Hair, There, and Everywhere

I used to have long hair. Very, very long hair. And it drove me crazy.

It would get so snarled and knotty, I’d have to use No More Tangles. I’d throw tantrums like a big baby.

It’d get stuck behind my back when I was driving or sleeping.

My mom hated it, too. So much so that after I graduated college, she offered me moolah to cut it. Sure, she prob didn’t think I’d take her up on the offer. But I was pretty over the mane anyway.

Snip snip went the pony (donated to Locks of Love!) and in flowed the cash.

My hair has been mid-length middling since then. But a year and a half ago, I chin-chopped it. This short new ‘do is even easier to maintain! Washing isn’t ever a chore. Brushing is never a battle. Hell, I don’t even mind blow drying. It takes no time at all!

But there always seems to be a but. A not-so-bright side. An annoying wonkiness - grrr! - that comes when one mistakenly thinks themselves immune. Home free. Up the creek with a paddle.

I erroneously believed my bad hair (as in “BAD DOG!”) days were over.

Apparently this was über naïve (umlauts for everyone!) and downright dumb. Apparently just because my locks are shorter don’t mean they’re less apt to fall out! Sneaks! Shits! Scheisters!

We lose, on average, about one hundred hairs each day. That is disgusting. But what’s more disgusting is their omnipresence. Their pervasiveness. Their peevish prevalence.

W.

T. 


F.

I can’t tell you how many times each week a hair bunny appears on my gleaming (hah!) black kitchen tiles and wooden floors. It’s like a secret congregation of hair happens while I am sleeping and voilà, they’re all chilling together out in the open come a.m.

It gives me the willies when a fallen tress finds its way under my dress. Eek! And I hate hate hate picking locks out of my brushes (no that is not my brush below). Ew, and it’s G-ross to wipe up straggling hairs from the tub drain or bathroom sink. Omg and don’t even get me started on sheets (especially stubby boy hairs on sheets!) and clothes.
I can’t even describe the spectrum of embarrassment I experience if someone has to pick a hair off my back. (But to those of you who have, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are true friends and I will never forgot the service you have rendered.)

Ugh, and when a stray hair finds its way into my mouth, I die. I just die. Wait, spoke too soon. When a stray hair finds its wait into my mouth because it was in my food - then I truly die. That is so so so disgusting. Omg omg omg. Noooooooo daaaaaaankesssss.

I like my hair. I like that it’s straight and blonde and relatively thick. In fact, I feel quite lucky to be the possessor of such locks. But why do hairs have to be so creepy and ubiquitous? Why can’t they just stay put on your HEAD? Why must they find their way into every single space, crevice, orifice, drawer, floorboard. You can’t escape them.

No matter what you do, your hair is always there, waiting. Laughing at you like a weaselly little jerk, just waiting to drop from your scalp, dance down your arm, and scare the shit out of you.

I hate you hair.

(But, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I want you to go anywhere.)

Crippling Sunny-Day Guilt

I have had a ridiculously busy couple of weeks. Some of the highlights: seeing Puppetry of the Penis (where my bare legs were molested by balls-between-butt-cheeks - the “Bulldog” pose. I died).
From ballsacs to ballet on Friday! Omg, how have I never seen a ballet before? Loved the Fall for Dance festival, thanks Laura! Then there was a mini-Muhlenberg reunion Saturday night. Twas wonderful seeing some old college buddies.
Living my life yo’s!

While I could totes No Dankes having a strange man’s balls on my legs, how it made me break out in a sticky sweat, turn the color of a boiled beet, how I cry-laughed as the whole theater looked on in hysterics, that’s not what this entry is about.

It’s about how I was so exhausted, so utterly spent after such a long week, SUCH a long night, that I didn’t spend any time outside yesterday. And the all-encompassing guilt that I experienced as a result.

I stayed out late Saturday night. Very, very, very late. Obviously that translated to sleeping in on Sunday. Very, very in.
 
I opened my eyes around 2:00pm and bolted upright. 

