Carey and I have become big fans of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I'v always enjoyed the show, but if any of you know us well, we don't see that time of night very often. Therefore, we never watched! With the new house, we decided to finally venture into the realm of a DVR and now record Fallon and watch various shows throughout the weekend. It's been a ton of fun. If you don't watch the show, he does a great job of mixing up the content but also has some regular stuff as well (i.e. Thank you notes, etc.). Of those, we find the 'what's trending' to be really funny. Before this, I never have kept up with trending topics in the news or sports, but it is interesting to see what people (globally) are searching for, commenting on, and the like.
I hadn't really thought of how this applies to my life until recently. A year ago this month, Michael and I discussed growing out our hair. I'm not sure what brought this on, but I decided to go with it ever since. I think Michael lasted about two months before he bailed. Anyway, in twelve months, I've gone from a pretty short cut to quite long. The lady who last cut my hair said 'what's the plan here - are you going for a ponytail?' And, while it's not quite long enough yet, I could get a lot of it in one if I tried. And let's be clear, I'm not trying. But, with the long hair has come a lot of interesting things I never thought about:
1. I can't wear hats anymore. This much hair doesn't fit in a hat.
2. My ears, which stick out slightly more than normal, are well hidden!
3. I can go longer than three weeks between haircuts - this is big in my world.
4. What money I've saved in haircuts I now spend in trying to make it look somewhat 'professional'. The 'professional' part is still under debate with some friends.
5. I instantly make friends with strangers in the city as they think I'm a Euro (like them).
This all brings me back to the original topic. If there is anything that's been somewhat shocking, and noticeable to almost anyone who travels with me, it's that my hair seems to be 'trending'. Besides the items above, people are constantly commenting on my hair, talking to me in Italian (only to be disappointed I don't speak much in return) and so on. It's made every day an adventure when I'm out. No kidding, everyday in the city, someone somewhere will make a comment about the hair. Included in those comments are people who think I remind them of a particular famous person, TV personalities, and one of the more common themes, random NHL players.
About a two months ago, one of the TSA guys in Springfield caught me going through the line and asked how the spine business was. I looked at him funny, he looked back at me funny and then says - 'oh, sorry, I thought you were the doctor who worked on my spine a few years back.' We chatted a bit about his recovery, shook hands and since then he always shouts out a 'hey Doc' every time he sees me come through. With the frequent travel we talk often, and now the other regulars in TSA have started calling me 'Doc' whenever I'm there.
So, for any of you who may see me at the airport, no, I'm not taking new patients.
