shear madness
J. has been giving me the cold shoulder ever since I refused to see roller derby with her. I, incidentally, knew that I would want to decompress the day after Führertag and so I left my entire Saturday free; I did not, however, feel the need to explain myself to her, particularly after she failed to attend our party. Like two pissy little bitches, we have been passively-aggressively avoiding each other, always waiting for the other to make the first move.
"I haven't seen you in a while," she said at poker last night, leaning back and tilting her head, studying me. She refused to attend until I spoke the words "I want you to come to poker." The joke's on her; I actually said "We all want you to attend, [J.]" Regardless, I believe her statement had less to do with our little personal dramas and more to do with my physical appearance, only because it was weirdly reminiscent of A.'s behavior last weekend.
"Something's different about you," she said during the ample lead-in time to our Saturday poker game. B. was upstairs supposedly putting the child to bed, but chose the rather dubious strategy of watching the entire movie Shrek with the kid. Much as J. would several days later, A. tilted her head, studying me. Suddenly her face lit up with a flash of incredibly mundane insight.
"You've shaved!"
I am not a big fan of shaving, but not for the reasons that many men object to this time-honored practice of scraping dangerously sharp blades across their faces. I don't seem to experience much razor burn. While I have had issues with razor bumps and ingrown hairs in the past, my current exfoliation practices seem to have all but put a stop to these unwelcome little guests. Mostly my issues stem from the fact that I am a bleeder. If a butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo, my skin slits open and gouts of blood soon follow. Never having the sort of father who would bond with his son over manly coming-of-age practices, my early faltering attempts at shaving were something akin to Clive Barker's Hellraiser. I stumbled out of the bathroom, face, neck and hands slick with my own blood one second away from being ripped asunder by barbed chains.
"Jesus wept."
Soon after, I had my first (and last) experience with electric razors courtesy of my mother, who felt that, while not providing as close of a shave, they would be less likely to irritate (read: slice and dice) my skin. Unfortunately, to test her hypothesis she brought a coal-burning monstrosity down from the dust-laden top shelf of her closet. The Giger-esque contraption was black, heavy and about the size of a man's fist. When I switched it on, it sputtered and vomited forth a small cloud of smoke before roaring like an industrial-strength lawnmower. I wasn't overly ambitious; I selected a test area. I tentatively lowered it against my skin near the topmost portion of my mustache, roughly an inch and a half above the right-most corner of my lip.
It promptly ripped a handful of hairs out by the root, generating no less than five different geysers of red.
To this day, I cannot grow hair there.
It should come as little surprise that I didn't shave my face again for something in the range of seven years. All through high school, I walked around with the sort of wispy mustache and bad scruff that fooled many into believing I had latino roots (which perhaps contributed to my survival in hallways rampant with reverse-racism).
To my recollection, I only resumed giving a damn after moving out to Santa Cruz for my junior year of college. It represented a new start and, as such, I wanted to look my best. I did not, however, feel that toilet paper and bloody scabs were the path to this, so I embraced the male beard and mustache groomer. George Michael had shown me the way. By setting such a device on its closest trim, I could live my life in a state of perpetual stubble, with no risk of skin irritation or, for that matter, scarification. And I looked damned sexy with a manly stubble.
So passed an entire decade of my life, twilight years with the clock forever stopped at five.
Recently, though, my irritation with the instrument of my salvation has grown substantially. The problem with the beard and mustache groomer seems to be its tendency to spontaneously self-destruct, which is to say they all seem very cheaply made. Admittedly, they are also reasonably cheap (usually somewhere in the range of thirty or forty dollars) but it has started to grate on me that I cannot seem to hold onto one for more than four months. Inevitably, the battery ceases to hold a charge, some vital piece snaps off or goes missing, or, as happened with my latest, the fucking thing just ceases to work. I guess this wouldn't be as big of a deal if I could just go and buy another of the exact model, but there are so many advancements being made in the technology, what with the self-cleaning blades, the wet-dry models, and the built in vacuum suction that really just expels the multitude of tiny hairs with greater force.
Basically, every time I find a model with which I am satisfied (not happy, satisfied), it breaks and I discover I can no longer purchase it because there is a new one boasting such desirable features as an ergonomically shaped head and a built-in catheter.
