Photo of the Day: Chrysanthemum

A few weeks ago, Eminem and I celebrated three whole wonderful months together. Truth be told, I can't believe it's been only three months, but still. It's been lovely and I don't think either of us can believe just how lovely.

Anyway, homeboy brought me my favorite flowers for our date: Peonies and chrysanthemums. Seriously. What man remembers your favorite flowers and then brings you some? What man? I ask you. I'd never before met such a man.

This is one of the chrysanthemums. Is there a cooler flower? I love how explosive it looks while it's petals are soft and almost ethereal in opacity. Next time? The peonies!

My hair is trying to kill me

This is the tale of a girl and her locks and how they went from wonderful to complete bitches. I have no idea why her hair is plural but that's just how bitchy. 

To be fair, it's not entirely the hair's fault.

Let's start at the beginning. You know how much I love the Aveda Institute. I've been going there for quite a while, paying nada for a great cut and pretty much just loving my hair.

Wait, I should back up.

I've always had great hair. It's super thick, grows fast, and does what I tell it to do. Got it? Great, we can move on.

So my favorite stylist at the AI, Carly (I hope she doesn't mind me mentioning her name, because she was awesome and incredibly talented and I miss her) had the nerve to graduate. I mean, why didn't she ask me? And, as I understand it, she decided to not work in a hair salon after graduation. She's taking time or doing work in a spa or something. I forget, because it doesn't involve me in any way.

This was after she'd cut off all my hair for Locks of Love and now I had short hair and a style to upkeep and no stylist. Carly had recommended me to another girl, whose name I won't mention, but I just wasn't happy with her. She really wasn't great at all.

So that left me stylist-less. So I called one evening and requested a senior student (how I got Carly in the first place, bee tee dubs) and this conversation took place:

Me: Hi, I'd like to make an appointment with a senior student to get a bang trim.

Dude on the phone: Unfortunately, you can't request a senior student.

Me: Well bummer. Because I used to be able to do that.

Punk: That's impossible. We've never allowed that. 

Me: Huh. That's really odd because I did that before.

Douchenozzle: There's no way that's true at least in the past three years. We don't do that.

Me: That's crazy because I know I did that within the last two years because I've only lived in Portland for two years.

Asswad: That really can't have happened, M'AM!

Me: Why are you speaking to me with so much attitude. I'm simply trying to explain to you that someone there did do that in the past...

Stubborn little twat: I'M not getting an attitude. And I'm the supervisor so I'd know. Plus it's JUST a bang trim. It's not that hard.

Me: Oh you're not? Huh. Thanks for informing me. So nice to know you have so much control over your staff. And that's funny because the last girl who trimmed my bangs screwed them up.

Dickshit: M'AM, I'm not getting an attitude.

Me: Well I won't be making an appointment ever again and neither will any of my friends.

Complete asshole fucktard: Awesome! Have a great day!

And I then I combusted.

I did try to get the shit in trouble because there was no need to be such a power monkey rude ass douchenozzle little shit, but apparently he doesn't really have a boss. Isn't that awesome? Needless to say, I can never go back there on principle alone. So now I really don't have a stylist.

Therefore, I haven't had a bang trim in far too long. Luckily I rock the side-swept long bangs.

Then I decided to dye my hair red again. I haven't been red in years and it was time to go back. I dyed it myself, something I've done to my own hair and my friends' hair a gillion times since I was like 18. See, everyone wants me to do their hair because I'm anal retentive and thorough. Also: fearless when it comes to hair.

Anyway, it didn't take. Like, you could kind of tell in the right light, but I wasn't going for subtle. I wanted red! I felt like that scene in Beaches when Hillary spends three hours dying her hair exactly the same color. Hillary says, "It's a subtle difference," and CC says, "I don't think so."

Yeah, that.

So I waited a few weeks and I chose a brighter color and I did it again. And it took at the roots, then it was a deeper, darker red-ish brown on the rest of my head.

After pouting about my once pliant hair, it hit me. Aveda. I had my hair colored a deep chocolate brown at Aveda Institute last winter and that color must be repelling the red. That's why it took at the roots; that's where it had grown out.

Grrrrrr! Aveda!

The color I want is between this:

And this:

So I'm fading out the red with a clarifying shampoo, then after a bit, I'm going to bleach it up a couple shades and try again. It doesn't look awful now that it's faded a bit and I do get compliments. Point is though? I want it how I want it dammit! And it will be the red I want. 

Oh yes it will be.

Oh and tomorrow is my dad's 65th birthday! Happy birthday to my pop. Next time, I'll tell you what I'm doing for his birthday, aka why I'm a super awesome daughter. 

Photo of the Day: Lenny

Isn't my Hobbes so sweet. He's such a big dumb lug, sometimes I swear he's the cat incarnation of Lenny from Of Mice and Men. "Hey George. The mouse is soft, George."

