I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is.

The title of this post is one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies, Zoolander. As satirical, silly and stupid as that movie is, I think that quote fits my life very well. I like to think of myself as a good looking person…but not by my own merits, but from the praise of others (my grandmamma said I’m handsome LOL).

Anyways, life for me is generally easy when I apply myself and part of that comes from being good looking. It is really, really easy to walk into a room and procure the necessary attention with a smile and a little charisma, the direct byproduct of being good looking.

But there’s gotta be more to life than that. And no, I don’t want to create a Wesley Robinson Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too. But what can a good looking person do?

I definitely don’t want to model…that’s just too much. I think I have too many caveman beliefs about what men should and shouldn’t do.

Television would be ok, but there are three problems with that. One, you wear makeup which goes again goes against the whole caveman line of thinking. Number 2, you have to look nice ALL the time. Sometimes I need to take a day or two off, even the best looking people wake up not so beautiful some days. Finally, if I’m on TV, I feel like I will end up being corrupted and turn to being a lot more pretentious and generally really, really uncool.

What a dilemma.

But that’s not as bad as the whole dating thing, which is a funny topic to me because most everybody I know that takes in interest in my love life cares more about it than I do. And being so good looking these people figure I should be locked up.

Now its not that I don’t date at all, ‘cause that would be a complete waste of good lookingness. Still I do reserve it for only special occasions. Which is rare because it just seems like there’s more to life than dating a really, really, ridiculously, good looking girl.

And it’s not that there isn’t anybody out there, as I have dated at least two keepers in my short lifetime. We just fundamentally disagreed on how to carry on a relationship, and after a point there was nothing but them us feeling like each other was really, really, ridiculously good looking--at least thats how I looked at it.

Most people can take that type of good looking relationship, I cannot. What makes it worse is I am as deep as a kiddie pool, as far as looks go. I figure what better way to bless the world than by getting with a good looking girl and starting a really, really, big and good looking family.

Hay caramba. Dios Mio. ¿Qué debo hacer?

Help me please find my purpose in life!

If not I'll be stuck being the really, really ridiculously good looking bum with, no car, no money and no goals...

Salute?

The Beard....

Summer is ending and the beard is about to go. So I figured what better time to explain why I did it then right before I cut it off (etd: 2 weeks from now).

Towards the end of the semester I was thinking of ways to make life interesting in a way that I could easily gauge, but also report. But I didn’t have any ideas.

Well the week before finals I was trimming my facial hair and I messed up. It wasn’t all that bad and I think all I would have had to do was thin one sideburn slightly, which is really easy and doesn’t take much skill. But instead of doing something that easy I just shaved it all off. No chin hair, no sideburns, no mustache, and no stubble.

I kept it like that for a couple of weeks and liked the look, but I thought, “hmm this is different, but its not completely out of the realm of the norm.” Okay. Maybe it didn’t go like that, but essentially that’s what I was thinking.

For those of you who didn’t know me pre-beard days—and even for those who don’t know me very well for that matter—I am really image conscious. Meaning I like to reflect keeping my upbringing by keeping a nice presentable appearance. Therefore, a beard of such magnitude is definitely off the wall.

Still, I wanted to do something different so I started to entertain the idea of the beard. My mom has been suggesting a beard for a long time to help reduce skin problems. Former flames have expressed that graduated sexiness could be achieved by a beard. And I kinda just wanted to be lazy and not go to the barbershop so frequently and deal with regular maintenance of neat facial hair.

Initially, I planned to let it go all summer and just see how it would look and how it would be received. However because of Unity ’08, a desire to look somewhat representative of my normal appearance, I trimmed it. Now that the beard lacks amazingness and the love is gone, I have been a little better about trimming the hedges if you will.

It got to be pretty long. Like before I left for Chicago I trimmed like an inch off… and enough hair remained for some high ranking journalism person to remember me as my uncles Muslim nephew, the guy from Philly, or Rick Ross.

And that brings me to the experimental part of this thing on my face. It mostly was to see how people I met would receive me, but quickly it became a study on how people I know changed their perceptions and actions towards me.

The older people like the ones I work with and see around campus said it made me look older and distinguished until it started getting out of control. After that the prevailing comment was “oh, hey. You still have the beard,” in a tone that said, it needs to go.

Peers all come up with nicknames and reference my beard to popular culture, hence the thought that I am from Philadelphia where black men rock beards, and the Rick Ross statements. A few Muslim friends were working on a Muslim name for me, which I think is funny considering so many people think I am a Muslim. (Barack isn’t the only one, but I say if I were, who cares!) One friend even offered to take me to, and pay for a haircut and a shave …hilarious.

My favorite reaction was from the little baby. Loren is that four-year-old little girl my mom keeps that will wow you with her brilliance and then shame you with her terrible ways. She saw me for the first time since February and the first thing she did was touch the beard and then as me about my “shave”. Kids are so cute.

My little brother Kamron picked me up from the airport and his first reaction was to say how I looked like a black Osama Bin Laden and ask how I passed through airport security. Original. Very creative, Kamron. If I had a dollar…

Anyways, I have been receiving so much feedback and am being perceived totally different and completely the same as well. When I go out, girls are much friendlier and open to approaching me, and I think that's because girls like dirty guys, something I generally am not. But I also have been out and seen people I haven’t seen in literal years that still recognize me and didn’t even say anything about it.

It definitely has been an interesting experience and I must say I am glad I did it.

All that said—I really grew the beard because I want a goatee really badly. I have wanted one for years. The goatee is like the coolest form of facial hair ever. Unfortunately, the hair around my mouth on my cheeks doesn’t grow too well. So I figured if I let it grow wildly it my catch up with the rest of the hair.

The strategy somewhat worked and a few new follicles have emerged, but still ain’t where I want it. Oh well, maybe next time.

It’s kind of funny though, because people buy all my BS reasons for growing the beard: it’s a social experiment I am rebelling against that which I normally do, and so on and so on.

I really have tricked you all into thinking I am THAT thought out, conscious, and aware. LOL

Salute