It’s not an existential crisis exactly, except it kind of is.

Your daily Lex.

So, we had the final weekend of Fiddler, a couple sold out audiences, which was fun, actually three of them, and then we did our final three shows, and yeah, done.

I had set up my shaving area ahead of time.

So during act two I have a nice break for about 35 minutes, and I had brought some very large, it’s actually like packing paper, but I brought some very large sheets of plain newsprint.

I had a tall garbage can, I had the razor, I taped the newsprint to the floor underneath the garbage can to catch any slipped hairs, I got everything plugged in and set up, and then the second the curtain call was done, I raced into the dressing room and took the razor to my face.

I was more than a third finished when the next person got to the dressing room, and they were like, wait, you were serious, you’re really doing this right away?

And I’m like, oh yeah, there was no joke.

It was a little hard, honestly, shaving, not emotionally, but physically.

I probably should have trimmed it back or used a guard first before I went straight down to the studs, slash stubble, but it was fine.

I worked through the pain and got it done.

The whole process took maybe eight minutes, and it was shocking.

And this is where the existential crisis comes in, because I started growing the beard probably in January.

I started losing weight in November, which means I lost about 40 pounds, maybe even more, while having the beard.

So my face was doing a lot of changing while I couldn’t see it.

And I had said to my family, I think when I shave the beard, my face is going to look thinner, and they’re like, no, your face wasn’t heavy, that’s not where you’re going to have lost weight from.

And I’m like, I think you’re wrong.

My family now agrees with me.

I shaved the beard off and looked at my face, and it’s weird.

My family thinks I look weird, and I think I look weird.

I think I look borderline gaunt, which I don’t want.

But it also could be I didn’t get to watch my face transition over time.

It all happened at once.

And because of that, maybe it’s not actually gaunt, and it’s just that it takes some getting used to.

And I’m very open to that possibility.

But when I look at myself right now, I don’t recognize myself.

My kids and wife have the same reaction.

They see me like, whoa.

Every time they see me, they’re like, you look weird.

This is weird.

I mean, one, yes, I’ve lost a gigantic beard.

But two, my face does not look like it did before.

I found a photo from November and one that I took yesterday, and you can see, like, wow.

I didn’t know just how fat my face was, but apparently it was.

So, yeah.

I haven’t actually had any video calls with regular clients yet today since shaving the beard yesterday, although I do right after I finish recording this episode have one, and I’ll have lots of video calls this week, and it will be a topic on all of them.

One, just because, wow, there’s the beard.

But anybody who knew me pre-beard is going to be like, whoa, where did you go?

Like, what I never want is to look sickly.

I don’t really think I can be like, is Lex okay?

Is Lex healthy?

Right now, at least, I think that for people who know me, they would wonder because it’s so much change so quickly since the beard hit it all.

I think the question I’m trying to ask myself is if somebody just saw me, would they assume sickly or just, oh, there’s that guy with that face.

Hopefully the latter.

Hopefully they would say, hey, there’s that guy with that face.

What a lovely compliment that would be.

I would also say, regarding Fiddler, we did a good enough job lowering expectations by telling our friends how not excited we were about the show that 201, every single one, said, oh, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I was fearing based on what you said, which is good.

I don’t mind having people come in with lowered expectations and then being pleased because if they had gone in expecting greatness, they would have been severely disappointed.

Anyway, my face looks weird.

Yours doesn’t, though.

You look great.

Happy June 16th.

Lex.