Campfyre Stories

… right in the middle of my goddamned forehead!

Today we’re going to talk about snakes.  No, no, not like herpetologists, but rather, like Medusa.

Princess and I were discussing this the other day and determined that Medusa was likely misunderstood.  Clash of the Titans completely misrepresented her, which you can see if you do a little research.  She wasn’t a hideous monster in all of history, rather, she was beautiful and alluring, but completely terrifying at the same time, in later stories and legends.  I’m sure we’ve all known someone like to turn you into stone with a terrible look.

But Medusa, they say, didn’t always have snakes for hair.  In the later myths, her beautiful hair was changed into snakes by Athena, when Medusa was raped in her temple (those Greek goddesses had some vicious jealous streaks).  AH HA!  Her beautiful hair.  Like mine.  Like Princess’.

Please don’t mistake this for vanity because it’s not.  I am cursed with the kind of hair that every other woman on the planet thinks that she wants.  I have had strangers come up to me in random places to tell me my hair was beautiful and was exactly what she wished she always had.

BULLSHIT!  Because, even though people look at me and see that my hair is thick, lush, wavy-to-curly, has volume, grows at a ridiculously fast pace - all those things that people dream about or wish for…  it’s not really hair, it’s snakes.  It doesn’t have a single mind of its own, it has several and, on many occasions, they all decide that they’re leaving me - in different directions.

Waking up most mornings, I am greeted by a reflection of hair that could only fit in on a cutting edge runway fashion show and even that might be pushing it.  It sticks up and out and curls on one side, while being rather flat and limp on the other.  Lazy snakes sleeping in, I trow.

The snakes CAN be tamed, but really only when they are willing to allow it.  More often it’s a matter of fixing it again and again and again and hoping that this time, it’ll so something reasonable.  Gods forbid I try to actually style my hair in a particular way…  the best I can ever hope for is putting some crap in it and it looking good for several hours with consistency.  But I don’t like to put crap in my hair.  My stylist calls it "thirsty hair" meaning that it soaks up anything that is put in it - leave-in conditioner, finishing cream, mousse, etc.  Unfortunately this results in there being weird residue in my hair for days…  not binding the hair together, oh no, it has actually SOAKED INTO the strands of hair, putting the snakes in a foul temper.  It takes about 2-3 washings (that’s sessions, not shampoos) to get all the crap truly gone from my hair. 

When people first find out that I shave the under half of my hair off on a regular basis, they are surprised, because you really can’t tell.  I say that I’ve done it because it’s too thick and, specifically, too hot in the summer, but the truth is that I do it because it means I have half as many snakes to try to deal with on a daily basis.

I am convinced that this is a lingering effect from the curse put on Medusa.  That for whatever reasons - phrasing, distraction, jealousy - Athena laid the curse more upon the "beautiful hair" than upon Medusa herself.  It’s the type of thing that Greek gods would do without thinking.  And now, centuries…  millenia, even, after their power has waned, the effects of the curse live on.  The combination of compliment-laden hair with the burden of trying to make it NOT BE SNAKES.

Today, though, despite the rain (or maybe because of, I’m not sure), my snakes are good.  They are soft and well-behaved and responsive.  Except for the one.  The one I’m fighting the urge to cut off.  The baby snake.  The curl.  In the middle of my forehead.  What, you thought I was kidding? 

I don’t have a difficult last name.  Not anymore.  When my legal name was my married name, I could understand people having a problem with it, but other than what letter it starts with, my last name is no harder to spell than banana.

I was in a meeting earlier where I was assigned a new project to work on.  This led to a 2-3 minute discussion on how to spell my last name (and, frankly, my first name is harder because I try to be unique).  This wouldn’t be funny if it weren’t for the facts that

1. 1) My name is not hard to spell
2. 2) I was on the call
3. 3) I was logged into the web meeting where my name was on display for all to see.

Banana.

It has come to my attention that I have been lax in spreading some news lately, so I should probably take the time to talk about Spawn’s impending movie.

That’s right.  The boy has gotten himself a role in a locally-produced movie for the Ed Wood Film Festival at the Spectrum Theater.  His movie is called The Lost Children of the Computer Camp and it will show around the end of September.  All the details can be found at one of the links in the paragraph.  Now I have mentioned it to most people.

Moving on to completely unrelated topics…

Can someone explain to me why couples would choose to share a single email address?   More specifically, one that is in one partner’s name?  Considering that every ISP offers multiple accounts and the web-based accounts are such that everyone can find one to make them happy, it’s by no means an issue related to money.

Is it about control?  If both people share an email address, neither one can communicate without the other knowing it?  Does this apply to cell phones as well?  I’ll tell you right now, I wouldn’t want my partner reading my email indiscriminately and I would be somewhat uncomfortable with him answering my phone without asking me first.  Not because I have anything to hide, but simply because it’s a line I don’t want to cross.

I mean, if I want to vent about my partner or, say, plan some kind of surprise, I should have the freedom to do that.  Both partners should.  Even when you’ve committed the rest of your life to another person, you shouldn’t be giving up being a person on your own.  I wonder about people like this.  Do they eavesdrop on phone calls?  Do they open each other’s private mail?  What is considered suspicious behavior and are they more prone to thinking that something is amiss?

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Lately I’ve been finding myself atop my political soapbox more and more often.  The recent 5-4 cases in the Supreme Court have been of interest to me, but also I have found, for the first time in my adult life, a presidential candidate that I actual admire and support.  I’m worried that I could easily become a political blogger and that’s not really what I want to be doing right now, so I’m more actively staying away from those hot topics as much as I can.  Unfortunately, it sometimes means staying away from the blog for stretches of time.

I’m thinking hard about what I want to do about this…  whether I should start another blog or start letting the political stuff in here or just keep trying to suppress it.  I think I need to decide by my birthday.

******

We went strawberry picking this weekend.  I love to pick my own produce at least once a year, but the two-plus hour drive was pretty extreme.  It was my mother’s insistence on organic strawberries that led us so far, but I didn’t mind the trip.  Time in the car has always been family time, since I was very young and we all had a good time.

However, I did kneel down in some smooshed strawberry while I was picking them.  In my new jeans!  Augh.  But (and I am not paid to say this) the Tide pen is a truly amazing invention.  It did bleach my jeans slightly, but better slightly white than PINK.  I was so impressed and kept raving about it to the point that Spawn told me that I could be a commercial.

I believe very strongly, though, in positive word-of-mouth.  They say that when someone is dissatisfied with a product or service, they will tell 10 people, but when they are pleased, they rarely tell anyone.  I try to tell people when I am happy with a product or service and I think it turns out that I do that more often than I complain about a specific product/service.  Seriously, though, if you’re as stain/accident/spill prone as I am (and, frankly, the 2 main culprits I deal with are coffee and blood), then you should stick one of these babies in your purse, car or whatever.

******

I need to come up with good ways to meet new people and make new friends.  I feel stagnant these days.  In talking with a friend, I came to the conclusion that I should probably join the campaign of my candidate, which should help matters some, but it’s just not going to be enough.

What’s a good way to meet new people where the relationships formed will continue beyond the boundaries of the initial context?

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I read today about James Hetfield being suspected of being a terrorist and detained in a Luton airport because of his "Taliban-like beard".  I can’t help but wonder, what does this mean for ZZ Top?  If anyone has a "Taliban-like beard" it’s those guys.

******

I have to admit, I’m dredging from the bottom of the barrel here.  It has really been a dull and uneventful couple of weeks, but I felt it necessary to blog.

And so I have.