How are you today? I'm superfantastic.

Don't you just love it when things come together?

Say, you have no ideas at all for a post and then someone emails you the photo that she took of you specifically so you could show the internet your new haircut?

BREAKING NEWS: I CUT OFF A COUPLE OF INCHES OF MY HAIR.  FILM AT ELEVEN.

My hair was kind of layered before and did a nice flippy thing.  So if I cut it shorter, surely it would be even more flippy.  (Flippier?)  Perhaps even TOO flippy.  Right? 

Wrong.  It was bad.  And if I encouraged it via round brush and hairdryer to curl under instead of flipping, it was worse.  Very Dutch Boy-esque.  I am therefore, becoming one with the flat iron.  Though it cost me up to five extra minutes of sleep in the morning.  Which, at a time beginning with the number 6 is a VERY BIG DEAL, OK?

I should note that none of this is the fault of my stylist, Andria.  A person should go to the salon with more information than I want to cut it about to here.  And have some layers.  But not too many layers.  I don't know.  Whatever you think.  Andria just seemed relieved not to have to be doing her one-skillionth Posh Spice cut of the day.  Apparently it is all the rage.

Never one to follow a trend, I accidentally went for the style of a different celebrity.

Whoops.  I suppose if I do sleep too late to allow for flat-ironing, I could always go with a nice top hat to draw the eye away from the unfortunate roundness of my hair.  No?  What about giant goggles?  Oompa Loompas?

Fine, I'll just get out of bed.  But for the record, I think I could totally pull off a top hat.

Above zero and not snowing, captured on film

Melissa asked me to take some pictures of the snow.  For the record, Alan opposed this idea on the grounds that taking pictures of the snow would only embolden it.  Ever the obedient girlfriend I...Ha!  I can't even finish that sentence.

On to photos.  Remember this bench?

Now you can snowshoe past it.

Don't have your snowshoes?  Here's a nice bench on the Capitol Square.  Care to sit and have a chat?

Or we could go on in to the Capitol.

Let's take the stairs.  Careful now.

Watch out for icicles.

Oh, and if you absolutely must get a new haircut in the dead of winter, at least ask your stylist to leave enough length to cover your neck.

And maybe give the red line from your glasses a few minutes to go away before photographing yourself for the internet.  Amateur.

And now I'm a little concerned about the Google hits I'm going to get for Amateur photographing yourself for the internet.  Welcome, gentlemen.  This is not what you were looking for.

Close...

...but no Superbowl.  The game was a real nail-biter and the stress may have taken a few weeks off my life.  Unfortunately, it was all for naught.

It's very sad, of course, as is this horrifically cold weather we're having.  And now the seven inches of snow that we're supposed to get in the next two days while still maintaining the horrific cold.  I tell you what, this winter has been like a bitchslap from Mother Nature.  How do you like me now, she asks.  Answer: I don't.

So let us think of less upsetting things. 

I do believe that, come spring, I will be chopping off my hair. 

For the moment, I need the extra length for keeping my neck warm.  I do still like my current cut, but I've had it for a while now.

It doesn't look like Stacy and Clinton are going to be showing up anytime soon to whisk me off to New York and put me in the capable hands of Nick Arrojo, so it is up to you and me, Internet, to figure something out.

My only idea so far is this very cute bob that I saw on Amy Poehler in the episode of SNL that Brian Williams hosted.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a photo from that show, but I did find this photo of what must be a similar cut, only worn curly.  Which I suppose could be a possibility for me if the layers are short enough and there is just the right amount of humidity in the air, but generally it would have to be straight.

What do we think?  Yes?  No?  Alternate suggestions?

Note to flatter-butted women: two months of email and phone BEFORE you meet in person

Him: I used to be kind of a butt guy.

Me: Oh.  Sorry.

Him: Yeah.

They also provide a good quad workout if you do a lot of stairs in them.

I mentioned that I was seeing my friend Jennie last weekend.  Anytime Jennie and I get together, only one thing can happen: shopping.  We are particularly good (dangerous?) shopping friends since we always encourage each other to buy anything that we are even considering.  Extremely helpful of us, right?  This was never more true than when we were in college and had no money.  One of us, in order to ease the guilt of having spent more than was probably advisable, would convince the other to buy something of equal or greater value.  This was to the extent that Jennie's mom actually had a nightmare about us shopping together and buying tons and tons of sweaters.

One time we decided that we should do something different for once and we went camping.  Let's just say that it did not go well.  There was rain, a leaky tent, and a raccoon stealing our food.

