Sometimes I Make Bad Decisions Regarding My Hair

Apr. 24, 2012
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It’s not just my eyebrows that I will sometimes take color-related liberties with.  Although I vowed sometime around 23 or 24 to never cut my own hair again, I will from time to time rebel against the salon and take my color into my own hands.

So…if you follow me on Instagram, then you are probably already aware that I’ve been experimenting with ombre hair color on my own.  I was incredibly jealous of all the cool pink and blue hairs I was seeing around and wanted to reclaim my own riot grrrl days with a punky color du jour.  But I had just gone red.  And I felt like technicolors and red just wouldn’t mix.  But then I saw this:

{via}

And I was totally inspired.  And also totally able to ignore the fact that I’m pretty sure the girl in that picture is a college freshman. And actually, things didn’t start off too bad. The first step wherein I decided to try box color before beauty supply bleach (with which I have a long and notorious record) turned out pretty well.  But it was kind of subtle depending on the light.  And I’m not really the subtle type.

So I kicked it up a notch.

And then another notch.

Shit was about to get REAL. {excuse my crusty red nose.}

Really real.  And oh boy did it.

Turns out you can’t rinse punky color through bleached blonde hair without it picking up the pigment.  Oops.  At least it was kind of ombre fire-engine red.

I tried to rock it for a few days, but my patchy, unintentional dye job made me feel like a crack head, and I could quite muster the chutzpah to go over it intentionally…

So instead I took some comet and a pair of scissors, and ended up with the festive easter hair I told you about.  [Sorry there are so many photos of me in this post.  I know I make totally freaky faces, but I can't help myself!]

It took me about two weeks after the incident to make it to a salon.  But I finally did.  And I walked out looking like this:

That picture totally freaks me out because I look like a woman to myself there and it’s weird.  Also, although I love my haircut, there’s no ombre in sight.  But when you’re trying to grow the balls to go Michelle Williams, there’s really no end to what kind of hair experimentation you’ll try.  And my new stylist Vanessa had this really cool color inspiration photo of a girl with a purple bob on her mirror.

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The Sexiest Post EVER! Car Seats!

Apr. 18, 2012
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I have the worst headache. It might be from my allergies acting up, but more likely, it’s from the fact that Delilah is FINALLY big enough for a convertible car seat and the things you are forced to care about as a parent when selecting a car seat for your precious cargo are enough to make your brain want to take a vacation.

Things beyond just simple safety and durability.  Things like…the weight limit to expiration date tangential.  No, seriously.

See, because if you go with the king of all car seats, the Britax Boulevard, you’re investing in a car seat that will hold your kid up to 70 lbs.  Only, as illustrated above, the joke is on you, because the average kid won’t see 70 lbs until they’re 10 years old.

But Morgan, that’s seven years of solid car seat usage!!! (You might be thinking.)

Ahhh, but there’s a catch.  Aside from the fact that in the great state of California where I reside children are only required to be in a car sear until the age of eight, the Boulevard will expire in just six years.  If your kid isn’t freakishly small like mine and you bought your convertible car seat at age 1 or so, then you may well find yourself having to purchase that same kid a SECOND car seat.  ?!?!.  Oh, and if you were dreaming you’d squeeze the “booster” end of baby #2′s car seat years out of that investment, well boy oh boy do you have egg on your face.

It all began when my parents and I, in attempting to clean up the pristine Britax Marathon that belonged to my niece, cracked the previously perfect styrofoam, and my Mom called Britax in an attempt to replace the damaged piece.

“Oh, no!!!”  the Britax Help-Line operator gasped – “That car seat is expired!”

Well, cue the Grandma hazard alarms.  It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard about car seat expiration dates, and it wasn’t that I am a bad Mom who didn’t care about her child’s safety.  It was just that, I figured that a car seat my niece had been sitting in three weeks earlier was going to be kosher for Delilah, too.  And then suddenly, I was not so sure.

