So Jason raised the question in response to my last entry, when did the facial hair come about?  As you can see below, I was not sporting a goatee when Tawn and I first met in 2000.  For that matter, I was wearing glasses, too – something else that has changed in the past decade.

So when Tawn and I met, I was clean cut.  This was not, however, always the case.  I’ve had a history of some facial hair going back into the early 90s.  An on-and-off sort of history, but a history nonetheless.  Below is a picture of me and some university friends (and my faculty advisor!) at the 1993 March on Washington for  Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights.

Discussing this with Tawn last night, he pinpointed our short March 2001 trip to Paris as the first time I started growing a goatee.  Here’s me on top of Montmartre with the first signs of a goatee.

The goatee, however, was not a permanent fixture in those years.  I would sometimes shave it off – something that Tawn, who was quite fond of the goatee, took to be an indication that I no longer loved him.  For a short while, I shaved off the moustache and had only the lower half of the goatee, a look that was not documented on film.

Reviewing older pictures, I’ve tried to determine when I finally made the goatee a permanent part of my look.  There’s this picture of me on the London Eye, which I think dates from March 2002.  No goatee.

In September 2002 at our friends Colleen and Sean’s wedding at Lake Tahoe, I’m still clean shaven.  Or at least, I’m clean shaven again.  This must have been a very confusing period for Tawn.  “He loves me, he loves me not.  He loves me…”

By January 2003, when we were in Thailand for a visit and flew to Manila for a friend’s wedding, the goatee seems to have become a regular fixture.  I don’t see any photos after that date with a clean chin.

So that’s the story of the facial hair, Jason.  As for the glasses, I had lasik surgery in the summer of 2000.  Not for cosmetic reasons (I look better with glasses, I think) but because of the hassle of glasses, especially when playing sports.  Here’s a picture a few hours after surgery.

Thankfully my friend Lilian gave me a place to stay and drove me to/from the surgery.