seriously??? arugula????

I might be 100% wrong but...I think I've grown some arugula!!!!!!!!! From seeds!!!!!!!!!!

if these are weeds, don't tell me

Also, I was on a leadership call today and found out my sr. VP shared the video I made with my colleagues with our CTO and they both LOVED it. And they both said I should be in Hollywood making movies.

Hahaha.

But the CTO wants me to make more movies!!!!

Go me today!

In other news the guy who offered me a job in his kitchen at the jazz fest contacted Jessica on her FB page and offered Brasil Street Food the opportunity to cook at his distillery every Sunday. She's looking into the permits.

the official diagnosis - I'm "internally deranged"

I went to see a doctor today (I'll call him Dr. M) because my dentist told me I have TMJ (it's causing pain and hearing issues in my right ear, difficulty sometimes chewing or opening my mouth, and apparently wreaking havoc on my back teeth so she suggested I go see someone).

I knew he was the right doctor for me when the first words out of his mouth were "wow, you have a REALLY big forehead". Later in the exam, Dr. M asked "why does your nose look weird????" (I broke it 3 times). Anyway, he said that the problem should be fixable with surgery because I have the kind of TMJ that can be helped with surgery (caused by trauma, when I broke my jaw in 2001), but he was afraid to suggest surgery because he didn't know what the doctor who originally fixed my jaw did to fix it. He is worried that the other doc used a teflon thing to repair the break and that teflon stuff is bad (I researched it and he's right). And the 2001 doc put in some screws which I was supposed to have taken out 6 months after the surgery...but I never did that. So I have some bone spurs that have grown over the screws that are contributing to the mis-alignment in my jaw.

So he had me see another doctor in his office for a second opinion and I have to go see a third doctor at the end of June. Dr. M said it's a simple problem to fix, potentially, if they can find out what the original surgeon did, but as it turns out, he's no longer practicing and I don't have a surgery report (I broke my jaw in a bike accident and was treated at the ER so it wasn't like a normal surgery where they give you a report after - luckily I kept the doctor's card). In the mean time I have physical therapy to do and potentially may have to wear a mouth guard that will keep me from closing my mouth (that's. just. great). I'm sure it will all get sorted, eventually.

I wish I had those "easy" medical problems to fix. This is like my zombie knee redux...

think pink!

I got my hair re-pinked today (thanks for the gift certificate mom!!!!). Since pink is what's called a "fashion" color it fades more quickly than normal dye. But hopefully since I've stopped washing my hair it will stay bright a little longer.

very pink! looks the same on my hair!

I'm 44 - I can do whatever the fuck I want now

A note on not washing my hair...Jess kept telling me about how she only washes her hair when she gets color put in but I thought, since she has really long hair, maybe that's why her hair didn't look dirty (we have similarly curly hair and you would never know she didn't wash her hair if she didn't tell you). And I did stop washing my hair for almost an entire year when I lived in Athens in 1998 - 99, mostly due to the water shortage, and only washed it after I slept in the sahara desert and got sand in my scalp. But I was swimming / scuba diving practically every day in the ocean.

Anyway, when I got pink in my hair a month ago I decided to do an experiment and not wash it for as long as possible. Then I did some research about not washing hair.

Personally, I've found everything those articles said to be true. I used to have an itchy, flaky scalp (thanks, aging scalp, for that) and my hair would come out in big clumps. Plus, it always looked dry, even though I never blow dry it and use a really good, mild shampoo.

What I do is rinse my hair with water...

...one sec, forgot I was boiling water in the kitchen and the pot is making a horrible noise...

...every other day or every third day and then I apply conditioner (and rinse it out, obviously, or maybe not so thought I would mention to do that).

