I'm exhausted, of course. I don't know the last time I went out and didn't come 'home' exhausted. And Godd, just to consider all I did today, the random tasks and pastimes (for once, such small and simple things, such everyday, this-is-how-I-think-people-spend-their-Sundays things) nearly knocks me out. I went to the mall. I ate lunch in a restaurant. I wandered said mall. I went to a movie. Not a movie exactly. More like, a cinematic experience. Holy hiccups^, have you people seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? I figured it would get to me, being my kind of weird, innovative, original movie, and dealing with the pain of remembering... but it was so different from what I expected. I think because I expected it to take place mainly after he'd forgotten her. But it's so much cooler than that. I also didn't expect to randomly find David Cross building a birdhouse. But I'm kind of glad he had such a small role; I would have been completely distracted otherwise. (John has subjected me to so much Mr. Show, I feel sick thinking of it. And yet. I'm the type of girl who pokes a bruise incessantly, to confirm the soreness. I return.)
The only problem with seeing this movie is now when I dye my hair blue, my dad's going to think it's in response. No, I think I've talked about it enough over the last few years that he'll trust me when I tell him otherwise. Also... Did you notice I wrote "when"? When I dye my hair blue? That's a recent development, the if blossoming into a when. I say it the way I say, "When I go to this thing on the seventeenth" which means there's only the slightest degree of doubt remaining, only the comfort of knowing I can back out, and the caution of not knowing all details. But, yes, my mom recently got a haircut. (Unlike me, she doesn't dig the diy aspect of haircutting.) She gets it cut by this man who's apparently very stereotypical for his business but also very cool, and she told him about the cut I'd described to her (which I felt so uncertain about after her unenthusiastic response. It's very easy for me to believe people think beyond little of how I look or what I think looks good) and apparently, he thought it was a great idea, (not that it's original, really) and he thought we should do two shades of blue, and when my mom relayed all this I was so excited to have someone contributing to it, affirming it, that I actually began considering going out into the stupid world (that same damn mall again, actually) and handing my scissors over to someone else. (He can use his own tools, of course. I meant it figuratively.) But anyway, I'm feeling really conscious of change in myself (which I hesitate to say because it freaks me out when I think about it too much, but when I don't think about it, the idea feels good, like a birthday should feel good)... I feel like a lot has happened this year, and I'm not who I was when I graduated high school; I'm not who I was, even at eighteen. I'm nineteen now (funny how that works)...and I'm just ready to do something to drastically mark the difference - because it is a drastic difference when we take in the fact that I've been doing this same cute haircut since my freshman year, although I made it my own by cutting it myself post-Rogers. I'm also ready to not be capable of looking conservative. No matter how Catholic the cardigan.^^
So, yes. I want to wait until after the Wisconsin trip (I think taking in the changes that have happened already will be enough of a task, and I'd rather not add hair to that scenario), which is no big deal; the bigger deal is that I need to get my fucking picture taken before I do it. Aigh. My parents never ordered school pictures; at least, they didn't beyond, say, my second grade year... I'm so not the girl for a photo shoot. But I never had a graduation picture taken, and I need one because my grandma has this tradition-dream-thing around photos that means a lot to her: She has her photos of her five grandkids (that would be my siblings and me) as babies, framed and on display. As we graduated high school, each baby picture had a graduation picture placed in front of it. The plan is that these graduation pictures will then be replaced with wedding pictures, and since that's so very unlikely for so very many reasons, I'd like to give her the one that I can. And it'll be a good consolation to her when she learns I chopped my hair off and dyed it (two shades of blue) if I give her this photo she's been waiting for and show that I had the foresight to take it while my hair was still a good girly length and brown.
The most amusing thing about this? My grandma's hair is short. And pink. But still, it's an issue... People are odd. (I'm not an exception. I wouldn't want to be?)
In the mall today, we bought a paper to check out movie times. (My dad had already seen Eternal Sunshine, so we were originally going to do a double-feature of Hellboy and Agent Cody Banks 2. Ok, I can't even type that without cringing. We were originally going to see 50 First Dates because I have enough pain in my life, and Adam Sandler always makes me laugh at least a few times. And then there was talk of The Triplets of Belleville, which got a second run post-Academy-Awards -rock- but it was at the other end of the universe, so we were back to ES. Which is no longer a problem because I want to see it again, and so the fact that my mom and I talked about seeing it together is not actually ruined. In fact, if she has the audacity to see it with, like, a friend, I'm kidnapping John, bribing him with David Cross, and going again. Note: this movie might not actually be as good as I'm making it sound. You know how movies are occasionally very important to you personally and so the fact that Kirsten Dunst gives a sucky performance doesn't blow it for you? I think this movie is genuinely good, but it was definitely relevent and cool for me personally; thus, I'm biased.) There's a little cheesy newsstand deal in the middle of the food court, and they have all sorts of the cheesy souveneirs - keychains, etc. I looked at them while my dad bought the paper and thought about how much money I'm going to spend on cheap plastic crap that says "Wisconsin." I smile like a girl in love just thinking about it. Frightful, yes? Frightful and beautiful, and mmm! Godds. I can see myself loaded down with shot glasses, which for the record (and the sake of the behaviorally "straight-edge", med-taking reader) are perfect for taking meds. I can see raised eyebrows of cashiers asking if I collect this shit in my "travels." Having to reply that I only collect Wisconsin.
Do me one favor: if I come home in a WI-state-pride t-shirt and a cheese hat, please be here to hug me.
~me
^along with the "godd" spelling, I'm trying to keep from blaspheming other people's religious values by watching what I call holy, and unlike "godd" - this is simply resulting in continually more ridiculous phrasings
^^I used to have this lavendar cardigan my brother called my Catholic school girl uniform, in part because I wore it with this gray sweatery skirt, and I did look a great deal like a good Sister. I haven't gotten over this yet.