http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060928/od_nm/witness_fashion1_dc_1
I don’t understand fashion. I mean, I have a grasp on how to assemble items of clothing to pass as presentable, but I’m sooo not sophisticated enough to appreciate the intricacies and drama of the runway. I’m only just beginning to comprehend that the “fashion industry” does not refer to a Wal-Mart sweatshop in Malaysia.
Quite honestly, I haven’t paid any attention until recently when Spain—in a crazy fit of concern for health and welfare, those bastards—decided to bar the underweight from the Madrid Fashion Week. From what little I understand of the situation, Spain had the thought that, perhaps, the push for freakishly thin models somehow damaged the models themselves and perhaps encouraged other young women to emulate famine. Go figure. So they decided to—not unlike sporting events baring athletes who use performance enhancers—ban ultra thin participants.
This has caused much uproar and bitterness—of course, because any change must always cause uproar and bitterness no matter what “industry” or demographic. The government of Canada could ban mustard gas and somebody, somewhere would be roaring and bitter. It’s just the way things are.
But the fashion leaders are especially upset because they believe strongly that their amazingly intricate and artful designs only look good on certain body frames; namely skeletons. Malnourished creatures are their canvas and they are not eager to expend extra fine fabrics on women who resemble, well, women.
I fail to grasp several things. 1) A woman with a Body Mass Index of 18 is pretty darned skinny. How can this standard possibly be a problem? 2) Who—besides the designers, the participant models, and pedophiles—possibly finds these walking-hangers attractive? How on earth did this trend become a standard of beauty? 3) How stupid do these fashion people think we are? Or are they merely delusional? It doesn’t take an analyst in a think-tank to figure out that eating disorders are a gargantuan part of the fashion industry. I, mean, like duh. 4) How come all the anorexia accused women say, “I eat a hamburger any time I want to,” as if that just wraps it up. OK, freakishly thin individual, you must not have any issues with eating because you clearly have a well-established relationship with hamburgers. Sorry to trouble you.
So, OK, should governments involve themselves with “industries” that thrive on abnormal thinness and influence young women to emulate this? Aren’t these folks consenting adults? Oh, wait, many of them are teen-agers as young as 14…13… Hmmm…
Ah well, as long as they eat hamburgers whenever they want to…
Thursday, September 28, 2006
On Opera and Outrage…
“In non-news today, Muslims are outraged. Also, the sun rose at its usual time, and the Earth continued to turn on its axis in the customary fashion.” – Kathleen Parker/Washington Post Writers Group
http://www.nwherald.com/MainSection/local/291120244694037.php
In an effort to curb Muslim outrage, Berlin's Deutsche Opera recently cancelled its production of “Idomeneo.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060927/ts_nm/arts_religion_dc_3
According to the article, “The controversy centered on a scene in which King Idomeneo is shown on stage with the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad and the sea god Poseidon.” They figure if they go on with this production, they will offend Muslims who will, in turn, blow stuff up.
For some reason, they are not concerned about offending Buddhists, Pagans and Christians …
Oh, maybe that’s because Buddhists don’t blow stuff up and Christians rarely blow stuff up, but instead, they unleash televangelist talking-heads on the world. This may be worse then blowing stuff up, but I’m not sure. And Pagans? Well, they were pretty much wiped out by the Christians…
I’m no fan of opera, but even I see the value of artistic license and hate to see this sort of censorship. Score one point for the bullies. Yeah, bullies… that’s really it, isn’t it? “Terrorist” is an unfortunate moniker. These folks are just bullies in the world playground and we’d rather hand over our lunch money than stand up to them.
The problem extends beyond religion and art, however. The Yahoo article also points out, “Some analysts fear a climate is developing in which people are afraid to speak out publicly. In a speech to the annual conference of think-tank Oxford Analytica last week, its head, David Young, said political correctness posed a threat to free expression for journalists, politicians and academics alike.”
