Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Wig Week: Missed the Mark

Several attempts at hair missed the mark.

This hair looked cute from the side but very egg-like from the front.

I think I could have done aubergine and brown, or red and brown, but not aubergine, red, and brown.

In addition, I got a fake ponytail in what I thought was a slightly lighter shade than the color of the short style. Just as dark, as you see below.

It looked so comical I thought I would keep that hybrid wig on wig construction and surprise Gary when he came home.

He was surprised. Then he went to the bathroom and came back out wearing Mom's wig. It was too young for him.

Wig Week: Hair Hunt Update

Here's an update on highlights from the wig hunt.

• I bought a used wig, 60% off, so I could check the color and construction of an Ellen Wille wig. That brand is are supposedly the most natural and least bulky of all the wigs. Sadly, this particular model is very thick and straight and chunky, but the color is only one shade too dark and it fits.

• I'm starting to narrow down what I want. Brown, thin, curly but not too curly, synthetic. I read that the real human hair wigs can cost ten times what the synthetic ones cost, but they don't last ten times as long. 
• It became clear I'd be expected to wash and maintain this thing if I ever pick one, so I decided to conscript Mom's old wig into the role of Practice Wig. I added baby powder to see if that cut down the fake shine. I haven't tested shampoo and conditioning  yet. I did give her a few bangs.

 
She might also get some roots to get some depth. I understand one uses furniture touch-up markers for that. I feel a little bad defiling Mom's wig in that way, but she isn't using it.

• Gary is now pleading with me to avoid the wigs with lines like, "But I love your pink scalp! I want to see more of it!" He's being sweet. We have an agreement that as soon as work or other activities end I will put away the wig and let him fondle my wisps.

Not Enough Info for a Full Review: Excelsior

Last week there was an online listening party for the new Steven Page album, Excelsior. I believe it's out today.

That was a new experience for me -- getting to hear the music before it comes out.  But, with that,  you give up something else: the liner notes. I feel the best part of new music is listening to the songs while reading along. 

So, I can't give you the liner notes, but I can pull out the lines that I liked. Some songs were very musical and soaring, some catchy, but these had lines that struck me.

Feel (Death and loss and funerals) - "They can’t help but lie when somebody dies"

Human Doll (AI) - "It can emulate a realistic kiss"

How Much is Enough  (Breaking up) - "Talk yourself into leaving a little self for yourself"

The Golden Age of Doubling Down (society today) - "We're in crazy town led by circus clowns / Let’s go underground for an ultrasound"

Zoom (fucking pandemic) - "No immunity, just community"

That last line got me. Zoom made me cry with its general theme of "when is this horseshit going to be over already."

Weekly Paint Progress: 9/29

This week the third dog went from this:

... to this.

Candy Corn Recall

I have been preparing for this all my life. Here I am, with the egg intolerance, but I wisely thought ahead and developed an aversion to Candy Corn.

Candy Corn Recall Over Potentially Deadly Egg Mishap

 

Agile Artemis

Well, I see NASA has delayed the Artemis launch again, this time because a hurricane is coming. Did they not watch the Gregory Peck movie Marooned? Do they not know it is possible to launch a space rocket during a hurricane? You just have to wait for the eye and yell "go" a lot.

Speaking of NASA, I read an interesting article this week on how NASA is changing its business model from "Failure is not an option" to the more failure-friendly Agile model. Here it is if you'd like to see it, and another more terrifying technical one, especially the Harsh, lunar polar conditions bullet on page four.

Forgetful

I was asked to give a status on my current work projects.

These are my thoughts, in order:

Well I had a meeting yesterday. What was it? It was for that project with that woman with the tall hair. The Doomed Project. What's the actual name of the project? What's the status of that project?

I was able to answer after I recalled the name of the woman with the tall hair, Diane, and my status was: "I had a meeting with Diane to discuss her project."

But then the manager said, "So that's XJT. How's it going on the AGW project?"

Crap, I completely forgot I'm on the AGW project. To to be fair, we've only had one kickoff meeting and it was yesterday afternoon. 

I replied the status was much the same as it had been yesterday afternoon and he moved on.

I was still shook that I had blanked out complexity on my two projects when someone reported on another project.

Damnit. I'm on that project too. What is wrong with me?  Why have I forgotten all my projects? 

This amnesia seems to be specifically work-related. I'm still aware of the outstanding list of projects in the hopper for the house. Back in the work office I had a physical list I updated every day. Maybe I need to institute that for the home office.

Big Slide

The pebble-dash elementary (Graham elementary, corner of Graham and 270, I need to drive by and see if it still exists) made me think of other dangerous buildings of my youth.

The most dangerous was the Catholic church we briefly attended when we first came to Saint Louis after the divorce, before they discovered the remarriage and refused Mom communion, at which point she said, fine, I'll raise them as atheists then.

It was St. Martin des Porres, and the roof looked like this:

Yes, a big green slide from the steeple to the vestibule.

Even worse, that church was mere blocks from this enormous slide.

See the tiny people on top? Those are Catholic children driven mad by going to God's Green Slide every week and never being allowed on the roof. I am astonished Protestant children weren't driven mad by the juxtaposition and that just bumped up attendance at the big slide, which lasted quite a while until a child was injured. 

I only went once and I was so scared the attendant put me on  his lap and slid down just to get the line moving again. 

Pebbledash

I was watching the most recent episode of The Great British Baking Show, in which people are tasked with portraying their childhood homes in cake, and they joked there might be a lot of buildings covered in "pebble-dash."

I looked up the term immediately, as I do so often during the Baking Show, and saw the image below.

