The Beard

Every man, to truly feel like a man, has to check off a few things from an imaginary list. Some of them include getting your drivers license, having your first beer, and convincing that first girl to sleep with you. One that isn't so obvious is growing a beard. There is no real reason to do it. Most women find facial hair extremely unattractive, most men can't grow a decent beard, and it's downright obnoxious to sleep with one. But ask any man over 25 and I bet they have at least attempted to grow one. The duration might have only lasted a couple of missed shaves before they looked at themselves in the mirror and decided in the best interest of their love life to shave it, but they at least tried.

Now my "Man Checklist" wasn't as manly as it should have been: my mommy took me for my drivers test, my first drink was a kiwi strawberry wine cooler we stole from my friends parents, and I'm not even going to touch the last one. So it really shouldn't have surprised me that the beard wasn't going to be a huge success. I simply don't have the physical makeup to grow a good beard. I hate those men that can sneeze hard and have a 5 'o' clock shadow. The goal is to have to shave once a day, I'm currently at once every new moon.

I actually tried to grow a beard earlier. I had already gotten my job so I had no need to look presentable. I thought this was my last window to give it a go. After the first month I started to see some progress. But I had two glaring problems: 1. Even though my hair is brown my beard was blond, and hard to see and 2. My face and my genes had played a cruel joke on me. The higher power in charge of facial hair growth decided to leave a one inch landing strip on each of my cheeks where nothing grew. If you don't know what I'm talking about hopefully the picture below will shed some light.



After much deliberation I decided to shave my glorious beard into a chin strap. I can almost hear you laughing. And you should, I looked like a complete Douche with a capital D. So I gave up and shaved it off.

Now that I'm unemployed, and the job started with me trying to start a beard, I decided it should end with my trying to grow a beard. This one I call my "Unemployment Beard." This time it has been quite different. Now the my facial hair is red (next time I try this I am hoping for a different color, we'll see how long this lasts!). But the biggest change? I can grow hair on my cheeks! Woo! Granted most of it is albino white, but its a start. I finally feel like I hit puberty.

You'll be happy to know i refuse to resort back to the chin strap. I'm even sticking with the mustache against the direction of my closest advisers. You see my mustache refuses to connect with the rest of my beard. I feel like this is the one step that is holding it back from really meaning business.

Now if you are demanding a picture I refuse. But I will tell you the most common response. When people see me for the first time since I started this they usually say "Nice Beard!" followed by a sort of chortle. I decide to listen to the nice beard part.

In fact that other weekend I was back home talking to my Grandpa. He said "You got a little something going there." Never a good sign when you've been growing a beard for two months. But he is old so I respond "Yeah, I figured I would save some money on razors and grow a beard." He looked at me for a few seconds contemplating how to respond and finally settled on "Well.... everyone's gotta try it at least once I suppose..." Thanks Grandpa, hey at least I can check one more thing off my Man Bucket List. Only 57 more things to go!

The Purpose

On a beautiful February day in Wisconsin I got called into my bosses office for my yearly review. I was quickly informed that business was down and they were looking to make cuts. Turns out they felt like my salary along with a few others was the easiest way to save a bit of coin. Now what typically happens is they give you an hour to clean out your desk then escort you from the building. So what came out of their mouths next surprised me: "So your last day will be in three or four months."

I have gone through a bunch of emotions since I heard the news. At first I freaked out. I actually had to do my taxes just to calm myself down. I was really quite relaxing... I immediately cut my budget as much as I could. I even briefly looked into how much it would cost to sustain myself on Ramen noodles and Progresso soup. $24.78 a month if anyone was wondering.

Then I got angry. How could they do this to me? I was a vital piece to this company! I had just spent the last week making sure numbers added up and turning colored text into black text. Who else can do what I do? Turns out Excel has that stuff pretty much figured out by now. But I at least brought diversity to the workplace! Has anyone ever heard of affirmative action? I am color blind AND flat footed. Separately very common but together? So to dampen my anger I stole Kleenex from the office. I felt like a total badass! That is until I went to Pick N Save and found out they were having a sale: Four boxes for three dollars. Turns out I wasn't really sticking it to the man.

Finally I got excited. I could do anything! Go abroad, go back to school, pick any profession in the world, take an extended vacation, adopt my Ramen diet and head into the woods becoming a current day Henry David Thoreau.... So I chose the most unique and adventurous thing I could think of: I started this blog.

My hope is that I will enjoy this enough to document anything I find worth documenting. Throughout my life I continually find myself in awkward situations. Most I bring on myself for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Others are just asking the right questions and listening to people's stories. And the rest are just pure luck. So I hope you enjoy it, whoever you end up being... I hope you at least find it entertaining because its meant to be!