There are probably 3 people besides myself with beards on base. There’s the porn ’stache contingent, like something out of Tales of the City, the guys who look out of place in them, in their flight suits the colored of the most abundant resource around these parts. There’s the 5 o’clock shadow contingent, the slightly more rebellious men, skirting the rules, playing with the time possibilities of a 24/7 operation.
I was keeping my beard closely trimmed, to go with the hair, (even though it also lightens it and hides the red, makes me look younger in that trying to look older way), but now my charger won’t light up and I fear it will cut out when I’m halfway through, which would leave me with only one option: a lunch time rush to the PX to get a new trimmer (having seen their selection I’d end up hurting myself, necessitating waiting to go into town, or far, far worse) to re-balance the Dr Jekyll Mr. Hyde look that would be sure to appear.
I’ve started moving my mouth with the words to songs lately at the gym. Takes my mind off the thing, although sometimes lately the odd songs come on, the ones that i don’t know if I would have really noticed as much before, or at least require a different mind space. Some are just so funny when you consider the place that I have to laugh as I wordlessly sing along. Gossip’s Music for Men is in heavy rotation and Le Tigre’s classic Viz is hitting every note. Stripped of the whole aura of indie self-satisfaction and just able to appreciate the music for what it is, that’s what I’ve missed. Still, I try not to completely slip out of the world to observe it; I miss too much that way. Lots off La Roux’s latest album. It’s weird, but her slow, methodical parsing of her songs actually works well with my abs work out, though no one can beat the Beyonce. It’s helping mitigate the current (until the last episode) Angela Montenegro experiment only so much, but at least I’ll look a bit more fab when I do return.
The next 2 months are going to send me like so much buckshot into the air and I won’t really know where I’ll be or even if I’ll be in touch, whether the holidays will even be holidays in anything but name, so I’m taking my days to myself, a little imposed exterior control. A whole weekend this time, a half day tomorrow, then we’ll see.
