Hat head...

I have a thing about my head.

I like to have it covered. I like a winter hat and on many days you will come into my office and find me in my cube with my winter hat on with huge, archaic headphones over said hat. I like to have my hood up (and, this is going to sound strange, I find that when I'm doing schoolwork or thinking hard I tend to cinch my hood and tie it). I like to put my comforter over my head to sleep (with my face sticking out).

I wonder what the psychology behind all this is? Mimicking the womb or something? I feel safer when the back of my head is unseen (since you know, when I sleep there are all those prying eyes of...my cats)?

Just so you know - hair looks better after having been flattened by a hat. And you should all buy me trendy hats for Christmas so that I have no choice but to wear them.

Week in bullets...

The good:

• Two really solid work-outs

The bad:

• Excuse for not working out on Monday (it was a pretty good excuse though...one which involved a stomach issue and air pollution at the gym. Was that too much information or too subtle...or did I hit it just right?)

The good:

• Two classes but...NOT ONE TEST.
• And the kicker, the light of my life...NOT ONE GROUP PROJECT. Yippee!! (Picture me jumping up and clicking my heels together).

The bad:

• A class that is very discussion based, with 12 total people (including myself), 2 of which had done the reading and could therefore participate in discussion (including myself). It was like pulling teeth.

The bad:

• Cute new shoes (super cute - my pattern, if you go to that link is Dots White/Pewter) possibly ruined by cute new jeans (apparently, dark, dark jeans need more than one washing before worn over whitish shoes. Because now my shoes are semi-blue)
  

The good:

• New dark jeans that I feel kick ass in

The bad:

• Blowdryer broke mid-use on Wednesday morning culminating in an iffy-hair day, a rushed work out and a trip to Ulta. Pain in the ass.

The good:

• My new blowdryer made my hair look AMAZING. Or I just had a good hair day. But hey - I had a good hair day!

Was that annoying with all the goods and bads?

Today on the walk home from work I blogged (in my head...does that make me crazy?) about my non-existent purchase of a non-existent condo. Now that makes me crazy...

La la la la....

So not much going on. A lot of work, some Lollapalooza, some couch sitting. Lolla wasn't what I had hoped...but I don't know what I had hoped since I didn't really care much about any bands other than Pearl Jam. And watching Pearl Jam with what felt like 1,000,000 other sweaty, steamy fans was not all that enjoyable. Why does Lolla have to be 172 degrees whenever I go?

I caved and joined facebook. I really do not withstand peer pressure very well. At least when it comes to new technology.

As for my self-esteem improvement plan, here are some updates:

1. My hair has improved my morale...although the humidity is causing weird curling action at the front and I hate that. However, it won't be humid forever. Right? Right?
2. Working out: I went to the gym to join and it doesn't make sense to join until August 20th (I'd have to pay the full summer price for only 2 weeks of working out - if I wait until the 20th, then it's fall quarter price). So that is on hold just a bit. One of my coworkers works out there every day at the same time that I will and he agreed to help motivate me to go (all I need is motivation to actually show up there).
3. As for make-up...yeah, haven't started that yet. I'm still getting used to my hair routine (which is still not established firmly). I think early next week I'll be set with that routine and I can add the 5 minutes of make-up time.
   

That's all. Sorry for the boringness lately. When school starts and/if I get hired on as a salaried employee, some excitement and interesting stuff may happen soon. You know, walking to work I miss a lot of the crazy CTA stories...

Adventures...

I had a bus adventure like no other yesterday. Going home from Andersonville on the Clark bus. I wanted to post about it yesterday, but I figured the hair thing would sort of overshadow anything else. Bus Adventure:

An old guy kept pulling the stop wire for every stop. The bus driver yelled back that if he pulled it again and didn't get off, he was going to be kicked off of the bus. So, what did he do? Pull it again. The bus driver came back to the old guy and told him he had to get off the bus. Some nosy other guy gets involved and starts threatening the old guy to get off. For a bit I really thought the old guy would just sit and ignore them until the police came (because at this point the bus driver was threatening police and dialing his phone). But then, the old guy gets up, pulls the wire a dozen times and flaps his shopping bag at nosy guy while turning to go. Nosy guy punches him in the back!! At which point old guy starts flailing at nosy guy with his shopping bag and then spits in his face! Old guy gets off of the bus (bus driver is off of the bus, supposedly on the phone with the police). Old guy starts chasing the bus driver! Bus driver gets back on the bus laughing...old guy was trying to spit on him. Sounds like I made that up, but it happened. On the bus I was on. I have some weird bus luck.

