When I went to PyCon back in February, I made a silly travel mistake: I forgot to bring a razor with me, and so I didn’t shave while I was there. When I got back my face was kind of scruffy, but I’d never grown a beard before and I’ve always hated shaving, so I decided to let it grow, and grow it did. At my last haircut, a couple weeks ago, I got it trimmed and got some advice on beard care; I knew it was going to grow too much, and too fast, to rely on getting it trimmed only as often as the rest of my hair. And within the last few days it had once again reached the point where it was an intolerable nuisance, so I ordered a quality trimmer, which arrived today.
Tonight when I got home from work I read through the instructions carefully, then went into the bathroom, stood in front of the mirror, turned it on and… botched the whole thing. Horribly. Even at the lowest possible setting, suitable for allowing three-foot weeds to grow on your face, I couldn’t manage to trim my beard with any kind of precision or — worse — symmetry.
By the time I realized I was doing something wrong, it was already too late: the damage was irreversible. And so, with a sigh, I removed the adjustable head from the trimmer, turned it on again and set to work making my beard disappear. Then I grabbed the razor I’d forgotten to take to Dallas and hopped in the shower to get rid of the stubble. Now my face is sore, itchy and utterly hairless. And I’m more than a little sad, because I really liked the way the beard looked and put a fair amount of time and energy into taking care of it (plus the money I spent on that trimmer).
And that might have been the end of it, but as I was standing in the shower, scraping away the last remnants of my glorious facial hair and feeling utterly pathetic at my inability to wield a simple trimmer, I had an idea.
Some of you know that I’m a smoker, and have been for a while; I’d flirted with it once upon a time and managed to quit before it took hold, but a couple years ago something nasty happened that turned my world upside-down for a little while. One night, right in the middle of it, I was at a party, and a bunch of folks were out on the porch smoking. I went out and asked one of them for a cigarette, and the rest is history.
I’ve been thinking about quitting since the moment I started again, but so far I haven’t been able to do it. I’ve even managed to keep smoking through a bitter cold winter in the mountains of Virginia and another on the plains of Kansas; in conditions that were fit for neither man nor beast, I stood outside and puffed away. That’s addiction for you.
And that’s what popped into my head, there in the shower when I was already feeling pathetic, and that’s when inspiration struck. I’m going to grow my beard again, and I’m not going to destroy it with the trimmer this time. But my beard is never again going to smell like smoke. I will never again wonder whether a lighter-colored patch is just the gray hair that is my genetic destiny, or a stain from the cloud of combustion by-products that hover around my face.
I’m going to kill two birds with one stone: I’m going to start my beard growing again, effective immediately, and I’m going to stop smoking, effective immediately.
Now, I’m not posting all this publicly because I want comments or traffic to my blog or cheerful messages of support or sympathy, either from current or ex-smokers, or from current or ex-beard-growers. I’m posting this publicly because it’s a way to keep me on the straight path: once this entry is published, the price of failure won’t just include my health or my wallet: it’ll also include my own ego. Today is day one of the new beard, and in a moment I’ll take a picture and upload it to Flickr, showing off my ugly shorn face. Tomorrow I’ll take another picture and upload it, and probably there’ll be a little bit of stubble. The next day will see another picture and a little bit more hair.
Ultimately, I plan to post a photo every single day, documenting the progress of Beard 2.0 (I’ve got a Flickr Pro account, might as well use it productively), and if, at any point, I give in and have a cigarette, I’ll shave it off and start all over again. You don’t have to comment or follow along; the shame of showing a smooth face to the world if I screw up will, I think, be more than enough encouragement for me.
Today is day one of the new beard. And this time around, I’ll either figure out how to work the damned trimmer or (more likely) leave it in the hands of professionals.
Comments for this entry are closed. If you'd like to share your thoughts on this entry with me, please contact me directly.
Comments are closed.