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Blue. Oh, so lonesome for you

In my dream last night I had blue hair. Soft, bouncy, blue hair. It looked awesome.

Last time I had a dream like this I was in high school and not a week later a friend and I were at the store buying bleach and stocking up on Manic Panic.

Back in the day my hair was short, pixie cut, which makes it very easy to change hair color over and over without going bald. My mom protested from outside the bathroom as we began bleaching my hair to an Easter-ish yellow. Then, as we smeared the dark purple/blue dye all over my head, I knew I had made the right decision. An hour later, properly washed and styled, my hair was short, spiky, dark purple and totally fucking awesome.

Now, the thing about a Crayola inspired hair color is, it washes out very quick. Two weeks later my hair had gone from dark purple, to bright blue, to light blue, to silvery blue. And so we slathered my hair in dye again and I was back to dark purple.

Three re-redyes and a couple months later, graduation was fast approaching and my mom demanded that I “look normal” for the photos. (I’d like to point out right now that my sister had bleach blond hair with purple streaks at her graduation. So unfair!) Instead of bleaching the shit out of my hair again I decided to let it fade and grow out.

Let me tell you, purple/blue/silver hair with brown roots doesn’t look so good. It took two attempts to color my hair red before I looked decent again.

If I didn’t work a “normal” job and think my boss’ boss would be a little freaked by me showing up to work with blue hair I’d be in the bathroom right now turning my self back into Sonic the Hedgehog.

p.s. I’ll dig out and upload some pictures later tonight.

Reeeeseees Peeeeseees

My brother moved out last year and my sister is away at college most of the time, so it’s a rare occasion that the whole family gets together for dinner. My sister’s boyfriend joined us and I’m pretty sure he was entertained by more than just my burping prowess.

Family dinners consist of:

Making fun of my technology challenged mom – My brother had yet another new phone and she decided she was going to use it to take a picture of us. Instead of looking at the screen she held the phone up to her eye backwards.

Teasing my Dad about getting old – He’s starting to swear in his old age. So as soon as a shit, damn or hell comes out of his mouth we turn into a bunch of truckers cursing at everything.

Making fun of each other – My mom grilled bananas, plums and pineapple which we mixed with blueberries, chocolate syrup, ice cream, and Reese’s Pieces. After passing the candy around we realized that we say Reesee’s Peesees, which sounds fine until you repeat peesees and then you sound like a dumbass.

Best quote of the night (in case you missed it on Twitter) – John: “This tofu tastes like barbecue pancakes.”

I laughed so much last night I was on the verge of tears multiple times.

Transformation

This weekend has turned out much better than expected. In the midst of depression I never remember that leaving the house and hanging out with B and the TG’s does wonders for my mood.

Saturday, after much debating I forced myself to go down to the AMC. (stopped at the post office on the way to pick up these rings.) Julie and Adele were in sessions by the time I got there, so I sat at the TG table alone for a while. After about an hour of cranky text messages to B and half-heartedly talking to people that stopped to find out what TG was about, Adele came out and sat with me. She’s the type of person that cares enough to ask questions and I’m unable to tell her I’m ok and everything is fine when it’s not. So it was helpful to get some of that crankyness out of my system.

The last set of sessions started and we stopped in for a panel on the Jena 6 and New Jersey 4. The discussion centered around the media coverage of each and why the Jena 6 was publicized much more, while the New Jersey 4 was essentially ignored by mainstream media. The discussion was intense and the panelists brought up things like: why women of color (woc) stories and LGBTI stories receive little or no attention from the media, victim blaming, police brutality centered around race and gender, questioning the idea of getting big media attention – is it needed?

I also had the privledge of meeting BrownFemiPower – she is an absolute genius woc blogger. Add her to your reader NOW! I also met Jessica Hoffman from Make/Shift and Debbie Rasmussen from Bitch Magazine. (Watch for A Bitch Project to come to your town)

Listening to those people speak pulled me out of my own mind for a while, so went I left I was energized and in a good mood for the first time in days.

I drove over to B’s house where he had dinner all set up – my man is not only incredibly sweet, he’s a damn good cook. We ate dessert while lying on the couch watching TV – best part of my whole weekend.

Around 10 we headed to Skip’s going away party – I was wearing knee-length shorts and a tshirt (which B called my skater girl outfit) and the party was outside so I was freezing. I ended up wearing B’s sweatshirt, which was two sizes too big on him, so it looked like a cape on me. Two beers later we drove to Ferndale to meet people at a bar. I got good and drunk on a jack and coke, which left the rest of the night a little blurry. (and a little x-rated, so we’ll skip forward to today)

Raced home at 10 to meet Jenn and head back to the AMC. We got down there by 1 and manned the TG table while making plans for Warped Tour. We’re thinking of having a safe sex/body image theme to our booth this year.

Around two we all eagerly piled into the auditorium for the closing session where Grace Lee Boggs was the speaker. She is my hero! (and probably everyone else’s that was there too) She is an author, anti-racist activist and feminist. She founded Detroit Summer, a multicultural intergenerational youth program and…she just turned 93! Every word that comes out of that woman’s mouth is gold. And you could tell we all knew it by the number of people with pen in hand when we sat down in the auditorium. (I want to write a little about that Grace spoke about, but I might save that for another post.)

We ended the conference with everyone singing happy bday to Grace and Jenny Lee (one of the organizers). Then Jenn and I went back to the table and while I packed up, she hawked chocolate vaginas. The drive home was nice, windows down, music off, talking about work and dudes and life.

