Makeup

She watches me closely. I set my powder, blush, mascara, and eyeshadow on the counter top, and fish around the bag for my chapstick. I run my hand across the collection of different colored bottles until I find the scent that is perfect for that day. I sweep up my bangs with a bobby pin and put the rest of my hair back into a messy bun. She quietly stares from her viewpoint down below.

There is magic in doing things 'like Mama' now. She begs to hold the brushes and dusts her face with them, trailing over closed eyes. She insists she needs lipgloss and perfume, too. I tell her those things are just for mamas, because little girls don't need them. And I wish I could make her believe that she is the most beautiful girl I know.

It's a lesson of beauty. She demands an explanation for what each item does and why I need it. She pretends to understand the reasons I give her. After trying to describe how mascara goes on eyelashes, and why I need to wear it, the whole thing makes me feel a little silly.

And I'm glad. Even if only for a few more short years, she sees me as I will always see her- in need of nothing to change me or improve me somehow. That I'm enough when I wake up in the morning.

If I could be anyone in the world, it would be the person she thinks I am.

I Need a Stylist

Once upon a time, I was young, single, and spent money at salons to be a blonde.
Apparently, I liked taking Myspace-y photos of myself, too.
To be honest, I really, really liked this color on me, but it's definitely not a DIY thing.

After a while, I started dying my hair at home. The red tints in my hair began to show through.

Then I dyed my hair a weird shade of brown in an attempt to get back to my natural color. It wasn't a good look- can you say washed out? (Also, forgive the pregnancy pudge there.)

And finally, this is what I look like right now. I actually dye my hair an ash blonde shade,
but there is so much golden-red in my hair, it comes out like this.  I'm wanting a change.
I'd like a cut eventually, but a box of $3 color every several weeks is much cheaper to maintain.

I decided to get on a few websites and play around with their colors.
These are a few I came up with- so I need your help.
Sky doesn't give much input in this area.
(Okay, to be fair, I told him twins of me walked up to him, one with brown hair and one with blonde,
and he was forced to date one. His response was, "Which one of them likes England?" Sigh.)
Also, some people can pull off red or platinum, but I am definitely not one of those people so those are off limits.

Which numbers do you think would be the most flattering on a pale girl like me? I need girl advice!

1. Ahhhh! This was a joke. I look like a weird version of Christina Aguilera.

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9- Red. Ick.

The 'Stache

Sky loudly proclaimed his intentions of a No Shave November. Because he had already had a good portion of a No Shave October, I was not particularly happy with this idea. (You may remember the floodstache episode. Also, one of my favorite Google searches leading to this blog has been "floodstache". Thank you, whoever you are.)

He made it until late last night, where something in his heart must of spoken in gentle whispers. He came to bed clean-shaven and un-scratchy at last (finally!).

But because he probably misses all his facial hair that he was so very proud of, I decided to cheer him as best I could.

What do you think?

Necessity

"Luxury is not a necessity to me, but beautiful and good things are."
— Anaïs Nin

I wrote a blog post for tomorrow and scheduled it. It was too serious. Then I wrote another and scheduled that one. It was too sentimental (don't worry- you'll still have to read them both soon, I bet). And then I thought about what is really on my heart tonight.

I need hair rollers.

Need.

I need big hair as an every day occurrence, and I'm afraid I won't be satisfied until that happens.

The Regimental Ball, Part 1: The Photos

"On soft Spring nights I'll stand [...] under the stars - 

Something good will come out of all things yet - 

And it will be golden and eternal just like that - 

There's no need to say another word."
— Jack Kerouac

The words will come soon. For now, the photographs.
And thanks to all of you for all the warm wishes. It was as beautiful as I'd hoped.

You're So Vain

Cheesy

At least it's an improvement

"I'm very definitely a woman

 and I enjoy it. " 

— Marilyn Monroe

I don't necessarily think of myself as a girly-girl- most of the time, I hope to be less prissy or high maintenance than so many of my peers...

But then...there was my hair.

I haven't colored it since May. And when I colored it in May, I tried to get it close to my natural color, so as to never have to color it again, and therefore, be even more low maintenance. The problem with this strategy is that I have the worst natural hair color on the face of the planet.

So, I have months of pictures with a horrible hair color that got worse as my roots grew- about 6 inches of roots, that is. I can't afford to go to a salon and get it done every 6-8 weeks, though, and I was terrified to do it on my own. Besides, there is the issue of every color I have ever tried ending up in a horrible, carrot colored mess- I actually cried over my hair once. But my mom helped me out, and using Revlon "Dark Ash Blonde" (with a very smug-looking girl on the box, I might add), my roots are finally gone.

It's still slightly red, but it'll fade a bit after a couple washes. I'm so relieved that it is not purple or orange or anything else that could be mistaken for a punk rock girl or old woman. I almost didn't post pictures because I look like a cornball, but at the request of a couple bloggers, here they are.

Check me out! I look semi normal again! :)

Ginger

It feels like Ashley Simpson to Ashley Simpson-Wentz. It feels like fairy sprite to gothic vampire. It's probably not that bad, in reality.

