It’s Sunday morning, and I’m shaving my face.

Later, I start the mower.

Trim the yard, keep the HOA at bay for another week.

Maybe longer, if it’s winter.

Afternoon, and I’m tweezing my eyebrows.

Turn those same tweezers loose on the bramble emerging from my nostrils.

Eyes watering, remember my beard trimmer has an attachment for that.

Address the beard, then tame the wilds of my nose.

Later, I drive through the neighborhood, once full of pecan trees.

Trees that passed as dormant a few months ago are now clearly dead. Reminders that much of what I take for granted happens because someone moved water from somewhere else. That life as we know it depends on someone bending nature to their will.

Evening comes, and the algorithm is being its usual invasive self.

Pointing out since I’d bought a particular travel razor, I should be in the market for grooming tools that work best “south of the border”.

It’s not wrong, because even though I am A Man Of A Certain Age and fast approaching that time of life where I’m picking out my favorite kid yelling lawn chair, I still care about keeping things…at bay.

Because I can’t let things just be.

I can’t sit with myself and let events unfold.

I’m a bipedal organism with opposable thumbs.

And I want things neat.

Tidy.

Growing in ways I can accept.

Like orchards.

The lawn.

My beard.

And the nether regions.

Nature scares me.

So I beat it back.

One nose hair at a time.