New Day #119

As someone who stares at a blinking cursor for a living, I'm not accustomed to seeing myself. Okay, that's not entirely accurate. I constantly check how I look in the mirror, my rampant narcissism tempered by insecurities bordering on body dysmorphic disorder. In other words, I have no idea what I really look like.

So imagine my shock when I watched myself on AM Northwest yesterday. Actually, you don't have to imagine because I'm going to tell you. That's what blogs are for—to provide more than you want to know. Forget the Information Age, we're living in the Too Much Information Age.

Anyway, while I was relieved that I managed to speak in complete sentences, all I could think was "What's up with that vein in my neck?" and "Why didn't I trim the hair on my chinny-chin-chin?"

So, after visiting KBOO for my second interview of the day (where I made up the word "relevatory"--aka "revelatory"), I decided to take my five o’clock shadow to Chopperz, the "non-salon men's grooming lounge," for an old-school straight razor shave.

Chopperz is designed specifically for “retrosexuals,” offering sports on hi-def plasma TVs at each station, as well as a selection of microbrews and specialty cocktails.

I understand why they serve booze. While men have shaved with straight razors for centuries, Rebecca, the pretty, twenty-something stylist with the sparkly makeup certainly hasn’t.

Since I don’t drink, Rebecca put me at ease with various lotions and hot towels.

But once she came at me with the blade, all I could think of was blood gushing from that ropey vein in my neck. In that vein—pun intended—I asked Rebecca whether she'd seen the Tim Burton film of Sweeney Todd.

"It made me cringe," she said.

“It was pretty gory,” I agreed.

"No, not that," she said. "Johnny Depp's shaving technique was all wrong."

Maybe that’s why so many writers subscribe to the Hemingway and Bukowski school of personal hygiene.


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