Things My Hairstylist Will Never Understand.

As I stood in the bathroom at work this morning, hacking off vast swaths of my hair, I couldn't help but think to myself, 'my hairstylist is going to kill me'.

It's true too. Every time I go in there he looks at my hair, trying to hide his frown, and asks, 'you've been cutting your hair again haven't you?'.

Yes. Yes I have. The answer is always yes.

The inevitable conversation follows. Don't cut your hair. Come in, I will fix it for free. Your bangs were fine. What exactly are you having issues with. WHY WON'T YOU JUST COME IN?!! What happened to this part? Did you even use a mirror? Did you cut it in the dark with pruning sheers? While you were sleeping? Why must you always do this to me? Etc, etc.

The simple fact of the matter is that I will always be hacking off bits of my hair. There is nothing that can be done about it. It does not matter how well it is cut, or how much I like my stylist, there will ALWAYS come a day when I find myself chopping chunks of it off as I go about my business.

Here's the thing: I have sensory issues. I can't handle feeling my hair against my neck. When I say, 'I hate it when my hair touches my neck' what I mean is I really hate it when my hair touches my neck. It is the sensory equivalent of having to listen to nails on a chalkboard all day, or two pieces of styrofoam being rubbed together. It makes my skin crawl. By the time I've noticed that it's doing it it's far too late to run down to the salon to have it fixed. The scissors are already in my hand. The floor is already covered in hair.

It's just a fact of life.

My bangs are a whole different issue. While I love long bangs/fringe in theory I hate having to brush them out of my eyes. I feel like an idiot constantly having to swish my hair around to see properly, and frankly, I get a little paranoid that I'm starting to look like an outdated version of Justin Bieber, and lets face it, I'm just not that kind of lesbian.

By the third hair swish of the morning you can bet I'm reaching for the scissors. You can bet I'm going to have super short nut-hut bangs. And you can bet that it won't bother me one bit.

It's not that my hair is cut in ways I don't enjoy. That's not it at all. I'm totally down for whatever haircut my stylist wants to give me. That's what I pay him for, being awesome and making decisions about my hair. The downside to that, is that there's a pretty good chance that at some point in between hair appointments, I'm going to be hanging out in the bathroom, playing Edward Scissor Hands. It's not a reflection of his skill level, or some unspoken or inherent displeasure at the cut given me. It's simply that I'm a neurotic girl with sensory issues. It only takes one hair to tip the scale, and the second it tickles my neck or drops into my line of sight that beautiful haircut he gave me is going to be be altered by my terribly careless and utterly unskilled hands. Fact.

And so, there are many days like today when I catch myself in the mirror unceremoniously destroying his hours of work, and feel bad, at least for the moment. Some things about me he'll just never understand.

A Very Brandi Weekend.

Okay Dear Friend, I'm back! I'm going to try to catch you up as briefly as possible so that we can get back on track.

Last weekend, as I'm sure you know, was spent chasing Brandi Carlile across Arizona.

Saturday we headed up to Flagstaff for the show at the Orpheum. We had lunch at Charlies, magical drinks at The Hotel Monte Vista, and made our way back to the line. We met up with some of our other friends, made some new ones, and generally had an awesome time.

We were front-ish row, just right of center, and we had so much fun we decided to do it again on Sunday.

So we packed our stuff up and headed down to Tucson for Brandi 2.0. We met up with some of our friends, and the girls we'd befriended the day before and generally had a ridiculous time. This day, although we got there much closer to the show time than we did the day before, the line was almost non-existent, so we got a much better spot. Front-ish row center. However, it was much MUCH hotter up there, and much harder to breathe. I gradually drifted farther and farther backwards as the set went on until I found a good spot temperature wise. Nevertheless, it was fantastic. Super fantastic in fact.

We went to IHOP after the concert, and then began the long drive home around 2am.

I stopped at a food truck on the way back to my house, ate a fried egg sandwhich, and spent the next 48 vomiting my brains out. It was still totally worth it though. LOL.


Today this video from the Rialto in Tucson popped up. At 3:36 you can see the lot of us. I'm in the middlish, about 3 people back with pearls in my hair. If I possessed the capacity to be embarrassed, I probably would be, but since I don't, here it is:




Miss your face Dear Friend!

Sabbaticals.

Don't worry Dear Friend. I'm not dead. Just on a brief sabbatical. I'll be back Saturday and we'll resume our (almost) daily chats okay?

Miss your face.
Love.

ka-boom!

Blue skies.

