05/20/2026
With or without a camera I am a born pugilist. If you don’t believe it ask my partner in crime writer Claudia G Dowling. Or better yet talk with a local barber, Danny. who tried to turn me away from his shop even though I made an appointment the day before. He refused to honor it. He politely but firmly said to my face that real barbers don’t cut women’s hair. We were not alone in the shop owned by large men from Kosovo. Quietly they held their breath at the spectacle of a squall in their orderly man’s space. I warned him not to hit the hornets nest. He weakened and the switch in his brain flipped. It was a chance I wasn’t going to ever get it again so I jumped on the big man’s chair and gave him ideas how to fluff my bed head. With a flourish he used his comb and clippers and whipped through my dry so fast I purred with pleasure. And so we bridged the gulf between man and woman one tendril at a time.
