Belle Femme!

I ignored the yell.

I got a few of them.

I really don’t mind being called a beautiful woman, but I wasn’t comfortable in the area of Paris that I was in and did not turn to look.

I am, however, comfortable being here.

I’ve been here since Monday, and yes, I know, it’s Friday, but I have been staying with friends and decided to do something different than usual.

I haven’t blogged, but rather, gone out with my best friend, walked everywhere, oh my God have I walked, played with her beautiful twin babies, hung out and drank coffee, been leisurely and warm, it’s been hot in Paris, eaten steak very rare, went to museums, and sometimes just rested on the couch in the fifth floor walk up where I am staying with my best friend in the Marais on Rue de Temple.

Yes.

You read that correctly.

Fifth floor walk up.

You know that app on your phone that tells you how much you’ve walked and how many flights of stairs you’ve done?

A LOT.

Let’s just say I have walked and climbed a lot.

Jesus.

Today it says I walked 6.4 miles and climbed 12 floors of stairs.

It lies.

I did more than that, I just didn’t carry my phone the whole time.

I probably did 18 or 20 flights of stairs.

Yesterday I walked even more than that, 23,188 steps, 10.6 miles, 14 floors (but more likely 24).

Plus.

Heh.

I’m staying in the loft of the walk up.

The flat is at the very top of the house, and when you go in through the door there is another flight of stairs and then I have to climb one more flight to get to the loft I’m sleeping in.

Now I know how my friend keeps her marvelous figure.

Fuck.

Imagine doing all that climbing with twins?!

She also taught me today to not wear face makeup, “you don’t need it.”

And.

To part my hair differently, “much sexier.”

And.

To wear matte lipstick, “gloss makes you look, well, you know.”

I do.

Slightly trashy.

So.

For the first time in I don’t know how long I wore no coverup or powder, I just did a little eyebrow makeup, mascara, and a matte lip.

She also said I should not wear any lipstick in the daytime, because you want to “pop” at night and how do you pop if you are already wearing lipstick?

I was going to go out tonight and eat in the neighborhood, I still could if I wanted to, it’s only 9:34 p.m. on a Friday night, everywhere is serving dinner, but I’m a bit tuckered out from my walking and stair climbing and I’m not sure I have it in me to do those five floors up and down again.

So yeah, I just did my sexy hair and matte lip to go to the Franprix and buy milk and fruit and sparkling water.

But you know.

I felt sexy as fuck.

It’s fun to feel sexy just going to the market.

I did other things today, too, ate a big fat steak, very rare, at Comptoir de l’Arc, a resto near the Arc de Triomphe that is just off the tourist path and very much a neighborhood haunt.

It was full of true Parisians and it felt fun to be there.

I had gotten the tip-off to the restaurant from a friend when I lived in Paris 2012/2013.

It was specifically designed for the locals and unlike the majority of restaurants in the neighborhood which have jacked up their prices, it is really affordable and very good.

I was happy to be back.

And it was nice to hop out of the sudden rain that sprang up.

Not that I minded the rain all that much, not when it’s warm.

Paris in the summer and a light rain?

Lovely.

I’m on my own for the next few days as my friends are off to a wedding over the weekend, so I’m fairly sure I’ll be keeping you updated at least through the weekend.

But come Monday I’ll probably go radio silent again.

I’ll be heading out-of-town for a few days.

Originally it was to Ile de Re, an island off the West Coast of France, but the house became unavailable.

Next time.

Instead!

I’ll be going with my best friend to Gard de Nord on Monday morning and grabbing a TGV high-speed train to Marseilles!

Yes.

I am going to the South of France.

I am over the moon.

We booked a hotel for two nights and my friend is going to rent a car too.

We are going to stay the nights in Marseilles, but one of the days we are going to drive to Aix-en-Provence, where she used to live, and go see the markets and drive around and be hot.

It’s going to be very hot in the South of France.

But.

We will also be going swimming in the ocean, so you know, I’m ok with that.

Have I said luckiest girl in the world yet?

Yeah.

Like that.

I Might Be Feeling It

My new hair, that is.

OMG.

I feel like Snow White.

I love, love, love it.

LOVE.

I’m back to my “natural” color.

I haven’t had this hair color in about four years and it was brief at that.

It feels good to be brunette again.

And.

Though I hate to say it, age appropriate, which equals sexy as fuck in my book.

44 you look pretty damn good.

Yes.

That is a lot of cleavage, Virginia.

But fuck it.

Once in a while a lady is going to feel her oats.

