shuddddder

i'm sick. i feel yucky. my head hurts, and i feel like i'm going to puke.

it's my grandma's 88th birthday. I love you grandma!

::::crawling into bed now:::::

Jibs and Jabs

I have a ton of little things to write about and not much of substance.

On thrift:

Big Lots. Love it. Bought a pair of really comfy jeans there yesterday, for $10. I'm also stoked, because they have tool after tool after tool for gardening, and on the CHEAP. So so exciting!

The Kroger down the street from me has a Pete's Brewer's Box on sale for like $6.99. Yes. 12 beers. Unadvertised. There are three kinds of the beer in the box: Pete's Wicked Ale, Strawberry Blonde, and finally Wanderlust Cream Ale.

On hair:
I last washed my hair on Sunday afternoon. Yesterday was perfect...my hair looked just as good as it did the day before. Thanks to my new Pssst! brand dry shampoo. Of course it's hilarious. The directions say to lift sections of your hair up, spray, wait a few minutes "for it to dry", then FLUFF, and finally brush really hard. I'm on day 2 without a shampoo now, and it's not horrid so far, even! Psssst! rocks. CosmoGirl recommends it, so it has to be good, right?

On garden: I might be making raised beds after all; the city where I live sells compost by the cubic yard on the cheap. Transportation is another story, but they do have delivery. It's NOT cheap, but I'd not have to load or unload it. I have tentative plans for Pedro and Mom to come up in early April to make the boxes and get the compost in them. And then Jamie is coming up after the last frost (mid- t0 late-April) to help with the planting. Whee!!

On birding:
Yesterday a.m. it was 20º F here. I was out birding, with the coat Pinky gave me, the new long johns I bought up in MI, and many other layers. I didn't have any gloves, as they had been in my old coat's pockets, but a quick stop into the drugstore and $1.06 lighter and I had some chenille tiny gloves. They don't work so well for birding. I'd like to get some of those newfangled fingerless gloves. Brrrrrr!!

I saw a bunch of birds outside the backyard regulars I am used to. The most exciting was a Sharp-shinned Hawk. They're notoriously difficult to tell apart from the larger Cooper's Hawk, but I was lucky to see it close up, unobstructed, in great light and for a long time. To top it off, the bird was perched on a chain link fence, so I took note of how many links the tip of its tail was, relative to the perch, measured it, and extrapolated based on the proportion of tail in the picture to get its likely full size. Which was the size of a "Sharpie" as the lingo goes. Plus I had seen one in mid-November not too far from the same place. Might have been the same one.

Also saw: Hermit Thrush, Golden and Ruby-Crowned Kinglets, Pine Warbler, Brown Creeper, White-breasted Nuthatch, Northern Flicker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Goldfinch. Ever ubiquitous this time of year and therefore not very exiting were the tons and tons of Dark-eyed Juncos, plus Titmice, Carolina Chickadees, Cardinals, Bluebirds....etc.

On jobs:
Have a second interview for the good job. (!!!!!!!! WHEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!)

On friends:
Imperatrix makes a mean "Happy Mix"!! Tomorrow I'll post the eclectic playlist. But for now? THANK YOU SO VERY VERY VERY MUCH!!

On other crap:
My mantra: all will pass, even the stuff that seems scary, freaky, and really stressful.

Life goes on...slip sliding on by

Hey, thanks for the calls and emails yesterday...things look a lot better today. I spent some time brainstorming what to do, and while the short term will continue to suck big monkey balls, the end results will be worth the discomfort. Fiber Optic Jesus will help and combat evil clown-Jesus, who appears at left.

So back to hair: I don't think that the baking soda on the dry hair treatment worked. I woke up this a.m. and it was as greasy as ever. But that's fine. It just gives me an opportunity to go to the next idea: absorbant powder in the form of cornstarch.

I parted my hair down the middle and shook a little baby powder onto the roots. I then parted the hair a couple inches to the left and repeated. Ditto the right side. I then took a brush (of the "space-between-the-bristles" sort) and brushed vigorously, so as to distribute the powder evenly around the head. I followed up with another brushing, this time using a bristle brush. Again, I'm trying to make sure the powder is covering any and all grease producing areas.

The results so far are that I have greasy roots that look like they have dandruff. No fears. For the sake of science I will continue my day with this look. I'm wondering if the powder will absorb the grease and then fall out as the day wears on.

I wondered whether my gal Ols's suggestion about a tinted hair powder designed specifically for this purpose would work better. But I'm not about to buy one.

Here's a fascinating* review of the Bumble and Bumble hair powder, as compared to plain cornstarch, such as I'm using today.

*to people who are currently obsessed with their greasy hair

UPDATE:
Here's another fun read, this time about Pssst! spray shampoo. At about $5.99, I think I'll be going to look for it.

I suppose it COULD get worse...

Yeah, so here's the scoop. I have a situation on my hands that needs resolving, and it has escalated in the last 24 hours. It's so bad that I can't even talk about it on the blog. I'm not being paranoid, and I'm only being slightly dramatic. It's not medical. I'm reasonably safe. It's just going to be messy. Whew.

