Stachtisfactory -or- Absence Makes the Stache Grow Longer

Nearly a year's worth of implausible hi-jinks have conspired to keep me from posting about any exciting developments in mustache habitation. I regret this.

I, in a manly fashion, admit that my grief was so great at this extended absence that I've spent much of the last twelve months wearing a series of contraptions designed for the purpose of keeping tears out of my mustache. The devices ranged from a simple headband or the more elegant bow-tie to increasingly elaborate concoctions as I attempted to remove all shortcomings in their utility. At one point I was at an auction in a city I've since been emphatically assured doesn't exist bidding on black market merry-go-rounds against former presidents, professional athletes, and a couple of eye-patch sporting villains; all the while I'm handicapped by the two glove-fingers I've duct-taped to my face to catch the tears so insistent on tamping down my mustache's majesty. On another occasion I placed tiny funnels under each eye which fed hoses that drained first into a large rubber bladder, then when I became weary of the bladder's heft, the ground, and then after I was reprimanded by the judge of and participants in an underground floor-tiling-death-match competition, again into the rubber bladder. While hunting Robert Duvall clones at *name redacted*'s massive compound in Thailand I attempted to protect the mustache with a portion of tarp but this method concealed the bulk of the mustache and so was too ludicrous for continued implementation.

Eventually I decided that if my grief at not web-logging was going to diminish my life perhaps rather than house a pair of initially thirsty meerkats in the vicinity of my tear ducts I should simply resume web-logging. But then, after composing a rant longhand on my trusty writing stump I realized that I didn't recall the password for this website. Listing the contents of my mustache proved somewhat relieving but I needed the catharsis of sharing and I really wanted to eat the cake batter I'd used to scrawl the inventory in. It wasn't to be. I mean, I did eat the cake batter but I could not recall the password.

I tried everything: MustacheKing, KingMustache, Stachtisfactory, and Password. I'd spend hours daily reentering these same passwords begging cruel Gods to show some mustache-mercy and grant me admission. Days went by and the drugs I'd been forced to consume some weeks earlier for the amusement of a cadre of CEOs at a retreat on an island that is absent from any public map (all while wearing a harness fitted with two butane torches to facilitate the rapid drying of my tears) began to flee my system in disturbing gushes. My head started to clear and I remembered if not my password then at least the key to finding it.

Between my newfound reliance on the internet and my time away from home it'd been months since I'd comforted myself with a glance at my favorite dictionary entry. So I opened deep into the Ms and found my secret storage spot for important documents. I shuffled through receipts corresponding to pleasant shopping experiences and sketches of animals with mustaches and finally found the sucker-wrapper I'd stored my web-logger password on. I gasped, and then chuckled at how foolish I'd been, and then gasped again because the password, even in all of its perfect uncrackable glory, is nearly too horrifying to comprehend. You see, after many incidents of identity theft many different identity thieves have informed me that I should pick a password no one will ever be able to guess. They suggested that I'd be less likely to waste their time if I put a number in it and didn't always use the password platform as a vehicle to promote a certain portion of beard.

I'd used their advice. I still remember that night, shaking from the scotch it'd taken to work up the nerve, when i first typed in that fateful unbreakable web-logger password. I wish that I did not.

SmoothUpperLip4Me

Now that I had the password I could return and of course change the password and resume my all-important chronicle. Now I simply needed to come up with a reason for why I'd been away so long.

December 27-February 14

shreds of cardboard
dirt
mud
bugs

please, for the love of whatever you hold holy, get a zen garden or a kitten or a mustache

So apparently I should have taken the hobo's threats more seriously: I've spent the last several weeks "trapped" in a hobo dungeon, unable to post to this web-log or do other things like eat stuff that isn't bugs or perform routines of hygiene. I decided to slap quotes around trapped because, as it eventually became apparent to me, a sickly child could have punched their way out of the cardboard box that was my prison. I had been waiting for rain to do the job, but apparently hobos use a portion of their thousands of dollars of daily panhandling money to buy sealant for the cardboard dungeon. But then the hobos imprisoned a sickly child and that child punched their way out of the prison and I followed, slipping through the corrugated edges into freedom.

So, now I can resume my life, which mostly means again posting on this web-log. (Though obviously the life I resume is one lived in constant mortal fear of hobos.)

Now I'll smoothly transition to discussion of the new library catalog. For those of you not in the know a library catalog is a device that will reveal, through archaic means no one truly understands, whether or not the library owns a particular item. Crazy stuff, but significantly easier (trust me) than walking the shelves with a pallet of notebooks and transcribing the collection so that you can consult your records upon deciding you'd like to read a particular book. The new catalog allows you to review items, which means no one will ever read a bad book again. This is the sort of sorcery I can get behind!

