All Or Nothing

Hair, By Extension

Have you ever found yourself wanting to look like someone else, even if the person you're wanting to look like has been compared, repeatedly, to a drag queen?  And then you feel kind of weird and ashamed because - really?  Have you been harboring the "hot tranny mess" gene all this time and somehow never noticed?  But finally you look deep within yourself, to the source of your attraction, and realize that you just like the hair.  Whew!  You just want her hair.  But then, sadly, you are made aware that Drag Queen's gorgeous curls come courtesy of some uber pricey hair extensions.  You quickly switch hair models, but every time you find a new head of hair to covet, you learn the truth: EXTENSIONS.  Every last one of them.

So what's a girl to do?  I've been waging a battle royale with my hair for...well, ever since the 8th grade; that's the first time I can remember messing with it.  The summer after 8th grade my best friend and I thought it would be a great idea to use that Clairol Herbal Essences wash-out hair dye to turn my baby-soft, thin, naturally blonde hair maroon.  We waited until the week we were going to camp, followed the simple three-step process, and voila - purplish red hair.  After 14 shampoos or however long it was supposed to take, my hair looked somewhat normal - but with a decidedly mauve tint.  No problem, I thought - I'll just highlight it!  I was always jealous of my friends who highlighted their hair.  All those different colors, and you could even do stripes!  How fun!  It was on that fateful day, as any of you who fight the good fight of hair-color maintenance know, that I screwed myself forevermore.

I've been growing my hair out now for about two years.  Yeah, I'd say either two years or the entire last decade; it all kind of runs together.  Right after college, drunk on excessive freedom, I went through a hair phase best summed up as LET'S CUT IT ALL OFF.  I met a hairstylist friend named Lily, and she and I bonded over our respective goals: she, to achieve the coveted Level 4 Stylist and I, to have as many different haircuts in a year as humanly possible.  After a series of increasingly shorter crops, I ended up with this cut.  And after that had grown out enough to do ANYTHING with, I went back to the Toni & Guy in the mall to visit Lily and her manager told me she had gone to jail.  Surprisingly, Lily is not the only hairstylist I have had who has ended up in the clink.  Is it a hazard of the job?  Hairstylists, what gives?

Now I'm stuck in this stage where I keep thinking that if my hair can just grow another inch or two, it will FINALLY look like I want.  And then it does grow - another inch or two of the fine, straight, flat hair I've always had, and I am consistently shocked.  I think I have hair dysmorphic disorder.  I look in the mirror and see potential for fat, full-figured curls, but everyone else sees the reality - sickly, stick-straight strands.  One of my really good friends, Allison, has been doing my hair for the past couple of years, and the other day as I was leaving the salon, we paused at the check-out desk to chat.  Allison pointed at a picture of a hair model hanging above the desk and said that she would love to grow her hair out and cut it like the model's, but that her hair would never do that.  I looked at the picture, looked at Allison's hair, and said "sure it would! Why not?"  Allison sighed and explained that the hair model had tons of thick hair, and that if someone with thin hair attempted that cut, it would end up looking stringy, scraggly and awful.  It was like a lightbulb of shame went off in my head, and I think Allison could see my wheels turning.  "So, is that why my hair looks stringy, scraggly, and awful half the time?" I asked.  "Half the time?" Allison replied.  "I think that's being pretty generous, don't you?"  Then I drop-kicked her and stormed out of the salon, but not before magnanimously tipping at least 15%.  What?  You don't tip?  How rude.

Really though, I am grateful to have a friend who does my hair, someone who will tell me the truth that NO, ELISE, your hair will never look like this picture you brought in.  At least not without adding in a whole lot of someone else's hair.  And I don't know, I just don't think I can get on board with the idea of a normal, non-celebrity member of society getting hair extensions.  I mean, what would you think, if the girl who works in the cubicle next to you, or the lady next door walked up one day with long, thick, gorgeous curls when just YESTERDAY she had normal, blah, mid-length hair?  I think it could be kind of awkward.

