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A nice review can remind you that you are not crazy.
You know most days that you are not crazy and that the silly things that you do make sense and are worth your time. But some days you feel crazy and trapped in this void where people who wear too much gray look at you like you are insane. This WashingtonPost.com review of my stuff at the DCAC Wall Mountables did this for me yesterday:
Read the whole review here.
This is a picture of the girls and I coloring that Valerie Dryden took for her project on us. I love this because you can see my crazy hair and all its rooty glory.
I think it is time for new colors. I am totally inspired by these felt brooches made by KeriRounding
This is exactly what I want my hair to look like. I wonder if I can pull it off. The problem is that blue hair fades to grey very fast!
Jeff and I were lucky to have a grandma here watching the girls today, so we headed out into our city world via Metro to see the movie Grindhouse. Three hours of b-movies about zombies and cars. My life is rad. Washington was sunny and cold and my scarf was orange and had an octopus pin on my coat and my socks didn't match and I left my hair down all pink and blond and messy. I love the random messy mess of my city and of myself and everything. And Grindhouse made me realize why people like my zombie shirts, cause zombies really are something to worry about.
There was a trailer for a movie directed by Rob Zombie and I thought, good for Mr. Rob Zombie, big movie director. "He can't be a rocker forever," Jeff said. And I thought about how I love Rob Zombie's hair. And I also wondered about how he became Rob Zombie. I wonder how long ago that was? And that made me realize that I AM now Tina Seamonster. And this is kinda weird and sometimes make me feel like a lame-o, but most of the time, I AM Tina Seamonster. Like this is me, this new tina. I dig that. I wondered who Tina Seamonster will become. Will she direct horror movies in 10 years? I doubt it cause I don't dig horror movies, but living a new name opens doors that you would have never thought to open. I have only in the past few months really owned the name again. I dig this. I dig that mammahood hasn't killed my spirit, smashed me into bits and re-formed me into this mommy person who wears mom jeans and has stupid hair. I dig this. Cause I don't wanna be that person and I won't be.
I am thinking of Rob Zombie's hair and my own and new colors are coming to mind. New colors and new ideas fitting of the seamonster that I am.
Are you who you want to be? Think about it a little. For real.
I thought about matching my hair to my brother's wedding this upcoming weekend, but I couldn't get the right color aqua, plus I didn't want to overshadow the bride.
So I am pink again and pink hair makes you make new friends on the street. And pink hair makes you walking art and makes for a nice field of vision when the wind blows it in front of your eyes.
This is what it looks like on top of my head like a stick of cotton candy.
This is what it looks like long.
I think pink is a summer color. It is also a me color. I am becoming a summer girl again. When I was super fat, I was a fall girl. All browns and amber orange. Fat girls hide behind brown and black. It is easy to hide. So easy to hide when one is so large. How does that work? I wish I could remember. I am still big, but can't, won't hide. Last summer was taken from me by a smallish doctor with big round glasses who sent me to bed for months, then complained when I gained 80 pounds. Pregnant with twins, I remained hidden in bed and huge jammy pants while the Washington sun burned late into the night. Hidden when I should have been seen. Hidden when I should have been celebrated. That was my bed rest summer. My baby summer. My hospital summer.
But this is my my my summer. I am taking it back. And I will use it to sweat anyway the baby pounds and Rachi will get tall and grow like a weed and Anya's chin will get pointy-er and we will all thin out and by fall all the reminders of our birth and our hiding will be gone. We will have our summer, the one that was taken from us and we won't complain about the heat or the sun.
We won't hide. Not now. Not ever. We will be bold with our pink wedding hair. We will be bold with whoever we become.
This Washington winter has begun. I was already wearing my wonderful orange scarf from the lovely Edie. Now, I have cracked out the best hat in the world. Made by Heidi at mypapercrane.com, this hat is big and warm and orange and white. I had been thinking of going blue (hair) for the winter, but the pink hair looks so nice next to this hat that I may stay pink.
It is 10pm on a Saturday night and my life is strange. I jsut got finished listening to Jeff argue a bit about foriegn policy with someone we had never met in person until this evening. Cyber-friends. That's right a cyber friend of Jeff's and his wife were in town for a wedding and they, too, have a 4 month old, so they came by. It must be weird for Jeff to meet people he plays Halo with. It was pretty cool, actually. But you wonder what life will be like in 20 years... I mean, 20 years ago there was no internet (not really) and meeting a cyber-friend would never have happened. What will our girls' adult lives be like in 30 years? Will their record collections be implanted!? I hope so. I want to be 70 and get seasons of Buffy implanted. Or perhaps my favorite movie. What will that be then? Rosemary's Baby or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?
