It's Only A Paper Rose

I've been ruminating lately, both on my own and in conversations with friends, on the definition of "thriving". In one conversation, a friend and I compared the idea of "thriving" to "being successful"; they had felt a little weird about saying that they had thrived in their life, considering that they were only a little over the poverty line and (like most people in America) are usually one disaster away from destitution. But they had worked hard to get out of the toxic environment where they'd grown up, and to build a sense of identity for themselves based on their own experiences and values, and cultivate relationships with people that reinforced those values and helped them feel more themselves. And that, to them, felt like thriving, even if their life wasn't particularly successful. I suggested that perhaps it was an internal/external divide; "success" is something measured against an arbitrary external yardstick, whereas "thriving" (is there a non-gerund noun form?) is based more on your mental image of who you want to be, how far that is from who you are now, and how consistently you're moving towards that ideal. It was a little weird to realize, in the course of the conversation, that this has been a huge part of my self-identity throughout the years; the one thing that consistently makes me happy is feeling like I'm taking steps towards being the person I want to be. Obviously that ideal changes, over the years, but most of those changes have been refinements and additions rather than wholesale replacements.

I wonder if this isn't why I've felt so lost, these past several months. I was already in something of an identity crisis last year, what with disconnecting from the yoga community and trying to decide where to go next, career-wise. I'd been taking steps on forging a new path (joining a regular music group, building a clientele at a new company), and starting to feel like I was getting my feet under me...and then the pandemic came along and wiped out all of that. So in addition to all the grieving over massive change in the world, I also had to deal with the loss of what little sense of forward progress I'd been making. My career has never been my sole identity, but it's difficult, when you live in a capitalist culture, for it not to be one of the larger chunks.

But! The past six weeks or so, I've been doing much better. I couldn't even really say what presaged the change; just, I've felt much more stable and in an improved frame of mind. I've been writing regularly—I finished a Lost Boys story that I'd begun some months ago, wrote another story (for Supernatural, which Brian and I have been watching over quarantine) and have since been working hard on the novel-length Stranger Things Harringrove story I started last year and then gave up on when life got too hectic. I'm honestly pretty surprised about that last; I had thought I'd given up on it altogether, but, well, I started having Ideas a month or so ago. I've been trying my whole life to write a novel, and now (when I have a little more time and apparently a lot more inspiration than usual) seems like as good a time as any to take the next crack at it. I've also joined a Zoom-based writing group that meets three times a week, and have found that remarkably helpful in keeping productive.

In other news, the condo board work, while slow, continues; I feel like I now have a pretty solid grasp of what's going on with the roof, and in theory the basement work's going to be starting sometime soon. (I made the deposit with the masonry company some weeks ago but haven't heard back from them about scheduling yet, which I'm mildly grumpy about, especially as they haven't answered my follow-up email. Still, it's their busy season and a particularly topsy-turvy one at that, so I'm willing to cut them some slack.) Still need to get estimates for the deck work and the paint/carpet for the common areas, and send out the big "your HOA assessments are going up" email, sigh. And one of the other units is starting to have water intrusion through the masonry during the big rainstorms we've been having...so there's probably some tuckpointing in our future, double sigh. It never ends...

Speaking of which, I also recently saw The Old Guard, which is excellent and timely and has some amazing fight choreography. Unsurprisingly, I was particularly inspired by Charlize Theron's portrayal of Andromache of Scythia. She's been around for millennia, she's seen all this shit before, she feels increasingly like her efforts to try to improve the world are pointless...it's hard not to relate, even if I've never been anywhere near that good with a labrys. So when I went in for my (masked!) hair appointment yesterday, I basically showed JB a bunch of Tumblr posts and went, "That." I think she really knocked it out of the park.

( Pictures! )

In JB's words, "Now you just need to live for 6,000 years, become a badass fighter, get a little grumpy, and work on your vodka-pounding skills!" Well, I've got a good head start on the grumpiness and the vodka-pounding. The rest should be easy enough.

