's nearly a decade younger than I am; I'd thought she was in her 70s, at least.

What pisses me off about aging is hair-thinning, not hair-greying. That's why old ladies wear short, bouffant hair.

DE! How's the pelvis? If not good, how're the painkillers?

(And will someone tell me who Angelyne is?)

running from a scar acquired from the flying debris of a grenade attack.

Wow.

In my family, there's a difference

Or so the ancestors would have you believe.

Somehow I missed that line. Grenade attack?

Also, I love love love how, when capri pants reappeared a few years ago, they were co-opted as long pants by old ladies everywhere. When we were shopping with my grandma, she commented how nice it is to buy capris because you don't have to get them hemmed.

305: Very Blond. Famous for being famous. Closer to Charo than Paris Hilton.

305: Angelyne is "famous for being famous". She's a busty platinum blonde who started to appear on billboards in the late 80s and thereby established herself as an L.A. fixture. I've seen her around and about and more often spotted her pink 'vette in parking lots here and there.

"pwnage"!

I did forget the billboards, which are sort of central.

304: Pelvis is fine, but my insurance company retroactively cancelled my insurance. Despite my having a receipt for said payment, they claim I didn't pay my June premium. I am sure I will have to sue. In the interim, that leaves me with $100,000 worth of medical bills, the issuers of which I am sure will start shrieking at me real soon now.

305: Angelyne is a self-promoting actress/model wannabee, most famous for her pink corvette and her giant-boobed billboards. She had a brief cameo in Earth Girls Are Easy.

306 etc: I lived in Jordan as a child. [My father was an archaeologist digging in Jericho under Kathleen Kenyon at the time.] The Israelis used to amuse themselves by launching explosives into the local marketplace. I got to watch our cook's wife be blown to smithereens when I was about five, and got hit by flying bits of something hard.

Pwned, but I at least posted a link.

digging... under Kathleen Kenyon at the time.

Couldn't he have just asked her to move?

Oh, DE, 314 really sucks. The last thing you needed was an up close and personal reminder of what's broken in the health care system.

Good luck with getting that sorted out smoothly.

316: No, achaeologists specialise in not disturbing remains until they're photographed in situ and dusted off.

Pelvis is fine, but my insurance company retroactively cancelled my insurance. Despite my having a receipt for said payment, they claim I didn't pay my June premium. I am sure I will have to sue.

Agh! Holy fuckheads, man.

Glad to hear that your hip is okay, but aw jeez, sorry about the insurance debacle.

314.1: This sort of shit is apparently SOP for some insurance companies. The next stage is to go over your disclosure of preexisting conditions (from when you first signed up) and see if there is something you omitted. If they find something they'll try to use that to cancel your insurance, even if it's trivial like hangnail surgery. Getting a lawyer with experience fighting these assholes is a good move, and the sooner the better. Bear in mind that the Insurance company's objections and bullshit aren't honest mistakes - they are tactical moves to try to get you to give up fighting.

As I've learned more about how these people operate I've slowly come around to the conclusion that they should be regarded as simply evil, and cut absolutely no slack whatsoever.

Closer to Charo than Paris Hilton.

You mean she has actual talent?

Also, DE, glad to hear you're better, and a million curses on your insurance company.

As I've learned more about how these people operate I've slowly come around to the conclusion that they should be regarded as simply evil, and cut absolutely no slack whatsoever.

This is a big part of why I don't believe any plan to improve US healthcare is worth more than a bucket of warm spit unless it essentially eliminates the existing insurance infrastructure.

322: I just wanted to be clear that I was using 'famous for being famous' in it's pre-sex tape meaning.

324: I'd say at least having a public option is worth two, perhaps even three, buckets of warm spit.

326: So long as it's done in a way as to effectively threaten the status quo wrt insurance, agreed.

326: Don't let Maine know about the buckets of warm spit. They may try to use it as a mixer.

31: Luckily, they can't do that, as it was a group policy with no disclosure required. I fully expect them to try to delay as long as possible - that's SOP. I've got an email already stating that they will decide my appeal "with 30 days".

There will be a Letter from the Large Scary Law Offices prepared before that. [We have a big-time civil litigator in the family who forgoes his usual 4-figure/hour fee for his relations.]

321: Yes, the "Recission for Unfun and Profit!" part of the congressional testimony a while back is one of those rare instances when existing practices were more cynical than even my cynical view of such things.

