Varied and Sundry- Daylight Savings Time Edition

1. Happy Daylight Savings Time! I have yet to figure out how I ought to celebrate *this* Daylight Savings Day... other than being annoyed at having to wake up an hour earlier. It's not like Time Travel Day or anything amazing like that. I'll figure it out.

2. I got a weird text message at 5am. Which, you know, is not unusual for me, what with the hours my friends keep and the creepy stalkers I seem to attract. But it was from a number I don't know, and it read "I've got the guy for you and he has your number." Ok- now, I'm missing a lot of numbers because I got a new phone recently, and for some reason the back-up assistant only backed up numbers I'd gotten prior to June, and I also tend to delete numbers pretty often, especially if it's a dude I've decided to stop seeing. It's a good way to avoid calling them whilst intoxicated, and you get the added pleasure of sending them the "Who is this?" text... but still. How weird is that?

I mean, I met some dude last night whom I think called me an Eskimo and asked me to go to Tavern, and I gave him my number for whatever reason before going home- but then he called my phone right after and that's not his number. MYSTERY!

3. A five year old invented my outfit today. For god knows what reason (well, rain, I guess), I felt that I ought to wear a 1950's style polkadot dress with a beaded cardigan, bright red tights... and my black hunter boots. I am a vision, I tell you.

4. Last night, after having smoked grass- not something I generally do, so it tends to affect me a bit- I came home to find a letter my dad. In it, was a page torn from a magazine, an advertisement featuring an astronaut and reading:

Private Astronauts Wanted

If you have ever dreamed of space flight, space adventures can turn your dream into reality.

And then a bunch of stuff about how you can go fly around in space for ten days if you happen to be really rich. What the fuck?

"But I hate regular travel, even! With regular planes! For an hour, going back to NY!" I thought. "Did I want to go to space camp when I was a kid? I don't think so. I really don't think so, I mean, I remember seeing the commercials come on after Punky Brewster... but I don't recall ever wanting to go. I do, however, remember thinking that that spinny hamster wheel thing they always showed people riding in looked like something that would make me nauseated... Why? Why would my dad want to send me into space? Did I screw up? Is 'space travel' the new 'boarding school'? Maybe he wants to go there for a vacation? Mom will never go along with that, she's claustrophobic and I doubt they let you smoke in space..."

And it went on, and on, and on... until I turned over the other side... and saw an article about the Hunter boots I was wearing in RI (the same ones I'm wearing today), with a note saying "And you thought I was out of it! I'm learning! ---love, Dad" The article, of course, was from Forbes, which is what all the hep cats are reading these days.

So, yeah, that's my story. If you, however, feel differently about space travel... you can go to www.spaceadventures.com. And be my private astronaut, astronaut for money...

Just think of how awesome you'd be at juggling if you never got laid

via www.videogum.com

This guy is the single worst argument for abstinence ever. I'm sure the kids are going to go home and say "Wow! I'm never going to have sex so I can one day be a middle aged, balding motivational speaker who juggles and balances shit on his chin whilst wearing an argyle sweater and a bowler hat!" Because that's everyone's life's dream. Also "Man, if I have sex, I'll never be able to balance a cane on my hand! And that is of course a far better time!" Oy. Anyway, it's totally hilarious. And, at the very least, less offensive and anti-woman than most abstinence things I've seen....

I vote no on proposition facial hair.

I refuse to accept any of this nonsense about mustaches being an acceptable thing to do with one's face. It's just not true. They are universally wrong. Why? Because you should have as few things on your face that can trap food and/or lint as humanly possible. Or spittle. I am on record as voting no on facial hair in all it's varied forms- from the ironic to the "if this (perhaps braided?) goat-tee was good enough for 1995, it is good enough for 2009" look. Dudes in the latter category also tend to have tribal tattoos and wear man-cullottes. Those, um, really seem to be the only categories. Well, that and Spencer Pratt.

Also, the last time I made an exception to this rule, I had to smear my face with Albolene every two hours for a week.

Stop the insanity!

Ok.... I have seen like, 50 pairs of these damn shorts lately. Stop it. Now. If you own a pair, burn them. They are seriously the most horrifying things I have ever seen in my life. They are sneaking into my dreams at night and giving me nightmares. I cannot begin to comprehend why anyone would think these are in any way a good idea- it's like, taking a horrible idea (cargo shorts. I'm sorry, they will never, ever be acceptable outside of a camping environment), and making it 80,000 times worse. STOP IT. If you own a pair, burn them.

Also, yesterday I witnessed a couple wearing matching salmon colored shirts and cargo pants and toting around a screeching baby. It's just wrong. What were they doing here? Why weren't they in the suburbs. Suburbs exist for this exact purpose. I live in the city, because I find it preferable to avoid people wearing matching outfits and toting around screaming babies. The stroller derby is totes starting to invade my neighborhood, and I can't say I'm happy about it. Once a neighborhood has been deemed safe for yuppies and their double wide strollers, it is no longer safe for people interested in living in areas that don't totally suck.

