Gotta shake myself up here

(and what follows naturally is "I should run away, run away, run away.")

For those of you that follow me on Twitter or are my Facebook friend, you already know that I'm getting the equivalent of the 7 year itch with my facial hair. And in all actuality - it really has been 7 years. July 2003 and Heidi was gone to an RWA conference. I decided not to shave for a week just for fun. And for whatever reason, it stuck. My brother had always been on my case about when I was going to grow a beard since I was the only male in the family capable of it - not true as my dad now has a goatee. So I decided why the hell not?

But frankly, I'm kind of bored with it. I shouldn't be bitching because it's very low maintenance, especially when compared to being clean shaven. And I've been down this road before and I always end up growing it back as I really don't like my clean shaven face and looking at it is just plain jarring for me.

You can blame that ridiculous celebrity Doppleganger thing on Facebook for the current wave of beard ennui. I hesitated putting up that picture of David Tennant as my celebrity Doppleganger as really, there's only a very minor resemblance. The fact that I had the same glasses as he did for a few years enhanced the resemblance, but really, I felt uncomfortable putting it up as my profile picture. I finally relented and did it. But now I no longer want facial hair. I want sideburns.

I don't want anything ridiculous looking. I don't want anything that makes me look like I'm trying to be 23 when I'm nearly 38. I'm very acutely aware of "acting my age" and not looking like an older guy trying to be young. I did sideburns for a Halloween costume a couple years ago and I actually toyed with the idea of keeping them but ultimately chickened out. I'm not sure how it would play at work - will it look stupid? It is, as many people have pointed out - just hair and it grows back, especially for me because I can grow my full beard back in approximately 72 hours.

So far, the response on Twitter and FB has been overwhelmingly "do it." Except for one person and that person is Heidi who has the equivalent of 128 votes. In the end, it is my face and she has no more control over it than I do the length of her hair. I still can't decide and will wallow in the indecision for a while. But I do feel the need for a shake-up and that might just be the ticket.

Writing about it in greater than 140 characters has helped me sort it out a bit more and has also pushed Wilson Phillips a bit further down the page. I didn't think they'd stay up there that long.