I say a climate has already developed in which people are afraid to speak out publicly. It doesn’t take “analysts” in "think tanks" to figure this out. Voices are silenced by violence, money, name-calling, social isolation, litigation, etc. Everyone can play the victim card and effectively end all other discourse. We have become very good at shutting each other up.
I love a good debate (much to the dismay of my friends), but this is a lost art. Everyone is too defensive, too quick to anger, too quick to dismiss the person posing the questions… It’s so much easier to call somebody a liberal, a conservative, a racist, a sexist…or to categorically blame figureheads…or to blow up stuff… than to engage in the details. People have strong beliefs but little accurate information; media bites and propaganda are weak fodder for arguments and generally crumble upon inspection. Also, it’s difficult to debate when issues are taken so personally; when emotions outweigh logic.
Mr. Spock, where are you?
So…solutions. I’m all out of them, sorry to say. But I bet we could find them somewhere… in Canada maybe, eh?
http://www.nwherald.com/MainSection/local/291120244694037.php
In an effort to curb Muslim outrage, Berlin's Deutsche Opera recently cancelled its production of “Idomeneo.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060927/ts_nm/arts_religion_dc_3
According to the article, “The controversy centered on a scene in which King Idomeneo is shown on stage with the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad and the sea god Poseidon.” They figure if they go on with this production, they will offend Muslims who will, in turn, blow stuff up.
For some reason, they are not concerned about offending Buddhists, Pagans and Christians …
Oh, maybe that’s because Buddhists don’t blow stuff up and Christians rarely blow stuff up, but instead, they unleash televangelist talking-heads on the world. This may be worse then blowing stuff up, but I’m not sure. And Pagans? Well, they were pretty much wiped out by the Christians…
I’m no fan of opera, but even I see the value of artistic license and hate to see this sort of censorship. Score one point for the bullies. Yeah, bullies… that’s really it, isn’t it? “Terrorist” is an unfortunate moniker. These folks are just bullies in the world playground and we’d rather hand over our lunch money than stand up to them.
The problem extends beyond religion and art, however. The Yahoo article also points out, “Some analysts fear a climate is developing in which people are afraid to speak out publicly. In a speech to the annual conference of think-tank Oxford Analytica last week, its head, David Young, said political correctness posed a threat to free expression for journalists, politicians and academics alike.”
I say a climate has already developed in which people are afraid to speak out publicly. It doesn’t take “analysts” in "think tanks" to figure this out. Voices are silenced by violence, money, name-calling, social isolation, litigation, etc. Everyone can play the victim card and effectively end all other discourse. We have become very good at shutting each other up.
I love a good debate (much to the dismay of my friends), but this is a lost art. Everyone is too defensive, too quick to anger, too quick to dismiss the person posing the questions… It’s so much easier to call somebody a liberal, a conservative, a racist, a sexist…or to categorically blame figureheads…or to blow up stuff… than to engage in the details. People have strong beliefs but little accurate information; media bites and propaganda are weak fodder for arguments and generally crumble upon inspection. Also, it’s difficult to debate when issues are taken so personally; when emotions outweigh logic.
Mr. Spock, where are you?
So…solutions. I’m all out of them, sorry to say. But I bet we could find them somewhere… in Canada maybe, eh?
Monday, September 25, 2006
On World Peace and Paradox...
From Yahoo AP News today:
“On NBC's "Meet the Press," also taped Friday and aired Sunday, Clinton told interviewer Tim Russert that the biggest problem confronting the world today is ‘the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity.’”
Wait a minute. “…the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity…” First off, did Clinton actually say that we should focus on our similarities rather than our differences? Second, this illusion he speaks of…
Whoa…I’m way ahead of myself. See, I’m a White child of the 70s and my parents (and TV culture) raised me to believe that, well, we should focus on our similarities rather than our differences. It didn’t matter that Willis and Arnold were Black and Mr. Drummond was White—what mattered was that they were a family (for its time, this show seemed pretty progressive). My well-meaning, liberal, parents told me “Skin color doesn’t matter, we’re all human.” I wonder if the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. influenced them in any way:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
They told me racism is bad, I should treat everybody equally and I should not judge anyone based on color, religion, disability, age, sexual orientation, etc. My dad bought a “Love See No Color” t-shirt from an African American street vendor. I thought I had it figured out.
