Maybe you woke up this morning thinking to yourself, Self, I wish to read something totally random and maybe even bordering on TMI about someone. Well, in case you did, I’m here to oblige.

I think many of us have an odd hair, right? You know the one. It’s that hair you find springing out from some inexplicable part of your body, that one hair that makes no sense. It doesn’t seem to fit there. It’s either totally isolated from other hairs, or it’s a one of these things is not like the others kind of things.

I remember when, as a child, I was watching one of my Aunties doing her makeup when I caught the unexpected sight of a single hair sprouting from the back of her shoulder. When I asked her about it, she said, That’s my special hair. I won’t pluck it. I thought I heard something in her voice suggestive of the unspoken belief that the hair was good luck.

Well, at some point in the last few years, I discovered that I, too, have an odd hair. Mine is on my left leg, just above and to the left of my kneecap. What makes it especially odd is that it’s the only hair on my legs, which is probably the only reason I noticed it. It’s lone. I’m not sure what’s more unusual… the hair itself, or the fact that I otherwise don’t have any leg hair at all.

(I did have a little leg hair when I was younger, but even then, the hair pattern was extremely sparse – there were large areas on both sides that were totally hairless – and the hairs were thin. I could get away without shaving, and that was just on my lower legs. I never had hair follicles that produced hair on my thighs. Now, I just have this One. Lone. Hair.)

I’m indifferent to the hair until I notice it in the shower, and then my thoughts are consumed with what to do. I always think, I should pluck it. It’s incongruous. Then I remember my Aunt saying that she wouldn’t pluck her “special” hair, and I reconsider. Now I’ve gotten to thinking of naming the hair, because if I’m going to hang onto it, it might as well have a name to go with the identity it’s earned just by being a weird thing in a weird place.

My left knee, complete with a bruise under it (typical). I drew a helpful arrow pointing to the Lone Hair, since the hair refused to be photographed. If you look really close, you can see it.

At first, I thought of giving the hair a standard name, like Tabitha, Elsbeth, Ramona or Leigh. But the more I look at it, the more I think it looks like a Harvey Keitel. I know. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. The hair just looks like a Harvey Keitel, or maybe it’s the sound of those syllables that seems so appropriate. Whatever the case, Callaghan agrees. Harvey Keitel, it is!

Happy Friday, All. =)