Last Saturday, I was endeavoring to ready myself for a nine-person poker game that was to include my one-time heterosexual crush, J. (not to be confused with my salty fag hag J. mentioned above). I was, as a consequence, overly concerned with sprucing myself up. I rather neurotically believed I would "win" if he saw me and realized I have aged better (which is to say, not at all), I am still outrageously hot and he could have had me but now he never will. These were the sorts of thoughts running through my tiny little head as I sat through the tedious process of charging my groomer. When it read "full" I pressed the "ON" button.
Nothing happened.
I pressed it again and the gradient of lights lit from red to green indicating a full charge. Pressed it again and the lights went out. Still nothing.
Like a chimpanzee, I rinsed, lathered and repeated until it finally sunk in that I had been betrayed in my hour of greatest need. I angrily hurled the groomer along with accompanying AC adaptor and sideburn trimming attachment into the hallway outside my bathroom. With grim resolve, I pulled out the shaving cream normally reserved for use on my scrotum, charged up the expensive electric razor that my boyfriend bought me years back, and actually shaved.
Of course, no mishaps, no real razor burn, no subsequent ingrown hairs or bumps. Most importantly, no blood. But still, I am not sure I see the point.
Do I look young and fresh-faced? I guess, but someone with facial hair like mine can never truly accomplish a close shave. Even when I think I succeed, what feels smooth still visibly resembles five o'clock shadow. I appreciate how pleasant it is to kiss (or rub your cock on the face of) someone with lips that are not ringed by rough stubble, but at the same time I am all too familiar with the horrors of stubble-burn. Unless two guys are absolutely in sync with regards to facial hair length, the results can be disastrous, at least for my skin. Early in our relationship, frenzied kissing between D. and myself tore the fuck out of my chin. I rapidly learned that stubble is both the problem and the cure; it can serve as a protective barrier. Without it, all it takes is a little alcohol and a lot of face-sucking for me to end up red, abraded and peeling.
At the moment, my frugality is winning out. I am loathe to keep purchasing groomers only to have them inevitably disappoint. So I am shaving... My face... Twice a week...
Astounding, I know. I managed to put it on hold for thirty-two years, but I eventually came around. My thick lips stand in beet-red contrast against the surrounding pale, smooth flesh. I look more like a cute twenty-something than when I actually was twenty-something, though the only people who seem to notice are the women of my life, and even then they can't seem to put their finger on what has changed.
What the hell... I am willing to give this a shot.
At least until the electric razor breaks down.
"I haven't seen you in a while," she said at poker last night, leaning back and tilting her head, studying me. She refused to attend until I spoke the words "I want you to come to poker." The joke's on her; I actually said "We all want you to attend, [J.]" Regardless, I believe her statement had less to do with our little personal dramas and more to do with my physical appearance, only because it was weirdly reminiscent of A.'s behavior last weekend.
"Something's different about you," she said during the ample lead-in time to our Saturday poker game. B. was upstairs supposedly putting the child to bed, but chose the rather dubious strategy of watching the entire movie Shrek with the kid. Much as J. would several days later, A. tilted her head, studying me. Suddenly her face lit up with a flash of incredibly mundane insight.
"You've shaved!"
I am not a big fan of shaving, but not for the reasons that many men object to this time-honored practice of scraping dangerously sharp blades across their faces. I don't seem to experience much razor burn. While I have had issues with razor bumps and ingrown hairs in the past, my current exfoliation practices seem to have all but put a stop to these unwelcome little guests. Mostly my issues stem from the fact that I am a bleeder. If a butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo, my skin slits open and gouts of blood soon follow. Never having the sort of father who would bond with his son over manly coming-of-age practices, my early faltering attempts at shaving were something akin to Clive Barker's Hellraiser. I stumbled out of the bathroom, face, neck and hands slick with my own blood one second away from being ripped asunder by barbed chains.
"Jesus wept."
Soon after, I had my first (and last) experience with electric razors courtesy of my mother, who felt that, while not providing as close of a shave, they would be less likely to irritate (read: slice and dice) my skin. Unfortunately, to test her hypothesis she brought a coal-burning monstrosity down from the dust-laden top shelf of her closet. The Giger-esque contraption was black, heavy and about the size of a man's fist. When I switched it on, it sputtered and vomited forth a small cloud of smoke before roaring like an industrial-strength lawnmower. I wasn't overly ambitious; I selected a test area. I tentatively lowered it against my skin near the topmost portion of my mustache, roughly an inch and a half above the right-most corner of my lip.