Note that I've disabled comments on this post. I don't want discussion on the record about what the deal might be. Email me or give me a call if you want, though.

Oh, I can't let a posting go by without talking about hair. The hair option of the day is a wash/condition only the very ends/airdry combination to begin. Then, 5 hours after the shower, I've put in a sprinkling of baking soda, per one reader's suggestion. We'll see how that works. So far my hair was shiny in a good way, pre-baking soda, and is not much different after.

I think I'll end up like the clown up there! Anyone up for driving me to Dorothea Dix if I lose it before this blows over*? I'd like to avoid an ambulance charge, THANKS!!

I'm going out to see Volver shortly with Michele, so I'll be out for the evening.

*Please don't misunderstand. I am in no way even close to desiring or needing acute mental health care. In fact, I'm very, very strong right now, even though I'm also in a crap place, if that makes sense. I suppose I wrote that because the situation is very, very shitty, so I made a bad joke about a serious topic. Nothing like an offensive joke that hits slightly too close to home, is there?

The American Tribal Love/Rock Musical

One of y'all just emailed me, wanting an update on the grease situation. I've been documenting the hair status at different times throughout the day, for the past few.

If only I had some more scientific way to measure than observation. Oh well. Here goes.

Tuesday evening I noticed that my hair was worse than usual. I had showered at about 10 a.m., washed and conditioned my hair. After arriving chez Michele to do a little custom riding-boot measurement, I noticed my hair was already greeeeeeezzzzzzy at the roots. Fewer than 8 hours after washing and conditioning it, my hair looked like it used to on Day 2 with no shampoo.

Wednesday morning, by which time the grease was horrible, natch, I decided I'd skip conditioner altogether. Shampoo, rinse, and let's see. First, it was a BITCH to comb out. Snarly snarlson brought me right back to the days of No More Tangles. My mom suffered through years of rats nests at the nape of my neck, smoothly covered with a silky curtain of the hair I had been able to brush through. I wonder if they had conditioner in the 70s.

Wait. They didn't. It was Creme Rinse. THIS explains creme rinse's fall from glory, somewhat. Now it seems to be relegated to animal grooming products.

Whoa, that was an aside.

Back on track. My hair was sufficiently non-greasy during the day on Wednesday, but towards the evening it was showing signs of wear and tear. By Thursday morning it was, predictably, greasy.

Thursday is when I decided to go for broke with the Arm and Hammer solution. I scooped up a nice chunk of baking soda and mixed it with my shampoo. I washed my hair first thing, so that I could make sure it would be as rinsed as humanly possible before the hot water ran out. The washing technique was to concentrate on the roots, merely letting the cleansing power of the shampoo/baking soda synergy kiss the shaft. (Yikes. Porn?)

When I did eventually emerge, my hair was absolutely straw. It looked like uncooked ramen noodles, only tanglier. I had to painstakingly divide my hair into sections and gently, gently, gently work a comb through. No lie, it took 10 minutes to fully comb out my hair. As it dried, the hair took on a fuzzy texture first, probably from the lack of any emollient at all.

This morning it was greasy.

p.s. unrelated to the job, which I haven't heard about yet, my last few days have been REALLY crappy. Boy issues, roommate issues, garden issues, self-esteem issues, medical issues, money issues...lots of stuff is piling on, and I feel SHITTY. Lots of crying the last few days. I fucking hate it.

Not just a miniseries or Canadian clothing brand

There's been both progress and frustration on the garden front, kiddos. As I've mentioned, I've been trying to build up a small stock of basic garden tools. As a way to try to meet that goal without breaking the bank, I'm using a couple of services I've known about for some time, but have not played around with too much before. First, I signed up for Freecycle, both the group for my county and the one for the county I used to live in. (There's a whole post about my experiences so far with Freecycle...I'll refrain from going into the interesting details for now). And, since my time is somewhat open, I also cruise Craigslist. Oh wait, not that kind of cruise. Nope. I look at the classifieds, concentrating on the Free category, but delving into Tools and Household as well.

Craigslist has not panned out, but I squealed with joy (on the inside) when an email came through from Freecycle offering "misc. gardening stuff". Tools were what I was after, but I was not being picky. I walked out with a garden rake, a flat bladed shovel, and a whole slew of other crap. Pots galore, lots of weed killer (which I have no idea how to use, cause wouldn't it poison your food through the soil?), insecticidal soap, sprayer bottles, gardening gloves, and a couple of tools that don't have handles. I think I can get handles though.

So that done, I set about yesterday to do a slew of work. I felt buoyed by the knowledge that Freecycle had come through at least a little bit. Here's where the bulk of the progress and also frustration comes in.

