Lara I.

Not a good hair day or a bad hair day - just a Hair Day.

I've been performing various degrees of manipulation on my hair since I was sixteen and never once let up, so I think I've got this hair thing down by now.

I mentioned my hair looked like shit, right? Wasn't holding the dye and was looking all nasty and faded?

Is fixed now, peeps. Sometimes hair situations have to be handled delicately, and sometimes this just takes time. After the first "oh fuck it all, I'll just dye it black" incident, to cover what would have been a lovely dye job on healthy - or even semi healthy - hair, well, I've just been conditioning the hell out of it. It hasn't really helped - and this didn't really surprise me. I've had white hair before, so I did understand when I decided to go for it again what would eventually happen to it. So... I caved, and cut it off. Left about two inches of dead hair, pretty much for styling purposes, so my hair is pretty short now. Four inches long I guess. I touched up my roots with black dye, and then put a red rinse over it all. So, it's black with dark red ends. Kind of a reverse of my hair last year, which was maroon with black ends.

Also, my birthday has come and gone. I'm twenty five now. Thanks to everyone who made me a birthday post!

Since I kind of consider my birthday to be my own personal New Year's, I try to do something decent for myself every year. Usually it's something like taking time to read a book I like or oh, I dunno, doing something cool with my hair, or something like that.

( My birthday + relationship stuff )

We'll see if I've fucked things up good or not.

I think my hair is going to fall out of my head :P

I did some interesting things today... I worked on my NaNo stories (there are five of them now, which will be totaling 50k. That counts, right?) and I fixed my hair... it's kind of tri-colored now... but they're natural colors! The underside half is black (the box said "soft black") and I re-dyed the rest of it dark brown, and it again came out as having slightly plum-ish tones, and I picked some chunks off the top and in my bangs and did them a lighter color. The box says "ginger spice" and shows sort of a chestnut color, but they actually came out more of a honey blonde color. Then I put an intense conditioning mask on my hair and let it sit that way all morning and didn't wash it out until I had to get ready for work. It's soft (for now.) We'll see if it falls out in my sleep tonight. But I like it much better than my first attempt :P

And... I got another job.

Well, wait, first, I have a confession to make: I have been driving around with no insurance. For quite some time. Now that my car is fixed and my license is restored, I've been kinda... well, see, first it was just supposed to be every once in a while. Now it's a lot. Whatever. Here's to hoping I don't get caught.

I got a part time job for the holidays in AC. So here's to hoping I don't get caught driving to Atlantic City four days a week. I actually applied for the job two weeks ago, because I was in that store buying conditioner and they had a sign saying they were hiring holiday help, and I was like, OMG, a job! Then I kinda forgot all about it, with all the other stuff that's been going on. Well, they called me this morning, so I went there for a little interview, and I have a second part-time job now. Since I'll be holiday only, I kind of get one day of super-condensed training (on Friday) and then my first day is a week after that, on Black Friday. All I have to do is sit at a cash register and ring people up. The shifts are only four hours long, and the job is only for six weeks.

Aaaannnddd I get a discount on everything in the store. It's just 20%, but still, that's pretty cool. I have to dress nice, "business casual," but I think I can handle that. I had a moment of panic when I got hired at the art gallery in Philly, too, but then I realized that I have plenty of nice black clothes, and black always goes with black. So I'll just be the chick that wears black every day. That's nothing new. Oh wait, I do have a pair of dark charcoal grey pants... so maybe I'll be the chick that wears grey once in a while or something :P

This is kind of exciting! It will be a nice change of pace, too, and the extra money, is, of course, why I applied for the job in the first place. I don't seem to have quite enough - all I have to do is last until summer, but right this very moment, I could use a small bit more. My job at the restaurant isn't really intending on scheduling me any more hours than usual over the holidays, so... even between both jobs, I still won't be working more than thirty five hours.

Ah! And this is the coolest/funniest part of the job! I am REQUIRED, as part of the dress code, to wear seven pieces of visible make up to work every day. The store sells a little bit of make up (in addition to lotion and scented spray and candles and oils and shampoo and stuff) and on my training day I get to choose seven free pieces of makeup. None of it is very expensive or high quality stuff, but, come on! It's FREE and I'm REQUIRED to wear it. LOL.

