…at least it’s the new color of my hair, as of about 4:30 this afternoon. I spent the afternoon with Natalie at Aveda in Cedar Hill, having my hair unblonded and we chose a lovely chocolatey brown with deep red tones – aka “chestnut.” When were were looking at pictures of colors, I explained that I always felt most confident when my hair had red in it, but I wanted to go dark, this time. “Not too dark, though,” I added, “because with my pale skin color I look goth if it’s too dark.” She said, “I know just the shade,” and went to mix, and, as always, came back with a result that I loved, even if it did look rather like dried blood around the hairline while she was painting it on.

I love Aveda, even though they’re pricey, because they totally pamper you. When I go to the salon, I’m offered tea, water, iced tea, or wine (their “Comforting Tea” is the best). They bring me berries or shards of organic chocolate. When I’m their for a salon service, I get a fifteen minute chair massage for free. And even when I’m just getting a manicure, they do my makeup for me. Sometimes I buy stuff, sometimes I don’t, but they’re happy to do it, either way. Also, their products are all-natural, herbal, non-smelly, and non-toxic.

But this isn’t an ad, really. It’s me gushing about how much I love my new hair. I mean, even the guys in the troupe noticed it. How cool is that?

I finished just in time for us to hit Panera for a light lunch – my first food of the day – before heading downtown, where we didn’t do a seating chart, and things were chaotic because of it. The show was great though, and I owe Jenn big for working bar, because I just wasn’t into it (I spent a lot of time tying orange wrist bands onto our audience members, instead, as the woman who owns the building was charging a cover and was requiring the bands in order to enter the bathrooms). Downtown was a mess, btw, because it was Texas vs. Oklahoma weekend (Texas won), and while we had a late show scheduled, it was called at the last minute because there were too many drunken college students and not enough paying folk.

Instead, BigE took headshots of a bunch of us, for the website, tried to get me to do sultry looks, but that was destroyed because the guys were making me laugh, etc.

A bunch of us went out to dinner (well, not dinner, really, dessert) after that, and got distracted, until I looked at my watch and realized it was after one. My feet hurt, from wearing stupid shoes, and I’m tired, but I had fun tonight.

Tomorrow, Fuzzy’s brother arrives in town for a conference, and after that we’ll be road tripping to SoDak to retrieve things from the farm, and see everyone.

One final thing before I go to bed. There’s a meme going around LiveJournal (in particular) and the ‘net (in general) asking people to post something in their blogs if they believe in gay rights. I think the meme is stupid, because it states that if you don’t post it you must disagree. Bull. I’m not posting it because I refuse to accept that responding to a meme or not is in any way representative of my personal or political views. (And for the record, I’m for universal equal rights: male, female, gay, straight, Christian, Pagan, none of the above, or any combination: It Doesn’t Matter. As long as the common denominator remains “human” that’s all I care about.)

Thirteen Things about MissMeliss: Why I Love Autumn Crunching leaves, so much fun to shuffle through. Warm sunny days, and cool nights made for snuggling. With the change in seasons, I am always inspired to do more creative things. Sweatshirts come out of hiding. Neighborhood children are not playing in the streets to all hours. Pumpkin products become all the rage. Lamplit afternoons become more likely. New fall shows. I’m not a tv-holic, I’m researching pop culture. Perfect weather for mystery novels. I spend more time playing in the kitchen. The mosquitoes disappear. Eventually. The blogosphere seems to expand. Halloween. Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

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– The problem with working from home is that I watch too much tv, and while I can write some of this off as “research on pop culture” the truth is that I like it for background noise, sometimes.

– And speaking of television, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is my new favorite show. I knew I liked the character of Josh in The West Wing, but apparently I like Bradley Whitford in a lot of projects, and Aaron Sorkin’s writing, while extremely similar to early TWW is quick and sharp, staccato rhythms that feel like verbal tap dancing, and I respond well to that sort of thing.

– Fuzzy didn’t get home til eleven. He ate while I was folding laundry, and then we did pre-cleaning for the maids (because yeah, it’s important to clean your house before the cleaners come. I’m so channeling my Italian grandmother on days like this), and then some sweet together-time, after which I took a shower because I knew I wouldn’t have time this morning, as blogging from bed is oh, so much more important than personal hygiene.

– I finished my shower around 1:10, but had been bitten by a Story Bug while rinsing Aveda cherry almond bark conditioner from my hair with tepid water (makes it shine more), and stayed up til 2:30 writing in the dark bedroom while Fuzzy and the dogs slept next to me.

– I had been reading one of my favorite blogs Swim at Your Own Risk, and my dreams were as sharky as the Pacific in October. Steve Irwin was there too, but I woke before he finished wrestling the great white.

– Morning comes way too soon sometimes.

It’s become a habit that I recap the weekend on Monday. So here I go.

Friday night: Played with ComedySportz. I was nervous to the point of nauseousness before the match, not because I’m afraid of being on stage, but because I was playing with some of the troupe dinos, and I’m still a tiny bit star-struck about working with them, and was afraid I’d be an obvious weak link. I skipped coffee and had a coke backstage. J and I had a belching contest. She won. My belches are dainty and shy. But effective.
Nausea gone, I was now jittery with anticipation, and concern. One of the scheduled playerz TC, from my audition group, called in sick, and the audience was going to be small. We were now playing 2-on-2 with a DJ (designated jokester) instead of 3-on-3. My team captain was late enough that our director almost replaced him, but he showed in the nick of time. Warmups were unfocussed, too much giggling. It was almost time to start before we picked games.

But Captain BigE is cool about letting people try new stuff, so we played Pillars (though we use two volunteers) and Pick-a-Play (aka Playbook and Actor’s Nightmare) though, again, we have two players reading from plays chosen by the audience, and one is neutral. (We were the red team, btw, and I’ve noticed I play better when I’m in red.) I’d seen both, but never played either and had mega-fun.

Blue played Blind Line, which is a variation of Bucket in which the lines are scattered about the field, and Good, Bad, Worse, which is our version of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Advice.

After half time we also played Chain Murder, which I messed up, but R. was kind to me in notes anyway. It was fun, and we used it to exact a little revenge on a regular audience member who frequently offers difficult and complicated suggestions. He had fun too, so it was all good. Went to Hofbrau with troupemates for a fun and boisterous dinner.

Saturday: We went on a mission to buy dog food. I’m switching Miss Cleo back to kibble (health food dental care kibble, mind you) because she’s not chewing her food, and we made kissy faces at the puppies, bunnies, and ferrets while we were at the pet store. We also wandered around Arlington, checking out some coffee places as potential write-in places for NaNoWriMo, and just exploring. We had lunch at a tiny French bakery cafe with a charming French owner who flirted with me while Fuzzy was in the bathroom. I’m such a sucker for men with accents.
Worked bar with D2 at CSz, which was insane because we had 30 kids from 2 church youth groups in the audience, and they kept buying soda and candy – cuz what’s better than 30 teenagers hopped up on sugar? The fridge was blinky (I investigated and determined that yes, the compressor is dying, but the bigger problem was that it was set to ‘1.’ After I set it to ‘max’ it started cooling stuff.) so we had a bin of ice that we chilled the sodas in. Messy, drippy, and still effective. It was a good show, and BigE was great on sound.

Sunday: Woke up at five itching and allergic and took an antihistamine which caused me to sleep through both alarms. We missed church and choir practice, woke around one, puttered around the house, and finally wandered over to workshop after getting food for Zorro Dog and coffee for me. Had dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse with the troupe. Stayed til they closed. Came home, analyzed tax returns as a favor to my mother (for one of her clients), but am missing page one of schedule E for BOTH YEARS, and then sleep called, but I had a fitful night, and ended up reading fanfic on my laptop in bed for several hours.

Am groggy now, and may doze for a bit. Have much correspondence to catch up on, today.
And writing. Must write.

I walked between raindrops,softly falling cool pinpricks barely wet, but delicious, and stirred up a storm of butterflies with rust and mustard and cream wings all a flutter around me, a beat, then two, then a pause to drink in delicious sunshine, all of us filled with glory and wonder and the love of autumn hues.

I feel whimpery, which is like feeling whiney, only less emotional and more pathetic.

I spend the day nursing the headache from hell. Less than a full-blown migraine, more than a conventional headache, but finally, around nine PM the queasiness from the last three days dissipated. Head still hurts though, and I’m incredibly tired. Like, narcoleptically.

The other week at dinner we were talking about bananas as a cure for headaches (I knew they helped cramps but not headaches), and W mentioned that they’re also the best food to eat when you need to eat something but feel queasy (or as he put it, ‘best throwing up food’), not in terms of stomach cushioning, but because they taste the same going down as coming up. I can now report that he was right.

You really wanted to know that, didn’t you?

Caught the pilot of Heroes tonight. Got the biggest kick out of the Japanese guys constantly referencing Star Trek. I think the show has potential. At least, I enjoyed it despite the headache.

Am now forcing down mint tea and water before returning to sleep.
Oh, and half-watching The Princess Diaries on DVD.

I’ve been pretty much offline since late late Thursday as I’ve been feeling crabby and vaguely nauseous, and why yes, it IS about time for a visit from a certain aunt who isn’t an aunt, thanks. Chocolate and bananas seem to be helping in small doses. I’m suddenly craving puffy Cheetoh’s though, and that’s not a food I generally like to indulge in. Food just shouldn’t BE that color orange.

Friday I slept a lot, feeling too queasy to be upright most of the day, and since Fuzzy was working from home, it seemed to work. I paused to make canned ravioli for his lunch, and had a tiny bit myself, which was not wise. At the last minute I decided I wanted to go help out at Comedy Sportz even though I felt like crap, and so I went, but Fuzzy didn’t stay, opting to go to his office and work on the crisis that had kept him in the house all day. I wore my spiffy purple and green plaid iridescent velvet bebop cap and worked bar, and made $3 in tips, which seems like nothing, except we don’t generally get tips at all. Coincidentally, the parking garage fee, after validation, is $3. The show was low energy, though. It was weird, actually, because J. opened the door for Fuzzy and me and was happy and singing hello, and then something seemed to suck the life out of the theatre. Everyone on stage was technically proficient, but they, the audience, and the sound booth personnel were all really subdued. Notes were brutal, and people essentially FLED afterwards, though a few of us hung out in the parking garage and chatted for a while.

Saturday, slept til ten, noodled on the computer, read, napped more, went to Panera for crispani and soup, then to PetCo and then to CSz, where I got to play. I felt queasy, still, and a little off-kilter, and made stupid mistakes, but had fun. It wasn’t MY greatest show, but it was a good show, I think. We all had fun. There was a little kid in the audience celebrating his birthday, and he and his friends suggested “Virgil” for everything: two syllable female name, dead celebrity, object to be used in lieu of clothing. By the time we got to STORY in the second half even the audience was sick of Virgil, so when an adult yelled “Virgil’s Not Here” as a snarky response to the kids, that WAS the story, and BigE killed Virgil in the first round. Defiantly. Demonstratively. Earlier in the match, I played “Blind Musical Comedy” for the first time, and while I’d have been better had I clarified things I didn’t think to clarify, rules-wise, it was fun trying something new. We ran long though and when E. called me at 10:30 to find out where we were eating, we were still in Notes. There’s a core group of us who go to dinner most nights after shows, and while it was a smaller group than usual last night, it was fun.

Today, we were up at dawn for church (choir rehearsal at 8:30 when you didn’t get to bed til 2:00 is really really difficult), and elected not to say for the luncheon – I was feeling too crabby and tired to be nice to people – we came home and rested a bit, and then went out to Cracker Barrell for completely unhealthy food (eggs, bacon, cheesy hash browns, and waffles), then to Barnes and Noble, where I bought the cd version of “Free to Be You and Me,” just because I loved it when I was a child, and was tickled that it was out.

Back home after that, for more rest, and then to workshop, where I spent the entire warmup hoping no one would make me HOP during Bippity Bippity BOP, and trying not to puke. I didn’t start feeling better til about fifteen minutes before the end, but I had fun, even so. We workshopped Good, Bad, Worse, and I tried a new character, who needs refining, and then Irish Drinking Song, which was So. Much. Fun. But then, I always love the musical games.

Dinner after that was chaotic and fun, as many of us trouped over to Spaghetti Warehouse, place of many leftovers. The conversation included comparisons of the Georgian, Chinese, and Jewish calendars, new tv shows (many of us are curious about Heroes), Grand Unification Theory, and Intelligent Design, among other tangents. I love this eclectic and intelligent group of people.

And now? I am home. I have an infected ingrown toenail I’m medicating, and I’m still a bit queasy, but I’m glad I forced myself to go do stuff, because it was a good distraction and I learned from it. Bed soon.

As Fuzzy was preparing to leave the house for work this morning, I heard him declare, “It’s Thursday,” which was relevant because Thursday is garbage and recycling day (as opposed to Monday which is garbage day but NOT recycling day) and we’d forgotten to put out anything. He quickly did so, then came into the bedroom and said, “We have another problem. There’s a bird in the house.”

“Is it dead?” I wanted to know, because Miss Cleo has developed a habit of killing birds lately, and leaving them displayed prominently in the middle of the living room floor.

“No, it’s alive.”

And thus began a half hour process of closing doors and curtains, and of Fuzzy first using a broom to get the bird of the windowsill 20 feet above the living room floor, and then, because it retreated to the crevice between the wall and the entertainment center, poking it with a stick until it was somewhere he could reach it. (By ‘stick’ I mean, the non-brush end of the broom handle, and by ‘poke’ I mean in a completely humane manner, of course.)

“Do we have rubber gloves?” he asked me.

“No,” I answered in my what-a-stupid-question-we-never-use-rubber-gloves tone. “Why?”

“I want to protect my hands. In case it has diseases and things.”

I’m uncertain as to exactly what ‘things’ a pigeon (well, it might have been a dove) is likely to have, mites, maybe, but I’m fairly certain that rubber gloves would not be much protection. Still, I offered, “I can give you a large Ziploc bag.”

This seemed to do the job, for five minutes later, Fuzzy had the bird in hand, and released it into the trees. He washed his hands – twice – kissed me, and set off for work.

I settled down to drink coffee and nibble on a toasted English muffin and watch the clouds for a while. I wasn’t expecting actual rain (though in any place other than north Texas the cloud cover would have guaranteed it), but we actually did get some real rain – not a lot – but some, before the wind blew the clouds away and replaced them with a relentlessly blue sky.

I vaguely recall there being a tornado watch, as well, but I wasn’t really paying attention to that.

We spent the evening out, indulging in a trip to Don Pablos for queso and chicken (mine was grilled, Fuzzy’s was in a chimichanga), and then came home and puttered on our respective computers. He went to bed at midnight, and I’m on my way there NOW.

Vague title, but it’s the best I can do tonight.

Just sent off articles number 3& 4 of the first five I was sent for a freelancing gig. Have one more to do, but my eyes are gluey and I didn’t sleep last night, and it’s just going to have to wait til early in the morning. Actually, they feel like they did when I still wore contacts and had conjunctivities. Antihistamine and preservative-free eye drops are helping.

Did not talk like a pirate today, as only conversations were with people buying property in Mexico. Was handed a million dollar deal. Commission will be about $10k if it closes. Please let this client not have extensive tax returns like the last one.

Yelled at TiVo for not having the new Time Warner lineup already synchronized. They claim it’ll be 3-5 days before they upgrade, which renders TiVo useless during premier week, as our channels are all moved around. Must remember to watch Project Runway in real time tomorrow as Bravo is an affected channel. Very frustrating. I mean, TWC has only been reminding ppl about the change for a month.

I barely slept last night. I think I turned out my reading light around four, and then Fuzzy woke me at eight-thirty, getting ready.

I’ve been having dreams that we live on an island. Or the shore. Near a lighthouse. I wish we did.

Bed now.

Sleep was fitful from about 2:00 on. For a while Zorro was curled up in my armpit, but then he wasn’t and I kept thinking, in my sleep-befuddled state, that he’d disappeared somehow. As in vanished from existence. Miss Cleo was being good – for her – no pushing higher and higher on the bed, nudging the humans into her preferred congfiguration, just staying tucked into a black and white ball with her head on my feet.

Rolling thunder and lightning flashing in my window woke me about five, and I realized I was sweaty, and kept thinking I needed to ask if it was safe to shower when there was lightning, which normally would never have occurred to me. My mind was really zooming to different places in the wee hours. Zorro was unphased, but Miss Cleo pushed her nose into my hand, and dug at the covers till I let her under – she doesn’t like storms.

At one point I was dreaming about a pair of red shoes that were more comfortable than anything, heels, and made me feel pretty, and that I wanted to wear them, but they were just too garish with all the outfits I was considering. “What if I changed the top to my fluffy red sweater?” my dream-self asked her mother. “It’s not even October, yet,” came the reply. It should be noted that while I wear heels once in a while, I don’t own red ones, and I would never seek justification to NOT wear flats. I live in flats. Flats are safer.

Have developed odd addiction to Pop-Cap’s ZUMA. Smashing those spiralling balls into oblivion is a really good stress reliever. Also, it’s kind of zen. No, really.

This morning, around six I escorted Zorro Dogg and Miss Cleo to the yard for their morning rituals and noticed five tiny geckos on the wall near the sliding door, their silvery skin and shining eyes looking like art etched into the rain-damp bricks. Miss Cleo didn’t notice them, and I’m glad.

It’s 7:23 and we’re off to church as soon as I figure out what to wear, and stop at Starbucks. I’m tired and crabby, and don’t really want to go, but singing in the morning always makes me feel better.