My hair feels like little kid hair. My curls are healthier. And my scalp is itch and flake free. And that's after not washing for just 5 weeks. The first two weeks were a tad bit rough (until I found out about the rinse with conditioner thing). And my hair was put to the ultimate test standing over frying dough and shrimp / chicken at the jazz fest. It did not retain any frying smells after I rinsed it. And a guy at work complimented me on the way my hair smelled (I don't know why, but when I'm in an elevator with men they sniff me - weird, I know - I was once in an elevator at work with this totally uptight religious guy and he was like "SNNNNNNNNNNNNIIIIFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" and then said "I love your perfume!" - I had to laugh because my perfume is made with cannabis extract - it doesn't get you high, it just smells nice but he probably would have freaked out if he had known - btw, the one product I use occasionally in my hair smells like coconut, maybe that's why my colleague liked it - also, I was only taking the elevator because he wouldn't take the stairs).

Anyway, if you're bored, not washing your hair is a fun experiment to try. Think of all the money you'll save. I hardly put any product on my hair these days because I don't need to tame frizzy curls or try to make it look less dry and crap.

Now I'm off to continue this really cool algebra class I'm taking (watching it to get ideas for a book I've been thinking to write called the math castle) and eat some spaghetti with Martha Stewart baked cherry tomato sauce that I just made (hope it's as good as the reviews claimed - it was so simple to make it seems like it shouldn't taste good.).

crushing it in Colorado

Not to brag, but I've finally managed to break into the top 10 in the Colorado fitbit group.

It's the little wins every day that keep people fit...

the best awful shoes ever

I decided on Wednesday that I should look into getting some flip flop like shoes so I don't have to put on my socks and shoes to walk at my treadmill desk. I checked at a store my ortho surgeon recommended to see what they had in stock.

And I did get two pairs of super cute flip flops and have decided to retire my chacos because they hurt my knee (possibly because every pair is at least 5 years old). And I did find one of the most comfortable pair of sandals I have ever worn. They have a rubber sole with a cork middle and the insole is made out of memory foam so it's literally like walking on marshmallows but they are durable enough that I can put a lot of mileage on them without having to replace them.

The only problem is, they are SO FUCKING UGLY.

are you fucking fist fucking me????? this designer needs to be fired and then sent somewhere without pencils and paper so they never design ANYTHING EVER AGAIN - I can't believe I paid $120 for these shoes

Seriously, if I had to walk over molten glass and was given the choice to do it barefoot or with these shoes, I would go barefoot because I don't ever want anyone to see these on my feet. I kept the box so I can hide them when I'm not using them on my treadmill.

Why do shoe designers equate "comfortable shoe" with "people who have no sense of style"? Ech. I'm doing some research on how I can cover that awful triangle in the middle of these shoes with something more esthetically pleasing because I occasionally catch of glimpse of them under my treadmill desk and they make me want to throw up.

I love paint and plants

On tuesday I was going to do some ironing and noticed that the hamper I keep my wrinkled stuff in, which is 17 years old, was looking kind of crap. Then I noticed the trash can in the laundry room also looked like crap. Then I spilled pink nail polish in the trash can in my room so I was like "fuck it, I have a Home Depot gift certificate". I got some spray paint and went to work.

very cool spray paint

hamper, I tried to clean it so it would look nicer but the paint came off

$3 trash cans I got from Ikea in 2001 - they're rusting

nail polish disaster

post painting - they look so cool!

And since I was painting I decided to repaint all my window sills since the plants / cacti have made a mess on them. I coated them with polyurethane this time so they'll be easy to keep clean.

But the painting of the window sills required me to move all my plants outside and I decided to re-pot them (I did not know you were supposed to re-pot house plants at least once a year to refresh the soil until I took a gardening class). I have them all outside until the window sills dry. Might leave them out for the summer, I'll see how they do getting real sunlight.

I put the old shelves from my office outside - the plants seem to like it out there so far

I transplanted all of them into larger pots I had laying around...might use these pots to start an herb garden using seeds

I also went to the nursery and got some arugula seeds (apparently no one sells arugula around here that's already grown - I called a bunch of places and no one had any). Funnily, the woman who owns the nursery where I got the seeds said she'd never tried arugula. I was like "hmm" and she said "I hate vegetables, but this year I decided I'm going to try kale".

How can you own a nursery and hate vegetables?????????????????

an herb garden with chives, arugula, arugula seeds, and chives seeds...could be a disaster or might turn out great

tomato and raspberries seem to be coming along...well, at least they're still alive