I Hear They're Making Nicer and Nicer Wigs....

In my life, in addition to the requisite heartache and pain, there have been girls who didn't invite me to their birthday parties, boys who said I smelled bad, bosses who didn't pay me anywhere near enough and at least two people who refuse to recognize the brilliance of my writing but I have had only one true enemy and that is my hair.

I wrote the above sentence months ago and have struggled with a post about my hair ever since -- how could I let such a fabulous intro go to waste? What's more -- How could I deny my readers paragraphs of me whining about HAIR? What could be more thrilling? If any post will get me on the front page of Digg it will be this (Q: what do geeks love more than long diatribes on physical appearance?) (A: Jokes about the Linux kernel).

Living with my hair is like waking up each morning to the task of appeasing a rogue dictator. The official words that I used to describe the beast that rests tauntingly just above my forehead (and which proudly takes credit for most of the forehead wrinkles) are "blond" and "wavy" but I'm not actually comfortable saying either of these things because neither is absolutely true. My hair is only blondish and wavish. I constantly feel like my hair is making a liar out of me -- like people are whispering behind my back about how I'm mouse-y brown and stringy and in deep deep denial.

There are 2 options for my hair post shower -- apply a defuser enabled blow dryer it in hopes that the curls/waves decide to play nice and evenly distribute like a romantic frame around my face (15% success rate) or give up all hope and straightening it which will look exactly the same every time I do it but which will also be kind of boring (95% success rate).

Evil hair stylists are always claiming that if I'd just purchase this $50 bottle of goop I could look so beautiful every single day that people would stop me on the street and offer me free ice cream and wouldn't even care when I got super fat. It is possible that I am just way too lazy and oblivious to judge hair products but I can't say for certain that I notice any discernible difference between say Marc Anthony Curl Lotion or Loreal Springing Curls Mouse or just rubbing excess sunscreen on the ends of my hair. All might lead to a comfortably curly frizz free day and all might cause my head to explode.

"Get a better hair cut!" You naively scream. ("Perhaps one that costs more than $20" you might add as a snotty aside. You're kind of a bitch.). The sad truth is that hair styling as a profession is only one step above televangelism or spray on hair in terms of delivering results (though at $13.95 it might be worth it to just shave my head and start from scratch). Hair stylists are incapable of doing anything to improve the state of affairs north of my eyebrows. I've tried to tell every single one about the elusive wave and temperamental frizz and the results are always the same. They claim I should scrunch it more and use some magic product sold only at their salon and I might even be willing to try such foolishness (despite years of failure) if they had any ability to get me out of the salon looking anywhere near presentable, but every appointment ends with some ridiculous take on prom hair. I also hate getting my hair cut because going to the beauty salon means that I have to have at least one conversation with a beautician.

"So what are you up to tonight? Perhaps we can give you a special do!"

"I have 2 episodes of Baby Borrowers buring a hole in the Tivo... Can you do something that will compliment a tub of Chunky Monkey?").

Dear Pandora Part 2 (Now You're Just Being Stupid)

I'm sitting at my desk, grooving on some Hold Steady (and by grooving I mean occasionally bobbing my head and perhaps biting my lip and nodding a bit when they play Chips Ahoy but not ever actually doing anything that might be categorized as dancing) when what should I see but this:

(outraged pink commentary by yours truly)

Look Pandora -- I thought we settled this shit. I agreed not to shame you by having a torrid affair with your mortal enemy and you agreed to stop acting like all of my favorite bands are Blowfish clones. Personally I've enjoyed this extended period of peace (thanks for recommending The Kamikaze Hearts!) but don't think I won't turn on the bitch face and cut you if I hear so much as one note of some stupid song about a dude crying over a football game (save that baby act for when I kick your ass at Mario Kart).

On the Installation of Automatic Toilet Paper Dispensers

They just installed automatic toilet paper dispensers in the work bathroom (I can only assume they are somehow wired through the deck). My first thoughts was "Really? Who is this lazy?" but then I realized that this probably has more to do with woman being crazy germaphobes in the bathroom.

Other thoughts:

1. How did they determine the amount of toilet paper to to dispense? Was a study on average butt wiping needs done? The amount delivered seems more than substantial to me and I can hardly imagine going in for seconds. If this is average I feel that one of the main causes of global warming is over wiping. Perhaps this is commentary on the size of my ass (small).
2. When I stood up my butt caused the dispenser to redeploy. Perhaps this is commentary on the size of my ass (big).
   