The downside of course is that change frightens people, particularly the elderly or ignorant. (Clearly I'm not saying that only the elderly or ignorant have complained, or that one must be stupid or old not to have immediate success with the new catalog, but I'd venture that most of the callers that have huffed and screamed through their phone with enough gusto to send my lip tentacles quivering are probably limited by either age or mental faculties.) Improving things makes them furious, and though this is a reasonable stance, I'd just like to suggest that perhaps they'd find peace if they took up tending a zen garden or a kitten or a mustache.

metaphors are the crutches, pain killers, and blindfolds of those too terrified of and easily beaten by the literal

While waiting for an appointment with my hobo psychiatrist (story for another day) I was doing a little web-logging. Everyone knows the pain of waiting rooms, but only a dozen or so of us know the frustration of sitting on a rotting log while waiting for your hobo psychiatrist to finish beating a can of fruit cocktail against the sharp edge of a rock so that he can then, much too slowly, savor its contents. I know that most, if not all, of his patients have gifted him a can opener. I know in my case he mumbled thanks only to then ramble on for hours about his "roots," "sense of identity," and the practice of "communing with nature."

Finally he, with a slick of fruit syrup from chin to navel, emerged from the shanty and waved some busted lumber in my direction. I noticed he seemed more frustrated than usual with me. I asked, while disassembling the desktop computer, modest desk, and generator I had brought along so that I might kill time while waiting, in what matter I'd peeved him. He just looked at me and pointed at the sun, which is his way of indicating the unwanted passage of time. Message received I began to pack up so that I could enter his office with my belongings safely in tow. Within a couple of hours I had the machines reduced to the most easily transported modes, another twenty minutes and those pieces were inside a series of duffel bags. Sometime during my leisurely packing he'd retired to his shanty-office so I entered hoping the invitation hadn't gone stale. The intensity with which he was now banging the jagged end of a 2x4 against the syrup and fly slathered sheet of tin that functioned as his desk led me to believe that his frustration had increased considerably, so I decided to pay for the session up front. By the time he'd finished hammering his payment against a rock and eating its contents it was night and I feared leaving the shanty town during the moon's reign, as the hobos in this particular pack* are enraged by the night, and even some that aren't feral will jump out from behind trees/shanties/other more docile hobos and bite at you while begging the moon for a reprieve from making its bloodthirsty demands a reality. So I hoped to stretch this session till sunrise, when I could toss a length of sausages downwind and easily slink out of the shanty town while the hobos circled and snarled. I thought I might pad the session by trying to extend the "silently staring each other in the eyes with menace" portion of our session beyond the usual quarter-hour, so I was greatly disappointed when he cut that short by five minutes and began asking about the mysterious devices (the computer/generator/duffelbags/sausage grinder I was carting around inside the old timey popcorn trolley that I was also carting around). He didn't relent, so eventually I explained this web-log and its purpose.

Then he barked a profanity and we backtracked and I explained, as best I could, about computers, the internet, electricity, and how, to the best of my knowledge, certain super-large chain grocers provide the world with this electricity by harvesting ghosts** and rendering the mystical ghost-meat. Eventually he came to the conclusion that this web-log is a waste of resources and time, and that I would be better serving the world by doing some hard labor and better serving myself, if I insist on doing so, by revealing in a stupid metaphorical sense, the things stuck in my mustache. So instead of informing the world of the brussels sprout that spent a relaxing weekend in the hair hotel, I'd type about how frustrated I was with energy costs or the disposable pen industry or airline food. And that, he claimed, could be "What's stuck in your mustache." I informed him that only two of those items had ever been lodged in my mustache. He re-explained the metaphor concept again. I started to say a polite goodbye in the shanty town fashion, but I'd barely kicked any dirt over the customary corner urine deposit when, in what was both a bewildering and terrifying turn of events he lunged at me and produced well-kept can openers in each hand. He held one to my throat and then, with the devil's glint burning in his eyes, another to my mustache and made me promise that I'd list what's metaphorically stuck in my mustache, or, as he was forced to explain again, anything that's been bothering me recently. He claimed that his would be good for my "overall mental health, and he swore that if I didn't comply he'd "give kindly Mr. Moon the dessert it deserves."

The point is, I won't be doing that. He'll never know anyway since he's never near a computer or source of electricity and totally oblivious when it comes to rendering ghost meat***.

