I Don't Wanna Grow Up

I don't know. Being back here after all this time...It feels strange somehow. I mean a lot has happened since my last post. I got myself a driver's license, a boyfriend and a fancy-schmancy degree. In Latin. Perhaps I have outgrown this blog. Maybe it's time to put the final nail in the coffin of this childish fodder and just commit to writing a deeply disturbing novella so brilliant, no one will read it until I die respectably of alcoholism at the respectable age 29. Maybe I should say goodbye to the less respectable Zac Efron...goodbye to the endless parade of cheerleading* movies...goodbye to the Muppet singalongs...goodbye to the sparkles...

...Oh, the sparkles.

Nah, that can't be it. Respectability be damned. (You know I could never quit you, Zaky! Call me!) It must just be that my creative juices have all but dried up in my long blogging hiatus. I submit the fact that I just used the words "juices" and "dried up" in the same sentence as evidence toward this case.

But really? I am so not ready to be a grown-up. No one who slows down when she passes the High School Musical themed notebooks in the office supply aisle in Target is ready for her own business cards. If I learn one thing from my year as a member of the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, it will be how incredibly under-prepared I am to be a productive member of adult society.

Do you guys remember when we all moved into our dorm rooms freshman year, all dewy and starry eyed? We tore the plastic encasing our brand new pop-up hampers, gingerly stuck dry erase boards on our doors and thought to ourselves, "this is it. We're finally on our own. This self-purchased bottle of laundry detergent is my ticket to the adult world." Kids, I'm telling you right now, we have been lying to ourselves. There is WAY more to adulthood than having to staple your papers before you bring them to class.

First of all, did you know that you have to go grocery shopping every week in the real world? I mean, I suspected milk and bread could go bad. I saw numerous graphic posters on the process at my third-grade science fair. But, it turns out that everything else can grow mold too! Tomatoes, Broccoli, rice (though, to be fair, that's just prison-style sake if you're a glass-half-full kind of person) garbage cans, lunch meat, bedsheets...You have to clean or eat all of these things regularly or throw them out. And money doesn't grow on trees (though mold probably grows on money) so it's good to not have to buy new bedsheets every other week. Also, most people don't even have an unlimited supply of soft-serve and a sprinkle bar in their kitchens.

Adulthood: Zero. College cafeteria: Like, 48.

Second, bathrooms don't clean themselves. When your mother said this to you, she wasn't kidding. When I informed my mother my "chore"one week was cleaning bathrooms, she asked me, "Caitlin, do you even know how to clean a bathroom?" When I said "um...nope." she replied, "I have failed as a mother."

When I was little, "bathroom cleaning" seemed like a mysterious cocktail concocted from baking soda, rubber gloves and mom jeans. The cocktail also seemed kind of redundant to me because, hello: Bathrooms clean people...why can't they clean themselves too? Well, it turns out they can't because human beings are filthy and disgusting. Within nine days our brand new tub had a gray ring around it and it stopped draining completely. We took measures to correct the situation with drain-o and something called a "hair strainer." I assure you, it's as gross as it sounds.

Finally, did you guys know that adults have to take themselves to the doctor? Remember the days of shuffling into urgent care and just plopping yourself down in a chair with a five year old copy of Highlights while your mom filled out paperwork at the receptionists desk? Yeah, well, those days are gone. I know, I know. many of you guys have been hip to this for a while. You've all been hauling your own asses to the campus clinic every flu season since freshman year. But I have managed to avoid it thus far.

And I was counting on avoiding it indefinitely. I figured I'd just not contract any ailments that couldn't be cured by the internet and a frozen pack of peas. Then, I'd die a peaceful death with no medical cause at age 130. I thought this was a pretty good plan. So imagine my surprise when, four weeks into my new job, I fell down the stairs and listened to my ankle crackle like a bowl of Rice Krispies. I managed to keep it together for a while until I realized that, yes, I was going to have to visit the doctor. Luckily, no one was around to witness my meltdown, but if they had, our dialogue might have gone something like this:

Friendly co-worker: Oh, honey, does it hurt that bad?

