Quodlibets

My hairstylist was feeling Sassy (with a capital S)

Today, I went in for a haircut/highlight.  Though I've been growing my hair out, I still like to get it trimmed every eight weeks or so, and anyway, highlights require maintenence.  For over a year or so, the highlights have been very natural--a light blonde and a caramel tone mixed in with my natural medium brown.  I pretty much assumed that it would be the same old same old today, but uh, no.

Right away, she was all over me about shifting my hair color for fall.  At first, she said she thought she might want to do just the caramel highlights, but she must have seen my hesitence on that one, because she brought up red and my eyes must have brightened.  I LOOOOOOVE red highlights.  Once upon a time, before I dated S and he took lots of pictures of me (hence, I have no pictures of this time period), I had very, very bright, thick red streaks in my very short hair.  I loved them.  LOVED them.  I'm not sure anyone else shared that opinion, and anyway, I stopped seeing that hairstylist soon after (not because of the color; it was the cut) and needed a change.  I haven't had red highlights in my hair since then.  Until now.

My hairstylist asked if I wanted to do subtle or wild and I hesitated for a minute.  I'm pretty sure she thought I was hesitating because I was scared of wild highlights, but just the opposite, in fact.  I wanted the wild red streaks but wanted to make sure she thought it would work.  Apparently, she did, because a scant five minutes later, she was applying red (and caramel) color to my hair.

Oh, friends, it was so worth it.  I have bright red highlights in my hair, and they're sooooo fantastic.  My hairstylist was excited doing them--she said she loves to have fun with hair, and that she'd had a very bad morning.  I made her day, and let me tell ya, she made mine.  Red-streaked again! 

Friday Random Ten (without an audit)

So, lots of people do the FRT thing.  And a few of them somehow rate the songs that they pull up.  I cannot for the life of me figure out what the rules are for the audit, because when I read the annotated FRT entries, I hardly ever see the bands I listen to represented.  And that's fine; I'm not so very indie as I am stalled right now by my growing adoration of audiobooks.  Anyway, today, I saw this post at Pandagon and I finally understand that I apparently do not understand what is cool and what is not.  Because if Phish is -30, than Dave Matthews must be like, -50.  I just don't think Phish is that, you know, uncool or whatever the audit score measures.  And a 5 out of 10 for the Who?  That's weak.  Clearly, I'd audit myself in a completely unsatisfactory way if these other audits are any clue. 

So, I refuse to audit.

1. J'ai Fait Touq -- Emmylou Harris
2. Love Is a Good Thing -- Sheryl Crow
3. Past Poisons -- Patrick Park
4. Still Can't -- The Cranberries
5. Listen -- Toad the Wet Sprocket
6. Play -- Flunk
7. Loving Arms -- The Dixie Chicks
8. Bring It On Home -- Led Zeppelin
9. Crooked Teeth -- Death Cab for Cutie
10. I Feel the Earth Move -- Carole King

One more End

As in odds and ends.  I found one more thing you can do to help Hurricane relief efforts.  Restaurants ALL over the country are doing something called "Dine For America"; each restaurant is structuring its donations differently.  You can see which restaurants are doing what at the Dine for America website. 

Seven restaurants in my little suburban town are taking part, and I imagine that in some places, even more restaurants will be participating.  It might not take any effort; I noticed that the Caribou Coffee in my town was doing it, so it could involve spending less than $5.  I'm sure that S and I will take part in this effort--after all, we love food.  Why not combine the two things? 

Odds and Ends

I don't have too much to say today (though a post about the ethically bankrupt people in government [be they Republican or Democrat] is fermenting in my head.  So instead, here are some links to things that I've enjoyed recently.

