Frivolity

I'm not going to address the most obvious topic of the day because I can't think of anything to say that hasn't been said more eloquently elsewhere.

So, on to more frivolous things as life goes on ...

After spending four days struggling over one chapter, it finally struck me that the part that was giving me fits because I couldn't seem to make it more interesting wasn't actually essential to the plot, and the things that were being discussed could be inserted elsewhere in a more action-oriented scene. So I moved that whole scene over to my "cuts" file and moved on. Then I got through four more chapters in one day. If I'm good, I may get this round finished today. The next round will be more finessing and polishing, weaving in some emotional undercurrents and whatever subplots pop up in these last four chapters. I think I'll take the rest of this week "off" to catch up on stuff, brainstorm the things I want to add and how I'll add them, and maybe also do a little organizing and cleaning. Next week I can kick back into high gear. My goal is to finish by the end of the month, which seems more than doable right now.

The problem with getting recipes from watching TV cooking shows is that the amounts given are often kind of vague. That makes it harder to make a smaller amount the first time you try the recipe, until you get a sense of how it all comes together. As a result, I have enough of this one spaghetti dish to feed a small country. I've already eaten four servings of it, and the bowl is still full. It's practically a loaves-and-fishes thing. I almost feel like I could take this bowl to a soup kitchen, and they'd be able to feed hundreds without running out. Good thing it's good, and it's a good thing I don't have a problem with food ruts and don't mind eating the same thing a few days in a row.

I got my hair done last week in preparation for all the fall events, and it turns out I now have a celebrity hairstylist! My stylist has started being hired to do hair for various press junkets and local celebrity appearances. She got to do the hair for an Access Hollywood reporter who was in town to interview a Dallas Cowboy, and she got to do Morgan Fairchild's hair for a press event to promote her new show. That makes me feel all chick litty to know I'm going to a "celebrity" stylist. Actually, my whole relationship with this stylist (which may be the longest I've ever gone to one stylist) is like something out of a book. More than three years ago, I was getting desperate with my hair. I hadn't found anyone I really liked to do it, so I'd just given up. As a result, I had hair past my waist, which is pretty scary with very curly hair. There was an article in Glamour about styling curly hair, and one of the experts quoted owned a salon in Dallas. The salon turned out to be in the general neighborhood where my church is, so one afternoon when I had to be there for an event, I stopped by the salon to talk to the owner. It turned out that she was in desperate need for a model for a styling clinic she was having the next week. She was bringing in some big-shot New York stylist to train her staff, and since I had this mass of waist-length hair with no style at all to it, it was like a blank canvas.

So, I had this $200 haircut guy giving me a haircut while lecturing the other stylists. I learned a lot about the psychology behind the whole business, which was interesting. I also had a lot of people's hands in my hair. Best of all, the big-shot expert validated my belief that my hair works better long. He told me never to let it get cut above my shoulders. Sigh. After all those years I'd been told to keep it short "so the weight wouldn't pull the curl out of it" and as a result looked like a Brillo pad. The girl who's my stylist now was the one he picked out of the crew to work on me, and I've been with her ever since. That salon also hit celebrity status when it was the centerpiece of that "Sheer Dallas" reality series that was on TLC last year. My stylist moved to a different place down the street that's quieter and has less drama, so I missed all that, though I was surprised when I watched the show to find out that the guy I'd thought was a downtrodden temp working the front desk one time I was there was actually the salon owner's boyfriend, who proposed to her during that show. Boy, do I feel sorry for that guy, but he obviously knew what he was getting into.

Okay, I've discussed food and hair. How's that for frivolity? I guess I could have worked in some discussion of shoes, but I don't have anything to say on that topic at the moment, other than that I'm pondering the leopard print ballerina flats at Target. I've never been big on animal prints, but that seems like a way I might be able to deal with the concept, and they'd look interesting with jeans or black slacks. I'm pretty much a sucker for ballerina flats in any way, shape or form. Maybe when I go to Target tomorrow to get my The Office season 2 DVDs I'll check them out and see if they look as cute in person as they did in the ad in the September Vogue.

Now all I'm missing for hitting the frivolity home run is makeup. Has anyone tried the mineral makeup, like Bare Essentials? LOVE IT! It's great for people like me who don't really like looking or feeling like they're wearing makeup. You just look like you're naturally that flawless. Oops! Now I've given away my secret.

There, I've now successfully upheld the American way of life today.