Category: Personal

I’m a bit vain, I admit it.  I like looking…well, it’s hard to pin down.  I have never considered myself “good looking” by any popular standards.  I have my own and I have frankly never lived up to them quite.  But I have a care for my appearance, which drives me to the gym and to trim my beard and to dress well when I can.

It’s a struggle against entropy.  It won’t destroy me to lose it, but to do my best without killing myself is important.  I’m not vain enough to do liposuction.  If my hair falls out, I’ll shave my head rather than wear a “laurel wreath.” …

I’ve always been impatient.  So much so, it could almost be considered pathological.  I’ve had to learn patience like a religious observance, and it chafes, it does.  My father is one of those people for whom the act of doing is a pleasure in and of itself.  An attitude I’ve been able to emulate consistently in only one thing.  He was once a  gunsmith and I recall watching him—for short periods of time only, mind you—sanding a rifle stock.  He’d work on it for days, running the papers in ever finer grains over the wood until he had achieved such a penetrating perfection as might be possible before moving on to painstakingly applying the varnish…ah, he was rapt. …