Me: No (pathetic sniff), it doesn't hurt at all. I'm crying because (sniff sniff) I have no concept of how health insurance works. I called the pharmacy the "pill library" until I was ten.

Co-worker: The pill library?

Me: What? An insurance card and a library card have a lot of similar qualities to a thirteen year old.

Co-worker: I thought you said 'ten.'

Me: Oh noooooooooooo...

Co-worker: Okay, okay. Don't cry. I'm sure a lot of kids get insurance cards mixed up with library cards. Even some, um, slower adults. Anyway, do you know the name of your insurance provider? How about the name of your plan or your ID number...

Me: Are you kidding? My insurance card hasn't come in the mail yet and I can barely even remember my own phone number without singing a little song in my head. (singing to the tune of Twinkle Little Star:) two eight seven six zero five one, That is my...phone number.

Co-worker: What? That doesn't even rhyme --

Me: I want my mommy.

Eventually I grown-uped up and called a number of resources to find out about my health-care situation. OK, so one of them was my mommy. I'm taking baby steps. None of the calls I made mattered because the health-care facility I went to was not about to provide me with any coverage without an insurance card. Luckily, I qualified for worker's comp. since I fell down the stairs on the job.

Since I still had a very loose grasp on the logistics of health insurance, I felt like a little old con-lady who trips outside of Olive Garden and sues the franchise for forgetting to salt the sidewalks. Later, my mother -- definitive resource that she is -- assured me that the money would come out of my employer's insurance, not by boss's children's lunch boxes. This was a great comfort to me once the whole ordeal was over. At the time though, every bleeb of the x-ray machine just sounded more and more like little Maggie's sigh of disappointment as she peeked inside her brown bag to find nothing but a hard boiled egg and a few packets of non-dairy creamer.

"Luckily," Nothing was broken (in my ankle) and I was out of the brace they gave me within a week. And, I guess if I had to learn about health insurance, there could have been more painful ways to do it. Still, I think my original plan of just never getting hurt was far superior. Let me impart what little wisdom I have gleaned from the real world so far on you little whippersnappers: don't fall down stairs.

Oh well. I guess it's all just part of growing up. But, if you can avoid it, I wouldn't recommend doing that either.


*The spell-check on this program does not recognize "cheerleading" as one word. I just wanted to clarify that there is no mistake on my part. If letting the words "cheer" and "leading" co-exist in spaceless, sparkle fingering** harmony is wrong, I don't want to be right. But I mean, it didn't recognize "Zac" or "Efron" as properly spelled words either so...how reliable could it be, right?

**Can we please file "sparkle fingering" -- along with the "withered juices" incident -- under "things we pretend I never said?"

Ways in Which I Fail at Ireland: Part Two

Grocery shopping

In an effort to help the environment, there is a tax on plastic bags in Ireland. To which I say, "great." Because of the tax, most people bring re-usable bags grocery shopping with them. To this I say, "awesome." Or, I would, if I had the attention span of a human being instead of a hamster. You already know where this is going don't you? The first time I went grocery shopping, I forgot the hearty re-usable bags. No big deal at first. I just shelled out the extra 88 cents for four plastic bags.

It wasn't until I was halfway through my ten minute journey home that I found out that the pansy bags I was carrying weren't worth the plastic they were made out of. The disintegration of three of my bags must have only taken two or three minutes, tops, but it felt like a half an hour in slow motion. First, a handle snapped. Then, a bottle of olive oil began to make a break for freedom. Next, the baked beans and the eggs decided they weren't going to suffer in silence any more! They were following the way paved for them by the olive oil, that great liberator. I did my best to keep all my groceries in check, but nearing Western road, I began to have visions of all my groceries sprawled across the pavement, sad and abandoned. A desperate plan to prevent this scene from happening involved me leaving my food on some dingy street corner with a scruffy but trustworthy looking guitar player and sprinting home to find sturdier bags while calling over my shoulder, "Don't go anywhere! I'm going to get help!"

