Hair

On the night I decided, on a whim, to dye my hair red, from a $6.99 box purchased at Target, with the claims that it would turn my nearly black hair dark red (in fact, those claims were absolutely true), having never dyed my hair before, my blow dryer died.

Hey, mom. Sorry I didn’t tell you about this before you read this blog post. I didn’t want to give you a heart attack over the phone or hear the disappointment in your voice. It’s better this way, I’m pretty sure.

Yes, another blow dryer death. It’s funny because the first time I colored my hair (yes, I did it twice in one night because the roots were freakishly light and the rest of my hair was still marginally dark brown), I managed to blow dry it just fine, and I set the dryer down on the counter as per usual, but when I went to dry it after the second go around (I’m not sure it worked. I still kind of have a reverse ombre. I’m over it.), nothing happened. No air whatsoever.

So, in fact, my lousy hair color job, which will lead to my hairstylist to make fun of me for weeks to come (I’m already over that because, you know, sometimes you need to color your own hair just to see what happens — my mother will disagree with this on several bases), is not the low point of my day. The low point is that the blow dryer, purchased to replaced a blow dryer that suddenly died, … suddenly died.

This wouldn’t be such a problem if I had longer hair, which I’ve been wishing and hoping for ever since the afternoon I realized I’m way prettier with longer hair. I could throw it into a ponytail or let it air dry or try those beachy waves that are so popular these days. Alas and alack, my hair is relatively short, and to not blow dry it will lead to my looking not cute.

I hate not looking cute.

UPDATE: I’m a moron. The blow dryer is fine. So the real REAL low point is that I wrote an entire blog post about my dead blow dryer right before discovering it was fine.

Fogey

The other night, at a post-show outing to IHOP with several of my castmates, I made a Mary Kay Letourneau reference and — this might make you die — only one person got it. One. Because she’s my age.

The Flurry Day

I could make any manner of Monday jokes here, but we all know them already. Go ahead and recite a few in your mind, if you’d like, or visit someecards for your daily fix.

Here’s how yesterday was slated to go:

6:00 am – Husband wakes me up so I can run errands before work

9:00 am – begin work on time

2:30 pm – leave work to run more errands

4:30 pm – arrive at home

5:30 pm – delicious, nutritious dinner

6:00 pm – Black Ops II

6:30 pm – call time for show

10:45 pm – in bed, seconds away from sweet, sweet sleep

That’s a rad day. That’s the sort of productive, I got stuff done sort of day you want to start your week with. You even fit in Black Ops II because you’re not like a boss. You are a boss.

Oh, sorry TACO clan. Didn’t know what hit you?

But unfortunately, it’s very rare that I begin any week with a boss-like Monday, and this week was really no exception, good intentions aside.

It really started around 1:30 am when I realized the insomnia was back for whatever reason, and I clearly wasn’t going to want to wake up four hours later to beautify myself and then go to Walmart (for the record, I never want to go to Walmart). Also the realization that, Walmart aside, the other stores I was hoping to shop at weren’t going to be open till 8:00 or even 9:00, so it didn’t matter how early I got up, I wasn’t going to get in anyhow.

But I held out this hope that when Husband woke me up at 6:00 am, I’d be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, that somehow those four hours had been the best four hours of my life and I got sufficient REM, and that my productivity level would be through the roof.

Incidentally, don’t ask your spouse to wake you up at 6:00 am the following morning as he’s falling asleep. It’s probably not going to happen.

And so I woke up at 8:40, which is, even more incidentally, when I need to leave for work every morning. Boss man is in Hawaii. He’s really magnanimous when he’s in Hawaii. So I decided to run errands and show up at 11:30, because, after all, I only had one real task to do, and it was going to be a breeze, thanks to the thorough and accurate spreadsheet our student employee put together for me.

And now for your very own, small-scale A Series of Unfortunate Events, because …

Here’s how yesterday panned out:

The late wake-up

Kitty scratch. She’ll let you bathe her and clip her nails, but so help you if you decide to hold her while stepping onto a scale to see how much she weighs — she will cut you.

This is my shoulder. It still hurts.

