short hair woes

Lulled into a sense of unreality by my Thai-settled-in-Berkeley-for-21-years hairdresser's reminiscences of times gone by, I almost coloured my hair blue yesterday. Thankfully, better senses (or, more accurately, hunger pangs and a well-informed email from Fanny) prevailed.

However, I did end up with hair about 1.5 inches shorter than I wanted (and asked for). I wanted a Victoria Beckham and ended up with a mad pixie*.

Today, as I went to my usual coffee shop to get coffee (decked out in eyeliner, mascara and lippy), the coffee chap complimented the new hair and joked about it being very "rock star" (and I'm not a rock star type at all).


* I'm not implying that lady is a mad pixie at all. I, however, seem to look like what I'd imagine an irritated pixie to look like.

Bad things.

I moved recently. I hate moving. This is not an earth-shattering statement, a particularly unique one, or a particularly surprising one.

But.

Man, I fucking hate moving.

Bum will tell you I have a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. A truly astounding amount of stuff I can't bear to be parted from and have managed to tuck into teensiest corners of my apartment. It's a talent. (Plus I truly believe tiny apartment elves come out while I sleep and make. more. stuff.)

So to get all this stuff home (yes, I'm temporarily living with my parents while crap gets sorted out. Not in the basement, and I have no game consoles or black lights.), I rented a U-Haul truck.So here's the thing. They don't really ask you any questions about what you will be doing with said truck. You make a reservation, you pay with a credit card, you drive away with a truck. For 24-hours. All yours to do with as you want. What if I wasn't moving? What if I wanted to do bad things in the back of the U-Haul? Huh? Like a roving meth lab? Or a roving, tiny brothel? Or a roving band of bandits wandering the Pennsylvania highways? What kinds of bad things?

Lots of bad things.

What would your bad thing be?

Smelly.

I have no interesting excuse. Except for being asleep for most of the past two weeks. I blame the crippling bout of flu. Also: laziness.

I've made a discovery this week. Which is not quite a discovery, and more like a realization. And it's very profound.

The smell of fresh shitake mushrooms is possibly my favorite smell in the entire world. I have a small amount of them sitting in front of me (for the purposes of writing about them! Not because I am a weirdo who sits in front of her computer with a bag of mushrooms. At least not that kind of mushroom. Though I used to love to come into the kitchen and take a deep whiff of sesame oil. Apparently, if I were less high-strung and neurotic, I would be a huffer. Huh.).

I do not enjoy the smell of shitake mushrooms when they are dried, or even when they're cooked, though I do enjoy eating them. But when they're fresh and tender and moist and plump, they emanate this truly lovely smell, which is kind of like fresh bread, soil...and I don't know. Sort of a baby smell. While I don't want to eat a baby, there's something pure and sweet and kind of innocent about the scent. I want my shampoo to smell like this.

This is a reminder to take the time and smell the mushrooms more often.

Or something.

Spinster.

There is a cute boy who works in my building. And of course I say "boy" though he is likely in his thirties. This keeps me in the "girl" camp because oh my God I am not a woman yet. Or womyn. Or lady. Though I do like the phrase lady-bird. I don't know why. Perhaps because I see a bird in a very elaborate hat. And that makes me smile.

Anyway.

So this boy-man who works in my building. I do not think I've tipped the stalker-scale yet. We've noticed each other in the garage. We've exchanged "oh, the dollar bill feeder isn't working" pleasantries at the vending machines. We've tossed shy smiles back and forth.

And I am a total pussy.

Because I will not go any further than this. Will not lay myself open to vulnerabilities and rejection and, lord save us, possibilities. Gracious, no.

I can hear Bum hitting her head against the keyboard right now. Perhaps screaming at me in that way that makes her voice go up just a little with exasperation. All very charmingly accented.

Because I feel like my days of flirting without alcohol are past. And I will be the woman in her house with millions of dollars worth of art that articles are written about and journalists can't call just "woman" or "lady" or "that crazy old bat." No, the call her spinster.

Except I will be the spinster with millions of dollars worth of cosmetics and trashy novels.

That?

That right there?

That's called catastrophizing. Pro tour.

Am not a Republican.

I am really, really, really not a Republican.

However:

He was kind of a hot bitch.

Fiction.

I feel I should make up a story of romance and adventure, seduction and sorrow for my New Year's Eve to add some interest to this blog. For instance, I could say that as I was browsing the champagne selection at the local booze hut, a stranger, in a stocking cap and a slashing scar across his eyebrow, approached me. He had a gravelly whisper and eyes that peered into my very soul. He murmured, too low for the clerk picking his fingernails with a switchblade to hear, "Tonight is the night. The red duck scampers across the cerulean lawn."

And with that, he touched my face and decamped swiftly. I was left changed, knowing this coming year would, indeed, be the time the red duck scampers....

Except what really happened (because I couldn't get myself together enough to figure out what I wanted to do)? I had a yummy dinner with the family, got a truly upsetting email, spent oodles of time on the phone discussing said email, harassed my mother and sister until midnight, then harassed the rest of the family (including the animals) while drinking scuppernong wine (no one finishes the champagne in our family before the fizzies go, and we don't cook with it). Then went to bed.

It's like Bum and I are old ladies. And not terribly interesting old ladies at that.

Or accountants in Afghanistan.