Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Story of Me in Hair & Glasses

Sometime when I was in school I lost my glasses, went without them for a year or two. I need them to see far away, but since I don't drive, and they were triggering my headaches, I wore them less and less. Anyway, one day I finally found them, and I was sooo excited, because I really liked them.

And then lost them only a few months later! I think I left them at the church basement where I had First Aid training, but without a car I could never be bothered to go all the way back to check. :-( So I went back to getting used to being without them.

Truth is, though my headaches are better with the meds, I still wasn't able to wear my glasses all the time. I still have enough on-the-edge days, like right now, where glasses/headphones/hats etc would definitely give me a full headache. But I would like to have glasses this year for Gilmabelfest. And Fernando needs glasses too. So must make the grand effort to get us off to New Look, get our eyes checked, get some eyewear.

It's just sooooo long to pick out glasses. I know exactly what suits me, but you have to try on so many pairs before you find the right size. Good heavens.

In other Appearance News, I've decided to grow out my bleach. I've continued to dye or bleach my hair all these years because it dries out my normally greasy hair, and therefore makes it easier to deal with. But I'm so lazy about doing my roots, I've finally hit my limit. And a few years back I stopped using dye because of animal testing, and switched to bleach. But bleach is much harder to control that dye. It's hard to get the colour even (and I'm too lazy to really try), and the colour doesn't really suit me, it's too blonde.

So. I'll grow it out. Check out how my white hairs are coming along. And if I get sick of my natural hair, I'll just go back to bleach. (There's one brand of dye that doesn't test on animals, but it's not yet stocked somewhere close to where I live and shop regularly.)

I was trying on a black turtle neck today, and it looked so good against my bleached hair, it was my first moment of almost-changing-my-mind. Against my washed-out-brown hair it won't have the same exciting effect! ;-) But I'm tired of the blonde. I don't like having the same hair all the time. And I never mind experimenting, cause it grows out fast. (I have no scientific proof that my hair and nails grow faster-than-average, yet I'm convinced of it. They're weeds, I tell you. Weeds!)

Childhood blondiness (you can see my eyebrows were light too)

Grade 3 or 4, you can see it got darker

1990


A few years later, and you can see it's even darker. I suspect this is the colour we'll be returning to, but with gray.

1998, not long after I started dying it blond.

This was the colour I got when home-dying it. It's closer to my eyebrow colour, so more natural looking. But a few years ago I fiiiiinally stopped being able to Live With Myself in terms of buying a non-necessary item that was animal tested, so I had to stop buying it. And those are the glasses I lost.

Haley eating my dyed hair.

When I first bleached it, I went for as white as I could. This took a LONG time. And turned my hair to the consistency of straw. It took a LOT of conditioner just to make it look un-insane.

And then I added the red.

But bright dyes wash out really fast. (That's why you see girls going around with vaguely green hair, which looks terrible.) And even re-dying it, I couldn't get it back that vibrant shade. Which is why I didn't continue to dye bright colours--too much work, not very satisfying.

Here you see the colour layer has become yellow.

These days I leave the bleach in less long, so that my hair isn't so dry, and so the colour isn't so white. But it's still an unattractive yellow colour. I've never been happy with it.


So this is what we're going back to baby!
Maybe I should just make splotches of blond, and become a calico like my cats. Anyway, so my hair is going to look terrible for the next month while I grow it out. Luckily I'll be on vacation much of the time. Once it's grown out enough I'll chop off the ends, and then decide what I think.

tv land

So, like many people, I found it impossible to keep watching Robin Hood after Marian died saving King Richard's life. They had so successfully built her romance up with Robin, over two seasons, that her death scene was soooo saaaaad. Like most fellow fans, I cried like a colicky baby. It was hard to imagine enjoying the show without that relationship.



I've only just now watched the premiere of season 3, though it's been on tv before. They've finally introduced Friar Tuck. The ending of the episode was great. Every season they up the ante in terms of how nasty the Sheriff is--this time Prince John has demanded more taxes from him, so things are getting supa ugly. So then they have to up the ante on how heroic Robin and his peeps are, and they managed it.


And Guy finally stood up to the Sheriff! One of the funniest things on the show is how sad and pathetic Guy is, and how the Sheriff makes fun of him all the time. This time Guy finally told him off. Probably one of the best ways to keep this show going will be an interesting character arc with Guy--there's a lot of depth possibility there. And it looks like season 3 was the last season, so at least there'll be an ending.


In other TV news, I'm starting season 3 of Nos Etés. It's my Quebec Saga Show that I watch with French sub-titles to practice my French. But I don't remember all the details of the previous seasons! I watched them when I was doing my BA.




And I borrowed Sports Night from a coworker--the Aaron Sorkin show that came before West Wing. I love Sorkin's writing, I just wish he'd managed to un-crapify Studio 60 in time to save it, cause it was juuuust getting good when it was canceled. He's back to writing movies now, which is a bit disappointing. (American President was good, but it was no West Wing.)

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

different day, same kitty-s**t

Chasing the fingers

Aha! Got her thumb! Slurp slurp slurp...

Banished.

movie sillitude

In my continued mood of watching/reading in French, I just watched Camping Sauvage. At first I thought the humour was going to be too broad for my taste, but actually most of the jokes were Zoolander type humour --> I enjoy absurdity. It's about a guy put in the witness protection program, and he's in hiding at a trashy camping trailer park, which has its own gay village and wannabe biker gang.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Vacation Countdown! Wee!

So my vacation dates have been confirmed with All Parties, and now I can get excited! Once Gilby gets back to me with the other play(s) I can start booking, and then contact my other pair of friends in Toronto to set up a dinner or something.


Then it's off to visit my dad and step-mommy in Nanaimo for about 5 days.
I think I'll bring Oscar as well as Yoda this year. Or maybe just Large Oscar.

Then I ride over to Vancouver to see my mother and brother.

My mum has a wee cute tiny little house,
and my brother's living upstairs right now (where Yoda and I stayed last summer.)
Instead of sleeping in the yard, or on the roof, or in the fridge, I've decided--wotthehell--I'll just get a hotel for 4 nights. Less stress for everyone. She's near the airport so there's a ton of hotels nearby. I'm currently looking at them all, seeing what I can afford, but doesn't have terrible reviews. It'll be a fun!

Yay! Time for a Swiss-girl-style countdown! 25 days til vacation! (Friend Swiss Girl's life is unbearable unless she's counting down to something. These days it's vacations, but even in high school there was always something.)

Saturday, August 28, 2010

pack me some lunch!

I'll be going out west to see the folks in September, so I can go look for some new bento boxes! I hope they have a different selection than last year. I didn't use my bentos, like, every day this year; but lately I've been getting better about bringing food to work, so I want a new one! The ones the Daiso store carries are cheap.

Look at all these various cute ones from online stores. You can see how collecting bento boxes could eeeaaasily become a habit.










hangin out in my café

cuddling

Sitting on my legs
Made the cats their first vet appointment. We never took Haley because Sherry acted insane when other cats came back from the vet, so the mix of him being crazy, and her responding crazy, there would have been Violence.


I finally decided to befriend some strangers on facebook, in order to expand my café and do certain things faster. It's one of the few games I've ever, in my life, played consistently, so I might as well make the most of it.

I've now bought some expansions to my place, and I'm waiting to get my money back up so I can buy the last one. Then I will... redecorate!! Weee!

So I also went through my friends list and grouped them into categories, so that it's easier to check people's updates, and not get lost in a sea of cafe-friends.




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