Now I’m back at home, hoping the wind will die down and the sun will come back out so I can try out my new bikini, but it looks like that might have to wait for next weekend since my feet are getting hit by a pretty cold breeze. Dinner with the fam in a couple hours and then I think B and I are going to see ‘Get Smart’.

I think I need a nap!

AMC

Headed downtown for the Allied Media Conference today. Keep an eye on my Twitter – I’ll be updating from there since I’m not taking my computer.

Pending

Flying down the highway this morning singing along to ‘A Fine Frenzy’ I get a call from Keena – the house I was headed to see, the house I loved and was planning to make an offer on, was not showing today because it was pending. The house was possibly going to be a short sale and they aren’t interested in dealing with more than one offer, which seems ridiculous because it would drive the price up.

After reading The Secret I’m inclined to think that my freak out last night could have contributed to losing out on the house. I should have been thinking positively about getting what I wanted and instead I was wallowing in depression.

We walked through the other house I liked, but coupled with the disappointment with the first house and my general bad mood, it wasn’t looking as good and it had the first time I walked through. So it looks like I need to do some searching online and find some more houses. Balls.

- – - – -

At work now and I’m really not pleased that my coworker is doing a double today, which means I’ll get to listen to his commentary on everything. This is like the laughing girl, he talks as much as she laughs. I think he gets uncomfortable when I don’t respond how he wants so he continues the story when he should have stopped.

Everything is annoying me today. Olivia told me to write down all the things that annoy or upset me, so I have a feeling I’ll fill up a couple pages today. Starting with the straw that came in my smoothie from Panera – why is it so wide?

Happy happy happy

Wow that was a heinously bad web chat. Why is it when my boss goes out of town everything goes wrong? I could write a hilarious blog about our web chats if I didn’t worry about getting dooced for making fun of a client.

I need a little time to decompress so I’ll write about my lovely night with B.

Yesterday I went to work early so I could leave early. After winding my way through construction (every single major highway in metro-Detroit is having work done, so there was no good way to get there) I made it to his house where his mom let me in because he was still sleeping (at 5pm). Jumped in bed, covered him with kisses and he gave me a bear hug that I didn’t care to get out of for the next hour.

That first deliriously happy moment of seeing each other again is what makes the whole tour completely worth it. We had both bought each other DVDs and he got me a George Dubya voodoo doll, which I kinda want to chop into little pieces and set on fire, but since it’s from B I probably won’t.

After a whole lot of cuddles we went to Ferndale so he could see my possible future house and then used my amazing sense of direction to almost get us lost on the way to dinner. We always end up with very awkward servers – you know, the ones that look incredibly uncomfortable, make too much or too little eye contact, get too close when they’re talking, mumble, and forget everything. Yeah…at least the food was great.

Back at B’s house he set up wii and showed his parents how to play. For some reason I’m an awesome wii bowler, but I’m horrible in real life – I can’t even break 100. Also, my tennis technique is pretty bad, but apparently entertaining to watch. I think his parents were impressed with my video game athletic skills.

I’m so incredibly happy to have him home.

Vegan Chai Latte Cupcakes

My sister made cupcakes. They were amazing. I hope there’s more when I get home!

prep time: 15 minutes | cooking time: 20 minutes | makes 12

Ingredients
1 cup soy or rice milk
4 black teabags or 2 tablespoons loose black tea
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup plain or vanilla soy yogurt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
pinch of ground white or black pepper

For topping:
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg or ground mace

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 and line tin with cupcake liners. In a small saucepan heat soymilk till almost boiling, add tea bags, cover and remove from heat. Let sit for 10 minutes.When ready to use stir teabags and thoroughly squeeze to insure as much tea is dissolved in milk as possible.

In a large bowl wisk together oil, yogurt, sugar, vanilla and tea mixture until all yogurt lumps disappear. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, and pepper into wet ingredients. Mix until large lumps disappear; some small lumps are okay. Fill tins full and bake about 20 to 22 minutes until a sharp knife inserted comes out clean.

Make sure cupcakes are completely cooled before adding topping, or the sugar will melt and not look pretty or powdery.

To assemble, sift confectioners sugar over cooled cupcakes first, then mix cocoa, cinnamon, and nutmeg together and sift onto each cupcake. Enjoy!

from Post Punk Kitchen: http://www.theppk.com

My coworkers are annoying

One of the women I work with laughs at EVERYTHING. Everything you say is funny, everything you do is funny, everything she says is funny, everything on TV is funny.

It’s gotten annoying to the point that another coworker has asked me repeatedly to punch her in the back of the head because “you’re both girls…you’re allowed to.” I suppose those are the rules, but I kinda like my job and I’m pretty sure that would get my fired however satisfying it would be.

I just don’t understand how every sentence deserves a laugh. “I got Wendy’s for lunch today” – so funny! “You made a typo” fucking hilarious!!!

While writing this I took a tally of how many times she laughed: 6:58pm to 7:05 – 14 times

Unnecessary!!

11 Weeks

I was reading a blog yesterday about sustaining a relationship when you don’t see each other.

B comes home tomorrow after an 11 week tour. I saw him for six days; four when I flew out to the east coast and two when the tour came through Detroit. I’m really damn proud of us for making it work.

Constant text messaging, aim conversations, and late-night phone calls (even when I answer at 4am and can’t form a cohesive sentence) are what holds us together. Never underestimate the power of a dirty text message.

Also me coming to grips with the fact that being upset or angry about not seeing him changes nothing, it only makes it more difficult for both of us. So I have become very accepting of the situation. Plus…I get flowers more than any girl I know!

Now I’m getting a little teary-eyed thinking about how lucky I am, so I’m going to quit typing while I’m ahead.