Fix what you can, forget what you can’t and learn to know the difference. Sound familiar?

Among my other restlessnesses lately has been some beard dissatisfaction . So after seeing some pictures on Thor’s blog, I reached for the clippers and set to work.

One new thing – going grey makes it much harder to shape your beard, because you have to decide whether to follow the contour of the grey or just assert a shape. There’s a problem with doing that though, because as any painter knows, contrasting lights and darks tend to make shapes independent of the surface they reside on. Thus I found myself looking at odd shapes in the beard that I didn’t quite know how to tackle. It’s all much easier when you buzz things to a uniform length, but I’m not prepared to go back to that again.

Something else about facial hair shaping: It felt like I was putting my recent illness behind me. Something purgative about it all in all. I had been growing the goatee and mustache portion out for a while, but its flat shovel shape was irking me.

Here’s the result:

I’ve left a little tab on the front for those who like to tug it. And the mustache wings probabaly won’t make it through the weekend, but they’re fine for now.

And now to get back to the art I’m working on.