Frightened Rabbit

One of the most treasured bands in my iTunes, Frightened Rabbit, only has one album. They have a new single that is so beautiful. I admit that one of the reasons I love them is their Scottish accent. I'm really fascinated that most foreign accents disappear when people are singing, but not this band. I love (non-United States based) accents so much.
Please to enjoy:

Their next album doesn't release until March 2010, coincidentally the same month I may be participating in the NYC half-marathon (I entered the lottery today). So, I'll be very happy to at least have some beautiful music to listen to during my last moments on Earth before running 13 miles.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

As you know, I've been dying my hair since I was 18. That stuff's expensive, even when buying my "Medium Golden Mahogany Brown Chocolate Caramel" Garnier from the drug store.
I have to dye my hair just about every three weeks, and each box is $8.49. So, every year I spend $147.16 on hair dye (a leap year: $149.99!) Before I buy a new box of dye I will check every pharmacy in my neighborhood - CVS, Rite Aid, Duane Reade - to see if any of the places have my shade on sale.
In my neighborhood there are two Rite Aids within a block of each other, and I've always wondered why. Until now. (Actually, that's not true, I usually save one Rite Aid to purchase all my "embarrassing" products from: toilet paper, lady products, etc. so there was ONE good reason already)
Being so broke right now, I was thrilled to discover that it was on sale at Rite Aid this week for 50% off, but only one per customer with coupon. I was with a friend of mine, and the poor guy, I made him buy me a box of hair dye at each Rite Aid so I'd end up with four boxes to carry me through the beginning of May.
There's no point to this, really, except I've learned this weekend who my true friends are and the lengths they'll go to keep me looking somewhat youthful.

My Chi: Unharnessed

I've been taking yoga classes lately as a part of the "New Year, New Me/Operation Hot Bridesmaid" campaign. The New Year, New Me part is to work on being calm and dealing with my stress/seasonal depression in a productive way, rather than shutting everyone out of my life except Ben and Jerry. The Operation Hot Bridesmaid is pretty self-explanatory. If you need some help, I'm going to be a bridesmaid in my friends' wedding in November and I'd like to be "hot" for lots of reasons I won't be listing here.
Last night I had plans to meet a friend of mine - who is also on a fitness quest - for a yoga class at the New York Sports Club at 49th and Broadway. I left work, headed to the gym in below-freezing temperatures, changed and went to the front desk to ask where the yoga studio is.
He looked confused (which wasn't initially alarming, NYSC employees are a different breed of dimness) and said, "There's no yoga class tonight." Ever eager to take all the blame on myself, I apologized for wasting his time, went into the locker room, got my stuff and headed back out into the cold. I walked a few blocks north to the NYSC at 52nd and Broadway and asked if there was a yoga class tonight. Of course not.
I asked the employee, at 5:43 pm, if he wouldn't mind checking on his computer to see where the 5:45 pm Vinyasa Yoga class was being held.
"What, like on the Internet?" he asked.
Apparently my focus and centering challenges decided to begin before I hit the mats with the class. Desperately trying to steady my eyes from rolling, I waited "patiently" as it took him, no joke, five minutes (with joke, 23 HOURS) to figure it out.
"Your class is at 49th and Broadway," he drooled.
On the verge of frozen tears, I walked back to the original destination, re-locked up my stuff and huffed my way downstairs to the studio. I couldn't concentrate during the whole class because A) I was still upset about what just happened B) it was incredibly hot in the studio and C) the woman next to me was breathing SO loud that I wanted to leave, buy her some nasal spray and throw it at her head. Ommmmm.
I tried to let it all go, but the universe was very persistent. I got home to make dinner (a balanced egg whites with light English muffin!) and the crumb tray on my toaster decided to empty all over my kitchen like it had just sneezed. I vacuumed it up and moved on. Ommmmm. After dinner I realized it was finally time to put the last of my Christmas decorations away (what?) and took down this bright pink tinsel tree I had on top of my cabinets in the kitchen. When I was taking it down, an ornament dislodged and shattered all over the kitchen floor. I vacuumed again. Ommmmm.
I'm a student in progress right now, but I definitely need to work on exercising more patience and ALWAYS doubting a NYSC employee.

I'm Turning Into The Fly

In the 1986 re-make of The Fly, Jeff Goldblum, turns into a creature after an experiment goes terribly, terribly wrong. Geena Davis is the first to notice these changes when she catches a glimpse of some very thick hairs growing on his back: Now, I've already talked about my rapidly-growing, single back hair. But recently, I've sprouted some Fly-esque hairs between my eyebrows.

I come from a proud tradition of the unibrow. My father has a unibrow, my grandfather had a unibrow and I'm sure his father's father felt the winds of the Atlantic tickle his unibrow on the boat to French Canada many, many years ago.

My sister and I have been waxing our eyebrows for years in hopes to discourage hair growth - it's worked to some extent. But, now, even the sweet lady who reshapes my brows frowns at the development. I get the frown, the "hmmmm" and the hope that maybe if she leaves the wax on longer that hair will wave the white flag.

I know stray hairs are something that happen as you age, but why does one have to sprout right between my eyeballs? Any suggestions besides looking forward to having 4,000 lenses in each eye?

Just a little dab!

I came home last night to discover my box of Proactiv products had arrived. So excited to have skin as nice as Jessica Simpson and Puff Daddy, I opened it immediately and went to work.
Over the last few years I've started getting more and more pimples that I never had in high school. Maybe it's from stress or New York's nasty air, but it was time to take action.
I used all three steps and my skin immediately started burning like crazy; it felt like that scene in Indiana Jones and Last Crusade when that Nazi melts after he "chose poorly".
My Friday night went from the hope and excitement of glamorous, beautiful skin to laying in my jammies in an air-conditioned bedroom whining to myself with a cold washcloth on my face listening to the Muppets Take Manhattan.

Beauty School Drop-out

I've been going gray since the age of 18. Genetics being the clever mistress they are, my mother started getting her Bonnie Raitt streak since that same age.

With her sympathy and in happier economic times, my parents would pay for me to get my hair dyed all sorts of different colors. I've had red hair, blonde highlights, chestnut brown - everything. Each hair cut and dye job cost about $120 at a chic salon (read: overpriced with half-naked, boob implanted stylists) near my house outside of Los Angeles.

Now, after a debilitating year of bills I'm forced to dye my own hair. This isn't the end of the world because I could never rationalize spending $120 of MY money on anything these days.

Two nights ago I decided it was time to dye my hair because I had quite a few gray hairs on my scalp and a new bonus since turning 26 (last week): gray sideburns. I bought one box of "dark brown" hair dye and went to work. I've dyed my hair so many times I didn't pay much attention to what I was doing. I should have because after it dried I looked like a leopard.

Now, I'll be wearing an executive ponytail to hide my hideous coloring job until more grays start coming in because I can't afford to buy another box of dye and continue to ruin my hair.

Fortunately, this isn't the WORST coloring I've done. In college, I thought it'd be "cool" and "edgy" to dye my bangs and tips of my hair black. I ended up looking scary and goth and two steps away from buying JNCO pants.