Some thoughts on beards.

 Specifically MY beard.

Living in the south in a typically milder climate people often question my choice of having a beard. "You look like a homeless person." I also often get the reality duck hunting peckerwood show comparison as well. As my three readers know a couple of years back as a purely social experiment I grew a Yeard (year long beard). In the spirit of that I did not trim it in any sort of way during that time. I REALLY liked it, in fact I grew to miss it after I had it shaved off.

I kept it off and grew a Zappa for a while for nursing school. Once the healthcare/nursing burnout set in for good and I decided to push away from that I started to grow the beard in earnest, it's been about 4 months now. Pretty much my family hates the beard. When Pop was alive he was pretty open about my beard, he did not like it in fact he was so happy when I cut it off he cried. The unasked question is "Are you going to cut that thing off" The answer is a resounding NO!

Not even for the summer?
NO

I had a guy in the south side Chiplote comment on my beard he thought it was "Great" I was standing in the line there and we chatted up a bit, his wife became involved in the conversation and she told me she thought it looked "disgusting" The dude looked kind of sheepish after that little snide comment made by his wife, he did some shoe gazing. He was clearly embarrassed. Getting insulted by people is something I have unfortunately grown use to over the years because of my line of work so I was non-plussed. I retorted "Fortunately," I'm not married to you so I don't fucking care what you think." Which got a look of horror from the wife and a huge guffaw out of the husband. She looked at him like he needed to do something about it and he told her "You asked for it" and kept laughing at her at which point I snapped my fingers like "The Todd" did on "Scrubs" then turned around and ordered my Chicken Burrito with black beans. That put some wind in the husband's sails even though he's probably still sleeping in the garage.

The beard like the tattoos hardly ever gets comments from who I would call attractive women. When those comments do come it's from women who are double my weight and smell like week worn wool socks and an ash tray. Yet I persist, because I grow the beard for me like I get tattoo work done for me as well. With little of no thought going or caring what other people think. One of my nephews asked me a while back "Don't you care about attracting women?" to which I replied "The right one if she exists will be attracted to my vibe besides I'm wondering if another woman is the answer I really need right now" Tyler Durden is my Oprah (which will be on a hand made tshirt over the summer).

I'm justified now because of the recent cold snap here in Georgia. To paraphrase Randy Morgenson "It keeps my face warm in the winter and the bugs away during the summer" Which is good enough for me.

Thanks for reading.