Luckily it didn't quite come to that. I managed to gather my strength and my groceries close to my fold and collapse in my kitchen with groceries intact except for one battered yogurt. Its injuries were severe. There was nothing I could do. But, every time I eat another "forest fruits" yogurt, I think ofr its fallen comrade. Remember the Tesco-mo!

Baking

I wanted to make myself a chocolate cake for my birthday with a few friends. I went to the grocery store thinking I could just walk in with an American recipe and walk out with the ingredients it called for. No such luck. If the grocery store had been able to talk, we would have had the following conversation:

Me: Got any Corn syrup?
Super-Valu: Syrup made out of corn? That's gross, you weird American. Try "golden syrup" instead and cross your fingers.
Me: Powdered sugar?
Store: Well, stare at that wall of sugar all you want, but you won't find any "powdered sugar." Sweet 'n low is probably as close as you're gonna get. Ha! You suck at this. I'm totally winning.
Me: Shut up. Cocoa powder?
Store: Hmm...well, it's here somewhere. But I'm not gonna tell you where. Me: How about baking chocolate? Well, I have "baking" and I have "chocolate"... Ooh! and look! I have a non dairy product for baking that's "Chocolate flavored" [evil laughter]
Me: [growing desperate] What about chocolate chips? You have to have chocolate chips! You people have to make things chocolaty somehow!
Store: Sure, no problem...if you want to pay over two euro for less than a cup...
Me. NOOOOO!

When I discovered the price tag on those chocolate chips, righteous anger mounted inside of me, because I believe in a world where cheap giant bags of chocolate chips are accessible to all! I mean, I did buy the overpriced chocolate chips, but only because I had no other choice. I wandered out of the store, wondering how I could relate to a people who didn't value Nestle Tollhouse the way I did.

Outside, the grass looked a little less green.

Ways in Which I Fail at Ireland: Part One

It's the small things, really. I had been prepared for the more obvious differences while abroad in Ireland: different currency, different word for "soccer," different drinking age...etc. What I wasn't prepared for were the smaller surprises in my daily life. Experiences I thought were universal, and rights I took to be God given -- like industrial sized bags of chocolate chips and one-dollar double cheeseburgers -- shocked me greatly when they turned out to be courtesy of Uncle Sam. So: Travel to England and back again? check. Live on the contents of a single suitcase for five months in a row? No problemo! Yet, I try to do laundry and all hell breaks loose. Yes, going abroad is hard, but not for the reasons I expected. What follows are a few lessons I wish I'd had learned January. These are the ways in which I fail at Ireland:

Doing Laundry

So, you guys know how, at Kenyon, everyone complains about having to shell out six quarters for one load of laundry? Well, to you I say, "whatever." Yeah, that's right. I'm worldly now. I've experienced the hard knocks of doing European laundry. I think you should know that there are innocent college children in Ireland who pay twelve euro just to do laundry once. My friends, I have been one of those children. My views have been expanded in a way yours never can.

Anyway, the steep price of clean clothing is bad enough on its own, but when you mix it with the non-metric system and washers and driers that appear to have been purchased circa 1927, you have a meltdown docktail. The first time I attempted to do laundry I just stood, staring at all the nonsensical numbers on the washing-machine dial for about five minutes before some guy wandered in and asked me if I needed help with anything. "Oh no," I laughed, "It's totally fine!" as I just started shoving clothes into some holes and soap and coins into others, trying to look self assured. I left hoping I wouldn't end up with any shrunken sweaters or sudsy laundry tokens when I came back.