*No offense to any hobos that may have stolen a computer and stumbled on to the internet and stumbled on to this web-log, or if you've stolen a wallet and used the ID within to obtain a library card and then used a computer at a public library and read this. I'm sure most of you are fine people and your misfortunes are the products of a cruel society and crueler circumstances. It just so happens that this pack of hobos tends to get a tad rowdy, please don't feel stereotyped.
**not sure if this is true, I panicked
***not sure if this is relevant, but I'm panicked and must console myself

December 20-December 26

A partridge in some sort of tree (apple?)
two turtle doves
and another freakin' partridge in a tree

December 13-December 19

scotch
scotch tape
butterscotches
Scottish Terrier
long faded polaroid photographs

tool awards

I've been instructed to peruse some of the Web 2.0 award winning websites and to then comment on them in this web-log. Needless to say I lost several days of my life poring over these websites, never leaving the computer and subsisting only on butterscotch candies and a bowl of ice that quickly became water. Eventually I roused myself from this stupor (shout out to some of America's finest medics for their help), but not before incurring what's likely to be a hefty carpet cleaning bill accompanied by horrified looks from carpet cleaners. Somewhere in my daze, suitably alarmed at the stubble beginning to diminish the gorgeous contrast between my mustache and normally freshly-shaven face I attempted a rectification. Unfortunately the computer monitor wasn't as reflective as I'd prefer, and a pocketknife just doesn't cut it, it being facial hair. Someone must have heard me wailing, because a quick trip to the emergency room and several dozen stitches later I was back at home and ready to report what I'd learned in my perusal of award winning websites.



What I've learned is that there is a website dedicated to cocktail building. "Of all the useless stupid crap put on the internet," I thought to myself without irony. Still, despite the gleaming ball of hatred rocketing from heart to head that this inanity provoked I was intrigued. The website allows you to enter ingredients (scotch, ice) and then see what drinks you might be able to make if only you'd add another blasphemous ingredient to your cabinet. In fact they'll often suggest buying TWO more ingredients so that you might further mar the goodness your scotch so profoundly offers. For those of you that enjoy a wide range of alcoholic beverages I'm sure this website will be of great help in ushering you into the life of a booze-soaked vagrant.

December 6-December 12

gerbil skull
fake mustache
insincere season's greetings greeting cards (4)

November 29-December 6

post it note reminding me to post list of what's stuck in my mustache
butterscotch candies

dream perchance to...SCREAM! (dream journal vol. 114)

It's a dream as ubiquitous as the one where you're falling or being chased or where you've sold your sinister and unforgiving great auntie's prize mare for some candies, the taste of which make you grimace. But I'm compelled to recount it anyway, even if everyone's experienced it, because I was so thoroughly unnerved that sweat seeped through my eyemask and perhaps sharing it will alleviate some of the terror that still, as I type this, makes me unsure of my control over my excretory systems.

So there I am, wearing my typical Monday tuxedo though oddly missing my 2nd Monday of the month cummerbund (and welcome to the twilight zone! I dreamt this on a Thursday night!). I'm strolling down the street, tipping my cap and twirling my cane when the peppermint siren call of a barber's pole arrests my eyes. I doff my cap one last time and enter the establishment already anticipating the smell of barbicide and sight of disgarded hair that make me feel so perfectly at home. I'm the only one in the shop, and the barber welcomes me a little too hungrily. I'm apprehensive, because I never trust anyone with both a British accent and no mustache but my legs drive me to the chair in that uncontrollable dream-fashion. A few snips here and there and I have a fine haircut, if a little too British. "And your mustache sir?" he quieries in that terrifying accent.

I want to scream, to push my self from the chair and flee the establishment, a wadded up twenty dollar bill (though I'm sure the sick ponce will prefer pounds) flung madly in the direction of the cash register, never stopping for the change or even to inform him that he's undeserving of the tip my fear and urge to flee have rendered unto him. Instead I say, voice shaking, "No need good sir, I'll give it the ol' comb and snip myself later in the eve."

He cackles. "Oh no, I don't think you will."

I insist, voice slightly firmed up, "I assure you I must certainly will." I expect him to cackle some more, instead he turns to his work station and eats a hunk of some monstrosity that I am informed is "Kidney Pie" after I shreik "What devils have forced you to eat this monstrous concoction?" Still unsure of what devils have forced him to eat this evil meal I manage to find my legs and begin to rise from the chair. Still chewing his foul curse he places one surprisingly strong hand on my chest and pushes me back into the chair and holds me there. I hear the evil scream of his barber's clippers, and knowing what's about to happen I say a silent prayer for death. Instead of dying I'm forced to witness him, with one distrubingly practiced swoop, slice off my mustache. My dream ends with a scream and I wake up still screaming and didn't stop until I had to answer the phone several minutes later. Phone call concluded and neighbor assured that I didn't need the police or a "looneymobile" I retired to my grooming room and stared at the mirror with the highest magnification powers until I felt assured my mustache's presence and fortitude was undeniable.

