Wednesday, November 17, 2010

on writing, and hair

  • I have totally not been keeping up with my nanowrimo benchmarks.  I was at first, but got behind in the first week and then somehow didn't catch up over the weekend (okay, I know how - by not writing) and then just became less and less conscientious.  At this point I've given up entirely - on the nanowrimoing, but not on the novel.  There's no real reason I need to write 50,000 words in a month, since whatever I write is just for my own creative fulfillment, and clearly at this time I'm not in a position to be fulfilled by that much writing.  But I'd hardly written anything since coming back from France, so it was a good way to get myself into it again.  I'm trying to keep the same nanowrimo attitude of not worrying about whether what I write is good, which has served me well in the past, and write just a little bit - 300 words or so - every day I can.  This is little enough that it can be done in ten or twenty minutes before bed, but substantial enough that I can keep up with the thread of my story... for the last few days, anyway, it's been working, and between that and not having a sink full of clean dishes and going to the gym more or less every other day (the question of "more" vs. "less" depends on whether yoga counts), I almost feel like a functional adult.
  • My hair.  Sigh.  It is in that stage, where it is too long to be short and cute, and too short to be long, and which seems to last years.  I have not had a coherent work-hair policy so far; when I first started the job, I wore it down, but it was shorter, just above my shoulders, and if I applied a ton of styling product it was actually manageable.  Now it is past my shoulders and the best I can hope for is "wild, untamed, and possibly carnivorous" (as opposed to "actively striving to take over the universe"), so I adjust my style based on its behvior.  I have two basic options, I think: (1) continue to let it grow, wear it in  bun or otherwise up at work, wear it down on weekends when it is behaving, or (2) get it cut short again and resign myself to maintaining a regular haircut schedule.  I feel like I should decide and act on this by the time I leave training in 2.5 weeks... my hair looks better short than either long-and-a-mess or long-and-up, but it looks best long-and-not-a-mess (a look that requires inhuman amounts of styling product, plus not blowdrying, which means going to the gym at night, and also a lot of luck) and long is certainly the style in New York.  Men like long hair, although they also like straight hair, spherical breasts, and vapidity, so I'm not exactly going for the win there.  My mother prefers my hair short, as do most of my friends.  The chief obstacle to short hair is that my work schedule is such that I can't reliably do anything at a particular time on a weekday, so I'd have to get it cut on a weekend, and from what I've heard this (a) is quite expensive, and (b) requires making an appointment far in advance.  Also, short hair is more work, and I am lazy.

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