It promptly ripped a handful of hairs out by the root, generating no less than five different geysers of red.
To this day, I cannot grow hair there.
It should come as little surprise that I didn't shave my face again for something in the range of seven years. All through high school, I walked around with the sort of wispy mustache and bad scruff that fooled many into believing I had latino roots (which perhaps contributed to my survival in hallways rampant with reverse-racism).
To my recollection, I only resumed giving a damn after moving out to Santa Cruz for my junior year of college. It represented a new start and, as such, I wanted to look my best. I did not, however, feel that toilet paper and bloody scabs were the path to this, so I embraced the male beard and mustache groomer. George Michael had shown me the way. By setting such a device on its closest trim, I could live my life in a state of perpetual stubble, with no risk of skin irritation or, for that matter, scarification. And I looked damned sexy with a manly stubble.
So passed an entire decade of my life, twilight years with the clock forever stopped at five.
Recently, though, my irritation with the instrument of my salvation has grown substantially. The problem with the beard and mustache groomer seems to be its tendency to spontaneously self-destruct, which is to say they all seem very cheaply made. Admittedly, they are also reasonably cheap (usually somewhere in the range of thirty or forty dollars) but it has started to grate on me that I cannot seem to hold onto one for more than four months. Inevitably, the battery ceases to hold a charge, some vital piece snaps off or goes missing, or, as happened with my latest, the fucking thing just ceases to work. I guess this wouldn't be as big of a deal if I could just go and buy another of the exact model, but there are so many advancements being made in the technology, what with the self-cleaning blades, the wet-dry models, and the built in vacuum suction that really just expels the multitude of tiny hairs with greater force.
Basically, every time I find a model with which I am satisfied (not happy, satisfied), it breaks and I discover I can no longer purchase it because there is a new one boasting such desirable features as an ergonomically shaped head and a built-in catheter.
Last Saturday, I was endeavoring to ready myself for a nine-person poker game that was to include my one-time heterosexual crush, J. (not to be confused with my salty fag hag J. mentioned above). I was, as a consequence, overly concerned with sprucing myself up. I rather neurotically believed I would "win" if he saw me and realized I have aged better (which is to say, not at all), I am still outrageously hot and he could have had me but now he never will. These were the sorts of thoughts running through my tiny little head as I sat through the tedious process of charging my groomer. When it read "full" I pressed the "ON" button.
Nothing happened.
I pressed it again and the gradient of lights lit from red to green indicating a full charge. Pressed it again and the lights went out. Still nothing.
Like a chimpanzee, I rinsed, lathered and repeated until it finally sunk in that I had been betrayed in my hour of greatest need. I angrily hurled the groomer along with accompanying AC adaptor and sideburn trimming attachment into the hallway outside my bathroom. With grim resolve, I pulled out the shaving cream normally reserved for use on my scrotum, charged up the expensive electric razor that my boyfriend bought me years back, and actually shaved.
Of course, no mishaps, no real razor burn, no subsequent ingrown hairs or bumps. Most importantly, no blood. But still, I am not sure I see the point.
Do I look young and fresh-faced? I guess, but someone with facial hair like mine can never truly accomplish a close shave. Even when I think I succeed, what feels smooth still visibly resembles five o'clock shadow. I appreciate how pleasant it is to kiss (or rub your cock on the face of) someone with lips that are not ringed by rough stubble, but at the same time I am all too familiar with the horrors of stubble-burn. Unless two guys are absolutely in sync with regards to facial hair length, the results can be disastrous, at least for my skin. Early in our relationship, frenzied kissing between D. and myself tore the fuck out of my chin. I rapidly learned that stubble is both the problem and the cure; it can serve as a protective barrier. Without it, all it takes is a little alcohol and a lot of face-sucking for me to end up red, abraded and peeling.
At the moment, my frugality is winning out. I am loathe to keep purchasing groomers only to have them inevitably disappoint. So I am shaving... My face... Twice a week...
Astounding, I know. I managed to put it on hold for thirty-two years, but I eventually came around. My thick lips stand in beet-red contrast against the surrounding pale, smooth flesh. I look more like a cute twenty-something than when I actually was twenty-something, though the only people who seem to notice are the women of my life, and even then they can't seem to put their finger on what has changed.
What the hell... I am willing to give this a shot.
At least until the electric razor breaks down.