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larryhammerDuring February’s round of Covid, I didn’t shave—no surprise, while recovering. But I haven’t shaved since, or not a full shave—I always scrape off the patchy hairs from my cheeks, because otherwise the result is … unfortunate would be the kindest description. But I now have a rather full goatee, with more salt than pepper on the chin and more pepper above the lips.
If I’ve counted correctly, this is my sixth attempt to grow a beard. All previous rounds, I never got past the itchy stage. In conversations through the years, other beard-growers have reported that it generally takes them a week or two for the bristles to get long enough to stop itching, but even the time I stuck it out for almost two months, it still rilly, rilly bugged me. Distracting and uncomfortable. But not this time—for whatever reason, it’s just felt comfortable, even at the start. Not complaining, but what gives? Eh, whatevs.
Regardless, the bristles are now long enough, I need to start trimming more. Decide what length / shape I want. IOW in my mid-50s, I need to learn the manly skill of beard cultivation.
Assuming, that is, I’m willing to look more like a youngish Boomer instead of an older Gen-Xer—for a graying goatee is pos def more a Boomer style. I am … ambivalent about this. Showing my age, that’s fine—but I’ve spent a lifetime in a cohort that’s been dismissed and minimized by many of our near elders to be entirely comfortable with being identified as one. I’ve always felt more kinship with people five years younger than me than five years older.
It’s a trade-off of discomforts. Is the dissonance worth the ease of not having to shave my chin? Maybe.
Or maybe I just need to get over generational sniping.
---L.
Subject quote from The Task, Book V, William Cowper.
If I’ve counted correctly, this is my sixth attempt to grow a beard. All previous rounds, I never got past the itchy stage. In conversations through the years, other beard-growers have reported that it generally takes them a week or two for the bristles to get long enough to stop itching, but even the time I stuck it out for almost two months, it still rilly, rilly bugged me. Distracting and uncomfortable. But not this time—for whatever reason, it’s just felt comfortable, even at the start. Not complaining, but what gives? Eh, whatevs.
Regardless, the bristles are now long enough, I need to start trimming more. Decide what length / shape I want. IOW in my mid-50s, I need to learn the manly skill of beard cultivation.
Assuming, that is, I’m willing to look more like a youngish Boomer instead of an older Gen-Xer—for a graying goatee is pos def more a Boomer style. I am … ambivalent about this. Showing my age, that’s fine—but I’ve spent a lifetime in a cohort that’s been dismissed and minimized by many of our near elders to be entirely comfortable with being identified as one. I’ve always felt more kinship with people five years younger than me than five years older.
It’s a trade-off of discomforts. Is the dissonance worth the ease of not having to shave my chin? Maybe.
Or maybe I just need to get over generational sniping.
---L.
Subject quote from The Task, Book V, William Cowper.