June-o Vannelli

A. I’m dyeing my roots.
B. My mouse battery is very low. This means (I’m not gonna say the struggle is real. If you hear me saying the struggle is real, I want you to impale me with 10 mouses) THE STRUGGLE WAS REAL even getting on here, and it took ages, and NOW I gotta stop and rinse my dye.

I just gotta stop. And tell you what I feel about you, babe. I just gotta stop. The world ain’t right without ya babe. I just gotta stop.

And rinse my roots.

Did EVERYONE have a perm in the early ’80s? Was it the LAW? (June acts like she wasn’t sportin’ the perm. Say it loud, I poodle and I’m proud.)

…Okay. Roots, rinsed. Self, cleansed. Laila Ali hairdryer, on. Looking, fetch.

What’s with me and all the predictable jokes today? Fetch. ’80s perms. Any ref to the ’80s at all.

Would you like to know what bugs the shit out of me? When people make everything about the ’80s. Blue eyeshadow. NOT AN ’80s INVENTION. I remember traipsing to the drug store in the snow to get me some baby-blue eyeshadow in the late ’70s. What might be more accurate is electric-blue eyeliner. Now, that was some ’80s shit.

Anyway, I’m tryina think of what’s new. Oooo! I know one thing.

This weekend, I knew I had to pay bills. Although I’ve read online that least one of you was “so sick” of hearing about how I didn’t have money, and what a strain that must have been for you, to hear about how my husband left me when I was jobless, and how my mother offered to buy my house from me but I wanted to remain independent, so somehow I MANAGED TO NEVER MISS A HOUSE PAYMENT even though I was unemployed. I’m so sorry that annoyed you. Let me guess, husband has always had a good job and you live in a cookie-cutter modern house? Talk-to-the-manager horseshoe hairdo?

June is feisty today.

Anyway, I hadda pay my bills, including the mortgage, for the first time since moving in here.

When I first sold my house and moved in here, I sat in a Subway parking lot during one lunch hour and paid off bill after bill. $500 I owed the lawn guy, boom. Doctor bill I was trying to make payments on, boom. Stupid Ultherapy that didn’t work, boom.

Bill after bill after bill. They were mostly $500 here or $250 there, but they were all over the place. Then I waited for my credit score to go up (why does a BAD thing affect your credit almost immediately, but a GOOD thing takes 60 days to make your score go up?).

But I kind of forgot I did all that as I sat down with my pile of bills. Truthfully, every bill time, I had to set aside several hours, first to gird myself for how anxiety-inducing it was, then to be in a bad panicked mood after. I did that this past Sunday. I had several hours no one expected to hear from me.

So. Mortgage first. …Oh, okay, that’s right. It’s lower than it used to be. Maybe I’ll round it up to the next hundred. Put that on the principal. Principle? Which is it for a mortgage? I’ll round it up to the Mr. Dixon. Because Room 222 references are fetch.

Then I paid the water bill. The electric. My phone. My internet.

Well! But…

I looked around me. I went back to my bill box. There was one thing left in there, under my alarm instructions. A check for $250, something about overpaid mortgage from the last house.

I paid all my bills, have emergency savings, a credit score inching up toward 800, 15% a pay period going to my four-oh-wonk,

AND I HAVE MONEY LEFT OVER after paying the bills.

Oh my god! Who even am I?

Afterward, I celebrated by painting the dresser pink, and that was a mistake. I’d show you photos, but my mouse is hooked up to the same little cable thing that my phone hooks up to the computer with, and there was a marvelously constructed sentence.

The point is, I’m scared to UNplug my mouse to plug in the phone and upload the photos for you.

Anyway, I hate it. Ima try to repaint it Kid Glove, the white-ish color, and I act like something can be white or sort of white. I guess it’s more of an ivory, merchant.

I must go, as it is 7:42 and I have to be at my desk at 8:00, via my new hours. I have no makeup on, and in the ’90s–not the ’80s–when I ventured out sans makeup and just a little sandalwood oil, I was all fresh! and natural! Now I look like I was pulled from the river. On Sunday afternoon I stopped at a coffee shop sans makeup, and a handsome age-appropriate man was walking in as I was walking out. I smiled at him and he looked down, like he’d turn to stone if he looked at anyone that hideous.

