It’s now been four weeks since I last shaved, which means I’ve completed the dubious facial-hair accomplishment of having to wash my beard after meals. And here I thought I’d adopted the low-maintenance alternative to shaving!

Ditching that almost-daily ritual of shaving my face is yet another thing I’ve done to try to simplify my life as the novel-coronavirus pandemic grinds on. Besides, it had been almost 24 years since I’d last tried growing a beard, so why not give it another shot when my professional visibility would be limited to people on the other side of a webcam?

(That prior experiment started when two other guys in the Washington Post’s Weekend section stopped shaving, two more of us decided to do the same, a “beardguys” group somehow appeared for us in the newsroom messaging system, and then three weeks later everybody called it quits. That probably had something to do with September in D.C. being a not-comfortable time to have facial hair.)

On the positive side, it didn’t take me long this time to get past the significant-other-disapproval stage of stubble, while our daughter finds this addition to my face generally amusing. My beard has grown out with a predominance of gray around my chin that adds a certain gravitas. And having that much extra hair around my face helps balance out how untidy the hair on my head is starting to look after five weeks without the services of a barber.

On the negative side, my beard sometimes itches and, as mentioned previously, is starting to complicate eating. I have no idea what sort of beard grooming I should be doing, although I hope it doesn’t involve as many different products as I’ve seen recommended. And as it gets warmer and warmer outside, having this extra insulation for my face may seem pointless.

It would be nice to think that we could exit this lockdown state before we reach the depths of summer heat and humidity. But while I can count on the latter, I can’t count on the former.