I almost.

But no, I did not, re-load the Tinder app to my phone.

I realize that I don’t really need it and the validation is nice, but it’s not real.

I want someone to see me in real life and go, yes, I want her.

And.

Then.

Ask me out.

That’s the feel of it.

I always feel a little sassy after I have a new hair do and this is no different.

Except that it is.

It feels the most me that I have felt in ages.

I’m not trying to be anyone different from who I am.

Granted I may feel differently when my hair gets curly.

Which it will do.

I got a blow out at the salon and it will last a day, max two, if I don’t go to yoga in the morning and I don’t shower.

Now.

I did shower today.

And.

I could possibly beg off yoga since I’m still sick.

Not as bad as yesterday, I woke up without the tightness in my chest, but I had to bail on dinner tonight with a friend after doing the deal as I could feel it settling back in and the last thing I wanted to do was be out longer and get chilled and have it come back with a vengeance.

Especially since tomorrow night is New Year’s Eve and for the first time in a long time I have plans to go out to a party.

I had been invited to one in the East Bay, and man it’s tempting, a lot of my favorite people will be there.

But.

East Bay.

And no car and I don’t want to BART, even though, yes, it runs until 3 a.m.

I decided to get tickets to a semi-private event at a friends gym here in town.

He’s doing a “Fight Club” themed party.

Which makes sense since he owns a gym.

There will be lots of people I know, some doing the deal, and good djs and dancing.

I’m psyched to go and I want to feel good and healthy for it.

And yes.

I do, um, perhaps want to sport my sexy as fuck new hair.

I’ve been contemplating going back to my natural color now for a little bit now.

I had at first thought about just chopping out the blonde and the pink, but I realized, no, I rather like my long hair and I like that the longer it gets the curlier my hair gets and when it’s short, it tends toward wavy, not curly.

Here’s for curls.

So when I went to the MOMA on Wednesday with my dearest friends, who both happen to be taste makers for a living, one in retail fashion and the other in interior design, I asked.

“What do you think if I went back to my natural hair color?”

And they both gave it a big, big, big thumbs up.

Ok then.

I got home, hopped on the phone and made a call.

I got in!

I was surprised that I was able to snag a spot so close to New Year’s Eve, but it happened and I got great color and an awesome cut.

Harper Paige Salon.

Love you guys!

It was a faster process than going blonde and I was grateful for that as I had some time left on my meter and I skipped over to Sephora.

New hair.

New lipstick.

Duh.

I got an Urban Decay.

Oil Slick.

And.

A new Kat Von D.

Motorhead.

I love how both are dark and sexy and a tiny bit sinister sounding.

I’m rather all sweetness and light at the moment.

But I’ll go with dark and sexy too.

I’m single.

Dark and sexy could catch me a few dates.

Fingers crossed.

And perhaps I am feeling my oats.

But.

This is my year.

I feel it.

I feel it in my bones.

I’m excited for it.

The new contract for work.

Moving forward in my school program.

New hair.

Which is just really, “old hair” but it’s been such a long time that it feels like a new me, just a slightly more polished, a tiny bit more refined (unruly will be on the scene soon when the blow out fades of, but I can say polished for at least the next twelve hours), fresh, and pretty.

It does also feel just that.

Pretty.

Which I’m also down for.

Dear God.

I have just written nearly my entire blog about my hair.

Hahahahaha.

I’m not-self centered, really, bahahahahaha.

Sorry.

So.

So.

So.

Stupidly self-centered.

But also.

God help me, quite happy.

I did something completely for me.

Going blonde, the last time I did it, was for someone else.

Granted I wanted to, but I wanted to even more when he wanted it too.

This was all about me.

How to make myself happy.

How to please myself.

Not about a man, a woman, a job, another person.

Just for me.

It turns out I like making myself happy.

I should remember this the next time I’m feeling remorse.

I deserve to feel happy and I have all the power and capabilities to make myself happy.

No one completes me.

I am complete.

With just a tiny bit.

More.

Um.

Sexy.

Yeah.

Like that.

 

Take A Spa Day*

Excuse me what?

Take a what?

Oh man.

Do I have to?

It was suggested to me that I actually take the day off today.

Not from doing the deal, that’s not an option, did that, met my person, carried the message, not the mess, a little later on today, got my get right with God, but yeah, it was suggested, that I take the day off.

I was relaying how I felt guilty about going on a date this evening.

A sexy as fuck date.

A date that pulled up in a 1972 Mach 1 grass-green Mustang.

