Too Late

Have you ever struggled through something in life and wondered why it was so hard, only to learn that a tool was developed later that would have eased your struggles immeasurably?

Well, I can honestly say that’s happened to me more than once. I mean, if Facebook existed when I was in college, I would obviously have a rampaging sex machine, a Don Juan in Docs, khakis, a flannel, and a baseball cap. There’s no question about it. My lack of success with women in those days wasn’t because I lacked skills in the game of Pitching Woo. It wasn’t because I was a middle reliever. No! The issue is quite clear to me now: it was that I didn’t have a nearly instant, electronic connection to every single woman at my school and every other college in the country!

Today, the Spaceball sent me a link to a similarly world-changing tool. If only I had this tool, mayhap my goatee would still be here today. Of course, that would mean that this blog would never have existed, and that would mean your life would be immeasurably worse than it is today, but it’s still an amazing thought. The tool in question is the Goatee Saver. You can’t just look at the site, either. You must watch the video on the home page. That is restaurant quality video about a world-changing product.

Simply marvelous.

Goat Status

Off.

Back to My Roots

Why, hello there! I feel like I haven't talked to you in forEVa. Well, forever is a bit of a stretch, but it's been quite a while. Really, I've been suffering from a bit of writer's block for while (probably exacerbated by the fact that calling myself a writer is playing fast and loose with the spirit of the term). Couple that with some object-at-rest type of inertia, and you haven't read a peep out of me. All I have to say about that is this: peep.

All seriousness aside, though, it's tough sometimes to decide what to write about. I don't really want to write about college hoops all the time (although it does occupy a good portion of my brain these days), maybe because I don't want to mess with the Hoosiers' recent run or to think about the Wahoos' struggles of late. And I don't want to get into writing about the AFC Championship-bound Colts, either. So I'm thinking that sports is out.

I also have had trouble following up my X-mas story, given that I am highly amused by the whole thing. So what is an Abs to do in the face of such a conundrum? After much deep brain things going on inside my head, I have decided to get back to my roots. At least my roots as far as the Chronicles are concerned. What are those roots, you ask? Facial hair.

That's right. Lest we forget, my goatee (more specifically, it's removal) is what actually started things here at the Chronicles, and we have managed to write more than a reasonable number of posts about it. Still, why would I try to write about it again? Simple: THE GOAT IS BACK.

That's right, I have re-grown my goatee. After about 1.5 years without it, I have decided that I missed it too much to go on, and I took advantage of the time off of work at X-mas to allow it to take hold. I like seeing the goateed version of myself in the mirror these days. Plus, my chin is warmer. The Girl, on the other hand doesn't really know what to think about it. Having never seen it on me before now, it's a bit of an adjustment. From time to time she will cover my goatal area with her hand "just to make sure [I'm] still in there."

So I face the new year with a warmer and fuzzier face. What else I face it with I will talk about in a future post. For now, enjoy your weekend.

P.S. Go Horse!

P.P.S. Go Hoosiers!

P.P.P.S. Go Hoos!

P.P.P.P.S. In gathering the old posts about the goatee, I went back and applied some of Blogger's nice new labels to the old writings to group them together. Unfortunately, doing so moved them to the top of the site's feed. So, to the two of you who actually use the feed, sorry about that. Sadly, I don't think there's anything for it. Moreover, I expect to be doing more of that in the future. So sorry in advance.

P.P.P.P.P.S. Again, I say: peep.

Help or Hindrance?

Don posed an interesting question in the comments to my last post about my 2005 numbers. His question was whether shaving my goatee was a help or hindrance in achieving 2005's goals. It's a good question, but I'm not sure I can give a good answer. As far as breaking 90 goes, I think it's safe to say that my facial hair (or lack thereof) had little to no impact. Whether it influenced my ability to go on two dates with the same person is less clear. [Aside: I had to go back and edit the dating numbers. There is one girl whom I completely left out of the tabulation. However, it's really hard to be sure whether get-togethers with her were dates. So I counted them as half dates.] I've mentioned before that a certain Pretty Boy buddy of mine had lobbied for the goat exorcism long before I shaved it off. I also mentioned that he thought the sequence of events that occurred afterwards validated his claims.

