With a thick moustache...

I've never had HBO, mostly because my cable bill is already outrageously high enough that I just can't bring myself to pay for the extra channels, as well. So, while I had heard any number of good things about Deadwood, I'd never actually seen an episode until a friend dumped the DVD set of season one in my lap last spring. I went home and dropped the first disc into my player.

After finishing that first episode, the only reason I didn't sit in front of the TV for the next twelve hours straight was that, knowing the show had been cancelled, I wanted to stretch out my viewing experience as long as I possibly could bear it. Deadwood changed my life--and I don't just mean that in a hyperbolic, gushy sort of way. I mean that, thanks to this show, I actually look at the world in different way. What do you mean, you might very well ask? And my answer is simple:

Facial Hair.

You see, I have sensitive skin. I have come home with a rash after particularly, er, fruitful dates, and this began to color my perception of men's facial hair, i.e. I came down pretty much on the side of Against. And I noticed it creeping into my perspective on language, as well. If a friend referred to a man as "ruggedly handsome," I started hearing "doesn't shave well," and I tended to shudder inwardly.

And then I started watching Deadwood, and I'm not sure if it was just repeated exposure, or some alchemical reaction at work, but I realized I was looking at men differently. Goatees? Great. Sideburns? Bring it on. Good lord, I was even finding moustaches sexy. ("Oh my god. Did you see the handlebar on that guy? Is it hot in here or is it just me?") My last relationship was with a guy who, for the vast portion of the time we were dating, had a beard AND a moustache--and I liked it. I've just started watching season three of the show, and of late my daydreams have been filled with mustachioed men in vests and long coats sweeping me off a dusty thoroughfare and into a dimly-lit bedroom in the nearest broth--

Okay, so maybe the show is having a greater effect on me than even I realized. But, hey. I'm also living proof that television can bring about tangible change in the lives of its viewers.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a date with Al Swearengen.