I just got finished rocking Anya to sleep for a total of two hours. Oh my. This baby kicks my ass nightly. Sometimes when I am rocking her to sleep, I think about those horrible nanny shows. What did those parents do wrong? Did they love their babies and rock them to sleep. Did they let them cry it out? How did those kids get that way? Too much sugar?
Will Anya be a complete jerk when she is 5? Oh, I hope not. "Give me a boy of seven and I will show you the man." That line is from the 7UP documentary series. I think about that too... if I can just get her to 7 without having to call some TV nanny in to wrangle my kids, we will be fine.
I know that by now you are frelling sick of seeing pictures of my hair. I know that I am completely self-absorbed. I know this. I do. I do. But dude, look how lovely my pink hair is!!!
I am going to get it cut this week. First hair cut in two years! Ok. I swear I won't post another picture of my hair until it is blue again.
On another topic, I feel like I am waiting to go on vacation. But instead, I am waiting to go back to work. This time last year, I was super excited to be going to London. Now... I am super excited to head down to K Street every morning. What an amazing year it has been. Never underestimate what can happen to you in a year. I am totally proof.
It is 9:51 pm on a Monday night and we are the only people on the little white bus going from Woodley Park to U Street. The girl in my front pack has finally calmed down after a good deal of hopping and binky giving on my part. Your girl is wearing a blue hoody sweatshirt that you picked out before she was born. Her head is turned and I can only see her tuft of hair. You look so tired in this blue bus light and I am filled with so much love that I can't stand it. At the bus stop you said we were like Mai and Satsuki waiting for the cat bus in Totoro. Iconic. But this moment is equally as iconic. I say that we are like a scene in a movie, the light is just right. You joke that they don't make movies about people with babies. But here we are, we will never be in this place again, on a night bus with 8 week old babies. You in your Bungee baseball cap and me with my pink hair. Some day when we can't afford this city lifestyle, I will remember this. It is funny how life always takes me to exactly where I need to be. And last night on that bus with you and the babies was that place.
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below is my new hair in phases... first the bleaching, then the new pink with some blond. the baby is rachel.
Here is a pretty picture of my pink hair against green:
I have been feeling super super crafty this week. I have two new bracelets and a few other new things to add to the site tonight. So, check back tomorrow if you are looking for something fun and springy to buy. I am actually working on some new bait necklaces that are very summer-y, pastels and very tiny beads with not at all heavy lures. Not sure why I am making more lure necklaces, since I rarely sell them, but these are really great! I have one that I have been wearing everyday, and I have to say it is very... um... understated, considering I am wearing a fishing lure.
I have said this before, but I am trying trying trying to not worry about things that I can't control. I have been worrying too much about what will happen after the babies get here, how we will cope, etc. I have also been worrying about whether or not the girls are growing at the correct rate. All I can do for this is eat all my food and hope for the best. So funny that this time last year, I was trying NOT to eat and now I am trying TO eat. This time last year, I felt guilty about adding a fruit smoothie to my lunch for fear of drinking calories. Today, the smoothie is just the very beginning of the food that I have to eat at lunch.
Lisa at work asked me today if people are giving up their seats on the bus for me yet. I said no because I don't look pregnant, I just look fat. She thought this was very funny and said i would make a shirt that said "I'm not fat. I'm pregnant. Give me your seat." But the shirt should say, "I'm fat AND pregnant." I wonder how many overweight women have this problem when they are pregnant? I find that gaining the weight from being pregnant is actually reminding me of what it used to be like to be super fat. People aren't as nice to you when you are super fat. This is obvious, but hard to deal with. I know if I saw myself, I would think, why is that fat girl having a hard time walking up the hill? She should lose weight. My brain still haven't caught up to my scale. I am a 260 pound girl who thinks she is still that 220 pounds girl who lost 70 pounds. I am not sad about that, I actually think it is pretty interesting. Being a social scientist makes life easier.
The pink hair caused a big ruckus while I was getting my lunch today. I would imagine it is because it is all out and big today and not put back in panda ears. It made me think about the benefits of not being so visibly loud. This made me think of what kind of long term affects my pink hair have on people? haha. No, seriously. I worry sometimes that I negatively impact little kids with it. I always here little girls telling their moms, "I want pink/blue/purple hair," as I walk by. I wonder how often my whimsy causes a mom to say "no" to her daughter.