In truth, there is some circumstantial evidence supporting his claim, starting with a surprise encounter with a smooth girl. Later, there was a girl who attempted to force her number on me in an attempt to strong-arm me into asking her out. Granted, that girl was annoying (but not the most annoying girl ever), but nothing like that ever happened when I had the goat. Then, there was the goal-achieving two dates. Finally -- and this is a confession for me, as I described this in the third person at the time -- there was the so-unsmooth-it's-smooth digit getting that actually resulted in 2+ more dates. You may be asking how this is circumstantial evidence. It's because while none of those happenings is a clear result of the removal of the goatee, none had happened while I had it. Heck, I hadn't been on two dates with the same person since ... let's just say it was a long time ago.

I'm afraid I can't give a lot of satisfaction on this question. But I think it's safe to say that the removal of the goatee didn't hurt me in the pursuit of my '05 goals. The debate as to whether I look better with or without the goat still rages, though. For the Pretty Boy (I know you're out there), don't think that because you may have been right in this case that I'm going to start wearing pink (no, salmon is not a color) silky shirts and product in my hair. Not gonna happen. Keep your potential gloating to yourself. But, if you were right -- and I'm not saying you were -- thanks.

I told you I look younger

I told you I look distinctly younger without the goatee than I did with it, and I've had a lot of people clamoring for me to post a picture to prove it. I have explained why I didn't do that originally, but I've finally come up with a pic that represents me pretty well. It's truly amazing to me how much younger shaving the goatee made me look. See for yourselves:

The Post That Wouldn't Die

I know I’ve babbled on about a handful of things here, from the fact that I’m a tool to some no-question-about-it bathroom humor. However, I keep coming back to the thing that started this whole blog in the first place: my goatee, or lack thereof. (You know you love it.)

As an update, I am still rockin’ the smooth chin (as much as someone wary of the person in the mirror can be rockin' a look), and I plan on waiting at least until the end of the summer to commence the re-growth. That said, some of you have asked me how people are reacting to the new look, and I’m going to tell you. So what follows is the breakdown of the reactions I have gathered through very rigorous and scientific polling.

Women

Women are split almost evenly, with approximately 52.428% preferring the clean-shaven Abs to the one with the goatee. Interestingly and surprisingly to me, the majority of these women can pretty much be broken down into two camps:

Camp 1: Married women I have known for a few years and women dating my good guy friends

These women almost unanimously preferred the goatee. They offered only a small variation when explaining their preferences. Many of them claimed that they liked goatees in general, but not on their husband/boyfriend/significant other. "It looks good on you, though. Natural." Draw your own conclusions from that.

Camp 2: Single women and women who have only known me for a short while

These women almost unanimously preferred the clean-shaven Abs. While they agreed that they liked it better, they made widely varying comments:

• “You have beautiful eyes. Not having the goatee makes them much more noticeable.” I don’t even know how to respond to that. How my eyes are related to my goatee, I’ll never know. And no, I’m not making it up. The chick who said it might be crazy, though.
• "I like it. It opens up your face more.” I still don’t know what it means, but at least it doesn’t sound crazy.
• “How did you get that scar on your upper lip?” I notice that thing all the time now, too. While it’s really not very big or coolly grotesque, it seems to dominate my face after having not seen it for 7.5 years. For the record, I got hit in the face with the blade of a shovel.
• "You look more intellectual with the goatee, but I like this look better." I had to report this because I think it's only the third time in my life that I've been accused of anything intellectual. Apparently this girl likes dumb-looking guys.
  
• “Damn! You are sexy. Mmmmm mmm mm!” OK, fine. That was in one of my dreams, but it sounds so much better than those other things that people actually said.

