it's been a year!! (part 2)

this time I'm not talking about living together!!How does it feel, a year later? Fantastic.

what I do

The play that I am currently working on is about two homeless people on a subway platform. They are visited by the Angel of Death. We need magic on stage. Making this magic happen has been stressing me out a little. I've dreamed big and now I need to make it happen.

This weekend is the last weekend before we load the set into the theater. Today and tomorrow we are building and painting the set. That is, a carpenter is building it and I am painting it. Monday we go into the theater, Tuesday we play with lights and cues and such, Wednesday we have a dress rehearsal with an audience, and Thursday we open. A lot has to happen between now and Monday. Our carpenter, aka our TD, is building the set in a storage space in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I went out there today to paint it. There was a mix up in the lumber order and a lot hasn't been built yet. In any case, I spent some very pleasant hours on the roof of the storage space, priming the walls that had been built and enjoying the view. The weather was also perfect and windy. I felt a little like I was on a boat (except that I was on a rooftop).
I'll spend the day there tomorrow, making those walls look like subway walls. Wish me luck!

taking care

I feel like I've just been complaining about my health (and other things) on here, but it's not that bad. And it's going to get better.

I spoke to my doctor yesterday and we discussed the fact that if my headaches seem to be stress related I should start thinking more about managing my stress. We talked about me possibly seeing an acupuncturist. I'm not sure if my insurance covers it, but it might be a plan, and that makes me feel better. Already, I feel more under control. I'm trying to breathe deeply, relax my shoulders and jaw. I'm drinking lots of herbal tea, something called "calm" and I made myself a little heating pad with some left over fabric, rice and lavender. I put it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then lay it over my head or shoulders or neck and the stress just melts away. Well, maybe not completely, but I it does help relieve tension.

This weekend will be a busy one, which is too bad since Sunday is our first anniversary. (The good part is that my set will be done or at least in progress, which should alleviate some of the stress I'm feeling). I'm bracing for the chaos and trying not to let it paralyze me. It does feel overwhelming. In other news, poor Dinah has been so neglected that I didn't notice that she had a big sore on her ass until Tuesday night. Christopher had to take her to the vet on Wednesday. The vet was a little shocked by how bad it was and now Dinah is on antibiotics. We have to bring her back next week so the vet can reexamine her; Dinah wouldn't let her near the sore as it was. So now, twice a day, I get to give Dinah a little squirt of medicine down her throat. She is becoming more savvy about how to avoid it and gags every time I give it to her. To reward her bravery, I give her a treat after each dose, and she's started running to the kitchen after the medicine to get it. Now that she's feeling better, she's gotten much perkier which means she's back to her demanding, clingy, princessy self. Gotta love the fuzzball.

Ups and Downs

I've just got another week to go with this play I'm designing. There's a lot of planning the hours on certain days, coupled with wondering how I'll occupy myself on other days: hurry up and wait.

I saw the neurologist yesterday and he was rather dismissive of my headaches, accounting them to stress. I'm to cut down on the medication he gave me before (which has alleviated them for the past two weeks), so now the headaches are back. The pain just grinds me down. I don't know what to do. In other unhappy news, Christopher's sweater doesn't fit him very well. It seems to be just the wrong shape, or perhaps it's too big. It's hard to tell in the state it's in. This afternoon I was revving up to rip out the sleeves and reknit them smaller. I just had him put the sweater on again and it looks more like the problem is that there's just tons of fabric right under the sleeve, in the body of the sweater. I'm taking a big breath and have decided to continue onwards, sew on the buttons, block in and then see what needs to be done. Maybe it will all come together.Strangely, I get a lot of joy about thinking about life after the show opens. It's not been an unhappy process, but it is making me really anxious. Is it that I need more work to keep me occupied, so there's less time to worry about details? Or is it that I'm not cut out to work in theater?

Perspectives

After yesterday's post, I received a wonderful email from my mother which basically said that knitting is not an obsession or escape: it is (at least in my case) an art, and that I should give it that sort of respect. Hearing that from her was a huge relief, a permission of sorts to continue exploring something that has been giving me a lot of pleasure (though I do have this nagging guilt about it).

In any case, yes. I love crafts. I love making things, whether that be a sweater or a meal or a model for a set. I love trying out new combinations and seeing what happens. I love experimenting, seeing what I'm capable of creating. This afternoon I settled down with my sewing machine and made two little blankets for a play that I'm designing. They are supposed to be little fantasy blankets, little bits of comfort to two homeless people from the angel of death. Yesterday I bought some silk and today I just sewed it up. It was very satisfying and easy and now I have some scraps that I feel like I should make something with. Our apartment is a little less deluxe though, so I'm not sure what the scraps would be good for.