Of course this made me very upset. I was furious with myself. But I couldn’t for the life of me do anything about it. I was not in a proactive mood at all. I couldn’t go spectate as Kelly and Dana played flag football. Couldn’t go read in Washington Square Park. Couldn’t even go out and get coffee. I could barely make it out of bed to pop a few Advil.

And I was pissed at myself! Furious! I spent the better part of my lazy afternoon neck-deep in guilt. Ugh!

Seriously, the guilt that comes with staying indoors on a nice day is just crippling. It’s consuming. It’s plain outrageous.
I mean, I really should have gone outside. I should have enjoyed the glorious Indian Summer day like everyone else in NYC. 

Ha, even as I typed that last sentence, I thought - aaand this is what I’m talking about. 

Why do we have such innate guilt for not wanting to go outside when it’s nice? What is the big deal?

I mean, if I want to catch up on my 22 TV shows, I should allow myself to. If I want to stay in my pajamas and eat breakfast in bed at 4pm, I shouldn’t feel like a criminal.

There’s an ingenious blog called “Stuff White People Like” and one of the entries is titled “Making you feel bad about not going outside”. My thoughts exactly. Love it. Brill!

My self-reproach is so far-reaching that I sometimes get psyched if it rains on the weekend. Me, who haaates the rain, will cross my fingers and hope for a storm so I don’t feel guilty about spending the day indoors. Sick, I say!

Yes, it can be one of the most glorious experiences in the world to be outside on a lovely day. To luxuriate in the air, bask in the sun, people watch. But sometimes you just don’t want to.

Perhaps it’s my inherent trait of playing into the “should” factor more than the “could” factor. I bring it all upon myself. I don’t give myself a break, don’t allow the laziness to take over and rule. I’m always should-should-shoulding away!

But I’m also not the picture of mea culpa innocence. Oh no. I totally make other people feel guilty for not being outside when the weather is fair and I am ready, willing, and able to enjoy it. Totally.

I’m just a massive ball of contradictions sometimes.

Say No to Oral-ffice Hygiene!

Let me preface by saying that one of my major no dankes is bad oral hygiene. (More to come on that at a later date fo sho.)

However, if there’s one thing that drives me absolutely bonkers in the way of brushes and minty paste, it’s people who brush their teeth at work.

Oral-ffice hygiene is just not hygienic.

I’m sorry, is this seventh grade? Is Mommy picking you up for a dentist appointment after school?

DDDDDD-s’gusting!!!

Never in a million trillion would I condone tooth brushing at work. Not even in the name of pearly whites.

Fine, you kids get gold stars for brushing, brushing, brushing away. Making sure that coffee don’t stain, or that garlic from the Chinese lunch special don’t stink.

Kudos to you!

But for those of us who have to see you doing it – UGH!

I regard tooth brushing as a fairly personal endeavor. It’s intimate. Like going to the bathroom or showering.

Would you dance around the office in your pj’s? Sing at the top of your lungs? Pick your nose? Readjust?

No. I daresay you would not do any of the above.

So why do you insist on brushing your teeth??

Just thinking about where they keep their brush n’ paste sends my germaphobe brain into overdrive.

Perhaps they store their Oral-B amongst the Bic’s in their pencil holder. Or stash it in their top drawer next to the paper clips and highlighters. Or maybe they just leave it lying flat on top of the bacteria-ridden battlefield that is a work desk.

Wherever they put it, it's gross.

Dear coworkers…tooth brushing at work is simply not a socially accepted norm. It’s not OK. It’s vile. It makes me sick. The ADA says to brush your teeth twice a day, morning and night. WHY ARE YOU BRUSHING MIDDAY?

Just don’t do it. Please, don’t force us innocents to endure watching you scrub your dirty, germ-ridden mouth.

Tooth decay, be damned! I’d like to keep my lunch in my stomach where it belongs.

Indoor Voices, People.

Omgees, yo! I got’s me six more followers than I had yesterday! A ginormous thanks to those who answered my pathetic, whiny request. I heart yous!

Pinky swear, no more self-promoting. Gad, I’ve become one of those super duper annoying people that I would totes love to No Dankes!

