me, without my flat iron. (also, apparently without a top.) "it's the humidity!"
there’s no two ways about it. it was simply…gigantic. to the point where i wondered out loud how holly could love me, a girl with such enormous hair. [holly, perhaps the most non-judgemental person i’ve ever come across in my entire life when it comes to someone’s looks, only laughs and shakes her head at this. it’s truly only once in a while when she makes a Medusa comment–um, yeah, that’s the mythical greek goddess/monster (?) who had curly, scary snake hair (as in: real live snakes; see photo above. most representations of said mythical bad hair lady are scary so i found a kind of hott one). and to be fair, i actually made the first crack to her about it years ago (actually i think my brother made that crack back in the 80s??!), so she was following my lead.]
the size of my hair was due in no small part to the official-non-official start of summer: memorial day. the baltimore/dc area is renowned for its humidity. and the heat starts early here. being new homeowners, we have to get our air conditioning unit checked (i think you have to get it checked every two years? and this is our third summer in our once-crackhouse) and our good ol hvac (heating/ventilation/air-conditioning) company hasn’t called us back yet, so we’re relying on the meager breezes coming thru our rowhouse windows and ceiling fans to cool us down and um, yeah. it’s not working.
so not only did i not straighten my hair this long wkend [why bother? it was just us two and we were doing homeowner/maintenance stuff all weekend. plus that’s why *hats* were created and i do love me some hats! (i’m wearing my fave in my “about jessica” bio pic)] but i sweated to the oldies all wkend long. meaning: i glanced at our digital thermostat numerous times (ok, every time i passed it) and it read, at its highest…. (gulp)….87 degrees. (silence) i know. so i tried covering my huge hair up with bandanas (this, holly as well as the girls in my book club will tell you, only makes me look like i’m in a “latina gang,” of which there are probably at least a couple in our neighborhood. my perpetual frosty lipstick only adds to the effect), did the tried-and-true-big-sunglasses-casually-pushing-big-hair-back move, headbands, even a discarded t-shirt sleeve (we make our own cool punkrock tshirts in our household 😉 ) but nothing worked. instead, i guess i sort of embraced its hugeness over the holiday. and i am a stronger person b/c of this.
while our a-c may not be on at this time, there are loads of ppl in our neighborhood that don’t have a-c at all, which leads to some interesting daytime, and, unfortunately, nighttime, stoop/street activity. (the sort that makes it downright hard to sleep with the windows open at night, which we are doing out of necessity these days) goodness gracious, i don’t even know where to start. it’s all blending together….was the naked old man hanging out his second-floor window this past weekend or some recent weeknight?? (he told us he just got off a spaceship. he’s a drunk, but a nice one. and no, i’m not lying. you can’t make this sh*t up!) i couldn’t even tell you, i don’t even remember. but i’m going to think about it and get back to all of you later.
lunch at 11:30 