Hair: An Important Topic

Before my former hairdresser Lyla moved to San Diego, I went to her faithfully and she always did a great job. We even discussed my hair icon Gwyneth Paltrow together. Now, I'm in no way disillusioned into thinking that I look like her. At all. Let's face it, when you, even jokingly, have been called boyface and then later in life, manface, it's impossible to see yourself in any Gwyneth way. And I have been told I look like my dad and my maternal grandfather--who are nice-looking, but MEN. Not unlike Gwyneth in Shakespeare in Love:



Anyway, what I will say about her is that we have the same hair type. We both have a lot of thin blonde hair. And thank goodness we have a lot, since it is thin (but I AM thickening mine with Mane & Tail Shampoo--love it love it love it). By choosing Gwyneth as a hair icon, this keeps me from becoming deceived into thinking I could pull off some haircut I see on a course-haired brunette that might ultimately leave me in tears. So basically the only thing I need to resist succumbing to is thinking I will leave the hairdresser's looking LIKE Gwyneth Paltrow, which I think I have finally mastered.

It has been over a year since Lyla left town and I began cutting my own hair. It has been fine because basically I never think my hair looks that good, so I might as well do it myself for free if I can get it to look acceptable, right? Well, it's time for a cut/trim again and so hair has been on my mind a lot. I mean, there's no telling how much time in the last 7 or 8 years I have spent looking up pics online of Gwyneth's hair. Nor can I tell you how many times I've had the Sliding Doors cut:



I don't really have a picture of myself with that cut, but you saw me with shorter hair in a previous post.

But basically, right now my hair looks (a little) like Gwyneth's in this picture. (Sorry about the link, but IMDB is so stingy with their photos!) Okay, it's not exactly the same, but you get the idea.

Plus in that picture I am, I mean Gwyneth is with Michael Douglas, who coincidentally is married to Catherine Zeta Jones. I remember seeing CZJ for the first time in The Mask of Zorro and thinking how beautiful she was--and then immediately being offended by my dark-haired grandmother who was with me when she leaned over and whispered, "I just really think dark-haired women are so much prettier than blonde ones." The fact that my instant message persona/screen name/pic is now Catherine Zeta Jones probably stems from that very day.

I really don't know what my dilemma is right now, I'm not planning on heading back to the short hair department yet. Maybe someday when I get too old to be able to pull off long hair and I start debating a perm...but for now should I go a little shorter? is medium length hair ever a good idea on me (all pictures point to no)? just keep going a little longer? keep going a lot longer? do I need bangs?

I get so confused when I look at pictures like these:






Someone tell me what to do.

Next, I would like to discuss a very personal topic with all of you out there on the internet. You see, I have a very low hairline in the back. I know. I'm not proud of it. When I got my first short haircut, I realized my low hairline wasn't going to cut it when the back of my new haircut was going to look somewhat like this:



It was at this point, that the hairdresser shaved the back of my neck (just like the man[face] that I am), moving my hairline up a little. I was horrified and shocked and embarrassed, even after learning it wasn't totally uncommon for short-haired women to do this.

And I was even more horrified and shocked and embarrassed than I am everytime I have my eyebrows waxed and the woman says, "You want a lip wax too?" No, I don't want a lip wax. Do I need one? Why is she even saying it? I think maybe she is just trying to make more money, especially since I have heard her ask the same thing of others who don't need a lip wax. But still, I did pause to consider if I really need one when she said to a woman on Friday "You want an eyebrow wax too?" and that woman really did need some eyebrow help.

But now back to the even worse topic of neck hair: Even now that I have longer hair, I haven't given up the shaving practice. It makes me feel a little better to have a higher hairline on the back of my neck, even if it is at the expense of having to maintain it and feel manly about doing it. Plus growing it out and it getting too prickly seems even worse. Anyway, it's something I think about a lot.

Gosh, there are so many questions about the length of my hair, the placing of my hairline, the amount of hair on my face and I haven't even touched the pros and cons of highlights...ahh well, another day perhaps.

Anyway, if I have upset you or grossed you out or sent you over the edge and you don't want to read my blog anymore because I'm suddenly Marcy Manly to you, I'll understand. I'll still be here alone with my hair obsessions, shaving my neck and thanking Heaven that Gwyneth is older than me so that I can follow her right into her old-age hair decisions.

Hopefully I'll see this soon.

Who remembers Lance ? I do.

Bottoms Up

For a long time I have been telling people that the Chinese don't drink during their meals. They eat all of their food and then have something to drink afterwards. I (thought I) learned that this aided in digestion. As a matter of fact, I was just talking about this last week, and, as usual, got the response, "I had never heard that."

Well today I was delighted when Roxy said, "I only drink after my meals. Just like the Chinese." I told her I have had recent conversations about this and no one has ever heard it, and so I was glad that she had. She then replied by telling me, "I think YOU'RE the only one who has ever heard of it." Apparently she was just teasing me because, for years, I have been telling her the Chinese did that.

