The Hairdresser’s Confessional

There’s a peculiar intimacy in letting a stranger wash your hair.
Not just wash, but cradle, massage, linger. Fingers slipping through shampoo, knuckles grazing temples. And you, sitting there like a docile saint, eyes closed, neck balanced on a porcelain groove that feels one notch removed from a guillotine.

Nowhere else in life do I let someone stroke my scalp and ask about summer holidays in the same breath. It’s a ritual so absurd it almost feels spiritual. They lean in close, scissors snipping like tiny weapons by your ear, and you find yourself telling them about your job, your breakup, your plans for Christmas. Why? You wouldn’t confess this much to a priest.

Maybe it’s the mirror. You both stare at the same reflection, side by side, like accomplices. Or maybe it’s the cape, that plastic shroud that robs you of arms and dignity—what else can you do but talk?

And the questions are always the same. Going anywhere nice this year? Busy at work? How’s the weather? (As though the entire salon might crumble if the silence held.)

But here’s the thing: I walk out lighter. Not just of hair, but of words I didn’t know I needed to say. As though thirty minutes of small talk with someone wielding a razor is, somehow, therapy.

And then, of course, they try to sell me mousse.

The Absurdities of the Inbox

It begins, always, with the number.
A red badge, glowing like a wound: 72 unread overnight. Which is remarkable, considering I went to bed at zero. I don’t know whether to feel popular or hunted. My inbox behaves less like a postbox and more like a compost heap: turn your back for a moment and things are already multiplying, rotting, sprouting.

The Theatre of Control

We like to pretend the inbox is manageable. That with the right folders, the right rules, the right unsubscribes, we might finally impose order.
We will not.
The inbox is a junk drawer with a search bar, a conveyor belt that cannot be switched off. Clear ten messages and—ping!—fifteen arrive, each demanding attention in increasingly shrill tones: “urgent,” “time-sensitive,” “gentle reminder.” (Gentle! Like a piano falling down the stairs.)
Inbox Zero, that shimmering productivity grail, is a mirage. The desert doesn’t end, it just sends you another notification.

A New Dialect

Email has developed its own peculiar language, somewhere between diplomacy and passive-aggression.

• “Per my last email” translates roughly as: I already told you this, were you conscious?

• “Circling back” means: I will not stop until you answer me, even if it takes the heat death of the universe.

• And “Thanks in advance” is, of course, a hostage situation.
  We all know this, and yet we all collude. The inbox is a stage, and the performance is “polite efficiency,” while the subtext is: for god’s sake, just read the bloody attachment.

The Infinite Scroll

What unsettles me most is the paradox: the inbox is both infinite and immediate.
Every message feels like it must be answered now, yet there is no end-point, no finish line. Unlike a letter, it doesn’t sit solemnly on the doormat, waiting to be opened. The inbox is a slot machine that constantly refills itself. And like gamblers, we keep pulling the lever. Because maybe this time there’ll be something worth it.

The Spark in the Landfill

And sometimes there is.
Amidst the offers for cut-price office chairs, the software updates, the phishing attempts from “Gary,” there will be a real message. A note from a friend. A line of gratitude. A human voice breaking through the static. Those are the ones that remind me why we tolerate the absurdity. Proof that this landfill of obligation still conceals glimmers of connection.

Of course, I’ll probably forget to reply for a week. Not out of malice, but because I was busy deleting “Big Deals on Men’s Trousers.”

And so the cycle turns. Delete, archive, flag, delete again. A ritual, a farce, a treadmill. The inbox as modern life in miniature: infinite, insistent, absurd—and occasionally, against all odds, illuminated.

The Kettle Conspiracy

The Kettle knows

The kettle knows.
It doesn’t just boil water—it gauges urgency. It can smell lateness, taste panic, sense the sheer weight of a day balanced on those last two minutes. And it responds not with sympathy, but with spite.

On a Sunday morning, when the world is soft and slow and you’re not even fully dressed, the kettle is a sprinter. Whoosh, bubble, steam—done before you’ve even located the teabag. But on a Tuesday, when you’ve got exactly seven minutes to leave the house, find your keys, and not look like you’ve dressed in the dark? The kettle becomes geological. Whole landscapes could form while it mutters and stalls.

I’ve tried tricking it. Pretending I don’t care. Walking away, faffing with the post, acting casual—as though my entire survival doesn’t hinge on that mug of builder’s tea. But the kettle knows. It always knows.

There’s a moment, just before the boil, when it pauses. Like it’s considering whether to give in. A power play. A reminder of who’s really in charge here: not me, but the chrome jug with limescale scars and a plug that’s slightly loose.

And in that pause, I sometimes hear myself asking: is this what life is? Waiting for things that never hurry, precisely when you need them most?

Of course, then it clicks off.
And I drink.
And I’m late anyway.