I also took a walk this afternoon. Christopher went to a writing group and I was done sewing, so I took advantage of the end of the daylight and get out. It was such a beautiful day! Crisp, sunny, perfect fall weather. I wandered through Prospect Park and just took in everything. I felt a little like I was in that M. Night Shayamalan American Express commercial, the one where he sees meaning in every little gesture. That was what my walk was like. Completely refreshing and invigorating (since I didn't bring my camera I'll share a photo of the park in March, which of course is very different.) My lesson today: that I need to remember to give myself permission to reflect and also do things that I enjoy. When I do, I am a more centered person. The trick is to give myself a few hours to do something for me, whether that be a walk, some time with my sketchbook or the sewing machine.

my state of mind

My beloved Park Slope Food Coop, which I can wax poetic about for hours, is driving me crazy. I joined the Coop in May 2004 and was told then that debit card machines were in the works, that within a few months we'd be able to pay with debit cards. This turned out to be a big lie, and so for the next 3 years I continued to pay for my groceries with cash.

Until now. On October 1, they installed a new cash register/debit card system, which you think would just make everything easier. But alas no. The two times that I have shopped since October 1, both of the cash registers where I've been checking out have frozen and I've had to stand there for 15-20 minutes while someone fixed it. That's two for two. Added to my disillusionment is that on Wednesday, when I did my squad leader shift, two of the other squad leaders (who were responsible for making sure that everything runs smoothly with the cash registers and the cashiers, whereas I'm responsible for making sure the shelves are stocked) did not show up. And I was left to try to pick up the pieces on the shopping floor. It was horrible.

I am not happy with the Coop and have actually decided that it would probably be better to use Fresh Direct for the next month until they've sorted out their new checkout system.

In any case, this is probably bothering me more because of a general anxiety I've been carrying with me for the past month, anxiety which is contributing to frequent headaches that I'm now in the process of being tested for. I've had an MRI. I'm scheduled for an ENG. I sort of feel like a week at a spa or doing yoga would fix my health problems, that they're really just stress-related. (and of course the headaches and appointments only make me more stressed) How can I convince my insurance that acupuncture would be cheaper for them than a brain scan? Or maybe they can send me to a weekend yoga retreat (also probably cheaper than an MRI).
To deal with my sense that nothing is under control, I've been, -yes, you've guessed it!- knitting like mad. Christopher's stocking is coming along (did I mention that it's going to be huge!?) and I've also now started a sweater for myself. Stitch Therapy. If only it really took away my stress; I feel like the knitting is more of a happy compulsion, perhaps an addiction...

the way things work

What I didn't mention in my last post was that I knit a shawl for Julie as a going away present. I think of it more as a security blanket, something to comfort her while she's away. Something to remind her of her family. Being me, I chose a rather complicated lace pattern for the shawl, something from Victorian Lace Today. It involved a knitted-on border (my first) and intricate blocking. The whole thing was a learning experience and I'm rather proud at having finished it in about a month. My point is that I was knitting like crazy to finish it in time and, well, now I can't stop. To add to my new knitting addiction (which up till this point was confined to my subway commute) there is a brand new knitting networking site: Ravelry. I know I've mentioned this site before. The best I can explain it is that it's like Facebook for knitters. I have a profile where I can post photos of what I've knit, the yarns I have, keep track of what needles I need and what knitting books are on my shelf. I addition, I can see other people who have knit the same sweater as me, as well as their notes on it and what yarn they used. And then I can see what other projects that person has knit. I've discovered that I tend to be drawn to patterns by a specific designer and, with one click of a button, I can see what else she has designed. And if any of those strike my fancy, I can add them to my queue of projects to knit in the future. You might see how this can get out of hand fairly quickly.

But it's also incredibly inspirational. There are some amazing knitters out there. And there are some beautiful yarns. And some people even design their own projects (!). I feel like I am understanding more and more about this craft, how yarns work, different techniques. I'm finding it all rather exciting.

And so. My next project is: A Christmas Stocking for Christopher. I saw this pattern last fall but didn't really know where to begin with knitting it. It's a Fair Isle pattern, which means that the pattern is made up of different colors. I've only ever made one other Fair Isle object, a pair of mittens that took me several months to finish.) The other hitch was wondering if it should match my Christmas stocking, which my mother knit for me when I was a baby. It is red and an incredible lace pattern, nothing like Fair Isle.

