scylla and charybdis, if scylla was a repulsively fat sea monster and charybdis a completely bald whirlpool

Today is the start of Week 7 of my diet. So far, so good, or at least so I thought. After today's weigh-in, I was chastised by the virtual police at Online Weight Watchers:



And then, just to show OWW knows how to hit an insecure guy where it hurts, I clicked on the link about the effects of rapid weight loss:



There has been speculation among less kind Jeremy Freese observers regarding whether my much-departed hair makes my resolute dieting this summer more imperative or more pointless. (You know who you are.) Now I learn that I may be hastening my baldness through my dieting.* Ugh.

Granted, he leading indicators of my hairline were already well into recession by the time I graduated from high school. My mother's brothers, those best genetic harbingers of a man's hair horizon, have been cueballs my whole life. So, to be honest, in large respect I have been pleasantly surprised to have had as much hair as I have had for as long as I have had.

But this doesn't mean that I don't want to keep as much of my hair for as long as I can. The image that I have is of the remaining hairs bravely fighting to keep their position amidst a relentlessly attacking genetic enemy. I still remember the very raw sense of betrayal I felt when I was a senior in college and was spun around by my hair stylist to see the back of my head and learned for the first time that my baldness had established a rear base and that my remaining hair would henceforth be fighting a two-front war.

Anyway, am I losing weight too fast? It's not like I'm starving myself. I'm following their freaking system! And, although I did manage to jog five miles last night due to the Beatrice-like guidance and encouragement of Katy--best exercise partner ever--it's not like I've turned into anything even remotely like a workout fiend. I've been attributing the fact that I've been losing weight at a rapid clip due to (a) my having a nontrivial amount of weight to lose and (b) to my being male and men losing weight faster than women--isn't this supposed to be one of the Four Major Advantages to Being Male?** In any case, OWW can try to scare me with threats of accelerated baldness all they want, I am going to stay the course and not be discouraged.

* As an aside, I have become convinced that summer brings out especial contempt for the bald. I am convinced of this being a correct empirical statement even though I have no idea why it would be so. I don't know what it would be about summer that would cause people to take new notice of the follicularly challenged, or to have greater antipathy toward baldness, or to feel a greater compunction to make their antipathies known. Perhaps it is provoked by the extra-bright reflection of sun off scalp in the summer. Perhaps there is a rising premium of youth that makes people annoyed at those who display a cardinal symbol of unsuccessful aging.

** The others being (1) ruling the world, (2) not being pressured to wear high heels/mascara/certain feminine hygiene products, (3) being able to a joke and have it get more laughs--from men and women like--than if a woman told exactly the same joke.*** (The intra- and inter-society variability of the Four Major Advantages, as well as assessments of their reversibility, is left as an exercise for the reader.)

*** Dorotha insists this is true, and I'm inclined to agree. Actually, I've been trying for over two years now to get her to collaborate with me on a study to actually attempt to document and elaborate this.