Less-amnesiac readers might recall that last summer I attempted to change what I think is the one and only thing that makes me look old, the color of my beard. My wife Abby wasn’t terribly happy about it, blaming the chosen color as too dark, though it is entirely possible that she wasn’t quite ready for such a change.
Fast forward about ten months, and at her suggestion, we try again. Softening the blows of insecurity was the fact that she was helping pick the color. Her stylist cut my hair, then sent me to the strip mall to get the tools of the trade. The rest was easy, and had an eery similarity to my days gone by of processing film. Dilute the chemicals one way for a certain look, another for a different look, and let the whole thing develop at one pace for one result, and another for a different result.
The result shall be judged in the court of public opinion tomorrow.
Yes it did, you look like Richard. My youthful friend of many years.
Do you actually need the glasses, to read? Because I was always so terribly nearsighted, aging has given me the gift of perfect-I mean perfect- near vision. I have to take off my glasses to read, but I can read, as Tracey puts it, “mouse type”.
Yes, I need reading glasses to read anything within arms length. Beyond that, I remain 20/13.
I didn’t think there was anything wrong with your appearance in the first place. Through trial and error I have learned that hair dye can easily be too dark. At first I was using darkest medium brown which unbeknownst to me made my hair black. Now I just lightest neutral blonde, and my hair is light brown.
I think your beard is fine with or without the color, but if you feel better with the color, great.
“Also, I added the glasses so I would look smarter. Did it work?”
Well, you still don’t look like Rick Perry, so…
But seriously, I’ve always wondered about that meme (glasses look smarter). I guess because I grew up with one glassed parent and one unglassed parent, both of whom were smart, I never picked up the stereotype in my brain. So when I see someone with glasses, I’ve always just thought: “their vision needed correcting”.
As for the beard color; I guess I never really noticed it on you.
It does sometimes strike me as strange when a man’s beard and head-hair are different colors, but usually only when they’re VERY different colors. I saw a man in Killeen a few days ago; white/gray on top, but a dark reddish beard. Another guy (the same day, in a different place) had dark brown hair on top but a white-ish beard.
My “beard” (the hundred or so scraggly hairs that rarely appear on my chin) is generally darker than my head-hair, but now is speckled with gray — in a completely different percentage than on my head. I just tried for six months to grow hair on my cheeks/jaw, but had no luck.
And yes, what LeAnn said: If it makes you feel better, go for it.
I’m just now realizing that this is the “after”, in which case, not only did it work, but beautifully. Physical enhancements are never supposed to be noticeable.
I like it.