But now, since I can't stop knitting, I don't care. I'm just going to knit this damn Fair Isle stocking, it's going to be beautiful even though no, it won't match my stocking. So, on Thursday I just happened to stop in my local yarn store to see if there was anything for me to use. Not really-- most of the yarn there is a little too heavy. But the owner persuaded me to buy something and I'm really excited to see how it works out. Here is a swatch I knit yesterday: And then today -- get this!-- I redesigned part of the pattern. On the original design there is a zig-zag motif with checks that just wasn't doing it for me, so I changed it to a zig-zag motif with little snowflakes.
Oh! I am so proud!! (Now i just have to knit the thing. I have 2 months...)

remembering things past

I feel like the older I get, the more I think about my past. My cousin Julie is in the Army reserves and is being sent to Afghanistan this fall; I believe that she started active duty on Monday and so we gave her one last hurrah at a party on Saturday. It was bittersweet-- too many people to get a real conversation in and yet I felt a real longing to connect with her before she goes.

Of all of my cousins, Julie is closest to me in age. She is a year and a half older, and when we were kids we played together like good friends. For some reason we would always hang out on the lavender carpeted steps at our grandmother's house, or else we'd mix cocktails of different sodas (Sprite and root beer?) from our grandmother's bar. At some point, sometime around 1985, our grandmother took us both on a cruise to Bermuda. Julie and I would wander around the ship on our own and apparently -at least according to her - I was a terrible troublemaker. I can't help wishing I remembered these things with more clarity. All I remember was that as a child I felt unbelievably alive when I was with Julie. We climbed trees, we explored the cruise ship. And yet this also seems so recent, so much a part of who I am now. Sometimes I feel like I could just reach back and be there.

But now Julie is a mother and a nurse and a soldier, and I'm a wife and a New Yorker and a set designer. But I feel like we still could connect the way we did when we were twelve, if only we had the time and the freedom and the space.

it has been a year!

Today is an anniversary of sorts. No, not our wedding anniversary, though that's coming up too. A year ago today, Christopher and I moved in together.

Can you believe it?? (Dinah sure couldn't! Here are some photos of the place taken last Oct 1) In this day and age, it's totally old fashioned of us not to have lived together until right before the wedding. It makes us look really conservative and hesitant, which was not the case at all. Most of you know our main reason: we were both homeowners and we had to sell and then buy before we could live together. Yes, yes, there are ways around that. But instead of moving once into a rental and settling there and then moving again when we sold and bought, we moved just once.

But oh-my-goodness! it was a year ago! We have lived together an entire year and it didn't seem like a big deal at all. Everyone says that the first year - of marriage, of co-habitation - is the toughest. It didn't seem so bad. Yes, there have been a few of those, "why don't you pick up after yourself?" moments, but neither of us are too wrapped up in judging the other person's habits, so that was not an issue.
Our move: it was completely, horribly stressful. Two days before we closed on this apartment, we closed on the sales of our individual apartments, with a condition that we could live in them for two more days. This caused stress on many fronts, as Christopher's buyer's lawyer neglected to inform his buyer of this, so until a few days beforehand she was planning to move in right after closing. (Ack!) The other stress was that a week before closing on our new apartment, the realtor told us that the owners had decided that they weren't going to move for another month or two, that they were planning to rent our new apartment from us until they could move. In the meantime, we would just have to find someplace temporary to live (in a week? three weeks before our wedding? You've got to be kidding me!)
These turned out to be minor blips. The sellers found a place to live and our lawyer told Christopher's seller that she couldn't move in yet, end of story.
In any case, a year ago today, at this very moment, our movers were still unpacking our stuff from their truck and moving it upstairs. Christopher and I were moving boxes and furniture into the appropriate rooms, taking stock of what we had, wondering where to begin. Looking at the photos, you can see that we've come a long way, both in unpacking (though there are a few straggler boxes still hanging around) and renovating the apartment.

poco a poco

I had a long list of things to do this weekend, and practically none of them got done. I feel like this is a huge weakness of mine: starting an organization project and then sticking through it to the end. The problem is that I start organizing, carry one thing out of the room that belongs somewhere else and then I get distracted on the computer or with my knitting or whatever else. Very little gets accomplished.