I think there are two reasons I got this job: One, I put that I was available during the week during the day and on the weekends during the day (I guess they're having trouble finding daytime people, which I find odd, but, hey, I won't complain) and two, cause, I'm cute :P Since they're so concerned with their employee's appearance and all.

I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that there must be something super unpleasant about this job, because the manager that hired me mentioned something about a bunch of people recently quitting. But, whatever, after working in a restaurant, I think I can handle pretty much anything :P

I got a lecture at work today (first day back to work in over a week and what do I get?) about my hair, just like B warned me.

The rules are pretty clear cut: no facial piercings, visible tattoos, or unnatural colored hair. When I got hired my GM, Vicky, specified that I was absolutely not allowed to work with any jewelry on my face - so no lip ring. Fine. My piercing is not so important to my identity that I won't take a job if I'm not allowed to wear it. It was never an issue with me. Every so often I will forget my lip ring is in and wear it to work by accident, but I always take it out once I realize it's in. This happened a lot more when I worked at the Coffee Co, because piercings where allowed there and I would sometimes go right from one job to the other, and it would be more likely that I'd forget to take it out.

I work with a lot of girls who have their noses pierced and eyebrows pierced and tongues pierced and nobody says anything to them. If I forget nobody really says anything to me either (until today...) but I know I'm not supposed to wear it so I try to remember not to.

So when I got to work this afternoon I gave Vicky my doctor's note, which she didn't even read (so, apparently, I could have made her a shitty forgery and she wouldn't have cared...) and promptly got this talking to about how a tongue piercing counts as a facial piercing and also isn't allowed. I don't have my tongue pierced. I will never get my tongue pierced. And I seriously had to stick my tongue out to prove it wasn't pierced. Whatever.

And I got told I'm not allowed to work again until I change my hair.

When I got hired I think I had black hair, or it may have been black and red. It definitely wasn't pink. When I dyed my hair pink I got a lot of comments but no one said it wasn't allowed, but, whatever, they're saying it now, and, since I prefer being employed to being unemployed... the pink hair has to go. It's a really dull faded muddy magenta right now - not attractive at all, so I was going to change it anyway - I don't know how well my hair is going to hold any color because it's bleached platinum underneath, meaning whatever I do will show up really brilliant but fade quickly. I was just going to cop out and dye it all black again, but black dye is insidious and never goes away and is known to ruin all attempts to re-dye any other color until it is completely gone.

So, not black, and nothing from my Manic Panic/Special Effects collection means... drugstore dye. L'oreal Feria Espresso is what I'm trying. It's a warm-tone dark brown - I don't HAVE to dye my hair brown, I could be a redhead again, I've been a redhead plenty of times, but I've been kind of sick of my hair lately and would like to just leave it alone. My real hair is brown, so my roots will grow in brown, and maybe if I dye it with permanent dye (instead of demis like I usually use) I won't have to bother with it anymore.

I'm hoping that since my hair is so light underneath the color won't look totally flat and it will be kind of like highlights or something... I don't know. Wish me luck. I have to go wash it out now.

So me and Erica and Bevan and Hanna watched the baseball game at a bar last night, and are fully intending to watch the next one tomorrow.

Oh no wait actually, I am fully expecting Erica to be in Philly for the weekend even though she made plans with us to watch the game here. Cause she does stuff like that.

And, lol, I say "the baseball game" like it's the only one. The Phillies game, guys. That's what I watched. On TV, at a bar. Phillies won. I'll spare you all the details, cause I know if you care, you would have seen it too.

I never, ever gave a rat's ass about sports, but I am actually starting to get into baseball. I'd go to another game. I'd go to a game after dark, that is. Not in the middle of the day in the blazing hot sun, thanks.

So I'm kinda worried about my hair - this wedding is coming up, you know, mine and B's "date," and I have THE SHOES and I'm working on a nice dress outfit, and my hair is cupcake pink and I love it being cupcake pink but I don't think I want to be "that girl that B brought with the pink hair." It's just so... pink... I was thinking of re-dyeing it a darker, deeper pink, without bleaching my roots, so that'll make it darker towards the top... I don't know. I'm being a little obsessive about my hair and about getting dressed up, I think. But whatever, I do things like that.

