Highly Probably Outcome

So, I am feeling restless and adventurous and like I want to take a risk. My personal life doesn't really afford much in the way of adventure or risk-taking right now. Writing blog posts late on a Tuesday night seems to be about as crazy as it gets. Not that I'm really complaining - stability is a good thing. However, something needs to change. Which means I have been seriously toying with the idea of chopping my hair. It is really only chin length right now, so by chop I mean a few more inches. I have had it very short before, but not for quite some time. So I would like your opinions. Or at least hoping that if it is a really bad idea a voice of sanity will reach through the internets and virtually slap some sense into me. But first I should show you what I am thinking.

Above is the old standby of hair risk I have never quite been brave enough to demand. I have tried once or twice and been convinced by stylists that perhaps I should go with something slightly different, i.e. not so bold, short, or made for a face like Gwyneth Paltrow's. I understand their hesitancy because I obviously have a very different face, but they needn't have feared any retribution on my part if I ended up not liking it. Hair grows, I don't care that much, it is just hair, etc. Then I watched an Audrey Hepburn movie called How to Steal a Million which is worth watching just for a yummy, young Peter O'Toole and Hepburn's Givenchy wardrobe. But it also made me realize I really want to cut my hair.

I am a bit obsessed with her hair right here. I don't have an Audrey Hepburn face either, so I'm sure my stylist would balk, but I really do adore the short, faux-beehiveness of it all. Am I crazy? Here are some other angles:

Any opinions? I won't be able to make an appointment for a few days, so feel free to let me know what you think, dear readers. Although, it is a highly probably outcome. And if you want to see the hair in action, How to Steal a Million is streaming on Netflix.

Edited to Add: This is the current state of my hair. Just thought that might help with the opinion-making.

The Wishlist

When I was in Utah several weeks ago, the lovel ZB asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I really had no reply. I've spent a lot of time lately focusing on what needs to be done and haven't thought much about what I want. Plus, all my dreams came true when The Accidental Housewife and Mr. Big gave me a plane ticket and free room and board for a week in CA. What more could a girl want? Well, I did some thinking and here is my birthday wishlist. Not that I expect anything, but since my brother Mime has proved that if you tell the universe what you want, sometimes it listens. Especially to him. (For those of you who don't know Mime personally, he has the luck of the Irish. Even as a kid, he ALWAYS won stuff. Today is no different, as he walks into The Store That Shall Not Be Named and wins a Nintendo Wii and finds internships that pay $16.90/hour). So this wishlist is mostly for the universe and represents no implication that I in anyway expect something from you lovely readers, because I would be completely mortified if anybody took it that way.

The Wishlist:

• The Office Season 3 DVDs
• A nice, reliable watch that goes with everything. Something like this only, you know, affordable.
• I realize this is completely contrary to this experience we call life, but I would really like to know that I have a secure future. I would like to know that I will be able to progress toward a real career, rather than be stuck in a series of dead-end, menial jobs that get me nowhere.
  
• Mary Kay Satin Lips lip balm. This is the best lip balm ever and it lasts and lasts. I love it.
• an iPod. I have a the iPod Shuffle, which is great for workouts etc., but not so much for creating a portable music collection. In black, of course.
• I would like to have friends that lived in the same zip code as I. All my bestest friends live two or three states away and it is turning me into an internet junkie.
  
• One of those iTunes cards. I'm afraid that if I just went searching on iTunes with my debit card, I would bankrupt myself shortly. It would be good to go crazy, within a limit. Also, it would make me much more discerning.
• North & South, both the DVD and the book. I'm totally obsessed with the story now.
• Someone to flirt with. Preferrably tall, dark, and British.
• The Suit from Banana Republic.
• My secret trust fund. I know it is out there somewhere. It would be a perfect birthday gift.
• One of these to go about town in. I'm sure it would help with the London withdrawls I go through this time each year.

There you have it, dear readers. The universe can start working on this list post-haste. And you all should start making your own lists to submit to the universe. If my brother can do it, so can we!

Add It To The Wishlist

Last night I watched the Masterpiece Theatre presentation of Jane Eyre on PBS. Even though there were differences from the book and it wasn't a strict interpretation, I highly recommend all you Bronte lovers check out the second installment next Sunday at 8pm on PBS. And I really have to try and NOT order the DVD until I have an actual paycheck.

Lucky Seven

So, Walking Fine Art tagged me and I decided, for once in my life, to participate. So here are 49 things you may or may not know about me:

7 Things I Want to Do Before I Die
1. Travel the world
2. Build my dream house
3. Write a novel and have it published
4. Live in a foreign country
5. Get out of debt – and stay out
6. Be able to write with my left hand as well as I do with my right.
7. Get LASIK surgery

7 Things I Cannot Do
1. Eat anything that came from a cow
2. Handle spiders
3. Visit a Holocaust museum
4. Play an instrument
5. Wear orange
6. Give up dark chocolate
7. Tell my right from my left

7 Things That Attracted Me to George Clooney*
*I know it is supposed to be ‘My Spouse’ but I’m single and George is practically perfect in my book.
1. Um, have you seen him?
2. The mischeivious twinkle in his eyes that never disappears.
3. He spearheaded the Sept. 11th charity telethon and was also active with those put on for the 2005 Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina victims.
4. He refused to let Bill O’Reilly bully him and forced O’Reilly to put his money and his fame where his mouth was.
5. Really, check out Ocean’s 11. Yum.
6. He puts his money where his mouth is and finances/produces/directs etc. projects he believes in.
7. He and his father recently toured the Sudan on a fact-finding trip without Hollywood trappings in order to educate people on the horrors happening there of which America seems largely unaware.