No, mom. He was not intimidated by my beauty. Also, he was not gay. Mom pulls out all the stops before she admits someone just wasn’t that into me.

Also, I like how I leave the impression I was there for coffee and not a chocolate croissant. Why so not fetch?

I’ll talk to you tomorrow when I hope I can report I have a fixed washer. The owners, fmr., of this house, left the washer and dryer at my request, but I do believe they’re from the ’70s, not the ’80s, and I washed my comforter in there and broke the damn thing. So my sensible reliable handyman is coming today, because nothing is clean and I have to wear the calf-length teal dress I wore to 10th-grade homecoming to work today, along with the nude low-heel shoes that went with said dress.

That was in the ’80s.

I see pictures of people’s kids at homecoming now, and they’re all hootchie-gootchie girls, and I dressed like one of the Golden Girls at 17. Dear Matt Rick, my homecoming date in 1982: I am sorry I dressed like Rose Nylund and not a go-go dancer at homecoming. At least my Princess Diana hairdo was fetch.

Okay, really going now.

Juan

Untitled

Today, I got up, took my stupid Prilosec and started my half-hour countdown, fed everyone (I let Iris be a bad girl today, because Steely Dan hadn’t deigned to come home yet after a night out, so Iris got to eat up at SD’s dish like a rebel.

Eyeriss so bad. She need spank. heeeee.

Then, of course, SD let himself in and looked up at his dining establishment, astonished, but he did not kick her ass as I’d feared. I can never figure this cat out. Instead, I fed him over by Lily, and they both took that in stride), showered (she says, after the world’s longest parenthetical), made sure my stupid half-hour had passed and got my coffee all set, sat down here and was like,

Wow. I have nothing to say today.

Oh, I know!

I got my hairs cut!

I think it might dry while we talk, it’s so short and shortie now, but let’s see what happens. You won’t BELIEVE what happens next. Click here.

My coworker did that to me yesterday. He didn’t cut my hair–I might have led with that. He works in our New York office now, but he’s back this week to do stuff in our studio, and he was all, “Oh my god, you guys, who has a banana? I learned the COOLEST thing about bananas.” No one had one.

We were all, Do you mean the thing where you hold it by the stem. We all said that with the enthusiasm of a tree sloth. Because Oooooo, Mr. New Yorker’s gonna burst in, thinking he’s all big city. With his banana stem thing we all learned years ago. We’re not in Papua New Guinea, dude.

“No, it’s something different! My brain literally exploded!”

“Your brain did not literally explode,” I pointed out, and quest for world’s popular-ist coworker rages on.

Anyway, he built it up in such a “click here” way that I swear 200 people are gonna stop working so we can watch Camilo and the Banana today. I mean, he built this shit up, so it better be good.

“Maybe he finally realizes you eat the inside,” my boss’s boss, fmr., said to me, as we strolled away.

…I’ve been scrolling through my photos, because I know I have a nice one of a bunch of coworkers holding up their bananas at some point, when it was Banana O’Clock at work one day. I can’t find it, of course, but I found a buncha racy ones of me in a pink bra, and who was I trying to impress, I wonder.

Anyway, I also found the following…

My grandfather and me, petting a dog. That dog was Sam. I believe he set the template for me liking a medium-size, yellow mutt.

My grandfather would have been my age in that photo. I mean, he wasn’t three. I was three, and he was around 52. My age now. Just eat your banana and stop being clever.

Me, househunting for a place in Greensboro in 2008. We hadda take Talu on the search, because she was just a baby. She would’ve been four months old then. Lu.

The two-year anniversary of her death is tomorrow. Yay.

Lu and me at this house. I remember walking in and going, “Ooooo!” like it was covered in diamonds or something.

We’re seeing a lotta Lu anus today.

There’s the front of our Lu! Even back then she stood the same way. That Pitty way.

Why’d Lu have to up and die? Like Mr. Bojangles’ dog? I hate everything.

When I was trying to find that banana shot, which really, I need to get over, I looked in the category of “people” and this interesting Brady Bunch board came up.

Here’s an interesting June quiz. Well. “Interesting.” How many of June’s people can you identify? We’ll label them 1–25, going from top-left across. So, the mystery figure in blue, with the buildings behind him, is number one. The mystery figure in the lavender sweater, looking down, is number 25. The winner gets…

a cat bonnet! And by “gets,” I mean I’ll say you’ll get it and I will never send it. Start playing now!