Photo of the Day: Just Coasting

Despite really, really wanting to write a couple posts that are swirling around in my brain, such as how stupid Aveda Institute is or why I can't get my hair to dye the color I want or what an awesome daughter I am or how I'm starting a few super awesome crafty home projects, my brain is not cooperating. No more words will be written today!

There to the fore! I have to decided to bring back Photo of the Day. I don't know why I let it slack off in the first place. Photography is a huge part of this blog after all! You're so welcome.

Please to now be looking at this photo of Haystack Rock I took a couple weekends ago when Eminem and I took a loverly trip to the Oregon coast.

As an aside, see that little black spot in the water? Yeah, I thought my lens was scratched because I cleaned the lens and look! there that fucker still is. Happy days though, because it turns out the inside of my camera was just dirty. Hooray!

Me and My Muffin Top

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because I've been busy getting fat.

Don't scoff. It's true. I'm working very hard on my cider belly (that's a beer belly for girls who drink hard cider instead of beer because they're allergic to gluten. it happens.).  It's coming along quite nicely too. Pretty soon people are going to be asking me if I'm pregnant. Nope, I'll say, just fat. And then I'll bask in their embarrassed faces. Because if I'm going to get fat, I'd at least like to enjoy it. 

I really am gaining weight at an astounding pace. I don't look that bad yet. Yet. But that's because I'm pretty damn adept at camouflaging my muffin top and my exponentially growing booty tooch. Also, I'm tall. So I figure I have at least six months before people start actually calling me fat.

The most frustrating part, though, other than the fruitless trips to the gym, is that none of my clothes fit. I have like two pairs of work pants and two pairs of jeans that still fit. They used to be my baggy pants. Now I don't own baggy pants. Everything else is simply bursting off of me. I'm afraid a button will pop off and take out someone's eye and then I'll be embroiled in a lawsuit, all because of my fat.

And it's not like I can afford to buy new clothes. If I were rich, I'd embrace this! I'm say, fuck it, Kirstie Alley, let's buy some new clothes! Excuse to shop! Hell yeah!

Except I can't afford to shop. I really can't. So I've married my leggings and have draped myself in my long dresses and then I just hope I don't get much bigger. I finally understand why my mom wore all those stretch pants.

Or maybe my mysterious windfall will finally come. In that case, bring on the fat. I'll just buy a mansion and fill it with new clothes. Also: food. I think I may know what my problem is.

I did try to give up alcohol for a month, thinking that drinking certainly doesn't help the situation. But then one of my favorite restaurants was closing on Friday and they were doing $1 wine and champagne and so I was forced to drink four glasses of champagne. Forced.

Sigh

I do go to the gym. I do. I go and I swim a thousand laps (not that many, but I do work hard), and then I just get bigger. This may have to also do with my relationship with ice cream. That and maybe I'm just getting old. I remember a time when I could eat a massive burrito right after dance class and I was so teeny tiny that one of my old leotards wouldn't even fit on one thigh now.

Don't you wish all nineteen year olds knew how good they had it?

And sure, all my friends are going through the same thing. We're all old and fat. But I'm like, sister christian, you just had a baby! I don't have that excuse. All I can blame is four glasses of champagne and a steak.

But it was damn delicious. A bundle of bubbly food baby. Wanna feel it kick?

I think I need an abortion

Next week: the battle with my hair and how I now hate Aveda Institute.

Random Thoughts of a Crazy Lady

You read that right. Random Thoughts are back! You lucky ducks.

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So the other day I was sitting in downtown Portland, enjoying the sun (finally!) and getting the first sunburn of the year (awwyeah!) and avoiding the rats with wings. I mean pigeons. I hate pigeons. Hate them. They're disgusting.

Anyway, it occurred to me that that song in Mary Poppins, Feed the Birds, was about pigeons. That bird woman was feeding the pigeons of London. She was asking kids to give her money to feed the pigeons.

Why were we all so enamored by this? She was a crazy bird lady feeding the disgusting pigeons! London's pigeon problem is probably all her fault. And doesn't this make you question Mary Poppins' sanity? Why did she convince those two kids to give their money to a crazy bird woman instead of investing it in the bank? What the hell was the teaching those kids?

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Do you want to know the truth? The real reason dancers wear tights? It's not to look pretty and it's not, as we tell you, to keep our muscles warm. It's to hide all the wounds and bruises that dancing causes. It's true. Dance is brutal and they wouldn't want their pretty ballerinas to look all beat up and bruised would they? What kind of message would that send? Therefore? Tights.

In fact, even though I don't dance anymore, my legs still get all bruised up. It's like my legs are magnets for desk corners and random walls that come out of nowhere. I need to start wearing tights again. People must think I'm a masochist. Which I kind of am, I admit.

Next week: dancer's feet!