"Soo....umm...your hair looks nice today, Elise."

"Oh!  Thanks!  I...uhhh...curled it!"

"Yeah.  Okay."

or

"Soo....umm...your hair looks nice today, Elise."

"Oh, yeah...errr....it's weird, I know.  I got hair extensions.  I mean, OBVIOUSLY, I did - not like you didn't know that because clearly hair does not grow this fast overnight, and.  Yeah.  I know it seems strange, and maybe like, WOW DOES SHE THINK SHE'S A DIVA, but really, I don't!  I just...thought it would be fun?  And..."

"Yeah.  Okay."

So I guess I'm just going to have to get on board with my boring hair.  Unless you guys think I could pull off extensions.  And trust me, I can't.

It's Your World

Hi!  I am like, the biggest blog abandoner ever. 

I'm sorry about that.  No really, I am, because what happens is I am normally into the posting, and the reading of other blogs, and the commenting, and all that sort of thing and then I get busy for a few days (who doesn't?) and I kind of temporarily abandon all that stuff, and then a few days turns into about 10 days and then I start feeling guilty for not checking in, for not writing, and then 10 days turns into 15 and I start feeling REALLY guilty, and then I'm all, screw this guilt over a hobby, for goodness sake, I have REAL ACTUAL things to feel guilty about, like the fact that my cats have gone without real cat food for two days now and I STILL haven't bought any.  Why?  I have no idea.  I keep forgetting.  I'm a bad cat mom.  A bad person.  See?  Plenty of opportunities for guilt without adding blogging to the mix!

Anyway, as I've allowed all this time to go by I keep having things happen where I think, wow, I really need to write about this quick! Before I forget.  And then I don't write about it (obviously).  So, for my your sake enjoyment, here is a short list of things I need to write about in the next week or two before I forget them completely (also, yay, bullets!):

• That thing I realized while on the plane last week abut youth, or growing up, or something like that....see, I have already pretty much forgotten this one and therefore it will more than likely be scratched.  Perhaps though, the magic of these bullet points will remind me.

• The thing that happened at Chick-Fil-A the other day with the evil mommy brigade. (sidenote: mommies?  what is with all the hate?)

• That thing I read in that book that explained that one horrible characteristic I have TO A TEE, I mean, wow.  Is the author like, LIVING IN MY HEAD?  And if so, I'm sorry.

• Those horrible people who were on the tiny, nausea-inducing plane with me last Wednesday.

• What being a wife is all about: does it include remembering EVERY detail of your husband's life and schedule?  Or could he maybe remember some of those things himself?  Questions for the ages.

• The towel thing.

Those are the ones I still remember.  And I promise you, I WILL write about these things!  This week!  Possibly even today!  And in the meantime, if you want to sort of comment/vote about what interests you more, maybe I can appease my wary audience with an entertaining story about something you actually WANT to hear about.  This would be instead of the normal drivel you're kinda forced to read around here.  About socks and apple butt.  And I know that stuff is riveting to me, but then I am the kind of person who decides that as long as my hair looks alright, I can probably postpone that shower for another day or so.  And as an added bonus, with that decision I am now a water conservationist.  Right?

So vote.  For the love of all that is good and clean and lovely, tell me what to write.

Like, seriously...

Ahhh. I can finally breathe again. My hair is back to a semi-normal color. And it only took three days, two boxes of hair dye, one failed trip to the hair salon, one angry phone call to said hair salon, one successful trip to same hair salon, 2.5 hours at hair salon, 5 different professional hair processes, and a grand total of right around $200. Yeah, I said it. $200.00. Let the shock sink in.

"She spent $200 on her HAIR. Like, OMG,"

"Yeah, who does she think she IS, anyway? Britney f-ing SPEARS?"