So on Friday, we returned to our natural habitat, the mall.  We were remarkably fiscally responsible despite having more disposable income than we did in the old days.  What we did both discover were these shoes at Sears:

They were very reasonably priced and are surprisingly comfortable.  And yes, I bought them in both black and brown.  Any bets on how long it will be before I show up somewhere wearing one of each color?  Before you put your money on anytime terribly soon, you should know that I managed to own identical boots in black and brown for several years without wearing a mixed pair out of the house.  Then again, that probably just means that I'm about due.

Don't worry though, Jennie's Mom.  We didn't buy any sweaters at all.

This is the post I was telling you about last week, which I cannot quite believe I have just posted.

What you are seeing here is my first bikini.  Ever.

It has been worn one time, in my backyard.  It is not likely to make its public debut anytime soon.  I did also buy the matching tankini top and I feel pretty good about how I look in that.  Which may be the first time since I was too young to think about such things that I've been able to say that I felt good about how I looked in any sort of swimwear.  So perhaps the bikini's time has not yet come, but progress has happened.

I weigh, right now, about what I weighed when I was fifteen.  I only know this because, for some reason, I remember how much I weighed when applying for my first driver's license and how much I lied about my weight to make it less since they used to actually print this information on your license.  The funny thing is that my current goal is the weight that was on that first license.  It's my goal because I think I have about that much fat left to lose, not because it is what my fifteen year-old self wanted to weigh.  But there would be some satisfaction in that as well, since it feels like, in a lot of ways, I still carry that fifteen year-old self around with me.

It's about ten pounds that I'd like to still lose to feel bikini-ready.  If these ten pounds were just equally distributed, that would not be a big prohibitive thing.  But they are all clinging tightly together in one spot right around my middle.  These are the Spartan Warriors of fat cells.  They are Indigo Montoya.  They will not be moved.

On the other hand, I weigh, right now, about twenty pounds less than I have weighed for most of my adult life.  Probably about thirty pounds less than I have weighed at a couple of points.  I don't know exactly since I used to think that it would be really bad for me to own a scale.  This was a mistake on my part.  Yes, it is bad to be all about numbers and I would be perfectly happy to weigh more if more of my weight were in muscle.  But it has been deeply satisfying in the past year to see that number go down.  And I have to think that I would never have hit that thirty over point if I had realized at the time that I was gaining that much.  It was always later, seeing pictures of myself that I realized it had happened.  Since most of my clothes come from Old Navy, it always seemed perfectly valid to think that they were probably just shrinking.

I don't think my mental picture of how I look has caught up with reality yet.  In fact, it was not that long ago that I saw something on MSN about how to dress for a plus size figure and I almost clicked on it.  I have never worn a plus size, but my thinking was that I'd get some tips on how to hide things.  What a former co-worker called "pockets of nastiness".  I had to remind myself that I don't have to think that way anymore.  But I really believe that no matter how much weight I lose or how long I keep it off, there will always be a part of me that thinks of myself as a fat girl.  You live with it long enough, it becomes a part of your identity.  Which is really sad, I think.

I wonder whether, on some level, staying a little bit overweight wasn't subconsciously part of what has been, at times, my all-consuming need to just blend.  After all, the average American woman is either a size 12 or 14, depending on your source.  I'm not average anymore.  When a table of guys at Chipotle stops eating to watch me walk by, I know I should be flattered but I still don't really know what to do with that.  Maybe people looked at me before and I didn't notice.  Maybe I didn't want to notice because I assumed that they were thinking bad things.  I honestly don't know.

I watched The Holiday this weekend, and I know you're not supposed to take profound things away from romantic comedies, but there was one part that really struck me.  Kate Winslet is having dinner with an elderly former screenwriter who tells her, "in the movies, we have leading ladies and we have the best friend.  You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend."  And Kate Winslet replies, "You are so right!  You're supposed to be the leading lady in your own life, for God's sake!"

I think I'd like to try that.  I'd like to stop letting my insecurities rule me and stop playing the best friend and be ok with people looking directly at me.  I have no idea how I will do this.  But I think I owe it to myself - fifteen year-old self included - to try.

They say the eyes are the first thing to go. My eyes went at age two, leaving it wide open for everything else.

Today I got half-way to work before realizing that I had never put my contacts in.  So I had to turn around and go home and then be even later than usual to work.  It's a real downside to being farsighted.  I could work without glasses or contacts, but I'd have a giant headache in a couple of hours and people might look at me funny since I'd be reading things with my left eye closed so that it could not interfere with my right eye's ability to do all the damn work around here.

