But first, Sir, I think ... a shave

I discovered years ago that 1) I hate shaving my face, 2) when I go three or four days without shaving, fiancés and handsome strangers alike can't stop themselves from reaching out to rub my cheeks and 4) I sometimes have trouble counting.

Being fundamentally lazy, I tend to blow off shaving my face pretty regularly. And when it's cold and itchy and wintery, I blow off my shaving ablutions completely.

But! The chorus show opens tonight, and in an effort to look presentable in front of the paying masses I shaved off my scruff this morning, exposing my tender chin for the first time since probably September. And then I stood in front of the mirror for a while trying to recognize the pasty-faced stranger staring back at me.

And when I got to work, I took a self-portrait with my camera phone. Which is way harder than it sounds, though I feel I achieved a nice compositional balance between me, my dry-erase board and the sagging binder shelf that totally undermines my personal feng shui:

I know: EEK! (And that's even with a layer of self-tanner.)

But you can put down your torches and your "Kill the monster!" signs and your villager mob suspicions; the scruff is coming back the moment the show closes. The world is obviously NOT ready for my rubbery white 40-year-old cheeks. Bonus! I may even try to grow a scruff combover to hide the bags under my eyes.