Temptation

My office has a deck that serves as a fabulous cafeteria during the months when it's not covered in snow. Sadly, yesterday the door to the deck bore the following message:

Please do not step onto the deck. The [building management company] is having electrical work done on the deck. Please. for your own safety, we encourage you not to open this door until further notice.

When I told G about this sign his response was, "don't do it, babe . . . even if you think opening the door would make a good blog post."

So far so good...

Insert Trite Pot Joke Here

Before we begin I feel obligated to warn my readers that this post is about D-R-U-G-S. Or... it's probably about D-R-U-G-S. It could also be about O-R-E-G-A-N-O because since the DARE Program in my elementary school was almost as effective as the "Sex = Babies" lectures I don't know that much about pot.

This evening after work I decided to make a quick stop in the Union Square Whole Foods. This is hilarious because no one has ever got in an out of that store in less than four lifetimes. But I needed fancy plums and some nice cheese and given the paltry food shopping options offered in New York City I had no choice but to swim through the sea of yuppies. Eons later as I waited sweaty and bored for the N train to show itself in the subway station I happened to glance down at my feet (cute shoes!) and notice a tini tiny little ziplock baggie stuffed full of some mystery substance. Now as we all know the only things that come in tini tiny ziplock baggies are jewelry that's purchased at a flea market or on a street corner from an "artist" too cheap to invest in classy gift boxes for his wares and DRUGS.

My thought process went something like this:

OH MY GOD DRUGS! IN THE SUBWAY!

Man, I really wanna pick them up -- could it really be real live DRUGS?

What if my 6th grade teacher is hiding in the subway? What if she sees me touching DRUGS. She will be so disappointed. Must resist picking up DRUGS.

What if a cop sees me and can tell it's DRUGS and thinks the DRUGS are mine and arrests me on the spot? Must resist picking up DRUGS.

What if this is a STING? Must resist picking up DRUGS.

Man I could totally blog about this.

So of course I picked the DRUGS up and cleverly hid them in my shopping bag right between the crimini mushrooms and the organic pluots. One might argue that posting on the internet about the DRUGS you just acquired is not the best way to go about avoiding being arrested however, the marijuana now sitting on my kitchen table seems to exist in a legal gray area. Am I breaking the law by possessing these DRUGS that I found? What is the proper thing to do when you spot a baggie of DRUGS on the subway platform? I suppose the right answer is "alert the authorities" but calling in the troops for a sting on enough pot for 5 or so joints seems like a bit of a waste of tax payer resources. Also, calling the cops could have led to missing my train and like any self respecting New Yorker I'm not risking that even to report a murder.

I realized on the subway ride home that I was living the dream of some Phish fan (minus the lack of shower but plus a pungent wedge of Gorgonzola so really it all evens out). Sadly, this dream is going to be crushed, because in addition to the fact that drugs are bad and might turn your brain and/or testicles into a fried and/or smashed egg anything one finds on the subway is 100% FOR SURE smothered in a tangy sauce of rat piss, cockroach droppings and the dried tears of washed up mariachi players/break dancers and ingesting such a combo will kill you. So this pot's future is going to be spent in the NY sewer system which, I'm next to positive, won't seem much different than the floor of the Union Square Subway Station.

When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best Song From 1979

I used to love greeting cards. This was back in Junior High when I didn't have a very firm grasp on things that were cool versus things that will ensure that I keep my virginity well into college (this sentence seems to imply that nowadays, my grip around "cool" is steady and tight, this is a lie.). Back in the day I could spend a few hours in a Hallmark store giggling a Maxine jokes (that old lady is a cad!) and envying my Aunt Karen's box of cards that allowed her to send everyone in the family at least two cards for every birthday (she probably had TONS of boyfriends!).

Has anyone been to a Hallmark store lately? Since the internet now allows me to forget friends' birthdays up until the very last minute and then greet them with a "happy brithday! wooohooo!... we're old." on facebook it had probably been at least 6 months since I set foot in a card store. On Saturday I had to dive into the bowels of Disney themed ornaments to search out a "congratz on spreading your seed!" card. Unfortunately Hallmark not longer offers actual cards (unless you're willing to purchase one of the no irony "little girls are love and kisses and farts of sugar" tragedies).

Let's suppose for some reason (perhaps the card recipient is deaf?) you don't want your card to play a popular song at maximum volume. You should probably go to another store because, as you can see from the picture at left, at Hallmark it's all annoying jingles and quotes from not so funny movies into infinity. There also seems to be an overabundance of country music themed cards including a birthday card that plays 'Live Like You Were Dying" which I only recommend for birthday boys who are under age 30 unless you want to ruin the special day with the implied "because you are, really soon".