Don’t you love days when I have nothing to tell you?

Sadly, I’ve discovered my computer allows me to muck with my photos, a thing I hadn’t discovered previously, and now every photo you see will be all mucked. You’re welcome. Also, I took this in the romantic light of the screen. I do not have a skin condition. But there’s my nearly dry hair.

I gotta go. Ima take Edsel to daycare today, and here’s the link.

Talk at you.
Juan

Noon June

It’s Monday at lunch, and I tried to write you all this morning, but stuff kept happening and I never got around to it. But here I am! The one that you love! Asking for another dayyyyy.

In case you were gone this weekend, or trying heroin or the FedEx delivery man, I wrote about my trip to TinyTown this weekend. It’s the post below this one. I also just linked to it. So you won’t have to be all, What happened in TinyTown, JOOOOOOOOOON??? Why didn’t you write about TinyTown, JOOOOOOONN. In my head, the more I write “JOOOOON,” the harsher you sound saying it.

Other than that, here is what else I’ve been up to…

Oh my god, June, NO ONE CARES.

I headed out yonder to visit my friends Chris and Lilly, who are 100% over me but have to tolerate me because they’re nice people.

“Is she gone yet? Don’t look over there. …Did she go?”

They made a nice plate of snacks, which I was indulging in despite my clean diet.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Anyway, there I was, indulging, when we all…smelled something.

“So you smell that?” asked Chris, and they probably worried about the contents of my adult diaper, so old am I compared to them. In the grand scheme of things, I’m Ruth Gordon to their Mia Farrow. Try the mouse.

“It’s just me!” announced their child, Z, from the hallway. She leaned into the room. “I just wanted a little company!”

Turns out Z felt the…call of nature, so she brought her…call of nature chair into the hallway, right outside of the living room, to, you know. Answer nature. It was more a social event than a private event, for her. It was the social event of the season, really.

Also, I got my hair cut. I go to a regular hairdresser who colors and cuts my hair, but she doesn’t do the Deva cuts, which is a specific cut for curly hair that you have to get a certificate in and so on.

I could see my hair wasn’t…bouncing as it can, and the curls were getting heavy, so I Googled the closest place that does Deva cuts, made an appointment, and walked in this week…

…to an African American salon.

Okay. So.

I guess I never thought about it before, but once I walked into that place, the only BETTY WHITE in there, the only person who was BEYOND THE PALE, it dawned on me. I saw the light, and it was my skin. Maybe there are salons specifically for women of color, and maybe I just walked into one.

White girl walks into a salon.

But here’s the thing. A, they didn’t kick me out, and 2, they were really nice to me and 12, here’s my new hair:

June. Stop.

No, really, HERE is my new hair:

Right?

Here it is on another day:Right right? She did a great job! As Faithful Reader Fay says, I have gone black and I will not go back. I’ll still go to my color person, ironically, for color. But I’m sticking with this hairdresser for cuts.

Then finally yesterday, I tried getting back on Facebook after a few-week hiatus, but almost instantly, people started messaging me, which of course is why I got off Facebook.

(Just to catch you up, in case this was your season to try heroin, or the FedEx delivery man, a person kept sending me messages on Facebook, messages to do with Ned, and when I blocked her, she created a new profile and messaged me again. This gave me the PTSD any time my message indicator came on Facebook.

I wrote here, and on Facebook, and on the page Facebook of June, asking for people to not send me personal messages, but it kept happening. So, knowing I can’t change anyone, I just got off there. I was hoping when I got back on that I just wouldn’t get many messages, but I did, and they made me anxious again, so I left. Again.) (And shutting off messenger doesn’t help. It still tells you you have messages.)

So that was a long stint back on there. Hey, 12 hours!

And finally. In summation. To wrap up. You will note on the side of this page (if you’re on your desktop computer) or at the bottom of this page (if you’re on your phone) that there is a new feature here. It’s called From the Beginning, and it will eventually list all my categories in chronological order.

I have all kinds of stupid categories from this blog: Ned, my pets, my health, Tracy Quartermaine. But if you wanted to just sit down and read about a particular topic, you’d have to read from the present day and scroll down. Read backwards, as it were.

