I've always wanted to have really long, semi-curly hair. I need the curl to help with volume around my face. Alas, my dark hair is not naturally curly and I don't have the 2+ hours every day to use a curling iron and various hair products to achieve that 'natural' look. My hair is hitting a longish stage- the stage where I pull it back into a ponytail and am done with it. I like having long hair. But sometimes it looks pretty boring and conservative.
Another thing I've always wanted to do with my hair is cut it very short. I've had short hair before, and it looks good on me with the right cut. But never very short. There is something very appealing about being able to shower in the morning and stick in some gel, muss it up, and go. But. If I cut it very short, I have to maintain it more or less. And I've had medium-short hair so much that I've been sick of it- and I'm not sure I want the pain of growing my hair out again if I don't like the short cut.
My sisters have suggested, and I've thought of this myself, that I should grow it a little longer, get a perm for the curls, and when I'm tired of it, chop it all off. Very short. I don't know. I'm not sure I want to get a perm- it seems awfully eighties. But I'm not quite ready to chop my hair to bits. But I'm getting a little tired of what I have.
In looking at hairstyles on the internet this morning I have come to one conclusion: what I probably need is a good make-up artist and a photographer to tell me how to hold my head in just the most flattering way to accentuate the positives and down-play the negatives. But, sigh. I can't afford those, yet.
Of course I could really shake things up.
I could go blond...
Which means, literally, well come. Or welcome. For the past two years my brother, Nathanael, has been serving a mission for our church in France and Switzerland. He gets in this evening and my whole family will crowd at the bottom of the escalator in the airport waiting for him.
I was a missionary myself, in France. I didn't love every minute of it. But I loved most of it: I loved France, loved what I learned and loved what I was able to teach others. I got to walk down little cobbled streets like this one, speaking French and eating pastries! And it will be funny to have Nith (as we call him) to come home speaking French.
It's an odd thing to come home to your family after two years away with minimal contact. One experiences a bit of culture shock. It's kind of a bummer that American streets don't look like that, isn't it.
When I came home, back before September 11th, those coming to pick up a missionary at the airport could wait right outside that nice tunnel one walks through after getting off the plane. I was so nervous to be home (maybe weird, but true) that I waited to get off the plane until almost everyone else had gone. Now regular people without plane tickets have to wait outside the security checkpoints, of course.
Nathanael won't have the pressure of a million people waiting to pounce the minute he gets off the plane. But he may have it worse. Now he has to come down the escalator to the baggage claim, where we will watch him descend in all his sleep deprived glory.
I can't wait.
I know that tomorrow is Super-de-duper Tuesday. If I'd thought about it earlier I would have planned a Primary Party, with red, yellow & blue decorations and treats. So, no party. But you can bring over some chips and dip and listen with me to the returns come in on NPR, if you like.
I know that if the FBI needs to find you, they will. Once I worked as a manager for a time-share resort thing. One of the guys who worked with me was a smart soon-to-be law student named Sam, who had a theory that all food could some how be classified as pizza (spaghetti: noodles/ crust, sauce/sauce or, PB Sandwich: bread/crust, PB/sauce ... and so on). A few years later I was married (hence, new last name), not working at that job and living in a different place when, indeed, the FBI called me about Sam. He had applied for some special government job or something and the FBI needed me to confirm a few things about him. Funny, huh. They actually called me twice. Let me tell you, your heart skips a beat when the man on the other end of the line tells you he's with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
I know that I have millions of words in my head waiting, just waiting to be written down, if I could only get them out. At which point, hopefully they would arrange themselves into a national best seller and rid me of my student loans.
I know that Alan Greenspan is one smart cookie. Seriously, the man is impressive. I've been reading his book, The Age of Turbulence. I'm learning a lot about economics. More than I actually learned in the economics class I took in college. But that was mostly because there was a cute boy who sat in front of me, and my best friend and I spent our time staring at him instead of listening to the professor. Actually, I just wasn't that invested (get it? hee). English was a much better major for me. (But the guy was pretty cute..)
I know that I should go to bed now. Otherwise, I will be tired and grumpy tomorrow and really, my lovely family deserves better than that. But I'll probably stay up just a little bit longer, anyway.
What do you know? I want to know.