I'm thinking about doing picture Saturdays. What do you think?

As for hair day 2...it turned out way better than I thought. There is one hair that's a bit too long which I might have to trim, but that doesn't bother me. I can't help but think this is a really great cut because it all laid perfectly even after a pretty violent and amateurish blow-dry. I did a little of that whole "round brush, make the bottoms turn under" thing, but mostly, it did it on it's own. The back...I'll need to be more careful with the back tomorrow. It doesn't look awful by any means, but it could be better....

So I'm sharing more pictures so that you all can see the sides/angling. I think the one pic I posted yesterday didn't really do much for the style....so here I am on day 2. That picture of the back...yeah, that was nearly impossible to take all by myself...

No more hair...

My hair is gone. And 12.5 inches of it (yes! a foot and change, not kidding!) is going to be sent to Locks of Love on Monday. Looking at and touching that hank of hair is sort of creepy...I liken it to a dead animal. Hair, when not on the head, is sort of icky. You all just want me to get to it and post the pictures (that is, if you didn't immediately just look at the pictures before even reading this?).

So here's the before:

So much hair! Too much...












You know you're looking at this picture thinking...ugh, yeah, that looks baaaaddddd.














Here's the during:
It was quite surreal....

















And here I am holding my ponytail, with my new sassy do:

The general idea is one of those angled dos...plus a little bit of bang. The bangs? They are annoying me pretty heavily right now. But, I don't hate the haircut at all. Back is below...

Really short at the bottom (and feels all fuzzy and delicious. You can bet I'll be rubbing the back of my head quite a bit...). I think this pic was taken with my hair tucked behind the ears...



All in all, not a terribly traumatic experience. It feels pretty good. I think I like the do, but would like it to be longer on the sides (which was not an option). So yeah, someday some child will get a wig of Katie hair....

Wobble...

OK all, so this weekend I get my hair chopped off...and I have no plan. No plan. It's actually a little scary now that it's so close.

I don't have much to blog about, but I did want to outline my "build up your horrible body image/self-esteem" plan. Two of my friends were bothered by the last bachelorette party blog post. And after chatting, I realize I have some self-esteem issues. So, my short-term plan is to artificially inflate my body image/self-esteem through...artificial means. This plan involves:

• Hopefully hot new hair cut. I don't think it's going to be as short as I'm willing to go, so even if I hate the first cut, there will always be somewhere to go with it...right? Right.
  
• Wearing a full face of makeup (for me that just means foundation + mascara) a few times a week. At least once a week to work, if not way more. I need, need, need to look in the mirror under those hideous fluorescent lights and not think "Oh, you look skeletal and dead tired today. Pretty awful really".
• Starting to gain muscle. See below for lengthy discourse on how I hate that I want to do this, but feel for my sake, I have to right now.

My sister wrote a lovely post about a book she read and about how awful it is that there is a societal pressure to be thin...and one of the comments said exactly how I feel (and yes, I'm going to quote a comment):

the saddest part is that I see my friends and think about what amazing, intelligent, truly beautiful women they are, but I can't see that in myself, because all I can see is the many ways that I don't measure up to the standard of beauty set by magazines

And I'm not sure how to fix that. So I'm going for the artificial ways. I'm not going to diet. I'm tired of dieting. But I do desire muscle. I would very much like my arms to have tone instead of being entirely like gelatinous blobs of spotty fat (spotty because of that pesky skin condition, keratosis pilarsis, which won't go away...and the only way to make it better is to use gross ointments and lotion. Not worth it).

So I'm joining the gym that is right around the corner from work and that is discounted for me. The only time I ever enjoyed...moving...was when I was using an elliptical. So, I'm hoping I can get back into the swing of hitting the gym...for 30 minutes or so. I also have high hopes for classes. I would very much like to try "Cardio Party" or spinning. Yes. Spinning.

That's the plan kids. And it starts Monday.

Activity list...

Today I:

• Got my hair cut (by maybe 1/2 an inch).
• Made an appointment to lop my ponytail OFF.
  
• Thought about putting progress bars on this blog for my knitting projects. Any thoughts readers? Would anyone look at them but me?
• Thought about putting a countdown to the "ponytail lop-off" on this blog (DOING IT).
  
