Seeking carbs

What’s awesome about this week: I’ve been walking into my kitchen, picking up pieces of bread and eating them. Also chicken alfredo, rice noodles and Costco cookies. And soon I go to Iowa for a real down-homey Thanksgiving!

What’s awesome about last week: I did fit into Saturday night’s dress.

It was the funnest date night ever! Don’t anyone bother telling me about the ways I may have embarrassed myself in the hours following this photo.

Devastated

Every once in awhile, you find something that gives you a sense of wholeness.

Before that one thing, you don’t even know how drab your existence is. You go from day to day thinking, “This is as good as it gets.” And it’s fine.

But in retrospect, you were enacting a tragedy of opportunity wasted.

Then, by some force of coincidence or fate, you feel an unusual sense of daring at the very same moment that you stumble upon a risk that is just attractive enough to take.

A friend once told me, “You don’t fall in love. You throw yourself into it.” And that’s really how miracles happen. You throw yourself into the possibility that the best of life can’t be realized in your comfort zone. You abandon the safe road. Per aspera ad astra.

Suddenly, you understand what you’ve been missing.

You wake up every morning next to this prize, the reward for your courage. You open your eyes, and there it is next to you. It gives you such optimism. Such confidence. You look in the mirror and feel smarter and prettier than you ever felt before. You tell jokes to strangers at parties.

And you have this foolish trust that it will never break.

With that trust, the celebration diminishes. You just get used to believing it will always be there. You don’t even notice that it’s getting weaker and weaker. You get a little careless. You don’t treasure it like you should.

You can hardly believe your eyes when it snaps.

You can’t even see the pieces.

The first morning is the worst. You wake up like you have for so long, expecting to reach over and hold what was so beloved.

All that’s there is disappointment. The absence of good.

You try to remember how you were content before. Before your leapt in the hope that you could have something that always seemed to be for … I don’t know, other people.

Now that it’s wrecked, you realize that you always knew those happy days would end. Some of us aren’t built for “forever.” It doesn’t matter how hard you try.

You feel like an insignificant bug, born to be squashed.

Until you can afford to replace your first pair of hipster glasses, you kind of look like one, too.

Bug face.

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This untoothy grin makes me look like an idiot

Salt Lake City is a smile-at-strangers kind of city.

That is, it’s not really a city city.

We’re just so spread out. Downtown feels more like a small town’s main street. There is very little bustle. In most places there are so few people that pretending you don’t notice them seems more fake than acknowledging them with a fake smile.

I’m fine with this. After the fake smiles are exchanged, it doesn’t even feel fake anymore. Now we officially like each other, I think.

But there are degrees of smiles that show degrees of effort, and some people wear them better than others. Here are some examples, in descending order of enthusiasm:

1. Broad, toothy grin + upward head nod + “Hey.” (Yes, people actually do this for strangers on the otherwise empty corners of Salt Lake City)

2. Broad grin + upward head nod

3. Broad grin

4. Not-really-grin-because-the-lips-actually-turn-down-a-little-but-the-eyes-squint-up-so-as-to-indicate-a-smile.

5. Closed-mouth smile + minimal eye-squinting. This is below Number Four because of the muscular effort Four requires.

6. Half-mouth smile, like a wink without the wink + strong eye contact.

7. Closed-mouth smile + moderate eye-squinting. This is at the bottom because it really does look fake. But, still, we officially like each other.

I was at the doctors office the other day and saw a receptionist approaching in the hall. She gave me a Number Five, which I reciprocated. She then looked down and passed me. All was well. Official liking bestowed.

Then I saw my reflection in a window.

I looked freaking dotty. Like, I don’t know, Raggedy Ann on nitrous oxide.

How many strangers have I Number Fived in this life? Who all has seen this display? In what company have I spilled this dingbattiness like a party foul at the duchess’ banquet? What corners now whisper tales of The Girl Who Tried To Be Nice But Frightened All Who Passed Her?

Oh, well.

There’s nothing to do now but spend some time practicing in the mirror and hope that everyone else saw me as I saw them: well-intentioned phonies who officially liked me at first.

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Goddamn vanity

So, I love my new red hair.

But the haircut was a problem. It took more than a half hour with the straightener to achieve what you saw in the pictures or anything else that didn’t go directly into a ponytail.

So this weekend I set out to tame the shagginess.

This would be the 6th stylist I’ve gone to since 2007, the last time I had a haircut I liked. I keep asking for the same thing I got back then: a slightly grown-out bob with razorcut layers. Either they don’t like the word “razorcut” or they don’t like the word “bob.”  Basically, they refuse to do what I ask for. And that doesn’t come up until after I’m shampooed, smocked and in the chair.

It wasn’t so bad when I was paying $13 for a haircut. But the last few times ($60+), it came with the added scam of, “I can achieve the same effect this other way, so I’ll do that first and see how you like it.” Of course, I see the fruits of their strategy only after they’ve professionally styled it. I have no idea this “effect” will necessitate a Greco-Roman wrestling match with my hair back at home.

The magical strategy this weekend was “thinning shears.” The stylist thinned away until I was more or less left with a Kentucky Mudflap.

So I asked to shorten it up. Fine. But then the stylist kept on thinning in proportion to the new length.

About 80 percent of my newly-dyed locks ended up on the floor.

Now, after $200, my pretty red hair is decidedly easy to style. In a stringy, chemo-patient sort of way.

Normally I’d be cool. It’ll grow back, and I can get it fixed then.

Those were the $13 days.

Now I’m just terrified to pay yet another person shitloads of money to ruin my exorbitantly expensive hair.

**********

(Let me pre-empt your tips: No, I don’t have any pictures of myself with the haircut I liked. No, I’ve never seen a picture of anyone else with the haircut I liked. No, I don’t know anyone whose haircut I want for myself.

And here’s another thing: Why, in the haircut picture books, do they ONLY show hyperstyled, runway hairdos? Would it be so hard to show pictures of hair a normal person would actually wear to work?

Christ.

Oh, and to be fair, I wasn’t assertive enough with the second-to-last stylist and asked for the shorter front pieces, which was a big mistake.)

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A big change

So, there I was.

Sitting around.

Contemplating life.

Life is … whatever!

Mostly fun.

Then something changed.

All of a sudden, I became …

… a serious person.

Intense.

Nah, man! S’OK!

Just a little nervous. Never had orange gunk in my eyebrows before.

The backstory

Here’s the deal.

I used to have GORGEOUS hair. Mostly because I did nothing to it. No drying, no curling, no chemicals, no nothing. Nature girl, uh-huh!

Then I graduated and went to China to become a teacher. Having no experience, I relied on my whole Rapunzel thing to win the students’ respect.

They were totally impressed.

Wherever I went, children asked to touch my yellow hair. Huang toufa! I was the goddamn Disney princess of Zhenjiang.

Then it started falling out.

Like, by the handful. In the shower.

That happened to other foreigners over there, too. Maybe it was the food. Maybe it was the pollution. Maybe it was the gods telling me to get a life. Anyway, it got so stringy, I couldn’t keep it.

Snip.

Then it grew back ashen.

I was inconsolable.

Until now.

Randi The Hair Dyer assures me that my personality will change. She says I’ll become more strong-willed, and people will make room for me because of my hair.

Look out, world.