Porphyrogene!

So I’m really not much of a writer.  I’m really much more of a consumer.

I can be a voracious reader, a glutton for the written word.  However, I’m not just talking books.  I’m talking about blogs, news articles, weird bulletins, interesting factoids, and art.  I don’t need everything I consume to be spooned up with some sugar - I have a dark side.  I can take my coffee black and savour the bitterness.

I was trying describe my rampant (non-material) consumerism to my husband the other day and I think I feel like a farmer.  I have all this land (the internet) to cultivate and devour.  It is not so easy to always find the best patches with the best soil and the tastiest crops, but when I do find them… I remember them, I keep track of them.  However - the glutton in me is driven to devour everything they have to offer till I suck them dry.  Then I move on and I try desperately to forget about that patch for as long as possible so it has time to grow back before I go back.

I’ve done this Borg-like pillaging to all of the following websites (and more):
http://www.damninteresting.com/
http://www.daringyoungmom.com/
http://www.cuteoverload.com/
http://outofcharacter.blogspot.com/
http://www.wouldashoulda.com/
http://haha.nu/
http://www.neatorama.com/
http://www.craftzine.com/
http://www.instructables.com/
http://www.notcot.com/
http://www.notcot.org/
http://www.questionablecontent.net/
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php
http://www.xkcd.com/

A few days ago, I ran out.  I went back to each of them, read the most recent entries/comics/creations until I arrived at entries I’d already read and by the time I was done, it was only 10:00 am.  When I can’t keep myself stimulated… I start panicking.  Then I get tired and bored.  And then I start going insane. 

The insanity had almost taken over when I found a new high.  It’s called postsecret. 

Have you heard of it? Obviously I’m one of a few avid internet readers who hasn’t because it was voted best Blog of 2007 by over 20,000 people.   It might not be your cup of tea, but it certainly is  mine. 

The premise is that you can home make a 4x6 postcard and snail mail it, anonymously, to their address.  They scan it in, and post it on their website.  People write their secrets on the post card.

"My father is a catholic priest.  I have been his secret for 21 years". 

or

"Dear Mom and Dad: I was going to commit suicide the day that you put me in rehab. You saved my life. I love you both."

Not all of the secrets are nice.  Not all of the secrets are kind.  Not all of the secrets are happy or sad.  Some of them disgust me… some of them make me reach out with my heart through time and space with as much will power and love as possible so maybe my compassion can ease one second of that person’s pain. I don’t like hearing about suicide or violence.  I don’t like hearing about people who hurt themselves with razors.  But these are things that exist - and if sending in a post card, and knowing that people will read it, eases their pain, how can I look away? It’s as though by reading it, I’m taking on a little of their burden… a speck of it… so that they can breathe easier.

Does it actually help others for me to read these?  Probably not in the way I wistfully think.  But perhaps it helps insofaras I can better understand other people.  With each postcard I read, a chink of my own emotional armor erodes and suddenly I am freer.  Maybe it is a completely selfish thing, me reading these postcards.  In fact, it definitely is.  But I also care. 

I love those people.  I love them for being able to articulate their pain.  I love them because of their foibles.  I wish I could laugh with the ones who supply decaf instead of caf, I wish I could hug the ones who need hugs.  I wish I could give strength to the ones who want to tell someone they love them, I wish I could call in help for those who don’t have the voice to do so for themselves.

Maybe someday I’ll send in a secret of my own. 

So, I consider myself fairly well-read.  Sometimes I have a bit of a big head about it - I’m proud of being a connoisseur of the written word - but I will also admit that I still haven’t read enough. 

 Another thing I’m really proud of is my dad.  He has read thousands of books, and he’s still going.  All while I was growing up he devoured books.  He wasn’t ever particularly openly passionate about it, but I could always tell it was something he deeply enjoyed.  As I grew up, there would be times when he would, all of a sudden, hand me a book and say "You’re ready. You’ll like this." And I would drink it down and beg for more.  That’s probably how I ended up reading all his Charles Shultz comic books about 15 times, I decimated Piers Anthony, I tore my way through Anne McCaffrey, and I sank into J.R.R. Tolkien and Morgan Llewellyn and many others.

