Good lighting illuminates bodily imperfections

I finally got my headlights. Though I have enjoyed being absolved of all nightly driving duties the irresponsibility aspect has begun taking its toll. Not that I have needed my car at night for personal use. Go to the Plymouth MA area and you'll see what I am talking about. But my little cousins have basketball games to get to, and I don't mind helping them considering they are some of the only decent kids I know. And I'm not just saying that because they're family. They're great kids. So.

My headlights are here, sitting in the kitchen, mocking me. I thought changing headlights = easy. I have changed headlights before. Many times. I went out into the frigid weather with every intention of changing them. I began unscrewing screws and then I couldn't figure out how to get to two of them. My brain kept saying, "You seriously have to remove the front of the car to get to them?" and I kept saying, "Shut up and let me figure this out! Stop being so fucking negative all the time! Did we not recently discuss this?". With positive thoughts lending less of a hand than I expected them to, I turned to good old trusty google.

I have to remove the front of my car to change my headlights. The good news is that I found very specific instructions and pictures to help me along. The other good (?) news is it should only take me about 1.5 hours to complete. The bad news is I don't have a garage. The other bad (!) news is I have to remove the front of my car. I cannot wrap my mind around this. Who's idea was this? Why would anyone think this is a good idea? I'm confused. You also have to forgive me. I am used to Jeep maintenance. Changing a Jeep's headlights consists of a couple screws and a plug. It's a five minute job to change both of them. I ended up ringing up Scion to see what they would charge. $95! Each! I miss the days you could SLAM the phone down when you hung up on someone. The light press of a button does nothing for my pent up aggression. So I really am the one that will take off the front of my car. Not that I am afraid and I'll tell you what, I am going to wait for a decent day and just go for it. $95 each my ass. These are the same people who wanted almost $500 for a fucking tune up. Oh what a deal! So tomorrow my day drive will include Walmart for everything I shall need to get the job done and I am going to estimate it at a whole whopping $60. :D I might be cold, but I am smart and that helps warm a girl up. The next thing this smarty pants does is figure out how to get this super awesome custom bumper low rider off the ground enough to work on it. Or find a inexpensive mechanic who has one of those sweet underground work bays in the floor. Do you know what I would do for one of those holes in the floor of the garage I don't presently own?? Quite a bit. That inexpensive mechanic is sounding like a bowl of chocolates... F. Now I want chocolate.

Ah yes. The hair. I decided to go ahead and cut it myself. It didn't come out so bad. Way I see it is that I am giving whoever cuts it next a head start. I am also going with the last style. So dead sexy baby yeah!

I have no purpose in MA. I spoke with The Prophet and he is convinced I have "come back to the scene of the crime to collect clues" and I do believe he could be onto something. For the first time I have found a semblance of peace in my heart regarding subjects that have tortured me for some time now. I do believe it's high time the JH works on the JH. No more filling her head with problems she is not supposed to find the solution to. It's almost that time again!! I'm going to go warm the car up so it's ready...

And if that isn't the sign of a great day, what is?

Hair today. Gone tomorrow. Vain all the time.

I am having so much fun with this I thought I would share. First a little history...

The last chick who cut my hair did this weird thing that left the back so there are basically two layers. The shorter top layer sort of lies across the bottom of my skull and the next layer is below my neck. I realize this works with some hair but on me it ends up looking like half a perfectly styled bob with all this crazy untamed hair coming out of the bottom. It doesn't look as cool as it sounds. Does that even sound cool? I wonder if I should stop saying "layered" and start saying "choppy" just to see what happens. I am also going to run with "asymmetrical". New terminology often dictates different results. I sometimes fantasize about getting my scissors out, saying all those things in the mirror and then just going for it. If I can do it on a squirmy dog, I can probably do it on anything. Is this warped logic? Has that ever stopped me before?

