2/27/12
Hey Everybody it's been a while and no huge trips since so here's a little update of sorts,
I used to have a moustache. I remember the days fondly as a former life filled with after-sips and the confidence of a warm upper lip. They were sunny and bright. I became so used to living life by the fuzzy strip that can in certain lights point out my undeniable ginger heritage. I was so used to it that the moustache became an overused base of conversation. Every old friend or new acquaintance inevitably delivers the “You have a moustache!”
I’ve struggled with a similar statement like this for most of my life: “You’re tall!” It’s observations like these that however seemingly innocent and perhaps pleasant of a person to say are dead ends. What would you like me to say that can in any way further such an apparent and obvious truth? Yes, I got tall and I really did nothing to achieve such height, it simply happened. A similar feeling goes along with the mustache call-out, in fact, I did less to achieve this moustache. It became a pet peeve of mine along with a pet moustache, which I loved and appreciated despite the predictable reactions said by so-and-so from high school. Now I am without this powerful strip of hair and there is no longer a go-to observation branded to my exterior.
Unfortunately this has prompted the attention to shift from facial hair to the classic “life after college” routine. I went fishing, I’m a barista at a coffee shop now, I’m going fishing again, yada yada yada. The fact that I no longer sport a stache is forcing me to face the fact that at this moment in time my main priority is to ensure that every yoga-doing, hybrid Mum-vee driving, latte-sipping, grateful dead worshipping, pretentious book-reading, sunglasses-inside-wearing, stressed-out, what-kind-of-chai-do-you-have-asking, seriously smelly hippie-tie-dye-wearing, long-winded-post-grad-writing, full-spandex-warrior-sweating citizen of Mill Valley gets their caffeine fix. This is not what I will be doing for the rest of my life and although I do it almost every day, having to admit it to every friend’s mom or obscure high-school acquaintance forces me to face this fact. So that’s why I’m growing a moustache again. Too long have I suffered without easy light-hearted and pointless conversations about the gripping story of growing hair.
If you are a woman (or a man I suppose) who thinks of a stache as an altogether unimportant addition to a person’s character, then you’ve never had one. In fact after writing at length about it, it has become my new response to the dreaded “life after college” interview. “I’m actually growing a moustache right now” I’ll nod “Yeah, so what’s your son/daughter up to these days?” They will respond with the usual Charlie Brown teacher “Womp womp womp, grad school, womp womp, what are your future plans?” It is at that point I will look them straight in the eye with the intensity of a psychological rebel defending his last piece of mind, “I’m gonna have a moustache.”
Thanks for hanging through the rant, for your trouble, there's a link to the final cut of my Alaska video below.
Cheers,
Mac
PS in all honesty this coffee gig is kinda fun.