His genre of choice is Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and the fact that he owns hundreds of Science Fiction books has probably fated me from my commencement of literacy to appreciate the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre in particular.  My dad also has a strong reverence for myths and legends.  He has paintings of wizards and fairies, he loves stone faces of "The green man" made of leaves and feathers and he hangs them in the house and outside.  This passion of his is not overtly obvious and it doesn’t rule him or his living space - but it is infectious.  And so, I’ve grown up with a particularly keen appetite for the ‘magical’, the ‘mystical’, and the ‘mysterious’. 

There are so many things that I’m good at, so many things that I value and can better appreciate in others that are as a direct or indirect result of voracious reading habits.  My parents never forced me to read.  They read to me and my brother at bedtime - and that was very special.  But come the time when it was no longer cool to read to us at bed time… you would still find me reading till the wee morning hours.  I hope my parents know they did that right.  I’m not sure they always saw my and my brother’s reading as a blessing.  After all, I would get yelled at for sneaking a little flashlight into bed and reading until 3 am and my brother would get yelled at for spending his entire allowance on books every week.  Despite the frustrations at the time, I hope they know that it was a very good thing.

I was not the ‘most popular kid on the block’.  I had a lot of confidence issues that have thankfully worked themselves out as I grew up, but for a while there - books were a miraculous escape and adventure.  I didn’t see them quite so romantically as I was reading them - but I know now that not only were they a great pastime, but now I am a fast reader, I can read out loud very well, I have a very solid vocabulary, I can type at 90 wpm+ and it’s ALL because of reading.  I wish I knew what sparked it for me.  I wish I could remember if there was one particular gateway book that lead me to be a reading junky or if there were several. 

I’ll tell you what - I’ll share with you some books that are fuel for my fire, if you share some of yours.

Time-Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Alanna by Tamora Pierce
Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey
Question Quest by Piers Anthony
Songmaster by Orson Scott Card
God-shaped Hole by Tiffanie DeBartolo
Druids by Morgan Llewellyn
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

These 10 books are somewhat off the beaten path.  These are books I love.
If you’re reading this, don’t take this lightly.  These are not mere words I share, these are indelible experiences. These books will change you. 

SO… Christmas has come early in our household this year, and it will remain for about… 2 months.

There are justifiable reasons as to why it has done so, not only including impatience.

First of all… I am an adult. I can decide when Christmas is coming and how long it will stay.  I no longer have to patiently wait until mid-December to set up decorations and a be-decked tree.  I no longer have to wait till Christmas morn to give or receive gifts.  Also, as an adult, I make money and can decide when and on what I will spend it. Santa more closely obeys the wishes of adults and he will deliver sooner if you pay expedited shipping. 

I think waiting to set up decorations until a week before thanksgiving shows great restraint on my behalf considering how susceptible to sparkly things I am.  Do you know how dangerous big craft stores are to people who have a racoon-like fascination with shiny objects?  They are dangerous, my friend - very, very dangerous. Iridescence is on the rise.  Last year I searched high and low for iridescent Christmas decor with a small amount of success: some glass balls, a tiny dollar store tree, etc.  This year iridescent decorations are EVERYWHERE, and of course I now include Green/Gold ornaments in my Christmas decor hunting repetoire. But I get off topic — The sparkliness is everywhere… and especially dangerous is its overwhelming presence in the form of sparkly sprigs of plastic flora in dollar bins.  I am unable to suppress the instinctual motions that accompany spotting sparkliness.
1) Freeze.
2) Identify Source.
3) Move in to examine.
4) Touch.
Try as I might, I cannot stop.  Must. Touch. Sparkly.