Anywho, as most of you well know - I am not a naturally patient person. Ten to you, Captain Obvious. However, I am working on it. There have been a handful of times where I’ve reasoned with myself, argued, scolded, and finally talked myself down into being nice.

Sure, my success rate could be betta - but at least I’ve acknowledged the impatience. That there’s the first step!

Alas, there is one thing I fear I will never be accepting of. Not ever. If there’s one thing I absolutely abhor, that I have zilch patience whatsoever for - fine, there are lots of those things - it is people who defy the unspoken rule of using indoor voices...indoors.

What is it about this certain brand of person, this genetically mutated humanoid that makes them feel superior to the rest of us mere mortals? That enables them to use their electronic devices in an excruciatingly obnoxious manner?

Oh, I’m sorry, I put my pants on one leg at a time JUST LIKE YOU DO, JERK, and yet - and yet - you don’t see me pretending my iPhone is an open mic at the cheesy local dive.

For reals. What’s with these jerks and their ridiculously loud voices? Why do they feel the need to announce to their fellow shoppers, or restaurant patrons, or train compartment travelers why they can’t make dinner that evening, or what’s happening with their night sweats sitch, or how often it is they’re moving their bowels.
Are they seeking some sort of validation? Do they need to be noticed? Paid attention to? Even if all they’re getting is a huge, honking stinkeye?
 I must say that I have a fairly soft spoken phone voice. Very unlike, say, my mother (and the entire Morrell clan). She has two volume settings: Loud and VERY Loud. I cringe whenever I hear her on the phone.

But in her defense, she’s not busting out her cell at Starbucks and shouting at the invisible, undoubtedly small-feeling person on the other end. There is a different set of rules when you are in the confines of your own home.

I hate the manic feeling that comes over me when I’m in a confined space and there’s someone on their phone. I shut down: can’t read, enjoy listening to my music, or even carry on a conversation because everything I try to do falls under the spell of The Obnoxious Phone-Talker.

There should be a law against such garrulous, shrill phone chats. A law I tell you.
 
Who’s with me? Get the party petition started.

So Long, Farewell, Summer Fridays

You all know by now that I am not looking forward to the advent of autumn. And, like all those rain blogs-o-mine, I’m sure you’re not in the mood to hear another rant on how I hate having to wish summer, my (somewhat) fair-weather friend, goodbye.

My co’s think it’s funny, but I’ve seriously worn white every single day for the past couple of weeks. Dresses, pants, skirts, capris, cardigans - I would totes be ready to go the second Diddy invited me to his party.

Now I wouldn’t say I’m a firm believer in the “No White After Labor Day” fashionista rule. (Though it is kind of odd to wear a snowy sleeveless sundress once the sun starts a-settin’ at 5pm.) 

However, there is one legislation I’d love to lobby the shit out of: “No Tights BEFORE Labor Day!”

For reals, yo. I don’t understand what the goddamn rush is. I find it completely mind-boggling that people are breaking out the fall clothes already.

The nerve!
Right in my very own office, I spied with my very annoyed eyes someone sporting a TURTLENECK SWEATER DRESS. WITH TIGHTS. AND CLOSED TOE SHOES.

I’ve since seen two more dummies donning stockings.
It really is very confusing to my simple, summery mind. Sure, it’s not the ninety-degree weather of two weeks ago. But temps are still in the high-seventies.

Do these dipsticks dress in shorts and tanks the second spring is in the air? Methinks not. So what’s the big idea??

Perhaps I am just a bitter bitch and totes not over the NYU kiddies and their invasion of my hood. I said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m plain envious that they’re starting colegio while I’m stuck at workio.

And Miss Kelly Cobb! Fall Aficionado to the max. That sneaky little sheister sent me a Starbucks link saying the Pumpkin Spice Latte was baaaaack. I wasn’t happy - I was horrified. She thinks she’ll convert me to fall-icism yet.

Sure, I have been looking forward to Mellowcremes but my heart dropped at terminal velocity last weekend when I saw my mom had sent a bag to Cape Cod. It was AUGUST, BRACH’S. COME ON.

