December 2nd, 2005

Relax, Have a Beard

The winter season is upon us. The leaves are dying and falling off
the trees. The birds are migrating south. Mammals are storing away food
and preparing for hibernation. And me? I am growing a beard.

For
the past few years, I’ve packed away my razor in November or December
and not brought it out again until the spring, resulting in a
face-warming and slightly scruffy growth of hair around my jaw line and
under my nose. (Then, when the birds start to return and the blossoms
appear on the trees once more, I get my razor out and shave my beard
off. Not all at once, mind you, but rather by taking certain parts of
it away, a little at a time, to create the most ridiculous
configurations of facial hair that I can come up with — mutton-chops
connecting to a mustache, a mustache with long “handle bars,” or just
extra long, thick sideburns. I leave each of them for about a week at a
time, simply to annoy my friends and loved ones.)

It’s the circle of life.

Ok…this
is not something I readily admit, but since you have probably just
stumbled onto my site unintentionally and then actually managed to read
this far, I have no reservations about confiding in you: my
beard…requires some chemical enhancement. That’s right, I’m not as “all
man” as this soul-sharing diary would have you believe. I don’t know
what the deal is, but while the hair along the sides of my face comes
in dark brown, about 90% of the hairs, in my mustache and the section
of my beard on my upper chin, come in “clear.” Like fishing line. It
grows there just fine, but it’s so light blonde that it’s practically
invisible. (Bryan Hudson, my best friend from high school, has the same
affliction. I think it’s because we’d always talk about how we couldn’t
wait ’til the time came when we could grow a full beard, like it was
just a given that it would happen eventually….)

Thankfully
our good friend technology has stepped in to the help me out. After
years of frustration with patchy-looking facial hair, someone told me
to try “Just for Men.” (Or, as I like to call it: “Just above condoms
and hemorrhoid cream on my list of things I could never ‘Just Take Up
to the Check-Out Counter’.” I purchase my beard-dye along with at least
$70 worth of steak and other things that vouch for my masculinity.
Unless I’m alone and there’s a younger woman cashier, in which case I
“Just Leave Without Buying Anything.”) The stuff works. It fills in all
the gaps, resulting in a luxuriously full, uniform beard…. The kind
girlfriends don’t generally like.

For three winters now
I’ve endured uncertain smirks and complaints that it’s “prickly” from
my lady-friend. (The ladies don’t, as a general rule, like
the scuff). For some reason though, this year, Steph says she doesn’t
mind the beard and thinks it’s cute. So in true relationship-fashion,
now I’m thinking I could do without the beard. I think I’m
tiring of this cycle: growing it out, dying in the uncooperative parts,
getting everyone used to to it, shaving it into something weird, making
everyone laugh initially, then eventually humiliating everyone who is
seen with me for the next week or so, and finally going clean shaven…
It’s old hat.

I’ve already got a decent beard going this
year, but I’m seriously thinking about cutting this off (literally) in
the next few days. Unless that would be some sort of indication that
I’m getting more mature, in which case the beard stays.

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