• Bought wood for the first time (for leveraging up the A/C unit that I'm hoping to install successfully in my window).
• Spent way too much money on eco-friendly litter. If it works like it's supposed to, then I won't regret the purchase because it's supposed to last forever. If it doesn't, then I'm out $33 (and I had a $5 coupon).
• Got my eyebrows waxed.
• Created a custom control for my website project (it's a survey site - and it looks pretty cool if you ask me).
• Almost finished assignment 1 of 2 for one of my classes. One more paragraph of BS and I'm done.
• Bought some yarn I didn't need (sale at my knitting store! It's time to have a stash!).
• Suffered through a headache ALL. DAY.

Maybe I'll watch a movie tonight while I do my homework...wouldn't that be exciting?

Hairy mother's day...

A lot of tributes to Mom's out there in the blogosphere today. My Mooj knows how much I appreciate her...so no tribute here.

Instead, it's a long awaited hair picture day. I remembered last night that I needed to find a new haircut (coming soon, soon!) because while getting comfortable in bed my hair got stuck in my armpit and prevented any movement for a minute. I had to pull it out and readjust. Hair should not be long enough to get stuck in your armpit. Just saying....

So, while working on school stuff (ok, haven't started yet today, but let's pretend), I'm watching crappy movies on TV and I noticed that Julia Stiles has had some cute short dos:

The only issue with this do is that I can't see the back - if it's longish in back I won't have enough hair for it. Ok, I probably won't have enough hair for the front either, but one can hope! Maybe I can work towards a do like the one above, I really like it. I even like the bangs (and I am anti-bang.)

Now, Mandy Moore looks darling with short hair:

But, right there its a little "overdone". I would never, ever be able to do my hair like that everyday. Nor would I want to. But it was hard to find a picture with her with it more natural that was large (see below for less done hair). Isn't she cute? Isn't the hair cute?
(click to enlarge a bit)


I'm not sure if I'm going to do color right off the bat. I was growing out my color to see my natural hair color (it's probably been 10 years since I've seen my real hair color). I would love to experiment with darker (every hair colorist I know wants me to be blond. I would love to try reddish...).

Happy Mother's Day, Moms out there!

Apathy shmapathy...

I have a lot to say, but I'm fairly unmotivated to actually type it. So this can turn out one of two ways: a marathon post or a choppy short post. Let's see what happens, shall we?

My boss wants me to be at a meeting at 9am tomorrow, so I am working from 9-5 tomorrow and then going to class from 5:45-9. It's going to be a long day, 13 hours - the first time I experience what most people who go to grad school do for years (example of my coworker: she works full time, teaches class one night a week and goes to class two nights a week. Insanity).

I wanted to say something about the family/Easter but I just played minesweeper for 5 minutes, so I clearly don't care to type to you about the family. It's a clear indication of not wanting to blog (which is usually a procrastination method) when you are procrastinating from blogging...maybe later this week?

To make this post useful, let's throw in a "do-to-desire". I've wanted this haircut forever...I even asked for it at one point and ended up with something entirely different. But maybe, just maybe, my hair stylist can make it happen (it is almost impossible to find a good picture, so here are two small ones):


The one above is a little puffy in back for my tastes...but you can sort of see, through the blurry reflection that it's fairly short in back...


I wish I could find a good picture of her during the movie Sliding Doors...this is what I call the sliding doors haircut...at points in the movie her hair looks more...tame maybe and I just love it.

A do to desire...

Ok all, to be completely honest, I feel like shit. I just have a common cold and feel like a HUGE baby for feeling as bad as I do, but my NOSE! I want to rip it off of my face. It tickles/itches constantly, never-endingly. It's torture. And I think it's my own fault for taking a cold pill. I only have myself to blame...

It's maddening. Maddening!

So...to start off my new short do weekly desires thingy...I decided to go for the shortest I would consider going (a la the gorgeous Natalie Portman - when she shaved her head, albeit for a role, I thought: right on! If I looked like her, I'd have a razor in my hand right now):



For some reason, I like the above hair much better than below even though it's the same length. Styling preference I guess. Do they look the same? Because I swear they don't... Either way, I included the picture below so you could get a close up idea of just how short some of the hair I crave is....



Sneezing my way into the next week...I don't know how I'm going to make it through, it feels daunting and long right now. The sheer worry that I'm going to run out of kleenex some time tonight is enough to make me want to just go to sleep right now...