I'd like to take a moment to talk about something very important to you: my hair.

It's more important to you than to me, anyway. After all, you have to look at it.

From my point of view my hair is like my lawn. I see it only twice a day, morning and evening. It requires no more upkeep from me than is necessary for reasons of public safety and local property values. And every now and then I pay some kid $10 to hack off parts of it.

It's not that I'm not concerned with how I look. Well, OK, it is that, but mostly it's because the battle for a recognizable hairstyle is one that I lost long ago. My follicles are very fine, grow very quickly, and have absolutely no interest in what Brad Pitt's follicles are doing this season. Hair stylists through the years have tried and failed to convince my hair to follow any rules at all beyond gravity.

When I was a kid my mother was my hair's implacable foe. Armed with combs, brushes, and a hair dryer the size of a flare gun, she would go at my head like a samurai warrior. After subduing my locks with savage swipes and blasts of searing heat, she would apply cans of hair spray – lightly sanding between coats – until my head displayed the shiny, stylish look of a ventriloquist's dummy. Her efforts lasted about half an hour, if there was no wind.

I even tried different styles myself, back when I was young and foolish, but my hair continued to effortlessly shrug off any attempts at landscaping. At night I could hear the strands chuckling to each other as they snapped back to shape like liquid metal Terminator hair.

Parts wouldn't part. Permanents never were. My "just out of bed" look suggested I had been sleeping on an active volcano. Gel and mousse and other hair crud had no effect, even if I used toothpicks for structural support. I tried bangs, chips, flips, layers, shags, chops, panel strands, waves, and curls, with no luck.

I'd show the hair stylist the picture I'd cut out of a movie magazine. She'd smile grimly and go to work, committing mysterious and arcane things to my head involving clamps and power drills. Periodically I would put my glasses back on to see what was happening, like a submarine commander coming up for another sighting, just in case she'd stepped out, and then I'd go back to dreaming of my future as Tom Cruise's body double.

Finally I'd be spun around to see the glory of: somewhat less hair.

I dropped back to getting a haircut whenever the leaves changed color, letting weather and erosion handle my day-to-day styling, and otherwise forgot about it. It took over a year for me to notice my bald spot, which was something like opening your back door for the first time in months and discovering an unsuspected backyard sinkhole had swallowed your shed. I considered shaving it bald but that takes even more attention if you want to avoid five o'clock noggin, so the heck with that.

Please note that I have no problems with anyone else caring about their hair. Your hair might help define you as a person. Your sales might depend on it, or your political success, or your love life, and that's fine. I have nothing against metrosexuals. I even support letting them marry, as long as they have separate bathrooms. It's just not for me.

I understand that angled and choppy parts are big news for the fall season and that bangs will continue to be a hot trend. That's nice. Maybe I can get the kid to put some on my lawn.