Errands at Walmart

Arrival at work, where it was discovered the spreadsheet was neither thorough nor accurate, making my copy/paste job less copy/paste and more type everything in, you’re probably leaving work late because of it.

Late departure from the office

Five grocery stores

Migraine in Costco, where it was abnormally loud

Five grocery stores (not five more. I just wanted to repeat that for emphasis. Because seriously.)

Burnt dinner

Burnt broccoli/chicken/soy sauce smell in the condo

Stage makeup on top of regular makeup in a panic because hello, we have to leave in 7 minutes.

Dinner in the dressing room

Small audience

A snag in the pantyhose large enough that I could finally fit my entire foot through it. Musical theatre: Ke$ha style.

We R Who We R

And then, to round it all out, at the end of the show, I choked on a mouthful of water and, not within running distance of a garbage can or sink, decided to spit it up all over the floor. But of course the knee-jerk reaction is to put your hands out, like maybe you can catch it. With your fingers. So I closed the finale with a sopping wet blouse and jacket. Because why not.

The Pity Party

Guests include: The World’s Smallest Violin, Cheese and Whine, One Container of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream from the Vending Machine, and Yours Truly

Sometimes you just need a pity party for yourself. You just do. People will tell you to buck up or be resilient, and those are reasonable expectations for a grown-up adult who’s married and pays bills and has a Princess Fluffybutt kitty at home who relies entirely upon her to stay alive and clean.

I got a little rejection this morning — these things, they do happen, so if you’re a teenager and you think once you’re an adult or you’re married, you won’t meet the ugly face of rejection, I’m sorry to say that’s just not true. However, it won’t look like a teenage boy, which is a brilliant upside.

What makes said rejection even more depressing, however; what has forced me to throw the World’s Greatest Office Pity Party is that I am simultaneously printing, stuffing, and mailing out rejection letters to eager applicants hoping for a financial break.

Not all these are bad news, but you know. A lot of them are.

I want to throw in a little personal note like, “But seriously, guys, I totally get it. I totally get it.”

My assumption, however, and I’m 99.9% positive that I am right in this instance (heck, I think I’m right in all instances) is that boss man would not appreciate my attempts to connect with our applicants on a more personal level. Although he is in Hawaii right now, so perhaps he’s feeling more magnanimous than usual.

It’s Been Too Long (and have I got a story for you)

You know you’ve turned into a relatively crappy blogger when your readers start liking posts you wrote months ago.

I apologize.

I have a job, and I accompany voice students (let’s leave the escort jokes in our back pockets for now, thanks bye), and I’m in a show, and I have a cat, and my husband insists upon eating regular meals, which hasn’t always happened.

So I got busy, is what I’m saying. So busy that I felt as though I couldn’t possibly sit down and compose a blog post in 10 minutes or less.

False. Blogging: I’m doing it wrong.

A note about my physical stature: I’m petite. And not just in the short way. In the “I could fold you up and put you in my pocket” sort of way. I’ve essentially always been smallish, except for a couple of years when I decided to try on obesity (I didn’t like it), and I’ve learned to adapt.

A photo of me + indication that I am, in fact, in a show thanks to the pin curls I had to rock under a wig cap and the mass amounts of makeup I had to wear so I didn’t look pallid.

A note about our garbage dumpster: It is, of course, taller than I am, and I live amongst some very rule-abiding neighbors who keep the lid down at all times, bless their hearts.

And, of course, this doesn’t require any special disclaimer or note (but here it is anyhow): I have to take the garbage out sometimes. I like to think Husband will do it all the time, but that is simply not the case, and this particular garbage bag had double-plastic bag-wrapped kitty poos, which essentially meant ain’t no one touching that thing but me.

So I took it outside and left it by our door for a few hours because that’s how I roll. I had to build up the gumption to actually make the trek to our dumpster, is all I’m saying. And when I picked it up, I didn’t notice the puddle that had accumulated under the bag.

For whatever reason, it pooled, but it didn’t leak a trail on the way to the dumpster, which to tell you the truth would have been helpful under the circumstances of the following events.

1. I made it to the dumpster.

2. I opened the lid with one hand, about six inches, because I am nothing if not a total weakling.

3. I tried to sling the garbage bag into the dumpster.

4. That failed, and I ended up slinging it more towards my face.

5. I got garbage juice on my mouth.

ON. MY. MOUTH.

