Off With His Beard...

As you read a few blog entries below, the time has come for me to officially take off the old beard. As stated, I have been growing my facial strands of protein since just before Thanksgiving. And besides a bit of trimming on the sides, I have not stopped or hindered the development of the facial bristles since then.

So last night, much like a surgeon does in preparation for an intricate operating procedure, I laid out my tools to tackle the challenging feat. A trusty pair of hair clippers and a fresh unused Gillette Mach 3 Razor was all I needed to get the job done.


A few exhausting hours later, the job was done. It was strange, seeing myself for the first time in months with a hairless chin. It freaked me out a bit, I didn't recognize myself. Well, see for yourself...


I don't think I realized just how dramatic this change really was until I got to work today. Right off the bat I was getting comments from people like I was wearing a T shirt that said "Tell me what you think about my face." I was getting good and bad, actually MOSTLY bad. Here are a few that I recall:

"That's much better!'

"Oh you look so cute, like a 12 year old boy."

"Wow, your face is REALLY pale."

"Wow, I didn't recognize you, your chin looks so much smaller."

"Why did you do that? You look way better with a beard."

"You look freakish!"

"EW!"

That's right someone I work with actually put there hands up in there face, as if to block me from their line of sight, while exclaiming "EW!" You would think I was the Elephant Man based on that reaction alone. Not exactly what I was expecting, but I will say that at that point I was beginning to regret ever trimming my whiskers in the first place. And I am also beginning to wonder what will be in store for tomorrow since I cut my hair down to a very short length tonight. Hopefully, I don't get any shrieks . But alas, I am certain that it will only be a matter of days before everyone is over the shock and I will be recognized for the "handsome young man" that I am.

*photo does not reflect recent haircut.

Changes on and around my mind....

I had a realization this morning after I fumbled out of bed, walked into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. That's it, I have had it up to my ears with my hair. I know the stereotype, just because I'm a dude, I shouldn't have that much to do with it, but every morning but I am tired of waking up hoping that my little strands of protein are in the mood to be arranged into a specific formation. As you ladies know, when these little guys* choose not to cooperate with your demands it turns into what you might call a "bad hair day." (*Side note: I am 100% unaware of any studies that have proven that hairs sprout from a newborns head with an assigned sex, but I'm going to call them "guys" anyway.) And, unless you ladies know any secrets to make the population living on my scalp work together, I'm going to play evil dictator and punish them my way without regard to their well being.

I know most men fear male-pattern baldness, but at this point the idea of having a limited colony residing on the sides of my cranium sounds pretty nice. Plus, the ones on the side kind of stay out of the way and only need a little attention. But it's always those ones on top that cause the most problems, so away with them (look on the bright side bald people, you don't have to deal with these narcissistic strands, be glad they have abandoned the shiny fields of your bountiful noggin). Take my current hairstyle for example. (I know, I have the whole Ed Grimley look going on, but it has seemed to work for me these past few months.) The problem with my hair formation is the rebellious group of hairs that stand front and center. You know, the ones who get all the attention, yeah, you got it, on my head it's that thing that looks like it should be on Donald Duck's ass. For the record, getting this group of show offs to work together on a daily basis is just about as common as reading that Bigfoot was recently found drinking a friendly cup of tea with Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump (No "bad hair" pun intended with reference to the Donald.). Basically it NEVER happens. And when it does, on those few and far between days, I'm looking pretty damn good.

So seeing that my hairdoo-doo looks bad more days of the month than it looks good, I have officially decided to change things up, completely. And if they still don't cooperate I have something special in store for this mutinous group. That's right, I'm will attempt to do to my do, the same thing the military does to it's recruits in boot camp. Cut their egos down to almost nothing and build them back up over time. The bonus would be that while my little follicles are working hard to rebuild each individual hair back up, I won't have to worry about putting them into any special type of formation. That is until they're ready for it. *sinister laugh* And that, my friends will not only save me time in the mornings, it will save me from the disappointment of my team not wanting to get along. Stay tuned for pictures....