So this is going to be a hard post to write, so you get to bear with me.

You have noticed (and commented) that the posting here has drifted to almost nonexistent … not quite but almost. The honest truth is that I’m avoiding. I’m avoiding because the thoughts first and foremost in my mind are things I don’t want to talk about with anyone, and yes that even includes you. Because really? I’m not comfortable with putting the thought “I’m not happy with the life I’m leading” into words. But frankly I’m fairly miserable and I’ve finally reached that point where I’m tired of ignoring the misery every time it slaps me in my faux-smiling face. So I’m changing it. And it is hard. And slow. And I’m not really proud of the fact that once again I have landed myself in a predicament that turns my life into something dismal.

On paper, I’m a chick who has her shit together. I live in the state of perpetual sun. In the “it” neighborhood with a great townhome that is beautifully decorated. I have a job that people would trip over themselves just for the opportunity to have a job like this one with great benefits and even better perks. Best of all? I’m the boss of everything in front of me with no one to answer to but a silly board of directors. My salary is enough that allows me to be able to do or buy whatever I want without any money concerns and still be able to stash 60% of it away for the day when I can say “FUCK YOU!” to the Establishment and become the crazy old witch in the old house at the top of the hill that the kids dare each other to run up and touch my front door every Halloween (cause that is the only reason I’m still living this life. Seriously.)

I’m living the life that every young hot shot professional dreams of (except for maybe the crazy old witch part). But I’m too tired to care. And I hate it. I finally hate it enough that I’m doing something about it.

For the past 6 months I’ve been making changes where I could and battling with myself over major decisions. Trying to figure out what is going to make me happy – adapting me to my life or adapting my life to me. And really I think my answer lies somewhere in between.

Some things are up in the air still. Even some of the major things – like where I’m going to live and what I’m going to do. But I have a deadline. March 31^st my lease expires here… and I’m leaving. I don’t know where I’ll be going (although I have some ideas). I don’t know if it will be a job transfer or if I will be striking out on my own. But on April 1^st – I won’t be here. That is my number one priority and the reason why I still get out of bed everyday, and yes that even means that if I have to pass on Gulf Wars this year to get that goal accomplished then that is exactly what will happen.

I’ve learned a hard lesson. I can’t allow my career or my locale to define who I am. Who I am has to be malleable to those aspects but not delimited by them. For too long I’ve allowed certain expectations to be laid upon me about how I should behave or dress, about what I should consume or entertain myself with, and far too often my opinions have not matched those expectations but I’ve given in and ultimately sacrificed my own expectations. Somewhere along that path I left myself behind and have continued to feed TheMachine. What saddens me the most is that now I look back at some decisions I made and if I’m honest to myself I can admit that I actually regret them. Fuck the “I made a mistake, but I’ve learned from it, and it will make me a better a person” bullshit speech. I fucked up. I missed out. I can’t get back the time I lost. And I fucking regret it.

So there have been changes and there will be more.

Some have been minor – like throwing away that absolutely putrid coffee table that the decorator insisted was a must for my living room or deciding to go back to natural nails.

Some have been fairly major – like becoming an official card carrying vegetarian (complete with newsletter!) and realizing that it is okay to start living on your body’s schedule even if that means eating your meals at times others consider to be inconvenient or pissing off neighbors with 3 a.m. vacuuming because they can’t understand that not everyone can sleep on their schedule.

Every change is a triumph for me, a small thing for me to be proud of, but it is also a private thing for me. These are things I keep close to myself because admitting to the achievement is admitting to the flaw that needed to be addressed. And posting this entry is using up just about all the guts I have to spare.

All of this blabbering is really just me giving a well deserved explanation about my absence not only from this blog but from a few other internet haunts I would normally be frequenting. Before this my life was busy and that hasn’t lessened. If anything life now takes up more time than ever and it doesn’t leave my much time for the lazy things – like the internet.

I’m not saying goodbye. I’m not saying that I’m closing this place down. But I am letting you know that if you are still one of the few that pop in every day only to be disappointed when you see nothing has changed – I’m sorry. And I won’t be pissed if you stop checking in everyday. In fact – if you so choose to utilize it, I tweaked the guts a bit and added a new function for members. If you log in and go to your profile page there is a spot at the bottom on the left where you can now opt to be emailed anytime a new post (however infrequent) pops in.

And as small as that is, it is really the best I can offer right now. You aren’t going to see me around much in the coming months. Be it here, in the forums, or even in person. Sometimes focus has to go elsewhere. And right now? It is time for me to take care of me.

