Of Heat and Hair

I've been standing at the kitchen window looking out onto the creek behind my house. It looks incredibly cold. But looks are deceiving. It's 65 degrees here, a veritable heat wave.

I don't know whether to be happy about this or not. When Christmas season arrives and it gets into December, I want snow. I get so excited with the first "real" snowfall, not those useless flurries like we had on Thanksgiving. I mean, real, wet flakes peppering down and making sure there's no green sprigs visible on the front lawn. I love the term "peppering down." Ms Stennie told me, last year I think it was, that seeing as how it was snow, the correct term should be "salting down."

But anyway, it's not salting or peppering or anything else. Rain is the only precipitation we're seeing here.

And that should be making me happy, as cold-natured as I've become lately. Seems I just can't get warm enough, except for those flashes of fire that strike me totally unexpectedly lately and turn me into a very unpleasant person to be around.

Saturday night, driving the 45 or so minutes from B'burg to N'rows for the band concert, I was in Mr M's car and the heat was rumbling through the floor and dash vents. It was blowing hot on my face, blowing so hard I could feel my face turning red and my eyes drying out. Still, it was wonderful. I felt like I was sitting in the summer sun.

My closest buddies, my nearest and dearest, are kind of poking fun at me for this. They're blaming my lack of therm, so to speak, on my decreased poundage. And they may be right, I don't know. All I know is that I'm wondering, if it turns out to be a cold one, how I'm going to make it through the winter this year.

Speaking of which, things in the dennette have come to a crisis point. As you may recall, the little side room, where my computer and lately my clarinet and music are, is woefully short on heat. I have been, for the last 3 years, attributing this to the fact that there's only one heating vent in the room, and it's high on the wall at the opposite end of the room, facing in a really dumb position.

I'd made up my mind last week to get a small space heater for the room because I can't stay in there for more than 30 or so minutes unless I'm in coat, booties, and possibly blanket when the weather turns. (Ever try playing the clarinet in a blanket?) Then the day of the night I went out shopping, I discovered something - the vent on the dennette wall is the only one at the Poderosa with a lever on it. It turns off and on!

So I didn't go for the space heater while shopping that night, only to get home, start fooling around with the vent lever, and discover that whether it's on or off, there is no - no, none, nada, zilch, zippo, zowie, nothing - heat coming out of that vent. It's just what we call in the heating biz "fucking broken," and it's no wonder I've been so damn cold in that room; I've not been sitting there with the heat coming out in a dumb position, I've been sitting in there with no heat whatsoever.

Therefore, again, I should be happy of our little heat wave this week. Now I can float a while before having to buy a heater.

And while we're on the topic of various and sundry crisis points, how about my hair?

I'd lulled myself into somewhat of a delusional state that my hair was getting better. It wasn't coming out in handfuls anymore, and by switching from my normal hair goop to a new hair goop ("Frizz Eaze" is the new hair goop), I was even losing the dreaded Brillo Effect my hair had been taking on. Oh, sure, it was still thin, but I had some hope. Then the smoothness seemed to be slowly dying away, and the Brillo-y feel seemed to be creeping back in.

So Saturday I tried something radical. A brush.

I got out of the shower and slathered the new goop on my soaking wet hair (as per the instructions). Then when it was time to get ready, I took a brush and a hair dryer - two tools I haven't lifted in years, I guess - and started brushing and drying, brushing and drying. Two wondrous things happened: 1) I noticed very little hair in the brush after all those strokes, and 2) I ended up with some very straight, if thin, hair.

I liked it. It wasn't exactly me, but sometimes we need something that's not exactly us. It was wearable as was or with a headband run through it, and so I picked up my cases, and my hair, and left for B'burg.

After we got back from the band concert I was washing my hands when I noticed my reflection in the mirror; my hair looked dirty and was laying close to my head. I mentioned it to Mr M later, how this new style didn't hold very well. That's when he told me my new hairstyle was ugly. Well, he wasn't quite that blunt about it. Quite that blunt. I think it came more in line of he didn't like it.

Goodbye, self confidence!

Anyway, yesterday and today I've gone back to the old method, hair goop on wet hair, and let it air dry to its naturally curly state. I look a bit like Kramer.

I wonder if Santa brings wigs.

Betland's Olympic Update:
*Tonight's BOU was going to be a visual. A picture of Sherman wishing everyone a Happy Hanukkah. However, since he seems to have lost his dreidl, the picture might have to wait.
*Tonight's episode of "The Amazing Race" had a jewel of a line: "Every time Don throws up, I catch a fish."