Though, a week ago, the fu manchu was, according to one blogger I then met, “one of those faint, prepubescent mustaches that look like the wearer has just finished drinking Yoohoo and forgot to wipe his lip,” it quickly grew out to something more terrifyingly bushy, something that received even worse reviews.

So, as of this morning, I’m back to clean-shaven, though likely to return – out of equal parts style and sloth – to my scruffy-bearded standard.

At the same time, my hair (as in head-top, rather than facial) has also reached the latter stages of the cut-grow-grow cycle. At the start of each such circuit, my hair spikes up, entirely on its own. So, in an effort to imply intentionality, I often use pomade during that first stage, as if to say, ‘yes, it’s supposed to look like this.’

Somewhere along the way, however, my hair loses its alfafa enthusiasm, laying down in such a way as to invite (at least when beardless) frequent comparison to Matthew Broderick. And, normally, at that point I stop using pomade.

But, this time through, oddly enthralled with the idea of stylistic self-experimentation (regardless of the distinct non-success of Project Fu Manchu), I’ve decided to keep pomading, and keep growing, as long as I can get my hair to stand straight up.

I’ve begun to discover already that doing so requires far more gel than usual – may soon even necessitate a whole new stronger, firmer-holding compound. But that shouldn’t deter me. Already, I’m achieving a solid two-plus scalp-top vertical inches. And, god knows, I could use the extra height.

Put me on any flight longer than three hours, and, somewhere along the way, I’ll read the Sky Mall Catalogue cover to cover.

I’ve been doing so for at least a decade. And, in all that time, I’ve never actually purchased anything from it.

I do the same with a handful of other catalogues: Crate and Barrel, Herrington, Design Within Reach. When they appear in my mailbox, I can’t help but thumb my way through, will even dog-ear a page here and there, as if to convince myself that maybe, this time, despite years and years of uninterrupted experience to the contrary, I’ll actually whip out a credit card and put in and order.

And It isn’t just catalogues. Back before I killed my television, if I surfed past an infomercial – be it for ginsu knives, vacuum cleaners or ab machines – I’d inevitably watch it, transfixed, the rest of the way through.

I don’t know why I do, nor why I derive pleasure from simply considering without actually purchasing. But, given the number of flights I take each year, not buying any of those lusted-after Sky Mall items has doubtless already saved me thousands upon thousands of dollars.

So, when I finally do call in to order the indoor electric-powered waterfall fountain, I figure I’m totally, completely justified in buying the really, really big one.

I am, admittedly, both a snob and an alcoholic. Given the two, most people assume I must like scotch.

But, in truth, I’ve never really been a fan. In part because taking scotch too seriously as a twenty-something always strikes me as effortful, effete. And, in part, because I’m just not a fan of the way it tastes.

Still, every gentleman needs something to drink off the rocks, to sip neat. So, for years, I’ve been making my way through golden-brown beverage choices, looking for one to call my own.

I came close with cognac – but soon found even low-end choices to be prohibitively expensive across a drink-filled night about town. Barrel-aged rum, too, seemed a near fit, until I discovered the percentage of bars that stock nothing beyond Bacardi – acceptable on the rocks as a fifth drink of the evening, though less so as a first.

A month or so back, however, I discovered a definitive answer – one already sitting in my liquor cabinet.

Colin and I were six or seven hours into a late-night editing session, synching sound for Underground, staring at monitors full of Final Cut until our eyes had long since glazed. My liquor supplies having dwindled dangerously low, and in deference to Colin’s Kentucky roots, I pulled down from the back of the cabinet a bottle of Woodford Reserve – a bottle I’d received as a gift, and had left unopened for a year and change, knowing that I don’t like bourbon.

Or, rather, believing that I don’t like bourbon. Because, it turns out, I do. A lot. Some more than others – Woodford or Makers Mark seeming much more to my taste than, say, Knob Creek.

I haven’t yet had time to sample the wide array of base-level consumer choices, much less to test out the slew of high-end options. Still, I’m already sure bourbon is it – is my drink. It tastes right. It tastes like coming home.