Yes, the hair looks great… or at least it should look great. You see the current problem with my hair is that it is attached to my head which currently contains a raging sinus infection. A raging sinus infection that my doctor saw fit to use an excuse to drug me into oblivion. As such in the past 72 hours I’ve slept over 60, and can still barely keep my eyes open. And the hair? Well I’m sure that once I manage to stay vertical long enough to do more than brush my teeth then the hair will rock more than my hair has rocked in sososo long.

Now if you will excuse me, I’ve been awake for 15 minutes and that is about 13.5 minutes too long.

(you should know that I actually wrote this at about 8 a.m. this morning but then fell asleep before I could get it posted… like “laptop in my lap” asleep… “laptop in my lap and 40 pages of skdkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkdkkkkkkk when I woke up” asleep.)

Awhile back I conducted a poll regarding the typical cost of my readers’ shampoo and conditioner. I did this for a reason, of course. Mainly I’ve finally reached my wits end. Years ago now, when I was still living in Texas and my hair magically turned curly on me I panicked because I had no idea how to handle and maintain the new hair. I was an incredibly low maintenance chick when my hair was straight. Pantene shampoo and conditioner - every day – brush – air dry. That was it; that was my hair routine. I had never had any use with gel, mousse, hairspray… I didn’t own a curling iron, a hair dryer, or curlers, because no matter what I did to my hair it was going to look exactly the same. It was going to be long and straight.

Then it went curly and all hell broke lose. Pantene started destroying my hair, and I had to learn to maneuver between the approximately 785 various products specifically designed to make my curls looked marvelous. And you know what? Nothing worked. I end up moving to a “salon” shampoo and conditioner (Biolage) and I discovered the trick to taming my curls. A spray bottle… filled with water. Tap water… from my sink. And all the sudden I was back to a low maintenance routine. Shampoo – condition – brush – scrunch – and just as my hair finished air drying a light mist of water to tame out the frizzies.

But honestly? I didn’t know what frizzies really were… until I moved here. To place that keeps 100% humidity year round. To a place where you need to learn how to drink your air.

Then the real problems began and I wound up back in that hair care aisle. Oddly enough I’ve looked thru all the comments left regarding the poll, and you know what? I’ve tried each and every one of the products noted. It was horrible. Something would work fine for a few weeks then I would start waking up with this afro halo thing working. Almost a year ago, I found a guy that I really enjoyed how he worked with my hair he sympathized with all my problems and really went above and beyond the call to help me find a solution that didn’t involve me enlisting in Moose’s outlook on hair care. We had just found my perfect solution when the new meds kicked in and the synthetic hormones started to course and all of the sudden we were back at square one.

And all this time he had been after me to try Bumble and Bumble products… but at 30-something dollars per 8 oz. bottle, I just couldn’t justify it until all other options had been exhausted.

I reached that point about a month ago.

And caved and purchased B&B Curls line for fine hair (shampoo, conditioner, curl crème at $24 per bottle on sale.) I knew it was stupid money to spend on hair products but I helped in justifying that I had a bit saved in the bank because unlike all my other female friends I have never dyed my hair. And since my Mother spends $60 a month getting her hair dyed … this kinda just evens the karma out.

Life was great… for a week. Then my hair started falling out. Not like a little shedding (cause I always shed) no I’m talking handfuls. Then? Anywhere the conditioner touched my body? I broke out. Bad.

Now I was incredibly lucky in high school. I remember when I got my first pimple. I was a freshman in college… the day before homecoming. By the night of the dance? Gone. To say I was blessed with great skin (sans the stupid freckles) would be an understatement. So yeah I freaked the holy hell out. I called everyone I knew that I thought could answer my questions. Then I posted every question I could think of to every forum and list I’m active in that I felt was applicable.

The support I got was overwhelming. But it filtered into 2 distinct categories of thought -

1 – Throw away all hair products immediately and move to a natural and organic line sans harsh chemicals.

2 – Get thee to Cynthia immediately.

Natural hair products were easy. A trip to my organic market offered me a wealth of goodies, and now 2 weeks in my hair is showing drastic improvement. The best discovery was working with a holistic esthetician on learning the right essentials oils to apply to my hair and scalp. She helped me create a customized oil for nightly scalp massages that will help reduce my shedding and encourage my new growth to come in thicker and stronger than before. Then showed me the proper oil for my hair type so I could do a hot oil treatment a few times a week to the full length to help condition and thicken. 2 weeks in and the results are nothing short of amazing. Everyone stops and asks what in the hell I did to my hair, for the first time in a very long time I’m happy with my hair. It takes a lot more work than I would like, but you find a routine that is producing results and you make it work.