Well Dear Friend, there's not much to say. School starts in T - 6 days and I'm just riding out the tail end of summer over here.

It's too hot to do much of anything outdoorsy, so mostly I've been driving around. Stopping periodically to wander around, but not doing any serious hiking or fossiling. Here are some photos from my last drive when the skies were really blue, and the desert was extra beautiful.

Miss you terribly! Much love!

Song of the Day!

This is my heart's song. Really and truly. Miss you.

Song of the Day. Wednesday.

Song of the Day.

This one is stuck in my head today. Miss you.

wompwompwomp...

Well, I'm still phone-less. And apparently destined to be so for some time.

There was some difficulty getting an insurance claim filed as their system kept telling me 1) that a claim had already been started but not completed so I would need my Claim ID Number to complete it, and 2) That they could not provide me with my claim ID number because there is no email address associated with my account (there is, in the real world, but I suppose that's neither here nor there). It continued to prompt me to call customer service, which I could not do because, obviously, I don't have a phone.

So I emailed my dad the info, explained the situation and asked him if we could meet up somewhere so I could use his phone to fix this mess or if he could call them and sort it out for me. Instead, he said he'd meet me at work in the morning to walk me through it, which is not at all what needed to happen.

I know HOW to call customer service (pick up the phone and dial?), that's not the issue. The issue is that I am unable to do so because I do not currently have a phone, which is, in fact, why I need to file the claim in the first place. *facepalm* These endless logic loops drive me mad. But I let it slide, and told him I'd see him in the morning.

I got to work early and called up the customer service hotline and got my claim completed.

Simple enough you say? Well, yes and no.

Apparently my phone make/model is back ordered. She says back ordered items generally become available again within 7 to 10 days and she will call me at that time to arrange for delivery. Nevermind the fact that I clearly, don't have a phone, hence the ongoing phone call, the insurance claim, the need for the new phone...the list goes on. It's cool.

She was super nice, don't get me wrong. I am in no way complaining about the service I received. In fact, I'm not so much complaining at all. Really I'm just rambling I guess, mostly about being inconvenienced by something that is, totally and completely, my fault anyway.

Long story short, I'm officially phone-less for an indefinite period of time. She's going to email me when the phone comes back in so that I can call her and work out the rest of the details. *laughs*

It's just so...so very typical of my life. :D


Well, that's all I know Dear Friend. Miss getting to talk to you every day. A LOT. Which is lame, but the good thing in all this is that I'll get a break from the world. And I'll get to spend some time in true solitude, and focus in on me. Miss your face. <3 <3

song of the day.

Lost!

Oh Dear Friend. It's official. My phone is lost.

Again.

I'm not sure exactly what happened. I had it in my hand Thursday morning when my alarm went off. When I sat down at work 40 minutes later to call my dad, it was gone.

I have searched high and low. I have scrambled into/on top of/over/behind all things in my house. I have dug through garbage. I have broken down and moved fish tanks. It is gone. Forever. Into the abyss.

This is why I can't have nice things.


Anyway, I'm going to go get a new one today. Luckily it was insured so it's not nearly as big a deal as it could be. But it is still inconvenient.

The cockroach that was trying to kill me last week has officially died. He's been entombed inside an upside down mason jar on the living room floor (secured with a rock, naturally). Today, since I am sure he is officially dead, he will be removed and disposed of with little fanfare.

Saturday I hung out with my dad. We de-rusted things through the magic of electrolysis. We cut metal stuff up using aviation snips. We cut wood. We made framed shadow boxes. We painted things. We loitered around the hardware store planning new projects. It was awesome.

We also solidified our plans for my trilobite jam collage/mosaic box (very exciting!!). So Sat. the 25th we will get together and get the box part built and attached to the frame I've sourced. Then the next several weeks will be spent carefully sealing/gluing the fossils into it. I am so psyched about this I could just pee! It's going to be so awesome.

Today I have a variety of projects planned. I'm not sure yet exactly which ones will get accomplished. I am also going to TRY to get my hair cut today, though I don't know that I'll have time once I get the phone business settled, so it may have to wait until tomorrow. All in all though, it's shaping up to be a pretty awesome day.

I hope things are well with you, or at least some shade of almost-well. I miss your face, as always. I also bought the book journal yesterday! Our adventure begins!! *happy dance*

We are so cool. For the record.

Lots of love.

An amazing week in music.

Saturday:


I am your thought but the water is amnesia
my name is on the tip of your tongue
My image is slipping
but your memory is gripping it
this is my breath in your lungs


Friday:


Let's go under and hold our breath
Who's got the reason now...

