Author: the outside lane

Happy. That about covers it.
Beauty, books

Hair and Happy Book Endings

the outside lane

I have two plans for today:

  1. Wear the stretch back into these jeans I accidentally put in the dryer on high.
  2. Put the highlights back into my hair.

If you hadn’t noticed, I like to change colors frequently.  I’ve been coloring my hair since I was fifteen, using temporary color, and since my twenties, using permanent color and bleach.  In my years of experimentation, I’ve become expert in what does and does not work with my hair.  Miss Clairol does not.  L’Oreal does.  Natural Instincts (by Clairol) does.  Garnier Nutrisse does not.  Feria, by L’Oreal, works the best (though it is also the brand most likely to bring out the red in my hair, and is also the brand least likely to end up as the color advertised.  I always use Champagne Cocktail) when I want to be blonder.  L’Oreal Couleur Experte Express Two-in-One Multi Tonal Permanent Hair Color System (whew!) in Vanilla Icing is what I use when I want a base color that is closer to my natural, dark ash blonde, with highlights.

Generally, I do the base color one day, then do the highlights the next.  This is a) to let my hair rest, and b) because I am lazy.  Last night I did the base color, so tonight I will do the highlights.

Coloring my hair is therapeutic for me.  Some people drink to relieve stress.  Some people work out.  I color my hair.  I find the smell of the chemicals to be relaxing.  Yes, I just wrote that.  Yes, I am not quite right.

Meanwhile, I finished the book I had started.  The one I was worried I wouldn’t enjoy because it read to much like LANE.  I am so glad I kept going!  Ten Girls to Watch, by Charity Shumway is now part of the permanent collection of my favorite books.  I was literally dog-earing pages so I could go back and reread bits.  I’ll give you a full review later, but for now, go get this book!  It is Chick Lit, but it is intelligent, introspective, and never takes the expected, rote route.  Neither the women, nor the men were caricatures, and the relationships looked like ones I have, or would like to have.  Big, big, big 5 out of 5 stars from me.

A Day in the Life, Uncategorized

I Can’t Tell You Where to go if You Don’t Know Where You Are Going

the outside lane

A random, wild-eyed, elderly woman came running in to my office today, and right up to my desk.  Before I could ask how I could help her, she started croaking at the top of her voice, “Granite building!  Where is the Granite building?!”

I told her I wasn’t sure, but I’d be happy to look it up for her.  She croaked, “Granite building!” a couple more times while I googled, tapping her foot impatiently. 

“Where is it?” She demanded.

“I’m lookin’,” I said, looking.  “Is there an office you’re trying to get to in the building?”

“My doctor,” she said.  “And that stupid girl told me he was in the Granite building.”

“I’m not finding any buildings called Granite–can you help me with any other details?”

“It’s called the Granite Building!  And it’s over there,” she flapped her hand out to her left.

“Okay, I’m not finding anything called the Granite Building.  Do you have your doctor’s name, and then I can look up his address for you?”

She made a sound like a teakettle starting to boil, pumped her tiny fists of rage up and down at her hips and bobbed up and down on her knees.  “I have his address,” she yawped.  “I know his address!  I just need to know which one is the Granite building!”

And with that, she stomped out of my building, into the car waiting for her.

Me?  I laughed (after making sure she wasn’t the one driving, and that the driver looked more capable of actually making it anywhere.)

When I was a candy striper, there was a lady in the geriatric ward named Mrs. Young.  Mrs. Young was on oxygen, and frequently felt that she could not breathe.  I would be walking down the hall, pushing my little cart, and I would hear, “I cain’t breathe!  hhuuuuuuuuuurk!  I cain’t breathe!”

I would go in and pat her hand and say, “Mrs. Young?  Can you talk?”

And she would say, “Why, yes.”

And I would say, “Then you can breathe.  Because you can’t talk, if you can’t breathe.”

And she would focus her eyes on me suspiciously, then say.  “Fine.”

I would leave, and as I would be going out the door she would yell, “ICE CREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAM!  ICE CREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAM!”

One or the other, all day long.  “I cain’t breathe!” or “Ice cream!”

Granite Building Lady reminded me of Mrs. Young.

Politics

Not to go All Dirty Hippy on You, But…

the outside lane

Now and then I still fantasize about going into national politics.  Then, I remember I have this blog and I have pretty much killed all my chances of ever being able to lie convincingly enough to get the traction it would take to make it onto a ballot.  I certainly wouldn’t get Pat Robertson’s endorsement.  While I am murdering my future political career…

Thor asks a lot of questions about politics.  Half the time I feel like I am telling him too much truth, and half the time I feel like the truth is too ridiculous to tell (I tell it anyway, and we laugh together.)  Yesterday, he started asking me about the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the conversation wound around until I found myself trying to explain collateral damage and how targets are chosen.  He processed the information back to me.

