The Fuzz

So I'm growing a beard. I didn't really plan it, or even make a conscious decision about it. It just sorta happened.

I use an electric shaver due to the fact when when I touch my face with a blade razor, even a glancing blow, I emit great gouts of blood from multiple wounds. Doesn't matter how careful I am, or how expensive and new the razor is, or what shaving glop I use. Great gouts of blood. When I'm through shaving, the bathroom looks like a scene from one of the ninety-seven Hannibal Lector novels and/or movies.

So I have an electric shaver which, lemme tell ya, does NOT shave as close as a blade no matter what they tell you on tee-vee, but it has the advantage of not making me a murder victim. Which is, as it happens, a good thing.

I took the shaver to LCC, and I even took the cord to charge it up, but then I forgot to plug it in and by the last morning it was no longer the little shaver that could.

Then I got home and forgot to plug it in again. By Tuesday I was looking very Miami Vice, and my lovely wife says to me, "Oh, are you growing a beard?"

Now, what she could have said is, "You better not be growing a beard, buster!" But since she put it the way she did, I said, "Well, not really. I just need to charge the shaver, I guess." I said, "...need to charge the shaver..." with the same enthusiasm one might say, "...need to meet with the IRS..." hoping she'd take the hint.

So she says, "You should grow it out. I want to see how much grey you have."

Which was not what I wanted to see at all.

Still.

Now it's been almost two weeks and I have an actual beardish-looking thing on my face. I did charge the shaver so I could keep my neck clean -- I want a tidy beard after all. But cheeks and chin are all hairy now.

And it's cool. It's not a finished length yet, but it's passed that stage where it's basically stabbing bristles. I reach up and touch my face and it's soft. At least as soft as a beard ever is.

I don't know if I'll keep it. I had a goatee and mustache going back waaaaay before goatees got suddenly ubiquitous in the late 90s, but I shaved it all off about five years ago. Now I'm feeling like I've found a favorite old pair of sneakers in the back of the closet. I may end up shaving again in a week or a month, but for now, I'm liking it.

At least until my lovely wife says, "You better not think you're keeping that beard, buster."