Ah, Christmas Eve. I used to spend my Christmas Eves alone: it was time to drink a few beers, wrap presents, and turn on those stupid Christmas lights I hung from the ceiling of my old apartment while playing Christmas music all night. Of course, that was when I lived in Timonium, and my parents had to drive past my apartment enroute to grandmother’s. Now I live south, and I’m not quite so “on the way”, so my sister drove down and gave me a ride up to my parents’ place this evening.

I actually had plans this afternoon that extended beyond just wrapping presents. I think I’ve mentioned a few times that I grew up in the DC area, Adelphi, to be exact, and I attended a Catholic school for first through sixth grades in Montgomery County. When my parents moved to Columbia, I, obviously, went with them, and began attending public school. As for my fellow students at Catholic School, I ran into one a few years later when I was working at Blockbuster, and a second when we both attended Towson at the same time. Years passed, and I found a few more here and there on MySpace and Facebook.

One of those, A.S., is in sort of the same professional field as I am. “Sort of” in the sense that we’re both interested in people who work in Information Technology, albeit for completely different reasons. Last week, he messaged me over Facebook asking if I knew anyone who knew Ruby, a programming language. As far as I knew, I didn’t, but I know my employer had let a developer of some sort go the previous week so I passed along his information, and we agreed that it had been way too long (seventeen years) and made plans for lunch on Christmas Eve (today).

Slight digression: as evidenced by the above paragraphs, I’m not one of those bloggers who is absolutely paranoid about my identity — hell, the previous post has my photograph. I do try to be sensible so that a casual Google search won’t reveal my identity to all those searching (my name is common enough that it would be difficult to do so).

For example, while I don’t directly name my employers, I think careful reading (and an understanding of geography), can help people figure out at least where my part-time Bookstore gig is (my Office job is probably considerably harder to pin down, especially since it’s a start-up you won’t have heard of unless you work in IT or sell IT related products*).

So, having met up with A.S. for lunch at Mackey’s, and having consumed, oh, four beers (exactly three more than I’d planned on, I was way early, he was a little late), I sort of wobbled over to the Bookstore, located conveniently right across the street (this is where DC geography comes in). Sadly, the store was all out of wrapping paper (I got some from CVS), but I picked up a paperback for the road trip tomorrow (and even though I made the selection intoxicated, I started reading it tonight and am greatly enjoying it), and a copy of Sink the Bismarck.

The checkout line was well back to the cafe when I entered it, and although this might be the alcohol talking, it didn’t seem too long before I was at the registers and handing over my debit card. There was no one at the front door doing bag checks (employees have to have a manager look over their bags to make sure we’re not stealing anything), but I saw our GM (that’s “Top Dog Boss” in retail speak) over by the Information Desk and we spoke for a minute or two about, I dunno, something (recall: I was sort of, oh, ten sheets to the wind).

So there was this gentleman standing between the Information desk and the BOGO table. He stepped over, extended his hand, and asked, “Are you Snay?”

And, indeed, I was! So we spoke for a few minutes. Mind, this was about eight hours ago, and as mentioned, I’d been drinking (to that kind person, let me just say, “I’m sorry!” I think I was a bit rude with you, which wasn’t my intention, I’m usually at least a bit more charming when, well, both when I’m sober and drunk), but he seemed particularly familiar with the Baltimore Blogger Scene — he commented on bloggers who’d stopped posting (Anonymous Coworker), those who’d just announced their departure (Broadsheet), and those who’d just sort of dropped off the face of the planet (eebmore). He mentioned — and I hate to be so general, but I completely forgot your name — that when I’d blogged about getting a job at the Bookstore, that he knew exactly where it was. It was a really cool encounter.

*And even then, probably not.

Back in high school, I used to work at a Blockbuster Video up in Columbia, MD. I think I started there in my junior year, and worked through until my first semester of college. Back then, I could go, literally, two weeks without shaving and to notice I had any facial hair, you would literally have to stop and seriously examine my face. It came in very light, and quantity wasn’t its strong suit. Meanwhile, I worked with a guy a year or two older than me who could literally grow a noticeable beard in about a day. I remember remarking to him once that I was a little jealous of his ability to grow facial hair, and he remarked that he spent a small fortune on razor blades.

Flash forward a decade. For some reason, a bunch of guys in my office started growing beards. I think it would be more fair to say they got tired of shaving. That’s pretty much what did me in — after a week of not shaving, I noticed that I could actually tell I hadn’t shaved for awhile. So I figured, why don’t I grow this sucker out for a couple of weeks and see where it gets me?

I honestly can’t remember when I stopped shaving. I know I had somewhat noticeable facial hair by my first DC blogger happy hour, back in late November, so I can assume it was sometime before then. I’ve already decided I’m going to keep it until the end of February. Although I’ve already made public my decision to cut my face free … the truth is, I like having a beard. First, I think it gets rid of my “baby face.” Second, coupling a beard with a shaved head apparently makes me look like a bad-ass, and, despite my earlier post, I’m sort of getting a kick out of people thinking I’m some sort of bad-ass.

The beard takes a little getting used to. Sometimes I jump when I feel the hairs touch my upper lip: is that a spider? Oh, no, it’s just my beard! I’m constantly paranoid that my chin hairs are soaked in visible hot chocolate or crumbs, and that I didn’t get all the snot out of the hairs over my lip from my last sneeze. On the other hand, at 6am, trudging down Connecticut Avenue, my face is fairly damn warm.

One of the guys I work with at the Office told me I looked horrible with a beard and I should shave it. I was downstairs in the cafe with one of our account managers at the time, and I turned to her for a second opinion. She said she liked it, and although I don’t know that I believed her, if a cute girl tells me she likes something about me, I’m likely to keep it. And as time progresses, I think she was telling the truth: I posted a new profile photo of myself to Facebook, and several of the comments (all ladies), have said something to the effect of “Woah, good looking beard!” Another coworker told me she liked my bearded-face, shaved head combination.

I was, though, surprised by comments I began to receive as my facial grew longer and darker: people commented on how red my beard is. On one hand, I shouldn’t be surprised: my hair color has tended to change over my life, I was born blond, then went very dark, then came out with nice brown hair. My sister was a red head when we were in high school, but she’s now a brunette (no, she doesn’t dye it). However, when I look in a mirror, or a photograph, I don’t see myself as having a red beard (admittedly, we’re talking reddish-brown here, not flaming Irish orange), but I wonder if that’s because I perceive myself as being brown-haired, so I expect that to be my beard color and see that reflected.