Since we're being scientific here, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention two outliers. One was a single girl I haven’t known for long who is not dating a friend of mine. She had “no opinion whatsoever.” The other is my mom, who hasn’t seen me since I shaved off the goat, but she “never liked it in the first place.” She hasn't told me that she's sure she'd have a daughter-in-law and grandchildren by now if I hadn't had the goat, but I'm sure she's thought it. Apparently, most things I do are part of a big conspiracy centered around depriving her of her natural right to grandchildren. I'm sure she would love to see my brother and me have kids so she could secretly teach them how to be major pains in the ass like we were. But I digress. Moving right along in the poll results brings us to ...

Men

98.5% of men surveyed had no idea that the goatee was gone until they were told.

Of the 1.5% of men who noticed, 67% didn’t give a shit one way or the other. The other 33% thought, “Why not?Change things up a little.” Even my bestest buddy pal could only look at me in wonder and say things like, “Wow. You sure do look different.” And he knew me for 8 or 9 years before I grew the thing. So there's not a lot of useful info to deal with here. Shocking.

With all of those different categories, there is still one person who doesn’t quite fit in anywhere, and it’s not just because I'm confused about where to file responses from pretty boys like him. No, the reason is that he has been lobbying for the goatee exorcism for quite a while. “The goatee’s not working. You need to get rid of it. Women will like it better if you’re clean-shaven.” (He's big on what's "working" and what's not. See Pretty Boy v. I'm just Abs, 1998.) He claimed a victory when I finally shaved it off. He would further like to claim that a preponderance of evidence has cropped up supporting his theories since The Week That Things Changed. However, there haven’t been any significant changes in that regard, and I’m just not buying that it makes much of a difference until there are. Besides, we just can’t let him get a big head. Also, scientifically, I'm supposed to mention these statistical outliers. Mention them, but disregard them. It should be enough for him that he’s pretty.

I'm not looking to draw any conclusions here, as I don't think I need to do a lot of polling of all these people when deciding what to do with my face. I just wanted to pass on the data to those of you who have been wondering about the reaction of the populace.

Have a great Independence Day.

Maybe not so "only"

So it would seem that my comments in my previous post about it possibly being the only installment of the Chronicles that I would ever write were incorrect. In fact, I set this site up so that I could update you all without spamming everyone. Of course, it will now be up to you to check for updates, but there's nothing I can do about that. Well, that's not exactly true. Because I am so generous, I've provided an Atom feed that you can subscribe to, if you're down with the whole syndication thing. If you're not, you can just check back here from time to time.

There are a few things I should tell you about this site, as well as a few questions inspired by The Week That Things Changed that I should answer. I will do so in the ever-popular question and answer format:

Why in the world did you create this site?
When I wrote the email about shaving my goatee, I received a surprisingly large number of emails requesting more of the Chronicles. I also received a surprisingly small number of requests to be removed from my mailing list. So those of you who would rather read about my boring life than think about your own boring or exciting lives are welcome to whenever you like.

You keep calling it a site, but it's really a blog isn't it?
I suppose this is technically a blog, but I doubt I'll update it enough to be a real blogger. I certainly can't imagine being as prolific as Lawton's sister. Still, I can already hear one person saying, "Now Abs is in the blogosphere." "Blogosphere" is a very important word to this person. You know who you are.

Do you really think people want to read about your life?
Umm, no. At least I didn't until some of you clamored for more. Truth be told, I'm sure it was less the story and more the powerful prose and bons mots in my message that left you aching for more. Nonetheless, we aim to please.

Why didn't you include a picture with your email about shaving the goatee? And why don't you have one on this page?
The reasons are many. When I sent out that email, there were as yet no new pictures of me without the goat. Those of you who knew me before I shaved it can probably look at some old pics to get an idea. Those of you who don't are completely SOL. As of right now, there exist a few pics of me with the smooth chin, but none of them are really worth crowing about. Finally, I think you should make an effort to see me in person if you want to experience baby-faced Abs. I feel sure it's been too long anyway.

