Things That Change When You Least Expect It

Guess what I found today?

A GRAY HAIR!

Not cool, 29. NOT COOL.

To me, this is what I looked like:

But then I Googled gray hair:

Do you think there's any hope for me aging as sexily as George Clooney? Or...whatever the girl version might be?

Never mind, now I'm just thinking about George Clooney. Over it.







GRAY HAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Things We Do For Beauty

The only thing worse than a zombie invasion is shopping for jeans. 

How it happened: I have lost weight again, and have one pair of jeans to work with, which would be fine if they weren't stone washed and several inches too long.  As a woman, owning one pair of jeans, much like shoes, isn't socially acceptable. Women are expected to have different washes and fits for all occasions. With shoes, we need a whole mess of toe-mangling styles. Different variations in heels and color are necessary in order to avoid being judged by other women. I'm sorry, men, if you thought women dressed up for you. Fashion is merely a nonviolent form of exerting dominance. 

Anyway, back to jeans. I think there are days I would rather have my legs burned off than shop for new jeans. For women, like me, jeans shopping is painful and exhausting. The only time it wouldn't be troubling is if you were a size 6 and 5'7" tall. Seriously, the only time. But I am not a size six or seven inches taller than five feet. In fact, I'm lucky I am five feet at all. When I shop for jeans, it takes weeks, possibly months. I cannot consider online shopping, because they most likely will not fit. Deep down I believe that jeans are made by the cattiest women in the world, "That bitch will never fit into these!"

After three to four days of looking, I might be able to find a pair in a wash and cut that looks presentable. They will almost always be a light wash boot cut jean from Gap. But they clear the checklist:

1. Doesn't make me look like a beached whale
2. Doesn't make my butt look like it has the curves of a 2" x 4".
3. Doesn't make my butt look like a kid's cheeks when they hold their breath under water.
4. Doesn't make my thighs look like sausages or stilts. 
5. Doesn't cause a rash on my waist because I have an deformed hip and stomach region.
6. Doesn't look like I am waiting for a flood.
7. Doesn't look like I've had my feet chopped off.
8. Doesn't self destruct and leave me making the dream where I'm not wearing any pants come true.
9. Doesn't make me look like I'm 14, and an idiot.
10. Doesn't make me look like I'm wearing the jeans women in the 90s wore.

This is the critical part. Do not lose the jeans. I have to keep them with me, shoot someone if they try to take them away. I James Bond my way to the check out. 

So now I've got one pair. Start the process all over. Repeat three more times.

Things That Still Happen At 30

Things that I thought would die away into oblivion suddenly resurface. Like shirts d-bags wear. 

On Friday, I was at the mall and saw this shirt at one of those kiosks. I took an actual picture of the shirt with my phone, but I couldn't get it to upload here. Anyway, you will have to settle for this photo below. 

At first, I felt incredibly disappointed that there are actually still men out there that would wear this shirt. 

But then I decided that I would take it upon myself to create the feminist version of this shirt. Some were historically witty. Some were downright militant. Here are a few that I created. 

Cool story babe...now make yourself comfortable while I go vote.

Cool story babe...now make less money than me.

Cool story babe...now make out with yourself.

Cool story babe...now make yourself die. (This one lacks creativity, I know.)

Cool story babe...now make some pants that stay on your ass.

There are more, but I don't want to seem overly occupied by this.

What did you come up with? Add your own shirt slogan in the comment section. 

What 30 Makes You Realize #2

More and more bizarre things are happening to me now that make me think I'm in a sitcom...or Fried Green Tomatoes. 

How it happened: When you get to your thirties, you start talking about the stupid (but in retrospect, hilarious) things we did in our late teens and twenties. We talk about drinking stories like they are war stories. "I can't believe I lived through the night." "My buddy thought I was dying and took me to the ER." And my personal favorite, "I have no idea what I was thinking." In our twenties, we were young enough to be stupid. Our twenties was a time of idiocy and hangovers. I'm proud to say I survived "the war"; there were nights I wasn't so sure I would.

