Happy Friday

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short? It has a large 's' wave to it. I never noticed it, though, until after a rather ugly permanent when I was younger.

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime? Colour-wise it's stayed basically the same-- if you hold my hair up to the hair from my first haircut, it's the same sort of chestnut. But sometimes it seems a little blonder in the highlights, and sometimes a little redder. If I'm very ill, the colour seems to leech from my hair and I'll look almost blonde. When I was younger I had all different types of hair--thick coppery ones, nearly black ones, silver. It eventually settled into a more uniform look. During my 20s I had an unfortunate period where I tried dyeing my hair to more of an auburn. One thing my hair has changed is lengths. It was usually long until my mom got tired of dealing with the tangles and then it would get chopped off to my ears. I had hair to my butt in high school but had it bobbed when I graduated, and then started this cycle of growing it out and then bobbing it whenever I graduated, got a job, etc. It's in the grow out phase now and about half-way down my back.

3. How do your normally wear your hair? Long, with the hair parted on the side (if I'm trying to look decent), down the middle if I just don't care.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like? I always wanted red, curly hair, sort of like Tori Amos. My hair has all sorts of colours in it, but overwhelmingly if you look at each individual strand it'll be dark red. Taken together, though, it comes out brown. I have actually tried to change my hair colour to the colour of mine in the sunlight. But I've never managed to get the right shade.

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened? Oh, yeah. The two worst were 1) The time at 16 that I decided to cut my hair and got upset with one bit that was refusing to cooperate so I cut it down really close; it grew out to a random 1 1/2 inches just in time for my first college ID picture two months later. 2) My mom gave me the second of two permanents. I like the idea of curly hair. I hate the actuality, at least on me, and at least with a perm. I cut my hair down to a very short 1/2 inch or so and everyone said I looked like a 'dyke'. When you have very short hair and a very big body, you pretty much look like a Weeble (remember, Weebles wobble but they don't fall down?)

Quick note regarding Thursday--I actually got a lot done so I didn't get a chance to blog:

I:

Received a muffin from a grateful patron

Discovered said patron, who is often annoying, volunteers with AIDS Volunteers of Lexington once a week by taking a woman living with AIDS out on Fridays and spending time with her. Damn. She's annoying because she's one of those people who seems just too sweet to be for real. I think maybe she's just a decent person.

Discovered that a very sweet girl at work (who gives me rides home sometimes) is dealing with cancer in her family (a 20-year-old brother with not much chance given) and one of our co-workers is putting together a benefit garage sale to help with the expenses. Her mom's on unpaid leave to be with her brother, she let her parents have her car to get back to St Jude's and back and now their car, the one she was driving, has died. Plus she has a 4 year old to take care of. I'm going to make signs for the garage sale and donate some things, maybe help out running it if they need me. I suggested a few places we could have it (not sure we can use the hospital grounds). I also suggested she talk to Dwana, who on top of being a social worker has gone through something similar. What an awful thing to be dealing with. One thing I'll say about my workplace--they do tend to be supportive and come together when someone's in need. We have two employees and one volunteer that I know of dealing with breast cancer at the moment, too.

Filled several requests, including one where I snuck onto a website (they're in process of passwording their abstracts but haven't finished yet, so if you type in names of doctors, you'll eventually get in) to get an abstract for someone. I'm not sure of the ethics of that, but it's not my fault they set it up so any random weirdo could go in a set up an account for a doctor without any proof of who he is.

Went to an interesting inservice on pain amplification syndromes in children. I found out, among other things, that children presenting with fibromyalgia or refexive neurovascular dystrophy often are overachievers who have a parent with whom they are way too enmeshed (mother and daughter may dress alike, or see each others as 'sisters'). Hmmm...well, that certainly rings true from my childhood, and I have fibromyalgia. In kids the way you treat it, regardless of whether the trigger is injury, illness, or psychology, is to train the body through agressive physical therapy to react normally again. This is hell for the kids (and the parents who watch, I'm sure), but then they're doing cartwheels fairly soon when they can't even put a sock on at first. Interesting. I wonder how that translates to adults?

Caught up on professional reading and did some administrative planning. Things are a little slow (this is the three-week period almost everyone goes on vacation, and our patient load is low).

Read the newspaper's spotlight on Harry Potter. Oooohh. We're down to less than 24 hours!

Came home, did laundry (yay, clean clothes!), went for a swim. Despite the fact that it was 70 degrees outside, it felt great. Last year I reacted very badly to the pool chemicals--they actually thought I had pinkeye and kept me off work; then when it happened again when I swam we figured out that was the problem. So at the end of last season I bought some goggles. So here I am, no glasses, in the water, trying to adjust the damn goggles to fit my head (I think I should have gone up a size larger) and wondering if the big rubber band thing is actually latex (which I shouldn't be wearing), when I snap the rubber band right into my eye. Ouch! Then in determination I shove the things onto my head until it feels like my eyes are bugging out. Remember that scene in X-Men when Senator Kelly pushes his head in between the bars? Now imaging a large woman in a blue swimsuit being attacked by a pair of goggles and then trying to go for a Powerpuff Girls kind of look. Right. I took the damn things back off and went ahead and just swam. So far, so good.

Thought about watching the movie Gods and Monsters with Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser, but decided I didn't really want to sit down and watch anything tonight. Hopefully I'll be able to catch another showing (it was on Encore).

Talked to a friend for awhile on the phone. She hasn't been feeling well lately and was checking in.

Played on Yahoo!Games for just a bit. By the way, that Bookworm game finally ended yesterday, at just under 6 million points. Wow.

Put some finishing touches on a Mage character for Cthulhu. Was a little freaked out because I decided her family had been killed in an earthquake and then found out there really was a quake at the right time period in India, on a religious holiday dedicated to Durga, who is also worshipped in the form of Kali as Shanti (peace). The name I had already chosen for the character? Shanti. It's a little freaky when real life imitates art. Started thinking about the Mummy character. Haven't gotten very far on that one but will probably have it together by Sunday.

Have now lost all feeling in my hands due to a warm fuzzy cat pressing down on them while I type. Must do a little stretching before bed.


And now, to sleep. :)