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January 27, 2006
The Beard Stays, YOU Go!
For those of you who haven't seen me since before November, I've changed my appearance slightly: I decided to grow a beard. I didn't have any real reason to do so, other than a general feeling of ennui every time I looked in the mirror. What I find strange is different people's reactions to me since the addition of the facial hair:
- I no longer get carded when I go to bars.
- The most common comment I get is neither a compliment nor a criticism, but simply an acknowledgement, along the lines of "Oh, you have a beard", "Hello Mr. Facial Hair", or "Ah... beard!" without further embellishment.
- A coworker of mine from Italy was pretty taken aback at the change in my face. He remarked that I now "look like a captain". As he said this, he pantomimed stroking a huge beard with both hands. From this, I assume that in Italy captains are well respected and possibly even revered as heroes.
- Another coworker suggested I was in disguise for some reason.
- Yet another coworker who recently returned from vacation correctly pointed out that I did not have a beard before she left, but now have one.
For some reason I've always been amused by beards. Some of my favourite comedy sketches involved characters with beards (The Kids in the Hall sketch from which I stole the title of this blog post comes to mind). Some people get a kick out of fart jokes, some people crack up at monkey jokes. Me, I think beards are hilarious.
So how does my beard look? Here's an artist's rendition:
And here's the real thing:
I probably won't keep it forever. In fact, I'm getting kind of excited about shaving it off. I've decided to do it in phases. The first day maybe I'll just shave the chin, connecting the sideburns via a "North-West Passage" over my mouth. Or maybe just the moustache, going for the Abe Lincoln look. Maybe I'll bring back the goatee I had in university. As a female friend of mine pointed out, a man's facial hair is the closest thing he has to expressing himself the way a woman does with her head hair. Except that a woman's hair generally gets less food stuck in it.
Comments
In 10 years from now you'll still be attaching Pete's beard to see what you look like!
We should all be thankful that he was able to give us such a wonderful thing to try on...I know my friends thought it suited me, even though it makes me shiver every time I think about it.
Posted by: ang at January 28, 2006 9:53 AM
SO weird. I grew a beard over the holidays... and also since I was gonna shave my head anyways, I did a mohawk too.
I used the following stages:
1) Full beard
2) Goatee with big sideburns
3) Handlebar with big sideburns
4) Porn star moustache (or Magnum P.I.) with smaller burns
5) Just slight sideburns, no facial hair, smooth lovin'
Posted by: Para-Chris at January 28, 2006 12:30 PM
Bah! I have a beard every other day. Keep it though. Makes you look like that guy on Star Trek when he grew a beard...Data. Hahahahaha Star Trek jokes...I meant Jordy.
Posted by: Ian at January 29, 2006 10:49 PM
I think the 'Gill Grissom' look suits you very well. Now what can you tell me about Ephydra hyans?
Posted by: Rew at January 30, 2006 10:28 AM