What I did do this weekend:

-I visited with my cousin and checked out the condo she's made an offer on in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. The apartment is yet to be built, but it's pretty sweet. (Imagine glass and brick modern cottage and garden here.)-I saw two movies! We never see movies, but recently we've decided to remedy that and are proud new members of Netflix. So on Friday we watched The Bourne Identity and last night we had a date night and saw Eastern Promises. Eastern Promises was certainly haunting; the plot was rather confusing though and it could have been a lot fuller.

-Christopher helped me photograph my knitting projects (or start to) and I've posted them on this fabulous new knitting site called Ravelry. I was on the waiting list from July 5 until I finally got in last week. It's sort of like Facebook for knitting. I'm not sure where to start describing it but it's completely addictive to someone like me. -We saw a series of one-act plays this afternoon and then played squash for 45 minutes. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but for the past 6 weeks or so I've had episodes of dizzyness and headaches. This past week has been especially bad, but for some reason the squash playing took away my headache (which I've had since Wednesday). And it was tons of fun.

-I organized my studio a wee bit and painted my model for a presentation I have tomorrow. I'd been putting that off but it actually went really quickly and will make a huge difference. Anyway, back to my point: I organized the studio a little bit. It's becoming a space where I like to work and where it's not hard to find things. I still need to sort through everything that's on the shelves on the right (and attach the shelves to the wall so they don't tip over some day), but it's beginning to feel right. And Christopher's side of the room is also coming together, but that's another post, another day.

radiating

What a busy day!

Among other things, we got a new radiator, courtesy of our super and his sidekick, Luis. They arrived around 2pm lugging the little thing (it's only 18" by 21" or so, and very narrow, but still very heavy) and set to work immediately dismantling the old one.

I'm not sure I've explained our radiator situation. Because so many apartment buildings were built so long ago in New York, many of us still use steam heat. Apparently this is a problem unique to New York. (It's really hard to find modern-looking steam radiators, or even someone who knows how to service them.) My first experience with them was in college, in our 19th Century dorms. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about though, the hissing, gurgling, banging pipes. Anyway, each room in our apartment has a radiator, but like everything else around here, the size and placement of them seems fairly arbitrary.

The main problem, we discovered last winter, was the radiator in the den. The room is roughly 12'x12', and the radiator was about 4' long and 9" wide. It ran under our window, preventing us from pushing our sofa up against the window (which is where we've placed it). There were about 2' on the other side of the pipe, in the corner, where we could stick a smaller radiator. And today we made that happen. (I'm not sure I'm making sense. Hopefully the photos will help.)

Here is what it looked like this spring, when we were painting:This is a photo of the work today, with the old radiator ready to be taken away: And here is our new radiator!! It still needs to be painted, but isn't it cute! (I feel like I should name it!) And the den feels so much bigger now that the sofa is up against the wall.

UPDATE: I have one radiator name suggestion from my father: Thumper. Anyone else?

abstractions

I am currently working on a design for a set that takes place in a subway station in New York. But it's not that simple. The play is about the dreams of 2 homeless people who live on the platform, and the set transforms as their imaginations shift. It's a lot of fun to design and very different from what I've done in the past.

Perhaps because my daily life involves the subway, at least 2 platforms per day, I have been looking very closely at what is around me.

Here are two unusual things I've seen in the past 24 hours:

A beet that was shaped like a heart. It looks even weirder on the cutting board.

And a Philadelphia SEPTA trolley beached in a parking lot in Brooklyn. Seeing this is a sort of blast from the past, as they were all over the place when I was growing up.

Maybe our lives are chock full of things like this, but we forget to notice them.

argh is for ebay

I love ebay. I really do. We bought our dining chairs there, with no problem. I've bought books, CDs, props, whatever there. I've only had one problem in the past, when a seller didn't sell me the flashlight I won. So then I lost $10.

We have been gearing up to tile our kitchen backsplash and (why not?) ordered our tile from a seller there. I felt like the design we chose was risky, something that not everyone would like. But we plan to stay in this apartment for a while and hopefully the tile would age with us. Here is what we decided on:We ordered 40 sheets of it. All in all, it wasn't that expensive (that's why we bought it on ebay) but we were excited and my father is actually coming up this weekend to help us get the tiling started.

You've probably guessed where I'm going with this. The tile arrived today. It isn't what we ordered. More like, it probably is what we ordered, but their photograph doesn't match what we received. Here's what we got: What do we do now? I wouldn't mind so much if the tile we received looked good in our kitchen. But it doesn't. The color nearly matches the wood of our counter top, and as Christopher says, it looks like fake wood. I've contacted the seller and hope that we can get this sorted out without getting ebay and Paypal involved. Argh. Argh.