In all seriousness, it's nice to feel like I'm thriving again. Even though "intimidating immortal guardian/fighter who's just sick of all this shit" wasn't quite the direction I anticipated...I could probably be doing a lot worse.

In a very strange headspace this morning. My brain apparently decided to have a "Let's get all wired and run run run like a hamster in a wheel all night and maybe get a grand total of two hours of sleep!" party, and I woke up feeling every missed hour with interest - but once I sat up and got some coffee in me, the grogginess disappeared and I actually felt surprisingly alert. Definitely beats the alternative (especially given that I'm covering the gallery alone today), but it sort of makes me wonder whether I just *feel* alert and am actually zoning out something fierce, or if I've hit that point where my subconscious is taking over and I'll find at the end of the day that I've written my masterpiece in between waiting on customers. Jury's still out.

Thanksgiving was a lovely holiday. We went to Scott and Niki's place in Sierra Vista to cook for them (would have invited them to our place, but they have a three-year-old daughter and our house is definitely not childproof). Not only did that mean we had friends to share the holiday with, but Brian's turkey dinner got rave reviews from their ten-year-old daughter - which, as anyone familiar with the species is aware, is one of the highest accolades one can earn. Additionally, Niki introduced me to Just Dance, which led to my searching for a used Kinect in the $50 price range, and not finding one anywhere online (where they all seem to run $70 or more). Discouraged, I decided to try the GameStop in Sierra Vista, even though I wasn't holding my breath after Black Friday - and it turned out they had so many of them they were selling them for $40 apiece, which was $20 off their usual price and less than half the cost of a new one. I'm not the biggest fan of GameStop's business model, and only rarely buy games from them, but the local one seems surprisingly well-run and we've gotten excellent deals on used gear there more than once. And I found two well-reviewed games (Dance Central 3 and Just Dance 4) on sale at Amazon for $25 each. Now to wait for them to arrive.

After five months and a good two-inches-plus of new growth, I've finally bleached my hair again. No clumps falling out, hurrah! I've been having fun using up leftover dye by mixing colors; this time, I mixed together a bunch of Cupcake Pink with my leftover Cherry Bomb, and came out with a rather nice slightly-orangey flamingo pink. It was a bit of a shock after the months of darker colors, and it's probably not quite as flattering as the purple or the burgundy I had going for a while, but the color's growing on me. I'm just a little sorry I'm not likely to go anywhere blacklit while I have the color, as both colors are blacklight-reactive and it would be fun to show it off. Ah well. It'll probably be back to something darker as my roots grow out again - new rule is I get to bleach once a month at most, and less is better. But it's fun to have something eye-searingly bright again.

Music is going...haltingly. I don't know why I have no problem practicing guitar daily but I'm so much more self-conscious about voice. One week I didn't practice at all. Last week I practiced once. I've gotten once in so far this week, and a couple more days until my lesson, so hopefully I can get another day in. I've barely done any work on sight reading, despite that being my weakest point - I tried a little bit, but felt like the slow kid in first grade who tries to follow along with their finger in the book but is obviously just watching the other kids to see where they put their fingers rather than reading the book themselves. Grah. I was able to accept that I was starting from day one with guitar, and I'm not even starting from day one with music - I already have the rhythms and note names down from my days playing flute. But it's still so hard to let go of that "I should already be good at this, dammit." Well. Nothing's going to change if I don't get going on it, and I really don't want to embarrass myself at my audition. So I'd best work on it tonight. Maybe sleep-deprivation will help with the self-consciousness as well as the creativity.

...but my eyes are up here, see.

This weekend has been pretty excellent. Why? I'm glad you asked! Here's a list of the highlights:
( Pictures and general niftiness below. )

Feeling kind of jittery today, for some reason. Not anxious, exactly - there's no clutching sensation in my chest or repetitive thought patterns. Just...slightly hollow inside, with a lot of extra energy. Honestly, it's not that different from the way I feel when my blood sugar's crashing and I need food badly, except that I've eaten a decent amount of food today so I can't imagine that's the problem. It's mostly just annoying, as it's making it rather difficult to focus on anything.