Luckily, Everything seemed fine when I transferred my wet clothes into the drier. Upon returning again after an hour to see if they were done, however, I discovered that the drier had stopped, but my clothes were still sopping wet. In the states, this would have been a major annoyance. In Ireland, however, where this broken drier had eaten three precious euro and I had to be on a bus in a half an hour, I considered it grounds for a rock star scale temper tantrum. I mean, I don't remember exactly what happened, because I blacked out in a blind rage at that point, but I'm pretty sure I kicked a washing machine and/or punched a wall. I yelled a lot too. I delivered a monologue that was nothing short of Shakespearean:


"I...I...argh. AAAAAARGH! What the!? damn it. DAMN IT! What am I supposed to do now? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW DEAN'S HALL??? Dean's DUMB Hall. AAAAAARGH! Stupid Ireland."

Since, as I mentioned earlier, I was supposed to be getting on a bus in half an hour to leave for the weekend, I didn't have time to run the drier again. So, I took my clothes back to my flat, and just sort of spread them out on the floor of my room hoping they wouldn't get moldy. Since that first incident, I have attempted to do laundry a few more times, and I run an approximate 45 percent success rate with those driers. Because I just did laundry a few days ago, I currently have a wet pair of jeans draped over my curtain rod, and my room smells like mildew. Or failure.

Turning my heater on

Seriously. I still don't know how to turn that thing on and I've been here for over two months. Sometimes, it turns itself on, and then I can't figure out how to turn it off. People have to stop assuming that college students are just born knowing how to do things like turn on heaters and use mops.

...Stay tuned in a couple of days for more ways in which I fail at Ireland. For real! I've written about them already, but they were so epic -- or long winded...Potato, potahto -- that they wouldn't all fit in one post!

PAAAARTAAAAAYYY!!!!!!!!

Hey, so, you guys know how I don't like other people very much? Also, you know how my trademark "thing" is to be kind of terrified of everything all the time? And how I like enough personal space to be able to stretch out with a nice copy of Luther's small Catechism without knocking anyone with my elbows? How about how I have a personal knees-and-shoulders-covered dress code that's just a few dangly earrings shy of Pennsylvania Dutch? With all of this in mind, it's probably not hard for you to imagine that I'm not so great with parties. I mean, seeing as how they involve lots of people in very tight quarters with very little clothing and lots of sexual energy and all kinds of other things that cause me to wake up in cold sweats in the middle of the night.

Anyway, all of this is just to establish a little background for...get ready...my first Irish party story! Aren't you proud? Of course, I wasn't actually in attendance at the party the story is about, but this is a detail. Did you hear what I said? Party! Story! Drunkenness! Cuh-rayzieyness! Woooooooo! Let's get started:

It was at the tail end of "Rag Week" At University College Cork. I'd tell you exactly what Rag Week is if I could figure it out myself. It has something to do with charity, and lots of parties. So...drinking for charity, I think? It's not like I didn't try to figure out more, but it's one of those things that means different things to the administration and to the students. It's sort of like Kenyon's Summer Sendoff that way. Last year, when I started hearing about Sendoff, I knew there had to be some administration endorsed aspect of it. Would there be music? Ice-cream? square dancing? laser tag? Yet, when I asked anyone what Summer Sendoff was, and all I ever got was an answer along the lines of, "Everyone's wasted all day! Yeah! Kick ass!" I'm still not really sure what Summer Sendoff is.

Anyway, long story short (though, yes, at this point I realize it's a little late for that), Rag week equals Week-long Sendoff. Thursday night of Rag Week was sort of the grand finale, since most UCC students go home on weekends. I went out for a little while, but was home and tucked in bed before 12:30. Because I'm an old lady who hates fun. My two flatmates were still out dancing the night away. Circa 3 a.m., however, I was awoken from a peaceful slumber by the door buzzer. My first instinct is to just ignore it, but it continued to buzz. And buzz and buzz. I began to think that maybe my flatmates had forgotten their keys and had no way of getting into the apartment. I figured I ought to let them in in the interest of Christian charity. Groggily, I rose from my bed and pushed the button to open the outside door without checking to see who was there. That Caitlin, she likes to learn lessons the hard way...

...When I opened the door, I didn't see either of my two roommates. Instead, A lone guy stumbled past me into the apartment and slurred, "Too much fun!"