When you shaved your goatee, did you find more than one chin?
Ha, ha. Very funny. Yes, I'm chubby. Thanks for noticing. Of course, I prefer to be thought of as sexy chubby, but there's no getting away from the chubby part. I was quite curious as to how the chin(s) would look sans goat, and I was happy that there didn't appear to be 2 of them. However, there is definitely more chin material there than I would like, and it shows up when I position my head in certain unflattering ways. So I can't claim to have the ideal 1.0 chins. I think what I'm really dealing with right now is about 1.5 chins.

My God you babble! Do you ever shut up?
Sadly for you, no. But I will wrap this up, because it's getting out of control. To sum up: new blog, less spam, bons mots, no good pictures, 1.5 chins, sexy chubby.

The Week That Things Changed

I'm bringing you this new installment in the Chronicles of Abs whether you like it or not. Think of it as my Christmas letter. Sure, Christmas was just over four months ago, but things like "deadlines" and "calendars" hold no sway over me. Of course, I realize that some of you may be questioning me already: "New installment? I never received any old installments," you might be thinking. Some of you may even be saying it right out loud to your computer screens. You might be right to think that way, too, as this is the first installment of the Chronicles that I have ever written. However -- and I want to be very clear on this -- that lack of prior editions doesn't change the fact that this particular installment is new. One could argue that the newness of this section of the Chronicles is only emphasized by the lack of old ones, but I'm not in the mood to argue right now. However, I should point out that your reading of this installment implicitly acknowledges that I provide no warranty on its contents, nor can I be held liable for any damage, emotional or otherwise, that may be caused by this installment's contents.

Moving right along, with this being the first (and perhaps only) installment in the Chronicles of Abs, it might make sense for me to explain the point of the Chronicles. BUT, that doesn't seem like such an interesting thing to write, so I'm just going to jump in and swim around. So I guess I'm sort of like James Joyce, without the talent.

That said, I want to tell you that I find myself at the end of a momentous week. Why, you ask? The reason is that Things Changed for The Kid this week. Most of the time, one week is like any other, with the most drastic changes involving the number of times I play golf (1 so far) and the number of Diet Cokes I drink (I can't possibly keep count of them). This week, however, I made Things Change, and I think we can all view that as a Good Thing. (Please don't be disturbed by my slightly unorthodox use of capital letters. Call it Engineer's License if you must.) Of course, this version of Things Changing is not like the Berlin Wall coming down or the end of the Cold War, but it's more relevant to me.

I was thinking I needed to shake things up a bit. I was thinking that I needed to present a new face to the world. Some of you apparently sometimes feel the same way, and end up getting married and raising children. In fact, I have often enjoyed taking part in and/or witnessing your versions of Things Changing. Of course, my version is not one of those things (much to the chagrin of Mama Abs). However, I think you will find that my version is just one notch below those. I hope you are sitting down, because I am (finally) going to share my news with you: I shaved off my goatee.

Yes. I'm serious. Yes. It's really gone. Please allow yourselves a moment to let this information sink in.

This week, I face the world clean-shaven, hoping that the facial hair was not the source of all my powers -- whatever they may be. (Rest assured, that this was not a Samson and Delilah type of thing. There is no Delilah equivalent in this particular story. Besides, even if there was, I wouldn't let that conniving Philistine strumpet near my hair.) This week, I know that not being able to see my chin for 8 years did not make it cease to exist. This week, my chin feels a little chilly from time to time. This week, I look distinctly younger than I did with the goatee. This week, I keep wondering who the guy peering at me out of mirrored surfaces is. Next week, I will likely start growing the goatee again, because I don't like the way that guy in the mirrored surfaces looks. However, this week it's safe to say that Things Changed.

[Editor's note: The goatee was actually shaved off last week, but procrastination took over, and this message didn't get written until now. As an update, the re-growth of the goatee has not yet commenced, and no decisions have been made about the long-term viability of the clean-shaven version of Abs, but he still doesn’t like the way the guy looking out of mirrored surfaces looks. Also, for those of you who already knew about this … sorry.]