Re-dyed my hair Atomic Turquoise. Learned two things from the process - [a] Don't do your hair right before work, even if you think you have plenty of time, as chances are it'll take longer than you intended and you'll be late, and [b] turquoise is not my best color. Not awful by a long stretch, just...not great, especially after how awesome the Purple Haze came out. It probably didn't help that I was rushing and only left it in for half an hour, so I got more of a pastel shade than the nice vibrant color I like.

I badly need to cut my hair - the faded-ends problem is becoming more noticeable, and my hair's long enough that I don't always have enough dye in the single pot to redo them. And I need to give the bleach a rest too; when I was combing the dye through my hair I had a small-but-significant chunk come right out. So I'm thinking that progressively-darker shades of blue over the next couple of weeks will be the plan.

Augh. I need to get back to work, but even more I need my focus back. Does anybody have a Calminex I could take?

(Also, I am discovering that excess nervous energy + pet peeves is not a good combination. There's a woman out in the gallery who keeps clearing her throat, and I'm fighting the temptation to poke my head out the office door and yell "For God's sake, just cough it up already!")

This week's hair color of choice is Special Effects Devilish. I think I'm beginning to discover why everyone cites SFX as the go-to choice for funky hair color - in addition to dyeing effectively and wearing well, the color has surprising depth. When I did Wild Flower last (and, unfortunately, neglected to get any pictures), it would look very blue or very purple, depending on the light. Devilish, similarly, can look pink or orange, also depending on the light.

Additionally, considering how well it stays on your hair, it cleans off your skin surprisingly easily. Which I was particularly glad of with this color - during the dyeing process I ended up with a streak of it across my neck, and would not have much enjoyed going about looking like one of Sweeney Todd's victims.

Still, I'm not counting Manic Panic out quite yet - the pink was a nice shade, and it'll definitely look more consistent now that I've managed to get most of the orange out of the ends of my hair. Definitely more testing ahead in the future.

And now, also as promised - I'd like to introduce Tripp.



He's a little difficult to get pictures of, being entirely black (including whiskers and claws). He's also about half the size of our other two cats, though to be fair, he's all of six months old, so really still a kitten. And, as you can see in this picture, he's missing one of his back legs.



He's also really impressed with that cone.

According to the shelter, he was brought in as a stray with a broken leg that was infected, healing improperly and he wasn't using anyway, so rather than re-break it and put pins in and all that jazz they just cut it off. He's still surprisingly mobile, even if he'll never be a huge jumper. We'll just have to make him a ramp so he can clamber up on the bed.

Temperament-wise, he's extremely sweet - loves to sit in your lap and purr and be petted. We're crossing our fingers that he'll get along with Dexter and Leo, as we really don't want to bring him back to the shelter this time. It's a big house, there should be plenty of room for all three of them. Especially since, if they need to get away from Tripp, they can just hang out at the top of the cat tree. :)

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.

Yep. Two whole washings, and the blue's back to where it was after the first, less-successful, dyeing.

On the other hand, tomorrow is a trip to Tucson, wherein will lie the acquisition of more dye, including (hopefully) the vaunted Special Effects. (One of the girls at the beauty supply store tipped me off that the local record-store chain sells it, which just happens to be one of Brian's favorite stores anyway, so - score! Here's hoping they still do/she wasn't misremembering/they don't want 300% retail price for it.)

Also planned: wandering around 4th Avenue, solar-powered pizza, and making fried chicken and cornbread to eat while watching Metalocalypse with Adam. I may also comandeer his bathroom, depending on how successful the quest for hair dye is. (Currently leaning towards purple for the next bout, but I've had one vote for emerald green, if y'all want to get your ballots in...)

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... )