Being farsighted also makes eyebrow plucking a rather challenging task.  So I try to do this only when I have my contacts in since without them there's a lot less plucking than there is just repeatedly stabbing myself in the face with tweezers.  But a little while back, I had been wearing my glasses for a few days in a row and the plucking had to happen and I wasn't about to put in my contacts just for the purpose of doing my eyebrows, so I made an attempt.  And there was this one stray above my right eyebrow that I just could not get.  Until I realized what was in fact happening here.  I was trying to pluck a wrinkle.  Ok, "fine line". 

The thing is, I have long been prepared that due to the squintiness, I was going to have the mother of all laugh lines, and I was just going to deal with it.  What I did not see coming were lines above my right eyebrow from all of the arching.  See, this is my arching brow.  This has become so natural a reaction for me to so many things that I do not realize I am even doing it a lot of the time.  But my skin?  Has noticed.

Upon further inspection, I notice that I have also developed a distinct line to the left of my mouth, but not to the right.  I didn't know until a few years ago that my smile starts to the left and then spreads to the right, should the situation warrant it.  Melinda, a really hilarious person who used to work for me, pointed this out.  She said she could tell how funny I thought she was by the stages of my reaction.  Which apparently are: left smile, whole smile, eyes squint, eyes disappear, tears.  Because Melinda was so hilarious and because I was very, very sleep deprived by that job, tears were a frequent occurrence.  Such as when we were discussing a not-great decision we had made and she said, "we are smart's cousin, not smart" and I cried for days and days about how funny that was.

This is really not intended to be a Woe. Misery. Despair. post, so I don't need a lot of "you look fine!" and "wait until you're my age!" comments.  If wrinkles are the price I must pay for laughing often and refusing to inject rat poison into my face, then so be it.  I just hadn't realized that mine would be so...quirky.  I suppose it's better than having the same wrinkles as everybody else.  Who would want their aging to be so prosaic, so pedestrian? 

Just keep telling yourself that, Lori.  That'll make it true.

Just Schilling

Thanks, everybody for the great comments and total lack of hate mail having to do with that last post.  You all continue to surprise me with your coolness.  I’ve clambered down off my soapbox now and put it in the closet for the time being (the better to reach the top shelves!)  It occurred to me that probably I should post something here and yet I have no humorous anecdotes or righteous indignation for you today.  So instead, I offer this product review and subsequent stream-of-consciousness blathering.  Enjoy!

Amy recently endorsed Philosophy On a Clear Day Blemish Serum over on the Advice Smackdown, which I read since I am girliness-impaired.  I hadn't even been inside a Sephora until last summer.  But Amy said this Blemish Serum, while ridiculously expensive, was well worth plunking down some serious cash for since it was so highly effective.  And, as of recently, this sort of product has become of interest to me due to some problematic skin issues.

See, when I said that I seldom worry, I meant it.  Occasionally, I will begin to worry about something and then I tell myself, "well, that's not helping" and I stop.  Seriously.  But sometimes, even the most "eh" of us have stress in our lives.  I personally don't so much feel stress as see it break out on my face.

(Although with your more intense stress, I do sometimes feel it in the form of the reappearance of Stabby the Ulcer.  No, I have not gone to a doctor about this because it's really just some stabbing pain that comes on every, oh say, once a year or two and goes away completely on its own.  So not really worth seeking medical treatment over, but totally worth naming.  Because then I can say, "No, Stabby, no!  BAD STABBY!")

Where was I?

Ah, yes.  Amy (that's Roommate Amy, not Internet Rockstar Amy) and I visited Sephora on Saturday night, where we wandered around looking for some skincare.  Normally, I find that you have to peel the Sephora salespeople off with a spatula, but apparently, should you actually be looking for something, you're pretty much on your own.  Amy had just picked up the box when a Sephora boy in chartreuse eye shadow (uh huh) finally came over to ask if we needed any help.  We resisted the urge to hand him the nearest bottle of eye makeup remover.

Short story VERY long, Amy was right, and in my (rather limited) experience with it, this stuff is a miracle product.  So should you have need of such a product, get thee to Sephora.  And if not, then hooray for you, but I'm pretty sure the rest of us don't want to hear you gloat about it.

Oh Goodness

Subtitled: What Have I Done?

Not titled (although it was briefly considered): Oops, I did it again.

Before

After

It is very challenging to take one's own picture and simultaneously appear to have a neck.  But James, my new stylist, told me that of course I should cut my hair so short to show off my great neck.  I applaud James for not going with the traditional hair stylist lie "you have such great hair!" and yet this neck compliment business did nothing whatsoever except frankly to improve his tip.  And convince me to let him shear off most of my hair.  Well played, James. 

