Part of getting ready to go on a big trip is making plans to see your friends before you leave.  I fly out in 10 days (!) and am not sure how I’m going to fit everybody in, but have decided to make seeing those with beards a first priority.

 

Jean Pierre reflecting his lovely wife, Shaz

I’m just so damn happy the beard is back.  Seeing a group of bearded hipsters crossing Sunset Blvd. makes me feel the way I imagine someone living in small town Alaska must feel seeing a moose wander down Main Street after a long hunting season:  Giddy, relieved, home at last.

What killjoy decided a face-full of hair was uncool anyway?  Or a pantfull for that matter?  Where did all our hair go?  What did it ever do to us that we feel compelled to go after it with razors, scissors, tweezers, chemicals, lasers, hot wax and insults?

I have half a mind to hand my body over to my hair while I’m in SE Asia, call a cease fire, see what I’m really made of.  I don’t want to die not knowing how far down my thighs my buffalo are capable of roaming.  Especially since I think I could sprout an impressive crop worthy of my Italian heritage.  I just have to decide if I’m up for the commotion it’ll cause.

I’ll never forget going to Naples, Italy for the first time when I was 7  to meet my Dad’s family.  His sister came out of the house, lifted her arms for a big whassamattayou hug and revealed a pitfull of armhair that was as obscene to my virgin, American eyes as if she’d spread her legs and wrapped my head in her crotch.  What lady has hair there?  That moment marked my loss of innoncence and caused me to sleep with my light on for the next three months.  I don’t think I ever got over it.  I’m not sure I want to be responsible for ending some poor kid’s childhood with my bikini line.

Anyway, I had brunch on Sunday with my pal Jean Pierre, film maker/beard grower extraordinaire and his lovely wife, Shaz Bennett, writer/peformer whom I will be performing a two-woman show with when I get back from my trip I’m extremely excited to report.

Then my friend J. Ryan and I went out for drinks but he showed up shaved and beardless, gravely disappointing me and reminding me just how fleeting a beard can be.  Needless to say the thrill is gone so now I’m taking anyone who lives nearby who wants to buy me a farewell beer.

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