It's Only A Paper Rose

Extremely vivid dream this morning.

I was making silk cloth to help a person who was ill and needed it (not sure how that worked, but). I distinctly remember unwinding the filament-fine threads from the worms; it was something of a visceral task, as I could occasionally feel the worm move and I knew I was killing it. Once I had the loose silk, I would weave it on a loom threaded with strands so thin I couldn't see them except from an angle. But the resulting cloth (fortunately my brain skipped over most of the tedious weaving) was some of the finest and strongest I'd ever seen. Other people had dyed their pieces lovely vibrant colors (orange, yellow, red, green), so I selected a beautiful rich indigo for mine. The pieces were all small and undecorated, but exquisitely made.

Any thoughts?

Made breakfast. Dyed hair. Petted cats. Wrapped ribbon. Bought groceries. Cleaned house. Vacuumed floors. Cleaned kitchen. Doing laundry.

Saw Beauty and the Beast in 3D, which was beautifully converted and entirely spectacular. It always was my favorite from the Second Golden Age of Disney, and I'm glad to say the presentation felt like an extension of the original rather than a desecration of it. Not that I expected any less; Disney knows where their bread is buttered when it comes to their classics.

As a side note, it was a bit of a trip realizing that I was the same age as my friend's daughter the first time I saw that film. Time marches on.

Found supplies for a nifty sewing project at Wal-Mart, of all places. Which makes me very pleased; I've been wanting something to work on with the nifty new Singer I got for Christmas, but had been stymied by the lack of craft stores in the area. Now to see if I can figure out where I put the iron. And to trawl thrift shops for an ironing board.

Also, for those of you who aren't on Facebook and haven't been hearing about the adventures of the theoretical new kitten - we have a new (non-theoretical) kitten. He's still very much in the adjustment period, so we're waiting to see if he'll be a permanent addition or a temporary one a la Fiona. But we're hopeful. He's younger, and a lot more laid-back. Also, he has three legs.

Pictures of both the new hair and the new kitten scheduled for tomorrow. Stay tuned.

The local Sally Beauty Supply seems to have some kind of a bias against funky hair colors - despite restocking everything else, their supply of Manic Panic is down to like three colors. Since I really wanted to do a bright vivid blue this time, I decided to try the only other brand they had (besides the infamous dishwater-green Beyond the Zone stuff) - something called N Rage.

First impressions were mixed - it was far less liquid and more goop-y than the other brands, which made it easier to apply but a little harder to mix into the hair. Additionally, it was scented like blue bubble gum, which wasn't awful but got a bit cloying after working with it for a while. My friend Janae, who was over at the time for New Year's, helped me apply it, and I let it sit for about forty minutes before washing it out.

Second impressions were equally mixed. After rinsing, my hair was sort of light blue (the previously-dyed ends were far more green, which wasn't surprising since the bleach doesn't do more than turn them orange), but on the whole it didn't seem to take very well. It wasn't awful like the Beyond the Zone, but it wasn't great either. And it certainly wasn't anywhere near the vibrant dark cobalt blue the bottle promised.

Since I was headed to Sierra Vista on Monday for Zumba anyway, I hit Sally's up again for their last bottle just to make sure I'd given it a fair shake. I also got some cheap and awful and harsh shampoo from the dollar store and washed my hair with that, since I figured it'd strip out the oils and open the cuticles and whatever else the bleach usually does. Then I put the stuff on my hair (first time I'd done it myself - turns out it's a lot messier with just one person and a comb), tossed a shower cap on, and let it cook for a good hour-plus.

Fortunately, it took much better this time around, and the resulting color is quite nice. Unfortunately, my reaction is still mixed - despite rinsing my hair until the water was clear, it still bled all over my pillowcase overnight (fortunately some bleach and two launderings got the worst of it out) and is bleeding on the skin of my neck and ears. After a day at work unconsciously running my fingers through my hair, they were bright blue too. So all of that doesn't lead me to believe that this stuff is going to last for long at all.

So far, Manic Panic's definitely leading the pack for most-effective and longest-lasting, at least for my hair; though admittedly the comparison's far from comprehensive yet, as I've yet to try any of their blue shades. But the fun's far from over - I still haven't tried Special Effects, which is supposed to be the last word in funky hair color. My brother's promised to send me some, since I don't live near anywhere that sells it; I suppose we'll see how it turns out.

Also, thanks to the strong recommendation of one of the girls at the shop, I discovered that while Beyond the Zone's dye might be crap, their hair masque is excellent stuff. It's a bit of a pain to use - you're supposed to rinse out your hair, towel-dry it, comb the masque in, leave it for five minutes, and then rinse it out again - but I found it worked even better than the leave-in treatment I was using. Cheaper, too - a whole pot of it is like $10, as opposed to $8 for three vials.

Well, they say Christmas is a time for wishes to come true.

And after three rounds of bleach, two failed dye jobs, an ultimately pointless round with dye stripper and more money than I like to think about spent at the local beauty supply place...



My wish finally came true.