• A list of commonly mispronounced words.  I'm pretty sure that I don't err in this way very often.  There were a couple of words on the list that I refrain from saying, normally, because I wasn't sure how to pronounce them, but know I know.
• A list of the 100 most commonly misspelled words.  I am guilty on so many of these (not so good with the i before e rule; I also forget all the time which words have double letters) so thank god for spell check.  I do think that the it's/its rule is more of a grammar thing--but it drives me CRAZY when people misuse the words.  It is so freakin' easy to remember the rule on it's/its.  The apostrophe, in the English language, often takes the place of a letter.  In the word "it's", the apostrophe is an i.  Hence, if you say this, "The cow was chewing it's cud," you are saying, "The cow was chewing it is cud."  Clearly, that's not what you want to be saying. 
• I've been reading Gaper's Block at least once a week.  I like to look at the strange events happening in the city, even though most likely, I will never go to any of them.  (To be fair, I did drag my mom and sister to the Renegade Craft Fair, due to information from GB.  The craft fair was a BUST, but not because of the crafts.  No, the mud made it positively unpleasant [isn't that an awesome oxymoron!] and hence, we didn't have fun.)  GB makes it seem like there is always something fun going on in the city, and for some reason, that appeals to me.
• The GIANT SQUID.  For some weird reason, I find the squid fascinating.  I mean, it's such a mythical creature, and the fact that no one has ever seen one in its natural habitat is baffling to me.  Humans can go to the moon, but they can't find a 26 foot-long giant squid in the ocean?  It seems like if we can do one, we can do the other.  Strange, right?  And then I saw this (pleeeeeeease click the link) and almost bought one.  You know what's weird?  Me.  I can't believe I'm this excited about a stupid giant squid.
• I can't deny that I'm in love with THIS site.  I have a weakness for the wee kitties.  I suppose that it won't go away ever, and that S should just admit right now that at some point, he'll break down and allow me to get a damn cat.  Even if it does mean he'll need shots.
• I have a weakness (that I've never indulged) for vintage jewelry.  Mostly brooches.  I found the Absolutely Vintage site once, while looking, and I go back now and again to check the newest additions to the site.  It's hard to know what the pieces will look like in person, but sometimes I think that it doesn't so much matter.  I just like window-shopping, as it were.

Anyway.

This Just In

I am a charter member of the "I Hate Jennifer Garner" club.  Really.

But it's the damndest thing.  I'm watching her on Ellen right now and I want to be her best friend.  I guess I've never seen her in an interview, only in the bad movies she's been in (and I certainly don't watch Alias; I hate Jennifer Garner, after all.), so I was maybe a tad bit unprepared for her laugh.  She's got the cutest little laugh. 

All I'm saying is, maybe I'll be easing back from my membership in the club.

Banned Books Week

I saw this over at Starfish and Coffee, and I think it's a perfect meme for Banned Books Week.  Below the fold, you'll find the top 100 most banned/challenged books (challenged by various people for various reasons, usually to insist on their removal from school or public libraries).  I've underlined all the ones I've read (quite a few, really) and challenge you to do the same. 

I think that most challenges are completely unfounded, and that what libraries do is provide access to all sorts of materials, knowing that almost every single item in a library is probably objectionable to someone.  I hate when libraries kowtow to pressure and remove books from circulation; I think every person in a community should be allowed to make their own decision.  Too often, though, one person makes the decision for everyone. 

If you don't recognize many of these books, perhaps go to your local library and attempt to check one of them out.  And then read it.  You'll be on your way.

There but for the grace

Yesterday, JD died.  He was 26, and the fact that he survived this long is a testament to how much of a fighter he was.  I don't know the details of his long battle, only that it involved a brain tumor, surgery, coma and survival.  I was young when it started--and I can't remember how I processed the return of the tumor, or the surgery.  I know that I visited him in his rehabilitation home (ironically, not far from where S and I are living now), and that I was scared.  Scared for him, and yes, for me.  Mortality was new to me, and knowing that JD could die was the first experience of that emotion I'd ever had.

Through the years, I was aware that he was not living the same life I was.  I was starting middle school, and then high school.  I went to concerts and stayed out late at night.  I went to prom and I graduated.  I started college and I went to Rome.  JD was fighting for his life, in and out of a coma that should have, by all accounts, been the long, slow, slip into death.  News of him passed through the grapevine; he was out of the coma, or he was at home again; that sort of thing.  By and far, I was continually reminded, at these times, that his life no longer mirrored my own, as it had for much of my childhood.  He fought hard for every bit of life that passed into his lungs; I have had the good fortune to breathe as if I didn't know I was doing it.

The last time I saw JD was at my cousin J's wedding.  He sat, inscrutably, on the edges of the dance floor as we girls danced in and out, around him, drinking so much, laughing so much.  I cannot imagine how our vitality looked to him; did he revel in it?  Or was it an insult to him, how we could be so alive and so indifferent to his compromised state?  I can't know the answer to that, and I choose to think that the kindness of his brothers, of his old friends, and of his beloved friend, my cousin J, were enough, at that point, to sustain him. 