"I can see that," I replied.

I recognized him as a friend of my flatmates, so I was about 89 percent sure he wasn't a sex offender. But I still didn't want him in my apartment. Our ensuing conversation put my years of training in the PB Newsroom trying to reason with unreasonable people to the test. You'll not be surprised to learn that I failed miserably.

Me: Um...Amy isn't here right now...

My New Drunken Friend: Right! right. Let's go drink.

Me: Uh, no thanks. I think maybe you shouldn't be here right now?

MNDF: Ha ha ha ha ha! Me and Amy...Me and Amy, were like this. We're best mates! Come on, let's go drink.

Me: No...no. Why don't you, um, leave now?

MNDF: Ha ha ha ha ha!

Me: So, I'm gonna go to bed now.

He headed towards the living room, and I went back into my room. My first instinct was to lock the door and pretend the whole thing never happened. "But," I thought, "he's really drunk...I don't want him to die or break anything on my watch. Gosh, that'd be hard to explain." So, I decided to go check on him. When I left my room and looked down the hall into the living room though, I saw that he had seated himself on the couch, opened my flatmate's computer, put his hands on the keyboard, and fallen asleep. Since "go check on him" was as far as my plan went at this point, I wasn't sure of what to do next. So, I stood in the hallway and seriously considered running away to a friend's flat. Or Minnesota.

Luckily, one of my flatmates returned with some of her friends before I hopped a cargo ship accross the Atlantic. As she staggered into the apartment, I turned her around, mumbled, "Um, your friend is..." and quickly hid in my bedroom. As I retreated I heard her exclaim, "Brian! How did you get in here?" I closed the door, but could still hear a steady refrain of "Brian! How did you get in here? Brian? Brian! How did you get in here?" I turned off the light and cowered.

But in a "wooo! Party!" sort of way.

Now that I've shared my first party story, can I have my "official college student" badge now? No? Fine. I'm going to bed. Where's my glass of milk...

Lost in Trans-Caitlin: A Semester Abroad in Ireland

Friends! Gather round and bear witness to my triumphant return! Or...just go about your lives and ignore me in order to teach me a lesson for my near semester's worth of silence. Actually, that might make me feel a little more comfortable, come to think of it. If you'll all be kind enough to avert your eyes and let your memories of me fade into oblivion, this blog can finally blossom into the free-flowing feeling-fest it's always wanted to be. Let's not talk about Ireland right now, lets talk about the depth of my emotions! Especially towards Zach Effron! And let's do away with punctuation (excepting exclamation points and emoticons) as it is a cage that squelches the flickering fire our beautiful words!!!!!!!!!!! :-) ;-( (Yeah that's right, a winky FROWNY face! Try wrapping your heads around THAT one, bitches!) Hey, now that I have a web cam, the videos I post of me singing heartfelt renditions of "Breaking Free" will be all the punctuation I need! You know what? Screw you, old fans of wit and "turn of phrase." I don't need you anymore. Instead, I will be embraced by all the Youtube fangirls with tears, bangs, Livejournals and OPEN ARMS!

Sorry. You know I could never really do it. I have made these idle threats too often to be taken seriously anymore. You know as well as I do that, with or without you, I'll just be here making my "jokes" and token efforts toward thinly veiling my desperation to be loved by all. Well, all except those Youtube girls I just mentioned. Because a life lived without completely alienating at least one whole group of people is a life half lived.


Moving on! where were we...My apologies? My promises to write more often now that I have no social life? Your wary disbelief, tendered by months and months of my empty broken promises?

Um...Ireland it is!

I have been studying in the Emerald Isle for over two whole weeks now. So far, it feels a whole lot like Freshman orientation, but with cooler accents and no mac and cheese. I know you're thinking to yourself, "Wow. Sounds right up Caitlin's alley!" And you're so right. Because the only reason anyone would put themselves through all of this THREE TIMES would be that she is the sort of person who enjoys adventure and making friends. Either that, or she enjoys self masochism. You know, one of the two. A girl's gotta have hobbies.