There are few things more traumatizing for a germophobe that garbage and dumpsters in general, so as you can imagine, I am about ready to call my therapist for an emergency session because, guys. ON MY MOUTH.

And then, for good measure, hours later I discovered I got it in my hair, too.

So. I’m back, you’re welcome, and yes I scrubbed extra hard in the shower today.

The Funny Thing about Insomnia

Nothing.

There is nothing funny about insomnia.

I’ve been going through another bout, not because of the cat for those of you who are quick to blame my little princess fluffybutt marshmallow baby. If anything, I am bothering her while she attempts to slumber at the foot of our bed because I’m unwilling to suffer alone and trying to wake Husband is a less viable option. As of late the pattern has been: fall asleep, wake up at an ungodly hour, spend several hours attempting to fall back asleep, miss work alarm, awaken in a panic, go through my day, repeat, repeat, repeat.

The problem with things like insomnia and seizure disorders and panic attacks is that people don’t want to hear about them. They’re not really considered actual “sickness” like head colds or the flu — and they make people more uncomfortable to boot. Talking about phlegm? Fine. Anxiety? Let’s not and say we did.

So I’m taking a stand. For whatever reason, I cannot sleep these days, and it’s making me sick. And not in the blow my nose, suck on cough drops all day long sort of way. In the I’m unable to stand up long enough to make dinner sort of way. That’s a real thing. So maybe I’ll take a sit.

Yes.

Let’s all take a sit at 2:30 am tomorrow morning, in defense of the sickies who others don’t believe are actually sick.

Confessions of a Music Snob

I’d like to consider myself a pretty reasonable individual. ie, I’m not like my ex-boyfriend who referred to Muse as a watered down (potentially inappropriate line here) version of Radiohead.

I listen to Top 40 music because most of it’s catchy.

I think most other music snobs would like to kick me out of the music snob club because of this, but I will retain my membership for the rest of my life — once a music snob, always a music snob. I’ve just been more willing, as of late, to expand my horizons, kitschy though they may be.

So while you’ll probably hear me listening to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros or Kishi Bashi the majority of my work day, something by Justin Timberlake is probably going to make its way into my playlist.

20/20 Experience. Seriously, people, it’s so good.

So. Meet Shazam.

I’m not ashamed to admit that the sole reason I wanted a smartphone was to download the Shazam app. Because you all know how it used to go — you’d hear a rad song on the radio, you’d try to memorize part of the lyrics, you’d go to Google and type them in and then you’d sift through till you found the song and artist. And then you’d buy the CD because who downloaded music? That wasn’t even a thing.

(To teenagers worldwide, I’m not even going to go into detail as to how you’d find a song title or artist before the internet. You relied on the deejays not being jerks, mostly.)

(Also, a little shout out to my fellow late twentysomethings/early thirty year olds who’d record a song from the radio onto a cassette tape several times because the deejays kept talking over the intro.)

For those of you who don’t know what Shazam is, it’s basically magical. You touch to shazam and then it magically tells you the song title and artist of whatever song you’re hearing at the time. Say what!? I know. Mind blown.

But I’m particular. I only reserve Shazam for songs I actually like and am interested in, I don’t know, adding to my playlist at work or maybe even purchasing. I have a discerning ear.

Meet my most recent tags.

Oh, I’m sorry, Shazam, it says here that a song I purposely wanted to find information about is actually performed by Justin Bieber. So that can’t possibly be right.

*face/desk*

I die. My worst nightmare has come true: I was listening to the radio, and I liked a Justin Bieber song. I ALSO LIKE CAPITAL CITIES AND THE LUMINEERS, YOU GUYS.

A funny thing happens when you like a Justin Bieber song. You start questioning everything you believe. You no longer trust yourself. You consider skipping work and going straight to Plato’s Closet (which, let’s be honest, is probably a lot like how hell will look, sound, and smell like).

I naturally immediately changed the radio station, searching out something with stomping or shouting or maudlin lyrics, but that station was just playing commercials and I had to settle on Rihanna.

My life. It has gotten so bad.