Hair, hair, it's everywhere!

The hair gets everywhere.  The little tiny hair clippings flying forth from my clippers and scissors every day that I work have been on or near me in every possible way.  It's awful and certainly is the worst thing about hair cutting.  The hair goes on and in any shoe, gets to the socks even.  The hair for sure is on the shirt and pants/skirt/dress.  The hair finds its way into the bra, in quantity.  The hair is on any clothing that even thinks about going to the barbershop.  

Not only does the hair get on every item of clothing we are wearing on any given day, it gets all over and all stuck in our skin.  Hair on the face is awful, and it's a daily occurrence with the lips or eyes being the worst.  Hair, of course, all over the hands and behind the nails.  Often times hair digs itself into the skin and makes a painful and gross hair splinter.  The hair splinters in the hands are easier to get out than the ones that burrow in to the feet.  These hair splinters can actually sometimes be a lil dangerous when they are difficult to get out.  And hair splinters never cease to make me gag a little at the thought of a clipping of some strangers hair is stuck inside the structure of my skin and I have to dig it out with a needle while wondering how long I've been carrying it around.  Yarr.

Hair clippings have followed me around the world and I am probably happy that I truly have no idea how many of them live in my apartment with me or get eaten or inhaled by me.  In my stuff is one thing, but in my body is another.  It's all part of the art of cutting hair; got to really love hair since it's damn near literally everywhere.  

Ten years gone.

Ten years ago this week I took a trip to Vancouver, British Columbia to pass the Thanksgiving week outside of United States, and to work through some emotional and social situations that I was dealing with in Colorado.  Little did I know that I was in for the most significant life changing experience of my adulthood.  I have written the story, it's about 25 pages long and I won't post it here at this time.  But destiny had its way with me that week and I have never been the same woman or lived the same way.  It was powerful, eye opening and put me on the path that I still follow to this day of being a traveler.  

I sometimes wonder what would have become of my life were it not for that fleeting moment when I turned from the entrance of my hotel on Granville Street and ran across the street to the Vancouver Art Gallery steps to never look back at my life before that moment.  Destiny awaited me on those steps and I intuitively ran for my life towards it.  I learned how to feel with my heart on that trip, in those few days.  I saved someone's life, and I didn't even know that's what I was doing.  In turn, my life was also changed forever.

I get quite sentimental the week of Thanksgiving every year, remembering the beautiful time I had in Vancouver, regardless of the terrifying ugliness I also witnessed.  I have extra reasons to be thankful every year because of the extraordinary life that I live as a result of my experience in Vancouver.  I can't believe it's been ten years and the tremendous things I have done in that time.  I am looking forward very much to the next ten and the ten after that, never losing sight of the moment my life was born into what it is now and to what it is continuing to mature into.  VA/BC/CA     

Inescapable instinct.

Long ago I came to realize and accept that women are completely and entirely ruled by our uteruses.  Wikipedia opens its article about the uterus with this sentence:  "The uterus or womb, is a major hormone-responsive reproductive sex organ of most mammals including humans".  Major.  Hormone-responsive.  Reproductive.  Sex organ.  Say it like it is!  The thing turns sperm and blood into babies and then pushes them out.  It's unreal.  I bring it up, the uterus, for one of the major roles it plays in our day to day choices as women.

Whether we like it or not, whether we want or don't want children, or perhaps have already had them, women as a whole are obsessed with "Can the babies survive here?"  We live and die by this principle whether we are conscious of it or not, and when we are physically and mentally sound-ish.  I've seen it every day, I've lived it every day, can the babies survive here?  A broad statement, I know, but I will give a few examples and all will come to agree that women are constantly on the look out for anything and everything that could impose on the life of a child.

Women are nesters to the nth degree.  Always arranging, accommodating, and watching to see what is likely the "safest" situation in nearly all of the things we do at work or play or life in general.  It's crazy, and women are long known for being a lil crazy.  It's all good however cause it's so innocent on our part and something that is happening whether we make it so or not.  This instinct begins of course in the uterus herself, constantly fluctuating, flowing and changing in order to bring the ideal environment to the survival of babies.  The uterus then projects her agenda on everything we do, besides just have a monthly cycle, to consistently renew, review and get ready for babies anywhere we are!  Thus, we are always contemplating our external circumstances in the same order.  That sneaky uterus.  She cares alot about if the babies can survive.

In our modern world, we have become so disconnected to this core of our femininity that the uterus is just another bleeding, baby making thing that we manage.  But it's because of her that we manage at all.  Got ya there!  Back to my point.  Many, many women have no concept of the connection between the internal desire for survival of babies and that external, environmental obsession with creating it with every move we make.  We will handle some shit for sure to make it possible for the survival of babies even if there are actually babies involved or not.  I know for a fact that I have no desire for the responsibility of the survival of another creature, but I'm still on permanent look out for the survival of babies and I don't necessarily mean that literally.  Sigh.  I can't fight the force.

I joke with clients at the barber shop that men that are poorly groomed often will have a much lower chance with the ladies, for a deeper reason than the obvious.  We are obsessed with appropriate cleanliness to ensure survival and if we are near a man that is stinky, or flaky, or funky, the uterus signals, the alarm goes off and we know that the babies cannot survive here.  If this guy can't even wash himself right, well. . . The babies cannot survive here and we must decide something.  We either bail cause he's not worth it, or we clean him up over the course of a few days or weeks and suddenly the baby survival factor increases tenfold.  Why?  Cause when we get to baby the manboy and clean him all up, then he can give us a real baby!  We have a major hormone-responsive reproductive sex organ just waiting with an overflow of baby survival potential.  Hurrah!  (gagging)  And the babying never stops, not for the man, not for the baby, not for anything save death.

I could honestly care less about the survival of babies on a conscious level, but on all other levels I live for it.  Nothing makes me feel more like a woman(besides when I'm bleeding)than when I'm managing something.  My life is consumed with "Can the babies survive here?" and the fact that I intuitively became a barber to clean up them men proves that. I embrace it cause it's easier than fighting it and being a woman is like, totally great in so many ways that I'll happily let the uterus maintain control.  We joke that men think with their dicks, it's clear that thinking is quite shallow and one sided.  On the other hand, women are ruling and nurturing the world with our uteruses.  The babies will and do survive.  You're welcome.    

      

Apples to apples.

There's plenty of apples to choose from, especially right now.  I've done plenty of gala, I also love fuji and the best apple I've ever eaten was a cameo at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. But damnit if I'm not on an organic honeycrisp binge.  Om nom nom.    

Polyphobia.

Being the first snowstorm of the fall/winter season, I am reminded of one of the hugest reasons that I don't like the cold and snow at all.  I am terrified of slipping and falling on ice. Pagophobia is the irrational fear of ice or frost, and I've got it.  All my years of being away from these specific weather conditions, I had forgotten all about it.  Until today that is, when I walked to the store in the 14°F ice and snow where I was reminded full force that I can become consumed by this fear of slipping with every step I take.  I made it to the Whole Foods without falling at all and enjoyed a nice lunch with my brother as well as picking up a few other items to survive the snow and cold that is now my life. 

While we ate and watched the snow fall outside, we discussed this fear of ice and compared it to my other irrational fear, babies.  Fear of babies and small children is called pedophobia, something which I realize I can never say to someone.  I will never be able to say that I'm a pedophobe as it just sounds way too much like, well, we all know.  

As I pondered these phobias, the question came to me, would I rather fall on ice or hold a baby?  The thought of both sends waves of anxiety through my body as I want nothing to do with either of these awful things.  And as I've thought a lot about it today, I'm not so sure that I can honestly choose one.  I mean ice is inanimate, cold, lifeless and very hard, and can put one in the hurt locker(or the hospital)if you fall just right.  But babies, eeek, babies, nothing about them appeals to me and I am horrified by them entirely.  I do not think they are cute, or precious, or funny, or any of the commonly felt emotions towards babies.  In fact, my feelings for babies ironically resemble the properties of ice; cold, hard and dangerous.  Sure a baby can't actually do me bodily harm like falling on ice can, but at least ice is predictable and doesn't cry or shit itself(though I have nearly shit myself walking on it). 

So when it comes down to it, I'll choose to neither get near a baby or fall on ice.  I'll move to a tropical island populated by exclusively by sterile adults.  Sterile adults?  Because we all know it's when adults spend too much time together that babies suddenly show up, everyone's language skills take a huge dive and everyone seems to forget about anything except the stupid, wrinkled, crying blob of neediness.  Blech!  Offended?  I don't care and neither does your baby.    

Dry me a river.

As someone that actually finds joy and satisfaction from doing dishes(it runs in the family), there is one part of the process that I am entirely opposed to with all of my being.  Drying dishes with a towel after they are washed is asinine.  I find this to be a complete waste of time as there is something else that dries dishes even better than a towel, it's called air.  Just leave them there in the rack and, as though it's magic, after about thirty minutes the dishes will be dry!  And for people that think using a towel avoids water spots, get over yourself, it's not like your kitchen is a high end, gourmet restaurant.

Rio, etc.

I got nothing to write today.  I've dug deep and even began another entry, but was not feeling inspired at all.  What I do have today is photos of Brazil.