He wasn't in good shape at the end, you know, but I had begun, at some point, to take his living for granted.  Because I thought, for a long time, that his would be the first wake and funeral that I would attend.  And he hung on, and he hung on, and my grandfather died, disabusing me, not very gently, of that notion.  Perhaps my adulthood began then; perhaps JD's funeral and wake would be the first of my adult life.  But S's grandfather died recently, and those sad events became a milestone.  I guess I had forgot, recently, that JD could die.  That someday, I would hear through the grapevine that he had died.  I knew, but I didn't know.  And now, now I know.

I won't remember JD as he was at the wedding, or in the rehabilitation center.  Instead, I'll remember him as he was on some summer day, before the tumor came back, before he had to start fighting.  One summer day, JD pinched my ass.  We couldn't have been more than 8 or 9, but even then, I understood that it was NOT OKAY for a boy to pinch my ass, and I was verrrrry angry.  He earned my wrath; I was so angry that I still remember the incident, even though other boys have pinched my ass, even though other boys took up my time.  I can't help but remember that first time. 

Forever, I will remember JD as the first boy who pinched my ass; I would rather remember him as that alive, interesting boy than the man he was forced to become.

When Your Head Hits the Pillow

Today, after the mud-fest that was the Renegade Craft Fair (a failure all-around, but only because of the thick, disgusting black mud), and after a long trafficky drive home, I felt so tired that I thought I might fall over.  I ate a small snack, hoping the food would revive me, but the bed called.  So I thought I'd read in bed, and that would be relaxing enough.

Apparently not, because I fell asleep instantly and deeply.  And then I slept for almost two and a half hours.  Consequently, I wasn't hungry for dinner (and anyway, I couldn't stop thinking about the buffalo chicken pizza from the night before that was in the refrigerator in my dad's house), and I picked at the food I made for myself (okay, let's be honest, it was a frozen meal).  Now, I want that damn pizza.  And I'm awake.  I think I'll be awake for a looooooong time, if the length of the nap is any clue.  And I finished one project, and can't start another until I go to the store (one that isn't open 24 hours, dammit), so I'm at a bit of a loose end.

I guess when you need a nap, though, you need a nap.

A Reading Detour

Well, I thought I could finish A Breath of Snow and Ashes without wanting to re-read the series, but I was wrong.  I read a Lisa Kleypas book, and started the new Oprah book (though to be honest, I bought the book ages ago and just never read it--no Oprah logo on my copy), but when I went to my mom's house this afternoon for some necessary pants-hemming, I couldn't resist the lure of the Gabaldon. 

I'm hoping that a re-read will re-focus my reading, but I'm also mentally bracing for a sharp drop in reading hours because (drumroll, please) I've acquired a part-time job.  I have another interview, too, for another part-time job.  Between the two, I'd be working full-time.  And there would be a shitload of driving involved, so if I get/take the second job, I'd be working from a smaller bank of hours.  And, the colorbook project is starting in earnest, which will require commitment beyond commitment for me.  That's okay, but it means that I have to start reading smarter--less wasting time on books that I'm only sort of into. 

So the foray into Gabaldon is probably both ill-advised and going to hamper my attempts to keep feeding my mind new things, but I CANNOT make myself put the books down.  And frankly, the Oprah book (A Million Little Pieces) is kind of gross.  It's hard for me to understand how someone can be sooooo fucked up.  I understand alcoholism (I dated an alcoholic) as far as the inability to stop yourself from drinking goes, but it is beyond me to know what could drive a person to drink liters and liters and liters of alcohol a day.  So much that you're blacking out every day, you're puking three to seven times a day--well, I cannot understand it.  And I think part of it is that this man did this for YEARS; he willingly did this for so long that he was two, three days of using from death.  It's so far beyond anything that I could possibly understand.  And it's a bit of a downer.  Let's just say that I'm not really wanting to put down Gabaldon for it.  Anyhow. 

Friday Random Ten--The I'm-Terrified-of-the-Doctor Edition

1. Silence -- Delerium feat. Sarah McLachlan
2. Into the Next Sun -- The Soundtrack of Our Lives
3. This Bitter Pill -- Dashboard Confessional
4. Goodnight L.A. -- Counting Crows
5. Everyday is a Winding Road -- Sheryl Crow
6. Glamorous Glue -- Morrissey
7. Hell Yeah -- Ani DiFranco
8. In Your Veins -- The Soundtrack of Our Lives
9. Do You Want To Know a Secret? -- The Beatles
10. Young Pilgrims -- The Shins

I'm continually baffled by the iPod's insistence on spitting out two songs by the same artist, especially when that artist is severly underrepresented on the 'pod. 

Also, I do not liked to be poked and prodded and split open.  It terrifies me.  Just saying.