Week Thirty-One: April 18th to 24th

I apologize for the delay in the last few posts...the insidiousness of Internet Explorer 9 stymied my efforts to effectively share flowing beards with the masses (of twelve people, as that is my current follower contingent.)

Now that the hairs around my mouth have begun to extend past their usual twining territory territory I find them grappling with my lips when I awaken each morning. Imagine flexible fish hooks tugging at the corners of your mouth as you try to squeeze a few minutes past the first snooze. As my father would say, "I have little sympathy," and I am sure you feel the same way. My goal is only to relate the experience to you.

Taking the distant view of the growth this week caused many people to wonder why I was dyeing my beard; so let's get this straight: I have attempted to dye my beard in the past (on a bet for the Camp at which I work in the Summer) but that was blonde, and it didn't take. In fact, the dye so ravaged my chin that I was unable to shave for a few weeks after that. Perhaps these early rumblings brought on thoughts of extended bearding adventures...?

But rest assured this growth is all mine, as is its color--attribute it to my combination of Nordic and Scottish roots. I like to imagine Leif Ericson charging down from the Scottish Highlands wearing a kilt and a Viking helmet. If only, if only.

Week Thirty: April 11th to 17th

Maybe because I was much more in the public eye this week--emceeing a Trivia Night fundraiser--I heard abundant unsolicited suggestions about the future direction of my facial hair. More specifically, a great number of people told me, in so many words, that it was just time to shave it all off.

Most people started this conversation innocently enough, "So, what's up with the beard?" or, "What's going on with that thing?" That's what I have noticed over the weeks since I have just let all razors fall by the wayside: people feel free to ask me personal facial questions, and most often refer to the beard as "that thing" when they do so. Most men are more polite about it, telling me they would do it if their wives let them, or that they too engaged in such bearded exploits during the glory days of their youth; their way of empathizing with me before inquiring, "That must drive you so crazy...you want to shave it, huh?"

The ladies have no such pretenses. At the Trivia Night, one lady asked me when I was planning to give up on "that thing" and just shave it. Another told me that she never would have allowed it if she was my wife (which, of course is one of the many reasons she is NOT!) Finally, a third told me, "Look, you are an attractive guy and that beard well, let's just say...it's time."

What people don't understand is how much their resistance to my quest for beard glory strengthens my desire to keep it going. It may annoy my neck and chin (sometimes) but if it annoys them all the time, that's even better. It's my face, feel free to look away. Plus, why not engage in a completely frivolous pursuit just because I can? That is what frustrates them the most: that I would be doing this just because I want to. They imagine there must be some ulterior motive when, really, there is not. Beard on!

Week Twenty-Nine: April 4th to 10th

Pay little attention to the wife-beater in this particular scene...I can assure you it contains no mustard stains and has been featured in no domestic disturbance incidents. (Some days I don't feel like changing out of the undershirts I wear under my white dress shirts before I go for runs. These particular wardrobe-gems always make me think of the wisdom of the Fourth Graders I no longer teach: one day a former student told me, "Hah-hah, I can see your undershirt through your shirt!" Not missing a moment, a classmate turned to him and replied, "Um, yeah, that's why he's wearing it!" It didn't dawn on him that seeing my wife-beater tee was far more desirable than spying my chest-hair-and-nipple shirt.)

Meanwhile the forest on my face has become quite a wilderness. Some days it reacts kindly to the comb-treatment that now takes me far longer than the hair on top of my head; most days it rebels. I have no idea why it treats me so...after all, I am the one hosting this facial infiltration and could just as easily decide to shave and discard it into various trash cans and bathroom drains. But there would surely be some kind of loss that comes from reneging on the commitment I have made here. Still, it could show me some more respect or, at the very least, cooperation.

The longer side--and why exactly there IS a longer side is another question for another discussion--on the right-side jawline, is so unruly I seem to have one of the worst cases of Jeckyll-Jaw I could ever have imagined. (And, yes, I know that Hyde was the beastly incarnation from the Stevenson book, but how many times do you get to drop alliterative devices when referring to rebellious facial hair; so please forgive me the literary faux pas.)

The right side of the beard decides how it will respond to the comb in a different manner each day, and I don't think I could have suspected how much shedding this ropy chin-robe does on a daily basis. I comb it each morning and feel cascades of loose hair strands drop to my chest. Maybe I should just glue them down so I can pull a true Selleck, with the chest-mane to rival the great 'stache....

Week Twenty-Eight: March 29th to April 3rd

There comes a time every Spring when the outdoor "cleaning" takes off: you are out there nearly every weekend and evening, raking, planting, weeding and the like. With last week's poison ivy massacre, my flesh could not handle another possible exposure to rashy contaminants, so I was forced indoors to continue my weeding; this time on my face.

I had to take some of the top-shelf sideburn length down a bit this week, mostly because the length of the hairs were allowing what used to be manageable 'burns to penetrate my ear canal and drive me to near beard-insanity. The hairs were so long and creeping that they actually woke me up several nights in a row. Dry willies notwithstanding, I cannot afford to lose sleep over a beard; my beard devotion runs only so deep. Once that wakeful pattern became apparent, it was time for a little grooming.

Thus, what you now see may not be quite as bushily impressive but it certainly made the lower portion seem more voluminous than before. What used to be a facial topiary, reminiscent of a well-shaped Boxwood, now went reverse military on my jaw--low and tight. It did cause several people at my school to ask me if I was combing it out, or fluffing it out more than usual. It was considerably bushier-looking than any of the beards to date, so there is something to be said for a little crafty grooming.

Now, as to whether I will follow the other prominent suggestion I received most often this week--it's time to shave the thing--well, don't count on it.

Week Twenty-Seven: March 22nd to 28th

It would seem that one of the beauties of what many consider a profession that is not a "real" job would be the many breaks we receive as teachers. Time off at Thanksgiving; Winter Break (nee Christmas); Spring Break (a week in March) and, the pseudo-glorious coup de gras...Summer Break.

The reality is that, even though someone over Winter Break told me my job must be "super-fun, playing with kids all day long," the transitions back into work after even a weekend can be difficult. After more than a week, good luck. If people really understood how much kids' learning regressed over the Summer, they would have all the evidence they needed for ditching the antiquated agrarian calendar. But that is for another day....

For this Spring Break, I let the beard flow, growing shaggy without daily combing, and watched as it gave velcro-grip to my pillow and pretty much everything else it encountered: shirts, zippers, guitar strings, etc. It did keep my face warm as we celebrated our older daughter's seventh birthday on ice (at a local ice skating rink's free-skate.) And, of course, people generally steered clear of me.

In keeping with a semi-annual Spring Break tradition, I managed to score a sweet batch of poison ivy from our backyard. I wasn't even within 200 feet of the actual vine, but such is my allergy that I can seemingly contract it from the random thoughts that may fall on the vine. Enjoy a close-up below:

Pretty gruesome, I know. Such are the maladies of we sufferers, but bonus that there is a nice beard-shot in the background.