Awooooooooooo

Today was the Solstice. I celebrated by getting all drunk. At a firm event.

Actually, I forgot all about the Solstice, but it totally worked out great what with the inebriation at work, 'cuz I was able to sober up in my office while surfing the Internet (which informed me that it was the Solstice), and it was still light outside when I was finally able to leave.

Sweet synchronicity.

Still 100% Alive

I'm not dead; just dealing with bad juju. If the bad juju turns into even worse juju, whither this blog I know not. One hopes (and by one, I mean ME) that the future holds good juju and mojo and even some mocha OR perhaps a splash of jumanji. But all that is, alas, out of my hands.

P.S. I hate coffee.

Untameable

An unexpected issue with the short hair has been my inability to pull it back out of my face. It was supposed to be long enough to at least get my bangs out of the way, but it's just a little bit too short in some layers for that to work.

Meanwhile, I've noticed that headbands are making a comeback. I have fond memories of my headband-wearing days of yore, so I figured it might be a solution to my little problem. I ran to the store, and in typical excessive fashion, bought 3,923 of them.

And so it was that, my heart alight with joy, I placed the sacred band upon my head.

All looked good. For a minute.

Then, slowly at first, then faster and faster, my hair began to appear from underneath the headband. The band trembled, fought valiantly, but soon began inching up off my head.

Finally, with an audible SPROING, it popped off and went flying, narrowly missing my little dog, who ran off crying.

Sigh. Anyone want 3,923 headbands?

Chop-Happy

After months of threatening to do so, I finally chopped my hair off. It feels great. It looks maybe not so great, but I really don't care.

Below please find a highly accurate pictorial representation of this process:

Before: Note the slumped shoulders and frowny face from all the heavy heavy hair.

After: Now bald, leaving head so light and airy it floats right off my body.

The best thing about it is the way that people react. It started at the salon, where the stylist kept asking me, very sincerely, "Are you SURE you want to do this?" as if I'd asked her to serve me up a suicide cocktail instead of just cutting some hair.

It's even better at work, where people seem to think dramatic haircut = crippling mental crisis. They look at me with concerned eyes and ask, delicately, "Is everything...okay?"

I assured them that I've gotten haircuts like this several times in my life. In fact, it seems like I'm only happy with extremes...I like REALLY long hair or REALLY short hair.

Which got me to thinking...maybe they're right. Maybe I really do have some kind of weird mental illness that makes me cut all my hair off.

If I do, it's all my mom's fault. (Isn't everything?) You see, it all started when I was 4. I was 4 and happy and had long princess hair and was a complete girly girl. I had lots of little girly girl friends, and the one I admired the most was the girliest girl of all. Her mother doted on her and bought her precious porcelain dolls and dressed her in perfect little dresses and spent hours on her perfect flowing hair. I imagine she ended up in rehab by age 14, but boy, I bet she looked good doing it.

Anyway, so there I was with all this curly girly girl hair that my mom had no idea what to do with and struggled every morning to brush. (Hint: it's called conditioner. Use it.) She decided the best thing to do would be to have it cut very short, and so she made it happen.

Oh, you can't imagine the trauma. All my hair, gone. The very core of my sense of self, violated. I cried and cried and for the first time in my life hated my mother in the way that a teenage girl hates her mother, filled with a sense of betrayal and rage that I, obviously, never forget.

---

So you see, it's a little bit sick that later in my life I took a liking to repeatedly growing my hair really long and then having it all chopped off.

Time Flies Nerdily By

I see that Star Wars is 30 years old. That marks precisely 15 years since I realized it was, undeniably, the best movie ever.

I remember it so clearly because I watched it on TV as part of a special "15th anniversary" event. I was so amazed by this great movie I had discovered. I introduced it to a friend, and she loved it too.

It's not that I knew nothing about it. I have a vague notion of it from the foggy dark of early childhood, and I somehow have always known the mechanics of who's related to whom through the pop culture osmosis that ensures that every person who grows up in a society knows all the really important things, like the "Batman" version of Jingle Bells.

But I hadn't actually watched it, as in watched it and took it all in and appreciated its awesomeness.

Meanwhile, how can 15 years have passed? How can that movie be twice as old as it was back then, when it already sounded really old? I know that time is gliding by me faster and faster, but I still find this impossible.

I thought about watching Star Wars to commemorate the occasion, but I really had no desire to do so. The prequels have killed it for me. All I can think about is Jar-Jar Binks and then I feel a bit like throwing up.

You Call This a Saturday?

I don't usually work on the weekends, but I am now. I've somehow become a lawsuit-filin' fool, which is bizarre since I was not supposed to be a litigator. And I guess I'm still not, since all I do is file 'em. Someone else gets to do all the rest.

I think the theory is that I know more of the background of the case up to the point of filing suit (since I handle all the finger-wagging and nose-thumbing and whatnot that goes on in the hope of avoiding litigation), so it makes sense for me to be the one who drafts the complaint.

Of course, lately I'm not getting much done at work (it being that clerky time of year). I like the lunches and happy hours and ice cream socials (P.S. so fat); I do not like billing four hours a day and having to work on Saturday.

