Priscilla, Queen of the Hirsute

This morning was the first time in my life I have felt like a drag queen, and a bad one at that.

My beard, as seen in a flickr photoset near you, was really fucking unruly, to the point that my wife balked at kissing me. At least she said it was the beard. To be honest it was getting out of control and really pissing me off regardless, but when Krissa starts pushing me away it's a good indicator that something has to be done.

This is the usual stage at which I decide my beard needs a trim. Only when it gets that bad can it warrant the effort of actually getting the trimmer out and spending those valuable extra ten minutes in the morning slashing off the errant hairs that are shockingly longer than their companions and generally messing up my facial style statement. For someone who hates shaving, this once-every-three-weeks-to-a-month ritual is an excellent substitute.

Anyway. I'd given the chops a good once-over with the guarded trimmer and whipped off the guard to rein in my moustache, when I spotted an aura of light fluffy hair that had somehow escaped the general slaughter. I don't usually drink coffee before getting to work, which might explain the reason why I cackhandedly tried to get the wispy bits with the unguarded trimmer, leaving a huge swath of bare skin on my cheek.

At which point there was no going back. I went over my whole face with the trimmers, leaving a bizarrely unfamiliar salt-and-pepper stubble all over. (Is New York aging me that much?)

I've had a beard for over a year now, in which time we've had countless bathroom reorganizations AND moved apartments. All that was left of my wet-shaving paraphenalia was some green sludge that used to be my shaving gel and the handle of a Gillette Mach 3 razor. I tore the (immaculately organized) cupboard apart to no avail, but that is when I noticed the bag of razor heads Krissa uses for shaving her legs, also made by Gillette.

And I thought 'They'll fit on this handle, surely. No company would design two separate attachment mechanisms...'

Which, for someone who just took a chunk out of his facial hair with an electric trimmer, is pretty advanced fucking reasoning.

So I pulled the bag out of the cupboard and looked inside. There were four or five little plastic containers with 'Gillette Venus' on, and one with 'Gillette Venus Divine'. This is where it starts going a bit girlyman.
I naturally chose the 'Gillette Venus Divine'...because, I mean, who wouldn't want the best razor they could get? I've got really sensitive skin when I shave (hence the hate) so why the hell not?

So off we start with the green sludge remnants and the Venus Divine and things are going well until I get to my mouth. Men's razors are small-headed, whippy little things, made for manoeuvrability and getting into hard-to-reach areas. Women's razors are large, barge-like constructions, made to make you think of words like 'glide' and 'smooth' and most importantly to shave LEGS. Big, noseless expanses of skin. So I have to pull parts of my face into eerily flat shapes by wrenching my nose and lips this way and that, so that by the time I think I'm finished I feel like I've had my face attacked by a masseuse with a meat tenderizer.

Only I'm not finished.
Peering into the mirror I realize with horror that it is the end of July.
Despite my best hermit-like tendencies, the top half of my face is darker than the lower half. The lower half is, in fact, so pasty and white that the tiniest stubble from a distance makes it look grey.
A grey face is really fucking weird.
Freshly clean-shaven, and I have 5 o'clock shadow.

So I reach for the Venus Divine again and I'm leaning forward into the mirror to try and rid myself of all traces of shadow on my chin, when it occurs to me that I have no aftershave and I start wondering where Krissa's moisturizer is and THAT's when it hit me that I was having the morning of a bad drag queen.