Crazy Days of Summer

So yesterday was the longest day of the year and I can’t remember which day it is at any given moment this week. Going from working 6 days 1 off to 5 days two off and my week starting on tuesday, instead of ending on tuesday has taken this little cowgirl for quite a ride. I had people showing up tues p.m. for their appts that were wed p.m. and again wed p.m. for their thurs p.m. appts. not the same people, but I think it must be some sort of new girl hazeing. whatever. At least I’ve got appointments, right? right. lemonade. buckets of it.

it’s raining here. one of those rains that makes the outside seems like a greenhouse…horrible on the hair but all the plants are loving it and everything is getting a nice drink. much better for the water bill too….it’s been soooo hot. this week we have chances of rain and upper 80’s…

have been doing ok with food. yesterday, banana/pbutter on toast, two things of oj because i woke up with a raging cramp in my calf the night before. need potassium. then for lunch, small salad and a wwatchers frozen meal. dinner was fried bar food. so that sucked. but every day is getting eaiser…working on fruits and veggies. feeling better. I want to start working out…wonder if I can borrow someone’s treadmill, and like I have room for that in my house. not. but i’d figure it out.

Watched a funny comic on hbo this week. Lewis Black. haven’t ever heard of him before, but almost wet my pants with the laughter.

I don’t have to work until noon today, so I’m going to spend the morning jazzing with my ipod. I love it. and am going to figure more of it out!!

here’s to summer. officially. all we need is a porch and a jug of mojitos….

Baby Steps

Good Lord. I’m stuffed to the gills. sweaty and out of breath. But it feels so good….

Decent day today. It was my Monday. 9 hours. kind of long, only 3 clients. ran by the market on the way home, got home, made a batch of salsa, got dinner started, sat down with a vodka and sprite zero, watched my daily dose of Days, ate supper. Taco salads. to die for. delish. totally healthy, but for that last huge helping. flop. It’s my portion control that is so out of…control. ugh. but then we put on our walking shoes and went walking thru the neighborhood. It was so NORMAL….i may have to switch from Jilly to Sally. . . sat on the back patio watching the two fattest toads eat june bugs and had the best time…then a nice poop and the systems are going….all things bright and beautiful.

the food is going ok. today for bkfst had half a thing of activia yogurt. gagged that last bite and tossed it. then a bowl of shredded frosted wheat and 2% milk. lunch was a side salad and a grilled hburger patty…then a few pieces of really great sushi. couldn’t say no. then dinner. so a really full day of eating, but the food wasn’t so bad. and thewalk helped. am working on the water right now but am so full I may puke.

this new pact is hard. not hard for me to keep for you….but finding hard and harder to keep for me. . . ugh. why is that?

just had to try to do a photo….apparently it worked.

this is my salute to Kizz and NYC….beautiful beautiful sushi

beautiful woman and city

look at me….figuring this out on my own!!

aaaaaaaaand flop

just exhausted tonight…it’s Saturday and I’mhome and flopped out on the couch with a glass of wine and stupid movies.

Completed my first two days at new salon. Was not so busy yesterday. Today, had time to pee twice, eat in seriously 4 minutes, and make about 23 bucks an hour for 8 hours. Not to B-A-D, no? no.

I have a crap in my shoulders, a huge knot between my shoulder blade where my arms are raised blow drying all day long. My body feels like it’s revolting…under seige…imploding. But it was all for the greater good.

I worked double process times today, not frazzled, and not late for anyone. Felt GOOD. felt really good.

Have eaten well the last two days…evening meals have been iffy….not bad, just ate waaaaay too much. moderation? the hell?

and now I’m off for TWO WHOLE CONSECUTIVE DAYS. glory glory glory.

Tomorrow, Dad’s day brunch at 11:30. then lazy afternoons. then hanging at the bar tomorrow night. Makes for a great Sunday.

Just kind of rattling things down in no particular order. want to keep the flow of writing…keep tabs on life this way.

Feels good the way things are moving…just bone weary.

Have a few blongs working in the back of my mind….relationship questions and observations from a friend and another one…can’t think of it…could be a whole list of should have beens that I am thankful turned into absolutly nots…but we’ll see how they play out.

Last Day

Tomorrow is the last day at my salon before I move…Anticipation, anxious, excited. All of the above. Wondering if I can make the transition easily. I am really trying to focus on gaining back control. After these last years of school and working 6 days a week paying my dues, things are finally here. What I’ve been working on is here.

The future begins now.

So.
Gaining control.