It's weird being on the other side of the table in that it's not so weird. I still feel kind of nervous making chit-chat, I still want people to like me, and I still feel like I'm being evaluated (except instead of deciding if they want to hire me, people are deciding if they want to be hired by me). It's exhausting.

Hoisted by Someone Else's Petard

I don't know what that means either.

My phone number is used. I got it secondhand, battered and dingy and more than a little worn out.

I didn't realize it at the time – the phone company let me choose, and there's something fun about my number that made it appealing.

Except that it has been used. A quick reverse phone lookup would have revealed that, but I didn't think to try.

Had my number's previous owner been someone different, maybe it wouldn't have been a problem. Maybe then I would have received calls inviting me to celebrity soirees or Muffy's weekend manse or a chocolate fondue tasting.

But no. Instead I get some debtor's previous number. Oh, she bought and she bought, from ever so many places, but not a bill did she pay. Then, like so many before her, she ran off, leaving behind pain and heartbreak and my poor abused number.

So now I get all of her calls from angry creditors, four or five every day. I know a little something (very little) about debtor protection laws, but dang if it helps me if said calls aren't aimed at the actual debtor or particularly abusive (and, while annoying, they are not). I would explain that I am not her, but mostly I just get the messages later because I'm never home, or if I do answer it's just an automated message on the other end. None provides information on who the creditor is or how to get the calls to stop. I suppose I could call the numbers and hunt down the source and try to convince them that I'm not who they think I am and maybe even threaten legal action if they don't stop.

But geeeeez. That's, like, hard.

Like a Skunk

I recently told someone I'd never been really officially drunk before – like really drunk, like hangover drunk.

I am sad to report that is no longer the case.

It started, as these things often do, very innocently. I was in pain (you don't want details), OTC pills didn't work, and I'm trying to steer clear of the mega pills whenever possible. "Why," I thought to myself, in my best Little Women mental impression, "I shall partake of spirits medicinally!"

One vodka later, I was still feeling cruddy.

Another vodka down, and I felt a little bit better, but still not great.

So I went to the place I have never before gone...the third vodka. Mmm-hmm, that did the trick. Definitely feeling no pain.

Reeled my way off to bed. Woke up two hours later. Due to, ya know, the barfing and stuff. And the getting up in the morning while still drunk? Not so fun. Oh, and the splitting headache? Don't recommend it.

Hangovers suck.

Well, I'm Back

I zipped off for a quick little getaway with my parents to the hometown for Mother's Day.

I had a really great time – it was so nice to get away from the anxiety and dread that's happening here and just be somewhere where I could release some of my worries.

But sheesh, it's hard to get away. I didn't get to bed the night before I left until something like 3 in the morning, between the laundry and the packing and the last-minute preparations. The next night in the hotel, I fell asleep with a glass in my hand and ended up spilling Diet Coke all over myself and the bed and the pillow. It was cold and wet and not fun.

I was also woefully unprepared for the weather. I dunno, it's May, it's spring, it's time for short sleeves, or so went my theory. Instead I was greeted with 40-degree temperatures, which produced all the shivering and whatnot. The shame of it is that I would have loved one last little taste of winter before the oven cranks up here, if only I'd been dressed appropriately.

I didn't do much...the trip was mostly about seeing people and eating. My grandmother had the time of her life again....she enjoys seeing us so much, and something as little as a lunch out makes her so very happy. She seems to be doing very well – everyone talked about how good she looks, better than she did a couple of years ago at 95.

Not to be all conceited, but I think seeing us so often has made a difference...we noticed several years ago that our visits really perked her up, and now that we're up there every few months, well, maybe that had something to do with her renewed health. She had four waffles and bacon at the Mother's Day brunch today (I ate everything else. In the whole buffet. Urk). We've promised to go back for her birthday in August.

Which reminds me...I need to once again place an order for a birthday card from the president. I have done so every year since 2000 (because, I am sad to say, she was no fan of Clinton), and she's only actually received two. I'm not holding my breath.

Well, Something's Tingling

I wish people would give poor Spider-Man 3 a break. I saw it last weekend, and I liked it just fine, thankyewverramuch.

It was entertaining and exciting. It rounded out and resolved issues from the previous movies in, I felt, a satisfying way (no spoilers here, though).

Yes, it had a whole lotta villains, but I didn't find it confusing, as some reviews have suggested, though maybe that comes from who knows how many years of superhero media immersion. Ho hum, any episode of Smallville could outdo it in that arena. Besides, I liked the fact that the whole movie didn't SO focus on a single villain, which can get dull (and would have, as none were so compelling – think the Joker – that they could carry the movie). I got a little tired of the villain from movie 2...yeah, yeah, I get it, you have lots of arms and are full of the angst. Yawn.

I'll concede that it wasn't on par with the first two movies, which were just so great and unusual, especially the second one (annoying octopus dude excepted). But part of what made #2 so good was the fact that it went to that place that a lot of movies wouldn't – the whole loss-of-power storyline, the big reveals, the way Peter actually got the unattainable girl. The fact that people found out who he was made for great cinema, but the letdown in #3 was inevitable...the buildup is always more fun than the aftermath (seriously, didn't Frasier kind of suck once Daphne and Niles got together? Yes, I'm still watching the reruns at midnight).

Anyway, I seem to have lost my point, so I'll just say that I had a good time watching it. What more could you ask for?