329.1 That's excellent. Closes off one avenue of assholery, at least.

329.2 LSLO is a valuable resource. I've had to draw on the services of those guys before, and I just happened to get a lawyer who was seething with raw hatred for insurance companies to a degree that almost made me uncomfortable. Almost, until he revealed that he whored himself for a decade after Law School working the other side to pay off his debts, and his relentless hostility was driven by a need to atone. Which he did in spades in my case.

his usual 4-figure/hour fee

Is this real, or is hyperbole of one figure? I didn't think obscene lawyer fees had hit four figures.

I was actually wondering the same -- I never paid that much attention to billing, but I think the highest hourly rate I'm certain of is $600.

332: A partner at a big firm would bill-out at that.

334: Not that I've ever gotten such a bill myself. Hearsay.

334: Huh. While I wouldn't claim to know that no one bills that high, I'm pretty sure it's not standard big-firm partner rates.

Yeah, I'm going to back LB up that that is not a standard Big Firm partner rate.

336: Yep. I was wrong. I checked with my big firm legal contact. I was just mentally dividing a partner pay figure I'd heard (from the pre-recession years) by 2000 hours, thus mistakenly conflating profit plus billing with just billing.

And I'm guessing profits are down. I did some googling and saw mostly articles about the big firms cutting pay for associates.

Maybe DE's lawyer cousin bills at $19.99.

Anyway, I feel better about not having taken the LSAT now.

341: Trust me, Moby, salaries are pretty far down on the list of truly excellent reasons not to feel bad about never taking the LSAT.

I don't feel bad about having taken the LSAT, though I might have if I also went to law school.

my big firm legal contact

I still snicker at phrases like this. Do real big, firm lawyers get over this?

342: The GRE didn't exactly work out brilliantly either.

I suspect for vast numbers of them, that's the only phrasing in which words like "big" and "firm" get applied to them.

345: Tell me about it.

344: That was an off-hand way of referring to a close family member who doesn't like to be mentioned on the tubes.

345: Tell me about it.

349: I'll let 347 tell you. I'm going for the evening.

Despite my having a receipt for said payment, they claim I didn't pay my June premium.

Screw the letter. Just file the suit for bad faith denial of coverage. I'm sure that in discovery you'll find that this is a standard tactic they've tried with a zillion other insureds. There are probably internal memos about how much this saves in discouraged claimants. Get big punitives. Do your part to make this sort of behavior by insurance companies unprofitable.

I'm sure that in discovery you'll find that this is a standard tactic they've tried with a zillion other insureds. There are probably internal memos about how much this saves in discouraged claimants.

I'm sure that if that were true the insurance company would fold like a chair as soon as they can and kindly reinstate the policy, with extras.

Health Net Inc., one of the state's largest health insurers, tied rewards and savings to its employees' ability to cancel policies based on misrepresentations in members' applications, according to documents in a lawsuit against the company.

I do believe the lawsuit ended badly for Health Net.

This was a report of an earlier case involving Health Net: HMO Hit for $89,100,000

I'm pretty sure it's not standard big-firm partner rates.

$1000 an hour is higher than the average even at the most elite big firms, but it is not unheard of.

$2000/hour is what I bill my PI for any work on my thesis I do during the day.

Heavens to Betsey. That article's from 2007, though -- want to bet it's dropped back down?

To say that it's "lower than that of major league baseball players" reveals an unusual sense of what's reasonable.

reveals an unusual big-firm partner's sense of what's reasonable what he's entitled to.

Huh. I'd have guessed there were lawyers billing at over $1000/hr, mostly because while I'm not aware of anyone that expensive at my firm, I know plenty of partners at my firm who are in the $900+ range, and we're not really a NYC firm. I thought NYC-elites would be more significantly expensive.

302 - I am English, you know - I have heard the phrase before! 299 was written in a wistful tone of voice. Perhaps when I have gone completely white I'll have a luridly-coloured rinse.

btw, are you the same GY who I've seen comment on Ben Goldacre's blog? Hoping to see him at Latitude this weekend.

want to bet it's dropped back down?

Probably not much. See 359. Plus, I suspect that people are much more likely to give discounts than actually cut their stated rate. That, I bet, is pretty rare.

As I understand it, which is possibly not very well (see errors above), the big money for a partner comes from bringing in new business and that you can get a cut of all billing to that new client for a certain period of time. So, it is pretty much like Amway, except with the decimal shifted well over to the right.