Ah, and I always move back to motherhood. Last night, I had a bit of explosion of emotions. I think that being pregnant with twins has made me ignore my worries about becoming a mother in general. I am so wrapped up in the whole twin thing, that my old phobias about motherhood have been stuffed away. So, last night, I saw this Cingular wireless commerical, where a set of super cool in that O.C. way male triplets all come home from college for their mother's birthday. I reacted to this commerical in such a crazy way. It sent me to the bedroom in angry tears. I told Jeff about the commerical and about how those guys totally don't love their mother. They love beer and skiing and whatever cool O.C. boys love. And that I wondered what the whole point of this was since no one I knew really loved their mother. This was just totally out there and Jeff let me know it.
I guess I just worry that no matter what I do, at some point, my kids will feel like I harmed them somehow. Like I loved them too much or not enough or who even knows. Everyone is messed up somehow and it seems more than ever, people blame it on their parents. Maybe deep down, I have this fear of being rejected by my kids; even though I know it is a natural part of growing up.
I am sure all new moms worry about these things. I know I am not the first. And once again I think about how lucky I am that so many of the real worries of pregnancy are voided for me by modern medicine and life. That I can afford these emotional concerns. I wonder what the top concern of my greatgrandma who had 22 kids was. I am sure it wasn't being rejected by her children or not being loved. I'm sure it was food and clothes and losing her little ones to illness.
I am lucky. I am a fortunate panda. I am golden. I need to remember these things.
I swear that my nose has gotten wider since I got pregnant. The books didn't tell me that could happen. Maybe it is the added 25 pounds. Maybe I am slightly batty.
Here is a picture of my newest hair color, Atomic Pink! plus brown roots too. I am noticing that the brown hair that is growing back in has actually lost my original hair color. My hair used to be kinda auburn, now it is just blah. Oh well. Guess that just means that after the babies are born, I will have to bleach it away and go all pink or perhaps lime green! Lime green! I just noticed that I am wearing a polo shirt in this picture. Pregnancy makes us do silly things. I also noticed that my shirt and sweater match my website colors. How on earth do I do that?
For a while my hair was fading to a very pale pink and lavendar. I figured that since I couldn't re-bleach, I would just do with the pale colors I was becoming. I have to say that I also thought, well, I am becoming a mom, I won't need to be so crazy with my appearance anymore. I have to say this was just a little bit of depression that made me think that way.
On Sunday, Jeff took a bath to soak his poor broken toe. This gave me a reason to hang out in the bathroom for a while and talk to him. Hmm, what can I do in the bathroom for that long? I searched through the linen closet for my hair dyes and found one that I had never used. Atomic Pink! As long as I don't bleach, I am fine. So I went at it. And now I have this full head of Atomic Pink hair with like 2 inches of brown roots. I feel like a rock star. Haha.
I just went outside to get my lunch and the sun is happy, but the air is still cold. Spring is still dressed like winter. And her wind blows my pink hair everywhere. And I am the only pink haired pregnant girl on the streets of downtown Washington. And this makes me feel special even though I am special without those things. But this makes me feel like a giant ball of joy. I am a force of joy. I am. I am. A force. I am.
For this pink and blue haired pregnant girl, Washington, DC is like a tiny town.
Around every corner, I encounter people who I might not remember, but who know me and ask me how I am doing. I feel like I am living in Mayberry rather than a fast moving capitol city. The woman at the post office asks if I know what they are yet. I am taken off guard. A downtown direction-giver chases me down the street to ask me how I am feeling. A homeless man says, "hey blue, I haven't seen you in a while, when you gonna dye your hair a new color?"
Of course, this is all because I have been walking around town for over a year with a full head of blue or pink or green hair. And people wanna talk to me about it. And now that it is growing out, I have to tell them why I am not coloring it anymore which means I tell complete strangers that I am 3 months pregnant. This delights people. People love pregnant women. They all love to tell me how wonderful it will be for my kids to have such a cool mom. And I am stunned and touched by the ability of people to be so loving and sweet to someone they don't even know.
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On Saturday, Jeff and I met up with a set of 5 year old identical twin boys and their mom, Kristen. It was really interesting to spend time with the boys and see how while they were identical, they were very different. I never once couldn't tell them apart. They were charming and happy and wonderful kids. At one point, their mom told them to tell each other secrets, which resulted in them huddling together, all whispers. Brilliant! I put that one in my pocket for later.