It's OK though. The upside of having been through it all before is that I know I'll get used to it eventually. Right now though, it's hard to imagine overcoming my numerous social handicaps in just four to five month's time. Sure, getting from day to day is easy enough when the sun is shining. I have managed to find all my classes on time, feed, clothe and bathe myself without any major mishaps. Come nightfall though, it's a different story. It's like Irish college pub scene is a blacklight, and all my irrational social un-endearing foibles are the ketchup stain that you and maybe a few close friends knew was on your white shirt before you went extreme bowling; but now, since the techno music and the neon strobe lights have been flipped on, everyone in the bowling alley knows. And trust me, nothing flips that seizure inducing disco switch like a game of "never have I ever" with a bunch of strangers who are wearing more expensive shoes than I am. Except maybe the orange game...

...Anyway, though I have since had a few (slightly) more relaxing pub experiences since my Dublin orientation, none have imprinted me so deeply as my very first forays into Irish nightlife. In a half hearted final attempt to make this sad, roaming post worth the space it's taking up on my hard drive, I will now close by regaling you with my favorite exchange from one of those fateful nights. Maybe it will give you a glimpse of what I'm dealing with here.

The scene: A crowded Dublin pub on New Year's eve. My Hostel-mates are doing shots at the bar and licking each other's faces or something. I am surveying the room for some broken glass I can chew on so as to make my evening a little more fun. A good-natured looking, red-cheeked English man taps me on the shoulder and offers to buy me a pint. Though I refuse, he still begins a conversation with me, not knowing that I already dislike him on the grounds of his pulse, opposable thumbs and sentience. He introduces his friends as three of the Backstreet Boys and David Beckham, respectively. He then points at my heavily eye-shadowed, affectionate traveling companions and asks, very Britishly,

"Are they lesbian Americans?"

I answer, "um...yep."

Stay tuned next week when, if nothing exciting happens, I will post multiple pictures of myself making pouty lips at the web-cam and crying tears of IRELAND DOESN'T GET ME rage. Bet you can't wait.

P.S. Please, keep writing to me and praying for me or sending good thoughts in a generally Eastern direction as . I can't tell you how much I love hearing from you guys. I really miss the people who knew about the ketchup stain all along and liked me anyway.

You're Going to Think I'm Kidding...

...But I'm totally not.

For real though? I've finally hit rock bottom. Remember that time I tried to fly with an expired learner's permit? How about that time I booked my own flight a week late? You thought I was out of traveling lessons to learn the hard way, didn't you. Yeah, well SO DID I.

We were all wrong. Though, considering it's me we're talking about, I can't see any of you being very surprised.

This past Friday, I was supposed to fly to Ohio at 2:30. Only I thought it was 3:30. Who can say why, really. My mother and father are both relatively intelligent people, and I did OK on the ACTs, so it's hard to say how I developed this gaping hole in my head when it comes to dates, times and common sense. Maybe I got the time I was leaving to Ohio mixed up with the time I had arrived in Rochester. Maybe it was the time change. Maybe it was that hippie charter school. Maybe, when I was a very young child, I landed on my head in such a way that caused the unicorn/pony/play-dough part of my brain to stampede into the number/calendar/USEFUL part of my brain and claim it for Candy-Land. Whatever. the reason for the mistake doesn't really matter. What matters is that, at 2:05 on Friday afternoon, I checked my e-mail at home and realized that the flight I thought wasn't taking off until 3:30 was, in fact, already boarding.

At that point I threw a bunch of stuff into my suitcase, hopped into the car with my mother and headed for the airport. When we arrived at the airport, my brother and I hauled my suitcases to the checkout desk, apologised for being late, and were informed that I was not going to be able to board the plane. Then, having learned from a previous travel mishap in which I was charged a hundred dollars to move my flight up a week, I cried. Oh, I cried hard core. And it worked like a charm. The lady behind the counter booked me on the next available flight which was the next day and informed me that there was no charge. She probably thought I was crying because I had missed something important by showing up so late. You know, something good like a dying relative or my own wedding. But no. I was crying because it wasn't until that moment that I fully understood the depth of my own stupidity.