When said sparkly is for sale - I must examine the price.  When the price is less than a Dollar, I black out.  Hopefully before reaching the cash register (yes. that’s where I head. my credit card tells me so.) a well-meaning shopping companion of mine will pry the sparkly from my white knuckled grip, escort me out of the building, and maintain a close watch till I come-to.  This battle will continue till late February when the craft stores have pretty much cleared out their holiday sparkles.

Back to the point… I have officially decorated a small, fake tree in our living room and dragged out 80% of our other decorations.  Yes, our Halloween decorations are still up.  Yes, our foyer has been 1/4 painted for the last 2 months.  What about the quilt I’m making and the paper mache ship I’m working on? The cape for my nephew? The Apron for my sister-in-law? The tutus I have material for? The wood carving for above the mantle? Shut up. I can stop anytime I want to, okay?

On our trip this past weekend, my husband and I decided to get up at 4:30 in the a.m., leave our hotel room, drive to Target, and stand outside in line for 3 hours in order to buy a Wii.  It was to be a mutual Christmas Gift to each other - our only gift to each other.  Now, I’ll end the suspense early and tell you that we were successful and nabbed one of the 56 Wii’s that were in store that day (they opened at 8:00 a.m. and were sold out of them by 8:05 a.m.), however I’d like to share with you some thoughts on the process.  I am constantly being reminded that you "live and learn" and I resent it.

Notes for future reference:
1) When leaving the house in the late fall/beginning of winter, do not accept it when your husband observes that he left his coat behind while you are getting into the car to leave.  Go back for it.
2) When deciding to buy the most popular "toy" in the marketplace, and you accept, in theory, that you will need to stand outdoors and wait till a store opens for said item - PLAN ACCORDINGLY.  Chairs, heavy quilts, portable space heaters, outdoor fireplaces, torches, disposable handwarmers, and furnaces are all appropriate.
3) Bring coffee.
4) Three hours is not a short amount of time and patty cake will not suffice.  Bring a board game. Bonus points for successfully involving the other 8 crazies who showed up at 5:30 a.m. in a game of Twister.
5) Bring coffee. And donuts.

Just some pointers from me to you.
And if you have it in the budget - The wii is a good time AND a work out. My right arm is very sore.  Another tip? LISTEN TO THE WII WHEN IT TELLS YOU TO CLEAR A SPACE AROUND YOU BEFORE BEGINNING TO PLAY. IT MEANS IT. 

Why do I so vehemently reccommend this?  Because I punched a full-of-water pub glass with my thumb while ‘bowling’.  The pub glass was fine.  My thumb became unconcsious for a while and when it woke up, it decided to demonstrate what it might feel like if I slammed it in an oven hot car door.  Yea.

It glowed for a good hour. I can’t say as much for the little fake tree that I decorated because although I have a string or two of multicolored lights and a bunch (read 20+ strings) of white lights… the decorations on it are green and gold… so I need gold/yellow lights. Yes, I do. 

In general, I would not consider myself a girly-girl.  I like jeans, I like comfyness, I don’t spend more than 2 minutes in the morning on my hair. 

However, if you were to view my shoe closet, you might think differently.  You might venture to stamp a big "STILETTO WEARING GIRLY GIRLY" tattoo on my forehead. However, that’s not the worst of it.  I’m about to confess to you a secret, not-so-secret, obsessive passion of mine. 

Tulle.

It started to take a definitive shape sometime in college.  I am an avid Thrift store peruser.  I love a good bargain, and whilst still in College, I made it one of my missions to collect as many knee length tiered skirts as possible.  Then I would painstakingly sew 6 inch (or more) lengths of tulle to the inside of the skirts to "poof" them out.  Then, I started exploring harder things like lace and ribbon flowers.  I was soon a junky and what started out as an innocent past time has now left me with over 20 skirts, "poofed" out with tulle, lace all over them and many hours of my life defined in my memory as only hand-sewing black out periods.  I can’t recall exact details after getting into the swing of pinning and sewing… but when I would wake up I would be stiff, there would be stray pins on the floor (super fun!), and before me would lay a lacey, tulle-y confection of deliciousness.