Benn who likes and wears blue told us about how babies come out of your "'gina" and Dylan who likes and wears green liked to tell us who was who in the baby pictures that they brought with them. That was the second thing I learned. The kids will want to know who is who in baby pictures! I never would have even thought about it. Their mom really did a lot to quell my fears about giving birth and dealing with the first year. She also brought us all these books about twins, which Jeff and I are now reading through.
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I am now in full maternity clothes. Before I started to grow, I was horrified at having to wear them, but not now. It is such a relief to put on this huge flowy shirt. I feel so much better. Every night, twins girls continue to show up in my dreams. Last night, they were about 14 and one was goth and the other was dressed all vintage June Cleaver. The goth one was a happy goth who really secretly wanted to be her sister. The vintage one was very proper. Then I dreamed about two clear eggs with tiny full grown people in them. I cut the top off the eggs and pulled out these slimy people. Gross, but funny. It made me think about making gummy placentas with babies in them. I know, have a sick sense of humor.
This is what is going on with my passengers, thanks to ivillage:
:::Measuring in at about seven centimeters crown to rump, and weighing about two ounces, your baby-to-be (babies) will spend the rest of the pregnancy concentrating on growing and becoming strong enough to live outside the uterus. Your babys' intestines have now moved from outside the body to inside the abdomen. While your baby won't be saying "Mommy" for some time, vocal cords are now developing. Your fetus also has developed many reflexes and will squirm inside of you if your abdomen is prodded.:::
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It is official. I just bought all the food in the world. I have been battling dizziness for the past two weeks, so I am now trying to combat it with food, mostly protien. I just got back with my lunch which includes:
fruit smoothie with soy protien
roast beef sandwich with cheddar cheese and veggies
hard boiled egg
banana
apple
cheese and crackers
cashews
bagel with creamcheese
I just finished the sandwich and can't even think of eating anything else. But the goal is to finish it all by the end of the day. It was hard for this former fat girl to buy all of that food at once. It will be even harder to eat it all considering that during my weight loss journey, just months ago, I would have just eaten the egg and the fruit for lunch. What a change. Wish me luck.
here's another picture from my trip... me at stonehenge... jeff took this and it is really lovely how clear i am in the foreground and then the little stonehenge in the background. props to jeff for his amazing framing. props to me for wearing orange and pink together. props to stonehenge for being really old. and dude, old navy should totally buy this as a marketing photo... cause both the scarf and jacket are from there. fat girls everywhere would run out and buy orange scarves andpink velvet jackets. i wrote that sentence and then kept a bit yucky.,.. i think i might not think of myself as a fat girl anymore. weird. wow. rad.
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backbackback.
i am back from my first overseas holiday. we had a wonderful time, i missed my apartment and dog and friends. took a total of 257 pictures... so i will upload some of those soon, prolly after my volunteering this morning.
we fetch archie tonight. i hear he has been spending a lot of time in front of the window, sighing. poor chap. i think he grandma will be happy to be done with him, though. haha.
ok. more later.
ok, here is the first picture... jeff and i on our first night in london... can't really see, but we are at trafalgar square.
Here is one view from my new rooftop deck. You can't see everything from this one and the view is much more breathtaking at night. But here is the first picture:
And here is a picture that I took of Brian and I on the roof this afternoon. As usual, as I am told I don't look as happy or smilely as I really am. I can't smile on command. Plus, I was talking to Brian when I took this and the sun was in my eyes eyes eyes, so I am all small eyes. Brian looks all happy though. Sillly Brian, making me look not as happy because he looks so happy. I promise to the people who complain, I will try to post a picture of me smiling more.
Today was lovely. Jeff, Brian and I went to see Shaun of the Dead, which was very very enjoyable. Brian has now been redeemed for dragging us to see at least one very bad movie in the past few months. It wasn't his fault, but he was really wanting_needing this one to be funny. He got it! Lucky duck.
Tomorrow night we are all going to see the Mountain Goats, who i haven't seen in actual years. I hope he is still good. I love that new record, even though it is about divorce and very sad. I have been a busy busy girl lately. All party party. Well, not party, but busy fun outside of the house girl. I think it is because of October. It is my favorite month to be alive. To exist. To experience life.
Tonight we begin our crazy Farscape marathon. We have to watch all of season 4 in like 7 days. I have no idea how. We will see.