Until I took women’s studies classes at the local University at the ripe old age of 27 and found out I’m racist because I believe that color doesn’t matter. They accused me (and other’s like me) of thinking of non-White people as invisible. Seriously, somebody brought up the “Love See No Color” thing and outrage insued. Somebody actually said, “That’s just means Whites don’t even see Blacks!”
I can’t begin to relate how tedious and absurd the discussions around race became in these classes. People felt unsafe… a lot. I know this because they kept saing, “I feel really unsafe right now.” People cried and self disclosed. Turned out that everybody was a racist. Well, OK, all the White students. Non-White students didn’t contribute to the discussions because they didn’t want to have to “be a representative for their race.” I too gave up contributing because I didn’t want to be a representative for sanity.
The remedy, we’re told, is to “honor/celebrate diversity.” In fact, whole non-profit organizations have been developed, whole FTE training positions have been hired, and whole divisions in government agencies have been formed to propegate this ideology. We’ve gone from “differences don’t matter” to “differences matter a lot” and we must train people to understand just how different we really are. Though the differences are spun positively (as opposed to the negative stereotypes of days past), I can’t help but experience this strategy as devisive. (Especially since there is one cultural group banned from celebrating its own identiy…or even admitting it has one…).
So now, Clinton identifies the “the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity” as our largest global problem. But then our tax dollars are paying for programs that promote the opposite point of view. The source of the illusion is no mystery; it’s merely an example of ideology run amok.
The truth is, we are all different and the same. We are all human. We are no better or worse any anybody else. And, quite frankly, we need to get over ourselves. The biggest problem facing the global community today? We take ourselves way too seriously.
“On NBC's "Meet the Press," also taped Friday and aired Sunday, Clinton told interviewer Tim Russert that the biggest problem confronting the world today is ‘the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity.’”
Wait a minute. “…the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity…” First off, did Clinton actually say that we should focus on our similarities rather than our differences? Second, this illusion he speaks of…
Whoa…I’m way ahead of myself. See, I’m a White child of the 70s and my parents (and TV culture) raised me to believe that, well, we should focus on our similarities rather than our differences. It didn’t matter that Willis and Arnold were Black and Mr. Drummond was White—what mattered was that they were a family (for its time, this show seemed pretty progressive). My well-meaning, liberal, parents told me “Skin color doesn’t matter, we’re all human.” I wonder if the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. influenced them in any way:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
They told me racism is bad, I should treat everybody equally and I should not judge anyone based on color, religion, disability, age, sexual orientation, etc. My dad bought a “Love See No Color” t-shirt from an African American street vendor. I thought I had it figured out.
Until I took women’s studies classes at the local University at the ripe old age of 27 and found out I’m racist because I believe that color doesn’t matter. They accused me (and other’s like me) of thinking of non-White people as invisible. Seriously, somebody brought up the “Love See No Color” thing and outrage insued. Somebody actually said, “That’s just means Whites don’t even see Blacks!”
I can’t begin to relate how tedious and absurd the discussions around race became in these classes. People felt unsafe… a lot. I know this because they kept saing, “I feel really unsafe right now.” People cried and self disclosed. Turned out that everybody was a racist. Well, OK, all the White students. Non-White students didn’t contribute to the discussions because they didn’t want to have to “be a representative for their race.” I too gave up contributing because I didn’t want to be a representative for sanity.
