undef($beard);

Since either yesterday or today (depending on whether you count the holiday) is my first full day as a Volity "employee", I decided to go ahead with my earlier declaration and kill the beard, as a sort of ceremonial recognition of this career shift.

Which is not to say $beard = 0;. True to the uncertain and partway nature of my job change, I elected to not hack the whole thing off but merely trim down to the number-1 setting on my trimmer (I usually trim to 2). Later in the morning, however, the barber misinterpreted the results as me not having shaved in a couple of days, and so clipped my sideburns in such a way that I basically had to shave the rest off, or look like an idiot. For some reason, he didn't offer to do it, and I didn't ask; instead I just went home and did it myself, using my trimmer with the comb attachment removed. But since it's not designed to actually shave closely, I'm left with stubble.

Actually, for now, I rather like it. At any rate it's the most beardless I've been since 1997. Unexpected: when I look in the mirror now, I'm kind of disturbed by how exposed and obvious my lips look. It's probably just me, but really, my naked mouth looks enormous and red. Who knew?

Pictures after I go get some new clothes. (And some proper shaving stuff, I guess.) Which I'm going to go do right now.

Fashion Victim part 3: I hate shopping for clothes and am bad at it.

I didn't do a very good job of it this afternoon. I need to make at least one more run, and then do the rest online.

Shirts: FAILURE Well, I didn't look too hard today, really. I'll leave it for another trip.

I looked a little in American Apparel but -- despite the fact that I like to think I've worked past the prudishness of my upbringing -- the amateur porn all over the walls seared my eyes and minimized the length of my visit. Not so much because porn is scary but because I already feel pretty out of place and uncomfortable shopping for clothes, so any stimulus that adds to these feelings tends to push me out the door that much faster.

(While their models reveal less skin than those whose images decorate some other clothing stores I could name, the harsh lighting used in the photography just screams basement studio with highly profitable website, to me. (I did appreciate that the models look like real people and not sixpacked/siliconed posebots, but.))

However I got a couple of black T-shirts there because I can't have too many of those.

Blue jeans: FAILURE In every place I looked, all the jeans that were neither bleached nor possessing painted-on poo stains were not quite in my size. (Noted: many pants for tiny, spheroid men.) I finally got one pair but didn't realize that it was stupid-baggy until I took it home. I'll see if I can return it. Macy's (where I bought it) used to have a wall-of-jeans, a matrix of cubbies organized by size, and they all looked the same, and that was fine. Now they don't anymore. I think I will fall back to the Gap for these, as they have the only wall-of-jeans left that I know about.

I did at least get a nice pair of dark brown khakis.

Sportcoat: FAILURE BCF had a beautiful blue corduroy coat that was juuust slightly too big. I almost got it anyway coz it was only $40 because only dorks wear corduroy sportcoats. Dorks like me. Made a note of the manufacturer so I could look online for it, but forgot the manufacturer's name almost immediately. I'll look again tomorrow morning. And bring a pen.

Socks: SUCCESS I got nine pair of black crews for like $15 in Filenes' Basement. All riiight.