I had a panic attack in the barber’s chair just now. I have always hated getting a hair cut. And lately I’m going to a different place then I’ve gone in maybe 15 years. That adds some to the unease. There is only one guy at this place. He is there for long hours every single day, though I noticed he took a two week vacation soon after the first time I went there. He says little but the first time I went he made a somewhat odd comment. He said that he had seen me walking by and thought “I want to cut that guy’s hair.” I can understand him thinking that but actually telling me just was slightly, ever so slightly weird. not saying it was over the line, just a little strange.

Today I was in the chair for about 15 minutes. It felt like hours. It really did. I was able to catch my breath after he pointed the blow dryer at my face. That cooled me off some. I hated haircuts as a child and that sense of dreadful confinement has not changed. Of course I am still a child inside. But I don’t think panic attacks were part of my youth. Oh what the hell am I saying? Of course they were. We called it anxiety back then. And my mother used to comment on how she didn’t know how I got through certain periods of time with all the perfomances and deadlines I had to deal with. Anxiety reflected itself in my hair, which almost stood up Don King style when I was nervous about giving a piano recital or whatever.

ah, that reminds me of a favorite joke: What do you get when you cross Viagra with Rogaine? Don King. Hah. I heard that joke in a package lounge in a tiny Florida town… can’t remember its name now. I was travelling with my dad.

I don’t feel well today. I slept way too late. I slept very well the night before but slept for shit a few nights last week. My serenity was somewhat  disrupted.

…

That was yesterday. Monday. Now is Tuesday. Just as I was getting ready to pull the trigger on cashing out the pension I had second thoughts. Mortality intervened. What might $270/month really mean to me in 17 years? Would that third source of income really matter? Probably not. And what of my inevitable fame and fortune? Bah, I should not worry about the $270/month… This is the closest I’ve come to seriously contemplating old age absent my doubts that I will ever reach it.

It has reminded me, though, of the generous stock options I was granted in 2001. Well, they seemed generous at the time, when no one expected the TWX/AOL stock to continue its freefall. I called Fidelity today to see if there was any chance the options were still out there. Alas, they expired in 2011, 10 years after being issued. That was actually longer than I expected. I had thought they were only exercisable for 5 years, although I had a glimmer of a memory that they might have been issued with no expiration date. I wonder if I could have negotiated that? Bah, whatever. It is at least good to know that they were never worth anything, and that I have not missed out on another random windfall. I wonder if they would have contacted me about their expiration had they been worth anything? Maybe. Who knows. Who cares…

I am suddenly sleeping way too long. I’d been waking at normal hours and feeling fine. But this change in weather and a certain incident last week has brought me down. Down. Down. But I am rising again. I feel like walking. Just walking. I remember Octobers and Novembers past where I slept until 4pm, going outside unbathed just to chase some fucking sunlight. The last few days notwithstanding I do not think I am falling in to that pattern again. It’s just the season.