All of that to say, here is a photo which includes my neck and also some of my bathroom.

I swear, my hands are not gargantuan, just closer to the mirror. 

As much as I may like to blame James and his tricksy neck complimenting, really this is all Holly's fault.  See, Holly got a really incredible haircut.  People cannot stop talking about how great Holly's hair is.  So I thought maybe I should get a great haircut too and then I will look as good as Holly!  Except she is able to make her hair achieve the proper style.  I, on the other hand, have no talent for doing hair and have hair which is remarkably uncooperative.  Also, I am very lazy.  So I normally know better than to get a cut which requires actual doing.

I also blame Emily, and as I indicated in my comment, this photo.  People with cute hair should come with a disclaimer which reads Warning: Your hair will not, under any circumstances, look like this.  Even James was willing to admit, as I showed him that particular photo, that my hair was far too fine to wind up looking similar.  (Why do they call it "fine"?  It's not fine with me!  The opposite of thick is not fine, folks, it is called thin.)

I decided not to cheat and use as my after photo the picture that Amy took when I got home from the salon.  Because we all know that my hair will never look that good again.  So the above photos are from today since yesterday it looked awful.  I am not exaggerating.  It was flat and horrible and looked as if I had hacked into it with my own kitchen scissors or possibly a Swiss army knife.  Today, much better and even doing that little flippy outy thing in back.  Whew.

You'll be happy to know (or at least I was) that apparently it makes total sense that I run though hair dryers like nobody's business.  Because just like all of his predecessors, James at one point announced "you have got A LOT of hair."  I don't really understand this since it seems to me to be pretty much the standard amount (enough to cover my head) but then when I said the thing about constantly killing hair dryers, James nodded knowingly.  This did not surprise him.  He was, however, surprised to hear that my most recent hair dryer actually began to produce smoke.  Mmm-hmm, smoke.  That would be the one I bought about 2 weeks ago.  Wimp.

Have I gone on long enough about my hair?  Yes, I believe I have.

On an unrelated note, I have realized that last Friday was my one year blogiversary!  I had planned to post about it once the date rolled around, but then I forgot to pay attention.  Which is funny since my very first post concerned specifically that flaw of mine!  See, despite all of the fame and fortune that this website has brought me in the past year, I'm still the same Lori.  Comforting, isn't it?

Let's hope I don't fall on my ass. Not immediately, anyway.

While it is certainly not unreasonable at any time to be concerned about randomly falling down, there is a reason for that title.  And that reason is...really impractical shoes!  But so pretty:

I've resisted the pointy shoes up to now.  Because I already wear a size 9 1/2!  Narrow!  And on a person who is not quite 5'6, those are some big feet to begin with.  Do I really need to add a couple extra inches of pointiness? 

And yet, Stacy and Clinton tell me repeatedly that pointy-toed shoes will elongate my legs.  And I can REALLY USE that.  Because the jeans that necessitated the purchase of taller shoes were marketed by the Gap as Ankle Length.  Ankle!  And yet they are too long on me even to be worn with my pretty Ann Taylor heels.  They are Floor Length in my new irresponsibly tall shoes!  Because my legs are disproportionately short, which, while making me the champion of that sit and reach event in the Presidential Fitness thing, has not done me much good since!  (Except on airplanes, where I do genuinely feel sorry for you long-legged people.  Even if you possibly made fun of me in gym class for my inability to succeed in the high jump portion of the Presidential Fitness thing.  Tall people, with your oooh, look at us jump!  Look at me now, tallies, fitting nicely into this airline seat!  Ha!  Ok, that did not come out so sympathetic, did it?)

But back to our subject at hand.  Many people may have, say, returned the jeans that were several inches too long.  And yet, who I am to turn down a perfectly good excuse to buy new shoes?  Even if they do sort of remind me of that part of The Wizard of Oz where the witch's feet are sticking out from under the house.

And yet, for all of their prettiness and leg-elongating/jean-enabling powers, the fact remains that I am not a person who can safely wear these shoes.  As I previously mentioned, my ankles have problems in regular shoes.  So the likelihood of an ugly, humiliating, ankle-spraining, face-falling experience is high.  Very, very high.  On the other hand, wearing these shoes should be an excellent work-out for the old ankles.  It will actually strengthen them!  I am doing my wimpy ankles a huge favor!  Right?

