grumpy bad mood face plant

When I'm in a bad mood my first thought is always about how much I don't want to go to work.

Followed quickly by a snap judgment of someone I don't know. For example: a woman who clomped by me a minute ago wearing high heels. She is walking like she's wearing high heels (spine at a balancing angle, sending bottom skyward and arms forward to dangle like vines without a wall to climb). No chin and her face looks like it hurts... kind of like how portraits of George Washington's face make it seem like his face should hurt just because it's his face.

So I'm sitting behind my computer thinking: Women should practice wearing shoes at home before they try to hike around town in them. Yeah, that's right, boo and etc.

Completely pointless to sit and think this. Who cares? Why do I care? Why all the sudden hostility (which I just tried to spell as "histility" which just goes to show you... something or other). I also have suddenly realized my earbuds are in my ears and I'm not listening to anything. Probably I should be judging myself.

So anywayzzzz.

I'm tempted to take up Nina on her offer to cover my Friday shift. I feel brainless and behind. There are about a million people I need to call back but haven't because of my bizarre work schedule this week and I've forgotten to recharge my phone. There's so much writing I've been holding back and the Alcohol Server test I need to take sometime before the end of tomorrow and an apartment to clean and an application for GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK to fill out.

Yesterday, on my coffeehouse shift, I poured coffee into a cup for Stephen-from-the-County and I told him about Great Basin National Park (now: GBNP, for convenience and laziness) and he was like, "Oh yeah, Lehman Caves, bam, this mountain that's there, bam, off that highway, bam, BAM!" So yeah, he knows of it apparently. First person so far.

It's in Nevada. In the wilderness. I'm trying to live there for a month this year. I looked at the past recipients of this arts residency I'm applying for and they were all people in their latter days who paint mountains in garish colors and do things with stained glass so I think I'll be a novelty: young, writer, female. Also, I want to make my time there really work for the park, bring in the journalism a bit, give them all sorts of free marketing labor. I'm crafting an IDEA and I think it's awesome. Hopefully they do too otherwise I need a new plan.

One of my favorite songs is playing: "Down in the Valley" by... wait it'll come to me... The Head and The Heart. It makes me think of last spring/summer... mostly of a trip Spencer, M., Sasha and I took down to Newport and I discovered the Good Parts of Newport, about two streets worth: the Irish public house (at which real Irish people work) and the progressive bakery with amazing breakfast sandwiches and people who look like they spend a lot of time thinking about moving to places like Portland.

Ok. I have to go to work soon. Some quick thoughts to jolt me into positive thinking so I don't age prematurely (I've been worried about this recently. Ridiculous. Or is it?):

- baking tomorrow morning! (I love my bake shifts with all my heart heart heart)
- maybe going to Portland on Saturday (brothers! parents! friends! SOPHIE!!!!)
- maybe staying here on Saturday but going hiking with M (exercise! outdoors! vistas! beer!)
- Sunday (God! piano playing! naps!)
- Martha comes home tomorrow (home-making! Marta hugs! Marta kisses!)
- tonight (movie night with Spencer! "Fivel Goes West"! We've already watched "The Prince of Egypt" and "Milo & Otis" and we usually sip on whiskey and relive our childhoods and it's amazing)

#255: there's many a man has more hair than wit

I was a banged child and I hated it. Childhood is only nice and pleasant and tender for a brief time and then it tends to turn oily, pimpled and full of despair. One minute you're a raging, jubilant five year old tearing around the yard and pretending you're God, or something, then you hit 12 and if you're a girl life starts to go horribly wrong. It doesn't always begin with the monthly cycle. At least not for me. There was a point where I became aware of myself as inhabiting a distinct body and instead of this realization carrying wonder and joy (as it should have), it brought only confusion, discontent and fear. Bangs -- and a weird cow-lick that flipped these bangs up and out at an awkward angle -- didn't help.

I very distinctly remember an afternoon at church camp, my dad looking down at me and my face likely a picture of anguish. It was a scene straight from "A Christmas Story" when the boy comes downstairs wearing pink rabbit pajamas his aunt made for him and which his mother has commanded him to try on.

"Do you like having bangs?" my dad asked slowly.

I shook my head.

"Do you want to pull your bangs back and grow them out?"

I nodded emphatically, not daring to look my mom in the eyes. She was the one who cut the bangs after all and I didn't know where her loyalties might fall.

I don't remember any other details of that day or why my dad even noticed my bangs, but I do know that not until I cut them myself several years later did I ever have to have bangs again.

This is all to say that two days ago, I cut some bangs. Mistake. My hair is curlier now and if bangs didn't work when I was a child, why should they work now? I look like Cher from "Moonstruck" but without the cheekbones and the big eyes -- squinty Wilson/Blake eyes forever! Fortunately, I'm mature now and don't care about my looks or compare myself with other, better-looking women. Right? Right.