While I generally sport facial hair, I’m not one to just let it be. You can’t even if you wanted because … well, its hair and its always changing. So I entertain myself by growing it out in the winter (nothing like a sock on your face when the wind is whipping) and start to trim it down in various patterns until it drops off completely in the summer.

Yeah, I know you are utterly fascinated. I have a point, though.

So, a few weeks ago, I trimmed off the mustache part of my goaté and was left with … what do you call that? A chin rest? Anyway, my wife was not happy with it. So, I left it on for a few weeks before taking it all off … a spouse just isn’t a spouse without a little annoyance.

The most interesting thing about finally finishing off the facial hair is the sensitivity of your skin underneath. I can feel the air currents from my breath with an almost ticklish sensitivity— and I will for a few days until my skin becomes immune to the novelty and treats the sensation with all the rest of the background noise in our life that we just don’t notice.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to keep that sensitivity?

I understand that our eyes have blood vessels and nerves that run right through the middle of our field of vision (bad evolutionary design flaws, I suppose, that worked well enough that the feature is still with us). Probably as babies we see the tree-like obstructions, but with constant, useless data, the brain soon “tunes it out.” And in this case, that is probably a good idea.

Ok, so maybe the point wasn’t that … well, pointed. But I made my point and now I’m going to go off and sit down and feel my breath as if for the first time.