- so anyway, I was having meself a bit of a Meet Joe Black moment this morning while indulging meself in a good shave (always appreciate it more if it's had a few days growing-in getting done) - if you've seen the film, it's the bit where Pitt-as-Death is explaining to Sir Anthony of Hopkinshire how it is that he's still 'taking care of business' as it were while he's following mister H all over the place - it being likened to when a fella's shaving his face, he's doing other things besides like thinking up excuses for why he's about to be late for work or seeing how far he can look up his nose when his head's in the right place in front of the mirror, or whether or not he should try and chat up Shirley from accounts, metaphysically speaking.
...if you haven't seen the film, well it's still the same bit, but it's just that you don't know what I've been going on about for the last few sentences. Then again, that often happens with these journals of mine - and I don't know either half the time, I just keep making this stuff up as I go along and hoping it turns into something more or less coherent by the time I get to the point - assuming there ever was one.
Well, it struck me after I'd done the initial bit of scything that it's strange sometimes when you uncover your fizzog after you've let it go fallow for a week or so (fortunately I'm not in one of these office-job-things where I have to go around being all neat and stuff - or worse yet, working at Disneyland...well, excepting the somewhat skewed version of it that lives in me noggin, anyway - ) that you're almost meeting a stranger staring back at you even though it's really just you - a bit like that thing Goethe had to deal with except he died not long after. That'll learn him.
This got me thinking - well, a bit. See, it's odd enough just after a few days of lettin-it-be, so I imagine it must be really weird for these blokes who suddenly take it upon themselves to finally have a shave after maybe twenty years of doing the full-on face-fur thing - as a case in point there's a guy works up near where I do, one of the security guards up there, who for heck knows how long has sported the sporty version of a santa-claus cut, a fairly short but well-kept, and impressively pure white chin-rug - and he went and had himself one of them whim things (you can get 'em on mail-order for about fifteen quid nowadays, they turn up in the post two days later and you go off on 'em, brilliant stuff.) and fetched the lot off. Thougt we'd gone and got a new security guard the next time I saw him - and actually, to be a bit brutal, I think his face wished it'd stayed hid. I think he thunk so too, 'cause he was growing it back again as soon as the wind let up.
Meanwhile, this naturally led me to think about fanny wigs.
Well, it would, I hear you type. Oh, and for those watching in Americanese flavour, that's the British version of the word, which is potentially a lot ruder, since it's round the other side - and this is in spite of the fact we once used to have a TV-chef called Fanny Craddock. I kid you not, that's not just a term I made up as another name for a bum-bag, honest. So much then, for my ambition to keep this month's journal out of the general trouser area of things - although I suppose at least I've come out of the trousers, and am now lurking around the underwear department of the universe. Hmm, pink really isn't my colour.
- anyroad up - the other bit of the wondering-thing went wandering along the lines of something to do with this meeting-of-a-stranger phenomenon coming to pass whenever a chap or chapess might take it upon their respective selves to do a bit of pruning and/or topiary in certain other follically-forested regions of the physionogolomily-thing (by which of course I chiefly mean that little wiry welcome-mat where we'd actually prefer if people didn't wipe their feet, unless of course in a metaphorical sense), what with the modern trend towards keeping yer borders in order with a deft swish of the shears: after you've done giving yer bits a bit of a scare with that razor, things are bound to be looking a bit different - as far as the blokes' side of things goes, a bit like taking the top off a turtle.
...actually, this sort of thing isn't all that modern a pastime - I'm reminded of a fact of the little-known variety concerning an art-critic of the Victorian era or thereabouts, one William Ruskin (nothing to do with rusks, although he could've been a rusk-rustler with a name like that...and with William for a first name he certainly ought to have been better informed about this sort of thing) - anyway, being accustomed to the typical depiction of the female nude in art at the time as an entirely denuded being, he was apparently outraged and reportedly horrified and sickened to discover upon the night of his wedding that his wife was fully fledged, as it were.
- the thing about depictions of nude women was that of course the majority of artists' models at the time were prostitutes, and the vagaries of their trade meant that the pubic louse was living it large wherever it could get its hooks in - and thus the removal of anything that might provide a foothold was a common practice, resulting in the aforementioned denuded Venuses and Dianas and whatever else might take your fancies. This was also a good time in history for the makers of merkins, which is why I brought up the subject earlier.
- some or all of that may of course just be a load of cobblers courtesy of an art-teacher who liked to spin a yarn or two - but whether that's the case or not, I'll bet there's a few folks feeling a bit itchy after reading all that stuff about knacker-nits. Sorry about that...
So of course this all leads to a serious contemplation of a fella's cods - by which of course I mean this fella doing the typing-thing, I'm not about to start staring up another bloke's inside leg when I've got a perfectly good set of me own, ta very much. But anyway, it's a peculiar collection of bits and pieces, and strange that one of the components outnumbers the other by a ratio of 2:1 or thereabouts (usually, anyway).
There's a definite comfort of some sort to be derived from counting 'em when you get up in the morning, and often at several stages throughout the day; but it's not the prettiest thing ever devised, is it? - kind of like the ugly duckling after all the other birds in so many words have given it a good kicking-in.
It's surprising, considering our obsession with these things, that we haven't come up with a better design yet - y'know, having it removable, and available in different sizes or whatever - so you can have one for showing off when you go swimming, and a more compact model for when you just need the thing to stop constantly getting in the way, or hanging out where it shouldn't, trying to escape from your boxers, that sort of thing - or maybe one you could just keep in your pocket to be taken out whenever a given need might present itself.
Also, what about having different attachments to keep your missiz grinning, and maybe something to help with the hoovering in those hard-to-reach corners, and a sprinkler for the garden - you'd have blokes collecting 'em like thimble-tops or something - heck, it'd be like the grown-up version of Pokemon, we'd all be out at dinner break swapping with our mates and fighting over the rare ones...
- anyway, I've blathered on for too long and a bit yet again, all this talk of shaving things has reminded me I need to give my noggin the no. 2 treatment again...actually, I'd better explain that a bit - what I mean is, I have a buzz-cutter with several attachments (which quite spoookily ties in a bit with what I was just going on about, howzaboutthatthen), the number 2 being quite a good cropping device...probably for several purposes...thought I'd better riddle that out rather than have folks wondering if I've developed some peculiar scatological means of washin' me wool - I'm sure there are gurus sittin' up on high mountains somewhere in the world proclaiming the virtues of turd-tonsorials for scourin' yer scalp - but, call me old-fashioned if you like - when it comes to the hygienics of the head, I'll take sham-poo over the real thing every time.
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