Standing on a cyber-curb rambling aimlessly at passersby is the perfect activity for someone who never listens. Hey, I know you have the weight of the world on your shoulders right now. Worries about work or the lack of it... shrinking 401(k)s and ballooning responsibilities... pirates, political power struggles, and police stand-offs dominating the news... you probably need someone to hear your troubles. However, blogging works like this: I liberate any thought or confession that comes to mind. And then its still my turn to talk.

In some ways it's better than one-on-one conversation. You know, a two-way deal where you have to pretend to be listening. Like the last time I got my hair cut. I went to a new place and was given an appointment with a lovely woman named May. I did not share her taste in clothing, but her hair was done beautifully which is better advertisement for her services than money can buy. A nicely framed certificate confirmed that she was a seasoned professional in the salon trade, and I was confident we had communicated effectively despite the fact that her speech impediment was coupled with slipping dentures.

"Nutting worth than bad haircut." That's the only thing I know for sure that she said. It was obvious that English was not her native language, but under the circumstances, a heavy accent seems not even worth mentioning. What good are a few missing articles and consonants when I might as well have had cotton in my ears anyway?

At first I was pleased with this arrangement. I sometimes find the forced chit-chat with stylists to be awkward and intrusive. An appointment with your doctor or tax advisor is a no-nonsense consultation. An appointment at the hair salon is more like an audition to be someone stylish. The pressure to be as fabulous as the Sex In The City do you've just claimed you could pull off is exhausting, and it's hard to be convincing when your only plans for the evening are to pick up some take-out on your way home to watch that History Channel show on your DVR. Frankly, I was relieved that on this occasion where such idle conversation would be too difficult, I could just put on my mental headphones and let May work her magic.

Turned out to be a good thing that I wasn't in the mood to recruit her into my fan club with cute anecdotes demonstrating my fab hair-worthy wit and charm, because I wouldn't have gotten a word in edge wise. From the moment she picked up the scissors, May proceeded to talk.

What pearls of wisdom was I missing out on? She might have been explaining how to solve the energy crisis for all I know. But she could just as easily have been baptizing me into a secret cult. Fear that she would retaliate for my insulting silence with a passive aggressive slip of the sheers crept over me as I recalled the one thing I knew for sure she'd said: Nutting worth than bad haircut. Could that have been a threat? May Day! May Day!

Taking cues from the random out-of-context words I could catch, I sprinkled reactions into her incomprehensible monologue where the timing felt right. There was a rhythm to it, like hip-hop or beatnik poetry.

Ricky... High School... Florida...

"Uh-huh"

Divorce... Headache... Foreclosure...

"Oh no"

Although the cadence of my responses was on beat, this was risky strategy. One "You're kidding" where an "I see" was appropriate, and I'd have been busted like Milli Vanilli performing live at the Grammys.

At some point it occurred to me that maybe she wasn't trying to have a conversation at all. Like most of us fumbling our way through the human experience, she just wanted someone to listen... acknowledgment that life is full of angst and worry. I stopped interjecting and let her get whatever it was off her chest. I didn't have to understand her words to hear her - vocabulary says nothing compared to tone. Fear, excitement, frustration. I don't know if being a pair of ears to her that day made her life better or not, but I know how just listening can sometimes be a selfless gift.

So to anyone who's made the selfless sacrifice of time to read all the way to the end of this post, I know you've got weighty things on your mind. This blog thing is not entirely a one-way communication. Even if you're not threatening to give me a bad haircut, I'd be happy anytime to reciprocate with a distracted "uh-huh."