The Sultans Of Frizz

I'm having serious issues with my hair. It must be a mixture of horribly hard London water, winter air (cold outside, warm & too dry inside), not getting it cut that often anymore (i.e. more split ends) and my hair generally being pissed off. I think it didn't take kindly to having been braided into dreads last summer & then exposed to a week of alcaline dust & sun as well.

It's frizzy as fuq and when I finally manage to get it to be flat & shiny, it goes into full static mode. I only wash my hair every 2 or 3 days because it's so dry & I dread blow-drying it because it will go "poof" straight afterwards. The only way to make the situation bearable is to tie it into a ponytail, but I obviously can't do that all the time & I doubt it makes things better in the long term.

One solution would be to get my hair cut again, but I don't know what kind of style I want at the moment & sort of like the idea of growing it for a while & anyway, my hairdresser has disappeared to Australia & his replacement is shite. I hate finding a new hairstylist because you have to find someone who understands what you want & who speaks your "language" (best case scenario is to be able to just say "do what you want" & it comes out awesome). I've got fine, very straight hair & lots of it. It's notoriously difficult to cut & most hairstyles just don't work for me. My hair rejects any kind of styling effort & even manages to escape out of elaborate braids (unless I don't wash it for a week, which is what I did before getting it braided into dreads).

Cue total panic when hairstylist told me he's off to Australia. For good.

I know I'll have to face a hairdresser again soon, but until then it would be nice if my hair would just behave & not turn into a giant ball of fuzz everytime I wash it.

So I thought it would probably be a good idea to treat it with a deep conditioner & maybe coax it into being more manageable. This involved washing my hair in the evening because in the mornings when I usually wash it I don't have time to spend half an hour waiting for the conditioner to work. I'd found a leave-in hair moisturizer in one of my drawers which I'd most likely bought last winter & decided to go for it.

Bad idea. Really bad idea.

Maybe it was because I've used the cheapest stuff available at Superdrug (very likely), but it was thoroughly unenjoyable. The stuff looked like clear, slighly yellow snot & left my hair feeling strange & sticky. The frizz was still there, but now there's also stickyness. According to my colleagues it looked alright & shiny, but I can't stand the way my hair feels now & anyway, the "poof" effect is still present.

I've now bought Aussie Miracle Frizz Remedy & intend to give that a try either tonight or tomorrow (i.e. next time I wash my hair). It can only be better than what is happening on my head right now.

I want summer back. I'd even settle for spring. Any season when my usual shampoo & conditioner combo (Tigi's Catwalk Honey & Oatmeal) works.

On another, hair-unrelated note, I'm not going to the Natural History Museum today because Pinky is busy fighting O2 for some reason or other. It's grey & quite possibly wet outside, so a stroll around Camden is not very appealing. I think I'll bus it down to Oxford Street & explore one of the big department stores this afternoon, which is something I've been meaning to do for, errr, years. Who knows, I migth find something nice.

Oh, and I'm still loving my rebounder. I did a 20 minute session last night, in the not so long term I want to get up to a full 30 minutes bouncing. I'm getting the feeling that the springs get noisier the more I use the trampoline, which is not good but nothing I can change. So far I haven't got any results in regards to weight loss, but I've only been exercising for a week now & I'm not exactly watching what I eat. I haven't put on weight despite stuffing my face with nuts & sweets, so that's a good thing.

Next week will be busy with a gig (Dan Le Sac), playing silly games at the V&A and quite possibly my first ever barn dance. Bring it on, I'm ready!

Frost Flowers

 

It's gone cold (aka below 0 at night)! We don't have snow (yet), but it looks like the temperature is dropping & the news will soon feature "the big freeze" again. I'm hoping to finally get a proper snow day, not that public transport needs a lot to totally break down in the first place but it's been holding up pretty darn well so far. The latest delays were due to, errrr, something else but snow makes a much better excuse.

The week's been quiet news-wise, apart from the unexpected interview action. I haven't decided what to do with the weekend yet, tomorrow I'll either wander over to the Monkey House for little monkeys birthday or treck down to Clapham North for Big Jaco's birthday. Sunday might feature a trip to Camden to find skirt to go with red corset & very gothy boots and quite possibly have a chai latte & some food at Inspiral while being all artsy & hippie reading a book.

Today I've had a little chat with my boss, inspired by a call from another agent letting me know there's a research role at Sky going. Neither  my boss nor his boss knew of it, which is kinda weird. But I thought I'd take this opportunity to test the waters re: going permanent. As suspected my boss is really happy with my work & would want me to stay. On that note I pointed out that I like working there very much and carefully hinted on that IF I get to stay I would expect to at least get a senior exec role, which was fine with him but would not happen right away (meaning I'd be on the somewhat depressing pay for a bit longer should all of this happen). The whole discussion was on a purely hypothetical basis anyway as the girl I'm covering for is still in negotiations to come back part-time & I don't know if they have the budget to have both of us. He promised to have more substantial information by end of next week.

I will definitely do the interview, I would be crazy not to. I will be in real trouble if I end up getting two offers. I'm expecting to get at least one.

Oh, and I've started doing yoga again. Only managed 5 sun salutations A and one sun salutation B last night before collapsing & my arms are hurting quite a lot today. I really want to get back into practice again, it felt so nice once I got beyond the initial everything-hurts-OMG-die period. I also very much want a rebounder, which seems to be the posh name for a mini trampoline. I have this crazy idea that it would fit into my room & the thought of happily bouncing about while getting fit, toned & burning calories is very appealing. Have to go stalk trampolines in the near future.

My head is full of ideas & words at the moment, which unfortunately tend to mainly want to come out when I don't have a computer at hand. Like on the train, or in bed. In my head I've written a million blog entries already, but no one will ever read them coz by the time I get home/am back at my computer they have evaporated & are merely shadows of the brilliant things they were. I'm considering having a notepad with me at all times to catch them words before they escape, but writing by hand feels so alien to me now! I used to have a very pretty handwriting back in the days which seems to have degenerated into some awful scribble over time & neglect. Scary. It probably is a good idea to get more practice in, then. I'll be the crazy old lady frantically scribbling away on the train, if you need me.

Words are delicious.