Independence Day Weekend

PwC gave us July 1 off this year, resulting in a four-day weekend to kick off the month of July! One-and-a-half days are already behind us, in which we got the yard mowed, took Samwise (the latest feline addition to the fam) to the vet for his first shots, lunched with Andrea at Porky's, fitted my suit for Ben's wedding, dined with Keri at Olive Garden (and explored 2nd & Charles, a huge discount bookstore), and desserted (not to be confused with deserted) with Rob & Amy at Bruster's. We didn't get back home from our afternoon's explorations until 10:30 or so, and then we finally got in bed around 11:30--not super late, but when combined with the activities and totally abnormal sleep schedules of the last few weeks and a lack of alarms being set, we were out pretty solidly until 10 o'clock this morning, which is the latest we've slept in months.

Having a four-day holiday weekend is simultaneously a boon and a bane: a boon because it grants "extra" time to tie up loose ends and work on projects that have been neglected, time to do things out and about on a weekday that would normally find me at work, and so on; a bane because it can magnify fatigue--with nowhere to be at a certain time of the day, even our aspirations for the days struggle against our bodies' message of "I'm worn out! I need some time to recover!" So here, two and a half hours into the waking hours of our second day of the weekend, we've been up, taken care of the kitties' needs, breakfasted (Stephanie baked some tasty apple walnut muffins and bread on Thursday which we enjoyed this morning), straightened up a few things around the house, fought with the wireless for a while, and I shaved.

The latter may not sound like a big deal, but this is the first time I've shaved (less one trim of my neck and cheeks over a month ago) since the first couple days of April. I purchased a safety razor, shaving brush and soap off Amazon at the end of March, and my order arrived somewhere around April Fool's day. Up until that point, my experience with shaving was limited to electric razors and trimmers, so using a manual shaver was going to be a completely new undertaking. I had learned of the existence of safety razors from an article on Art of Manliness, and since my acute dislike for shaving--though multifaceted--was largely because of the way electric shavers tore up my face and neck, I decided to try this "throwback" method, since one of the claimed benefits was less razor burn because of the fewer blades (one) being used versus modern four- and five-blade razors and the numerous blades used in an electric shaver. Anyway, to make a longish story shorter, I shaved twice with the razor and was quite pleased with the results--especially since it was my first time with anything besides electric. But then I just got lazy again and stopped--for three months. Well, I finally decided that I was getting rather too bushy, and I wanted to use my razor more than twice every few months, so this morning I pulled out my beard trimmer (actually I pulled it out a couple days ago to make sure it was charged up enough to tackle my face jungle), and began methodically reducing my facial hair.

I like taking self-portraits as I shave off my beard; I do it most every time I shave, so there are certainly some repeated styles over time, but it's nonetheless a fun part of the initial trimming stage. So now, as I sit here typing, my face is nearly bare--I used the longest short guard to get everything evened up to a long stubble all over, and tomorrow I'll pull out one of my safety razors (I purchased a vintage Gillette at What's on 2nd? in downtown Birmingham two weeks ago and cleaned it up) and finalize the clean shave. From there, I hope to stay clean clean shaven for at least the rest of the summer. That will be the longest I've ever shaved consistently, so it's going to be pretty different for me. In a way, though, I'm looking forward to it since it will be something different, and we'll see how long I stick with it.