In late October J-Man told me he was going to participate in Movember. I'm sure I groaned. I probably eye-rolled and tried to change the subject and employed the usual denial-while-annoyed tactics.
You'd think I'd be cool with mustaches. My father and brother have both had them since they hit puberty. This is a fact that is not strange to me until I say it aloud to people who have never met Big Bro or Papa H and think of mustaches as going along with gym coaches, the 1970s and pedophiles. Some are surprised to look at Big Bro's senior portrait from high school and the well-trimmed facial hair accompanying it, but to me he's just Big Bro. There's nothing ironic about it. Call it family bias, but I think it's as handsome a photo as any senior portrait.
Once, Papa H made a comment that having a mustache was part of being a black man. Big Sis's boyfriend at the time then felt compelled to try and grow one. If I remember correctly, it failed. Or maybe I'm remembering this all wrong and it wasn't a boyfriend but a friend, and maybe it didn't fail, or maybe none of this happened at all? Blame pregnancy brain and/or an overactive imagination if need be. That's just the story I'm going with.
Anyway, J-Man did grow a mustache. It started as a beard and looked like he was just being lazy. Then, around the 6th or 7th of the month, he shaved all but the upper lip, and "Uncle J-Man" had officially appeared. You know, that creepy look. The 'stache itself isn't actually that creepy. It's just the look he enjoys giving while rocking it. Makes these recently charged coaches appear like upstanding gentlemen in comparison.
So it grew and grew and got lighter and pricklier. Sometimes a crumb would get stuck. Eventually he could see it down over his nose and we both got to wondering why people enjoy mustaches at all. Or any facial hair. Have my dad and brother simply lived with an upper lip itch for 50 and 20 years respectively? Granted they know how to trim theirs and such, but still.
The money came in though, thanks to some of you even, and J-Man's team collectively earned over $3k with J-Man individually drawing something like $300 or $400 I think. The cause of prostate cancer, something close to my family since we know someone who battled it, was well served by J-Man's face and his pleasure in breaking his corporate-cultured company's no-facial hair preference.
So December 2nd, we got to celebrate it. The men proudly boasting their month of testosterone. The wives and girlfriends proudly demonstrating how patient and loving we've been to put up with it all month long. We costumed up and headed to H street for dancing and debauchery. I'm too old and pregnant for either, so we found a cool room with couches where I could sit and J-Man could hip thrust in the near vicinity.
There were lumberjacks and coaches, tuxedos and even a lone banana. I smacked myself for not having brought my camera. Instead try to rely on the fuzzy image below.
Just imagine J-Man, his mustache, some tight corduroys, a turtleneck of mine, a smooth blazer (figuratively AND literally) and a scarf flung over one shoulder. He was right out of 1978. There's probably a picture of his dad or my dad looking strikingly similar. We were classy as we said goodbye to the mustache. We danced to '90s tunes that Big Sis had once played on repeat for me on her cassette player. The intro "tick tock you don't stop" took me back to a time when I wondered what exactly being "sexed up" meant, yet I still blushed in my ignorance. Our company, who ranged from a super chatty 21-year old undergrad to a pair of 30-something parents who had snagged babysitters for the night, all lived it up.
And in the morning, I awoke to a clean-shaven J-Man.
I guess you don't know what you've got til you grow spiky hairs on it and then remove them a month later with one sharp blade.
I also guess that next year, when J-Man wants to do this all again, I'll say yes. For men's cancer awareness. For his boyish excitement. And for that first kiss when it's finally gone again.
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