This annoyed me, which is saying a lot because we all know what a long fuse I have. But there’s a woman named Elizabeth who works for WordPress, who offered me her services when I came over here, and she has been magnificent, and I asked her, “Is there a way we can show some stuff in order, and not backwards?”

So she made the little From the Beginning section, and we started with the …friend/Ned category, dating back from January of 2012 when I met his ass, and ending with whenever I last wrote about him.

As I learn how the hell to add the other categories, I will add them. She did this one for me, because did I mention magnificent?

You rilly sort of dullist person on erf.

do not bor furthir

So that SORT of sums things up, although I have other things to tell you, but I will save them up. Savor them. Build the anticipation.

mom blawg. fale.

Talk to you soon, from the warm supportive bosom of my pet family.

Jooooooon

When a story really gels

I’ve not mentioned this, but work is busy. And this week, what arrived but a book, a whole book, for me to freelance copyedit. They wanted me to do that in a week, but I called that place and said YA TRYINA KILL ME? And now I have till the 17th.

The point is, when things get busy, I have some physical reactions, re-act-shuns, and that’s the story Ima tell you today.

So, for the last week, it’s been, you know, hectic at work. Stuff is coming at me before I even get there, then all day I think I know what I have to get done and that I’ve got it under control and then even more stuff comes my way.

We had a big meeting this week about how important it is that everything gets copy edited, yet there are still the same number of copy editors there, and mother of god.

And I agree, is the thing. Everything should get copy edited. So I can’t turn my back on my religion, there, even though it’s stressy.

Yesterday morning I was showering, and not at all thinking about all the things I had to do that day, when my bathroom door burst open. It was another one of those situations that let me know when a murderer really does burst in, Ima be frozen like a deer when your headlights are barreling toward it.

As someone was opening the doorknob, and I was recalling that I do, in fact, live alone, I stood naked and frozen in the shower. BOOM, went the door as it opened, and

TAAA-DAAAA

went the universe, as Steely Dan stood in the threshold, paws victoriously on his hips. heeeer i be.

was thurstee

And go ahead. Notice that that bath rug should probably be exchanged for a cleaner one. My house is ludicrous right now, with the busy. Just last night I finally got sick of stepping over my open suitcase on the bedroom floor, and finally unpacked it all the way and put it away, in the closet. Those antlers had been staring at me judgmentally all week from the bowels of my case.

Anyway, all that cat wanted was to drink from the toilet, and he wanted it NOWWW, so he, you know, got on his hind legs and turned a crystal doorknob with his evil paws. As you do. When you’re thumbless.

The point is, that was the serene way I began my day, and it got better from there.

Here’s m’boss, fmr., and me, at a meeting yesterday. Apparently it was “Wear muted purple” day.

Here’s another coworker and me noting we have on similar shoes. Apparently it was “Wear pointy shoes” day.

Wait. Which?

Anyway, it was busy, which I believe I’ve mentioned, and if I DID pee all day, I don’t recall it, and the whole point of this story is it was 5:30 and I was getting ready to leave. I was at my car, in fact, with plans to go to the grocery store before going home. I  realized I needed to pee; went back in to do so.

It was then, finally, after a whole day of stressing, and knowing what happens to me when I’m stressing, that I looked in the mirror and

MOTHER

OF

GOD.

My hair.

My hair was insane. And no. I did not photograph it.

When you have ludicrous hair like mine, the latest thing is to use sulfate-free products, and to shampoo with conditioner (yes, it still has some cleansing agents), and so on. But every once in awhile you have to use a clarifying shampoo, because eventually your hair just gets kind of Rosie the Robot doing her impression of Miss Judy. Does anyone remember that impression? Where she’s beleaguered and bent over and exhausted? I can’t find it online.

Anyway, yesterday morning I clarified, because what with the extra product that I used for making my Frida costume believable and so on, my hair was looking distinctly sad and hangdog.

And then when I was done clarifying, I realized, oh. I’m pretty much out of gel, the good gel, the sulfate-and-alcohol-free good gel, so I used this kind I hate. All that plus work stress, and my 5:30

MOTHER

OF

GOD

with my hair. It wasn’t just big. It was big and frizzy. It was big and frizzy and was seriously lacking in, you know, any shape. When I stress, my hair stresses with me. Always has.

This art guy was still in his office when I left the bathroom. “All day I’ve been looking like this, and no one said anything about my, you know, hair looking like this.”