I looked for myself in a bathroom mirror today and couldn't find me. Haha. I just didn't recognize myself. I love that. I am always so used to seeing this huge fat girl in the mirror and when i see a smaller person, i wonder where I am. I worry sometimes about not being a fat girl anymore. I worry that I won't be pretty if I lose too much weight. That must sound funny to girls who fear being fat. That I fear being thin. But it is the truth and I must share it. But then I realize, no matter what, i will always still be a big girl and I love that. I can work hard to accomplish the weight loss, but still stay pleasingly plump and curvey and girly. So, I end up with the best of all worlds. A sense of accomplishment and still pretty pretty plump. I guess that is the upside of starting at nearly 300 pounds. Haha. I can always find a positive side to every frelling thing.
This is a strange time. A flux time. I am in flux. But you already knew that. Sorry to repeat. But it bares repeating. It is worth repeating. Repeat. Forward. Repeat and forward again. Move forward. Repeat. Don't be a still shark. You will die. Still sharks die. So keep moving and swimming. Ahead. Remember. Ahead. Ahead. Ahead. No matter where it takes you. Ahead is always the right way to go.
have a first look at my new hair color. claire fisher, anyone?
it is deep cooper blonde, fish bowl and electric blue. i am not fond of the dark blue in the front, which you can't see here,...so hoping to replace it with some some lighter blue soon.
jeff said something funny about this new color... that it looks the least natural of all, even when i was totally blue (which you can see by scrolling down to April). i think he might be right. this is just tooo shiny or something. i feel a little silly experimenting with normal hair color colors, haha, but going to another blue or purple is just so bad for my hair, considering I have to bleach it courtney love style before hand. i think the two stripes in the front are good enough, though, and easier to maintain than a full head of blue hair.
the rag weed is threatening to kill me. i swear.
Did you watch Lost? I wonder if there will be a pay off for all these giant monster scares.
ok, off to watch jeff play star wars battlebattle and make more ninja necklaces.
sleep well.
it has been a month since my last entry. i have now lost 65 pounds. last week, increased my water drinking and that did it, brought me out of my plateau. lala. drinking 6 glasses of water a day is difficult, but i am a trooper.
this has been a long weekend. lovely weather that felt like san francisco or september or september in san francisco. i spent the weekend walking my city, watching movies and not much else.
this morning, i became a blonde for the first time. then i promptly added fish bowl-colored lines. lovely. it is weird to be a first time blonde. i kinda look like a mermaid... a punk mermaid, maybe.
off to floss and sleep. i will hopefully be updating the store this week with new necklaces including a cute little bat necklace and an ant-eater and an owl and some more ninjas. also working on some new art (FINALLY!).
and, yeah, i have a birthday coming up.
What is going on with you? I have been nightmaring about vampires, which is strange because we haven't been watching any Buffy on DVD. We are currently in the middle of Farscape Season 2 and Millenium Season 1, so Buffy in sight. Last night, the vampires were invisible and thus hard to, um, see and kill. They kept biting me. When i was a kid, I used to nightmare about vampires all the time, until I just let them catch me and nothing bad happened. Then the nightmares about Andy Griffith started. He and Barney were always chasing me with guns. They were in black and white, while I was in color. Strange.
Jeff and I spent the day at the Japanese Festival in DC today. They had squid on a stick, which looked so pretty, but I ate sushi instead. I did have my first eel sushi, though, so I was at least a tiny bit adventurey. I just made that word up.
I didn't think I would be the only blue haired girl there, ya know, cause of all of the bluehaired girls in anime. But we found that having blue hair is good at a street festival because your peeps can spot you in a crowd. As long as someone is looking for you, you will be found if you are a blue haired girl.
My friend Chris gave Jeff a free Japanese beer and it didn't effect him like the Red Bull usually does. Hehe. I bought some Pocky and stickers and went pee in a port-a-pooty, which was weird because I could see the sidewalk through the door and it was like going to the bathroom on a city street.
We walked to the Cherry Blossoms, but didn't stay long because of all of the tourists. Jeff's mom took this picture of us, I was apparently not ready for the picture, but this is pretty cute anyway. As you can see in this picture, I am still a little fat in the middle, but the great smallening is continuing. I am now at 54 pounds gone.
Some tourists in Washington, DC are still very very nice to me, engaging in a conversation on the metro even though I have blue hair. Cool.
When in a jury room on jury duty, a very loud sneeze will likely not yield a “bless you.” Perhaps they thought that I was a pagan and therefore could not be blessed. Oh and just because you are a blue haired girl does not mean you will be excused from jury duty.
Blue haired girls often forget they have blue hair and wonder what people are staring at.
Do not, and I repeat do not ever worry about matching your outfits to your hair. It is a lost cause.
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Copyright © 2008, Tina Henry-Barrus, all rights reserved.
Design by Jeff Barrus, 2005. |
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