( More pictures and description of the long and arduous journey to follow... )

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm cut out for the bleach-and-dye crowd.

Two separate attempts now, with my brother's help. The first time I didn't rinse out the bleach well enough, and ended up with hair part-purple, part-brown, and part-frosted. The second, the blue dye didn't take *at all* (despite leaving it on for a good forty minutes), so I have hair ranging from yellow to very light blue to (mostly) variations on seaweed green. Not the most encouraging results, especially given how much the bleach and dye costs.

Honestly, I'm sort of tempted to just bleach it once more and leave it - because my hair's been dyed a couple of times before, the roots start out blonde and then slowly fade into quite a nice foxy red. It's a cool effect, and no one's going to think it's natural, which was sort of the point of the exercise.

But still...I want my blue hair, dammit. Or pink. Or purple. Other people have it, so why can't I?

*pouts*

Wandered down the hill to work listening to Simple Things today. It's been a Zero 7 kind of a day; quiet, recuperative, waiting; the calm before the storm. (Though whether I still feel that way after Zumba tonight remains to be seen.)

The party (and the egg nog) was a smash. The latter surprised me a bit; I'd always thought of egg nog as something you drank because it was traditional rather than any great desire to do so, and this particular recipe came out so rich I doubted anyone would want more than a bit. And yet more than a gallon of it disappeared, which (especially considering that probably a third of the guests were nondrinkers) I suppose demonstrates otherwise pretty decisively. And in all fairness, it was pretty tasty. Next year I'm definitely going to try making it earlier so it can age longer.

I'm also going to try to resurrect the movie-night thing I had going in Juneau; more than one person expressed the desire to come back to worship at our Altar to Entertainment. So that'll be another way to work on the "be more social" goal.

In theory, assuming his truck doesn't break down again, my brother will be arriving sometime late tonight. I'm a little apprehensive about his visiting - it's been most of a decade since we saw each other last, and our relationship in that period has been rocky at best. But I'm going to try my best to be a gracious host, and maybe see if we can build a foundation of mutual respect. Because he is my brother, and I do care about him, even if we clash from time to time.

It snowed last night - not a light dusting, but real, thick, fluffy, Alaska-style snow. Most of it's melted by now, but I got some lovely pictures this morning, which I'll have to post up sometime in the next few days, along with the pictures of the cards I made everyone. Ah, good intentions...at least the holiday makes for a deadline of sorts.

I seem to have a real streak going for creativity-enabling gifts going. This year I have it on good authority I'm getting a sewing machine and a serger, so I can start making clothes again (or even just sewing trim onto cards). And I'm already getting frustrated enough with the limitations of my point-and-shoot camera that I may be angling for the Costco pack of the Canon Rebel for my birthday. (Give credit where it's due, Brian totally called this one, and he was totally right, despite my protestations that all I wanted was something uncomplicated and easy to use. Stupid perfectionism rearing its head; I don't like posting crappy photos.)

Christmas is less than a week away. Sheesh, when did that happen?

In preparation for the upcoming holiday party I have planned on the 17th, I made this recipe today. For those of you with a crippling fear of profanity or links (in which case, why are you reading my blog?), that goes to a 1930s-era Joy of Cooking recipe for egg nog. I made it half again as large, which meant eighteen eggs, seven cups of booze (five of bourbon and two of rum), a pound and a half of confectioners' sugar, three quarts of whipping cream, and a full three nuts of nutmeg all grated up into it.

Needless to say, it was a bit of an experience.

First off, the eggs were from Costco, which apparently follows the "bigger is better" philosophy when it comes to individual units as well as packages - all 18 of the eggs were HUGE. Then there was the booze-pouring; it felt downright strange to be dealing with bourbon and rum in cups instead of ounces. I ran out of space in our largest bowl at the adding-cream stage, but fortunately I still had two quarts to add, so I just poured half of it into our next-largest bowl and split the rest of the recipe down the middle. And then there was the fridge-Tetris to get both bowls in the fridge for their three-hour rest. (Fortunately we haven't done any serious grocery shopping in a while.) Finally was the nutmeg, which (of course) had to be freshly grated. I think there may be a bit of the top of my thumb in there somewhere.

Now that it's all done, though, there's a gallon and a half (or 16,632 calories) of nog sitting in the fridge waiting to age a bit. Even fresh it's not half bad, although I'm hoping that the nutmeg flavor gets stronger over the next few days. And if I so wish, I can put little labels on the eggnog cups at the party: "HELLO MY NAME IS 462 calories! Merry Christmas!"

It just occurred to me that I've likely consumed my 2000 calorie daily intake today without ingesting a single 'healthy' food. Ah well. I guess that's what the holidays are for.

Today, I finally discovered the secret flavor in my college roommate's amazing cranberry-orange sauce.

Today, I am a man.

Tortilla Soup made with tomatoes and serranos from the garden, fresh cilantro, fresh avocado, cider vinegar, and Arizona Gunslinger red jalapeno sauce. While rocking out to Bat Out of Hell on the iPod.

I officially Win At Life.