Project GLOWWORM

I trimmed down to stubble & then shaved my beard on Friday, 7 November before I departed for Xanadu. The shave was a belated birthday present to a denizen of Xanadu, who had argued for the last four years that I should keep my magnificent moustache but shed my burly beard. The cleanshaven offering reaffirmed how terribly misguided that view is, as I always argued. I shaved again on the morning of Sunday, 9 November so as to be presentable later that day at church. The beard has been re-growing unfettered for just over a fortnight now. It had been four years since I'd seen my flabby jawline shorn of hair, so I cannot comment with much accuracy how the restoration is progressing compared to the original 2010, post Banzai Beard Bonanza II: Bonsai's Revenge growth, but I'm satisfied. My visage is not yet as it should be, but we're getting there. I am a more sanguine fellow than I was four years hence.

The oddest thing about shaving the beard is that with just the moustache I looked much older. I looked like someone's dad, someone in middle management. Shaving was a dreadful, painful experience, one I am all the more determined not to subject myself to moving forward.

I am re-growing my whiskers differently than before. Four years ago, just as in the B.B.B.II, I shaved my cheeks after realizing that the coverage afforded by the hairs there was insufficient & clashed with the rest of the beard. In the years since, I've continued to shave my cheeks, noting that allowing those hairs to grow in from scratch while the rest of the beard was already in full bloom was a recipe for disaster. I am not convinced that the cheek coverage is yet up to snuff, but this was a ripe moment to find out, when the whole edifice was starting over from square one. My beard is not yet what it should be, but it is substantial enough to have restored the basic profile of my cherished whiskers. The new profile is different, what with the cheeks. I hope the coverage will be sufficient not to need to shave them, but I'll do so if I must. I have shaved a little bit, just under my nose where the moustache hairs have always driven me crazy, & at the corners of my mouth, where the new hairs both itched like mad & dragged down the flying handlebars of my moustache. I let those hairs grow for an increasingly frustrating week & felt like a new man once they'd been felled by the razor.

The Victors | Project OSPREY
I didn't watch either of this week's tournament games, played at a neutral site in old New Amsterdam, the Barclays Center, home of the National Basketball Association's Brooklyn Nets. I was planning to watch yesterday's game, but was thwarted as not just our house but much of southeastern Michigan was subjected to a massive cable blackout (television, internet, & bundled landline telephone service), one of unprecedented scale in my experience.

Tuesday, 25 November 2014
(№ 12) Villanova 60-55 Michigan (№ 19)
4-1, B1G 0-0

Even without seeing the game, one can discern that it fell into a pattern consistent with Michigan losses under Coach Beilein: When the valiant Wolverines score eighty or more points (80+), they are undefeated. A low-scoring affair means an opposing defense has hobbled our high-flying offense, & we rarely win games on the strength of our own defense.

Monday, 24 November 2014
(№ 19) Michigan 70-63 Oregon
4-0, B1G 0-0

I am always a fan of any victory over the ancient enemy, the Pac-12.

Next: Nicholls State on Saturday, 29 November, in the friendly confines of the Crisler Center.

Go Blue!