The art guy looked at my hair awhile. “They were being kind, I guess,” he surmised.

Last night I bought the good gel, and even tried to come home and wet it and USE said good gel, but I couldn’t even get my hands through my… angry bush, there. If you’ll forgive the disgusting imagery.

neeeedee commitee, um, sit heer. away from harr.

So that is why today, even though I don’t usually GET my hair wet two days in a row, I just got in the shower and began anew.

After all, tomorrow is another hair day.

Wish me luck.

I ran out of Ritalin. You can totally tell.

I did something I wish I hadn’t.

I agreed via email, while at my regularly scheduled job, to take on a freelance project. I didn’t pay enough attention to the deets and dear June, please say deets, because please see above ref to regularly scheduled job and distracted. They offered me a flat rate, and I already agreed, and it’s not nearly going to be enough for the volume of work Ima have to do.

Crap. Contract is signed. Work is already with me. Crap, I say.

In the meantime, it will keep me out of trouble, and there is SOME money in it. Just not much.

Me, at work. With Molly, of the at-work Mollys. Shown for no reason other than this photo kind of amuses me.

We had our annual pumpkin painting contest at work yesterday.

I never participate, except to go out there and eat the snacks, and judge everyone’s work. I have no visual skillz. Like, seriously none.

Yesterday, when my day of judging pumpkins and pumping kin and so on was done, I meandered to our bustling downtown, which is sort of bustling, actually, and is generally pleasant other than the occasional crazy guy “Excuse me, ma’am”-ing you as you walk by. Maybe it’s because when I’m downtown, I drive all the old men crazy.

A guy asked me if I could get him something to drink. Someone had bought him a plate of Middle-Eastern food, and I could just see this white person, all proud of himself, not thinking OH MY GOD THIS WOULD MAKE YOU THIRSTY, and the point of my story was I ended up buying this man some very pretentious $2.50 water at the local bookstore.

But yesterday, I went down there not to drive all the old men crazy, although that’s a given, but to get my red coat.

I’d admired said red coat at my friend Kit’s store, which you’ll be stunned to hear is called Design Archives. It’s a ’50s, swingy coat, a red-orange color, and I almost bought it but didn’t, because I already HAVE a winter coat, so why do I need another.

“Oh, hell, I’ll give it to you for [insert absurdly low amount here],” said Kit, when I messaged her later. “I’ll tell them to put it on hold for you.”

And that is why I was downtown, driving all the old men crazy, and Dear June: You are not Thin Lizzie. Stop. Love, Readers.

“I want to see your new red coat,” my friend Hamlet wrote me, because everyone must know my everything, so when I got home last night, I slopped the hogs, fed own self, drove all the old men crazy and finally came in here to take a webcam photo of said red coat, to not only give Hamlet the exciting sneak preview, but also to show all y’all today.

The goddamn webcam takes 87 hours to pop up on my computer. There have been plenty of times I’ve wanted to webcam you during a blogging not blogging moment, and said fuck it cause it takes too long. So last night I clicked on the icon for it, then prepared to wait the hundred hours for it to finally work.

When I DID see it was up, I noted that instead of the camera being on, the video thing, veeeeedeo thing, was on, and what I enjoy about myself is my rapid ability to show off.

I am reminded once again of my grandmother saying, “Look at her. She doesn’t need anybody else. Just sits with herself and laughs.”

Anyway, here’s the coat.

After I got my designs from the archives last night, and before I came home to show off for company, I headed back to the bookstore to sit in the window and watch people. Judge their pumpkins. I like how I show you instead a view INSIDE the store, but whatever.

Oooo, also, I forgot to mention that when I took a walk with m’coworkers yesterday, I saw a KITTEN, a black-and-white KITTEN, under a car. “KITTEN!” I said, racing toward it.

“How did she see that?” I heard someone ask.

Anyway it ran away from me, and into these woods, and after work I returned to said woods and “kitty-kittied” myself hoarse and no kitten. Annoy.

The rustling through the woods and the walking downtown in the rain and Dancing This Mess Around and driving all the old men crazy resulted in end-of-day hair that looked like this:

Dear God. Yes, I DID have that shirt on inside-out. You know how I am.

So that about sums it up. I got a weekend yawning before me, as I do, and that’s just fine. I don’t know why no one will dance with me.