Anyone want 40 square feet of caramel tile? (And honestly, does anyone think that these photos look alike? Is this just a problem of viewing them on different monitors or is their photograph really off?)

the internets

Something I've learned recently: I have been living in a cave when it comes to the internet.

Right now I feel like someone just opened a door and showed me where everyone has been playing. What am I talking about?

Chicklets. You thought that they were the original chewing gum, the type that is square and hard on the outside. But no. Chicklets are these little icons that are sometimes posted on blogs so you can link to them. I actually can't explain it to you, because I am still having trouble grasping what they are. Clearly I'm not alone (just follow this link.)

Facebook. I thought it was for college students to send each other dumb messages, but apparently it's the next new hot spot for networking. And who knew that networking was now on the internet? I thought I had to go to bars and talk to weird people I didn't know, but I can actually do it from the safety of my computer! ha!

Stumbleupon. On that link you may notice that there are chicklets for Stumbleupon. (See how I'm already using my new vocabulary?) Actually, I just downloaded a new version of Firefox and they suggested that I add on Stumbleupon. Not knowing what I was adding, I pressed "Yes" and now I am stumbling all across the internet. It is awesome. Ever wanted to waste time online and not know where to start? Stumbleupon is for you! You install it on your browser, answer a few questions about what sort of sites you like and voila! Clearly whatever answers I gave told them that I am one wacky girl (which I don't dispute), because it sends me to sites like this and this. But that's cool. I'd rather see photos of hotels made out of sewage pipes than someone's math calculations.

Lastly, though I actually discovered it first, is Flickr. I love Flickr. I've been using it since around the time that I started this blog. It's a site where you can upload and share your photos. You can keep certain pictures private, but others can be made public so other people can see them. I find that it's a fantastic resource for me as a designer. Right now I'm working on a play about homelessness and it's so easy to find thousands of very detailed pictures of exactly that. And then you can join groups-- for example I am a member of a Flickr group that is knitting shawls from a lace book that I own. So I can see what other people's projects are like, or if someone has made the same one that I'm making. It's very cool.

Anyway, I have to go work on my design.

Tell me what secrets you know about the internet! I feel like I need to catch up!

a video

Here's something new: I have uploaded a video. I don't actually have a video camera, but my digital has a low quality video option, and I used it to make a little video of the action outside. Unfortunately the sound isn't so great, but you can at least see some of the action.



It's not as crowded as it usually is, apparently. Near the barriers, in the full sun, I stood next to a wonderful and chatty 75 year old Jamaican woman (in the video you can see the card she was fanning herself with; I wish I'd gotten a picture of her). We watched the parade together and she filled me in on what was going on. I learned all about her trips to the Caribbean, her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, her garden, her diabetes. She even talked a little about the recent integration of this neighborhood, which made me a little nervous. Clearly it made her uncomfortable too but before we changed the subject we agreed that living together in harmony was better than living apart, that we can all learn from each other.

Anyway, I'm not planning to go out again. The music comes in though; there's no escaping the bass...

(A post script: in researching the Parade I stumbled across this blog, which has some beautiful photos of it and of J'Ouvert. If you are interested in the parade I recommend checking it out.)

The Parade

This may be a long day of many posts. I'm really amazed by this celebration. I'm also really tired by the celebration. What I didn't realize was that J'Ouvert, the overnight kick off to the parade today, feeds their bands from our street. And that the bands play on their way to J'Ouvert. Which meant that at 4 am, in amongst the stop and go traffic outside our window, were steel bands and their handlers. And those bands, which were playing merrily along, went as slowly as the traffic. If it hadn't been 4am, I might have thought it was pretty darn cool. But it was 4am, and then it was 5am and it quieted down a little until 7am, when this straggler band came through, complete with a crowd of dancers. Yes, that's a bus trying to pass the group. It's now 11:30 and the parade has still not started. I went out and checked out the scene. There are tons of vendors and people are setting up their spots for the best view. Our building has hired off-duty police to keep the crowds out of the building (this has been a problem in the past) and there are barricades outside. I feel like I should buy some ox tail or something, but I'm not hungry and it feels sort of arbitrary what one should try.

This guy was frying whole fish.

a little advice?

I don't usually ask for advice, but here I am. We want to finish our kitchen. I haven't posted much about it, since it always seems to be in progress, but we need to motivate and get this done. This is what it looks like now.
They're not the best photos but you can see what our cabinets look like. The next step is to tile the back splash. We're currently looking at these tiles on ebay. All are in our price range, but we're not 100% sure which direction to go. Bright or Dark? Elegant or fun?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
I know it's really just a matter of personal taste, and I'm not sure how closely these tiles match the photos. And if we don't choose one of these, can you suggest something else? How does one choose?

a holiday weekend!

