I've had a couple of really hard days in the past week. I'm tired of it. Hear that universe? I could use a really good day sometime soon. Today, though, my mom told me that she was proud of me for standing up for myself. She's never done that before, and I'm thirty. Maybe she's never seen it, or maybe this is part of my new refusal to take shit from anyone, but it felt good. Not taking shit from anyone? Well, that's a struggle these days, but what isn't. I wish I could tell you more, but that would be indiscreet.

Yesterday, my mom and I had hair appointments together. I drove and took a couple of unfortunate wrong turns (even though I have been there many times before), which stressed me out. They only hold appointments for five minutes on Saturdays, so I pretty much blew it with the misdirection. When we arrived, they said they'd make an exception, had me fill out the paperwork, and wait. And wait. And wait. I figured that I would have to wait a while, since I'd come in late. Then I began to feel like Eeyore, sure that I'd been forgotten, but afraid to push my luck by complaining. Except they had forgotten me and I should have complained after fifteen minutes instead of forty-five. I meekly asked if it would be better to reschedule and they were quite surprised. I'd been lost in the shuffle. Even though I was really looking forward to getting a haircut, I wasn't too pissed. I'd shot my bolt already freaking out about being late. Instead, I am getting a free haircut on Tuesday! All for the best. I would like something like Sienna Miller's youthful graduated bob (Jude Law, married men, and questionable reputation not included). This is several inches shorter than my current badly grown out, round layered bob. I'm tired of the Carol Brady long layer in the back and would really love a low maintenance 'do. I recently brushed my hair with a carding comb when I couldn't find my hairbrush, to give you an idea of how important coiffure is to me. This isn't too mumsy, is it? Picture it in red, with a pair of cats eye glasses.

Random observations:

* The Radiohead station on Pandora plays a lot of Coldplay and Keane. I like both of those bands, but they're a little too easy listening when I want to get a good sulk on.
* One of my college roommates and I spent an entire afternoon conversing in Radiohead lyrics.
* I am such a fiber addict that I can smell yarn through a package. Well, hand-dyed yarns, because they tend to reek of mordant. That's how you know they're fresh.
* Spiders in the bathroom freak me out, and I can't call Woody Allen to come kill them. When I was in college, I thought living in New York would be like Annie Hall and that I would go to all of the events that I read about in the New Yorker. I was sadly mistaken.
* The credits music on The West Wing is awful. How did I never notice that before having a WW marathon with my mom? Also, Alan Alda's crinkly eyed smile still makes me swoon a little. Who would have thought that crow's feet could be so appealing? I attribute this to watching a lot of MASH.
* I really hope Joan remains a regular on Mad Men. She's like a dash of paprika.

My Moo cards arrived today, just as I'd begun to despair of them ever arriving. They don't look like the picture in my previous post. The design is the same, but the colors are more muted. Probably a blessing in disguise, as I am not really a bright, neon colors person. Muted is much more my palette. The color discrepancy was a real surprise, as I have previously been very pleased with their color reproduction. Moo's photo printing is amazing, almost as good as National Geographic, which still uses a photogravure process. Other things I like about Moo: they track customer histories really well (including a welcome back card with my order), have awesome packaging, and are very distinctive. No one throws out a Moo minicard.

In other news, I am working through my procrastination list. It's been very easy to let things slide this summer, some of which has bitten me in the ass. For example, I needed new tires for my car. Four of 'em. Needed them for a while. If I had gone out and bought new tires when my mechanic told me, I would still have been able to get a free alignment at Pep Boys under the service agreement from my last one. Because I waited those extra three months, I get to pay all over again. I also won't be going back there, since they didn't tell me that my car didn't need realignment, but did the work anyway, which cost me $100. Unnecessary repairs? Screw that. In my adventures in adulthood, I learned that you always need a realignment after you get new tires. I had no idea, having only replaced one or two tires at a time before. If that had been explained to me when I picked up my car, I would have been less pissed about it pulling to the left. It was a very tiring day.

Other adult type things I have done lately: attempted stain removal (a mysteriously new pursuit), a trip to the dry cleaners (as I could not remove said stains myself), the acquisition of three new pillows, and getting all of the yarn that I need to xmas knitting early enough to be able to make all the gifts without crippling myself. Maybe that's overly optimistic, but I managed to get almost all of the yarn that I needed at the recent Malabrigo sale at Nina. Absolutely beautiful yarns to make scarves and shawls aplenty, already wound into cakes and waiting to go.

I am currently knitting a Damson shawl in Malabrigo sock, archangel colorway. My mother informs me that this type of shawl is a shetland, as it is shaped to match the slope of the neck and shoulders. She is unaware that she will be getting one as a gift in a different color. The yarn is really breathtaking in the garter stitch pattern, which almost makes the tedium of garter worthwhile. It was a darker skein, with very saturated purples. Knit up, it reminds me of one of Monet's haystacks at dusk.

This is my new card. Or it will be, when they arrive in the mail. They're held up in a British postal strike at the moment. Labor Day? No more white shoes, handbags, or exciting little packages in the mail for a while. Go fall in love with another design, or use one of your own images at Moo.com. 

I've got a lot going on, but I don't want to blog about it.  Some things I don't want to broadcast. So, I'm taking a blogging sabbatical. Watch this space for new content in the fall.

Everything is Harder for Me

Or at least, that feels like a recurrent theme. I realize that other people have it harder, but it often feels that things are unnecessarily difficult for me. For example, laundry woes. Everybody does laundry, with varying degrees of success. But there has to be drama involved if it's my laundry.
Last night, I was relaxing in my comfy recliner, knitting lazily on my CeCe cardigan (almost finished), watching the Tudors on DVD, and sipping away on a Big Gulp. I look down to discover a mysterious round stain right over my left ta-ta. Apparently, I'd set my sweaty drink down on something inky (a People magazine? A yarn catalog? Who knows.), which lovingly transferred to my shirt. I proceeded to panic. Normally, this would be a minor disaster at best. It's not as though I was wearing the Shroud of Turin. The shirt in question, a yellow t-shirt with floral and butterfly design, doesn't even look that great with my coloring. It was, however, my grandmother's, so it was upsetting to me to get an obvious stain on it.
Apparently, there are a lot of different things you can use to try to remove ink. This is what I tried: detergent. I put a ridiculous amount on to spot clean it, which didn't do anything except make a humorous amount of bubbles in the machine. Not I Love Lucy bad, but way more than normal. Next, I tried rubbing alcohol, reasoning that the alcohol is what makes hairspray work in these circumstances. Fun fumes, but no luck. Third: a paste made of baking soda and water. I found that on the internet. This might work if the ink is freshly wet, but just made me feel like I was making a failing science experiment. At this point, I decided to raid my secret stash of product for hairspray. I don't use hairspray that often, but I've got a ton of fancy product from Aveda. It smelled fancy. And it sort of worked. The ink definitely faded, but it still looks like I put down a glass of something on my chest. And I didn't, I swear. I had a couple of samples of Volumizing Tonic and Brilliant Hold, that had apparently been kicking around for a while. I can't remember the last time I used them, but a semi-solid substance that looked like cum issued forth. How absurd.
So, the shirt is soaking now, so that the stain isn't totally set in. I am determined to get it out. My google-fu tells me that Oxiclean is good at getting ink out (?). I have friends who swear by the stuff, and at this point I am desperate enough to overcome my natural distrust of anything with its own infomercial.