The peak of my Tulle delight was obviously my wedding gown.  I felt enveloped by a cloud, it was exquisite. 

Now I’ve been married for over a year and my wedding gown is hermetically sealed in a box so that when I offer it to my future-daughter, 80 bajillion years from now, she can tell me she thinks it’s lame. 

What I realized last night as I looked upon my most recent obsessive craft idea (Tutus), is that I think I have outgrown tulle. In my mind I would LOVE to flounce around in tulle skirts all day… but actually, that probably wouldn’t look good at ALL on me now.  In fact, it would probably look sad.  And I don’t want to look sad! I want to look JOYFUL! Tulle! Yay! 

Alas I think it is time to start to pass tulle strewn objects on to the next generation… Reluctantly.  Slowly and with a great deal of grumbling I think I might start to possibly consider maybe giving away (or maybe selling?) some of my tulle confections of the future because - *sob* - I can no longer pull them off myself.

So, what’s next? I grow out of light up sneakers or something? Dude. That will be a sad day as well.

I have a compulsion to do with curly hair.  I. Must. Have. It.

It is difficult to put into words the base desire I have to be toting a noggin of ringlets - but I shall try.

I have been told a million times that curly hair = a lot of work.  I do NOT believe you. I think you are lying to try to make me feel better about having stick straight hair and to keep me out of your curly haired club.  I resent it.  Okay, so maybe when you roll out of bed in the morning, your curls look a little mussed. Mussed curls are romantic.  Mussed curls will give you flyaways that will dazzle as it will look like a halo surrounding your springy hair.   Do you know what mussed straight hair looks like? Mussy badness. Curled tendril-like face framing IS the essence of romance.  If I was a guy, I would ONLY be attracted to curly haired women.  The moment in movies when the guy slides his hand behind the heroine’s neck and through the back of her hair drawing her in for a kiss is ALWAYS made better when said hair is curly.

This urge started young and has carried me through hundreds of tactics for getting my hair to obey, some can be likened to the approach of a super suave secret agent, and some can be compared to trying to make icecream out of octopus parts [just a bad idea].

1) Hot rollers:

These have NEVER worked for me.  I have very little patience for singed fingers and burns on my scalp - but even if these injuries can be avoided or at least tolerated - I always get wimpy curls that turn my hair into something that looks like it COULD have been curly, but someone crapped out half way through straightening it - EVEN when I use heavy duty cementing products.

2) Foam curlers:

These work for me, to a point.  I don’t know how I do it, but every time, before I set my hair, I envision a mane full of glistening curls and psych myself up for an hour of pruney spray gel fingers and neck cricks. I then spend the night tossing and turning while sleeping on them, trying to convince myself that Foam curlers are just as comfortable as my pillow, even though it feels like they’re becoming embedded in my scalp.  Then I wake up as eagerly as if it were Christmas Morning and I carefully unleash… Shirley Temple Curls… on crack.

 She’s cute right? She’s also like… 5 years old. I’m 23.  If I wanted to be the spitting image of Shirley Temple post sticking her finger in an electrical socket, I would find a more interesting way to do it than sleeping on sharp rectangles of plastic disguised as innocent foam cylinders.

 3) Plastic Curlers with scary claw holders:

Barring sticking my head into a microwave, these babies did nothing beyond marginally DENT my hair.

4) Plastic Curlers with not-so-scary holders:

These, although worlds more comfortable than the last type of curler, were extremely hard, and much like sleeping with a pillow stuffed with saplings.  I do not have time to walk around during the day wearing curlers until, 12 hours later, my hair decides to conform.  I do have time to spend an hour setting my hair the night before, and sleeping on them for <8 hrs. and discovering what the Curls Fairy hath wrought.  This system relies upon the idea that I can actually sleep for up to 8 hours.  The whole  sapling pillow thing prevents that from happening.

