Sometimes the sickness overcomes me, and I am compelled to start hacking away at my hair. With a snip-snip here and a snip-snip there– followed by several hundred expletives and a rushed purchase of some electric clippers… and it’s back to the good old buzz cut, although even this is a bit dodgy because of my initial hack job with the scissors.

The really sad thing about trying to cut your own hair is that when you stuff it up (and there’s a very high probability of this) you can’t just go ask a hairdresser to fix it up for you, because at some point you will have to explain how you got into this state, and then they will mock you and call upon all their hairdresser friends to mock you as well, and you will feel great shame.

My masochistic DIY streak doesn’t end with my hair– I once made a much more permanent modification. When I was 17 or so I chipped a front tooth, and rather than go get it capped I decided instead to file both my incisors back until the chip was no longer visible. I figured I could spare a millimetre or two (and at the time I was unaware of the complex structure of teeth, so this really wasn’t such a brilliant idea). The most surprising thing about the experience was how little sensation the actual act of filing caused, even for my reasonably sensitive teeth.

Speaking of teeth, The Lake House totally sucked– did I mention that already?