The first thing I am going to do is stop going to people that I end up paying to much money for a cut I could (read: usually) start out liking but end up eh. I am going to find a Supercuts and hope for the best. At least if I end up with something I dislike I'll only have spent about $20. Either that or I am going to try the woman in the neighborhood who everyone says does a great job for little cash. I'm all about supporting local under the table home run businesses.

Regardless.

Cuts I am considering:


I really like her shirt. I don't have hair long enough for this one but I would like to work my way into it. I think this is dead sexy. Aspirations are key, no matter how small.



Whatever happens with the front, I am digging this for the back. Plain but easy. No crazy layers to make it go all nuts-o when it's humid.



I don't know if I trust my self control for colored stripe and this is just another one of the other two, but it's cute so I saved it.



This is a favorite. I don't want to go all Aeon Flux but let's face it, her hair is pretty rad. I like the different lengths. Same length is sooo last year. This would allow me to get everything in the back under control while letting me be all "how fun am I?!" in the front.



I realize this could resemble a punk rock/emo cry for help but I LOVE IT. I'm also sick of stereotypes getting in the way of my style. Once you meet me, you know for sure that I am as far from punk rock as you can. But emo shit bothers me. A lot. But this cut is great! It does defeat the growing out my hair purpose.


Here's to hoping you just had as much fun with this as I have.

Scarfs can be used indoors too!

I don't want to brag but I figured out fringe. It wasn't all that hard, I had to look at some fringe on a finished scarf for about five seconds. I just hadn't gotten around to it to be honest. Pure laziness. Although there wasn't much need to hurry and figure out fringy scarfs while living in Phoenix. I was also completely fulfilled with my scarf/hat creations up until then. Did you know fringy is an actual word? I am wearing my fringy scarf/matching hat ensemble inside lately. Not that I am against wearing super cool matching sets indoors. And I don't mean to sound like a pussy but holy shit, it gets cold at night. And it's not like I didn't know or never experienced it before but wow. *sigh* AZ made me soft. It clearly doesn't take much does it? To cheer myself I went ahead and splurged a little on eBay and found me some down slippers!



They come with that handy little travel bag. For someone like me, that is a huge plus.

Knee jerk responses taste better when opened in times of crisis

They are also handy when you're not sure what to do with your life and need to go cross country sooner or later anyway. Again.

Here I am. Back in MA. Maybe this blog should have been called goaheadtryandfindjoy? To late.

So things went slightly awry. By slightly I mean really and by awry I mean bat shit. What does the JH do in times trouble? She bails the fuck out. And I'm not talking sleeping on a friends couch for the night and letting things blow over. I'm talking about packing all my belongings into a 16' truck, putting the tiny car that cannot hold all your belongings this time around on a flatbed trailer hitched to the back of said truck and heading on out across the same country that is being ravaged by an ice storm which is knocking out electricity from AK to VA. Needless to say, we drove this behemoth caravan the long way through TX. Don't misunderstand, I didn't need anything close to a 16' truck. Shit, I didn't even need the 10', but I didn't think two adult sized people, two adult sized dogs and two adult sized fish (fish houses included) would be comfortable in the cargo van. As much as I like to test my limits, I don't like to test them on cross country trips that were spawned from stressful situations. However, if you rent through Budget, to pull a trailer you must get a 16' truck or larger.



I then did what every decisive, stable, adult does... I take this oversized heap back across the country to my mother. Which is fine. Especially when you are influenced. Not that I am trying to shift the blame or point fingers. However, the situation explained is far from the true situation. Lesson learned, ties cut, whatever you want to call it.