In all my life I have seen precisely one pebble-dash building, but the one I saw was my elementary school from second to sixth grade.

For the first time I thought about pebble-dash as an adult, and for God's sake, why the hell would they coat an elementary school in sharp gravel? Because those aren't pebbles, I can tell you. The thing to do was to take a ketchup packet and impale it on one of the many sharp pebbles sticking out of the wall bordering your playground, and then remove if after it wept out a trail of "blood" in a convincing Halloween tableau. 

As best I know there is only one building covered in this nonsense in Saint Louis. To think it's common in Britain is alarming. I think a few people on the British Baking Show fashioned pebble-dash out of raisins and nuts or some safe material. Not realistic.

Speaking of the Baking Show, Netflix has a Junior version of the show, with different hosts but also with children as the contestants and so far, three episodes in, it is delightful. Droll British children rubbing their little hands on their brows and saying things like "But my Mummy says she likes my baking" in very serious tones. (No one actually said that, but they think it, you can tell.) 

Now I'm concerned those children go to schools covered in razor-sharp gravel. Disastrous.

Zen of the Landline Number

It has now been since 18 business days since the twenty-fifth of August in this the Year of Our Lord 2022. I still cannot get incoming calls on the telephone number I have had since the Year of Our Lord 1985. 

I have no boots, and the road disappears into a frozen blankness. I am cold. I do not see a path ahead of me on my quest.

Business Day 10: I call and someone tells me that the phone number has not been released as numerous phone representatives have claimed on Business Days of Our Lord 1 - 10. This resets the clock back to zero. I become so testy that I become short with the representative. This earns me a computerized satisfaction survey. 

Business Day 12: I Google "Is AT&T gaslighting me?" This takes me to an interesting article on how even the most well-meaning AT&T sales reps lie like dogs. Eventually someone tells me that there is a physical problem on my street. It is true that the trucks were there earlier working some vague problem.  However, the same individual told me he would call me at noon the next day and give me an update. This was a lie.

The Spectrum guy I spoke with on day 10 told me to expect to wait a month to get my phone back. So, that means I could make outgoing calls some time at the end of next week. 

Business day 16: I eschew my daily phone call to see if the phone is active. It isn't. It never will be. Stage of grief: acceptance. I dig a hole in the snow and wait for death.

But, seriously, I truly don't see a way out of this. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 9/22

This week my brother's third dog went from this:

... to this.

The dog's face can't match the carpet that exactly: it looks like he has holes.

Elvis! Elvis! Elvis!

Three Elvis-related movie reviews in one.

Movie 1: Elvis (2022, the Baz Luhrmann version)

We started our Elvis evening with the recent biopic. I did love how inventive the direction was. So fanciful. I wished they had warned me that the Young Elvis was not dubbed but old Elvis was. It was distracting, when you are listening to something and your brain knows exactly what the next note will be, especially when you've bought in to the idea that the actor is singing, as he was in the early scenes. I felt the acting was good, with one notable exception: Tom Hanks. More than once he would say a line and his mouth didn't move, I suppose because of the prosthetics. (Picture Roddy McDowell in Planet of the Apes.) Plus, I don't see why they dropped the most salacious parts of the story. Was there some agreement with the Presley people so no one mentioned Elvis shipped Priscilla over when she was a child and waited to marry her until she was legal? And why hush the fact Col. Tom was the lead suspect in a murder? That's why he left the Netherlands and assumed a name. Odd omissions.

Gary review: Gary fell asleep.

Movie 2: Jailhouse Rock

Elvis plays against type. His lead character is a jerk, and stubbornly remains a jerk until the last few minutes of the movie. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it.

Gary review: Gary gave a constant commentary of "This is ugly, this is misogynistic, why are we watching this?"

Movie 3: King Creole

Holy crap, this movie was terrific. Why in earth didn't he do more movies like this? He was good, Walter Matthau was good, Morticia Addams was good. I see why it was Elvis's favorite. 

Gary review: hypnotized through the whole thing.

Wig

Well, I took a step toward covering my dreadful hair.

I purchased what my mother would call a "wiglet." Just a little mammal to perch on top of my head and cover my now-significant bald spot. Sadly, it also has heavy bangs.

I have named the wiglet Moe, for obvious reasons.

Moe may or may not be going back to the wiglet farm. I was expecting Gary to mock me, and he didn't.

So far Moe has taught me that no one with human hair as thick and shiny as Moe would ever need a wiglet. Also, the clips that attach Moe to one's own hairs are pretty durable; I could take Moe to the Mosh pit. 

I'm still on the fence about Moe. For the time being I can dodge the question of the wiglet reveal. How do you let people know you are wearing fake hair? 

I considered a Zoom background with arrows pointing to my head that say "FAKE HAIR" and "SHHH" and "DON'T STARE AT THE HAIR."

It made me wonder how wig reveals happened during history. Let's say the 60's, when Mom was 30 and rocking her wiglet.   Did my Mom wear hers with defiant pride, her eyes daring her co-workers to say something? Or did she wait until the first day of a new job? 

I don't know. Gary really surprised me by not doubling over in laughter. I would feel better if I could thin out Moe's luxury, make Moe look 50 instead of 20. 

Perhaps I could buy Moe a brother. Maybe Curly! 

New MS-related News

MS people - This article discusses a new treatment for our cousin lupus.

"The therapy involves modifying a patient’s T cells, a key component of the immune system, and turning them into assassins to efficiently seek out a specific target in the body. In this case, the target is B cells—the immune cells that make antibodies in healthy people and self-attacking autoantibodies in people with lupus."

It's so poetic - turn the enemy against itself. Sow division. Foment discord.