Oh yeah, THAT guy.
Shortly after I moved into this house I was visiting with some new neighbors. One of them spent most of the visit trying to figure out how to tactfully ask why I had a wedding picture of my first husband up on the wall. She didn’t recognize the clean-shaven, head-of-hair man in the wedding photo as bald-and-bearded Howard.
Yesterday Howard shaved his beard off. He’s had that beard for 10 years, which is most of the time that I’ve known him. He shaved off the beard once about 10 years ago and I asked him to put it back. We both like the way the beard alters the shape of his face. In this case the decision for Howard to shave isn’t motivated by personal preference. He talks about it here: (http://www.livejournal.com/users/howardtayler/95121.html) I completely support and honor his decision to put spirituality before vainity. It helps a lot that he is still attractive to me. I keep glancing over at him and thinking “Oh yeah, THAT guy. I married him didn’t I?”
He’s still attractive, what he isn’t is familliar. We’re both a little off balance as we try to figure out what works stylistically with beardless Howard. Two weeks from now when beardless Howard has become normal I’ll look at this entry and wonder why I bothered to write it.