The Hair God

Haircuts from fancy-schmancy salons can be so worth it if the expensive-for-me stylist really knows his stuff. My hero the Hair God performed a miracle today. I now have a bouncy short layered bob that completely hides the scar and stubble, and that I can do with a brush and a blow dryer. Girl, who is VERY picky about these things, pronounced it excellent. The only challenge before me is moving my natural part, which happens to be located directly where the top of the scar is at my forehead. (I swore a bit when I realized this, after I was past the near death experience stuff.) It will take some mousse and stern blow-drying to relocate my stubborn natural part, but it stayed moved through the gym this afternoon, so it can be done. And I would love this haircut even if it wasn't hiding something, which is really saying a lot. Next, I have to deal with the color - because damn I'm gray. And not a nice gray either.

My natural brown is a color I used to call anemic mouse, but now it's more like "faded gray chainsmoking barfly mouse." You know, like the mice in those old and un-PC cartoons from 50 or so years ago, where the old drunk mouse would be slouched on a barstool complaining to the bartender. My natural color is that shade of mouse, and now it is that shade of mouse with gray. So I color it a prettier, warmer brown, which works better with my natural coloring than the color that grows out of my head, a concept that amuses me no end. Obviously, I haven't colored my hair since around January, so I have major roots and they are majorly gray. I wasn't sure about using permanent color on my healing scar, I'm afraid it will be too harsh and will harm the teeny baby hairs struggling to grow in on the scar, and I really am glad to see those teeny baby hairs. So I'm going to use a semi-permanent with lots of herbal gentle goodness, which means it'll cover the gray for about a week since I shampoo every day, but with luck it'll warm up the sick mouse and the gray will look better against it. Such problems, I know. I just wrote two paragraphs about my HAIR. I need to get out more.

On that note, I talked to my cohort at the office, R, and he was very glad to hear from me, he said he was scared I wouldn't be coming back, but he didn't want to bother me to ask. He asked me to call him on Monday, so I will. Those of you who followed from my former blog may remember the Cupcakes. Both are gone - one voluntarily, one involuntarily. So though the work load is reportedly godawful and the department is insanely short-handed, somehow I think the stress will be more manageable when I go back, because a lot of Crazy involuntarily left the building. It was so good to talk to R, and hear the warmth in his voice and how glad he was to hear from me and that I'm doing well, and I realized later how lucky I really am, that I have so many people I really care about and who care about me among my current and former co-workers. Several have become good friends, and at least two count as family - actually, we like each other better than we do our blood. I guess our offices and our co-workers have become our substitute for villages and our tribes.

I vowed to spend some time this week calling and emailing and catching up with my people, and start the frustrating process of scheduling dinner or at least happy hour. It's so hard to have a social life when everyone is so busy, and it seems like everybody in "my people" runs full-tilt all the time. We'll talk about happy hour and it'll take 3 or 4 weeks to get it scheduled, and it can fall apart at the last minute due to overtime or a last minute hearing in Miami or a kid thing, and then we start over with trying to find a new date. If I start now, I may get it scheduled before I go back to work, but I wouldn't bet on it.

And I really am starting to wonder if the pace of Orlando (we don't get paid like big city people but we work like them) is unhealthy. The image is all sunshine and Mickey Mouse, there are tons of swimming pools and boats and condos at the beach, but they sit there unused a whole lot. Among the people I know we are all under too much stress, working too hard, sitting in traffic with cellphones glued to our ears, and not enjoying life as much as we should. At least I was - I'm going to make a conscious effort to change that, and put a lot more effort into tending to my tribe, the real family, the almost family, and the virtual friends who have become "real" over time, and put some real effort into finding a life that doesn't make my brain blow up. It took two months, but I think I'm finally unwinding. ;-)