The remedy, we’re told, is to “honor/celebrate diversity.” In fact, whole non-profit organizations have been developed, whole FTE training positions have been hired, and whole divisions in government agencies have been formed to propegate this ideology. We’ve gone from “differences don’t matter” to “differences matter a lot” and we must train people to understand just how different we really are. Though the differences are spun positively (as opposed to the negative stereotypes of days past), I can’t help but experience this strategy as devisive. (Especially since there is one cultural group banned from celebrating its own identiy…or even admitting it has one…).
So now, Clinton identifies the “the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity” as our largest global problem. But then our tax dollars are paying for programs that promote the opposite point of view. The source of the illusion is no mystery; it’s merely an example of ideology run amok.
The truth is, we are all different and the same. We are all human. We are no better or worse any anybody else. And, quite frankly, we need to get over ourselves. The biggest problem facing the global community today? We take ourselves way too seriously.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
On Bus Stalking and Letting Go...
My daughter entered kindergarten in
This is how I became a bus stalker. The little darling had requested she be allowed to ride the bus. Frankly, given the open-enrollment policy of the school district, just getting her settled in a school confused me so much that I had the information lady at the school district screening my calls.
Me: “You mean, she can go to any school in town?”
Me: “Uh… so, uh…”
Me: “Well, how do I choose a school?”
Translation: most people pick other schools, so it should be easy to get her in that one since you waited until the last minute to bother with caring about your child’s education, you lazy excuse for a parent.
Once she was settled in the school, I found I needed to have her in an after school program twice a week and that she’d need school transportation to get her there. Now, the idea of coordinating my child with busses terrified me. I mean, when I was a kid, you went to the corner of your street, a bus came along and picked you up, dropped you off at your nearby school and, at the end of the day, the same bus picked you up and dropped you off at your street corner (where your stay-at-home mom stood loyal and true, ready to scoop you up, feed you cookies and hear about your mishaps and triumphs in between vacuuming and preparing the pot roast) Simple.
Her first bus day began with the following conversation.
Me: “Today, you ride the bus.”
Girl Child: “I’m a big dancing chicken .”
Me: “Cassie, really, this is important, today remember to ride the bus after school. Mommy won’t pick you up, you’ll ride the bus. Do you remember the bus number?”
Girl Child: “Bus, bus, bus….chicken.”
That afternoon, I arrived a half hour before school was out, so that I could park and stake out the bus loading zone. I climbed up a grassy knoll and sat low, staring intently at the group of gathering bus riders until I spotted her, my little purple-coated offspring.
The bus brigade stacked in, and my girl obediently followed her line onto her bus, #141. Time for my next phase of supervision so I hopped back into my truck. However, at the same time, all the drive-up parents arrived; effectively jamming up the whole block so when the busses began their departure I sat stuck behind somebody’s smoking Volvo. Noooooooooo!
I strained to keep my eye on #141 as I made several attempts to ease around the Volvo. Finally, I squeaked by, and put the pedal to the metal…top speed 25 mph. #141 turned a corner 3 blocks from my location but I knew the area well enough that I thought I could catch it. I turned the same corner and did not see any busses. Oh No!! Then, a glimpse of yellow down a side street and I resumed my chase.
Oops, the kids began the transfer process. I could see Cassie’s purple coat plop onto the sidewalk and dissapear behind other busses, tracked her purple shoes make a few confused circles, approach a teacher's loafers and get pointed to the next bus. However, I couldn’t see the number! I left my parking location and made a loop around the block but by the time I got around I could no longer visualize her current location in the queue. I lost her!!
I made another loop and crept by all the busses, desperately staring through the windows for the haircut I knew so well.
Fortunately, I spotted Cassie; bus #96 and 4th in the bus queue. I pulled into a no parking zone, idled for a quick departure, but all the busses departed in unison; baring any other cars from invading the convoy. I had to wait for 17 busses to depart before I could join them and by then I’d completely lost sight of #96. My efforts to track my child had ended in failure and I swear somebody wrote down my license number. Not good.