Immediately I called Carly to try and back up my facts since she lived in China....no such custom that she knows of. And the closest I found on Google was an article about cultural customs that said the Chinese generally drink tea before or after their meals but not during. It just makes me wonder where I (thought I) heard this. And why do I feel inclined to tell everyone? Even now, I realize that I probably won't stop with this story. It's like a tradition for me to tell it. And I love rituals and traditions. Someday I will probably be sitting at the table as a grandmother telling anyone who will listen that the Chinese don't drink during their meals.

That story probably won't surprise you after I tell you that I have purchased the exact same present for my brother's birthday twice, and he is only 5. Not only did I go into the store and buy the same piggy bank I had already given him without even the slightest recollection of the first time, but I also called my mom and told her "I got Ethan one of those banks with the different compartments that you've always wanted him to have," which apparently is the EXACT same sentence I called and said to her the first time I got it for him.

The moral of the story: Take what I say with a grain of salt because apparently I'm making up stuff. or not remembering it. or doing it twice...

It's That Time Again

Alright, everyone, it's time for Name That Song again. I would like to mention that previous winners can win again. No one has won twice so I thought I would make that clear. And anonymous readers out there, feel free to play too!

I really do mail the winner a prize, so please be honest and fair and don't ruin the fun by looking up the answer.

The first person to email me (my e-mail can be found through my profile page) with the correct song title and artist wins. Good luck.

This month's lyric is:

"And be careful of what you do ’cause the lie becomes the truth"

Edna was looking very glamorous

I have loved Jeopardy for as long as I can remember.
I have hated Alex Trebek for just as long.
I try not to really swear, but everytime he reads a clue with a foreign word or phrase in an accent, I have to say "Bastard!" outloud.
Another phrase I will swear in is: "My memory is ass" which is actually a phrase coined about me by my roommates.
Back to Jeopardy.
Schatzy, Roxy and I used to watch and play along.
Roxy thinks you win if you say the answer loudest, not first.
Sometimes we would play where each of us had to answer every single question whether or not we had any clue what the question was about.
I seriously considered trying out to be a Clues Crew member.
I think the rounds should be a little longer. They don't need to leave 10 whole minutes for Final Jeopardy.
My mom told me that Alex and Pat Sajak don't get along. And that once when they passed in the hall, they stepped far away from each other. And Pat said Alex is a big egomaniac-bastard. This is all probably not true (except the egomaniac-bastard part), but I'm spreading the word anyway.
At the end of a taping of an episode where I was in the audience, the bastard made them retape him reading one of the clues with a foreign phrase so he could get his accent better. Twice.
I got those tickets to attend Jeopardy by mailing in a form found at IHOP.
Please read this.
Take it easy.

Come Away With Me

If you visit me in Tennessee, there's really no tellin' what might happen. When a couple of my friends, affectionately referred to by Skewedview as the Cereal Brothers (they are not brothers, but their names ARE Krister and Crispen) visited a few years ago, we spent a fair amount of their one and a half day visit at Target looking at pajamas resembling a Twister game mat. And when Schatze and Roxy came, we took an hour detour from the 3-hour trip between my aunt's house and my dad's just so we could take a picture in front of a sign that said "Welcome to Nutbush, TN. Birthplace of Tina Turner."

I have just returned from a 10-day trip home which, again, did not disappoint. During Neil's 2-day-visit portion of the trip, the first thing we did was go straight from the airport to lunch. At a gas station. In a ghetto. We ate in the car with napkins as bibs as a man tried to sell us ankle socks.

The heat wave had ended and it wasn't too hot while he was there. Plus we had Skewedview's new pool to cool off in anyway. And I'm sure Neil wasn't alarmed or anything when my grandmother showed up to the big pool party that night with a shotgun.

Luckily, he had missed earlier escapades such as when we were at the lake and my cousin announced that the boat police were out and my aunt Diane, who had just gotten on the boat with a beer "better hide her booze" and her sister Patty misheard and started yelling "Diane, hide your boobs!" Or when we sat around for a long time playing a made up game where someone asks a question where the answer is a word that ends in O and you have to say the answer followed by "yo." For example, "What did Austin Power lose?" "His mojo, yo." Or later that night when we were setting off a lot of fireworks and Skewedview and I requested that Diane sing "God Bless America" while he and I provided backup for her. No one seemed too impressed except my uncle Tim who threw some quarters at us. And on the 4th of July, while the rest of America was cooking out, we were at home watching Danny Deckchair and having the best Banana Splits of my life for dinner.

In other food-related events, one day we went to The Old Country Store for a late lunch and ordered the buffet. When the buffet was ready, one of the cooks came out of the back and loudly rang a large triangle to let us know the chow was ready, causing a mad rush by about 15 people hidden behind the door waiting for their supper. But the best was during the NASCAR-style drive back to DC. Neil and I stopped for a country breakfast at a restaurant next door to Loretta Lynn's Kitchen called the Log Cabin. When Neil headed to the restroom, he walked in on a man who had not locked the door. As he apologized and turned to step out of the one-room restroom containing a toilet and a urinal, the man quickly spoke up in his thick country accent and told Neil to come on in, "It's a two-holer."

And that, ya'll, was nigh on one of the best trips home I've had in a month of Sundays.