And you thought the Swamp Thing was scary!

I love my stylist. Love, love. I can only afford to go see him a couple times a year, but he does wonders to my hair. (He just found out today that he’s one of five people out of the province to be nominated for hair stylist of the year.)



Today was no different. After my two hours at the salon, I definitely didn’t feel like going to the gym and sweating it all off.

I look amazing! Well, at least I feel like I do. I treated myself to going to the mall and buying a couple of the things I’ve been putting off lately (like new gym shoes, yay).

I just want to go out and celebrate and do something fun. But unfortunately it’s only a Tuesday.

That, and I’m supposed to have papers graded by tomorrow!

Please note my new head of red red hair.

“AT SEVENTEEN”

By Janis Ian

I learned the truth at seventeen

That love was meant for beauty queens

And high school girls with clear skinned smiles

Who married young and then retired

The valentines I never knew

The Friday night charades of youth

Were spent on one more beautiful

At seventeen I learned the truth…

And those of us with ravaged faces

Lacking in the social graces

Desperately remained at home

Inventing lovers on the phone

Who called to say “come dance with me”

And murmured vague obscenities

It isn’t all it seems at seventeen…

A brown eyed girl in hand me downs

Whose name I never could pronounce

Said: “Pity please the ones who serve

They only get what they deserve”

The rich relationed hometown queen

Marries into what she needs

With a guarantee of company

And haven for the elderly…

So remember those who win the game

Lose the love they sought to gain

In debitures of quality and dubious integrity

Their small-town eyes will gape at you

In dull surprise when payment due

Exceeds accounts received at seventeen…

To those of us who knew the pain

Of valentines that never came

And those whose names were never called

When choosing sides for basketball

It was long ago and far away

the world was younger than today

when dreams were all they gave for free

to ugly duckling girls like me…

We all play the game, and when we dare

We cheat ourselves at solitaire

Inventing lovers on the phone

Repenting other lives unknown

That call and say: “Come on, dance with me”

And murmur vague obscenities

At ugly girls like me, at seventeen…

Return of the King trailer. (it’s for quicktime and it has Chinese subtitles, but who wants to wait until it’s officially released? Watch it now, instead.)

I could spend the rest of this very intelligent post speaking about the wonders of Tolkien’s storylines and prose — but instead I’d rather dwell on how incredibly hot Viggo Mortensen is as Aragorn. As I told Nat earlier tonight, I’m not that much of a swooner, but for him I’d make exceptions.

Hubba-hubba.

EDIT: Okay, here’s one sans subtitles, in case you’re a purist in your piracy viewings.

Yet another EDIT: The trailer finally made it to the Quicktime site. Definitely watch this higher-quality version.

This had to be the best weekend of Fall to head out to the country.

I love Autumn. It’s a season that I couldn’t ever appreciate when I lived in Savannah. The trees never changed color there. Either they were green and full, or dead and empty.

But here it’s a completely different story.

Not only is there a very real winter season to experience, but there’s a pretty incredible Autumn that precedes it. As we travelled up north to the farm (it was right outside of Nipawin, SK — the furthest North I’ve ever been), more and more trees appeared, each of them with its own bright explosion of color.

Here’s a few of the pictures I took this weekend. I only wish there was a way that I could capture the hugeness of the prairie sky — it is one of the most breathtaking things you can experience.

My roommate’s grandparents are awesome. It was nice to be adopted into a family, even if it was only for a weekend.

Apparently my blog as been weighed, measured, and found wanting.

http://grrrlmeetsworld.blogspot.com/

Dom, this is a blog that follows the standard blogging formula almost suspiciously closely. It reminds me of the blog about the porn store clerk, which I was sure was written by a professional writer who’d studied blog form and got its glib, punchy triviality down pat. The phrase ‘hugging the shore’ comes to mind. This writer flits inoffensively over the surface of her academic life, never being exactly boring, but never showing any genuine originality or passion either. I’d have to give it a 4, and recommend the author to take a peek at this blog for an example of something better written and more original.

– Momus, September 28th, 2003.

If I actually cared about what a group of pretenious belly-button gazers found entertaining and/or intelligent, I would be upset by what this Momus has to say.

But I don’t.

Thing to remember is — I write this weblog mainly for ME. I don’t structure my posts in some witty banter that can be analyzed and appreciated by an audience. I write about the people, things, and events in my life that are important to me.

Along the way I’ve made some pretty incredible friends, from around the country & world, who don’t mind listening in on my ramblings. This weblog also works as a way for my family to keep up with what’s going on with me, 2500+ miles away.

The moment I start seriously caring about what someone like that thinks is the moment that this weblog will stop.

So, in the words of that famous philosopher: If you don’t like what you see, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

(nyah, nyah)

This is sorta what I’ll be doing,
‘cept I won’t be looking nearly as good. Minor catastrophe avoided today. I packed a salad for lunch, and the Greek salad dressing leaked all over my bag.

It coulda landed on my students’ essays — fortunately it only got on the anthology book. Now I’ll be able to smell my lunch for the rest of the year!

I’ll be gone the rest of the weekend — doing chores out in the country on a farm.

I’m city grrrl enough that this prospect actually excites me!

This guy really reminds me of Gary Larson, back in his funnier days.