Red Red Whine

I am chock full of deep thoughts today, my friends, and most of them pertain to something I am sure you all care passionately about: my hair.

Don’t worry – I will also talk about other Very Important Things, such as my ridiculously-expensive-but-delightful makeup, my dramatically improved emotional state, the virtues of strawberry ice cream, the latest book I read from HarperCollins, knitters, The Bachelorette, and the fact that I get to see The World’s Cutest, Sweetest Children (my niece and nephew) tomorrow – but first, my hair.  Oh, and I should probably mention that my afternoon today will be filled with the joyous experience that is a follow-up mammogram to make sure the random lump that turned out to be nothing when they did this 8 months ago  is still Nothing.  I’m not terribly worried about it, but dudes, I am SO NOT LOOKING FORWARD to the actual mammogram experience.  Bleck.

Wow, with that much to talk about, I better get started.  And yes, it is All About Me on this here blog.

SO.  The Very Important Matter that is my hair.

I’ve been a bit obsessed with my hair lately after reading all this stuff about how curly girls like myself should not be using products with sulfates or silicones in them.  Y’all, there is a whole world of information on curly hair care out there that I am embarrassed to admit I never knew about.  After all, I am the Product Queen!  I spent a very large part of my life sampling and trying out various hair products!  How could I not know about all this stuff – about The Curl Whisperer and homemade flaxseed gel and plopping and Deva cuts and Ouidad cuts and everything else???!?!?  It’s enough to make a curly-girl’s head spin.  Seriously.

I’m still in the early stages of experimentation with all of this nonsense, but I started with ditching the sulfates and silicones.  The sulfate loss is one I don’t mind much, but ditching silicones has been more challenging because they are in damn near every hair product and because I was too lazy to print up the list of ingredients to avoid and instead would buy something, take it home, use it a couple times, then learn that it had silicones in it and have to start all over (the only way to remove silicones from one’s hair is by washing with a sulfate).  Actually, I’ve misspoken: it wasn’t laziness that kept me from doing it.  The problem was that I told myself that I wasn’t going to fall that far off the deep end into crazy obsession with hair product ingredients and that really I was half-hearted about this.  Oh, hahahaha.   It’s time to admit that I’ve fallen off the deep end, indeed.  Whatever.

My point in telling you all of this, other than to provide you with reading material guaranteed to bore you to a deep slumber, is that I went for my first “Deva cut” (see link above) on Saturday.  I like the cut, but the color?  The color is where I need your help.

I made the mistake of telling the girl, “enh, do whatever.  I trust your judgment so long as it ends up looking pretty similar to what I have now” (which was some lighter highlights and a shade of brown-ish reddish base color that was a bit lighter than my natural hue).

Y’all, my hair is striped.

Rob actually likes it, but I am not sold.  I took a picture of it, which I think doesn’t really do it justice, but let me tell you: my co-worker called me Christina Aguilera.  And when I walked into my therapist’s office yesterday, I said, “I know, I know – my hair is ridiculous”, which then led to her suggesting that I purchase a box of Clairol and color over these blondey bits to tone them down a little.  Was she suggesting that because she agrees that they need toning down?  Or was she suggesting it in response to my distress?

This, gentle readers, is where you come in.  Please click over to this self-portrait, where I am making an odd face because I tried to straighten my glasses after I pushed the button to take the photo.  Keep in mind that (a) I could swear the stripes are more pronounced in real life and (b) I”m still expirementing with hair products and methods and frequency of washings and all this other hair care nonsense.  Then, come back here and vote in the poll below.  Pretty please with sugar on top.

In other Very Important News, when I was going through my pharmaceutical nightmare and found comfort in retail therapy, I purchased this ridiculously expensive foundation.  Yes, it is $60.  Yes, it comes in an aerosol spray can.  Yes, I care about the environment.  Yes, I know about parabens and all the other bad stuff in makeup.  Yes, I admit that, for all my love of products, I generally don’t wear a lot of makeup.    In my defense, I thought it was $32 when I had the girl at Sephora help me test it out (was reading the wrong strip of prices) and then, after she’d gone through the trouble of helping me choose the right shade for me and comparing it with other brands of foundation, was embarrassed to back down when I realized I had the wrong price.  And so I took it home. ..and y’all, I kind of love this stuff.  It’s not too heavy unless I want it to be, it looks pretty natural, and – AND – it makes my gargantuan pores look smaller.  Win!

Wow, this post is super-long.  I think I’ll condense the rest of my topics:

* I am on a strawberry ice cream kick.  How is it that I hated strawberry ice cream as a child, when, truly, it is delightful?!  I recommend the Hagen Dazs version.  Or Haagen Daaz.  Or however the hell you spell it.

* I read Hunger, the sequel to Michael Grant’s Gone.  I liked it well enough, but it didn’t blow me away like Gone did.   However, I think this is more likely due to the fact that (1) it’s geared towards young adults and (2) I’m really not much of a sci fi genre fan than a fault of the book itself.  I still found myself marveling at Grant’s creativity and I am curious to see what he dreams up in Book 3, though.   I’m still not wild about the hokey cover art.

* I have continued on with my knitting mania and my obsession with the Facebook-for-knitters website, Ravelry.  Knitters are just such lovely, helpful folks – especially in the forum discussion boards.  Through the boards, I formed my own knitting group (I think I told you guys about it already?), learned about all the curly hair nonsense above, and am now talking with various teachers in the area because I’m back to contemplating making that career change.  (That’s a discussion for another day.  I’ve also been applying to other types of jobs.  Stay tuned.)

* Is anyone else watching The Bachelorette?  Does anyone else think Jillian is ridiculous for cutting Reid just because he couldn’t say he was in love with her and would propose at the end of the season?  And what was up with Ed’s tiny green shorts?  Who do you like?  Do you think Cyptin is as insincere as I do?

* Are Rob and I the only ones who watched (and enjoyed) the game show Here Come the Newlyweds?  Yay, Corlisses!

* I get to see my niece and nephew tomorrow!  WOOOOOT!  You should probably prepare yourself for lots of rambling about how adorable and brilliant and sweet they are.

PHEW.  I don’t know about y’all, but I’m exhausted from all that typing.

I’m off to have my boob uncomfortably flattened by a mammogram machine.   I almost passed out last time – I don’t know if it was from actual pain and discomfort or if I just forgot to breathe.  Let’s all knock on some wood that I haven’t jinxed myself by saying I’m not worried, and let’s also cross our fingers that this is the last time I have to get one of these things before I actually hit the age where they become required annually (I think it’s 40).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 1:53 pm and is filed under Miscellany, Pondering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.