7 Things I Often Say
1. S_______ S______, this is Scully. (Telephone greeting at work, I say it so often, I occasionally slip and say it when I’m at home)
2. That’s just crazy talk. (Usually said in my head in response to someone’s idea/request/demand at work. When I’m in a good mood. What I say when I’m in a bad mood would totally lower your opinion of me)
3. I need a nap.
4. Where’s my Secret Trust Fund!?! (One long-held fantasy, second only to George Clooney, involves some heretofore unknown relative leaving me a magnificently large inheritance)
5. Idiot! (Usually shouted at one of the many wretched drivers on the freeway, any time I see anyone on Fox News, and any time I hear someone from the Bush Administration speak about the war, the environment, the economy, national security, the global community, themselves, etc.)
6. No cheese.
7. What? (Because I have drifted off into FantasyLand and missed whatever just happened)

7 Books I Love
1. A Room With A View by E.M. Forster
2. Persuasion by Jane Austen (Well, pretty much anything by JA, but this is my fave)
3. Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt
4. About A Boy by Nick Hornby
5. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
6. Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger
7. The Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde

7 Movies I Could Watch Over and Over
1. Charade
2. Rat Race
3. What’s Up Doc
4. Pride & Prejudice (with the caveat that I fast forward through any scene involving Mrs. Bennett.)
5. The Sting (Yummy Paul Newman, plus I always forget who knows what so it is always an adventure)
6. To Catch A Thief
7. Singin’ In The Rain

7 People I Would Like to Hear From
1. Esperanza
2. Miss Parker
3. CherBear
4. Katie
5. SJ
6. Panini (I know you have left the blogging world for a bit, but I’d still like to hear your answers)
7. My Mom (who doesn’t technically have a blog, but I’d still like to see her answers)

Just Call Me Veruca

I have never been a patient person. Most especially when there is no time frame or end-date for what I want. An open-ended promise or goal drives me insane because I want it NOW! When I was little, my parents promised me that we could get a dog once they had bought a house. Well, we moved into the house in September and there was still no dog by the beginning of October, so I took things into my own hands. I knew, even at the young age of six, that nagging and whining would not hurry the process at all, but rather make the parents less inclined. I had already promised all the requisite things, like taking care of the dog, feeding the dog, cleaning up after the dog etc. So I had to come up with something genius. And my devious six year-old brain did.

I found a small piece of wood, probably a small part of a shingle, and tied a white string to it. Then, I convinced my three year-old little brother that if we were ever going to get a dog, he would have to drag the wood-on-a-string creation around pretending it was a dog. Within a week or two, my parents had become so concerned with my brother’s mental health that we had a dog. Just in time for my birthday.

The problem now is that the things I want are much more expensive and grandiose. Also, I’m a (fairly) self-sufficient adult who can no longer psychologically manipulate her little brother nor her parents. At least not in good conscience. I can’t force my brother to drag around a piece of wood pretending it is his iPod, although the mental image of my 23 year-old brother attaching headphones to a piece of wood and carrying it around is just too amusing for words.

So, the issue remains. I want it NOW! It being different things at different times. But if I haven’t learned that instant gratification is unfulfilling in my past 27 years, I doubt it is a lesson I’ll learn anytime soon. Any advice?

Blame it on Barbie

I want to buy a house. I can’t afford to buy a house, but I want to. Additionally, I don’t want to buy one in my current state of residence. I can’t stand the winters here. This change-of-location requirement for ownership just reinforces the fact that I can’t afford to buy a house. Especially not my dream house.

I have been designing and redesigning my dream house for over a decade. In junior high and high school I was sure I wanted to become an architect and would spend random hours with a stack of graph paper drafting designs for my dream house. Since I graduated from high school, secure in the knowledge that architecture wasn’t for me, I have been mentally drafting designs for my dream house. It has seen many incarnations, but the current one is a variation on the Craftsman cottage, with a lot of large windows, beautiful, simple woodwork and two stories. It is located somewhere temperate near an ocean. Either coast is acceptable. I also have a mental design for the interior, complete with memorized paint chips, catalogued furniture options from IKEA, Pottery Barn, and any number of items found in various editions of InStyle HOME magazine. If I had the time or space, I would start a house scrapbook, with pictures, paint chips, cutouts, fabric swatches etc. But I probably shouldn’t feed the obsession.

Part of the problem is I’m tired of living in someone else’s space. I want a space of my own where I can put the overhead lighting where I want, where I can install sconces if I want, or attached shelving. I’m lucky in that my apartment lease allows me to paint, as long as I return it to its pristine and boring white before I move out. But it just isn’t the same. I want a place to settle, to call home, not just a place I live for the moment, where I have to re-evaluate if I want to stay there once a year after which they will raise my rent payment. I want a home to call my own, not just an address.