unbalanced

had to shave last night. my plan for next week (holy crap, next week! yesterday on NPR we heard about a former president of the american psychological something or another who announced to his fiancee, two weeks before his marriage, that he was gay. when i heard that, i turned to 203 and said, "whelp, guess that won't happen to you, huh?" she didn't laugh quite as hard as i'd hoped.) was to have my beard be the same length as my top, to give the look of a lightly coated fuzzball with a smile. since my hair had been cut to a length of 1/3 LEGOs and since my beard was already at 1/4 LEGO, yesterday morning, after only a week of growth, this seemed eminently doable. the day before the wedding, i'd go over my entire head, comically, with a trimmer, evening everyting out to about 3/5 LEGO. but then, disaster!

an itch! and another! and irritation from the interaction between climbing helmet and whiskers! that would not do.

and so, yesterday afternoon, after one of yesterday's multiple showers, i abandoned my aspirations to hermetic balance (as above, so below) (i've been waiting to use that. i thought it up last week. it's so clever! har de har de har!) and sheared (in new zealand, we don't shear our sheep with nobody!) off everything but my magician's patch.

now, 203's parents are going to think i keep a beard year round, when in truth, i haven't had one in months and kept this one only to reduce blade costs.

okay, i didn't keep it for that, i kept it for the usual reason: the red in the beard offsets the gray on my head. also, it looks cool. it's so metal!