My Dream Hair

I do love my tresses, it’s true; the nearly-black natural color, the fact that I haven’t dyed my whole head of hair, that day in 2001 when I took a chance by having it cut from just-past-the-shoulders to a short almost-pixie inspired by Mandy Moore. That last decision liberated me from a useless obsession with the long, thick hair that I was actually overwhelmed by.

These days, it’s still short, but I’ve learned a few styling techniques and introduced myself to the fun of making it colorful. I’ve had red highlights, blue-green bangs, and at one point, a panel of red, orange and blonde.

When I inevitably get bored with my look, I don’t just think of what I want to do next, but I fantasize, too, about having 22 inches of purple, Joss Stone-style waves to toss over my shoulder and wear with a black dress.

I Thought I Was In Love and Felt Like a Crazy Person

 Could I skip to the stage of a relationship that would have been Liz Lemon's dream and just be done with this? 'Kay, thanks.

          I can't possibly be the only person who has thought to themselves, 'UGH. I am so SICK of this stage of love'. Mind you, I know I previously had limited experience with the emotion: I'm part of a warm, stable family and have some semblance of love with a few friends. But 
I stated in January that I am currently in romantic love for the very first time, and holy s--t - I have been thinking like an insane person for the past - mmm, seven months, I think - going through the scientifically proven stage of love that has me much more attentive to small children, dogs and babies, having more difficulty focusing on tasks, getting annoyed with myself.

 

This piece was first published on 3.29.14 and the title was changed on 11.28.20

Recovering From a Friendship Breakup REDUX: Recent Toxicity

Time to cut ties with the recent past and not write about it for a long, long time:

          The hardest part of letting a longtime pal fall away has, for me, been the struggle to end my long obsession with the other person’s wrongdoings. If someone I really like and respect screws up badly enough, I’ll cut off all communication with them until I have thoroughly processed recent events, which can take months or even years.  The majority of the time, the person from whom I’m gaining distance is needy;

Gender Dysphoria

----AUTHOR'S NOTE JANUARY 29, 2023: I look forward to revisiting this topic in the future, so maybe this essay can be a resource or a time capsule item, but please know that it was specifically created by the person I was in 2014, and even she wasn't anywhere near award-winning levels of rifling through one's own mental Rolodex or researching for her writing. Thanks for your time!---- 

          I’ve been learning more about gender and sexuality in the last few years and I have to say that I’m fascinated by a lot of it. As you know, gender is a complicated thing, so I've made a conscious effort to seek out the information. It started in my teens with an article in some girly magazine (Girls' Life? er...), interviewing a couple of gender-transitioning individuals and their parents, of which I now only remember a photo of Samantha, a trans woman, and her dad’s statement that he was supportive, and just last year, I turned to an episode of Our America with Lisa Ling on the OWN Network. I love that show, and in that particular episode, two adults, one of them middle-aged, were undergoing transitions, and I got to see how, in the one case, there was a woman who had lived in a man’s body for over four decades, married, and raised two sons, each of whom were in their teens or twenties when one of their parents started to build an identity that she could truly be herself in.

I Want to Make My Own Major

 

            I've surpassed a need for an honesty warning, right? Right.  

          So I'll unhappily admit that I am not an ideal student. For instance, I’m very intellectually curious but a terrible test-taker.I'll space out a lot during an exam and get very sleepy, which is entirely a psychological problem, but a reality all the same. I learn a lot and enjoy it and study only to end up with grades far below A, often around C; Just this past semester I got an 80% on my American History I midterm and requested high-fives from my parents. It's obvious that I'm one of those people who has to put in a hell of a lot of work to do well in most academic things. I'd need a study buddy, too. And the IED* my parents had set up for me years ago. But even with that obstacle, I've been trying to move forward as a passionate student of writing and the human experience.

How to Respectfully Follow That Writer Online

 

1.    Carefully, and with quiet, plodding steps…assuming that a person can plod quietly.

2.  Use a horrific impression of the Lone Ranger.

3.   You might draw a twelve-month calendar of seahorses by hand, at which that author you love might look back as he hurries away from you.

4.  Stuff your gullet with white chocolate baking chips.

5.   Read some Hemingway.

6.  Check out Rachel Cohn.

7.   Fall in love with the quality of a celebrity profile they once wrote and save their website to your browser’s favorites under the heading, “…got drunk and flirted with Chris Evans, a.k.a. My Heroine”

Kill, Marry, Bang: 'Copper' Edition

Flashback Friday!

Because I used to watch Copper, the BBC America show with a ton of potential that rushed through its first few episodes, and proved itself to be just okay, and because [I gave myself such a long breather from laughing at Maguire's Tombs hair] I didn't know until four months later that it had been cancelled in September 2013, I've decided that every once in a while, on a Friday, if I can't bring myself to keep it quiet, I'll post about something that happened a while ago. Maybe someday I'll write a piece like this about The Adventures of Pete and Pete and call it "Marry, Steal Lunch Money, Hold Hands With" or something. Who knows. Please bear with me!

Kill: Elizabeth Morehouse. I’d absolutely hate for her husband, socialite/aspiring philanthropist Robert Morehouse to lose the one person who really holds a place in his heart and possibly close himself off for life, but Copper is a very mediocre show that wasted some of its best story lines in a desperate season one in which I found Elizabeth a little annoying, and now that the second season is over, I’m like, ‘Your opium addiction is interesting, dear, but – meh – it’s too late for me to connect,’, so I wouldn’t really mind killing her. Drugs would not be a good idea creatively, but maybe snapping her neck falling out of a carriage during a street riot would do the job, or she could receive her second Confederate death threat, only for the Southerner to succeed…or an artery could be severed by a decorative hat. Okay, sure, that last idea was weird, but it’s good to have options.