Tuesday, August 5, 2014

The 'Boston Blackie' Kind

I shaved my mustache off.

I know this may come as a shock to some of my readers who were fascinated with (read: concerned about) my hipster-colored antics of late; and it still hasn't sunk in for me yet. I look in a mirror and the reaction is some kind of shock, maybe denial.

That mustache was a lot of work; it took months to get it to grow to the right length, and weeks of using my (neck)beard as the greenhouse bed for its beginnings. Only a few weeks ago, I remembered how I got the fu-manchu-style verticals to the correct width in the beginning: hold them aside with a perfectly vertical finger, and use said finger as a guide for the trimmer. Weirdly, the soul patch stayed very light, compared to the rest of the 'stache, except for a few very dark hairs at the center. Never understood that. Maybe it's the Welshman in me. I always thought that, like the Dude's rug, that soul patch tied my facial hair together. It's been a fun project, actually, if you want to talk about it like that.

But there are reasons that it had to go. Right now, I'm supposed to be job hunting. I don't know if employers are going to take too kindly to some dude with unkempt hair and an apparently ironic mustache asking them for a job. And I'm told the ladies aren't a fan of the ol' face caterpillar either. So, until I have a job with a lax dress code and start dating a girl whose favorite actor is Burt Reynolds, I think I should face the world cleanshaven.
EDIT: An astute reader brought to my attention that, depending on the context, it should be Tom Selleck referenced in this post and not Burt Reynolds. As a matter of fact, I was indeed thinking of Selleck when I wrote it, although I will admit to a soft spot for the original Smokey And The Bandit. Thanks, Roi!

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