I ain’t no limburger.

June, driving all the old men crazy, since whenever I became obsessed with that line.

Me and you and a dog with Blu

I did many things this weekend, but one thing I did not do was much sleeping.

Internet: Why, Joon?

Joon: Noneya, Internet.

Vintage June sports her vintage slip on Friday.

On Friday afternoon, I was toiling at m’desk when the phone rang. “WHAT.” I thought, as I am cheerful and elegant about being interrupted when in a flow.

It was my doctor’s office. I’d had an appointment for them to see how I was doing on my Ritalin. I’d gotten scattered and forgotten. Hello, irony? Are you there, irony? It’s me–OOOO, SHINY THING LOOK!

Fortunately, he’s right across the street, my doctor is, so I screamed over there. He just wanted to see me in personal (did I ever tell you that story? Of the prisoner who wanted to get to know me “in personal”?), just to see if Ritalin made me, you know, too peppy.

Apparently it doesn’t, and he doubled my dose, and we’ll see how it goes from there. The good news is, I took the new double dutch bus amount right away, and screamed home after work and got a lot of freelance done before having fun that night. I never do that. It’s either, Ima go out tonight or Ima freelance tonight. BUT I DID BOTH!

Oh, Ritalin. [Chucks Ritalin under chin]

On Saturday I got a manicure (kind of a green/blue. I know that’s my new color. ….Really? Okay, hang ON).

I know you can’t get enough of these me-in-the-Laila-Ali-hairdryer shots

Oooo, it’s on sale right now! Click this picture to get to it on Amazon. They, the Amazon people, the Amakazons, sent me a very vague email about how I’m not doing something, and maybe it’s that I’m not touting the wares enough? It was purposely obtuse, if you ask me, and this whole not blog is me assuming you’re asking me everything.

Anyway, on Saturday night I saw Ward, this man I’ve gone out with a few times who came up with the blog name “Ward” without knowing my blog name is June, a thing that sent all 10 of you abuzz.

The point is, Ward has met the animals, and the animals have met Ward. Need I tell you Edsel’s reaction?

damm et, mom

leaf lone, mom

I went outside to try to get Edsel in a “EDS IN LUFF O EDZUL GOD” photo, but he’s out there quite involved with Blu and hasn’t time for us right now. Behold a photo of me taking Blu and dangling it over my head, just so that damn dog would pay me any mind.

Anyway, Edsel has asked for his own Facebook account just so he can update his status to IN RELASHION WIF WARD. Oh, he simpered, he offered his ears up for pets, he’d walk away and come back to be sure of Ward, he flumped to his bed and gazed at him. Edsel is Violet Bicks. He likes every boy.

The good news is, Ward came up with the best Steely Dan voice, sort of a “If Barry White were from Louisiana” thing that OH MY GOD IS SO STEELY DAN’S VOICE. It is totally that cat’s voice. Low, manly, lazy, not-give-a-shit-y.

Perfect. So, now SD has a brand voice.

On Sunday, I gathered up my freelance and headed to the coffee shop, where I get more done because there are distractions here. I can sit down to do my work and realize I’ve spent 21 minutes playing with Edsel’s teeth.

I went to a coffee shop downtown, where everyone pretends to be involved with his or her laptop but looks up any time anyone walks in, lest they be pickupable. Of course, seeing as I’m 89 years old, I do not fall into the pickupable category.

I had a cafe au lait and a chocolate croissant (say, just-not-mentioning-it-to-my Weight-Watchers-app, how’s the cheating going?), and got all my work done, because Ritalin.

It was raining hard out, so I sat on the leopard-spotted couch and watched the rain come down, and the people passing by downtown, and thought about how lucky I am.

And now I must head to work. It’s still rainy and no matter how hard Laila Ali blows me, Ima be frizzy today, but it’s Monday, Blu Monday, and there’s not much you can do about that.

XO,
June

Ion the greatest

I’m blogging (not blogging) at you while I’m drying my hair with my new Laila Ali ionic bonnet dryer! Oh, June, will your riveting ionic adventures never end?

As you know, I have hair. And my choices before work are: run some kind of water through it and look vaguely okay, if looking like King Charles II qualifies as “okay.”

Also, Nair.