It's probably worse.

My hair seemed okay in the salon...I had asked for a darker blonde/light brown. It looked like a medium brown. I could handle that. I walked into my apartment and rounded the corner to the bathroom. The mirror smirked at me. I debated crying, then decided to wash it first, hoping somehow to coax out the dye that, after scouring the internet, is supposed to not hold well. That was my hope. That is not how it turned out. I still have red hair. I still hate it.

Naturally, I'm a brunette like most girls. This is fine with me, although the particular shade is somewhat dull. Brown hair seems level-headed, easy going, and sincere. When I switched to blonde hair, I found I liked messing with people's perceptions of blondes. I also built my wardrobe around that color. I was comfortable in it. Because of various things, I was thinking I wanted to go back to my real hair color.

Instead, I got red. And red, to me, is annoying. Red is fussy and high maintenance. It's loud mouthed and hot tempered. On others, it's fine, but I don't like the shade on me- and I don't like the connotations. During the Spanish inquisition, it was thought that redheads stole the fire of hell. There's the "red on the head, fire in the bed" stuff. Supposedly, Cleopatra and Mohammed both used henna to die their hair red. But the Egyptions would bury redheads alive. This is not helpful to me.

I texted my dad, after having to miss a movie with him because I was in the salon (for 3 and 1/2 hours, no less). I told him I looked like a vamp. He responded with, "Then gooood eveeening," followed by an update on the Tour de France. This lack of sympathy made me laugh. I texted back, "Ah ah ah ahhh!" Really, what can I do but laugh? I keep reminding myself it doesn't matter-it won't matter a year from now, and no one cares that much. I will have to try to avoid mirrors for a while until it fades or I can accept it. Until then, it will be a daily saga of deciding what to wear so I don't look like Ronald McDonald (I love yellow...so I guess that's out), also having to eliminate half my wardrobe that I could wear as a blonde, and keep my eyes low when I go into work tomorrow morning and hear the barrage of comments that is sure to follow.

Some days, I get sick of being a girl. Today is one of them.

That's the Beauty of It

I signed in at the desk. The girl behind the counter smiled, saying, "I remember you!" Another girl came towards me, hand extended. "Hi, I'm Cassie." She led me to her work station and draped an enormous sheet of black around me. This is how I sat for the next two and a half hours, mindlessly flipping though a magazine (poor Lindsay Lohan), checking my Facebook on my phone, and looking into the endless reflections in the mirror to spy on everyone else's customers. Ah, the price we ladies pay!

While I was sitting in the barber chair, I realized I was not in Kansas anymore. I go to Regency, which is one of the beauty schools here, but manages to pull off a little swankness nonetheless. Mostly, I go there because I can walk out with a color and cut for around $30, which is absolutely unheard of anywhere else. Also, I go because the crowd is particularly entertaining.

Today's atmosphere was set by a Taylor Swift cd, then "Uptown Girl" and "Rockafeller Skank", followed by The Killers and Coldplay, with no rhyme or reason other than someone deciding they wanted to hear a song. (There was even a remix of "Party Like a Rockstar" by a student there.) A couple girls sang along in high pitched voices, the others laughing at them. Cassie sectioned off my hair and stood back to think. The instructor came by and felt the ends, fluffing my roots. This is one thing that is slightly unusual here-random people stopping to feel my hair, look at the cut, and make comments like, "Oh, cool, you're doing a double blonde?"

My hair was slicked with color, chopped at with scissors, and blow-dried. In between all this was the shampoo, my favorite part. I would almost pay for just this part, because the scalp massage that comes during the rinses is nothing less than a slice of heaven. I feel like a celebrity for about 3 minutes, and it's so relaxing that I always have to will myself to keep my eyes open when I get back into the chair for the haircut. 

This picture is what it looks like-lots of wood and black. Looking in the mirrors, I could see the guy behind me with light blue nail polish, spiked hair, and a much better figure than myself. There were the triplet-like girls with the same bleached hair and short, razored cuts. Cassie, who had a teased, 60s look with red and blonde pieces, had never cut my hair before. This is awesome because they ask every time if I want someone specific. I always tell them I liked who did it last time-and I get a new person every time. The reasons for this are: A, I've met at least three people there named Cassie or something similar, and B-asking me to describe the person who took care of me last time is a joke. "Was she blonde or brunette?" they have asked before. No matter which answer I say, it is sure to be wrong, because the hair stylists there (and probably everywhere) change their color and style every other week. 

So, Cassie #3 finished grabbing bits of hair and splicing sections, and spun me around. She stuck a mirror in my hand and asked me what I thought. I eyed my new layers. It's the best hair cut I've ever had! Nothing exciting, and same length and color, but I left there pretty impressed with myself. I slid on my big sunglasses and drove out to the busy street, blasting music and feeling fly. And then I came to a complete halt as Champaign-Urbana also did with the 10,000 marathon runners. 

It took me 45 minutes to get home. Never mind feeling like a celebrity anymore. But I still like the haircut.