This also meant getting the super low to the ground car off the flatbed. Oh, did I mention the nightmare that entailed getting the lowered car on the trailer to begin with? No? Let's just say five guys, two different trailers, lots of sighs, some cursing, planks of wood and two hours of problem solving fueled by my fragile mental state and the assurance I would cry (or torch the car in their parking lot) if it didn't happen we were on the road to freedom. Once back in the big MA, it began all over again but this time in reverse during a white out blizzard. I'm not kidding. I also pulled into the parking lot assuming there was a way to pull the whole heap through without backing up. I was so totally wrong. In fact, I was so totally wrong about being in the right driveway. And I was blocking parked cars. Just when you think you've met your worst client to date, I come through the door. The man who helped me get it off looked really pissed off about the whole thing but I didn't take it personally because I would have too. As soon as the words "If you help me get this car off that trailer I am out of your life forever" went past my lips, this same pissed off guy was all about the task at hand. For a second I thought he was going to lift it onto his back and carry it off. Needless to say, it was off way faster than it was on because I happened to mention my concern about my low profile tires getting stuck in the snow and therefor blocking the truck and trailer that is blocking parked cars in the wrong parking lot. We shook hands, I gushed my thanks, settled my bill and off I drove in my so cool custom low rider. You know it's funny how the mind works... the whole time I was dealing with the car, I kept hearing my own voice echoing through my head. It relentlessly repeated what I said right after getting the Scion: "OMG! This is a custom car! It's a low rider! Only the coolest people have custom low riders!". I'm not even half about to debate every not cool mexican low rider, so screw you. I sometimes lose touch with reality when I am excited. I am often thrust back into reality when that excitement now needs to somehow get onto a trailer.

Speaking of trailers, do you know how difficult it is to back one up? If you don't know how, it's tough. I got to try twice. The first time I got it stuck in a parking lot I seriously thought wrapped around the breakfast place into the gas station. Wrong-o. Some poor man who just happened to be in his Sunday best and just happened to be taking his wife and daughter to breakfast ended up parking behind me as I was s-l-o-w-l-y getting the trailer even more wedged in. He had to help me. His wife gave him "the look" and he was immediately defeated. I was elated, and while holding the canines, talked his (15? 16 year old?) daughter into getting her dad to teach her how to back a trailer up so she would never end up in an embarrassing situation like mine and would feel empowered. I can only hope I have offered him some seriously needed father daughter bonding time. Otherwise I ruined a part of his life best left whole. Either way, he helped me. YAY! The second time, I pulled half way into the lot Budget told me I should return my truck to. This time was easier as I called my last remaining life line and had two women screaming directions to me in the blizzard. So I am back home with a little more knowledge and a lot more success under my belt.

I'm actually rather excited. Well, it's more like a bipolar roller-coaster ride kind of excitement filled with lots of waking up and immediately saying (or crying, depends on the day really) "OMG! What have I done!?" and finishing up the day with "There is no way this can end anything but totally awesome!". I have convinced myself if you say the positive more than the negative then everything is fine and is going to work out beautifully. I have also convinced myself that living at your mom's is cool in a lot of different ways you would never think of if you didn't move back in. I am so getting a shrink.

So. New plan. I am going to start a business. It's going to have limited overnight boarding in my home but also offer home visits or overnight care along with transportation. I figure it'll get me started in the right direction. If I find that I need more, I'll fall back on the grooming. How could this possibly go wrong? I am the Queen of Dog Land. It's going to be fabulous. I am looking to eventually buy a home/shop on land which is zoned for commercial and residential. Catch two birds with one net and all that. I'm a thinker.

Speaking of birds and nets and such, I may saunter on over to my aunt's house and take my finches back. I don't think she's enjoying them quite frankly. I don't think they're very keen on her as Bob hung himself and Bob dropped dead when it was obvious she had to vacate her princess palace and go back in with the boys. As I have never once stopped loving my tiny feathered friends, I believe rescue is needed. I also have ideas for their next BAD ASS dwelling. Try and stop me. Well, just try later in the day if it's all the same to you. It doesn't matter anyway. Once I show you the blue prints, you'll be trying to help me build it.

I haven't heard anything about Tabitha's modeling career, but it hasn't stopped me from hoping. I might also start looking for other opportunities now that we are back near the big city that doesn't make sense to most people and that's why the people it does make sense to laughs at them. It's also because we are inherent assholes. It feels good to be back.