Ahh, I digress. Per usual. I think what the real reason I’m despising those summer naysayers and dreading that Day-o-Labor, that white-no-more doomsday, is because after next Monday, I’ll be working till 5pm on Fridays.

Wamp. Wampity.
I know, I know. I’m a ridiculously MAJOR brat who has no right whatsoever to complain. But we’re every single one of us (publishees, that is) whiners. We’ve grown accustomed to getting out of work at 12:30pm on Fridays.

They’re known as publishing hours (at least within the biz). I guess we’re super duper lucky ducks. Cause not everyone - well, practically no one - has such a splendiferous summa sched as we do. And all those peeps employed elsewhere, in other industries, haterate on us.
Rightly so. But little do you loathers know that we poor publishees have to work until 5:45pm during the week to make up for those missed Friday hours. FIVE-FORTY-FIVE! Can you believe it? Gah!

(I joke, I joke, I kid, I kid. I’m just a memba of that brainwashed brat-pack that thinks that’s late.)

No, no. Come Tuesday, all Penguin employees are gonna be a hootin’ and a hollerin’, shouting T.G.I.No-More-5:45!

And come Friday at 12:30, we’ll be stuffing our faces with Spice takeout, trying to console our hard-hurt feelings, attempting (and perhaps failing) to scare up some brain power, will power, work power - cause we’ll have four-and-a-half hours left to go.

I Am the Walrus Lobster

Cinnamon hearts. Red Hot Dollars. The Devil.

What do these all have in common, you might ask? They’re crimson. Scorching. Sizzling. Now you can add my name to the tippity top of that there list.

Sunburned.

I invited my city-dwelling friends home to my country house for a long weekend jaunt. Thanks Mom and Dad! All last week, I incessantly checked accuweather.com, fingers crossed for three sunny days. And boy did we luck out.

I’ve always been Notorious(ly) B.A.D. when it comes to SPFing-it-up. I’m shocked that my nose is still intact after all my years of lifeguarding. I just don’t do it...that well. I’m inept. I like being tan.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve wisened up a bit – I’ll put some sunblock on my face after sitting out for an hour or so. If I’m starting to feel the burn, I'll lather up my body.

But this summer, with melanoma on the rise and the ozone layer on the outs – I’ve finally decided to be an über good kid. Yes, I made a promise to myself that I shall put sunscreen all over the second I step outside. Hawaiian Tropic SPF 6 tanning lotion (LOVE the smell!), fine, but that’s something.

So you can only imagine my dismay when, this past Saturday, I got sunburned. Bad.

Overcast skies blossomed into bright blue, cloudless oceans shortly after we went out to the pool. Good to my word, I smeared the sunscreen on. But all of a sudden, after no time at all, my good pal K. Cobb said I looked a little red. What! How? I put SPF SIX ON!!!!!!!!

Omgees.

I went inside and, after my eyes adjusted, I looked in the mirror. Lo and behold, I had transformed into a lobster. Sans antennae, but lobster nevertheless.

I poured SPF 30 (unheard of!) all over and went back out to the pool. But as the hours crept by, the shade of my skin developed like a photograph, turning from rosy to ruby.

Meanwhile, Kelly – who had nada but SPF 6 OIL on – made it through unscathed. Unscorched. Perfectly sunkissed. So the only thing we can figure is that my sunscreen had passed its prime.

Sunscreen expires? Who knew!

Sunburns are one of the most painful ailments ever. My skin was so taut, it felt like I'd suddenly gained 100 pounds and my flesh was too small to contain me. I was super hot to the touch, as if I'd just been suspended over a ginormous pot of boiling water.

Now I know firsthand how those poor, delicious crustaceans feel. And look.

Oh how I wish I could swim in a vat of chilled aloe!

Needless to say, I’ll be SPF 15-ing it up from now on.

Turbulence is Terrifying

Next to water bugs, I think the scariest thing in the world is turbulence.

I know, I know. People are not meant to fly. Otherwise we wouldn’t weigh hundreds of pounds (why oh why does food have to be delicious!)

And, oh, we’d have wings.