A date over an amazing meal at Range—now one of my favorite restaurants, I will be going back (grilled Bay shrimp over marinated cabbage with pickled peppers for an appetizer and coffee rubbed pork shoulder over hominy with braised collard greens for my entrée—the pork fell apart with the softest pressure from the fork and I made my very happy, happy face).

There was even some kissing on said date.

I am home a little earlier than anticipated, but I was grateful to be going out for an evening on the town and completely understood my dates needing to get home at a decent hour since he’ll be up and out the door of his house at 7a.m.

Me?

Not so much.

Although I will get up and do my thing here at the house.

I have two ladies back-to-back coming over.

Meal prep to do for the week.

And.

Yes.

Finally.

Writing my Human Development paper.

Which really won’t take as much time as my anxiety would like to think it would.

I just don’t want to do it because I don’t like the class and it seems like superfluous grunt work, but I figure that there will be this kind of work once in a while.

Granted.

I was hoping that it would not so remind me of undergraduate work I have already done, but be that as it may, it’s a necessary evil.

One that I was admonished to set aside and to let myself enjoy a day off.

A day of rest.

A spa day, if you will.

So.

I did what ladies do.

I did lunch.

I went shopping.

I got my nails did.

And my eyebrows waxed.

I got suckered into buying the most expensive pair of jeans I have ever bought.

$180.

Eek a fucking mouse.

That’s basically my clothing allowance for the month.

I had already dropped fifty bucks for a pretty new sweater and wasn’t even in the next store looking for jeans, but as I pulled out a few tops to try on I saw some jeans and thought, yeah, I could use a new pair, these are cute.

And they were.

But.

They didn’t fit and I wasn’t about to hop out and grab another pair.

I wasn’t thinking that the freaking sales girl, doing her job and doing a damn fine one, would come back with another pair of jeans, slightly different cut, and say, here, try these on, I think they’ll fit.

Oh fuck me.

Man.

They fit like a glove.

Like blue jean sateen skin.

Like I felt like Blue Jean from the David Bowie song.

Like I have to have these pants.

I looked at the price tag and winced.

I looked at my ass and said, I can’t leave without these pants.

So.

I have a pair of jeans that I will now never.

NEVER.

Wear on my bicycle.

That are actually recommended to be dry-cleaned.

Who dry-cleans jeans?

Me I guess.

I just took them off before sitting down to write my blog and hung them on a hanger; I will be taking care of these pants.

And.

I am proud to say.

I did take care of myself.

I did go to the nail salon and do the digits and get the waxing and I let myself take a really long, hot, luxurious shower when I got home, deep conditioned that hair.

If I’m going on a date, I don’t care if my hair is up, which is how I did it for this evening’s date, I want my hair to be soft to the touch.

I want my date to want to plunge his hands into it.

Mission accomplished.

Not that my date did do such a thing, but I felt pretty sexy.

In my $180 pair of jeans and my black Helmut Lang sweater.

Which if I had bought it off the rack would have been more than the jeans, but I found it at a re-sale shop and got the steal of the century for $50.

I will also admit I was feeling anxiety about the date.

Not so much about my date.

He’s a dreamboat.

But.

About myself.

I was having a bout of “not enough.”

I don’t have the right look.

The right clothes.

The right shoes.

I am not enough.

I do not like being in that head space and it’s about fear and it’s silly and my date thinks I’m sexy.

So why the worry?

Anything to sabotage me being in the present and having a nice time.

“Go have fun!” She said to me as we sat at the back table at Tart to Tart, in the little nook where we like to sit and read.

“I totally concur with Honey, take a spa day!”

All right.

When I get the suggestion from not one, but two of my people, and really, should I consult the third, she would have said the same thing, and I have to take the suggestion.

I would rather take the suggestion than face up to the ramifications of not.

My own ideas suck.

Always have.

Always will.

The God idea; however, does not.

When people I love, respect, admire, and want what they have, give me suggestions; it is very much like listening to the God of my understanding.

A far more compassionate, loving, and gentle God than the one I came to know previous to this incarnation.

I am lucky.

I have had a spiritual awakening.

And when I sit back and acknowledge that.

When I look at my life.

The badass date I just went on.

Being in graduate school.

$180 jeans.

Please.

Who am I trying to kid?

My life rocks.

I’m a fucking rock star.

I really am.

Granted I could use some more humility.

But then I wasn’t claiming to be perfect.

Just sexy as fuck.

I mean.

Have you seen my new pants?

