Walkin' Around Buyin' Stuff

Today is the one year anniversary of getting my tattoo.

Bisque is in LA for a film premiere.

Chicago was predicted to be above fifty degrees.

All this is to say I hatched a plot.

I laced up my new flower tennies and dug a sundress out of my summer suitcase.

This bakery had the highest Yelp reviews.

I asked for a Pop-Tart.

There was only one flavor (peach) left for the day.

The last time I ate a peach anything

was the second to last time I saw my cousin alive,

and it was bad too. A watery orange hand pie.

But, yes, I did come all this way.

I didn't like the cafe.

There was a fluffy boy at the register who listed every single thing in the bakery case.

In a Rainman-esque way.

Even though my previous sentence was, "I'd like a Pop-Tart."

I sat down, made notes in my planner, and took a bite.

The pastry was just chewy enough.

It tasted like brown butter.

No canned peaches.

Real deal, simmered slow.

But the place still creeped me out.

Maybe I should have gone to the second best Yelp bakery.

I packed up my journal and walked another half mile in the opposite direction.

This place was hidden in an alley.

There were no tables or chairs.

There were five Pop-Tart options, so I chose cherry with chocolate icing.

I found a sunny patch of grass to dine on, but I became distracted.

There are possibilities today!

I'm still a chubby wren delicately hopping along.

My pay is meager. My schedule too full.

But right now, it's Friday afternoon, and I have nothing to be.

I went to a barber for a trim.

I can afford this today, and so, I afforded.

The number 8 bus was due to arrive in 9 minutes.

I pulled up my grey hood and ate the pastry after all.

When I saw the CVS in the bus window, I pulled the cord.

Cashews on sale, a birthday card. and a new eye shadow.

Swim with the tide, and buy when it's time to buy.

Man Crush Sunday

Shortly after PixieGate 2014.

This was a sunny Sunday in February. I came home from my weekend girl's getaway with Bex. My hair did not. "I'm already used to it," he said. We hopped on our bikes and pedaled downhill to the student-run theatre. The show was luke warm, but we sat in the back row tittering much like those judgey eagles in the Muppets.

"I have so much homework to do," I said, "but I also want Taco Bell." And so we pedaled down the lazy streets of AZ for crunchwraps. We laughed our nachos off, especially after a homeless man asked to borrow my cell phone and then wiped the screen, like I'm the scumbag. I mean.

We traveled through the windy suburbia-oasis. Stopped at the cross section of our homes. Kissed goodbye thirty-seven times. Took this photo. I sang home alone, papers waiting. At my front door I looked at my phone. It was a photo of the sunset and excitement for a new day together.

Short Hair, Do Care

Been almost three weeks since I got my pixie cut. As my roommate said, "I feel like all liberal artistic women into gender equality have the short haircut at some point, so it was only a matter of time." If so, at least I am going through this rite of passage now when I am young and wandery and can look sort of like I got my head stuck in a sheep-shearer and its w/e.

Running is awesome. My head feels so light, there's no rat tail absorbing sweat and hitting my back. The shower after is divine. I feel like one complete person. No weeping willow vines. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I'm like, "Hey, this is okay. I kinda look like Anne Hathaway in Les Mis" and then I remember she was a street urchin who died of venereal disease. I dunno, guys.

I put on makeup a lot more. I have been wearing earrings every day. I grasp these bits of womanhood tightly. "You like a boy from behind," someone tells me, and I do feel flushed. Even though looking like a boy should be as much of a false insult as "playing like a girl." I get pizza with Shells, who also has a pixie, and I'm pretty sure our waitress thinks it's a date. Which also isn't inherently supposed to be an insult (but it's a little jarring). When I went on a real date this week, I felt a little deflated not being able to do anything with my hair. It is what it is now. Freeing, limiting.

Yesterday morning I went to the tiny hip grocery store for a cucumber, strawberries, and hummus. It was 8:30. I was in pajamas. (It's Spring Break.) As the dude checked me out he said

DUDE: Nice hair.
ME: Thanks.
DUDE: How do you like it?
ME: I don't love it. It's fine. This is the shortest it's been.
DUDE: I admire your guts.
ME: It's hard to have short hair. Which is a stupid thing because it's just a hair cut.
DUDE: A woman's hair represents so much in our society.

I mean, tell me something I don't know, dude. Mainly, I try not to think about it too much. Because it is just hair and it will grow back and it's all very vain in the first place. But thoughts are thoughts. Better to ruminate a little than suppress a lot.

Trefoil and chocolate chai ice cream in Virginia.

Haircut (Cute without the E, Cut from the Team...Okay, Going to Light Myself on Fire for That Ref Sry, Guyz)

1. I have previously had problems with stress-cutting my hair.
2. I have no talent for hair styling, so it's not a cute problem.
3. Please reference any photo from the year I transferred high schools.
4. If you have none, take a picture of me you do have, and then add a little boink of hair sticking straight up in the back.
5. When I moved to the desert, it was time to have hair I could style like a grad student and instructor. It was time to grow my hair out for Locks of Love.
6. It took two years, but it was finally long enough to cut this month.
7. I was very scared. I loved my locks of love.
8. But, summer is hot, and I will be spending some weeks in the forest and lakes of Michigan. Long hair is a sand trap.
9. Locks of Love is a semi-lame insitution. This I learned from an article in Forbes sent to me by Bisque.
10. So. Exactly two weeks ago, I chopped off eight inches of my mane and put it in the mail to Pantene Beautiful Lengths.
11. I feel less put together with short hair. Younger. Goober-y. And I don't think I'm making it up that people treat me differently? Now that I write that, yes, it sounds made up.
12. Regardless of if I like it or not, my hair is what it is. It's lighter and freer and easier to maintain. I know it's not exactly volunteer work to just put your unwanted fur in a bag and send it through the USPS, but I do feel good. Right before I sat down in the beautician's seat, I almost called it all off. I gulped. I remembered people I love who have been taken by disease. And I relaxed. Little actions matter.

Cut off all of your hair.
Did you flinch, did you care?
Did he look, did he stop and stare
at your brand new hair?
Local boy, local news.
Power lines, hangin' boots.
Firemen in their trucks cut loose
a local boy's shoes.
Cadillac, cadillac.
Businessmen dressed in slacks.
I'm gonna buy one for us when I get back--
a big cadillac.