july 27, 2003.
Once again, impulse has won out in my personal appearance - as I did 4 years ago, I've chopped off all of my dyed hair. Well, not personally, of course. I had enough trouble making a pinhole camera; cutting my own hair is a country forever closed to me I fear. So I paid someone else to do it. And truly, I think this is the best damn haircut I've ever got at Poison Ivy. I've had great styles there, I've had really good colour jobs, but this is the first time I've put on my glasses and meant it when I said, "perfect."
It's a crazy pixie cut, layered & choppy & utterly fabulous. Almost all of it is my natural colour, and you can't tell the occasional black tip from the rest of the mix. I had forgotten how nice my natural colour is, when it's not next to a line of black dye. Of course, the Boy's over the moon. Most of the females in his family have short hair, and it's his basic template for how a woman should look. I lost count of how many times he stopped conversation on Friday to tell me how good it looked.
Plus, it's practical as all hell. The Boy says that it makes me look older, and he thinks it'll help me in the classroom next year. Frankly, no matter how urban & funky I think it looks, it also makes me look like I could chauffeur a playdate with 5 seconds' notice. And it cuts my shower time in half, which is nice.
Also on Friday we got together with Algernon & Gwendolyn to hang out, eat dinner, and look through their enormous collection of parenting & kids books. They have more books on & for babies than I've ever seen in a pre-child-rearing couple. It's cool. We offered our apartment in the fertility vortex that is Bloor West Village if they want to guarantee pregnancy when the time comes. Having sex in our neighbourhood is kind of like a pilgrimage to that big chalk guy in England, or so the profusion of strollers & snugglies attest.
While the Boy was briefed on his upcoming role in the Changeling game, I finished I Will Fear No Evil & then fell asleep on a couch in Just Desserts. Gwen was horribly embarrassed, but the Boy did his best to reassure her that it wasn't the Changeling conversation that put me out; it was the pregnancy breaker that simply cuts out at 11:30. (I don't think that pregnancy has made me more tired, just more shameless. I won't climb staircases without a damn good reason, nor will I resist curling up on a soft couch if I'm sleepy.)
Then, as we pulled out of the parking garage, the Boy hit a pole.
I wish there were a better story to this. I wish the Boy had downed 20 girlie drinks and slammed into the pole while singing "The Sloop John B." I wish that Brad had gone after The Purple Lassitude with a baseball bat, then used sandpaper to scrape off the paint, "because that's [his] style." I wish that ninjas had attacked, and the Lassitude was damaged in the ensuing fight.
Nope. We hit a pole. Stone sober, no argument at the time, not even any loud music playing in the background. The only thing of even mild interest is that I briefly yelled at the Boy in front of Algernon & Gwen. More ugly than interesting, though.
Yesterday I got seriously restless, and shanghaied the Boy & Stacy into a long wander around the local Ikea. We spent 2 1/2 hours there, and managed to get away with a page of notes and two sets of purchases that together totalled less than $60. Major achievement, although I fell hopelessly in love with this cot - it's the fact that it turns into a really cute bed with the judicious application of a screwdriver. Also, it's little. It's only 4 1/2 feet long, which is BABY SIZED - so many other cribs you can get elsewhere are just too big. I love the matching changing table, but the Boy has an innate distrust of it for reasons I can't fathom - so the changing table is still tentatively the dining room table with a plastic cushion. Not that big of a deal.
We also looked at computer stations to help reduce the sheer amount of furniture in our study. Still trying to figure out if we like the oddly-angled metal one, or the more traditional desk-and-tower.
All of this is highly theoretical, of course. I specifically left my credit card at home so I wouldn't succumb to temptation. However, it's nice to have an idea of what I want, and these cheap cribs are so much easier to ask for at shower time than the bloated behemoths everywhere else.
Mom says that we can have a crib shower, where guests chip in instead of buying a gift. Does that sound greedy to you? Sometimes I'm really not sure of the line between being practical and being a prat.
Booty Call: Day 142 - Fine downy hair called lanugo now covers baby's body; eyebrows are visible.