Now it’s time to start taking care of things. My body for one. Totally out of control with that. As I binge daily, shoving food in with both hands I know it’s a sign of chaos elsewhere. Got to get some control. Working on controlling finances. That is nice. Working on the environment, cleaned my house today a bit. Didn’t really tough the bedrooms, as they are still wrecked. But the living areas are clean and neat. Stocked the kitchen with 223 dollars worth of fresh foods, fruits, meats, veggies, salads, yogurt, sprite zero…Which really doesn’t count as good food but I like to add a titch of vodka to it after work! I have to get my mind wrapped around this new life I’ll be leading, the new hours, which are almost normal! I have to figure out how to get my body moving and get some weight off.

I was emailing a friend today saying these words, and even as I was typing, my inner critics were shouting Nanny Nanny Boo Boo you won’t do it. fuckers.

Sunday is Dad’s day. I have to call and see what mine is doing and make a plan.

Fairly busy this week. Dinner tomorrow night with a friend…He and his husband are having some issues and he needs an ear and a shoulder. Friday night grilling with a group of women whom I periodically hang out with. Work Saturday, free at 5 Saturday eve…Maybe a brunch is in order for dad’s day.

must pay loan payment tomorrow and must remember to get car tag renewed next week.

Why Steel Magnolias wasn’t set in a Commune

Things are moving right along here. had a crazy granola freak woman in my chair saturday. last client, right? long ass funky commune hair. brings in her own plastic sack of shit, shampoo that smells like a nursing home, burts bees conditioner, other asundries that I know nothing about…and she’s got some sort of bandage on her nose and all around her face is this yellowish last stage of a bruise thing going on. during the consultation, she says she ususally cuts her own hair, so it may be a little crooked. honey, it was like a friikin road map it was so crooked and jacked up. so we settle on what to cut, and proceed to the shampoo, where she tells me she’s moved from nashville, she’s a singer/songwriter here for school….i’m thinking OCU , OU someplace known for it’s music department. nope. Rose State, a community college here.

THE HELL? I ask her about the nose thing and she said it fractured when she got hit by a gourd.

a gourd.

i just moved right on.

then she says she did five months in “beauty’ school. and i need to shampoo twice, and honey use a little water and that shampoo will suds right up. meanwhile, under my breath in my soul i’m pulling a yosemite sam tanget.

frick fracken fricken frack. . .

we go back to my staiton, and I proceed with the cutting. fine. no prob. we already know granola commune girl is NOT gonnna leave looking any better than she came in. I finish with, you dont use styiling products? NO. so you don’t want me to use any? NO. picking up the blow dryer and she screeches,

NO. DO NOT USE THAT. my hair is so fine that it will just scorch it up

okaaaaaaaaay. putting the blow dryer back into it’s slot.

frickken frack frickken frack.

she then wants me to “cut some little pieces on top to make it stand up and give it volume” well. for one thing, with fourteen feet of hair, crystal gale anyone? it’s so heavy aint nuthin gonna make it full on the crown.
for another. . . fricken frack fricken frack.
So, I cut just a teensy bit of texture into it and begin to let her get out of my chair. no she wants more. I say, No. I won’t do it. your hair is wet, I dont texturize wet hair, there’s no way for me to tell how it will lay, where the weight is, anything… a big possibility i’ll cut a hole into it and I just won’t do it.
She says, well, can I got outside and sit for 25 minutes and let the sun dry it and come back in for you to do it?

Sweet Myrtle.

Nope. I say, you’re my final client and while I’d love to be able to do this for you, I have a wedding this evening and won’t be able to stay past my shift. She sighs the heaviest sigh that only those lost souls of the damed have inside them and says go ahead and dry it but DONT USE ANY HEAT. IT WILL SCORCH.

God, just take me now. Reach down and set me on fire. Take me out of this life.

But not really, because if that would have happened, I’d have missed this!

We go up to the front desk for her to pay, I thank her for letting me do her hair. I DO NOT give her a business card, cuz…I don’t wanna. and I walk away. Immediatly, they call my manager to the front desk, where granola girl has pulled out some I swear to the hair gods, grease. stinkey horse tail hoof growing grease that she’s putting into her hair at the front desk. . . while she wants to ask him about GOING BLONDE Becaue all the men at the bars around here only pay attention to blondes and not brunettes and can he guarantee she won’t walk out of there with frizzy hair…..Travis just looks at her and says, If you’re that concerned, you don’t need to do it. We really won’t do it, so just let it go. FORGET ABOUT IT CRAZY WOMAN!!!

she did tip me five bucks though.

surprising.

Today is FRIDAY

so. that’s a nice thing, the end of the week, only it’s my half way point during the week as I get WED off. Tomorrow is significant, however, as I have done a really cool thing in beauty lingo. I’ve “opened my processing times. ” This means, that I will be able to double my money, double my client services. I have taken my “service times” down to actualy “salon times” forgive all the “”s– it does get confusing.

