http://www.makepovertyhistory.org Journey of life: January 2007

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Hairy ponder

I haven't been writing. But see, I am not all that good at it either so I thought that whenever the bug comes back to bite me, I'll react. I just got bitten. So, in an attempt to react, I started thinking. This is where things come to a dead end, most often. Thinking- I start scratching my beard ('goaty' or 'goatee', actually) and think some more, and then I ruffle my hair and then... I give up. But this time, the goatee-scratching part of the process gave me an idea- yay! And what would that be? Simple- write about beards, goatees (well, I don't even know whether 'goatee' is a word and I seem to have invented a plural already) and (my favourite) the French connection.

And you are not going to believe this (unless you already know) there's a whole website dedicated to goatees. Now, please take time to read the introduction before clicking the link- I think you might appreciate it more. Their tagline's the best "groom that goat". I just got up after rolling on the floor with laughter. Apparently, that's not it. What do they do- they teach people to *shave*. It just keeps getting better- they have "Goatee Haikus". And you know what, I feel better about this post now. After all, it's just one post and it does not have any poems about hair or any instruction manual for getting rid of it. People who know Tamil will appreciate this part of the post a wee bit more than the others, I think.
Here's the link: www.goatee.org

Anyway, I decided to keep one because it looks quite good on me (or atleast that's what I think) and it's a regular feature on my face now. It's not really what one would call a "French Beard" because there's no moustache. I've actually wondered why they call the other one (the one with the moustache) a "French" beard. French to me implies bad and/or vulgar. That's primarily because of this post and secondarily because "French" brings back bad memories of a Professor who hated me because she had not seen me for one month after she had started teaching my class. In any case, the origin of some phrases is quite vague and this one is even more so because (atleast, as far as I know) it's Indian. So, I think it's best to abort the attempt to reach the root, right now.

I have cleared the cobweb but there's too much hair, all around. So, I think I'll soon be back to clean it up. Until then, leaving you with some more hairy trivia: did you know that there are "World Beard and Moustache Championships"? Well, now you know. Caution: Heart patients and children below the age of 5 are advised not to view the following page. Others, please do so at your own risk: http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com