The busses began to leave the herd but I couldn’t see #96. Implementing my last desperate plan, I headed toward the after-school location hoping I’d see #96 along the way.
In the end, I parked by the child care and waited; trying to calm my respiration and heart rate. Eventually #96 arrived and children spilled out; the last, wearing a purple coat trotted into the gates completely unaware of her mother watching from the shadows. She did it.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
On Attention Deficit and Chemical Accidents…
I can’t stop messing with my hair. After approximately 4 weeks (sometimes sooner), my hair becomes intolerable to me and I must alter it somehow. Shorter, slantier, lighter, darker, layered, unlayered, streaky, plain…4 weeks and time for a change.
I make excuses because my husband thinks I’m nuts. He’s right. Here are some of my explanations:
1) See, it takes a long time to style it when it has those layers in the front so I trimmed it to be a little more sleek.
2) See, it takes a long time to style it when it’s all straight like it was, so I layered it… see how it falls more naturally now?
3) It’s much easier to do my make-up when the color is right… Since I darkened it a bit, I feel so much better...more “me.”
4) It was just too dark and plain. I think it looks better with some texture and highlights, don’t you? I look better blonde.
5) I really want to grow it out… I look better when it’s down to my shoulders.
6) I always think it will look better longer, but really, don’t you think my face looks thinner now that my hair is shorter?
7) Etc.
The reality is, I have HADD: Hair Attention Deficit Disorder; the primary symptom is the inability to leave well enough alone. Occasionally, my disorder has resulted in some fantastically stylish hair, most of the time I end up looking not entirely different than I looked before, and a handful of self-stylings have resulted in memorable disasters.
I learn from the disasters. Lession #1: Go to professionals for highlighting (and pretty much any other hair styling but not Super Clips or Great Cuts, because they suck). Now, I admit I’ve had some success with home highlighting kits—especially when my hair stood “raw” and healthy and I had no time constraints or the influence of alcohol. However, I’ve had enough mishaps to rethink the do-it-oneself approach.
Truthfully, home highlighting kits are fun; comparable to those home chemistry kits one gets as a kid but is only allowed to use once because one generates such destruction on the first use that one’s obsessive compulsive mother refuses to clean the sticky artificial apple flavoring off the microwave and the cat ever again.
But now I’m grown up and hair coloring is exciting. So, with much anticipation, I open the box and remove the hair coloring supplies. For some reason, the manufacturers stick the protective gloves to the instructions so one has to peel them off before reading; as if some sort of chemical accident occurred that prompted this method of glove presentation. They don’t trust us to find them with the rest of the supplies.
Most home frosting/highlighting kits contain the following items: Instructions, gloves, a “coloring cap,” a head-sized plastic bag, 2 hooks (metal and plastic), a mixing tub, a stir paddle, a packet of powder, a bottle of white liquid, a tube of gel, a tube of “toner,” and a tube of conditioner.
The basic process is to: cover one’s entire head of hair with the cap, pull selected hair through the cap, mix the powder and liquid coloring agents via the paddle, apply the mixture to the selected hair, cover the mess with the bag, process hair for time determined by the “strand test” (a recommended step whereby one only colors a few strands of hair to determine how long to color all of your hair but nobody ever really does the strand test because nobody has the attention span to go through all of this for only a couple strands of hair), rinse selected hair, remove cap and rinse all hair, apply the conditioner, rinse and then apply the toner… style as usual.
Sounds simple, eh? OK, yeah, but it gets worse. We’ll start with the coloring cap which is a plastic bonnet dotted with suggested hair hole marks (not actual holes). After putting the bonnet on your head, you have to use the hooks (plastic or metal) to puncture the hole marks (without puncturing your head…ha ha) and grab chunks of hair from underneath the cap, and pull the hair through the holes. I won’t even get into how difficult it is to do this to the back of one’s head or how frustrated you’ll get when you poke through one hole and accidentally pull hair from a previous hole thus requiring a re-doo on that hole…
So after hours of this, you finally have a head of segregated hair poufs ready for chemical processing. You then empty the powder into the tub and attempt to mix in the other two chemicals without fluffing the powder all over the counter and also into your mucous membranes. Good luck with that.