Anyway. illiorsfool did this and I wanted to do it too!

( You know you grew up in the 90s )

Well everything major is all packed up and organized. As of tomorrow afternoon I will now reside on the first floor. I will no longer contend with a flight of stairs every time I leave the house. I will also not have an automatic ride to work every night. But I'm dealing with that... there are a lot of people my age who don't drive around here. They somehow still leave the house. So I can do it too, right? I just have to get really good at finding rides. Which means I have to take really good care not to piss anyone off.

This is real. We're painting the upstairs this weekend. Then there will be carpet. And then the furniture is being delivered. I took Ruth up on her offer and she is taking me shopping for house things next week. She is super excited. She can't wait. I think she might be a compulsive shopper or something. We'll see.

In another month the trolley will be running. I totally forgot about the trolley. It won't get me to work at the restaurant but it will get me to the coffee co's second store. But I'm still trying to resist that.

In another month people will be renting my upstairs. My income will finally exceed my expenditure. Well, no, really it wont. Because I'll still be spending. If all goes according to plan, by next summer I should be able to live in the other house and rent both floors of this house. And the other house is such a freakin' mess, I'm not even legally allowed to live there. It is non-livable.

But this is still real.

So tonight I finally got sick of my stupid looking half-done hair. Underneath it was maroon with black tips and on top it was pale yellow with orang-y tips. This is because it was all maroon with black tips, and had been for a while, but I decided one day I wanted it to be white. So I bleached the top half, and then never finished it. Tonight I re-bleached, getting the underside to a nice yellow and the top half not much lighter of a yellow than it already was. Then I wrapped it up in saran wrap and toner for about three hours. Then I got out the scissors and gave myself a serious hair cut - I cut off all the stubborn hair that was once the black tips. That was screwing me up, I think. Black dye is insidious. Then of course, I had to keep cutting it until it looked like a haircut and not, you know, a hack job. It's pretty short now. But then I re-did it with blue toner, and now - now it's definitely platinum blonde. It's not white yet, but I need to stop for now, or my hair is gonna freakin' fall out.

I ALMOST HAVE WHITE HAIR. JUST LIKE AN OLD PERSON.

AIN'T IT GREAT?

I just woke up.

Aren't I just the loser? Seriously. It's quarter after four in the afternoon. Nobody's here, I can tell, my car isn't outside and it's completely silent downstairs.

So I was thinking about going back to dying my hair platinum. Not platinum blonde- real platinum, like silver-white. It's been maroon-ish for a while now, maybe it's time for a change. Although, I don't know. With all the focus on trying to be healthy and all, maybe I don't want to go messing with all that bleach again. I'm really indecisive. I just know I'm getting tired of my hair the way it is, and god forbid I actually let it grow out naturally (whatever that looks like)

I was also thinking that I need to get a move on with this house. I have some contractors coming in to do the kitchen in two weeks - very exciting! The bathroom is already done - those are the two major things, I believe. I want to have the whole floor ready to rent by summer, which means that by summer I will be living downstairs again, and my tenants will be leaving. They know that, they've always known that, apparently that's just the way it is here, everyone moves twice a year - somewhere nice in the winter, somewhere crappy during tourist season.

But see... when they leave, um, who is going to drive me to work?

Why am I such a fucking idiot, anyway?

Whatever, I'll deal with that when it comes time. Maybe I can apply for a restricted work license or something like that.

I was talking to another hostess at the restaurant last night and she made the observation that a lot of people who used to be hard core into drugs are now hard core into medications, like anxiety pills and antidepressants and mood stabilizers and such. That does seem to be true and I always assumed that those are reasons people get into drugs in the first place - they're unhappy and trying to fix it. But I started wondering about the flip side - I wonder if excessive drug use actually damages your personality, so that to be normally functional again without drugs, you need other drugs to keep you stable?

But whatever. I hate talking about drugs.