The other day I got in a mood and wrote a post about how my neighborhood is losing it's soul. Little pieces of it's history are being erased and replaced. I complained about the gas station changing names (only because the old name is soooo great, Magic Gas!), and the new cafe owners painting over the replacement Chicken Corner chicken mural and redecorating the inside of the cafe -I still don't like the new decor, too cold.
But just after I wrote that I went out and I needed to stop for gas so ofcourse I went to Magic Gas (I will never call it anything else). I was reminded that the new guy that works there is super friendly and nice, which is actually a big improvement on the previous employee. And then while I was standing there waiting for my tank to fill up I looked across the street at the new mural on Chicken Corner and saw that it's still in progress and there's more to it than I initially remember seeing, perhaps because they've been working on it, and it's not so bad after all.
I always reserve the right to change my opinion. There's been a lot of commotion and fog in my life lately and this morning -after I cleared up a few more things with some phone calls- I realized that things are not looking so bad after all but when one or two things start looking sketchy it's easy to be disappointed in many, many more things.
I think I'll be spending this week looking more on the bright side again. It's kind of crazy when so many things are changing and so many things I feel should be changing are not, but overall it's worth the effort.

Lately I've been sleeping so hard that I feel kind of drunk when I wake up in the morning. As usual, this is accompanied by heavy dreaming and they're all weird. The other night my dream was full of animals that don't exist in real life -and some that do, I fought a wild boar that had wandered into my house.
Last night I climbed a steep wobbly "staircase" that was made of narrow boxes stacked up against the outside of a building which was halfway up a tall, steep hill I needed to get to the top of to get home. All of my "friends" had abandoned me for some juvenile reason (or rather, all of my friends had shown clear signs of betrayal if I were to stick with them so I took off on my own) and I seemed to remember the same route from a previous dream but this time it was different. The makeshift staircase was much wobblier and all the pieces of it were unattached and flimsy. I was terrified to climb it but knew I had no choice. When I finally got to the top it seemed the building had a new tenant and rather than the kind old man I remembered from the last time -who would have helped me through the window so that I could walk through his shop to continue up the hill- there was a shady guy who let me cling to the building begging for help while he stole my credit card before allowing an employee to help me through the window. Strangely I knew that ultimately I would be ok and that this was just an annoyance along my way. Sadly this is illustrative of recent developments in my real life. I seem to be dealing with some unsavory characters lately and while I know that I'm ultimately pretty "safe", I'm really ready to get these people out of my life.

Honey

So happy! This is my new hair and strangely enough it's pretty much my natural color -which hasn't been seen on my head since I was about 15. It looks a little darker in the photo than it does in real life (same is true of the red, which is why it looks cute to me in the photo below but I couldn't deal with it in real life). It's a color I've wanted to try for a while (not realizing it was my natural color), kind of a darkish honey. 

Little thing I was reminded of this week: it's important to have at least one really good friend in the world who will tell you the truth even if it's not "nice". Being "nice" is reeeeally overrated. Telling someone the truth in a way that isn't mean, that is an amazing quality that very few people possess. 

To The Next Phase!

Well I spent a week as a strawberry blonde but I'm really sad to say it just wasn't for me. The first problem is that I could never be quite sure what it looked like. When you're looking at someone else's hair it's easier to be more objective. You can look at it up close, you can look at it from a distance, and you have no personal attachment to how it feels to see it. There's something quite strange about going from looking in the mirror and recognizing yourself to looking in the mirror and not being quite sure who you're looking at. It took me all week to decide that it just wasn't the right shade for me. The photo's make it look much, much better than it seems to look in real life -big problem. So I'm taking it a few shades darker and going for an amber brown, or technically, an amber dark blonde. I've left out the ends of the underneath section since they're not around my face and therefor don't contrast with my complexion, and also because there is still something magnificent about seeing my previously super dark brown hair in shades of blonde. Just not when it's around my face. Pictures to follow.

Strawberry Blonde!

Yesterday I dyed my hair strawberry blonde (with some violet roots...). I was going for something more like a weave of peachy strawberry blonde and some muted blue red (but got tired of the whole process and haven't gotten around to adding the blue red yet). It looks good and I felt "adorable" for about thirty minutes last night after I'd finished it and dried it. I still like it this morning but just had a moment of: well this is boring, I want my dark hair back. Which has been my response nearly every time I've tried something other than brunette for the last oooooh ten years? I think it's just so comfortable..... to not make changes. I decided not to think about it and went online to to see what the news is today and came across the latest from Style Like U, an interview with Tavi Gevinson (who I love). As I was watching the video I noticed that a) she has about the same hair color right now that I just gave myself, and b) sometimes teenagers know stuff that adults have already forgotten. She was talking a lot about having unusual style and the courage to wear it and be openly yourself, basically. What I realized is that I'm not one to wear something in order to get attention. I wear what I like, it makes me feel happy. If other people like it, then yes, ofcourse that makes me feel even better. But as a kind of low key person I don't really like getting tooooo much attention, it's a fine balance. So yes, it's kind of hard for me to go from dark dark brown hair to strawberry blonde. I don't quite feel like myself yet. I'm sure that when I go outside today I will not be mobbed by strangers in the street because my hair is a new color, this is my irrational fear. Weird, yes?

PS: I tried to take a photo for this post but I always feel like a fool smiling for my computer and the alternative is the blank serious face.

I'm loving my new half red hair so much that I'm actually considering going all red! The only discouraging thing about it is the damage from bleaching so before I go any further I definitely need to find an exceptional conditioning treatment. I'm wearing this sweater right now which is a fine melange of orange pink and blue pink which I'd love to match my hair to, at least in tone. As you can see it's not even near the lightness at this point.

This morning I woke up to pouring rain, my absolute favorite weather partly because it never lasts long enough to get tired of (a couple years when it poured for weeks on end, months even, I thought I might get tired of it but never did). So I'll definitely have to get out in it after breakfast.

Alright so I DID it! My new hair looks like I have a brunette wig over red hair. My only complaint is the spot at the part that came out very orange gold but whatever, I can fix that. I also think I'll be adding some more red into the underneath/bottom. But mostly I'm quite pleased with myself. Here's a rare photo of me even though I think it's not very good as I didn't get much sleep last night and am kinda puffy today. (Also the exposure is out of whack but I can't do anything about the sun shining through my window :)

Also (obviously) my hair came out a more "natural" copper red even though I was really hoping for a muted red red that would look kind of like the pink used below. That I will have to work on for sure but all things considered I really like the color I got.