Pulling my hair out over my new routine

There are legit two times that my hair looks truly spectacular, on point, awesome.

One is sometime after supper and before bed. After work, in any case.

I try to make my hair look good in the morning but it never seems to work. It’s not like I have a whole lot to work with — just a scrubby, grey bit of coverage. Such as it is, I add a little putty or paste and attempt to mould what’s left of it into something resembling a style.

I would love to be an office cool guy but I spend most of my commute — and every trip to the bathroom — looking in the mirror and wondering what went wrong.

How did my attempt at “mature hip” turn into Vince Gill, if Vince Gill was a cockatoo?

Or why don’t I just find a job at a place that considers baseball caps to be “business casual”? Add it to the office uniform: khakis, brown shoes, brown belt, checked shirt and ... a good snapback cap to cover the grey. Perfection.

It could be that I just need to get up earlier to work in a good prework hair routine. Perhaps towel dry, apply wax, tousle, is not the most effective technique.

But, to be honest, I am just not getting up any earlier. It’s just not happening. As it is, I’m generally out the door before the morning sports talk radio shows even start. You can’t pry me from between the sheets any earlier.

I’m up and out because I recently took on a new job and it has a bit harder start time than my last gig, which started, usually, just whenever. I have new office hours and a whole new routine. Because of this, I am trying my best to go against type and become a Morning Person.

It’s tough, I have to tell you. It makes me appreciate the heroes who are up and at it at the crack of dawn or sooner day after day after day (except my neighbour, Ross, who feels the need to fire up the mower on Saturday mornings even though he doesn’t work and could mow his lawn literally at any time of any day of the week. I don’t admire you at all, Ross. In fact, I hope you run over a gardening tool and ruin your ride-on).

Sorry. I don’t mean that. I’m just a little tired. Haven’t quite adjusted yet.

It takes work to become a morning person. I’ve been doing the research.

One common suggestion I come across is that, according to productivity experts and life coach type people, you must develop a morning routine. OK. I can buy that. It makes sense. Until you read what those routines look like.

One “productivity coach” has a morning routine that looks like he lives life on a Disney cruise. Drink water, cuddle, have a coffee, meditate, read, sauna (sometimes read in the sauna), shower, check the calendar, write in your gratitude journal.

This is a morning routine? Either productivity coaches start work around 3 p.m. or this guy is waking up at 11:30 p.m. and watching Kimmel while he does this insane routine.

How about some advice for those of us living in the real world?

Those of us with a routine that includes things like feeding the cat, feeding the dogs, letting the dogs out, yelling at the dogs for barking at Ross, showering, deodorizing, ramming an English muffin into our faces, buttoning up our khakis and checked shirts and getting the heck on the road.

I cannot fit a sauna in there anywhere — not even a quick one.

I could possibly, only possibly, get up 45 seconds earlier and double the amount of time I spend on my hair.

Oh, that reminds me.

The other time my hair looks pretty good? When I first sit down in the barber chair.