Seriously everyone. At this point, I've pretty much given up on ever becoming a productive adult. There aren't many options for people with my special needs. I'll be lucky if I can get a job at Wal-Mart. I will fulfill all my potential by wearing a blue vest and sticking smiley-face stickers on people's pop cans.

So, I guess that's it. You all have fun with the rest of your lives while I look for a price marking gun and some sensible shoes. And never set foot in an airport again.

Call Me Sunset Head

Well fans, I've been idle for a while, and I know you've missed me. If I were a hip celebrity (Britney you're my idol! Call me!), my absence from the blogging world would have been due to a stint in rehab. If that were the case, this entry would take the form of a heartfelt letter to my fans riddled with the grammar of a two-year-old and excessive references to my continuing "journey to recovery." However, because I am woefully well adjusted, I will never know the glory of a fame fueled train wreckage (Lohan! You're the basket case I aspire to! Call me!). Needless to say, my blogging laziness has been fueled less by booze and tears than by regular old slackerage. I am sorry. To make it up to the two of you still reading this thing, I am going to disclose something deeply personal. Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame and I share a dark secret:

We are not natural redheads.

And I don't know about Gillian, but I have recently gone through more hair color hijinx than Christina Aguilera in an "experimental" phase. Now, because I like to pride myself on keepin' it real, and because my blog fan base is built solidly on my personal embarrassment and discomfort, I'm going to tell all about it. And Christina can bite me.

It all began over Christmas break when I dyed my hair red with a box from Target. Or, more precisely, "burnt mahogany." You know...to match my fiery personality. I didn't exactly mean to choose a permanent color, but I was OK with the results. I figured I could try life as a redhead for a while.

A few months later, when I got a trim back in Minnesota, my hairdresser tactfully suggested fixing my two-toned hair before beginning my summer job in Ohio. I decided to heed her advice. This was partially because I knew I looked sloppy, but mostly because I was tired of being mistaken for Nicole Kidman. So, I went to the store and picked out what I thought would be a nice neutral shade closer to my natural color. girl on the box was smiling, "like her eyes had a secret," as Tyra Banks would say. Little did I know, the secret was that I can't do anything right.

The next day, I followed the instructions on the box to the letter. When my mother came home from work, the first thing she said was, "So how does your hair look?"

I replied, "Um...I'm going to need some more hair dye."

"Oh? What happened."

"Well, the red part is still red, but the part that was growing in brown turned...blond."

"Well let's see. That sounds funny....Yep. That is...blond." Then, because she is a sympathetic and nurturing mother, she proceeded to laugh for about three straight minutes.

Unfortunately for all of you, I didn't have the presence of mind to take any pictures of my hair at it's most avant garde. However, to get a general idea of my look, you can consider the following two photos. One is Vitamin C of "The Graduation Song" fame. The other is Saaphyri (pronounced Safari...and yes my right hand just seizured a little as I was typing Saaphyri)-- who was kicked off of "Flavor of Love 2" after she pulled some ho's hair and cried a lot.

Now, don't get me wrong. There was a time in my life where I would have liked nothing more than to be styled like a mediocre pop middle school graduation anthem singer...who will slap a bitch if if she steps up on me. But, times change and people grow. So, I went back to the store and bought another, more demure, shade of brown. However, when that box of dye barely dimmed my sunshiney head, we called in the professionals.

Back at the salon, my journey came to an end at last. There, my hair was re-dyed to a shade that wouldn't make people turn and stare and little children cry. Still, It will be a while before everything is as it was with my hair. Even the professional dye wasn't enough to completely cover up the red and gold. So, if you find my head in the right light and make a wish, you just might catch a glimpse of a sunset.