Applying the chemicals is relatively easy until you accidentally get them on skin and find out why the gloves are so prominently displayed. Don’t worry, the skin grows back in a few days.
Then you cover the mess with the head-sized bag in order to increase the temperature of the hair to better process the lightening. Next you must wait anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes before you can wash it all out thus incurring the commentary and ridicule of your family because you really do look completely stupid for 60 to 90 minutes.
When your time is up, you get to rinse the selected hair, remove the cap, and add the final finishing chemicals. Hopefully this goes according to plan and you don’t find out that you left the chemicals on too long and now have gooey gobs of melted hair, or have punctured larger holes than intended and leaked the chemicals to your scalp where they spread out and lightened too much hair to almost transparency giving the appearance of bald spots all over your head… or didn’t leave the chemicals on long enough to get past the orange stage of coloring…Not that I would know.
Yes, I’ve had my encounters with home coloring and these days I keep to the salons when I have the color urge. Hmm… how long has it been since my last appointment? Where is that phone number….ah, here it is… Yes, hello, do you have any appointments available for a color weave (they call it “weave”) next Saturday? Afternoon? Yes, yes that sounds good…and maybe a trim too… I’m getting too scraggily…
I make excuses because my husband thinks I’m nuts. He’s right. Here are some of my explanations:
1) See, it takes a long time to style it when it has those layers in the front so I trimmed it to be a little more sleek.
2) See, it takes a long time to style it when it’s all straight like it was, so I layered it… see how it falls more naturally now?
3) It’s much easier to do my make-up when the color is right… Since I darkened it a bit, I feel so much better...more “me.”
4) It was just too dark and plain. I think it looks better with some texture and highlights, don’t you? I look better blonde.
5) I really want to grow it out… I look better when it’s down to my shoulders.
6) I always think it will look better longer, but really, don’t you think my face looks thinner now that my hair is shorter?
7) Etc.
The reality is, I have HADD: Hair Attention Deficit Disorder; the primary symptom is the inability to leave well enough alone. Occasionally, my disorder has resulted in some fantastically stylish hair, most of the time I end up looking not entirely different than I looked before, and a handful of self-stylings have resulted in memorable disasters.
I learn from the disasters. Lession #1: Go to professionals for highlighting (and pretty much any other hair styling but not Super Clips or Great Cuts, because they suck). Now, I admit I’ve had some success with home highlighting kits—especially when my hair stood “raw” and healthy and I had no time constraints or the influence of alcohol. However, I’ve had enough mishaps to rethink the do-it-oneself approach.
Truthfully, home highlighting kits are fun; comparable to those home chemistry kits one gets as a kid but is only allowed to use once because one generates such destruction on the first use that one’s obsessive compulsive mother refuses to clean the sticky artificial apple flavoring off the microwave and the cat ever again.
But now I’m grown up and hair coloring is exciting. So, with much anticipation, I open the box and remove the hair coloring supplies. For some reason, the manufacturers stick the protective gloves to the instructions so one has to peel them off before reading; as if some sort of chemical accident occurred that prompted this method of glove presentation. They don’t trust us to find them with the rest of the supplies.
Most home frosting/highlighting kits contain the following items: Instructions, gloves, a “coloring cap,” a head-sized plastic bag, 2 hooks (metal and plastic), a mixing tub, a stir paddle, a packet of powder, a bottle of white liquid, a tube of gel, a tube of “toner,” and a tube of conditioner.
The basic process is to: cover one’s entire head of hair with the cap, pull selected hair through the cap, mix the powder and liquid coloring agents via the paddle, apply the mixture to the selected hair, cover the mess with the bag, process hair for time determined by the “strand test” (a recommended step whereby one only colors a few strands of hair to determine how long to color all of your hair but nobody ever really does the strand test because nobody has the attention span to go through all of this for only a couple strands of hair), rinse selected hair, remove cap and rinse all hair, apply the conditioner, rinse and then apply the toner… style as usual.
