Movember, Day Twelve: Situation Getting Hairy

It's time to make a decision.  I can't keep walking around like this.  After not shaving for 12 days, I'm experiencing some challenges.  I mean, I'm tough -- I can take it.  My face is curing cancer here.  There will need to be sacrifices.  But after 12 days off the razor, here's what's happening:

1.  My daughter is starting to stare at me with increasing suspicion.  She doesn't trust my face anymore.  Apparently, I look shifty with a beard.

2.  My face is starting to distract my students.  You don't think they notice when you change your appearance, but they totally do.  I walked into class the other day and one of my students raised his hand and said that he'd been selected by the group to ask "what was up with my face."

3.  My wife isn't down with the smooches when my face is this hairy.  She says it's like kissing a yeti.  (She used to date one in college.  Apparently he was a dick.)  I've said from the beginning that if this whole Movember thing gets in the way of me getting the smooches, I'm out.

4. My entire face is ITCHY as hell.

5.  Turns out a full beard coupled with a bald head looks even weirder than I expected.  It's not uncommon for me to go a few days without shaving -- in fact, I'm usually most comfortable with some scruff on the mug.  (When both my head and face are freshly shaven, I look like a giant thumb.)  Originally, I'd hoped that a full beard coupled with a bald pate would make me look like a badass lumberjack, or maybe a bouncer at a cool club.  Instead, I look like a frequent patron at a bear bar in the more colorful part of town.

  I haven't seen recent face updates from most of my DadCentric teammates, but somehow, they're managing to maintain a more gradual, carefully moderated growth.  (Although I will say that the stubble on Homemaker Man's upper lip is looking impressively lustrous lately.)

No one said curing cancer would be easy.  I'm still in, all the way.  But it's definitely time to do some grooming.  By Monday, I'll return with something that helps me look a little less like Tom Hanks in Castaway, and a little more like someone who lives in the civilized world.  I'm thinking I might slowly whittle this hairy mess down over the next couple weeks: maybe a more trimmed beard first, then a goatee, then a mustache/soul patch situation, culminating with a full, glorious Magnum P.I. at the end of the month.

You know what you should do?  Go to Team DadCentric's Movember page and donate a couple bucks that goes straight to men's cancer research.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to outside and chop down some high timber.