Robyn Pennacchia's "A Series of Unfortunate Hair Styles"

So... I totally need to get my hair cut- I have a bad habit of putting it off until the last minute. But I was thinking today about the various retarded phases my hair has been through.

1. I swear to god, when I was like, 3, my mom brought in a picture of Scout from the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird, and told the stylist - This! This is what I want! And thus, I looked like this:


Almost exactly, actually.

2. And then I had that hairdo, but with sausage bangs. Sweet!

3. Then, my sister came along. And my sister, unlike me, had pretty pretty princess hair. Long, blondish hair, with perfect little ringlets that formed at the bottom. Totally not fair. I demanded I be allowed to grow my hair long.

4. And it was long. For a ridiculously long time. But I did not have pretty pretty princess hair like my sister. I had hair like this:



5. Around 6th grade I started getting all experimental and shit. The first real damage I ever did, personally, to my own head, involved, of course, Sun-In. And a day spent by my friend and I devoted entirely to dousing our heads with the awful crap, blowdrying it, and doing it again. Over and over again. It didn't work wonders, of course- we both had super dark brown hair- it only got slightly lighter. But then, we figured, in all our genius, that if we each used a whole bottle on just our bangs- we could get them pretty bleached. And it worked! We looked completely retarded, but it worked.

6. But it got better! Oh, it did! It truly did! Because then we discovered food dye! Yup, food dye! We dyed our sun-in bleached bangs blue and red and green with food dye, and my, wasn't that attractive! Then we tried koolaid- which of course only lasted like, 5 days and made my hair smell like raspberries, but not in any kind of good way. Also- kinda sticky.

7. 8th grade was my first foray into the world of permanent (read: not food dye or kool-aid). A bottle of "Purple Haze" Manic Panic purchased from Newbury Comix. Which destroyed my bathroom (to my mother's dismay) and didn't really show up so much in my almost black hair. Still, I thought I was totally bad ass. The use of Manic Panic continued perpetually, and unattractively through my teenage years.

8. When I was about 16, my hair was probably down to my ass- and, really- not so cute looking. However, for whatever imaginable reason, I thought it might be swell to chop it all off. Like, all of it. It looked so terrible that I couldn't bring myself to cut it again for quite some time, and when I let it grow out, I had this hideous Indigo Girls mullet- well before the fashion mullet ever existed.

9. When I was about to turn 22, I came to the realization that this was the last time I could dye my hair bright pink and not look, you know... sad. So I did it. I bleached my hair out, and dyed it pink for the last time. Oh, by the way, you know how you kinda have to wait for a bit before you dye hair after bleaching it? Yeah, well, in case you never guessed it- I look horrifying with blonde hair. Horrifying. I scare children and animals. Oh, and despite my plan to not look sad, I kinda did- because I just wasn't that person anymore. Still, glad I got it out of my system.

Since then, my hair has primarily been either burgundy, or as close to my own shade of almost-black-brown as I can find in bottle (yeah, the red keeps showing up, so I have to dye my hair until it finally all grows back in. I am fine with that. And I keep it at a reasonable length, and really, my only major mistake is going too long without bothering to get it cut. Which I'm totally not going to do this time.

I have just seen the trifecta of awful

At Dominicks. Guy in his late thirties wearing shants (you know, the big pants cut off into capri-length shorts?), a fucking shiny flame shirt, and a goatee, with soul patch. And it was pointy. And I bet you he was probably planning to grow it out so he could braid it. I'm also sure that somewhere there were tribal tattoos.

Sad. Clearly, 1997 was a momentous year for this man. I've decided to think of him as a modern day male counterpart of Miss Havisham. He was probably stood up by the love of his life at a Limp Bizkit concert or something, and decided to stop time. Like, I bet you he has a ton of kitschy clocks from Spencer gifts around his house all set to the time when she was supposed to be there. And blacklight posters. So many black light posters. And inflatable couches galore. And one of those weird lightning globe thingies! You know what I'm talking about? Like you touch it and all the crackly light goes to where your hand is, and then your hair is supposed to stand on end? He totally has one of those.

I have like, such a giant fear of becoming that, though- I'm pretty vigilant about it. You know, like I still see women with those teased up hairsprayed 80's bangs... and it's so sad, really. It's as though they're still clinging to the time when they were on the cutting edge of life. On the other hand, I don't want to like, be in my 30's or 40's and still trying to be super hip. Because that's pretty sad as well.

When I was 22, I dyed my hair bright pink for the last time, officially. Because I told myself- you know, this is the last time you can do this without looking like some giant weirdo desperately clinging to 17. And I haven't done it since.