Sounds simple, eh? OK, yeah, but it gets worse. We’ll start with the coloring cap which is a plastic bonnet dotted with suggested hair hole marks (not actual holes). After putting the bonnet on your head, you have to use the hooks (plastic or metal) to puncture the hole marks (without puncturing your head…ha ha) and grab chunks of hair from underneath the cap, and pull the hair through the holes. I won’t even get into how difficult it is to do this to the back of one’s head or how frustrated you’ll get when you poke through one hole and accidentally pull hair from a previous hole thus requiring a re-doo on that hole…
So after hours of this, you finally have a head of segregated hair poufs ready for chemical processing. You then empty the powder into the tub and attempt to mix in the other two chemicals without fluffing the powder all over the counter and also into your mucous membranes. Good luck with that.
Applying the chemicals is relatively easy until you accidentally get them on skin and find out why the gloves are so prominently displayed. Don’t worry, the skin grows back in a few days.
Then you cover the mess with the head-sized bag in order to increase the temperature of the hair to better process the lightening. Next you must wait anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes before you can wash it all out thus incurring the commentary and ridicule of your family because you really do look completely stupid for 60 to 90 minutes.
When your time is up, you get to rinse the selected hair, remove the cap, and add the final finishing chemicals. Hopefully this goes according to plan and you don’t find out that you left the chemicals on too long and now have gooey gobs of melted hair, or have punctured larger holes than intended and leaked the chemicals to your scalp where they spread out and lightened too much hair to almost transparency giving the appearance of bald spots all over your head… or didn’t leave the chemicals on long enough to get past the orange stage of coloring…Not that I would know.
Yes, I’ve had my encounters with home coloring and these days I keep to the salons when I have the color urge. Hmm… how long has it been since my last appointment? Where is that phone number….ah, here it is… Yes, hello, do you have any appointments available for a color weave (they call it “weave”) next Saturday? Afternoon? Yes, yes that sounds good…and maybe a trim too… I’m getting too scraggily…
Friday, September 15, 2006
On Simple Lunches and Class…
I am officially tired of the noodle bowls. In an attempt to lay in inexpensive work lunches, and specifically ones that could be prepared via the hot-tap on the office water cooler, I bought a slew of “Simply Asia” noodle bowls from the local Winco.
At first, this was very exciting and I eagerly awaited my lunch to discover what flavor I’d randomly select from the bottom of my file cabinet. Shitake mushroom, garlic ginger, spring onion (not to be confused with autumnal onions, apparently), lemon grass, chili something…etc. Variety and food under $1? Beautiful. A middle-class woman’s dream.
I selected lemon grass and carted it off to the kitchen. After removing the cardboard exterior, knifing the titanium strength external plastic wrap, and carefully peeling back the fragile paper top (but leaving it connected because it is needed to cover the noodles later); I discovered that the loose rice noodles sported another package that included 3 “seasoning” packets. So, in order to partake of “Simply Asia,” one has to open seven separate packaging formations.
One of the packets contained a clear oily liquid that resembled...well...oil. Another held, according to the writing on it, “vegetables,” but they appeared to be shriveled up lawn clippings and I hesitated to add them but did so in the hopes that the hot water would restore their original brilliance. The third packet contained “flavoring” (i.e. colored salt).
After adding all three to my noodles, and wiping portions off of the ingredients off the counter--because apparently it is impossible to open these packets without spillage--I engaged in the hot-tap dance. By that I mean that I had to hold the noodle bowl in such a way that it remained level, with paper top gently arched back, and the hot-tap tab properly pushed in so that the hot-tap could be deployed thus releasing MacDonald’s-coffee-temperature-hot water into my noodle medley to the “fill line” and all over my hand.