But since the brilliant innovation of the mighty aeroplane, it’s possible for us to get from one place to another lickety split.

Unfortunately the lickety part ain’t so lickety.

It’s funny that, as a child, you’re always super psyched to fly. I used to love hopping on a plane and jetting off to Disney World.

But the older I get, the more frightened I am of going up, up, up and awaaaay.

Perhaps it’s because, in the event of a crash, you face certain death. (Does anyone else agree that there has been a ridiculous amount of plane crashes lately???)

But the turbulence…the turbulence! I loathe thee! Why do you have to be such an inevitable part of flying? Why oh why!

I haaate the teeth smashing, stomach flopping, leg slamming air bumps. It’s crazy that pressure and property and velocity changes (I can’t even attempt to understand the mathematical equations that are turbulence…is that physics?) cause me to become extreeeeeemely paranoid.

Maybe it’s the close quarters. The inability to move around. The fact that I am strapped to an extremely uncomfortable seat, for better or for worse.

But most likely, my turbulence terror is induced by the knowledge that I am zooming through the air, upwards of 35,000 feet, at 500 miles per hour.
Yes, it is this unnerving reality that makes turbulence so horrifying. It makes me never want to fly ever again. It’s like the beginning of Garden State when Zach Braff experiences such dreadful turbulence, he is sure he is going to die. 

That is how I feel every time those bumps rear their horrific heads.

I hate you turbulence.

Bumper Cads

Now - I know that I just wrote a blog about sidewalk rage, about the frustration that slow people ensue.

But after a long weekend of driving in cars and spending time in uncrowded locales (Honey Pot Hill Orchards excepted - shit yo, that place was more crowded than Times Square on a Saturday afternoon!) - I was fairly zen.

My bubble of protective personal space had grown, à la Grinch’s heart, three sizes. In the country, you see, there was no one that even came close enough to step on my toes, bump into me, or whack hands with.

Alas, as all good things must come to an end, it was inevitable that my invisible countryside buffer would evaporate the second I crossed the NYC threshold.

What am I talking about, you ask?

Oh you know...just those harebrained, cockamamie people who can’t make up their mind which side to pass on.

Now I’m not talking pass as in walk by because they’re dillydallying - I’m talking crossing paths, how-do-ye-do, each-on-their-own-merry-way-in-opposite-directions pass.

I once read that people prefer to pass other people on their right. Personally, I don’t feel I am one such person. What does matter to me, though, is a smooth pass. As in no noncommittal’s. No wishy-washy’s. No feint and parry’s.

I hate hate hate when I bump into a fellow pedestrian because they lack the ability to pick a passing side and stick to it.

Every single time I walk anywhere, it’s pretty much a given that I will encounter one such person. Oftentimes I run into - literally smack into - someone who can’t commit to going left or right.

And an awkward quasi-dance transpires. Perhaps there’s some accidental groping, an unintentional sideswipe, inadvertent toe smooshing, or, in the worst case scenario, an ass-flattening bottoming out.

Does this phenomenon happen only to my fellow passive aggressive street walkers? Is this über-dicey duel of sorts omnipresent in Katie-Land because I am just so indifferent? Because I, too, am guilty of not really being able to make a decision?

Left/right/left/right? Oh which way should I go!!!

I don’t know which side seems better to commit too! What happens if I don’t take the road not taken?

Not that it really makes a difference. Not in New York City at least.

But seriously people, what’s the problemo?
 It kills me. Really, it does. For example, I’ll be so positive, so unbelievably and unabashedly sure that a person is going to pass me on my left side - maybe because, say, there’s four inches of space on the other side of me - but then, hey, wait, they squeak by me on my right side.

Really? REALLY? There’s FOUR INCHES of space to be had. And you’re just gonna go for it. Omfg. OMFG.

Cads, I tell you. Imbeciles. Jerks.

Maybe these dumbass peeps have a complex - one that doesn't allow them to concede anything at all, ever. So if they set out to pass someone on a particular side, they can’t change their plans mid-pass and reroute.

These sad little people have to take their victories where they can, I suppose.