5) Long Foam curlers:

These bendable foam curlers were going to be my salvation - they look perfect for creating spiral madness, do they not? However… my expectations were not met when, after setting my hair with them, I discovered that not only do all of them make my head feel like someone tied iron weights to my hair, but they also do not have any sort of fastening device.  If you do not wrap the hair JUST so… it will unravel, or partially unravel and then you will have pieces of hair half curled, and long strings of hair that are simply straight and it will come out lookling like this:

6) Vintage-esque curlers:

These were easy to set and not too bad to sleep on.  Now, if you can ignore the fact that your hair will look like a poodle perm that a poodle then chewed on… you’re stronger than I am, my friend.

I also tried the above in the variety with plastic arms. They didn’t fasten as easily or permanently as the rubber fastening version.  So the result was the same, but the process included bonus frustration.

7) Self-proclaimed Spiral Curlers

These, I recall, were like trying to sleep on the Devil’s fingers. Suffice to say… awkward and unpleasant. They also damaged my self-esteem.  As you can see, they come with a predefined spiral - Supposedly to make it easier for you to figure out how to wrap your hair around in a spiral, right? Wrong. It’s more to point out that your fat hair and your fat fingers can’t possibly handle the delicacy of spiral curls so GIVE UP NOW!!!

8) Plastic Rods: There were also these hard pink plastic rods that were about 5 inches long each that I had that I tried to use several times, and they always stuck out of my head like mini tree-branches.  It was like trying to sleep with a sea urchin for hair — also very unsuccessful.

9) Straws:

Using straws as curlers has facilitated one of my most successful curling attempts EVER.  It was a lengthy setting process - but I watched Gilmore Girls, so not so bad. It was SUPER easy to sleep on them and they were VERY light weight.  The actual curlers (the straws) were cheap - also a plus.  They barely shifted over the night, and when I took them out in the morning I had a bajillion tiny perfect spiral curls.  They were very tiny curls… which is why next time I want to try Jumbo straws, but it was an amazing experiene, and one I definitely intend to repeat.

10)  Perm-for-a-day

Perm for a day are these fantastic U shaped curlers.  I have had them since I was in 5th grade - so they have pretty good staying power.  They are also easy to set, light weight, and fairly easy to sleep on - though the older I get, the more difficult it is to have a good night’s sleep while where these honeys. Instead of a traditional round curl, your perseverance with these will award you with zig-zag curls.  They are quite 80’s/early 90’s… however I love them dearly.  They have a special spot in my heart.  And despite the fact that the queer eye guys would probably chastise me for still using them… I do - and I LOVE them.  Problem? one at time they have walked away over the years, and currently I am only left with BARELY enough to set my hair in BIG chunks.  Second Problem? They don’t sell them anymore!!!!! I KNOW!!!!!!!!! What the WORLD!

Before, during and after all of these different purchases of curlers and attempts to break my hair and bend it to my will… I have also tried curling irons and perms. Curling irons are my friend, but I am not so much a patient person, so the whole "I’m going to go curl every hair on my head and then watch them individually deflate back into straightness while I’m only half way through" gets to me - but if I (or some very talented Hair stylist) takes the time and has the determination, it can turn out VERY VERY well.

Perms, on the other hand, are an entirely different matter.  Perhaps in a separate entry I will chronicle the entirety of my Perm experiences, but for now I will leave you with this:  I have "bangs" that are 2 inches long now.  This is a vast improvement upon the bangs that were a quarter of an inch long and growing since my last perm that went straight after an $80 bill and 60 minutes.  It was a scarring experience, and we’ll talk about it later when I don’t tear up at the thought of the mini-mohawk that occupied my natural part for the better part of five months.