Miss America's
Poignant Pearl of the Week
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[heaving sigh]
People, I've changed.
It's true. And disturbing. My internal gadgetry has been altered, perhaps permanently, because of my new navigational coordinates. Most notably, my hair is thicker.
I know! Thicker should be a good thing, right? I mean, most of America, as represented by the HBO writers of HUNG, loves thicker. Thicker is something women lust for and worship, right? We are willing to pay a lot of cold, hard cash for thickness. The hair product commercials, made by experts in all real life matters, confirm that thicker is better, healthier, sexier.
Yeah, yeah.
The truth is, I already have thick hair. Thick and fine. However, the water and humidity and air particles in Central Florida make my hair practically explode with frizz and coarseness, which translates to untamed, unattractive, and, well, old.
Yes, now we're getting down to it. You know how I hate to feel old, right? A single midlifer looking for love (mostly inactively looking, but still quite available to the guy who can check off the appropriate asset boxes with nary a kinky whisper in the negative column) -- yes, moi -- cannot afford to feel old. Cuz it shows. It's like a big blaring yellow sign that says, I'm pathetic, don't come any closer. I mean, peeps, despite investing a small fortune on all my taming and smoothing hair products, I still wake up every morning and witness each hair follicle jolting its shaft to full attention and expanding up its length all the way to the tip, right before my eyes. And, incredibly, it stays that way all day.
Hey, I'm lucky to have hair at all, I know. But frankly, the staying power of uber-frizz is one of life's little cruelties. It's taken over, and makes me want to sit on the sofa all day, paralyzed and craving peanut butter crackies, hair strung up in a ponytail. Woe is me. What could possibly make me feel better?
Oh look, HUNG is on. Later, my friends. Later.
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Good people, I'm being "roasted" over at Eddie Bluelights today. I think I probably embarrassed myself, my family, and everyone who's ever known me; but since I do that regularly, it should come as no surprise. Now you have TWO things to do today (Please and thank you!). Before you head to Eddie's, check this out:
I've done it! I've conned my little sister into partaking in my addiction! What a proud moment in our history this is. You can go see her as she begins her deep descent into the dark world of blogging.
Her site is Udder Hysteria, and she's just getting underway. I'm over there today, too (as I will be from time to time), so please click on that link and head over to show Iskidadl some blogger love to help kick off her site -- and her rapid decline into Blogatory. Bwaah-ah-ah!
Along the road trip to Florida, I visited my daughter in Fort Polk, Louisiana, where she lives with her handsome hubs, an adventurous army guy. Before I could get on base, I had to present my ID, auto registration, and car insurance. Why car insurance is necessary to roll into army territory, I have no idea. I saw no tanks to accidentally run into. Anyway, I just said, "Sir, yes sir!" I am nothing if not cooperative in the face of uniforms.
Because I'd been carting around traveling paraphernalia, my wallet and ID happened to be sleeping deep in the bottom of my purse. As I was fishing for it, my cell phone rang loudly from somewhere in the same vicinity. It was a ringtone that, well, I just don't know how it got on there. Seriously. What rude person would play such an outrageously inappropriate joke on me? Frankly, if I knew who it was, I'd totally take them out of my will.
While I panicked in the ultra-quiet-you-could-hear-a-pin-drop army office, the very gruff-looking, tough-talking army guys (with loaded side arms) sitting on the other side of the desk -- who never *EVER* smile -- heard this repeatedly:
Peeps, my sister and I left last Thursday morning for Florida and made two stops in Baytown and Fort Polk to take copious photos of nieces and grandnieces and daughters that we won't see for awhile. We took our time, which was a good thing since it rained almost the entire way. Wouldn't you know it, while we drove butt naked and laughed hysterically, nobody even noticed. What's up with that, Gulf Coast Road Trip Gods? You're making me look bad! Plus I caught a chest cold.
Then came our third stop Saturday night at the Sheraton in the French Quarter. Ooo-la-la! An important note about this hotel, people (especially if you are plagued by vertigo like I didn't realize I was): the windows of the rooms on the 21st floor are carpet to ceiling, so you can stand next to it and feel like you could fall right the hell out. To your splattery death. Were these windows openable, and you didn't fall to your splattery death, you could barf onto Canal Street passersby while looking down from WAAAAY on high, which is, quite frankly, where I'm meant to hang out, gazing down on mortal peons. Am I right?
NOLA dinner was at street level and we stopped in at Huck Finn's for gumbo and related Cajun eats. Then my daughter and her precocious son showed us around, and I was both impressed and grossed out in equal measure at the spectacle that is Bourbon Street. Had I visited there in my younger days as a singleton, I would have fit right in with the other drunks and worn many shiny, beaded necklaces. Now that I'm totally tame (heh, heh, quite possibly that should be lame), I just pose with big, fat, green grenades of the plastic persuasion, while a three-year-old clings to my back, and wonder how bad it would be if I poked a hole in Mr. Rubbery Girth just to watch him blow up and sputter around the piss-stained sidewalks. And just FYI, that is the real reason people get so drunk down on Bourbon Street--it's the only way to tolerate the stinkies. That said, I was completely mesmerized by it all.
The best part of Bourbon Street? I found the treasure of a lifetime. Oh yes. People, a TREASURE! You see, 25 years ago at a Sixth Street piano bar in Austin, a tawdry pianist (really, how do people say that word without laughing?) crooned about that little-known African pygmy tribe, the Fahkawees. They ran through the plains, leaping above the tall grass to see where they were, all the while shouting, "Where the fahkawee? Where the fahkawee?" I was so impressed by their plight, I held their story close to my heart all these years. And now . . . now, I'm an official Fahkawee, thanks to a little shop on Bourbon Street.
Life is good.
More later, peeps.