Here’s an ex:
1:00pm–bla bla smith for a half head )–this means highlights/color on sides and top of head
1:45 finish bla bla smith set her in next room
1:45 bla bla jones for haircut
2:30 finish jones and rinse out smith from color. . . finish and style smith

It’s called booking in-between. It’s probably the norm for most stylists. It’s unheard of for a stylist 6 months out of school and behind the Chair. So i”m feeling good and nervous and confident and shakey for tomrrow.

However, It’s my second, or perhaps third consecutive day of blogging, and for that I feel good.

It’s hotter’n’ass here. with only the hope of it getting hotter. Halakaleem it’s Summer in Oklahoma!!! Ya’ll come back now. . . ya hear?

just trying to figure out how to do the actual blogging on the blog. I am going to use this as a personal experiment. Hopefully there will be very little witnesses. An exercise in creativity, and growth. The two areas which, if you don’t count my arse, have been sadly ignored.

Funny the way life runs you around in circles, until you’re so dizzy you could puke, and you’re so happy to have stopped the spinning that you don’t even realize that you are exactly where you started….only a little dizzier, and a little better. Funny that.

Life is good.

Life is different than I ever thought it would be, and exactly how I knew it would somehow be, if that makes any sense. I know it. I feel it. I trust it.

and yet, to those who should really truly know me, I keep defending it.

Frustrating.

I spent the last week in the big City with favorite friends, crazy memories and a soulmate. one word. soulmate. and it was fantastic to get fueled up again, to feel known again. Yet there was more than one moment, that I had to repeat, yes. I love it. Yes. I’m happy. YES ITS FUCKING AWESOME.

for those of you that know me, don’t you think I’d have hit the road by now if it was anything I didn’t feel like fighting for???

And we can do the devil’s advocate thing, I know they care and are fully justified in wanting to be completly one hundred percent sure that I am ass deep in bliss. . . but when did my word cease to hold merit?

and when did it become ok to just ignore it? Don’t talk about it, don’t ask questions or discuss it at all, that way we won’t have to let you hear our voices that say…..bless your heart you just settled.

and that is what I heard from them.

and I feel sad for them. . .

because I didn’t. I’m happy. A few knew it. Know it. Supports me a thousand miles away every day.

that is enough.

for the others. . . I wonder. Is it me they are sad for, or is it for themselves. . . for the dreams of Theirs that I didn’t make come true? I found other dreams…and that is OK.

so. the very first one. should I be sober for this? maybe. maybe not. Am at a crossroads. a wondrous crossroads if you will. that place where all reality collides so spectacularly with episodes of Sex and the City. First episode, season four. Carries 35th birthday party. soulmates. Discussions abound. Comedy vs. Tragedy. Really? and being so virginal regarding anything blog-esque, i’m sure I”m sending many upon many red flags by merely mentioning said episode but. . . fuck off.

it’s my first one.

sitting on my couch. really contemplating. life out there. I’m quoting a reba song. and she’s from my home state, you would think, I could spell her freakin last name. We fry twinkies in grease at our state fair, for craps sake, and I can’t spell her last name?

it’s my first time. I have a few “do overs”

wondering if there really is a do over. a “going back” and getting it right. Is it necessary to become that “twosome” or to really be a portion of the “perfect”duo? Reality and any kind of education says not so much. I know this. but see, the thing is. I’m sad. I’m just sad. I’ve done the wild and crazy go off and run to a different state and join a theatre and meet like crazies and live life. I’ve done the get married and have Shelby and all 9 bridesmaids plus Marjie St. Maurice and Blush and Bashfull and more flowers than any said funeral home could hold. I’ve done that. I’ve slaved over a stove and fixed a flat on a fucking riding lawnmower and taken out the trash and written so many papers on A Room Of Their Own that even Gloria Steinem would vomit at reading.

and now I’m sad.

I’m 35. and have been in tumultuous relationships with men. . . young and old. older. and I have always ALWAYS been the ‘stomp your feet light a match for this pussy’ kind of gal,but for the love of petey fisk. . .
i’m sad.

i feel lonely. and very alone. and I’m totally bonding with Carrie Bradshaw and her girls on the first ep of season four. “why can’t we just be each others soul mates and guys can be these really great things that we share. . . bla bla bla”

timing.

I think he was there. is there. was there. and timing is a bitch. and I don’t know what to do. but i close my eyes and I see my comfort zone and my stupid fucking pillows on the couch that is falling apart and I see reality. but i also see a vision of “perfect” which I know is a false sense of make believe.

But then I talk to the other him and he says “you should have a baby”

really.

is it any wonder that I’m totally mixed up? i’m seeking half smoked cig butts in the ashtray outside and blessing them like they’re virginal.

for the love of petey fisk.

thank GOD this is only the first one. I have only hopes of getting better. more rational.

clear.

hope.