The Many Faces Of Me

So y'all know me pretty well. Let's admit that I'm vain about my looks. I'm not high maintenance, in fact I like going all natural most days of the week (saving up my pretty days for the days that count like Sundays or days where I see potential intrigues), but I know that I'm gorgeous and I won't deny it. In fact, I'll probably remind you of it several times a week when we're having a conversation and you seem to need reminding.

In summary, I'm so vain, I KNOW this song is about me.

Pssh. Yeah. Yesterday, my vanity took a major hit. In the form of a puerile 20-year-old someone allowed a pair of scissors and a haircutting license. Shame on the person that allowed her to graduate the DATC college of beauty. I can say all these mean things now, because believe me I did not say them to her face and I should have.

I knew that we were in trouble when she started talking smack about sister missionaries. For future reference, o real friends, if you really want to piss me off tell me that sister missionaries went on missions because they had nothing better to do. I definitely didn't have anything better to do besides graduating from college and starting a promising writing career (I'm being optimistic here) and taking over the world: basically just sitting around on my butt all day. Yeah right. Anyways, by the time I got over that conversation and noticed what was going on with the preschooler wielding scissors it was too late.

The hair growing from the crown of my head was cut into a bowl shape. No subtle gradations, no framing around my face. One disgusting 3.5 inch shelf of hair that hit me above my cheekbones. The rest lay in long pieces down my neck to my shoulders. Say it with me now: #*@! that's a mullet.

Pardon my french, but I wish it had been around when I was choosing a hairdresser.

I stared at myself in shock in the mirror, and when Ms. Mulletmaster turned her back I shot withering glances at my mother to let her know that I WAS NOT HAPPY. (*You're so vain...*)

Then the hairdresser of all things poodle showed me the back, which in all fairness was pretty cute, and that was the only positive thing I could think of to say: "Yes, the back is cute. But do you think we could shorten the bottom layer a bit? I feel like the gap is a bit too big."

Do you know what she said? "The problem with doing that is if you shorten that layer, it's going to look like a mullet."

Silence. Chirping. Grinding of teeth. Mental images of me punching her in the face.

"But that's kind of how I feel about it now."

So she shortened that layer. And I was right, it did ease the overall mullet-drama feeling. Then she "blow-dryed" my hair and by that I mean she passed the blowdryer over it a couple of times and let it air dry into a hot mess.

I got out of there as fast as possible. I started yelling as soon as the door shut about how I looked like a 50-year-old from the seventies.

My mom told me to stop because she was going to pee her pants she was laughing so hard.

In summary, as I've gone through the 36 hours following my hair drama, my hair has reminded me of several different things. Here's a list.

a 50-year-old seventies mamma
a hobo version of Farah Fawcett
a poodle
a skater boy growing out his hair
a hockey player
a mushroom
someone wearing earmuffs...oh wait, that's hair. My bad.

But my personal favorite came from my sister.

"You look like a feminist. You know, the granola kind from Washington."

No offense to all the granola types out there. Or poodles.

But the truth is the truth.

Pray for my hair, friends. While you're at it, pray for all the starving children around the world too. I wouldn't want to be culpable of stealing their prayers, but I'm also in dire need. I might die from a sudden and massive withdrawal...from vanity. And despite my current fugliness, I like to think that I would be missed.

I'd post pictures, but I'm not sure how to get them off my phone and onto the computer. As soon as I figure it out, I'll post some.

I Do Not Ogle Freshmen

One anecdote, then I’ll move on to the meat of this post.

The most awkward scene from Stranger Than Fiction (one of my favorite movies) is when Harold apologizes to Ana for ogling her (“Apology accepted…but only because you stammered”).

I do not ogle freshmen. No. Not even the ones that don’t look like they’re only 18. Definitely not the ones that pass me in the Cannon Center while I’m working. I’m more mature than that. THE END.

Now, this next part might seem a little tame to some of you, but it’s time to pay homage to one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver. And by “one of my favorites” I mean my FAVORITE poet. And my favorite poem.

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver
From New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press, 25 Beacon St, Boston, MA 02108-2892, ISBN 0 870 6819 5).

Hmmm. Beautiful.

*Mary Oliver-inspired moment of silence* NOW_____________________________________.

How Many Megans Does It Take To Calculate Real Friends?

Hi. It's me. Blogging for a third time. Everybody look at me, I'm so cool right now.

A few items of business: First, if I'm measuring my real friends as opposed to my fake friends (parameters being facebook) 6 of my 473 friends are real. The rest are fake.

How did you measure that number, you ask?

Comments. (And maybe I didn't count right, but drop it because math is a TOUCHY subject with me. In case you were wondering 9x9 equals forty-freaking-nine and don't tell me its 81 BECAUSE I SAY IT'S NOT. See what I mean? Touchy).

So, you other 473 minus 6 friends (You do the math)ARE YOU REAL FRIENDS OR NOT? Consider this your challenge.

Second, my blog layout is boring. How do I remedy this situation? All of my other friends with blogs have awesome formats and fonts, and things that glitter and make them money. I really like glitter. And money. Any suggestions?

Third, I'm planning on running away from home for Winter semester 2011. I've been researching ways to get to Florence on this cool website called transitionsabroad.com. That site is a veritable spark to my travel fever. Add a few thousand dollars and BAM! I'd be hopping on a plane right now if I could. Anyone want to 1) run away with me and 2) fund our adventure? Make checks payable to me. I'll take care of the rest.

Fourth, yesterday I said something goofy in front of my family that I need to get off my chest. Tell me if this is not hysterical and typically me. Spenny (my little brother) was telling us yesterday about EFY. He loved it. Anyway, working in Helaman Halls I've become acquainted with the quaint habits of the EFY and sport camps students. Yeah, that means that I think that they can be obnoxious, bless their hearts. We love them anyways. Somehow in the course of the conversation I referred to them all as EFers. Sound that out. effers. Yes. That is what I said. EFY-ers...Efyers...effers. I didn't do it consciously, but my subconscious was having other ideas.

Fifth, I have a new idea for a novel. Let me back up here a few steps and talk about how I'm losing in the great Katherine Gee/Megan Gadd Writing Face-off. It's okay because Katherine is losing too. Basically, this is the idea. We have established three milestones: 10,000 words, 25,000 words, 50,000 words. Best two out of three wins the competition, buying me a plane ticket to her wedding. (It makes perfect sense in our heads). Anyways. I am stuck on my novel at 7,000 new words (meaning since the contest started) and about 15,000 total words. I need to get unstuck and soon. I don't have money to buy a plane ticket to her wedding.

But yesterday as I was sitting in Relief Society, this new idea starting pouring out of my brain into my notebook. I've never had a plot come out so fully formed. It's practically screaming to be written. And my fingers are itching to get to it.

I guess I could tell you what my two novels are about, but I probably won't. Sorry.

To all of you real friends, vi voglio tanto bene.

To all of you fake friends, meh.

:)

Third post, out.

The voice that grates on my nerves, and other observations from my week

So, me and etiquette aren’t on a first name basis. Thanks to my mother I’m a pretty polite person, but etiquette is just far enough away that I never seem to catch up to it.

Now that I’m a…blogger (ahem)…I understand that there are niceties even in the blogosphere (so much for escaping into a world where I can express myself sans censorship). So basically, what that means is I can’t complain about people in my life that might read my blog. Dang it all. If I complain, I’ll do it with such verve and spunk and finesse that someone will surely get offended, and then I’ll feel bad, and etiquette will have once again bit me on the butt. So, I’m going to tell you a story instead.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named…Meaghanne. She lived in a dungeon near the jousting grounds of the great big castle all the nobility called the BYU and all the peasants just called the Y (and then there were all the OTHER people from UP NORTH who called it HAPPY VALLEY, but that’s a story for another day). Meaghanne was a pretty, buxom girl who had most recently lived in a charming, sunny, wonderful kingdom by the sea, where the air felt like sunshine and smelled like crisp greens. She had a good time, but eventually her time there had ended and she went home to the Y lacking in funds and looking for work. She decided to pinch her pennies by living in the dungeon, a very sensible and practical choice of which she felt rather proud being sometimes prone to bouts of daydreaming and idealism. She knew the dungeon would be dark and musty and filled with bugs that left red bites all over her every morning when she woke up, not to mention smelling like rotting onions all the time because the other people in the dungeon forgot to throw them out, but she consoled herself by saying, “What interesting people I’ll meet in the dungeon! People from everywhere, people who sing and dance, run and skip, cry and moan, laugh and tease! I do love diversity!" (Meaghanne, for all her good character traits, was sometimes a bit too optimistic). So she moved to the dungeon and quickly found a job mucking out stalls where all the knights and squires left their horses during the jousting tournaments. It wasn’t a glamorous job, but it paid her well, and she loved the people she met there, all of them that ran and jumped and sang and shouted and laughed and cried. She did love people.

But not all of them. She noticed now that she lived in the dungeon and worked mucking out stalls that at the end of her tired, crappy (pun intended) day she had little patience for a particular person(s)(and I’m not saying whether he/she/they lived in the dungeon or worked mucking out stalls, or just passed her on the street while she walked to work because that would be poor etiquette) with that particular timbre of voice, a certain jarring overtone, an incessant vibrating in her ears, a whining lean at the end, a frantic and rapid dance of syllables that NEVER EVER SEEMED TO STOP. EVER EVER EVER!

And every day Meaghanne’s irritation grew, despite her angelic nature and poor hearing. The voice of the banshee invaded her mornings. And her mid-days and her nights ‘til one day she realized it was recorded on her psyche. And now she could never escape. And she lived unhappily ever after….

Betchya’ll were waiting for a happy ending, weren’t ya? Alas, there’s no rest for the wicked (or polite).