Well, I can assure you that not only do I not harbor any notions of being Britney, I also believe she might dish out just a tad bit more for her hair. Especially since the last thing netscape.com popped up for my reading pleasure was about Britney's poor little puppy, who was apparently so distraught in his new puppiness that his mommy felt he needed a whole new doggy room, doggy bed, and doggy room accessories from Shabby Chic to cheer him up. I mean, my very own Dr. Vegetable only has her one Juicy Couture Rabbit Fur Capelet that she uses for a bed, and a Minata collar. Come on.

In other news, I have added some new links. You should all check them out, and soon. I'll probably be back later for more, but for now, it's time for a long stint in the copy room with a tub of old bank statements. And who says law isn't exciting??

Orangey-Orange

This isn't me, and this isn't my hair length, but it's pretty freaking close to the color. Just imagine some longer, blonder layers emerging from that incredible carrot-inspired hue.

For you, Kim :)

Beginnings and Endings, officially

You may have noticed the new format. I wanted to officially welcome Cody to the blog and when I saw this template, I just knew it would be perfect.

However, there is another reason for the change. I wanted to say goodbye, also officially, to my haircolor. I have, officially, ruined it. There is a small chance of saving it if the people at Toni and Guy can perform a major pigment miracle, but the likelyhood of it ever resembling a color found in God's creation is slim to none.

I wish I knew how to post pictures so that everyone could know the incredible catastrophe that is my hair, but perhaps it is a good thing that I don't.

Here's my best attempt to explain: Imagine this color, fading to this color, then chunking into this color. It's a huge mess. Ugh. It's kind of like when that nacho cheese truck overturned in the road and all the cars coming through slid all over the road, colliding into one another and causing a giant, cheesy disaster. The similarities are striking not only in the "How disgusting!" department, but also in the "I can't believe that just happened," department, not to mention the "I can't look away bcause it's too awful!" department.

I eventually drove myself so insane looking at it that I had to tie a scarf around my head and go to bed. Cody made the observation that he never would have imagined going to bed with hair product scattered around the room, a cat refusing to move from his pillow, and a wife who insists on sleeping with a hair scarf. I tearfully replied: "Oh yeah?? WELL JUST WAIT!" I think it was sound advice, officially.

The Dangerous Perils of Ice Cream Consumption

If you knew, without a doubt, that by eating a certain something you would become pretty sick, and then you determined to eat it anyway, you would then be placed in one of two categories:

1. Pretty stupid

2. Pretty dedicated

Now I like to consider myself in the second of those two categories, but hey, interpretation is open as always. The real point here is not what category I belong to. The real point is that yesterday afternoon, I decided to eat some Blue Bell Cookies and Cream, right out of the ice cream tub, too. Now being what some might call lactose intolerant, this is not exactly the wisest thing for me to do, unless I enjoy all sorts of stomach ailments, but as before mentioned, I am dedicated to my love of all things good, and Blue Bell fits right in there. So, even though it will be only for a few precious bites, I am determined to enjoy the ice cream to the fullest. Now you all know how it is when you get that perfect bite, and I really do mean perfection - it had almost a whole oreo, frozen of course, with just the right amount of ice cream clinging to the edges. Oh, my mouth is watering, I am bringing the spoon to my lips, and what do you know, Jack the freak jumps into my lap at this inopportune moment, knocking the spoon and the perfection it held onto the floor. This only momentarily deters me, however. I mean, if I'm about to make myself sick anyway, what difference does it make if I got it off the floor, right? We are not talking about a reasonable decision making process here. But wait. I will tell you now, I never got to eat my perfect bite, never got a chance to partake in that heavenly Blue Bell goodness, and would you like to know why? Hair. Few things make me want to vomit more than finding hair in anything, and to drop my perfect bite on the floor only to see it subsequently covered with my lovely albiet shedding roomate's hair was crushing. Not to mention that it was sick, and gross, and that is the point of this post. I hate hair unless it is firmly attached to someone's head, and even then it's iffy. So watch out, my friends, lest the same tragedy befall you or one of your own. You have been warned.