The directions indicated that the burning sensation would dissipate with time and also advised that if I let my bowl sit for 3 minutes, it would be ready to eat. Three minutes passed and I excitedly peeled back the top, stirred the meal, and dug in for my first bite.
Helpfully, the directions also indicated that the burning sensation in my mouth would go away after a few days but they said nothing about the creepy texture of the “noodles” (in quotes now because I suspect they are not noodles and are, in fact, reconstituted strips of wax paper), the impact of the industrial strength sodium content, and the “vegetables” that not only resemble but taste like grass clippings.
Yummy. Apparently, “Simply Asia” is more complex than I had given it credit for. I felt mislead. Still, I ate the noodles because I had to because I’d purchased them and god forbid I waste food. And I continued to eat the other noodle bowls, hoping that each new flavor would bring the noodley delight I’d hoped for. They did not. However, in fairness, the shitake mushrooms did not taste like grass clippings but more like small mummified rodent babies.
Today I gagged down my last “Simply Asia” and chased it with a leftover generic Oreo-like cookie from yesterday’s staff meeting. Wow. Is that really as pathetic as it sounds? Do I care so little about myself? Apparently so.
Tomorrow, I bring tuna and something involving goat cheese. I’m worth it.
At first, this was very exciting and I eagerly awaited my lunch to discover what flavor I’d randomly select from the bottom of my file cabinet. Shitake mushroom, garlic ginger, spring onion (not to be confused with autumnal onions, apparently), lemon grass, chili something…etc. Variety and food under $1? Beautiful. A middle-class woman’s dream.
I selected lemon grass and carted it off to the kitchen. After removing the cardboard exterior, knifing the titanium strength external plastic wrap, and carefully peeling back the fragile paper top (but leaving it connected because it is needed to cover the noodles later); I discovered that the loose rice noodles sported another package that included 3 “seasoning” packets. So, in order to partake of “Simply Asia,” one has to open seven separate packaging formations.
One of the packets contained a clear oily liquid that resembled...well...oil. Another held, according to the writing on it, “vegetables,” but they appeared to be shriveled up lawn clippings and I hesitated to add them but did so in the hopes that the hot water would restore their original brilliance. The third packet contained “flavoring” (i.e. colored salt).
After adding all three to my noodles, and wiping portions off of the ingredients off the counter--because apparently it is impossible to open these packets without spillage--I engaged in the hot-tap dance. By that I mean that I had to hold the noodle bowl in such a way that it remained level, with paper top gently arched back, and the hot-tap tab properly pushed in so that the hot-tap could be deployed thus releasing MacDonald’s-coffee-temperature-hot water into my noodle medley to the “fill line” and all over my hand.
The directions indicated that the burning sensation would dissipate with time and also advised that if I let my bowl sit for 3 minutes, it would be ready to eat. Three minutes passed and I excitedly peeled back the top, stirred the meal, and dug in for my first bite.
Helpfully, the directions also indicated that the burning sensation in my mouth would go away after a few days but they said nothing about the creepy texture of the “noodles” (in quotes now because I suspect they are not noodles and are, in fact, reconstituted strips of wax paper), the impact of the industrial strength sodium content, and the “vegetables” that not only resemble but taste like grass clippings.
Yummy. Apparently, “Simply Asia” is more complex than I had given it credit for. I felt mislead. Still, I ate the noodles because I had to because I’d purchased them and god forbid I waste food. And I continued to eat the other noodle bowls, hoping that each new flavor would bring the noodley delight I’d hoped for. They did not. However, in fairness, the shitake mushrooms did not taste like grass clippings but more like small mummified rodent babies.
Today I gagged down my last “Simply Asia” and chased it with a leftover generic Oreo-like cookie from yesterday’s staff meeting. Wow. Is that really as pathetic as it sounds? Do I care so little about myself? Apparently so.
Tomorrow, I bring tuna and something involving goat cheese. I’m worth it.
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