(Don't) Fear the Beard

I couldn't reach the hot dogs at the store tonight. I’m making the traditional and very popular “Pigs in a Blanket” for the preschool holiday potluck on Friday and I needed a lot of them. I never understand why they put things that far back and up high in certain stores, when there are short fat people like me around. I couldn't reach it and I dared not step on the refrigerated case as I might have done years ago lest the whole thing come tumbling down. The manager who helped me wasn't that much taller than me, but he had good arm length and agility.

He was also mostly bald, which caused a hilarious conversation to ensue between he and my daughter. She told him he had a really REALLY big haircut. He said he cut his hair twice a week. She said he wasn't bald because he had a beard. He asked her if she thought that counted and then she told him that her mama also has a beard that she shaves.

Yep. Right there in Trader Joe’s.

In such situations, I have come to find that the following two tactics work best:

1. Brazenly say who and what and how you are before someone else has the chance (over share)
2. If you hide whatever feature you don't necessarily want the world to know and it gets out, loudly acknowledge it with a matter-of-fact hubris (be bombastic and crass)

Perhaps this is why I have a special fondness for certain comedians – Roseanne, in her day; Margaret Cho; Louis C.K. I like the ones who tell it like it is and aren’t afraid to acknowledge the body. I like the ones that talk about food and fat and shit and sex. If they talked about girls with whiskers, I’d like that too, even as I self-consciously felt my face to see if I had stubble.

Because I have learned to cope using the tactics of #1 and #2 above, there’s a lot you may already know about my so-called imperfections. I’m tempted to list more here so you won’t look me up and down the next time we meet trying to figure out what else about me is “outside the box” of traditional beauty. I do this because really, when it comes down to it, this is my way of avoiding the surprise. You can’t humiliate me if I put it all out there first. I oughta know; I was humiliated a lot as a child by other children.

Intellectually, I know I should not be embarrassed about how I look. And I’ll fight you in public if you tell me that I need to lose weight. It’s not that I’m not a product of my particular social class, upbringing or our shared historical moment, but I have worked for years to extricate myself from the half-truths that would have me torture myself rather than try to change the world.

Still, while I admire women who let their whiskers grow (that takes chutzpah!), it’s not for me. I thank god for Mach 3 Turbo action and coconut-vanilla shaving cream. I’ve tried lasers but that was almost as painful as back labor and didn’t work for my “hormonally based” problems. Not to mention the cost.

I wish my skin were smooth and carefree. I wish I could go camping without worrying about how to shave before everyone wakes up in the morning. I wish I were less pre-occupied with a post-apocalyptic world in which I imagine there are no more razors or straight edges. But in the mean time, I just take really long showers, shave closer than you might think possible, tell the truth to my kids (and anyone else who will listen) and try to keep my chin up, as it were.