The few times I thought about growing out some facial hair, I was reminded that no one in my family has ever successfully worn facial hair. I recall my dad when he would go on a week or two vacation and not shave at all. The results? He had some sparse whiskers that looked more like a connect the dots drawing, rather than a true outline of facial hair.
Neither of my grandfathers wore facial hair, and I recall one grandfather saying that he didn't wear one because it didn't grow out fully. Both of my brothers have facial hair... but it never looked right to me. My younger brother wears a mustache. He hasn't cut the hair above his upper lip since he was 18. My older brother never fully shaves off his facial hair, instead he just trims it down every few weeks. Even if he didn't trim it down, he has the same problem that my father had.... it doesn't all connect. So with this genetic information running through me, why give this a try?
The answer is simply; it's something new to try.
I knew that the chances of me bucking genetic tradition and growing out a fully connected goatee was slim to none, but I couldn't fully discount the 'slim' possibility. So... six weeks ago I shaved normally, but left the classic 'goatee' area un-shaved.
As time progressed and the hair grew, I immediatly saw problems. While the hair on my upper lip was coming in nicely, it wasn't growing those connections around my mouth. Additionally, the hair on my chin wasn't coming in fully... it was as though the point of my chin was pushing out past the hair.
After a month of not shaving, there was a good amount of hair growth, including what I thought of as several distinctive patches of grey. Hey... I'm 40 and I appreciate my hair admitting that fact! But I could draw a line from my "Soul Patch" out to my cheek and feel no hair coming in. I wasn't shaving that area... the hair just wasn't growing there. So at best, I would have a mustache, a soul patch, and a bit of hair on my chin. That is not what I was going for.
I may have creeped him out, but I took a long look at my older brother's facial hair and noticed that he had the same bare patches. So just a few days shy of the full six weeks, I shaved it all off and went back to my "Federation Standard".
I fully expected to see my clean shaven face and be happy about it's return. But you know what? It didn't look right. The face that I've looked at in the mirror for 20+ years now looked... wrong. I've always had what others refer to as a 'baby face'. A lot of that comes from the fact that I'm overweight, but I now saw other things adding to it. For once, the mustache, soul patch, and chin music gave me an air of seriousness. My normal facial expression is a slight frown.... the facial hair changed that from a slightly pouty look to one of serious intent. And lets face it, working in a prison it's better to look serious than slightly sad.
The facial hair also seemed to add a few years to my face. I'm horrible at guessing ages, but my clean shaven face looks about five to ten years younger than my hairy face. I know many people strive to look younger, but I've never been one of those people. I'd rather look 'age appropriate', and even though I wasn't going to ever get the "Van Dyke" that I was after, the facial hair made me look more like a 40 year old man.
So... I'm starting it up again. I'll take whatever advantage I get and instead of cutting it off when it gets to long, I'll just borrow my brothers trimmer and trim it back (I already use the trimmer to occasionally trim my eyebrows.... damn bushy forehead caterpillars!). Doing this also gives me another advantage... all of the areas that I have trouble shaving are the very areas I am letting grow out. Shaving my side burns, cheeks, jaw bones, and neck always goes smoothly. The curve of my chin and the upper area of my mustache are the area where I would often get razor burn due to all the passes needed to get every whisker.
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Something odd has come up the past few days... my body aches. It started a couple days ago oddly enough with my buttocks. I just figured they ached because I had to do a time consuming dressing change on an inmate's foot and ankle and wasn't using correct body positioning. I was simply squatting down. So a little ache back there was understandable. But the next day my thighs and calves started to ache too.
Come to this morning, and my whole body aches. My calves, thighs, buttocks, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, arms, and neck. It's what I'd expect to feel like after a good workout seeing as I don't workout regularly. But I didn't work out. Nothing at work was particularly physically strenuous the past few days. I didn't do any physical labor at home, I didn't work on my car or move anything around the house... I just ache as if I had.
I'm sure I"m just being a hypochondriac, but it's still a little worrying. The flu can make you feel like that, and there are several diseases that can do it too. Add in the fact that I've also recently been more than normally itchy all over and my nursing brain goes in all kinds of directions that I'd rather not think about.
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Lita is finally gone. Once my mom had her Girly Girl (the name my mom chose for her new Caliber), her van had to move out of the garage. Our driveway is fairly large, but we also have three working vehicles. My mom's vehicle goes in the garage, my car goes in the car port next to the garage (yay for covered parking!), while my brothers vehicle goes into a little offshoot that my dad built when my brothers and I started driving. The rest of the driveway has to be kept empty to give all three vehicles unblocked access to the road. Lita sat in the other half of that offshoot, so there was no immediate need to get rid of her.
But once the van moved out of the garage.... we had one to many vehicles. As the van wasn't going to be driven for awhile, it only made since to put it behind another car.... that meant it got the covered parking spot and Fiona had to sit in front of it.
So long as we had the space, I was happy keeping Lita. My neighbor's nephew was slightly interested in her, but he wanted it looked over. After all the snow we had, Lita was buried. So we were just waiting for the thaw to uncover her and let the neighbor (He's a car God. Seriously. He has a 70's corvette and is dripping a 700 horsepower engine into it. He took a late 60's Chevelle and made a race car out of it then took another Chevelle and made it into a show car. Car. God.), check her out.
Thankfully a couple weeks after Fiona was regulated to her uncomfortable uncovered parking spot, the temps rose and we could get Lita out of her spot. The cargod neighbor took her for a spin and said she was most certainly worth the $300 I was asking. I settled on that price as it was generally assumed that a local junk man would pay me $350 for her, and I'd rather see her stay on the road rather than let her get parted out.
So, he let his nephew know that it was a good deal. $300 for the car and probably about $1000 in parts would get him a good solid car. Sadly the nephew's girlfriend had just spent all their extra cash on a stinky used leather couch and was unwilling to take the piece of crap back. I put a time limit on his decision... buy the car in two weeks or I'd take Lita to the junk yard. Two weeks passed by and the nephew said he was interested, but just didn't have the money. As I was preparing myself emotionally to have my once beautiful car taken to her slow junk yard death, the cargod neighbor stepped up and gave me the $300 himself. He wasn't doing this for his nephew... he's going to keep her.
You see, as old school as cargod is, he knows that gas costs money. His current stable of cars are beautiful, wonderful and amazing... but none get more than 10 miles per gallon. His current 'daily driver' is a toss up between his full size pick up truck and his 'vette. As he can get all the parts cheap and do all the labor himself he figures Lita will cost him about $700. He also figures that the engine should be good for another 100,000 miles with only minimal maintenance. That fact makes me really happy as the biggest reason I chose Lita over other cars inconsideration was her engine. It seems the local Car God approves of my engine selection.
He still snickers at Fiona though.
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