By...“Rod Stewart Hair” “I like your hair!” a woman at the party said.This is always nice to hear. My hair is my least endearing feature, primarily because there is not much of it. But since my husband, Peter, started cutting it, I worry a lot less.“How does my hair look?” I ask as I head out the door. Peter always pretends to take this question very seriously. (He should, as my hairdresser.) He scrutinizes the top of my head for a long moment. He asks me to turn all the way around. Then he reaches over and tousles something on the top.“Perfect!” he says. And I choose to believe him. “My husband cuts it,” I told the woman at the party. “He cuts his own hair, too!”“Ooh! Isn’t that hard?” “He’s been doing it since he was 17, when the local barber wouldn’t give him the haircut he wanted.”This is true. Peter started cutting his hair when the barber was threatening to give him a buzz cut—because that was the only kind of haircut he gave. Peter got up from the barber chair, walked out, and cut it himself. I like that story. Peter has always known what he wanted and has always figured he could learn new things.“Don’t tell people I cut my own hair!” Peter told me on the walk home.“Why not?” “They’ll think I’m strange.” “You’re married to me! I think they may have already formed an opinion.”Peter granted this was true. As it happens, I was feeling particularly pleased with my hair that evening because Peter had given me a haircut just that morning. Usually, the haircuts were his idea.“Your hair could use a trim,” he will announce in a way that makes it clear I am looking pretty scruffy. So I put on a raincoat, and raise my office chair as high as it will go, and he gets out his sharp scissors that make a satisfying “Snick! Snick! Snick!” noise and, in less than five minutes, he has cut my hair. He doesn’t have much to work with, after all.But this time, getting a haircut was my idea. I’d just watched an interview with Rod Stewart, the iconic rock star. He is 79 years old, and he has just released a jazz album. He is also a keen builder of model trains. But I was more interested in his hair than either his jazz ...
