Follicular Garden

I have a beard for the first time in my life. Generally speaking, I don't go in for these things without some planning, some consideration of the impact a change in appearance will have on my sense of self, but I have inexplicably cultivated a garden on my face. I am a man of metaphors, so it has to mean something:

Acceptance of my professorial title?
Resignation to manhood in middle age?
The beginnings of hermitic existence as I prepare for my move to Rome?

The sensation is extremely annoying much of the time—something akin to small rodents crawling slowly on my cheeks and chin, or (when my mouth is agape in a yawn) an army of fairy fingers tickling my jaw. It becomes more uncomfortable when I am physically or emotionally agitated, or when my skin dries in the morning heat of the windshield defroster. After a long day at work I need a couple of glasses of red wine to quell the follicular antagonism. In the evenings I lie beside the dog and, in animalistic concert, we claw ourselves to sleep. But when I sleep my face is quiet, and the beard, late to life and not quite belonging to me, disappears in my dreams.

Inflection|Invitation

I walked in the field with my beautiful dog tonight but before we left I memorized and wrote on my hand the Italian translation of "Shall we walk in the field?"

"Camminiamo nel campo?" Still not sure it's right. I based it on a mac dashboard/widget translation.

No matter. The invitation represents a frequent brand of exchange between my dog and me: "Would you like to go to the field?" or—while trying to elicit a slobbering, tail-wagging response vis-a-vis near-yodeling—"Wanna go to the field?"

Or—even more phonetically, pathetically—"manna-gatta-daveeyeh?"

Innagottadavita? Hmmmm.

Most of the dialogue is inflective with my canine man, my 4.5 year-old vizsla.

I once had a blog known as "threeyearsentence," which became "jailbirdmusings." I finally quit because the scrutiny became unbearable. As I follow the trail of previous rumination, I am but an ellipsis these days, a typographic trio of smoke signals to sniff out—day by day, week by week, year by year.