Now getting in to see Cynthia? Was a little more difficult. You see Cynthia is considered to be one of the top 10 stylists in the country for curly hair. Women fly in from all over for her to work her magic. Her reviews online are flawless and have been so for years (seriously I scanned all the back to 2004 and didn’t find anyone that thought she was not worth the time/effort/money). And as luck would have it her shop is 90 minutes from my house. So I caved. I called for an appointment and only slightly winced when informed of the cost. Taking the first available appointment she had available – I ended up with a Thursday at 3:00 p.m. appt… 3 weeks out. Which now means that today, I get to go see Cynthia the supposed miracle worker. And for the first time in my life I’m ready to sit down in a chair and let a stylist do whatever the hell she wants to do with my hair.

And I hope that isn’t a mistake.

So if you have any spare karma saved up in the bank that you would like to donate to a good cause send it out around 3, please? And if not? Maybe a wig will do.

So I took some vacation days. Actually I’m taking a lot of vacation days in the coming months (big Texas trip in the works), but knowing that me traveling to Texas even if I am going to be gone for 14 days is by no means a vacation - I took a few days off in July as well for some real r&r. But I really didn’t have a clue what I was actually going to do with my time off. Sarah voted for a cruise. Mike voted for getting hitched in Vegas. But in the end I decided to give the long weekend what it really deserves.

You see, it is Harry Potter weekend. And I’m used to doing something big on Harry Potter weekends. I have very fond memories $100 meals and fancy dresses. I mean really you take a book designed for junior high kids and you make it into a national phenomenon that makes every adult want to join in on the fanaticism but then all the celebrating is geared towards a 12 year old girl who gets to stay up past bedtime.

So as adults we can either sneak into a Walmart at midnight and grab our copy with a rotisserie chicken or we can make a big deal out of the event all on our own. I’ve tried both and frankly? I like an excuse to dress up much better.

So this year, I’m taking a few days off holing myself up on a little island in the luxury suite of the local b&b. I’ve also managed to secure a full day at one of the local spas on Friday in preparation for the long weekend of marathon reading.

My requirements were all based on prime places to spend time lost in a book.

A bed with a view –

A Jacuzzi tub –

A comfy couch –

So all in all I don’t think I did that bad… and really a lounge chair on the beach is just a bonus.

_{Please no one call attention to the flaw in the plan. I realize I have opted to vacation in the middle of hurricane season on a tiny island in the Atlantic Ocean. I’m fully aware of the disaster potential, but at least if I’m stranded I’ll have the book to keep me company.}

There is a boy in my bed…

Not that that is an all together bad thing, I’ve actually quite enjoyed his company and have had no desire to send him to the couch… or back to his own bed, but reality is? It’s odd.

I mean first he is sleeping on the wrong side of the bed. I didn’t even know I had a right side of the bed until I wasn’t sleeping on it. I should be asleep right now, instead of blogging… and I would be asleep if he wasn’t sleeping on the wrong side of the bed. I’m letting it slide tonight since he managed to gank his shoulder today, but tomorrow during breakfast there will be some rules laid out.

Then second it has been a long time since someone shared my bed with me. In fact it has been well over a year and half and if we are actually going to get into particulars the last guy is the same guy currently not snoring (thank you god) on my side of the bed (damn bastard). But nevertheless a girl grows used to having her bed all to herself. At least we sleep well together (when he isn’t sleeping on my side of the bed), and never once has he questioned my fanatical need to change out my bed linens every day. He even changed out everything himself after he woke up this morning (since I had long since left for work).

And he’s put up with all the funny foods (damn hippy), the cluttered bathrooms (damn product junkie), the general lack of caffeine in the house (damn purist), and the fact that I won’t date him (damn commitment-phobe) heroically well. Not to mention last night when I went and had a complete and total mental breakdown over a children’s book he didn’t look for an excuse to make a quick exit, and frankly I would not have blamed him. (note to self: add that to things that need to be blogged about)

So there you go – boy in my bed for the last 4 nights (with 1 or 2 more to go) and no one has died. That’s my weekend.

Here’s to not getting our hopes up!*

_{*fat chance of that, huh?}