I needed to know what the EF was up with this car seat expiration date business, STAT.  So obviously, I asked Twitter.  I hoped they would confirm my suspicions that it was an evil marketing ploy by the evil car seat making companies (because, obviously anyone who devotes their time to protecting children is straight EVIL, right?)

[I made a Storify story for you to help me break it down. It might take a second to load.]

So I called the California Highway Patrol.  And after trying like ten different locations to find a Public Information Officer who was available to speak with me, I finally got to ask my question.  “Do I have to buy a new car seat since this one is six years old?”

She literally laughed.  She basically said the same thing about car seats not being like produce that the guy from Evenflo said, but she was laughing, and saying it in an “I would not throw it away, but I can’t legally tell you not to do it” way.

Which honestly, has left me kind of confused.  The expert opinions point more to “use it” than the Mom ones, but I’m still leaning towards “let’s just get a new car seat and be down with it before the girl actually DOES outgrow this thing.”

And then there’s the issue of the vast price difference between car seats when there is a basic PASS/FAIL issued on child restraints from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and no additional information made available to consumers unless the individual manufacturers choose to release it themselves (which it appears, only Recaro does: in the box with the seat — other manufacturers simply seem to site: “meets or exceeds requirements”).

I don’t know about you, but here’s me:

{No, I’m not Wonder Woman, I just couldn’t find a good picture of a head spinning so this is the next best thing.}

Somebody, please…just tell me unequivocally which car seat is the safest so I can slap my kiddo in it and cart her around in peace.

[for your reference, here's a link to the American Academy of Pediatrics official recommendation: AAP]

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Just, YES.

Apr. 16, 2012
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I’m all mani-obsessy over Creativity Cards on Cargoh.

How was your weekend?

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Purple Haze

Apr. 11, 2012
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[This Hello Kitty nail polish washes off with soap and water.]

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Ashley Judd Made Me Look Inward. Ugh.

Apr. 10, 2012
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Have you read the piece that Ashley Judd wrote for The Daily Beast about the recent media attack on her “puffy face”, but moreover about how not okay it is that such attacks even take place?  Because you really should.

Judd’s essay is the kind of op-ed that makes you sit back and listen. She confronts both the overtly tacky tabloid pieces and the whispers from the shadows head on, speaking from experience that becomes eerily relatable via Judd’s direct, inclusive argument.

Ashley’s post struck me personally from all sides. As the mother of a young daughter. As a feminist. As a woman who has seen her physical appearance ride the rough tide of health afflictions. As a woman who’s had plastic surgery, and as a women who’s ridiculed other women for possibly doing just that.

Judd wrote:

The Conversation about women’s bodies exists largely outside of us, while it is also directed at (and marketed to) us, and used to define and control us. The Conversation about women happens everywhere, publicly and privately. We are described and detailed, our faces and bodies analyzed and picked apart, our worth ascertained and ascribed based on the reduction of personhood to simple physical objectification. Our voices, our personhood, our potential, and our accomplishments are regularly minimized and muted. 

…That women are joining in the ongoing disassembling of my appearance is salient. Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it. This abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women.

Reading her words began to feel incredibly uncomfortable as I was forced to realize that I am as much a propagator of this epidemic as I have felt a victim of it. I’ve told myself for a long time that being funny at another woman’s expense isn’t a feminist issue. And it’s not. As long as we’re being creative and witty and playing fair. As long as we’re not taking cheap shots at her appearance be they from jealousy or genuine, unearned disdain.

I thought back to this recent post I’d written…and was acutely aware of not only the fact that I’d thought it about another woman, then published it, but also that the high volume of click throughs had made me happy, as if I’d succeeded at something.

Judd’s essay made me feel empowered, but it also left me sitting with egg on my face, thinking about my own behavior. Naturally I wasn’t the only one with a strong reaction. Social Media has lit up with the conversation Judd began.

[continue reading at BlogHer Entertainment...]

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