*This blog was written last night; however, my internet was down.  There will be another blog post this evening.  Happy Sunday!

Color Me Happy

I got the best hugs today.

I caught up with some friends that I have not seen in a long time.

And.

I got my hair did.

So good.

Blow Out

Rollers

Pink

Happy

Damn

Color me happy, joyous, and pink.

I was just going to go blonde.

But well, one thing, er, lead to another.

And I’m in the pink.

And I love it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, my dear friends at Solid Gold Salon, Sutter Street at Jones (shameless plug, they are just awesome and amazing, I mean, come on) in the Tender Nob of San Francisco.

Check them out.

I mean they have been doing my hair for a long, long, long time.

Calvin did my cut and his partner Diane did my color.

I could not have been in better hands.

It was not always this way.

“You look like a space hooker!” Calvin hooted in the living room of his apartment in Nob Hill proper.

“Dude.” I said, as I looked in something like horrified awe at what he had done to me.

Note to former self, never let anyone dye your eyebrows.

Ever.

Especially not someone who is still in beauty school.

“You are not allowed to post those photos up,” I said, “and excuse me while I go scrub my face off.”

Calvin was not just in school for hair (Aveda and Vidal Sassoon), he also did the program at Blush School of Makeup down on Market Street.

I too was living in Nob Hill, Taylor at Washington, and I would often make the two block, very uphill walk, to his place and we would shoot the shit, drink too many lattes, and he would cut my hair, color it, razor blade it off, once, oh God, once, he gave me a faux hawk and a tail.

How do you know when you love someone?

You let them give you a tail.

I saw a little boy at the park the other day with a tail and all I could think was, that is so not cool, cut it off.

Off man.

I made him cut that off pretty quick.

I never really gave a damn about the color or the weird cuts, he always figured it out, and it was fun to be his hair model and let him go to town on my head.

“I remember when you were rocking all those crazy colors and cuts, you were doing wild color before any one else,” she said to me last night when I told my friend I was going in to the salon today and I was going to do blonde, pretty blonde highlights, beachy, you know, sexy.

Well.

There was some blonde involved.

And the pink will fade, eventually to blonde.

Which is perfect.

That’s actually what I want.

I also left with a container of Manic Panic Cleo Rose.

When it fades too much.

Or.

When it’s just about time for Burning Man.

I will use the Manic Panic and bring back the pink.

I love the way it fades out though, I may wait a while to douse it with more color.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and they gave me a blow out, using the great big curlers, and I just love the being fussed over.

Perchance we are to date, and you are a man, identifying as heterosexual, not gay, not homeless, and not in a poly possible relationship, you will win me over by 1. Kissing my neck and 2. Washing my hair.

Oh goodness.

It is the best thing to have a person wash your hair.

I could just lie in that wash station all day and let that happen.

It still amazes me that I go to the salon and get my hair done.

Or that I go to the nail salon and get my nails done.

Or that I wear makeup.

All the things.

All the things I never used to do.

It’s like having the adolescence that I never had.

“My dad says I should be careful, you’re high maintenance, he says,” my boyfriend in my twenties told me.

I’m high maintenance?

What?

What the fuck do you know about high maintenance old man?

He was right.

Perhaps why I reacted so strongly to it.

If you spot it, you got it.

I love this part of myself though and I am doing my best to allow myself to embrace it, within reason, I’m not so high maintenance as you might think.

“I’m going to shame you when I tell you when the last time you came in for a cut was,” Calvin said as he looked it up in the computer.

“I know, I know,” I said, cringing.

I knew it had been almost a year.

“Almost a year,” he said, giving me the look.

They say every six weeks.

I say every twelve months.

“I wish you would teach me how you do that cat’s eye,” she said to me, “I just can’t do it.”

It takes me five minutes to do my make up in the morning.

Maybe six if I don’t have a steady hand, but it’s just doing the same thing every day since Calvin taught me how to do my makeup.

I got to be his model a few times for make up and when I went to Blush one of his head instructors also used me to do a demonstration and I learned a lot.

I could learn a lot more.

I don’t know contouring or really how to use blush properly or apply false eyelashes.

But you know.

I’m willing to learn.

I may be high maintenance, but I’m not time-consuming high maintenance.

And I know how happy I feel when I have pretty hair and makeup.

And how sexy I feel.

“Don’t hide your sexy under a barrel,” she told me, “God did not give you all that to waste it hiding in a corner.”

Yes ma’am.

“Where are you going tonight,” Diane asked as she finished the hair and smoothed down the last pieces, coaxing the full soft curl forward in a long sashay of bang framing my face.