Thursday:


And every demon wants his pound of flesh
But I like to keep some things to myself
I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn

Wednesday:


And the grass it was a ticking
And the sun was on the rise
I never felt so wicked
As when I willed our love to die

And I was your silver lining
As the story goes
I was your silver lining
But now I'm gold

Tuesday:


This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath


Hope you had a fun sing-a-long with me Dear Friend. I miss your face, but I love you lots, even when you're far away. So, you know, it kinda evens out. :)

(Over)reactions.

(This is from about 3pm yesterday, but I didn't get to publish it amidst all the drama)

I am currently having a meltdown.

I am curled up outside my apartment, knees to my chest, back to the door, all mush-faced and sobbing like a big, blubbery walrus.

Lets back up.

Today I came home from work. I sat down. I put my feet up. I said hello to the dog. All was right in the world.

Then I saw it.

Out of the corner of my eye: a cockroach. A giant monster of a dead cockroach.

I froze. Stopped even breathing. Autonomous nervous system shutting down in disgust.

I worked through it. Yes, it is big. Yes, it is super gross. Yes it is dead. It is going to be okay.

'This is why I have cats', I thought. 'This is exactly why. They kill stuff that you can't handle. You can totally handle a dead cockroach. This is not the end of your world'.

Lies. All lies.

I stared at him, lying there, feet in the air, all curled up. It's not so bad...not really. I picked up a cup I was okay with throwing away and a chopstick.

I approached the roach. Definitely dead. Good.

I put the cup next to him and went to knock him into it with the chopsticks. As soon as the stick touched him it happened.

He moved.
HE MOVED.

His horrid little legs made that awful cellophane wrapped wax paper sound that is equal parts thwap, buzz, and crinkle as they rubbed against each other. Against his gross little feelers. Against his wings.

Unacceptable.

He smacked into the cup, still twichy and awful and I leaped as far up and backwards as I could.

I stood where I landed, perched on the very tip-tippy toe of one foot, staring, wide-eyed in horror at the cup.

I f*ing HATE cockroaches. They are gross to a level my mind cannot begin to comprehend, and words do not exist that can accurately describe the sickly creeping-crawling feeling they radiate or the way it manages to permeate my skin. Gross.

Now, here's the dilemma: I am standing like a flamingo, perched atop one single toe about 4 feet away from a cup with a zombie cockroach in it. I know that you're looking at this and thinking, 'just pick up the cup and throw it outside' or 'put on the big kid panties, Littlefoot, and kill it', or 'run!', because as I stood there looking over the situation the same thoughts occurred to me. None of them, however, are plausible at the moment.

I can neither kill it, nor pick up the cup and transport it because it is not currently dead. Getting close enough to it to do either of these things means realistically acknowledging that something that gross exists in a living state, and more than that, that it has really and truthfully invaded my home. That is never, ever going to happen. In fact, I cannot think of anything worse than that. I would drink wound drainage before I will get close enough to a living f*ing cockroach to have to acknowledge its existence.

A living cockroach is not the same as a dead cockroach.
They are two distinctly different monsters.

This leaves only option 3, (run!) however, this presents its own set of problems. Most significantly, that I would have to take my eyes off the bug. This is not an acceptable option. Not at all. I cannot break eye contact with the beast as long as it remains in my home. If I look away it could recover, slink off, wait for me to fall asleep, and then lay its damn eggs in my ears.

At this point I am starting to meltdown. I can feel the tide changing, the unreal amount of anxiety and frustration building. A stupid cockroach, one stupid, gross (albeit massive) cockroach has managed to completely dismantle my person. It is unimaginably unfair that I find something, anything in this world so repulsive that I am unable to function on even the most basic level when confronted with its existence. It is unfair that I lost my phone today and can't call someone to come kill/remove it. It is unfair that I feel that I need someone to come and kill/remove it.

As I am staring at him, waiting for what remains of my sanity to crumble, the unthinkable happens.

He rights himself.
He begins to crawl.
He drags himself out of the cup and onto the carpet.
He heads straight for me.

Even now, in his last, disgusting moments, he is determined to destroy me. To launch himself, mid death-rattle, at my fragile and rapidly disintegrating person.

I have had enough. That is is.
I grab my purse and my computer and run outside.
I lock the door, praying that the cats will get him.
I curl up, back to the door and just totally lose it.

This is not fair.
It's really not.
I know that it's hard for the rational person to look at this situation and understand the kind of drama a stupid and essentially harmless cockroach can bring into a life, but that, that Dear Friend, is exactly why I am out here losing it.

It's not not that cockroach is gross, or terribly frightening, or anything else. I mean, it is, to a degree, but that's not the problem. The problem is that its very existence, as a living thing, is so overwhelming that I fail to function as a basic human being in its presence. And that, THAT, is lame.

And possibly even more lame is that if the damn thing were dead everything would be fine. I would throw it away and life would move on. Instead I'm sitting here sobbing like a small child because there is something vital that differentiates a living roach from a dead one and that thing, that immeasurable, incalculable, indescribable, invisible thing, the essence of that stupid cockroach that is clinging to life on my floor, is able to rapidly and systematically dismantle all my systems and rob me of my rationality, my dignity, and my power.

So now I'm just hanging out, blubbering like a baby outside my door. Alone, in the heat with a cockroach holding court in my living room.

Life is unimaginably cruel sometimes.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

I need to clean the house.
I need to clean the house.
I need to clean the house.
I need to clean the house.
I need to clean the house.

*sigh*

Don't get me wrong, the house is by no means dirty, it just isn't clean either. And though there is only a very fine line between the point where my house is 'clean' and the point where my house is 'dirty', I'm definitely walking along it.

There is nine days worth of dust on my shelves, a point which has been making me particularly crazy, and the floors haven't been vacuumed since Monday. The carpets could really use another good cleaning since I've been leaving my shoes on more and more, and I know there are dishes sitting in the dishwasher. These are the things that keep me up at night, and yet, I just cannot seem to bring myself to take care of them this week.

Part of my issue is that as the semester approaches, there are more and more things I begin to feel pressured to get done. Summer things. Things that aren't possible when school is in session. The more pressure I feel to do them, the less likely they are to get done. As I fail at doing the things I want to do, the things I would enjoy doing, all that day to day stuff that I need to keep up on seems more and more irritating.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.


Anyway, I start hot yoga this week. Hopefully that will force me to sweat out the malaise that's permeated my being. Hopefully it will focus me and help me stay on task. But more than anything, I am hoping it will keep me active and out of the house. (For a couple of hours a week, anyway.)

Miss your face Dear Friend. Love.

Sometimes I am intentionally difficult.

This is a fact.

You know, in case you were wondering.

Today I had a really long, important conversation with someone. Well, it was important to me anyway. It took forever when it should have only taken a couple of minutes, and in the end I conceded that I was not getting my point across at all, and more than that, that I could not figure out another angle to come at it from to help the other party understand the significant but very simple point I was trying to make.

It was exhausting. Sometimes I feel like I am talking in a totally different language. I say things that seem so straight forward, but are somehow almost universally misunderstood. Its totally not the end of the world, but it is frustrating and it quite literally makes my brain hurt.

Anyway, things like that, they make my brain tired. And when it gets tired, it gets lazy. And when it gets lazy it gets intentionally difficult. It refuses to do any of the work in conversations. It won't decode subtext. It refuses to read between the lines. It demands only denotative word usage. Becomes at times, pedantic. And you know what? I am totally okay with that.

In other news, I came home today, coated two of my homemade cookies in butter, smooshed them together like some twisted red-neck version of an oreo, popped it into the microwave, looked down at my creation, and declared that it was good.

And it was.

So.
Good.

<3

Sunday!

Sunday I really just lazed about the house. I did some cleaning, but not nearly enough. The floor still has not been vacuumed this week, which is making me crazy...

But enough about that!

Yesterday was the JPL/Curiosity Landing! It was SO AWESOME! Did you watch it Dear Friend? Did you cry like a baby like I did? Ugh. I could not stop watching it! Even though my internet feed was glitchy and imperfect it was still incredible. I stayed up way too late because I just couldn't turn it off. In the end, I drifted off to sleep listening to the live feed, jumping up and down for joy in my head. It was such an awesome thing.

When I was a little girl, the first thing I remember wanting to be (besides a grizzly bear) was someone who worked for NASA. My dad promised me he'd make me my space suit by hand if I ever did it, which in hind sight seems kind of sarcastic, lol, but at the time it was the coolest thing he'd ever offered to do for me.

I felt like a little kid again watching the landing. Just full of awe, and pride, and reveling in the incredible amount of hard work that went into making that possible. If I had room in my apartment I would have been doing cartwheels. Uh-may-zing.

Hope your day is blissful! Miss your face!