I dug up a little bit more of the bed I've been working on, and raked over it to level the ground. All good so far, except that I know I need to prep the soil with some compost. I'm trying not to buy anything I don't absolutely have to, so I went over to the compost bin to see how things were cooking along. The only compost that's actually ready is at the very bottom of the bin, which is not readily accessible. So I decided that the best course of action would be to take the bin apart and flip the pile. That helps things break down faster anyway, and I'm all about quick results. I'll be flipping more often now, because roots had invaded from the ground.

I felt like an archaeologist. The pile from inside the bin was layered, and my kitchen scrap additions were not so decomposed. I relived the meals of the past few months, and felt new guilt at the food that had gone dodgy before I remembered to eat it. Among the remnants: two entirely intact additions in the form of an apple and a potato. I had added those whole before it occurred to me that I'd speed the process along if I'd just go ahead and cut the things up. Stomping on the apple and potato and tossing them back into the bin was really fun. I might have even said "Hi-YAH!" Not that I'd admit to that, of course.

The really fun part though is that at the very bottom of the pile I got to see what the former tenants contributed to the pile. As I scooped up this layer, which was the only layer that actually seemed to be compost, I came across all sorts of fun things. They ate a lot of brown eggs; the shells were not entirely decomposed, but you can tell that they had leached some of their goodness into the soil from how fragile they now are. Peach pits, avocado pits, a corncob, a spoon, a shoelace and some plastic containers were the other survivors. The not-yet-broken-down-but-they-will-eventually pieces got tossed back into the bin. The others are lying beside the shed.

Wow. That's really a lot of talk about compost. Nobody ever said I was entertaining.

More progress: I have begun seedlings: peas and sorrel. They're cooking inside on the kitchen table, in the sunniest part of the house I could find.

Pretty good, hm? Well, don't worry there's always a balance, you know?

The bad news is that I really don't think the garden plot I've been basing THIS WHOLE GARDEN ON is even usable. I pushed aside the leaves I'd been using to mulch the plot with over the winter, yay new rake!! I figured I could go ahead and turn the soil now, so that when the peas had sprouted I'd be ready to just shove them into spots and hope for the best. Nuh-uh. There's only about 2 inches of topsoil before you hit a dense root system for the invasive yet gorgeous Mimosa tree that sits nearby. And on top of that problem, it seems that the proximity of the plot to the driveway means that there's a goodly amount of gravel thrown in. Roots, y'all, roots. And gravel. I moved on.

I think I'll be making another bed. If I can't use that plot, I'm going to be hard-pressed to dig up enough spaces for me to be able to plant everything I had intended to. I'm pouting. Literally, which in this case does not mean figuratively, like most people mean when they say 'literally' (It's literally raining cats and dogs). No, my bottom lip is poking out and the brow, it's furrowed. I can't furrow 2 inches of soil.

************
On hair:

Wow, I never expected such a throw-away complaint could yield such comment results! Woo hoo!

I went with no conditioner at all yesterday. Extremely hard to comb out. Despite great care, I lost a lot more into my brush than I was comfortable with. To top it off, it's still greasy this morning at my hairline. (Roots)

Luckily my friends have my back. I got an email from Michele first thing this morning:

I got a haircut last night and talked to my hairdresser about your greasy hair. She said it could be a number of things, from a hormone change to the change in water (which could take a while to show up.) She suggested trying a clarifying shampoo or mixing 1tsp of baking soda into your shampoo and washing your hair with that. She said that should make sure it's clean- it may not be rinsing out as well as you think.

So I'll be taking the Arm and Hammer into the bath today. Report to come. Thanks for being my cat sleuths.

p.s. All's I wanted to do was to make a blog quote. Blogger threw in the damn big quote marks. Sillies.

My not-so-interesting life

Hi. Did I mention I got stopped by the police for the second time in under a year? When I'd NEVER been stopped before that? Yeah, I did. And? It was for the same thing; my little black Honda's registration expired on 12-15-06, yet I had not received a renewal form in the mail.

Apparently in New Town of Residence, an expired registration "usually means the car is stolen," according to the nice cop who stopped me. I was so nervous, for some reason. She let me off with a warning, since the "registration actually came back to [me]". She was so young and petite. She wore a wedding ring. If I were so tiny, I'd be scared of stopping people after dark. But I guess that's why I'm not a cop. Or tiny for that matter.

I felt like I had messed up, and I really couldn't figure out what had gone wrong. I went to renew the registration the following day, and the DMV told me that I had neglected to pay the taxes on the car. Hm. Not true, I thought. WAAAAIIIIIT. That's right. I had written the check for the wrong amount; $2.72 less than I owed. Gah.

Anyway, after one trip to County Seat and then back to DMV, $35.72 poorer, I am now legal again. But I have another problem. My hair.

It's begun to get greasy not 24 hours after washing. I know lots of people who go 2, 3, 4 days with one hair wash. I have dry skin! This shouldn't happen. WAAH!

Oh my...if this is the worst of my worries, I've got it pretty good. (Of course it's not. It's just easier to bitch about than the deeper worries!) I still have it a lot better than other people.

SUCK it up, STEW!