Sugared Harpy

My divorce was final yesterday.

I colored my hair again. Using Manic Panic.

Oh yeah, Manic Panic is awesome.

I bought this:

Manic Panic comes in jar and is a cream. You would think this is messier than a squirty tube thing like most hair colors you are used to. Well, now, you would be WRONG.

I bought one of those hair color applicator brush doohickies for about 59 cents. Pure dumbassery on my part has never let me think I needed one of these. If you are like me, and think you don’t need one, you are again WRONG. You do. Life is better, bluebirds sing, and the sun peeks out behind the clouds.

That brush thing makes life a thousand times easier. Sprucing up my fading or gone pink color could not have been easier. I shampooed my hair with a cheap Suave clarifying shampoo (it’s ph balanced, the Manic Panic people told me that matters). I did not condition my hair but just towel dried it. I used claw clips to hold hair where I wanted it and just dipped that brush right into the jar of color and painted my hair.

This was supa easy.

I left it all in for about an hour. Manic Panic isn’t a chemically kind of dye and doesn’t damage hair so you can leave it in all you want. Some people sleep with it in, using a shower cap or something to protect their sheets.

After a bit more than an hour, I rinsed it out and voila. Awesome pink hair again. But BRIGHTER. It also glows under a black light. I needs some black light.

As you can see, I missed a few spots in the back and the next day Daniel just dipped that brush again into the jar (brush was easily rinsed out the night before) and painted the color on my dry hair. It worked just the same as far as I could tell.

A plus for Manic Panic versus my salon color is that the MP stuff didn’t make my shower look like the scene of a clown massacre. There was some pinking of my shampoo but it didn’t color everything within a three mile radius. (Since apparently I throw my hair every which way when I wash or something.)

Another plus is that MP is gentle to the hair, easy, and washes out. Now my “permanent” salon color washed out in about three to four weeks so I’m going to just go nuts and consider that wash-out color too. That cost a bit more than $5.99.

The moral of the story is: Buy you some hair color.

I am not going to BlogHer.

I’m slightly irritated by this fact. It’s only in Chicago, after all.

Because I maybe could have gone but didn’t have the ability to foresee this when I needed to plan for this hoohaa. I had no clue if life would be settled enough. Kids, divorce…I got distracted.

I could have been spooning with Lisa, who is going and representin’ the Loo!

Even though like 5 of you read this thing and I’m no biggie blogger, I think the benefits of women coming together to talk, share, laugh, and enjoy each other because of this one dorky thing we do is a great thing.

This dorky thing that lifts us up when we need it and tells us we’re normal when our kids go on and do something mind boggling and we’re left sitting here wondering WHY and my god, HOW.

I can’t thank you all enough for sending emails, comments, and more emails this year. Even when I’ve shut up, shut you out, and said NO to comments, you told me to stuff it and sent what you wanted anyway. Thank you. I will never be able to tell you how much that kindness meant to me.

So, for all of you going to BlogHer, give lots of hugs. This cohort of women carry us all through the good, bad, ugly, and the awesome.

Yesterday…

Daniel: Mom, do you have any old pillows you don’t care for anymore?
Me: Sure, grab one of those ugly pillows that came with the couch.
Daniel: Do you care if I write on it?
Me: Um, no.
Daniel: But do you care if I hit it?
Me: Uh. No?
Daniel: Hard?

Today…
Brett: Mom, can we use the stick pile by the house today?
Me: Sure.
Daniel, running out the door: I’ve got the pillow!!!
Me: Huh?

This afternoon:

My hair is still pink. And blonde.

The pink on the topmost layers has faded (washed out?) to a cotton candy pink where it’s left and to the blonde where my stylist bleached my hair for the coloring in the first place.

Like so:

Still cute, still fun. I bought some Manic Panic Red Passion to see if I can spruce it up.

Years ago, my dear sister thought it would be hilarious to cut my boys’ hair. Granted, Daniel had a shitty haircut at the time. Brett was probably fine. Lindy cut their hair.

So they came home in little baseball caps. In a swirl of dramatics, they swooshed off their hats giggling at their new hair.

She SHAVED their hair.

They were say, 3 and 4 or maybe 4 and 5 at the time. And fairly blonde still. Do you know what little boys with blonde shaved heads look like?

Bald little boys.

I was horrified.
The kids were overjoyed.
Lindy cackled.

In the end, it’s only hair and so I lived through it. BIDING MY TIME. Because from what I understood, Ashley wanted her hair shaved too.

Ashley has thick, gorgeous hair and Lindy told her, “No shaving for you!”

“It’s only hair, riiiiiight?” I would croon.

Years passed and Ashley stayed at my house yesterday.

Muwhaahahahahahahahaha.

Except, Lindy liked it. Revenge is still not mine. Damn fun mommies and their easy going natures.

I have my niece over today and I swear to Odd that she is the prettiest, most clever little girl on the planet.

Her partners do not stand a chance with that one. Any potential suitors might as well hand her a tiara and call her, “Ma’am,” on the first date.

So what was it?

I started studying this painting (briefly, as I was studying about 600 others too) a few years ago working at the museum.

It has a few weird quirks.

1) It’s on slate. A stone. Wait for 2011 St. Louis, the resulting show if it goes on as scheduled should be awesome. For the moment, go look at this one on lapis lazuli. All that blue is stone.

1a) Okay, the triple portrait is on slate that looks painted over with a dark paint…this seems to be a bit different from the others we found which left the stone untouched.

2) It’s a triple portrait, all in profile.

3) And finally, yes, those are men.

Why there is a triple portrait of men dressed as women is unclear (to me, I’ve done minimal research on this thing). I guessed they were perhaps actors. The label at the museum said they were perhaps boyfriends of King Francois II.

I am assuming the museum has looked into this more than I have, although our museum has plenty of things not well-examined so who knows.

If they are actors, this would explain the dressings up but not necessarily the portraits. If they are boyfriends, then why the dressings up? Or the portraits?

Indeed, I have many questions.

Regardless, it’s an awesome painting and totally worth getting pissed off at some creep who made me link arms with NB and wiggle through a hula hoop in Milwaukee.

We normally do that shit in private.

You are all right. You are even fun.

I loved your art museum, oh yeah.

Mainly because you have this crazy painting on slate. I’ve been waiting over a year to see this. Look closely, notice anything?

However, Milwaukee, you felt a lot like St. Louis.

We never could get the Milwaukeeness of the city. The Safe House restaurant made us super fucking crabby (note: paying a cover to eat dinner is bitchy, making you torment yourself and your NB after a 7 hour drive with a hula hoop just to eat dinner in a town that feels like the one I already live in is just plain vile, not fun).

Milwaukee, you are okay. Perfectly nice and enjoyable.

But you are certainly no Memphis, my friend.