“I don’t have plans,” I said.

“You look great! Are you going on a date?” My housemates friend asked as she popped over to check the mail and feed the cat.

Nope.

I do not.

But you know.

Every time Calvin has done my hair.

I do end up getting asked out on a date.

Here I am.

Let’s do it.

My hair looks amaze balls.

And.

I’ll put my make up on quick.

Real quick.

Promise.

Early To Work

Early to rise.

Not totally stoked on that, even though it’s only a fifteen minute difference.  Tomorrow mom and dad will be taking K. into the feeding clinic to see what is wrong with her.

I still claim that there is nothing wrong.  But I am not a professional.

Well, maybe, I could be a professional know it all.  But frankly, who cares about work, when I just got a fabulous new hair style?  I ran into Calvin Friday night and he told me that I should come in for a session.  I thought, hmmm, yes, I will want something fantastical for the playa.

However, I went with something pretty.  We talked about it and although we could have gone in a totally wild direction, I wanted to go pretty.  I usually go edgy or extreme, but I was feeling the pretty.  Cass has been talking about me coming into my feminine wiles, who knows, perhaps so.  I do know I want to attract a certain kind of attention though, and it is not from the hip/slick/cool set.

Pretty.  I’m so pretty, hmm, don’t know the rest of the words to the song, but I can hear them in my head.  I am definitely feeling a mite more sassy as the days go on.  And I am so looking forward to Thursday.  Four days people, four days, then I am playa bound.

I got the rest of my storage bins out of my storage locker.  Little dusty, but not too bad.  I have packed one completely and have two to go.  I currently have two loads of laundry working as well, I am going to pack as much clothing as I can get away with into my bins in the next day or two.

I was also going to make soup tonight, but the hair session went a little longer.  And I just came home and went straight into make it happen mode.

It certainly does not hurt that Calvin also makes a mean cappuccino.  I only had three.

Oops.

I also had a very relaxing time at Solid Gold.  The music was perfect, the end of the afternoon hazy in the city, the people passing by, the warm air of the hair dryer, Calvin showing me old photos he found on his camera from four years ago.

My god, so much has happened in those four years.  It was like looking into another era.  The funniest ones, ones I had completely forgot about where from a play date we took to Ikea in the middle of the week.  We both ate off the children’s menu, so he’s got these photos of us eating child’s portions of swedish meatballs and fries, and little tiny plastic cups full of soda.  We went around to all the sets in the store and pretended we were cooking or cleaning.  I just about fell out of my chair looking at the pictures of Calvin in an apron taking a pan out of the oven with oven mitts on. He also had me in a few in a child’s bedroom display that were hilarious.

I had gotten into the bottom bunk bed in a kid’s room and crawled under the quilt and snuggled in with a stuffed panda bear.

I remember this Asian woman walking past and not even realizing that I was a real human being in the bed, not just a prop.  She looked around, patted the bed, looked at the price tag.  I tried desperately hard to keep quiet and still and not pee my pants from laughing and Calvin was dying.

The pictures were hysterical.  And I had really long hair.  My god my hair was long.

Some times I miss the length.  I do love that my curls are coming back in, that I have enough length to support curly hair again.  Actually it’s quite funny, at least to me anyway, I have styled my hair a lot like the girls recently.  We all have about the same length hair.  I can try little scenarios on them and if I like it, I do it for myself.

That is not to say that I go out in public wearing my hair like them.

Ok, I did once, I couldn’t help it, we all were in pig tails.  It was my first time sporting little miniature pig tails since I loped off all my hair two and a half years ago.

I am currently growing it out, I don’t know how long I will let it go.  I want to donate it one more time to Locks for Love.  I really got a lot of donating to them before and it feels like I have got at least one more good long set of hair in me, before I grow up and get adult hair.

Whatever that means.

It is ten pm on a Sunday and I am jazzed.  I could freak out about not being tired, or I could just accept that I am excited for this next adventure and if I need to, Burning Man!!! I can always take a little nap tomorrow, oops, no I can’t dad will be home early to get K.  for the feeding clinic.  Oh well.

I refuse to get upset.  I enjoyed my time at the salon too much today.  I actually fell asleep in the chair!  But once the color and style were done, I danced around the salon doing my happy dance, it helps that I was wearing pink argyle tights.

And, Calvin, we so need to have a dance party at the salon, because that would be hot.

It would in fact be, sexy as fuck.

Calvin Strikes Again!