Yes, I know, old hat, but thanks for letting me share anyway.

November 22-November 28

cornucopia
lazor pointer key chain thingy

November 15-November 21

letter opener
scraps of envelopes
stamp adhesive
pencil used to keep score in miniature golf
ham

mustache mailbag mayhem volume one

Picture a picture of a mailbag with a mustache please.

I never expected this web-log to generate much correspondence, and though it hasn't, I'm still gratified every time I open up my internet's electronic mail (henceforth to be known as "e-mail," a coinage of which I'm justifiably proud). Apparently the bulk of my fans work for credit/pharmaceutical companies, and though not one of the credit card companies that have begged me to sign up have followed that begging with approval, I take great pride in that they have chosen me, of all web-loggers, to reach out to. (I don't mean to brag.) Anyway, I have received one "e-mail" (don't imagine you're quite ready for me to drop the quotes) pertaining to the content of this web-log. I was surprised, but then realized that the internet is best likened to a drunken hurricane minus the calm center tearing up a vast swamp, and that hundreds of thousands of other questions and credit card numbers provided by fans so that I might indulge my sweet tooth by ordering substantial amounts of foreign candy on their dime were probably lost in the wet and windy world wide web.

So, here is that email and my response:


Dear Sir or Madam,

You are either a liar or a monster. More likely both. No way does all this stuff get stuck in your mustache, unless your mustache is less a mustache and more a sticky clump of tentacles several feet in length. Please delete your blog and go into hiding.

Sincerely,
concerned reader and serious blogger

Dear Concerned Reader and Serious Blogger

First, I am troubled that you can't be gender specific in your greeting. Have I really been that ambiguous? After several days of bed-ridden soul-searching and binge-eating I can say that I have not, and your inability to infer gender based on the web-log's contents, my name, and the extremely masculine sentence structures says more about you than it does about me. And I can assure you that some of this state's finest institutions have long considered me "not a monster". Also, I am not a scientist (yet) so I can't tell you how this stuff gets stuck in my mustache.

P.S. What is a blogger?

(Please disregard this post's inconsistencies concerning amount of correspondence expected. That you even noticed this says more about your psychosis that it could ever say about mine.)

November 8-November 14

I present this week's mustache log in picture form (photos taken shortly after removal from mustache):

angry hawk

grapes

mouse

mouse

judgmental hawk

beginner's bristles remembered/considering the bounty the price was cheap

Most people remember their first love, first kiss, first car, first job, etc. I remember none of these things, but I do remember my first mustache. Others claimed it was a wispy mockery of the real thing, but I could see the seeds of greatness. I'd wake up early every day to water it and talk to it, and though I was sure this was helping, I was eventually informed that this is a practice intended for plants, and furthermore that I should stop shaving the rose bushes. Several weeks later I implemented this advice, but not before decimating the rose bushes and getting a nasty fertilizer-induced rash on my upper lip. I've heard time heals all wounds, but I'll never know because that rash was eventually swallowed up by the ole hair river on face mountain and I can promise you this friend: that river will never run dry.

Anyway, while my peers entered courtships, enjoyed/took up hobbies, took jobs, prepared for college, partied, graduated college, took better jobs, got married, had children, and did other things I presume, I tended to the fuzzy dash of happiness curled up below my nose. I was thoroughly immersed in the art of stache, and though I've been cautioned by countless social workers and aquaintances that this "obsession" is the reason for the long-term unemployment, homelessness, and total social isolation I've experienced up until recently, I think we can agree that there is always a price to be paid for greatness.

rad habits

There has been much clamor over my steadfast refusal to divulge which of the 7 1/2 habits of lifelong learning is the easiest, and which is the hardest. And now, finally, and with the same assortment of fear, nostalgia, upset stomach, and glee I'm sure the Berlin Wall must have felt as it was crumbling: the reveal.

Hardest Habit
Obviously I'm a stern fellow and not one to take to frivolities. But playing isn't difficult, I've noticed even children seem to have at least a tenuous grasp on the concept. So the hardest habit can't be "play". This leaves viewing problems as challenges. In my day to day labeling, when I see a problem, I label it as such. That doesn't mean I won't crush it. But I suppose I have a hard time applying positives (like the ol' "it's a challenge not a problem" trope) to problems. Also, technology...I never touch the stuff.

