From 02/15/08: 2 More Hair Blogs

Hair Blog 3 Category: Life
This is another hair related blog about my husband. This is the second in a series of who knows how many blogs about his hair problems. For those of you new to my blogs, I will be put the first one about his back hair at the end of this. Ray has always had trouble growing facial hair. When we were younger, he could not really grow much at all. It was very patchy. He could never have survived in the 70's and 80's. He would have been ridiculed right out of the Tom Selleck (however you spell that) fan club. As he has gotten older, he has become more able to grow some hair, but it always seemed a little sparce and patchy to me. I was never the biggest fan of the facial hair, but it was his life long dream to have some. Heidi asked me one day if I liked the facial hair and I told her not really. Then I explained the reason I could tolerate it. See, every month or two, Ray gets a wild hair and decides he is going to grow a mustache or a goatee. Sometimes the goatee is just on the chin and sometimes it is one of those that connects to a mustache. For the first week or two, Ray is in heaven. He spends a great deal of time grooming it, petting it, and admiring it. It is like his own little baby. At about day 13 of the growth, Ray comes downstairs after his shower and he has shaved it all off. When I ask him why he shaved it, the answer (for the past 10 years) is the same. "I was trimming it up with a razor, shaving around it, and I messed it up." EVERY TIME. And, if I paid more attention to the hair, I would notice that for a few days before the complete shave, the mustache and/or goatee would start getting progressively smaller. Each day, as he would try to groom it, he would mess it up a little more and have to make it smaller until, finally day 13 arrives. So, I told Heidi that the reason I could tolerate the not so great facial hair is because Ray would only maintain it for a little while and by the time I really got sick of it, he would butcher it. Then, I would have a few weeks of cleanly shaven husband until he decided to start over again. The other day I was out with Heidi and one guy was teasing his very hairy friend who was in his 30's. The non hairy friend was commenting that all the 18 year old girls probably liked his with his great mustache/goatee because the only thing that their male peers could grow was a "sleazestache." When I heard that, I instantly knew that that was what Ray had. My man is the sleazestache king. As I discussed this with him, he vehemently denied this. He insisted that his mustache was full and that only one part was sparce. He said that he used to not have the mustache and goatee connection because the hair did not grow right below the corners of his mouth. Now, he says he only has that problem (slightly) on the left side. I asked him about any other issues with his facial hair that he would like to divulge. He said that when he does grow the complete mustache that connects to the goatee (by what I call the hair bridge), that the left side will lay down very nicely, but that the right side sticks out like porcupine quills. He did get a little defensive when I tried to tell him that he could not really grow the facial hair. Ray told me recently that he remembered exactly when he had the best goatee ever. He said it was before Ozzfest a few years back. He went on to describe the fullness and length of the goatee. I laughed for 10 minutes over the fact that he could remember that with such detail. That wonder-goatee etched a memory in his brain that brought sheer joy to his face. I can just imagine that that memory will be in the top 3 of things he remembers in life, behind the births of his 2 children. I might even venture to say that it might even creep into spot number 2 depending upon which child is driving him nuts in a day. The only thing I remember about the uber goatee is that he could not keep his hands off of it. It was almost like he had his own little pet stuck to his chin. Well, Ray and I looked for a picture of the greatest goatee ever and I found it in my July 2005 folder on the computer. When I double clicked on picture and it popped up, I instantly started laughing out loud. I had to stifle my laugh since both kids were asleep. As soon as I saw the pic, I started to cry because I was laughing so hard. I even had snot bubbles coming out of my nose, I was laughing so hard. That goatee looked like a hairy horseshoe on his chin or maybe even the lips of a hairy, gross smiley face. Ray insisted that it was how goatees looked, but I told him that i had never seen one that looked like that. And, when I googled that, there was not one goatee that looked like that one did. I roared when I realized that when Ray thought about the best goatee ever, he thought of this picture. If you check out my pictures, look under "family" album and you will see it. I think he will be in denial about this forever. So, I will just deal with the 15 weeks of crappy sleazestache and the horseshoe of hair on his chin.
Back Hair Blog from May 2007
As you get older, I think that hair becomes more of an issue. Some of you may have read my previous blog related to chin hairs Once again, a hair issue has sparked my creativity. When Ray and I started dating in 1993, I was 18 and he was 19. At that time, Ray had hair on his legs, head, arms, and a small patch on his chest. No big deal. I would say in about 2000, 3 years into marriage, I began to notice that he was getting a little thin on the top of his head. He grew more chest hair, and he started to have a some hair on his back. The back hair was nothing that he could not manage himself with a razor once a month or so. He would mainly focus on it in the summer when we might go tubing or swimming with friends. As the years passed, the hair on his head decreased dramatically, he grew a lot of chest hair, and the back hair, oh the back hair. The upper torso nuisance has grown into a calamity. The once a month manscaping turned into a weekly thing. It is no longer something that he can take care of on his own. It has become a couple issue. The hair has gotten to the point that he can no longer just shave the top and be ok. Now, I have to be intimately involved in the care and grooming of my husband. I have noticed that over the past year, he has started to complain more about the hair and the fact that people at his job comment on the monkey crawling out of the top of his shirt. He frequently mentions that I need to help him manage the hair. He has begun to brush the shoulder hair into a nice 1970's Eric Estrada type do. The hair has also started to creep down the back sides of his upper arms. Now, that is especially disturbing to me. I remember in one of the towns in which I lived, maybe Stephenville, seeing a super white trash guy in his 50's who would always wear a sleeveless tshirt to the bar. He was greasy looking and looked like he smelled. He had so much fur on his shoulders and the back of his arms that we said he was wearing a sweater. That is what I imagine when I see that back-of-upper-arm hair on my sweet husband (who is not white trash.ok, maybe a little). I cannot believe that he now sports a hairy sweater vest. We have been married for 10 years now. Last week, I knew the magic was over when Ray was standing in the big garden tub of our home with me using clippers (yes, like you would use on a dog) to shave his back hair (and arm and shoulders and flanks and upper crack region). He was wearing shorts, but I had him bend over slightly, "like you would do at work, " I told him, so that I could also clip the hair that would show above his scrub pants. You know the honeymoon is over when you reflect upon your manscaping couple time.