The shoes will shortly be making their public debut and I ask you, Austin area citizens, if you see me wipe out, please offer me a hand, an ace bandage, some ice.  And my dignity, if you can find it anywhere.

In return, I'll totally let you borrow my shoes.

It's time for a few small repairs, she said.

This was the song lyric which inspired my college friend Marissa to chop off her long hair into a very short pixie thing, much to the chagrin of her then-boyfriend now-husband/baby daddy.  We all thought that it was sort of odd, given the fact that that Sheryl Crow song about a change doing you good was really big at the time and seemed more likely to inspire a relationship-threatening haircut than, say, a song about arson.  And yet it is what popped into my own head during my own recent impuslive change-o-rama.

There I was, a week ago Saturday just watching some TLC.  The night before, Melissa and I had done some looking at some new bedding, mostly just to kill some time, with the result that I decided everything was far too expensive and I would definitely wait until after the move and a new job.  After all, I had been perfectly content with my college graduation gift quilt for over seven years now.  I could wait another month.  And then on Saturday I realized that I MUST have new bedding.  Immediately.

Before I could even get out of the house to commence shopping, I had another revelation.  I NEEDED to cut my hair.  Off.  As soon as possible.  I should mention that I was under the influence of several episodes of What Not to Wear and deep in the realization that Nick Arrojo would SO not approve of my current hair.  (Not that I think Clinton and Stacy would approve of my vast collection of Old Navy plain-colored t-shirts, but until they arrive at my door with a $5,000 debit card, there's not much to be done about that.  And if they didn't think that I would spend all $5,000 in H&M on day 1 and require two cabs just to cart all of that inexpensive goodness back to my hotel, they would be sorely mistaken.)

Anyway, I called the salon and made an appointment with Melissa's stylist for today (10 days later!) and then called Amy to go shopping with me to help me pick out the new coverlet.  Actually 2 different coverlets, which we bought, brought here, and put on the bed.  And the winner was:

The rest of the bedroom isn't all matchy since I'm moving next month and frankly, I didn't want to mess with trying to make the bed look all pretty and pillow-shammed for you people, so this is the picture you get.  (I should mention that this is a shot of one of the many small paisleys lest you think that my new coverlet consists of one giant paisley as that photo seems to imply.)

On to the hair, which is a little shorter than I had intended, but still good.

I realize that there really ought to be a Before shot here with me in my glasses and no make-up looking shiny and sad.  And yet, you're getting the shine in the After picture because I couldn't be bothered to touch up after the "5 minutes to get dressed, brush teeth, put on make-up and leave" routine.

And those are my small repairs.  (You know, aside from the whole quitting my job to move to a place where I know no one and hopefully getting a job in an entirely new field.)  Also, we are having a garage sale this Saturday so I'll be repairing the state of my overstuffed drawers, closet, and shoe rack.

In unrelated news, the Global Night Commute was a success, at least here in San Antonio with many, many people sleeping out in the grass at UTSA. 

We wrote letters to the President and our Senators and completed art projects for possible inclusion in a future book.  I don't hold out a lot of hope for mine since it was completed entirely using two flipchart markers accidentally pilfered from a former employer.  And we had to use our pillows as our work surfaces, which really doesn't result in impressive art.  And if, when the book comes out, some of the entries look really awesome, then I will assume that those people cheated and did their art at home.  Here is a picture of our little group, hard at work:

If you want to help out, you can still go here and donate or purchase a hand-made bracelet.  I'd also like to mention for plugging purposes that just before the GNC, I attended a release party for a CD that I highly recommend.  Plus I just think the phrase I attended a CD release party makes me sound cool.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and mess with my new hair while listening to my new CD in my new green bedroom.

The Swimsuit Edition

So the elastic in my four year-old swimsuit spontaneously quit elasticking during my swim on Monday.  I was planning to wait on a new suit until I had kept up the swim three times a week routine for at least two months (I was considering making myself a sticker chart like I do for the motivationally impaired kids I teach), but after the great elastic strike, I had no choice but to get a new suit and now.

This is how I found myself in Academy trying on swimsuits this morning.  And since I was trying to decide between two, I had to spend quite some time staring at my swimsuit-clad reflection in a full-length mirror, highlighted by oh so flattering fluorescent lighting.  Yikes.  I'll spare you the details.  Just...yow, I had no idea.

And then I went to the grocery store.  I'm seriously contemplating a new plan where I have to put on a swimsuit and look at myself in the mirror for at least ten minutes prior to grocery shopping.  Because wow, is it ever easier to pass up the Ben & Jerry's after being confronted with the unsightly image of your own pasty thighs.