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Today is mother's day. I hate mother's day. Just like I hate all family and religious holidays. These days are supposed to be all about making us feel special and included, but they forget all about those who aren't included. Those of us without mothers or fathers or children or who don't practice a certain religion are totally left out and completely screwed.

At least on Christmas, you have to stay home because not one fucking place is open. On mother's day, if you go out and about like a normal person, you get inundated with reminders of your lacking. I swear, if one more person asks me what my big mother's day plans are, I might punch them in the face.

Because it doesn't stop with one question. I say no plans and they ask why and then I have to explain that I don't have kids (why not? oh don't worry! you'll get some!) (barf) or that I don't talk to my mom or sometimes I say that I don't have a mom, which then gets sad faces and sympathy and makes me feel like a jerk for ruining their lovely day. But fuck, they brought it up! Or sometimes they say, Oh everyone has a mom! Or they respond, Oh she's your MOM! Don't you want to call her? As if they know one fucking thing about my life and I really shouldn't have to explain myself to every random fucking stranger.

So in summation: mother's day sucks. I know this is also true for my friends who are step moms are have lost babies or lost mothers. I'm with ya, sisters. I'm with ya. Stay strong and fuck Hallmark.

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I am brilliant. Most days. Yesterday was not one of those days.

It was a beautiful day. And I really wanted to get outside. I also wanted to swim laps at the gym. So I decide that I'll walk the roughly three miles there. In flip flops. Because I'm a genius.

Also, the day before, I'd spent all day taking photos at a golf tournament and the bottom of my feet had started to get a few blisters that weren't that bad and wouldn't have gotten bad if I hadn't decided to walk three miles in the hot sun in flip flops.

So you can imagine what shape my feet were in by the time I got there.

I did have a good swim, but then I had to make my way home. Luckily, I'm smart enough to take the bus, but that included walking to find a business that would break a bill so I'd have exact change and then hobbling to the bus stop and then home.

I had planned on hiking today, to avoid mother's day, but as you can imagine, my sore soles are in no shape for a hike. At least there are cozy coffee shops with ice tea and rose gluten free cookies and wifi where I can write random blog posts.

There is that. It's brilliant really.

and verily she wrote a post and verily not one rant was in it

Well, hello, my dear readers old pals old friends. I've missed you. I've been a busy, busy girl you know.

For one, I joined the gym. Again. No, you didn't hallucinate that. Cheapskate that I am, I shelled out the 30 bucks a month and I'm swimming laps almost every day and working off this thick layer of fat I've developed in the last forever months. It feels fucking great. I also hate other swimmers. But are we surprised?

I'm also taking voice lessons, which I have been promising to tell you about and which are hugely therapeutic. I'm getting out all my neuroses there, I swear.

As you may well know if you've been reading for some time, my mother is insane. She was also a stage mom (picture those pageant moms only backstage, grooming their little ones for stardom. Picture Mama Rose from Gypsy only scary. So I've had a huge block about singing for a long time. Finding karaoke was huge for me because it was a place I could sing without any pressure and actually love it. I do love to sing, I do.

So these lessons, with the sweetest most awesome woman you'll ever meet in your whole damn life, feel so incredible. And it turns out I'm a lot better than I thought, even with the bad habits I've picked up over the years and with the learning I have to do. And I have a much bigger range than I thought too and she thinks there's much more in there. And she's always gushing all over me which makes me blush from my toes on up. I don't hate it, not gonna lie.

What else? After my huge early thirties life crisis the other week, I've been really agonizing over what's going on in my life and how I'm getting too old to put off my life's goals anymore and what I'm going to do to make them happen. I can't just let my dreams pass on by, because the next thing I know, I'll be in my sixties and telling some young kids about how I wanted to be a writer one day. But I'm an artist! I'm a photographer. I'm a writer. I need to make art and I need the time and funds to feel fully capable to do so.

With all that in mind, I finally decided to look into MFA in creative nonfiction writing programs. The purpose is this is, one, to get writing full time, two, learn some skills to market myself and maybe even get paid, and, three, to hone my craft. I'm really excited, despite the thought of how I will pay for it and pay for living while I go to school. But, hell, I need to do this. And, no, I'm not leaving Oregon. So it will be a program here.

And as you know, I'm back at Sprocket Ink. My first post was up last week and a new one will be up Monday morning. You definitely need to be reading it. Also, if you haven't liked my facebook page, do that too, as well as Sprocket Ink's page.

Quoi encore? Eminem and I are doing splendidly. I'm completely, effervescently happy with him and I get the impression he'd say the same if he were quite the talker I am. But everything is just easy and breezy and calm and uncomplicated. He's pretty damn great and while I recognize that my instincts suck monkey ass and while my exes don't exactly set the bar too high, I suspect I'm a lucky girl.

Alright, my iced tea is empty and my laptop battery is about to die, so I'll leave you here. Before you go, check out these photos I took a couple weekends back at the Rhododendron Garden in Portland: