Days are speeding away....

I'm sorry it took me so long to get back and finish the horror story. Now where was I? Oh yeah. The owner of the joint, Vicki, washed my head in the sink. It was one of those instances where I had to muster every ounce of self-control I had. And even that wasn't enough to keep me from grimacing and gritting my teeth as the shampoo slid down the side of my face and into my ear. Nothing worse than a careless shampooer...

"Alright. We done." she finally said after a few washings and then squeezing my hair in the sink.

She reached over my back and pulled down a bath towel from somewhere....a damp bath towel. I'm sorry, but I've NEVER been to a place that uses a damp-from-someone-else's-use towel on your head. I felt so violated at that point. ICK.

We made our way back to her chair and she started digging at my wet braids with a teeny comb, tugging at my tender head. I slid low in the seat and wondered what the hell I was doing in this place. It wasn't bad enough that within the first minute and a half I discovered how argumentative and awkward a business woman she was...but why was I putting up with it? The answer came back, resounding and absoultely true: What choice did I have? On the desolate strip where her shop was located, I'd be lucky if I could find a sandwich place or a deli. Good luck finding a place to get my hair done. In NY, if you go the right place, the braiders are on the streets trying to lure you in...willing to do your hair for NOTHING.

Finally, Vicki was done with the operation of removing my old braids. The moist, tangled hair lay around me like a mutant tarantula had exploded under my seat or something. I tried to relax and absorb the drama on the television. A Nigerian man discovers after a long time of suffering from mysterious illness, that his kidneys are failing him and he will die without a transplant. He must find 100K and a donor within 2 months and all his friends and family have turned their backs on him. YES!! Just what I needed. A feel good movie. I couldn't watch that. I just couldn't.

LaRue, another hair braider in the shop, came over and began roughly greasing my hair with a smelly oil. I wished I could take my head off of my neck and hand it to those ladies. They just didn't understand the human anatomy. A head is connected to a neck. It has a scalp and there are nerves in the scalp. It is totally not ok for you to just yank and rip and pull and pop at someone's tangled hair and suck your teeth when they yelp and twist with pain.

After LaRue finished molesting my poor head, she and Vicki began speaking loudly and digging through a near by plastic container that resembled a 3-drawer filing cabinet. I gathered that this is where they kept the hair supplies and "spare hair" for braidees who happened to be short some hair. LaRue pulled out an oval shaped knot of multi-colored hair and searched through the container for something. I saw, out of the corner of my eye, something fall out of that nest of hair. It fell onto it's back and rolled over, like a greased ball, and darted away on it's four, pink little legs. A MOUSE!! Mother of Mercy! You can imagine at this point, how badly I wanted to dry my hair and walk out the front door, hair done or not.

Well, the upshot is that I ended up staying there and getting my hair done. It took about 8 hours, but they finished my hair, with all the vile heavy-handedness and harsh parting techniques known to man. I hated each of them by the time they pulled the vinyl cover off my front and squirted some sheen on my braids. Bitches. I will never, ever as long as I breath and exist, go back there. ::Sigh::

Earlier in the day, in the middle of all the torture I was enduring, my mom calls. She's raging like kicked bull. Bucking and intense. I believe in that whole "Honor thy mom and pop" bit, so I kept it cool, and asked what was wrong. She thinks I've been pussyfooting around the idea of disowning her. I can't explain to you how pissed off that made me. All I could do was sit between the two braiders and listen to her rip me out about my lack of contact and how she took it as writing on the wall. WHAT THE FUCK!! Finally, somewhere around my asking what the hell she was talking about and the bitches twisting my head to tighten a braid, I lost my cool. I started to cry.

Rest assured, things are all patched up now...but I can't understand how it even came to an outburst like that from mom. She's not usually so illogical. Sure...you gotta talk to your mom. But the day before she called to bitch me out I sent her a text message about the unusually warm weather we've been having in Ohio. Naturally, I think it stems from the fact that I left NY. That's what's really bothering her (and me). But why paint the rock that you throw a different color? Why not call it what it is? A case of the frustrated missing-yous...

Well, I miss her too.

This is what happens when you ignore you gut feelings...

It was a very unusual weekend. “Unusual” is the word I’ll use for lack of a better one. To begin at the beginning…

SATURDAY:
Sonny and I slept kind of late. Noon time we rolled out of the sheets. Listen, I can’t keep my music downloading addiction as repressed as I thought, and Sonny has been working overtime to pick up the slack of losing an employee in his department. What does that add up to? Me, awake at 3am trying desperately to find an mp3 file of “Burning Up” by Madonna that will download without crashing. And Sonny awake until 1am (a phenomenon that rarely occurs) working like a plow mule. This was supposed to be “the restful weekend”. Pssht.

Anyway, we went to the gym after we woke up and got cleaned and prepped. Saturdays at the gym allow you to enjoy your workout without the shrieking and grunting from the muscle-head-crew that EVERY gym acquires. You know… the ones that come in and hog the heaviest hand weights and look at you dirty if you try the chin ups? Fuckers. So anyway, we did a short and sweet circuit. Sonny worked on the weights and I did some cardio. Gawd, I’m behind on my fitness training. It’s January 23rd and I’m watching that resolution slip through my fingers. I’ve got to get a car so I don’t have to depend on Sonny to get me to the gym. The more he works late, the less I get to head to the gym. This sucks MAJOR ass. Oh, BLAST IT ALL TO HELL!!!

From the time that I woke up, I had this bad feeling. Like a sinking feeling in my gut. I ignored it as well as I could, but I knew it had to do with the hair appointment I scheduled for Sunday. Later on in the day, Sonny got his hair cut and I found an adorable take on the prairie skirt. I’m not much of a skirt person, but this is the first skirt I bought without trying it on. I loved it that much. So we had a simple Saturday. Almost…relaxing. I started to take my hair out after dinner. Big mistake. I was up until 5 am picking and pulling and ripping the braids out. Only to have two thirds of my hair still tightly entwined in braids. I gave up after 5 o’clock and went to bed with a puffy, throbbing head.

SUNDAY:
The feeling of doom was more acute and worse than anything I’ve felt before. Seriously. I may sound a little dramatic, but I have no other way to describe what I was feeling. I gave up on getting my hair completely taken out BEFORE I arrived at my appointment and decided that someone there could definitely help me. Tired as I was though, I didn’t get out of bed until 11am. My appointment was for noon. And I knew as well as Sonny did, that the hair place was going to be an hour long journey into Cleveland.

“We can’t use that hair.” The heavyset, Nigerian beautician said when I opened my bag of used hair for her.

“What do you mean?” I asked, taken aback.

Before you cringe and turn up your nose at the idea of “used hair”, realize, that “human braiding hair” can be reused. You simply wash it, condition, comb it out and use it again. Granted, I still had most of the hair on my head (and I arrived an hour late) but she was not an intelligent business woman. I reasoned with myself that I could find a wig shop en route to home and take care of this problem, at least for a week or two.

“We can’t use that hair.” She repeated, shook her head for emphasis. “That’s not enough.”

“But, I’ve still got some on my head. See?” I turned so she could see the middle of my head and all the braids I had yet to remove.

“Uh-uh.” She said. “That’s too much work.”

Poor Sonny has a hearing problem, and on top of it this woman had a thick, barely comprehensible accent. He stood at my right, trying desperately to grasp at pieces of the conversation. Finally, he pressed the lunch bag into my hand and reminded me that he was meeting his friend for lunch. I asked him to wait, and quickly broke down the upshot to him. She claims I don’t have enough hair, and it’s too much work to take the hair from my head... “I might not be staying here, honey.”

The large woman mumbled to her 2 coworkers in their native tongue and jabbed at my bag with her index finger. I had resolved, after a quick look around the desolate salon, that I would probably be better off with a wig. I was prepared to leave. I was almost anxious for it.

“Ok.” The heavy set woman relented. “Get at least one more pack of hair, and we’ll do it for you.”

Finding a hair shop open on a Sunday was quite a job. But we found a place, and bought the hair. Sonny left me there in the care of the hairbraiders. I began opening some braids, and watching the Nigerian religious drama that the women had put into the DVD player. Suddenly, I was being wordlessly urged into the bathroom. For what? I wondered. Soon enough, I found out. They had a sink with water running. What in the name of Morgan Freeman was going ON?

“Come, put your head in the sink.” The large woman was standing beside the basin, tugging at my arm.

It was right about then that I started to hyperventilate. I’ve never been used to that method of hair washing. Ever since I was a kid and my mom drenched my head with a bucket of water, I’ve been absolutely terrified to put my face in the sink for hairwashing. Irrational? Maybe. Infantile? Sure. But, it is what it is. Same as I wouldn’t tango with a tarantula, I had no desire to let this woman wash my head like that.

To be continued...

Because I probably won't post tomorrow...

Your Personality Is

Idealist (NF) You are a passionate, caring, and unique person. You are good at expressing yourself and sharing your ideals. You are the most compassionate of all types and connect with others easily. Your heart tends to rule you. You can't make decisions without considering feelings. You seek out other empathetic people to befriend. Truth and authenticity matters in your friendships. In love, you give everything you have to relationships. You fall in love easily. At work, you crave personal expression and meaning in your career. With others, you communicate well. You can spend all night talking with someone. As far as your looks go, you've likely taken the time to develop your own personal style. On weekends, you like to be with others. Charity work is also a favorite pastime of yours.

The Three Question Personality Test

Bill Withers ain't got nothin' on me...

I had an unusual burst of enthusiasm at the beginning of the work week. It was acute and reviving and I was SO productive. Monday is usually never my day but I was white-hot. I finished up my program newsletter and started mailing them off, I began collecting information for a project I’m working on (and dreading doing so). I hardly goofed off and by the end of the day I felt real pride in my work. I achieved so much. Ok. That was Monday.

Tuesday. I felt kind of sluggish, but still lightly beaming at this neat path of productivity I had managed to create. I goofed off some. Just a little. See, I found this Yahoo! Feature that I’m addicted to. It’s called Yahoo! Answers and it is fun for the bored-stiff aficionados of time wasting. Anything you’ve ever wanted to ask, you can do it here. And people answer your question for points. I mostly answer questions on there. People also have to choose the best answer. I’ll admit, having your answer picked as the best is such a rush!

Wednesday. By now my shoulders are hunched and I’m greedily answering questions online. I’m puttering around and doing things but with little of the pride and exuberance I had on Monday. I’m also incredibly discouraged and restless and I have no idea why. A friend suggested that it is ennui and I tend to agree. Pure, maddening B O R E D O M. I haven’t spoken to my family in a week and frankly, I could finish out this week without talking to them as well. Don’t look at me like that. I just get so tired of being everyone’s freaking *cheerleader*. That is to say, I wouldn’t mind being the cheerleader if people would effing listen to me! My 16 year old sister is having problems with school and her boyfriend. I’m in the stance that the two are cause and effect. BeCAUSE she has a boyfriend, the EFFECT is flailing grades. And when I try and connect those crazy dots of the universe for her and point this out, she looks at me like I just told her she can bend in half. F*ck it. Do what you want. Nobody put a crustacean in my bed this morning, so don’t call me ‘Crabby’.

Today. My husband looked at me with a worried face this morning. I couldn’t help but laugh. We know each other too well, by this point. He can tell, even if I don’t think I’m showing, that I’m pissed off or pensive or anxious or whatever. I told him it was nothing. Sidenote: WHY DO WOMEN DO THAT?? I do it myself, but it’s like, I can be crying, sobbing uncontrollably and he’ll burst into the bedroom and ask me what’s wrong. First words out of my mouth (like a reflex) “It’s nothing.” LOL. Anyway, I gave it some thought and realized that a small part of it is my frustration at being away from home. I wasn’t expecting this. I expected the homesickness, the feelings of guilt (like I abandoned my whole life there) and the intense denial that I’ll ever settle into Ohio. But frustration is like having a splinter in your hand with nothing to use to get it out. Some frustration has an outlet. What outlet could I possibly have? Maybe to come back for a visit… But I couldn’t buy a bag of corn chips without my pockets feeling the pinch, right now.

No time to write rite now...

Which of Henry VIII's wives are you?

this quiz was made by Lori Fury

My name is Discontent

I woke up this morning, peered blindly at the clock (no glasses on) and hit the small, squarish, elusive ‘reset’ button. I used to have a love affair with the snooze button, given how often I used it. But it’s an old clock (we never thought to add one to the registry) so a couple of the buttons no longer work. ‘Snooze’ is one of them. Sonny and I cuddled up together, disrupted by the irritating beeps, and went comatose for about a half an hour. And then he rolled out bed and climbed into the shower. Traitor. I found it kind of hard to just fall back asleep. Instead, I danced on the edges of sleep and meditative thought. By the time Sonny emerged from the foggy bathroom with a wet faux-Mohawk I was upset. Didn’t really know why. Visions of staying in bed with the covers up to my neck haunted me. And so I convinced myself that I might just stay home and take it easy. I’ve never missed a day of work, since I started... wups. Ok. That’s not true. Of course there’s the time I got married and had taken a few days for the ceremony and mini honeymoon. Hmm. Puts a small dent in my logic, doesn’t it?

Well, anyway, it seems like I’m falling into this horribly boring, perpetual routine. I wake up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, go to sleep, wake up, go to work… And on the weekends, maybe just maybe I get some writing done. Maybe do the laundry. You’re probably tired of the comparison by now but I’ll draw it anyway. In NY every weekend was a fucking potential adventure. You never quite knew what old friend would be breezing through town, or what silent classic was in reel at the Film Forum, or what party you might be invited to. Don’t get me wrong, we had our boring ass weekends in NY too. And Sundays never quite felt ‘right’…maybe cause we aren’t church goers. But you still felt that at 11pm you could hop on the F train, have a great Thai dinner at Joya or some place and call it a night. I’m afraid that I will have an immeasurable hatred for pizza by the time we move. Is it possible? YES! My waist and thighs are expanding at an alarming speed. I suppose this is what happens when there are 6 pizza places in town and maybe 1 health food store. Needless to say, I’m just feeling very vulnerable and very blobby right now.

What is the matter with me?

Life with the Zen Sleek

So I, the luddite, have purchased an MP3 player. One of those snazzy Creative Zen Sleeks. I did exorbitant amounts of research before I ponied up the cash to buy one. I didn't want to be stuck with a $219 mistake that I could probably pass off to someone on ebay for half that. I bought the thing on Amazon.com and purchased the skin for it on eBay.com. Having it is a blast. I only wish I were still in NY. That was the place where I listened to music the most. In line to send off a package, riding the subway or just hanging out in a pizza joint with a slice and an icy Coke. Here...well, I'm usually with Sonny. He thinks it's rude to plug in the ear pieces and rock out to....I dunno... "Carino" by JLo while we're driving home from his parent's house. I have to say I agree. I like talking to him, besides.

I'm still learning about the cool features on the thing. Like the Outlook capabilities, and the concept of a playlist. Yes. Laugh it up. I'm behind, I know. But, I'm getting there. Someone once told me that the best thing about an (iPod) MP3 player is being able to carry your entire music collection everywhere you go. I scoffed at the time, said something flippant. But, yes...it is a very cool ability to have. I keep looking at the sleek, metallic piece of equipment and hoping shit doesn't go horribly wrong. As long as it doesn't, I'm very happy with my purchase. And the skin is groovy, besides. Now to pay down my credit card debt so I can have guilt-free enjoyment of the thing! : P