Tonight I have a date with King Tut, at the MFA.  I'm very excited.  I was pleasantly surprised today by an email from Shady too, who will someday take me with him to Cairo.

abraham

hennes & mauritz

I knew these pants were a good purchase because they are essentially work-appropriate, fancy, sweatpants.  That's what today calls for.  Comfort, stretch, and draw-string waists.  Incidentally, 'pants' is a UK slang term for 'crap', and a pretty good descriptor of this week.  No one starts a blog to whine about their job so let's just leave it at that.  Except - perhaps to eulogize my office window.  I have a new office-mate; she's very sweet but maintains a firm blinds-down no-sunlight stance, therefore I have lost my thoughtful window-staring spot.  And my view of the T. Boone Pickens Memorial Academic Tower.
Chin up, could be worse, and all that.  Only seven more days and I will be on a well-deserved vacation and happier than a bird with a french fry.

gray coverage

When I was 20, I briefly and haphazardly dated a guy named Steve.  It was the summer before I moved to Amherst, and I wanted to dye my hair red.  Blonde was old news.  I mentioned this in passing to Steve, not realizing that this was a choice that would affect him so.  He didn't like the idea at all; he had some kind of spiritual aversion to hair dye.  He asked me not to go through with it.  He went on a tirade against unnatural hair colors.  I shrugged it off, and did it anyway; a nice, normal shade of auburn.  It looked good.  I liked it.  Other people liked it.  Except for Steve.
A few days after this "mistake", he picked me up and we drove to the Clark Art Institute.  Even in the heat, he was wearing a wool beanie pulled over his ears.  We were sitting at a stoplight when he suddenly turned to me with a strange look, half-smile, half-scowl.  He whipped off his hat.  His hair was the color of lime Jello.  We stared at each other in silence for a moment, him waiting expectantly for me to scream, yell, demand to turn this car around, refuse to be seen with him.
I laughed and laughed.  I hooted.  Because, come on, this is a prematurely balding pasty Irish guy who has dyed his hair green out of vengeance.  It was clear this was not his intended reaction.  He looked confused.  "I had to bleach it first and then do the green!"  Even better!  A real passive-aggressive effort.  As I cackled he mumbled something like "Well, you gave me no choice," and jammed the hat back on, where it stayed for the entirety of our visit to the Clark.  We spoke no more of it.
After the museum, we stopped for lunch at a sandwich place.  By now the heat was too much for Steve to bear, so the beanie was off.  He picked an inconspicuous booth towards the back of the shop for us to sit in.  I wasn't particularly enjoying myself, which is common when you spend the day with a complete dick, but things improved drastically when the five-year-old girl in the booth behind him began pointing at his head.
"Look, Mommy!  Look at his HAIR."
Steve took a bite of sandwich and tried valiantly to ignore this.  I tried and failed not to smirk.
"His hair is like OSCAR the GROUCH."
This was an astute observation, given his mood by now.  The little girl seemed delighted that someone would choose to make their hair the color of a Sesame Street character.  I was pretty delighted myself.  He glared at me, shoved the rest of his sandwich in his mouth, and we left.  I asked him to drop me home and he did.  The next time I saw him he had shaved his head bald.

Today my hair is hot pink.  Back then when I was young and foolish enough to spend time with someone I didn't even particularly care for, I didn't foresee myself doing anything so drastic to my own head.  Now I am older, and foolish enough to just leave it be when the intended auburn comes out magenta.  (Also, grateful to have a grown-up job that is similarly nonchalant.)  I wasn't sure about it at first, but it's a nice change for the moment.  As I was walking to work yesterday, a woman passed me and said, "Oh, I love your hair.  God bless you."

still here

September 23 Resolution: write more.

the forecast

 

[photo from rui-saraiva]

A repressed memory has come back to me:

As my parents and I awaited our lunch at Stephanie's on Newbury last weekend, it was pretty easy to overhear the table of smartly dressed girls next to us, clearly out together for brunch.  I was trying to eavesdrop a little to discern if they were 'New Brahmin' or just recent BU psychology graduates playing Sex & The City when one started talking about her soon-to-be-born child.  After the usual questions about when she was due, etc., yawn, one of the girls asked, completely straight-up and nonchalant, "So are you going to eat the placenta?"

I don't think I want to live in a world where this is a seemingly sane question to ask your pregnant friend.  At brunch.

Part of me wishes I had not heard the beginning to the conversation, just so I could be horrified to assume they had ordered the Balsamic-Glazed Placenta appetizer to share and this chick wanted to politely snag the last bite.

Who gets a cold on vacation?  The same person who infects her mother with that cold on her birthday, that's who.

Haikus On The New Mountain Dew Coolatta

First drink of the day
Me, iced coffee; Dew for you
Now both together

Dunks in my future
Too bad you're in Iowa
I'll taste and report

It best not be gross
Don't waste precious Coolattas
Time at home goes fast

Iced coffee is foul
You said, but these are aces
Yes, that's British slang

I don't feel so bad
Dragging you here; we agree
It is wicked good

Right up your alley
A small consolation for
Enduring my 'rents

Who else would concoct
Yellow Number Five and ice
Starbuck's got nothing

No doubt it will sell
But what about the manhood?
Does it affect that?

Braved Houston's east side
In search of the last Dunkin
'For rent'; how I wept!

This week I have three houses (I'm pet-sitting).   Whichever one I'm at, I feel as though I'm neglecting the others.  Sad puppy-dog eyes from two of them and another that is not yet habitable due to the mountain of boxes containing all my earthly possessions, waiting patiently to be unpacked.

Last night's temperature was a mere 84 degrees, making the drive up to the Heights more pleasant with the windows down.  Especially at the light at Studemont and Washington, as the best smell of baked goods wafted in from the Sunbeam bakery down the street.  Fresh bread at a quarter to midnight.  Probably in the top five all-time best smells.  I sniffed as much as I could until the light changed and I was left huffing car exhaust.