There is one way to avoid the din of sound cards and that's to go green. At Hallmark caring for the environment means having no sense of humor. It also means taking every single opportunity to note your superior recycling skills. Every card in this section is a parody of how people in Alabama picture "those liberal Env-I-Ron-Mentals." There were pictures of vegetables on more than one card. There were repeated chants to the earth goddess. I believe one card included a coupon for tofu. Apparently Hallmark has identified the market for "green" cards as "strictly people who have full time jobs protesting for PETA."

Lest you think Hallmark has completely failed to join the 21st century let me assure you that on their web site in addition to demos of how to wrap packages and recipes for strawberry jam (cause if anyone knows cooking it's the stationary store!) they also offer premium ecards.... for $1.99 each. Frankly this seems like a smoking deal for an video of an orange couch with clip art of dogs haphazardly crossing the frame to the dulcet tones of Jungle Boogie. It appears that Hallmark has only been able to legally source a few songs for the ecards so most the cards feature either "Jungle Boogie" or "Hot Stuff." Really what more could anyone need?



This entry is cross-posted at Burt Reynolds' Mustache

A Little Protein in my Salad

So. It's Tuesday morning. In an effort to not be wasteful or 400lbs I'm dutifully working my way through the mounds of lettuce that the CSA forces upon me by making a salad for lunch (seriously, I hear there are food shortages in other parts of the world, this is likely due to the mass lettuce hording done by the hippies in my neighborhood.). Brianna cannot live by lettuce alone and since I'm nearing the end of the veggie supply I'm forced to scrounge through the fridge for fixins'. On to the island of lettuce go some grape tomatoes and some tuna fish and some canned beets when out of the crisper should pop one spring onion. Let me rewind to last Thursday as I chopped some other veggie and thought to myself, "my oh my these knives are dull. I should sharpen them." And so I did. I think you see where this is going. The onion is poised on the cutting board preparing to be bisected, dissected and consumed but this onion has bite, this onion has teeth, this onion is the little veggie that could and he's ready to stand up and fight for root vegetable rights. The cut through the onion was swift and clean right up until it hit my finger. Then it was bloody.

BEWARE: GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW.


I AM NOT KIDDING.


AVERT YE EYES OH WEAK OF STOMACH MASSES!

As you can see things did not look good for Mr. Left Index. As I stared at the waterfall of blood that poured into my sink as I bravely submitted to washing the wound I thought about slapping on a couple of band aides and ignoring the throbbing. I thought about how if I were in the same house as my mother her ER nurse skills could probably magically sterri strip the flaps of skin together for the tiny price of listening to her lecture me on knife skills. And then I called Amy and asked her to drive me to the hospital. I felt a bit bad getting her out of bed (Oh to be a teacher on summer break *sigh*) since I probably could have called a Taxi or walked (you know, assuming I knew where the nearest hospital was which.... I did not) but then I remembered that due to her little bout with cancer Amy owes me a debt of roughly 400 hours of hospital time -- this 8am trip to Mt Sinai is no where near pay back.

My last trip to an ER for stitches took place in 1993 when I got kicked in the mouth by a wild lamb who was none to keen on putting on some shoe polish and showing off her shapely legs in the country fair. The hoof I took to the mouth resulted in me actually hiding from my parents in an effort to avoid the trip to the emergency room and thus reduce the likelihood that I'd end up with a needle shoved into my lips 5 or 6 times (though really my mother would not have blinked at the idea of stitching her wimpy daughter up in our kitchen so placing all of the risk in the hospital was incredibly short sighted). I was eventually herded into the family car, given a long lecture called "Do you want to have a huge scar on your pretty pretty face cause I can give you one with my fist young lady." numbed up and subjected to some fancy facial embroidery. I am proud to say that I was much braver this time around.

The only time when I considered jumping from the gurney and running far away from the nice Physician's Assistant and the man in the bed next to me with the truly gruesome puss-filled tale of stepping on glass a few weeks ago only to be alarmed by the oozing 14 days later was when, after my finger was numbed up with 5 or 6 shots of anesthetic, I thought "hmm my hand feels weird, is that just the numbing? Perhaps I should turn my head and actually look at the hand..." only to be greeted with a scene from SAW IX: Decapitation Isn't Just For Heads. There was so much blood. It was running down the table, it was puddling between my fingers, it was like a side of finger french fries with extra ketchup. But I again averted my eyes and managed to get through the stitchery and the tetanus shot ("Was the knife clean?" "Well, I assume it had some onion juice on it.").

I left my hospital ID on all day in an effort to court sympathy at work, this was mostly in vain. And so I am forced to court sympathy on the internet.