Song of the Day For Saturday!

For the record, this is currently my theme song.

Song of the day for Friday

I f*ing love this song.



Another night with your head in the oven
Simmering like a heat wave over you
Sweat drops hiss at the bottom
Blood droplets cook like glue

They left you with nothing
And left me for dead
Went out and lost your senses
Went out and lost my head

In deceit, disbelief, they're laughing
As we faint in these houses burning down
In the smoke and the heat we're gasping
For a breath of some fresh air in this town

So save for me, the pleasantries
How pathetic this must sound
To patiently still be craving
A taste of the good life in this town

Malaise.

Thursday, despite getting off to a really rough start turned out to be a pretty good day, Dear Friend.

I had coffee and donuts for breakfast, and began muddling through the day. I ended up an hour or so behind due to technology issues, but that inconvenience was made acceptable by the fact that it was free cake day at work. Two pieces of the most delicious carrot cake later, and things were starting to look up.

I finished my work, still pretty grumpy, went home, and took a nap.

I woke up to a text message from a friend and headed over to her house for some good old fashioned complaining. Several other people who had similarly bad days also showed up and we spent a good deal of time letting off steam. We then stumbled to Bahama Bucks for some snow cone topped ice cream, which rounded off my sugar-only diet for the day. HA!

Hanging out over there really just gave my brain a good scrubbing. I went over there thinking nothing could make me feel better, spent a few minutes feeling lost and overwhelmed in the mix of gay/theater kids swarming all around me, and then I just found my groove. I went home around midnight, happy and uplifted somehow. All the ick had been washed right out of my mind.

Friday I woke up in an equally amazing mood. Work went well, the inevitable set-backs didn't bother me, people seemed nicer, and the world was new. I got off work late, typical for a Friday, headed home, and made plans for the weekend.

My end-goal for the day was to clean the house. Instead, I did water changes on all the fish tanks, which is incredibly time consuming. By the time that was done I was exhausted. I looked at the clock, 8:34.

Damn. I'll just take a little nap, I told myself. Just a quick little nap.

Lies.

A word to the wise: If you're going to bed at 8:34pm, it's not a nap. You're not going to get back up and clean the house. You're going to get comfortable, put something on netflix, and fall asleep.

And that's exactly what I did.

I spent the rest of the weekend being ill, talking to you, eating cookie dough, and watching King of the Hill re-runs.

Pretty awesome, If I do say so myself.

Miss your face!!

You know that moment,

When you realize someone stepped on that one loose string hanging from your sweater, and before you have time to react, the whole thing is just a mess of yarn at your feet?

Me too.

That was my day yesterday.

Really the day was pretty good for the most part. The first two-thirds of my shift was lovely, and I went out with good friends after work, had tasty ethnic foods, and we hung out well into the night. Everything seemed fine.

And then they left and I realized everything had come undone.

Well, not really. But it feels like it.

Mostly the issue is work. I love my job (most of the time anyway), but when things go wrong, they really go wrong. I know that part of the issue is an Aspergers issue, I recognize that logically, but recognizing it isn't helping me cope at all. In fact, it's possible it's making everything much worse.

Anyway, I'm in a battle now. Real or imagined. With people that I don't know. Over issues that are not in anyway related to me. And I'm not sure what to do.

I am stuck because I cannot seem to find a sound way to move forward. So instead I'm just circling around this mess. Crying softly to myself. Frustrated. Confused. And feeling very alone in the world.

Because there is not a good way to move forward, no way to get any closer to some sort of resolution, I'm just totally overwhelmed. I have completely shut down. I'm failing to function. I spent the vast majority of yesterday, after the issue arose, struggling with executive functioning problems. I had a very hard time typing. In fact, it took me a couple of hours to get to the point where I could enter my password to unlock my work station. I keep walking into things. Dropping things. Particularly small things. And I am generally unable to stay on task in any meaningful sense of the term. Mostly I just find myself wandering in small circles, starting things, but not finishing them which is very unlike me.

What I want, right now anyway, is to quit my job, but only because I don't know how to get back to the place where things are okay again. I know that if I just wait it out everything will work out just fine, but it's so hard to ignore the impulse to just drop everything and run away. When there are no other viable solutions that result in an improved quality of life within a clearly defined time frame, leaving feels like the logical choice.

I know I can't, but I want to.

I don't know, Dear Friend. I don't know.

I've just got to muddle through today. Just today. Think I can do it? Yeah, me too. Even if I don't want to. <3 Lots of love. Song of the Day: