Haircut from hell

I have been so busy that I haven't even told you about the hair cut I had recently.First the history lesson... I hadn't had a hair cut since November 2005. I think it stopped growing as well, either that or it became so dried and brittle that it simply snapped off.

Well I took the plunge and booked myself in on a Thursday night, so Ashley could watch the kids. I was a bit excited about it, because the hair thing had been a bit of a misery point for some time.

Not knowing any of the hair salons in town, I just had to try my luck with one and have faith. I guess I should have seen what was coming when I was told that "Tami" would be cutting my hair (no offense to the number of Tammys I know, but "Tami", who the hell calls themselves that)?

Anyway, the appointment time came and I was the last appointment before closing. "Tami" and her co-worker, a much older and disinterested gal were on shift that night. Tami was styling her sisters hair, and the "old bird" sat whinging and whining about wanting to go home, while pleading to God that no-one else come in requesting a trim before they could "get the hell out" of there.

For the first 15 minutes I waited and was ignored, which was making my blood boil. I had arrived early, the old duck could have got me set up while "Tami" finished yakking to her sister, instead of moaning and groaning while sitting on her lazy clacker. Of course I said nothing. Soon enough I would be at the mercy of "Tami" and her scissors, so I put up and shut up.

Finally when it was my turn, Tami asked me where I was from, "Australia" I replied. Oz-*#*!^)$'n-stralia!" snorted the old girl. I simply raised my eyebrows. I thought that was a bit rude.

After Tami washed my hair she directsed me to sit in the cutting chair with a wave of the finger and "ok Aussie, sit over there". I was floored by the disrespect, but the attitude was simply to prepare me for perhaps the worse haircut of all time.

She whizzed through it in 10 minutes flat, leaving once to take a call from her husband, telling him to come now to pick her up, because she would be out by 8pm. It was 5 minutes to....

True to her word, must give her that, she was out of there to meet hubby at 8pm ,and she certainly gave me no such guarantees of an acceptable hair cut. I am far too embarrassed to reveal my nasty do, so I thought these lovely ones in the pic were reasonable enough to wrap your laughing gear around. Not to leave you entirely in the lurk, I will give you two phrases that might inspire some visual imagery as to what the hair style might look like: Rough as guts, being one of them, and gnawed by rats, being the other.

Haunted

We bought our house 18 months ago, and ever since, we have been elbows deep in renovations - MAJOR renovations.
A couple of weeks back I was on the front lawn painting the unhinged front door a lovely hue of midnight something-a-rather.
It just so happened that a huge slowball tournament for the "beer league" was taking place that weekend, so there were an abnormally high number of passers-by stopping to talk and give house and garden tips - yeah thanks mate!
Later in the day, a twenty-something guy walked past staring at the house; he just smiled. Later, he walked past the other way muttering "memories, memories, memories". Moments later another guy walked past and stopped to talk to Ashley. He tells him that he is a friend of the previous owners son, pointing to the guy who had just walked by. The comment made me wonder what he thought, seeing his childhood home.
I have lived in a few places, and it kind of creeps me out to see where I used to live - like something in the house recognises an escapee or something, or perhaps fragments of my energy are somehow locked into the fibres of the house and are reaching for my soul as I stand there gaping for the few moments I can bear to look, before I feel compelled to slam on the accelerator and skid away as quickly as possible. Has anyone else ever had that experience or is it just weird old me? Not all places have that effect, just the significant ones.My earliest years were spent in a small rural community in the Murray Mallee. The house was an old federation style stone and red brick home, with high ceilings and cool thick stone walls. There was a pink blossoming almond tree out the side and the place was backed against scrub-land, which was an amazing lush wonderland of greenery, moss and bridal creeper during the cooler months, but a virtual snake pit in summer, and avoided at all cost.My room was painted in the loudest version of aquamarine you could possibly imagine, with white trim. The rooms were huge. There was a three sided veranda skirting around it, which was wide enough to do whatever really. It was great. I loved that house. It will forever be preserved as the perfect childhood memory, because we moved from there when I was 10, and a couple of years later it burned to the ground. My Grandparents lived on the adjoining property, a mile or so away. I have great memories of life inside that house too. The house has now been condemned and it was eery and terribly sad to see it a few years back; deserted, neglected, unloved... forgotten. Memories, memories, memories, indeed.
The next house my parents built. It was a large light brown brick home. Everything in it was modern and new, unlike the old place. I remember playing "lifestyles of the rich and famous", welcoming imaginary film crews and a TV host to wander through, while I gave them all the royal tour- pretty funny. I lived there until I was 17. I dream about that house a lot, and recognise that it has sort of come to represent a particular developmental stage in my life.
At 17 I moved away from home and lived in a dodgy boarding house inhabited by lonely old men, potheads and ex-crims. When I first moved there, I was one of two girls in the place, but soon after, I was the only girl to last more that 48 hours with that group of societies outcasts. I lived there for 10 months - I have no feelings of connection to that place, but if I had a blog back then - gee would your eyes bulge ... crazy times!
Then I lived in a flat on a glam street in a posh part of town. It was a safe place to live and close to everything - I could even walk to work. I enjoyed living there for about 18 months or so with my brother, who was attending secondary college at the time. There were many flats in that complex and many people have probably come and gone since I lived there.
I then moved back in with my parents, who had since moved, and were in the process of building another house, in a different town. It was a nice place; two storey and near the beach, which is what I loved and remember most. I didn't spend a whole lot of time there really, since I worked quite long hours, so when I see that place now, it is kind of weird, because I witnessed its creation, but nothing of me remains there.
Ashley and I then bought our first house. It was a sweet little house, with a huge, parrot filled gum tree out back and a to-die-for view of the distant mountains. We had grown out of the place when we sold it to come to Canada, but we loved it and it reflected so much of ourselves that we might just have put up with the various inconveniences and lack of space, just so we could remain there. We miss our old place; so many of our happiest memories were spent there. I dream about it quite a bit still. It was funny. A year ago when we were briefly in Australia, we drove by and it looked just as we left it; almost felt like it was welcoming us home after a long holiday. It was good to know that someone else appeared to love it, as we had.
Presently, I feel no connection to this current place, despite the hours of hard labour put into it. I don't feel it is very reflective of us. I can't really put my finger on it. Maybe time is required, or perhaps we have to stop DOING stuff to it, so it can settle and get used to its new self. Change is more than an external happening, it must also take place in the essence, or maybe the energy of the original owners remains, haunting and seeping from the nooks and crannies where neither paintbrush nor broom can reach.

The Handwritten

Yesterday I received a large envelope in the mail; the type you would attribute to holding a small item - not the norm amongst the usual white envelopes with transparent windows. So you could say I got a little excited.I love getting personal mail - any mail really (except junk mail or mail addressed "to the householder"). Sinks does my heart when the letter box remains uninhabited with the desires of thy soul - (a note from the gas company can have that effect on a girl - NOT!).When at school, I would write letters continuously. I loved reading about my friends lives and what they had been up to. I also loved the stamps.
When I was 10 years old I joined an international group that connected writing enthusiasts from all over. I had no less than 7 pen friends at the peak of my involvement, and they were just the international ones - it was like hands of friendship stretched across the the globe.
Whenever I received a letter I would diligently write back within the week, and while some pen friends would return my letters with equal efficiency, months would pass before I would hear from others. There were two girls in particular, with whom I wrote on a very regular basis; an English girl called Emma and a German girl called Sonja. I started writing to Emma as a ten year old. She was a lot of fun and there was the expected amount of silliness for girls of our age, within our exchanges. I think her enthusiasm for letter writing waned upon entrance of "the boyfriend".
I started writing to Sonja as a 12 year old. She was a year older than I, and we continued to write until I was 18. I had moved out of home at that stage, and she had found work in a bank and was about the start a commerce degree at university when our connection ran dry.
I also wrote to friends who had moved away, and friends from my "old town" - all letters were written in a similar style. There was a familiarity that history created, shaped and carved through the exchange of thoughts and ideas. Old friends were seldom seen again, despite the writing, and there was never any expectation of meeting the pen friends, so in a way, writing to them was sort of like a diary - something I never kept, despite the obsessive adolescent writing frenzy.There was indeed something therapeutic about releasing the thoughts; spilling them onto a fresh sheet of paper and mailing them off to some place far far away.
I wonder if that international organisation exists today. I am sure it does, but with the onset of the Internet, email, blogs, MSN and the countless other pockets of cyber-society, I wonder whether the handwritten word is exchanged as frequently...I guess not. These other outlets do provide the pent up writer similar opportunity. Nevertheless, I sure did appreciate the time and energy put into the long handwritten letter I received yesterday. The exchanging of words on paper - the paper upon which another had poured his or her emotions into; words physically presented..... and the words left unsaid, edited from the physical eye, but thoughts felt through the clutching of paper. Thank you.

The Brave - Anew

So here we are....face to face for the first time. Well, this is awkward...standing here in the spotlight in front of this crowd - lovely crowd too, I might add. I have kept a private blog for a couple of years now and through the gentle encouragement of well-meaning, kind friends and folk, I am now flouncing about on the international stage, well...at least I am making a shaky kneed attempt at flouncing. Regardless, I am taking the giant leap out of my safe, dark and rather confined private cyber-sanctuary, to gather my first impressions of the world beyond, and in the midst of this sea of unfamiliar faces, I can assure you, it sure is roomy out here.
So why the sudden change? Why burden humanity with the burnt offerings of my feeble mind, not to mention blind editting faux pas' (dear me)? I don't know really...I guess I felt it was time....time to take a risk - Fortune does Favour The Brave...as I am sure you are all too well aware.
So what is this blog about? Themes, hmmm.... I don't care too much for themes. People provide me with my greatest inspirations and I love to write about the insights people give me whenever I allow myself to open and observe the surrounding world. I also love nature - I have often found a multitude of metaphorical answers to many a heart pain whenever I have casually placed the burden of my soul on the alter of the observable natural world...if you get my drift!!! No? Oh well. This is my poor attempt at introducing myself. To look deep into the future, or even to simply scour the horizon of next week to suggest some of the things I might favour to write about, is almost impossible, for one never really knows where inspiration might lie. So bear with me - we might both be surprised.