But now nearing my thirties, there isn't much of an excuse for stupid behavior and flawed logic. You're thirty. Didn't you live through your twenties? Being in your thirties is more like a series of coincidences when all the stars align and explode in your face and you are left wondering if what just happened was real.

For example, over the summer, my friend and I were trying to get to Indiana from Minneapolis to a conference. Although we were supposed to stay on the plane in Chicago and leave from there, we were told there was a new plane for us at a different gate. We got there, no one was there to help us. No one nearby knew what was going on. That's when we realized there was no way we were getting to Indiana by air. Cue the shared look of a decision, a walk-run to the rental car office, and driving off in to the....early afternoon sun, sharing memories, hopes and dreams in a six hour car ride across the US with a killer soundtrack.

My same friend, who is also living with me temporarily, brings me to this next story that proves I'm in a TV show:

A couple Saturdays ago, my boyfriend had a water tester out to see if our water had poison, or dog poop, in  it. Also going on this same morning, was my friend meeting some mutual friends to go to the Renaissance Festival. I slept in.

I woke up later, hearing people talking, I came out to say "hi", where I see a tall man dressed in a kilt, drinking a juice box. This is a teacher that I work with. Then suddenly, the water tester calls me, as in my name, to see something he was talking to me  earlier about. I was confused, but my friend who is living with me seemed to understand. She got up and walked in to the kitchen and was talking to the water tester and my boyfriend, continuing a conversation they apparently had earlier.

When the conversation ends, my friend walks back in and sits down in the chair across from me, I look at her. She leaned over to me and as quietly as possible, whispering and pointing a finger at the kitchen, "He thinks I'm you."

Water tester. Kilt. Mistaken identity.

She made a worried face then leaned over again and said, "Sorry," holding her hands up and shrugging.

Things 30-Somethings Don't Tell 20-Somethings/Things We Do For Beauty

Bikini waxes are not worth the pain.

Okay, so maybe this is something that people in their 20s already do, and I'm just a late bloomer. Either way, people should be talking about this more because I was totally unprepared for it.

How it happened: I would use Nair off and on for that....area. But then I started to worry that Nair could be bad for me. I mean, what if it penetrated through my skin and disintegrated my pelvic bones, and then I'd be unable to walk and my butt would be mushy and.....you get the idea.

So I started looking around for a healthier option. Well, actually I started looking for the cheapest option. In theory, laser hair removal would be the cheapest procedure if I invested in a greater upfront cost. Then I started wondering what the side effects of a laser might be, which I might add are used to kill people in movies. Would I be able to shoot lasers from my...area? Sort of a twisted Spider Man thing? I started internetting around and found out that it can hurt. Bad. And there could be rashes. And there was NO GUARANTEE that it would actually remove the hair. My mind was so filled with WTF-ery, that I decided never to revisit the concept of laser hair removal.

The cheapest option I could find was waxing. I used to get my eye brows waxed. That wasn't so bad. And it was on my face. It couldn't be worse if I already did it on the most sensitive part of my body, right? So I made an appointment for a bikini wax.

Actually, it was more like I showed up to a place that offers it, swung the door open and announced to everyone that I was in need of a bikini wax. At this point, the embarrassment should have been enough to make me turn and leave. But it didn't. They put me in this thing that bordered on a very wide thong and paper towel underwear. Thank God there was no mirror.

But that's when the waxing happened. I've blocked most of it out, but I may have bitten off a piece of my tongue to stop myself from screaming on the first rip. The lady doing this whole thing laughed and said the first time is always hard. I stared at her in stunned horror. How could this be funny to her? I nearly died on the first (and only) time. What was bikini waxing? Some sort of disguised torture? Was this invented by men?

G.W. Bush should have skipped the water boarding, and just started waxing terrorists'...area. The war would have been over in a matter of days: "Where's Bin Laden?" "I'll never tell!" Kccchht! "Oh God, NO! Okay, okay I'll tell you; just don't wax my...[area]...anymore!"

I've also come up with a slogan for the next war to recruit women into the armed forces:

If you can survive a bikini wax, well hell, you can survive nuclear warfare!