And we’re talking that’s if it dries well. Because let’s say I don’t add enough gel, or I drive to work with the windows down, or I ACCIDENTALLY TOUCH IT STOP DON’T TOUCH IT STOP DON’T TAKE THE CAR, YOU’LL KILL YOURSEEEEEEE…

You touched it. You touched your hair. Now Peter Frampton knows you’re imitating him, and he has to show you his junk. And borrow a shirt from Strawberry Shortcake.

Also, “Don’t take the car, you’ll kill yourseeeeee” is from my favorite public service announcement:

Just one iota of a second. That’s all they needed to do, was cut this one iota of a second later, and I wouldn’t have spent the rest of my life obsessing.

Anyway. My other option is to wash my hair entirely, which means my coworkers have to watch in horror as I arrive to work with completely wet hair, even though it’s usually been two hours between the time I’ve washed it and when I actually arrive.

They’re still watching in horror at noon.

Or, I could blow it dry.

But Faithful Reader Beverly, who is in the same Women With …Hurr support group on Facebook as me, uses a bonnet dryer, and because I must BE Beverly, and live in her skin, I decided to get one, too.

Behold the Laila Ali Ionic Soft Bonnet Hair Dryer, below. I’m glad it’s ionic, because I enjoy irony as much as the next person.

And of course this is a link to Amazon. You know what a marketing genius I am.

When I first got the idea to live in Beverly’s skin and be her hair, I got on Amazon (not through my blog, because who has time for that bullshit?) and searched for bonnet dryers, and the first one to appear was this one above.

The fact that Muhammad Ali’s daughter was hawking hair dryers was kind of funny to me. Would this make me tough? She’s also pretty–would I be pretty if I used it? That’s generally my question for everything, though. If I use this/spend all my money on this/withstand this horrific outpatient procedure, will I be pretty?

But something came over me, something adult-ish this way comes, and I said, No. I’m not just going to impulsively purchase the very first bonnet dryer that the Ali family trots out, like some kind of willy-nilly bonnet purchaser. Ima be more like Ned, and research, and take my time, and never commit to just one.

Bitter? The Bitter party? Your table’s ready.

So I looked at reviews and read up and researched, and?

It said to get the Laila Ali Ionic Soft Bonnet Dryer. I got it on sale, somehow, and I see the one I linked you to is $45, and I’m sorry. It’s the only one they gave me to give you. Clearly Laila Ali and I are in cahoots, and we are fist bumping as I speak to you, and also, were you aware that sitting under a bonnet dryer makes you sort of sweaty?

When my grandmother, the one I have officially turned into®, used to sit under her bonnet dryer, one of her many cats would come sit on her lap, next to the dryer, I think because it was warm.

She would always have on her zip-up robe during dry-the-hair time–my grandmother did, not the cat–and always, always with her open-toed slippers.

Those kinds of slippers are exclusive only to grandmothers, as are zip-up robes, for that matter, along with those hard candies that have the strawberry wrapper on the outside, Pond’s Cold Cream, and disposable rain bonnets.

I adored these, and my grandmother had them at the ready, inexplicably, because it was important that y’do stay fresh when you are 3. Maybe my grandmother didn’t want to sit around till noon watching my hair dry.

Also, try cramming that cute rain bonnet back in that container. No, go ahead. I’ve been trying since 1968, but go ahead.

Okay, it’s been half an hour…

Oh my god, m’hair’s dry! And it’s cute-ish!

Thank you, Laila Ali. Thank you and your whole overachieving family. You are an ionic family, is what you are, and my hair appreciates your efforts.

Curlishly,

June

Cream. Get on top. Cream.

Three entire days of a holiday weekend. Twenty thousand climbs up m’stepstool. Five trips to the paint store. Nineteen inappropriate advances made on young paint salesboy.

And?

Turn around, bright eyes

Look at the sun, up there. Soooooo smug. Oh, Ima shine on you all day. Like I always do. HAH! We, the audience, know better.

Anyway hi. I’m not at work, and I was luxuriating in bed, thinking how lovely it was to, you know, luxuriate in the bed, when I remembered you guys saying, “The first thing I do when I wake up is read Book of June!” “My day isn’t complete without Book of June!” “I keep an asp in my hand, and if Book of June isn’t up, I let it strike me.”

Black

Yesterday, I cheated on my hairdresser and held a dying kitten. So now I have PTSD and almost-black hair.