Easiest Habit
I'm sure it's no secret how easy everything comes to the properly stached. So it's unbearably difficult to pick the easiest habit. So many of the habits vie for the title...Initially I thought "create a learning toolbox" would be the winner, particularly because I'm a renowned craftsman and have built toolboxes to give as Christmas gifts for many years. To illustrate their fine quality: I give these toolboxes to the same people every year, and rather than tire of the monotony and supposed uselessness of multiple toolboxes piling up in attics and garages, they just offer the strained smiles and stilted speech patterns of the sincerely thankful and highly satisfied. "Thank you so very much for the handsome toolbox," they say, even if they say nothing or something totally different. You can just tell. Then I decided that no one really knows what "create your own learning toolbox" means, and so instead the easiest habit must be "have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner".

To illustrate my confidence and why it's well-founded: I've never web-logged before starting this web-log, and already I have the fundamentals of posting mastered. One would think a beginning logger might make some mistakes, like wondering off mid-sentence for a scotch and donut break and accidentally clicking publish before finishing the sentence. (Say, I think I've given myself a craving.) One important thing, before I go, assuming I can maintain my concentration: Never forget when it comes to learni

November 1-November 7 (running tab)

cabbage stew


EDIT: So apparently I also had a rather substantial amount of vermouth residing in hair storage. Please disregard previous post. Blame the vermouth and my stache's remarkable capacity for retention. Really, stache totally saturated with the stuff. Almost unreal.


cabbage stew
vermouth
entire glazed donut
one of those model ships that you put together inside a bottle
the bottle it was inside of
three tarot cards (weird)
vinyl copy of Abbey Road

a modest proposal that will drastically change society for the better forever

I find that I think most clearly when in the midst of mustache maintenence, so in need of material for this humble web-log (only item stuck for week of November 1, so far, so lamely: a healthy dollop of cabbage stew) I retired to the lavatory to groom my face's lush welcome mat. *Snip* *Tweeze* *Snip* *Appreciative Sigh* And EUREEKA!

This is sure to be a touchy subject, but I think we can all agree that women's rights have made progress. Of course there is still much ground to cover. I have a suggestion that can play a part in advancing the cause.

It's common knowledge that the rights of women have long been impeeded by the mustache. (Not the mustache's fault, as while it may be occasionally intimidating and always worthy of respect, it is at heart a noble and gentle creature with little to no interest in making life difficult for others.) No, women's rights have been slowed because they are denied, either by biology or our culture's cruel disapproval, the "Rocketship to Success"(patent pending) that is the mustache.

Now I'm not daft enough to believe that more than a tiny liberated fragment of the female population will be brave enough to free the folicles along the upper lip. And I'm not here to condemn those that prefer to maintain that archaic notion of feminity in part by maintaining a smooth face (or to use other, more wildly accurate terminology, perpetually murdering their mustache). I am here to suggest that women make a symbolic stand against the male-dominated world of facial hair by cultivating what I'll call "The Lady Stache". It's simple, elegant even: assuming you've (either by society's pressures or your own preference) taken to shaving your legs why not next time leave a little space for liberty. Perhaps a mustache directly below the right knee. And while I'd normally never advocate a soul patch as anything other than a component of a more elaborate facial hair structure, there are worse ideas than leaving a little hairy dab of daring just above the left ankle.

You might ask, "How is this going to make my pay rate comparable to a man's?" Or maybe you'll wonder, "How is this going to afford me the same opportunities so often more easily attained by men?". Perhaps you'll query, loudly and with a note of disgust in your voice, "Are you mentally ill? What a terrible, pointless, and disgusting idea!" Frankly, I'm not prepared to answer those questions.

beginning to mix work related content with the important stuff

So I began this web-log with intentions similar to those of most web-log authors: to chronicle the contents of my mustache. But it turns out my place of employment is looking to bring its employees into the world of what's mysteriously known as "Web 2.0". So it appears I'll be muddying up this blog with "content" and work-talk. I'm loathe to admit trepidation, and one would never guess such a feeling resides within me as they gaze at my robust mouth-sweater, alas, I admit trepidation. To make lists of what's stuck in my mustache, well that's a purpose second only to growing, maintaining and adulating the hair-umbrella above my talkhole. But to engage in a learning experience over the internet with colleagues...certainly not a task for the faint of stache.



also for the week ending 10/31
a wishbone, minimal gristle

October 25-October 31 addendum

also:
pen cap

October 25-October 31

a small portion of bratwurst
two turkey feathers (removed immediately)
kite string
coupon for toothpaste
mustache wax (never touch the stuff, but it got in there anyway)
three turkey feathers
assorted lego blocks