And so, being the magnanimous person I am, I yield. Yes, I yield - albeit with a stink-eye and an ever-so-slight shove.

When One Needs a Vacation...From Vacation

One would think that the numero uno purpose of a vacation is to enjoy some good ole fashioned R & R.

At least that’s what I thought.

Granted, I knew there would be lots of drinking and sun time and fun times when I went to visit Cassie Cass in Charleston. But seriously, I’m still trying to recover from my five day jaunt to South Carolina.

Boy do those Southerners really know how to party! I live in New York City - the city that NEVER sleeps - but oh man, I'm still huffing and puffing and trying to achieve homeostasis.

I always thought it was funny when people would say they needed a vacation from their vacation. Funny in a very annoying, shut-the-hell-up kind of way. I'd smile politely at them, sure, but all the while I'd be laughing my inner-ass off at their outrageous brattiness.

A vacation from vacation? Seriously?

But now...I understand. Shit yo, yo comprendo. I've been so completely and utterly out of commission this past week. It's pretty very pathetic.


Why?!?! My parents went RV-ing this past weekend, camping at the Air Show in Rhode Island. They're tired today, no doubt. But they’re allowed to be. I, on the other hand, am NOT. Not allowed to be this tired a full week after my vacation ended!

For the past seven days, my limbs have weighed about as much as iron rods. My brain has been a pot of Cream of Wheat. Watery Cream of Wheat. I'm achy all over. So overtired that I can't sleep at night. I've been a zombie - a barely breathing, barely walking, worthless shell of a human being. 

The only reassurance that I am indeed alive is the certainty that, yes, I'm taking up space.

Alas, I gots it now. Hallelujah, I'm not such a judgmental person after all!! I get the "I need a vacation from my vacation" phrase and it's verifiable truth!!
A vacation from vacation is a necessary fact of life. I've become one of those spoiled, bratty people that actually have the audacity to say - out loud - that they need another vacation when they've only just returned from vaca!

So yes, I give you full permission to judge the shit out of me for my incessant whining. For saying that vacations upon vacations are a necessity.

One day, though, I hope you'll experience this phenomenon. And on that day, the judger shall become the judgee. And I shall say: Welcome to the club. 

It sucks.

Drool: You SO Not Cool

Phew. What a rough couple of days. Thank you everyone for your sympathies, I greatly appreciate it. Here's the last picture taken of Coopie lounging on his bed:

At least we can all be grateful that everyone’s best buddy had a super fun Saturday and passed away in his sleep. That was so Cooper, not wanting to bother anyone or be a pain. Very dignified dog.

I, however, was not so very dignified. Which brings me to my next no dankes.

Drool.
I’m fairly – OK, very – self deprecating (in case you haven’t noticed). So I have no problem admitting that I fall victim to the deed of drooling every so often (at least it’s not snoring!) Especially lately. Perhaps it's because I'm getting up there in years.

Sunday night, however, the drool was dog-mourning-induced. I haven’t had a good cry in a very long time so my eyes/nose/mouth had fallen into disuse when it came to the waterworks being turned on.

And boy, were they working overtime. My nose was ridiculously stuffed and running all night – and we all know what happens when ya can’t breathe through your nose. YOU DROOL.

I awoke three times (that I can remember) to a faint tickle slithering down the side of my mouth. OK fine, I’ll admit that this has been happening fairly frequently, but the other night there was an exceptional amount of spillover spit. Thanks plugged up nose!
It's been happening so habitually that my hand now goes automatically to dab the dribble. Yes, this reflex has become (unfortunately) quite second nature. It's like I'm sleepwiping.

Is there a cure for drool? A pill that cements your mouth shut at night? A mouth guard? Head gear?

Although, on second thought, the notion of wearing an insufferable contraption to keep my mouth closed seems…uncomfortable. To say the least. I guess I’ll just deal with my little puddles of dried spittle – after all, I do wash my sheets every other week.

In retrospect, although he wasn’t really big on slobbering, it does make me feel a little closer to Coop. He’s passed on his drooly-flame to me. Thanks bud!