Random Tuesday Thoughts: Muy Macho Edition

I haven't gone Random in a few weeks, but this is a good day for it.  So let's roll.  (With word up to Super Keely the Unmom, proprietor of RTT.)



1.  Movember, Day Eight
Here's the latest progress in my face's ongoing quest to a) fight cancer, and b) turn me into a bald, wilderness-dwelling survivalist:

It's probably a little tough to see the freshly grown machismo on my face, due to the blinding light reflecting off my shiny forehead.  But it's coming along well.

You can get an update on Team DadCentric's progress here.  There's some very, very manly scruffiness happening across the board.  Still no idea what Movember is all about?  Itching to find a fast and easy way to donate a few bucks towards men's cancer research?  Click here.

I'm going to have to make a facescaping decision soon: full beard?  Goatee?  Chin moss?  Soul patch, for the obnoxious coffeehouse poet in me?  I'm pretty sure the official Movember rules state you're supposed to grow out just the 'stache, with no other facial adornment.  But if I do that, you guys, I'm going to look like a discount 70s porn star who's desperate for work.  Even if I had hair on my head, a solo 'stache would look strange -- but considering I have no head hair, it would just look freakish.  I have to stand in front of 100 students twice a week, people.  I'd like to try and hang onto that last tiny shred of respect I've got left in the classroom.  As it is, they're already looking at me apprehensively with the facial hair I've cultivated so far.  One student (who feels way too comfortable being honest with me) said that a full beard makes me look like a serial killer.

I don't know what he's talking about.  Although I did decide that I'm going to walk into all my classes looking like this today:

Wait! Come back!  Let's diagram some sentences!

2.  Climbing the Mountain on the Backs of the Oppressed
If I ever write a memoir about teaching, I think that will be the title.  I just finished scaling Everest grading a mammoth stack of papers.  The assignment was to write a researched editorial piece that presents a unique take on a local or regionally focused issue -- something current.  (I had to add a special addendum on the assignment sheet explaining that the paper must be plagiarism-free.  Sometimes you have to actually articulate it.)   They could pick any issue they wanted; it didn't have to be something on last week's California ballot, although that was fine if they wanted to go that way.  I told them they could pick any topic they wanted.  Here's a sampling of some of the titles I received:

Pot Rocks!
Marijuana for the Masses
Freedom to Toke
It's for Medicinal Purposes, Dammit
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of a Sweet High


and:


Mexico: The Silent Storm Lurking at Our Doorstep

I'm still not quite sure what that last one is actually about.  And I read it twice.

3.  Atrophy, Thy Name Is... My Name
Thanks to work, child, and personal lassitude, it's been about a week since I've gone to the gym to pick up heavy things and put them down again several times in a row.  Sure, I know what you'll say: cultivating this massive beard is a form of exertion in itself.  Shouldn't it count as exercise?  Yes, yes it should.  It doesn't grow like this on its own, folks.  It requires effort.  I've actually been doing 15 face crunches a day to help push this scruff out so quickly.

Most people think lifting weights is boring.  They're right.  But I like that.  Lately, it seems that the only way my brain can stop spinning in its pan is to do something repetitive and monotonous that requires little or no cognitive reasoning.  It helps me stop thinking,  lowers my stress, keeps me chill, and apparently ensures that I'm more pleasant for my family to be around later.  (What am I like when I don't exercise?  See above photo.)  I need to get back to my routine soon.  It's good for me, good for family, and frankly, good for America.

4.  Links: DadCentric and CultureBrats
I'm over at DadCentric today with a new post.  It's about how the Mini-Pirate came up with a great pretend game to play with me, and how I subsequently crapped all over it.  And made her cry.  Awesome.  Yet another entry in my ongoing (lifelong), "How to be a Better Dad than Me" series.

On the less guilt-ridden side, I've also been recapping AMC's new zombie series The Walking Dead over at Culture Brats.  My take on the second episode is here.  Check it out.  There's viscera.