My, it's...moist.

The greater Chicagoland area is in the throes of a typical summer day: hot and humid. The humidity is unruly, almost...evil in how it blankets everything and makes my upper lip sweat so uncontrollably. I mean, not to say that all of my sweat glands are concentrated in my upper lip so as to render it a fount that gushes forth endlessly as if I was a walking water feature. My sweating is equally distributed around my generous carcass. But it's annoying. Just constantly wiping my mouth on my sleeve like a six-year-old.



I had my hair cut last Saturday. The cut's fine, nothing terribly transcendent, not that I was looking for anything particularly transcendent this time around. Last time I got my hair cut was probably in January, and I took off a fuckton of hair to end up with a very short 'do. Then...I let it grow for about, um, seven months, and wound up sporting a faux mullet that was not doing anyone any favors. The thing that kind of amused me about my hour or so in the fancy-dance salon/spa -- well, before I get to that, let me just say there are few nicer feelings than having someone else wash your hair really, really well. The scalp massage action...ohhhhh yes. If I could have been drinking a Coke Slurpee while it was going on, I may have very well had a brief glimpse of Nirvana. Anyway, the thing that kind of amused me about my hour in the fancy-dance salon was the barely-disguised look of horror the stylist had when I explained to her that last time I was in, I'd gotten something akin to a pixie cut. Someone with my facial features (FAT) isn't supposed to have super-short hair, you know. I knew I would have to fight her to cut it that short, I really wasn't in the mood for a brawl (Saturday morning at 8 a.m. = not all right for fighting), and I'm ridiculously casual about my hair. So I let her do her "texturizing" and her "razoring" and whatever, knowing full well that all of the "product" she was foisting upon my coiff was going to get either combed or pushed out of my hair (as I'm always pushing my hair off my face with my hands). And it turned out fine, I'm pleased with it. I just have to pick up the box of dye at the Target and get it all one color again. Since I'm not monogamous with hairstylists, we'll see what the next person does...whenever I'm arsed to go to the fancy-dance salon again. I'm thinking...Christmas.

I have to say, I've always been pretty lucky with hairstylists. I had one woman I went to from third grade until I was in college that was always game to let me be goofy with my hair. Even if it sometimes resulted in the most tragic hairstyle ever recorded in my history:



Seriously, I look like a roadie for Def fucking Leppard. 1983 was the year I got tagged to start seeing a social worker (diet books and hand puppets FTW!)--is it any wonder I was moody? Thankfully, I swore off perms for the remainder of eternity not too long after that.

Then, I started swearing by Sebastian hairspray and backcombing because I was super into the Cure, dammit!



My routine for the vast majority of my senior year of high school was ratting the everloving fuck out of my hair every morning (I was shaved on the sides and the back), spraying as much CFC-loaded muck upon it as I could stand, and then, each night, combing it all out. My hairstylist loved having the opportunity to take the clippers to my head. She never lectured me about having a haircut that was "suitable" for my chubby funster (tm Ricky Gervais) self, she just listened to what I wanted and went to town. I was so grateful that she didn't give me shit and, really, my family didn't either. Well, whenever I went with a short cut in my younger days, my father was always quick to proclaim, "Be sure to wear earrings so you don't look like a guy!" Sorry, Pops. Even with the earrings and hair down to the middle of my back, I'd get mistaken for a guy.

The last seriously extreme hair I had was in 1994. I was living with a gay man who excelled at make-up and thought it would be super-cool if I went platinum blond. I wasn't sure it would be quite as super-cool, but I was a gamer and wanted to please him (augh, my Achilles' heel for eternity), so I went to the salon that he worked at and proceeded to platinum myself...which took FIVE HOURS (I had old dye still in my hair, so that had to be stripped out), burned the hell out of my scalp, and by the end of it, I would have welcomed death. However, I'm still fond of how it wound up looking:



Within two weeks, roots were already visible and there was no way in hell I was going to drop $50 (if not more) every couple of months to maintain the shit. Three months later, I was back to mousy brown if, for nothing else, to allow my scalp to simply REST...and weep silently from all the abuse it had suffered over the course of about five years.

Before I close out, here's a couple of things that are pleasing me.

*"Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog": In the last two days, I have seen more blogs touting this...so of course, I must join in. The final act goes up at midnight eastern tonight (maybe? Details are not my forte). I have such a warm and lusty feeling for Nathan Fillion that seeing him play such a blowhard douchebag of a "hero" pleases me. And what more can be said about the myth, the man, the legend that is Neil Patrick Harris? I love that he managed to survive being "Doogie Howser" and is made of 100 percent grade A awesome. I'm not a huge Joss Whedon-head (though I powered through all seven seasons of "Buffy" after it went off the air and carry an eternal love for Anthony Stewart Head O.M.GGGGGGGGGGGGGG.), but I enjoy how damn smart his stuff can be. And "Dr. Horrible" is no exception. Some of the stuff he pulls out from who knows where, the subtle stuff, stuff that one might consider throwaway, pleases me so much. "Bad Horse - the thoroughbred of sin?"

"The Venture Brothers": Season Three is ridiculously loopy and I'm loving it. I love that adultswim.com puts up Sunday's episode on Friday-ish, and I love that it's a show that is made by two guys that aren't in their early twenties. It's made by two guys that are in MY PEER GROUP. That's a huge thing when you're staring down the barrel at 40 and have little to no patience for those who haven't cracked 25 yet. You know you've reached some sort of bizarro milestone when you realize that 18-year-olds can be kind of douchey and irritating because they think they know everything...and then you realize that oh sweet mother of God, you were that douchey at 18 as well and you thought "old" (you know, anyone over 30) people were stupid and were full of crap when they'd say things like "yeah, fighting about people's opinions on music or movies is pretty damn dumb and a waste of time" because there is NOTHING more important than telling someone their opinion about "The Dark Knight" is fucking weak sauce and that they truly don't understand the inner turmoil of Batman quite like you do.

I just happened to be a douchey 18-year-old that dressed like Robert Smith and douched out at the import record store every weekend, buying Inspiral Carpets records because I was going to be CUTTING EDGE with my love of the Manchester sound. Rolling Stone, Schmolling Stone! Poseurs. I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel ON THE INSIDE. And Andie should have picked Duckie! Blane was a TOOL!