Look who is home!!
Don't you think he looks relaxed? He's already gotten a hair cut since this photo was taken; no looking overgrown for the first day of class.

This weekend will be a busy one. Not only because Christopher and I want to spend tons of time together, but also because our apartment is smack dab in the middle of a huge festival, probably the biggest parade you've never heard of: The West Indian-American Day Parade. The Wikipedia link says that 3.5 million people come, which is about 3 times what I've heard. But still, 1 million people is a lot! And they'll literally be on our doorstep. Not only that, but the festivities have already begun. This morning was the Junior Carnival, a parade of children. And tonight is a contest of steel drum bands, right down the street. Sunday night, or really Monday morning, is J'Ouvert. This is a street festival/parade that starts at the library at 2am and lasts until about 7:30am. Yes, it's in the middle of the night. (I guess I know where I'll be if I can't sleep!)

In any case, Monday's parade will be major, with bands and crowds and vendors. The food is supposed to be fantastic, mostly homemade by local groups. Just this afternoon I saw this man. I assume he was prepping food for Monday.

small victories

There are just a few days until Christopher returns, and I've started cleaning up in anticipation. I had the day off today and hoped to have the place spic and span by tonight, but alas, it is still fairly dusty.

Instead of cleaning, I ended up doing a few home improvement things that I've been putting off: put a door stop behind our bedroom door, hung a few more photos in our hallway and I put knobs on some of the cabinets in our kitchen. The knobs are fairly major. We've had knobs on maybe half of the cabinets up till now. The problem is that the doors don't all line up and they require tons of tweaking, and I want to get the tweaking done before attaching the knobs.
(yes, I know it's not perfect, but it was such a pain!)

So today I pulled out the drill and adjusted here and there and managed to attach seven new knobs.And now it is so easy to get to my spice drawer!! ah!! Why didn't I do this sooner?

haircuts

Several months ago, while watching Grey's Anatomy, Christopher told me that he didn't like Meredith Grey's hair. Actually, he specifically told me not to get her haircut. I'm not sure what he dislikes about her hair. I think it looks pretty good. I think she looks pretty good. And the thing is, my hair is long and so is hers. Hers is curly and I wish mine were curly. There's not that big a jump from my hairstyle to hers (except for a lot of styling and perhaps some products, and maybe more frequent haircuts).

So. I am generally pretty laid back about my hair. I don't style it, I wash it every few days, sometimes I forget to brush it. I get it cut when I'm desperate, which is probably about 2 or 3 times a year. A guy who I work with is pursuing a career as a hairdresser, so for the past year (yes, even before the wedding!) I went to his beauty school and got my hair done during his class.

He finished his program in May and since then has been working as an apprentice at a high end salon in the Flat Iron district. Part of his apprenticeship is that he has to bring 2 models in every Monday and do a cut. But not just any cut, it's the cut determined by the stylist in charge. It's like an assignment. Last week he told me that he had to find someone to do long layers on, which is more or less the cut I've had for the past 10 years. Boring, I know. Anyway, I jumped at the chance.

It was quite an experience. The salon is nice. Really nice. The guy who owns the salon does a lot of magazine shoots; there are photos of the do he did for Angelina Jolie on the wall. You can book a haircut with him for $950. Anyway, this place is high end, so I decided to just let my coworker and his mentor/teacher figure out what would look good on me.

The cut I got is a departure from what I've had for the past 10 years, which is probably a good thing. But whoa. It is really different! My hair is fairly short in the front, up to about my ear. These are supposed to be bangs, but swept away bangs. And then in the back it's all layered. I have to keep telling myself that I do not have a mullet.

Part of me thinks that I just have to get used to it. I will learn to like it, and when I wash it it will be less flat and more like what I'm used to. But I'm damn scared of these swept away bangs. Please tell me that it doesn't look like a mullet! and maybe it's ok if I look a tiny bit like Meredith Grey, even if Christopher will faint when he sees me.

not much

I have been meaning to blog all week but haven't had much to say. Christopher gets back on Friday, which will change things (and hopefully wake me up from this introverted state).

Since I have so little to say, I'll show you my new necklace, which I bought today at The Market in Nolita. Those of you who know me may be surprised, as I rarely buy jewelry. But this just leapt out at me. When I wear it I can feel like an Egyptian queen!!