“So the soldiers dropped those bombs and then we won the war?  But a lot of innocent people got hurt.  But it made us win the war?  So…I guess those soldiers felt very proud that they had done that.”

I told him I didn’t think the soldiers felt exactly like that, or at least that not all of them did.  That it wasn’t so black and white.  But, yes, the war had ended and we had accomplished our goals.  I told him I wasn’t sure there was such a thing as “winning” a war because no one is a winner when innocent people are hurt.  And no one is a winner when young men and women are forced to kill other young men and women.  We all lose.  Just some of us come out of it with more of what we wanted going into it.  Mainly, the politicians.  It ain’t baseball, Kid.

See?  That’s a lot to absorb.  I may not be doing him any favors by trying to explain the nuance of what makes war hell, but I really want him to grow up thinking about more than Point A and Point B.  I want him thinking about A.1.0001, A.1.0002, A.1.ooo3–all the steps it takes to get to Point B, and all the periphery of an idea.  I don’t want him to hear the President saying that there was an acceptable amount of collateral damage because there is no such thing.  All collateral damage is unacceptable and awful, and it is horrifying and heartbreaking to think that “the other side” might see my son as potentially acceptable collateral damage.  Worse, my own government might see my son as potentially acceptable collateral damage.  We’ve all got to understand that.

But, just as we’ll always have the poor among us, we’ll always have the sociopaths and the power mongers, and they will always be striving toward more for themselves, which will always mean less for someone else.  And those are the people who feel like blowing up children is fine, so long as they get their point across.

This should never be considered acceptable.  Ever.

(Lane’s career in politics=Dead)

books, Explaining the Strange Behavior, Friends of Mine, Inside Lane, Politics, Religion

Books, Cures, and Poor, Poor Baby Jesus (Updated)

the outside lane

I started a new book.  I can’t tell yet if it is good.  I’m two chapters in and the story has my attention, but the writer writes exactly the way I speak, and I find myself-in-other-people annoying, so I can’t decide whether or not to enjoy it.  I will end up with a grudging appreciation for it, as I do most things that remind me of myself. 

It is funny how we can be repelled by our own personalities.  My dearest friends are usually very different from me.  I gravitate toward big personalities (admittedly, I am one of those), but behind those big personalities are methodical, organized, slow-burning characters.  I have come to realize that the reason I get so irritated with short-fused, paranoid, self-effacing, mercurial talkers is because I am a short-fused, paranoid, self-effacing, mercurial talker.  (Thus, the heroine of the new novel is infuriating, being the poster child for above flaws.)

I do idealize solid people.  I idealize people who are doing the jobs they went to college to learn, and who have done the same jobs for entire career spans.  This fascinates and intrigues me.  To date, the longest I have ever stayed with one industry is five years.  Granted, I have returned to that industry (it also being the industry I most enjoyed), but I don’t feel like that counts because I only returned one peg above where I left it off 15 years ago.  I am in awe of people who commit to a course of career and keep it.

(Telaryn let me know that, “Reports are coming in that the statement is a parody and not, in fact, attributable to Akin.”  Good to know!  I found this retraction/correction.)

Uncategorized

2nd Grade

the outside lane

I dropped Thor off in 2nd Grade this morning.  You know, Kindergarten wasn’t that bad.  1st Grade, also not bad.  My nerves about those two drop offs had more to do with nerves about getting the kid to the right place, at the right time.  2nd Grade drop off?  Ouch.  It was almost like leaving him in daycare for the first time for how much I wanted to throw him over my shoulder and run out of the building screaming, “No!  You cannot have him!”

And, funnily enough, this is the first time I’ve really liked his teacher on first sight.

His classroom was warm and welcoming.  It was well laid out, organized, and full of things I wanted to stay and peruse myself.  But 2nd Grade seems so…final.  He is really on the road out of childhood now, and if I could give the boy anything, I would give him a few more years of being the age he is right now.  I would give me a few more years with him at this age because right now he is so delectable and perfect, and he still adores B and me, and he still wants to spend time with us, and loves being near (preferably on top of) us, and I know that 2nd Grade is a harbinger of doom for all those things.  Soon enough he’ll be a smelly teenager.

I say that, but I know I’ll love Smelly Teenaged Thor just as much as I adore this Sweet 2nd Grade one.  I’ll just have to be more creative in how I show him that love, since I doubt the teenager will submit to as many cuddles.