Raccoons and 'Berries and Hair, oh my!

I forgot to mention a few things yesterday but I hate posting twice in one day. People have enough to do and don't need to be checking back here more than once a day. So...

One - Thank you again to everyone who reads my blog - the comments I get from you guys make my day. MetroDad suggested (jokingly) that we take up a collection for me to get internet at home and I even got a super nice offer from one of you to actually PAY for me to switch to a better service provider! (Thanks again, Bill!) The thoughts are much appreciated, but fortunately, my problem is not a lack of money for internet access or my own domain name - it's a lack of time to write and lack of a computer that is not totally f*ed up at home. So if any of you want to send me the new Mac - or even a Dell PC, just email me for my address. (Ha, just kidding...Wait, no I'm not!)

Two - The keys on the blackberry I have through work starting sticking on Friday, making it impossible to type normal emails -- so they gave me a new one yesterday! It's in color and I realized that now I can see your websites, complete with pictures and word verification and everything! So while a computer at home is still ideal, at least now I can read your sites on my commute! Screw books, man - I'm addicted to blogs!

Three - I failed to give any details about the voice recording for the raccoon! It's a project to help kids in military families to understand that lots of other kids go through what they're going through. The raccoon was upset that his mom's tour of duty had been extended, so he started acting out inappropriately. When a new student, a frog, was introduced into the classroom, Rocky yelled out, "Ribbit!" So I had to say, "Ribbit!" over and over and over into the microphone. "RIbbit!...RIBBit!...RibBIT!"It was pretty hilarious. And then the raccoon got himself into some trouble (I'm not sure how) but I had to pretend I was drowning! Not easy when there's no pool to submerge yourself into. Not even a cup of water to choke on! So we'll see if I get chosen to be his voice. If I don't, at least I'll take solace in the fact that I do not, indeed, sound like a little boy raccoon.

And now onto the show.


* * * The Banana Hair Diaries* * *

Here's my first hair memory. I was 5 or 6 and my mom took me to get my hair cut short. When I got to my dad's house that night, my stepsisters covered me with a blanket and when my dad got home, they whipped it off of me in a "Tada!"-like fashion.

My dad is not a fan of short hair and reacted with little enthusiasm towards my new 'do. He may have even said that he didn't like it.

In my teenaged years, my dad said that boys wouldn't like me as much with short hair. He's a really great dad and that's the only awful thing he's ever said to me. Of course, I'll never forget it.

(And thankfully I was smart enough to know that if a boy didn't like me because of the length of my hair, I didn't need to be with him anyway.)
As a kid though, I probably took my dad's opinion to heart - thus the longer hair at age 11. Ah, my virg!n, untouched, never-colored hair...just four short years later I would ruin you with the bottle.

And check out those not yet-plucked eyebrows! A few more years and those would be trashed, too.








My hair hasn't changed too much in this picture but I just needed to show you this scrunchie. Sweet. JEBUS. And did I have a thing for the double-turtleneck look or what?!? Yikes.

Okay, it's Christmas and maybe I had been asleep shortly before this picture was taken. But the thing is...I don't think I had been. We always go to church from my mom's house on Christmas Eve and then go to my dad's house on Christmas morning. This was taken at my mom's house so I can only deduct that I just had some crazy-ass way-too-short bangs. Wow.

(Also: Thank goodness that couch is no longer in our lives.)




This was in the head-covered-in-hair days. My hair framed my head on 3 out of 4 sides. The Great Wall of Bangs is what I call that on my forehead. This was age 15, I think. Holy shit, am I wearing another turtleneck?? Well, to be fair, I did grow up in Upstate New York on one of the Great Lakes.







Later that year, age 15 turned seriously ugly. I decided my hair wasn't quite the right shade and somehow convinced my parental units to allow me to color my hair. My dad colors the gray out of his hair, and I liked that color of brown so I chose the same box. Unfortunately, brown on top of gray = brown. Brown on top of brown? Apparently equals black. I was like, "Woah. Wait. The lighting here in the bathroom must be bad. This can't be. But oh, it was. I had to go to school like that and boy, did I get a lot of weird looks - and probably some choice comments, too. I think I may have wished to get hit by a truck that day to escape my utter and total embarassment, but I can't remember. (I've repressed the memories.) I had to have my hair stripped and recolored a normal shade. Do you know how bad that is for your hair?!? Soooo bad. Like worse than Meet the Fockers bad.

(Notice how I'm holding Joey, our cat, in the exact same way in both pictures? And how I look totally high in the second picture? Sweet.) *Editor's Note: Liberal Banana has never, ever smoked anything in her entire life. Comments about appearing to be high should be taken with a grain of salt. And a bag of Doritos.

Then the helmet of hair grew a bit longer and wind became my enemy. Do not. Mess. With the hair. What kills me most about this picture (taken in my high school cafeteria) is how fat my face looks. I have one other picture of me from the end of senior year where my face looks fat, so it must've been true. When I came back to visit during my freshman year of college, several people asked me if I'd lost weight...Hey, what can I say? I got my Freshman 15 out of the way before college. I'm good like that.

Then during freshman year of college, I decided to go to a very scary, totally unnatural shade of blonde. "Fuck bangs!" I declared. I wanted my hair to be free to blow in the wind...and glow in the dark.









As I went through college, I let my hair grow long (Dad, so the boys will like me more!). I guess I decided I want to be a red-shaded brunette; this is the "after" picture.
(I hate that Columbia jacket but I'll be damned if it isn't the warmest coat I own. Why couldn't I have gotten a pink one? I love pink!)




This is moments before the worst (hair-related) decision of my life. I had found myself curling my hair nearly every day because I didn't like it "just laying there." So logically, I thought: perm. Yes, I would like to have curls that are permanent. Stupid, stupid girl. This is probably the best I've ever looked in any picture EVER. And then I went and ruined it all - January 4th, 2000. Weeks before my 21st birthday.


Ooh, look at me! I'm so excited! It's taking two women TWO bottles of solution to get through my hair! It's amazing! So fun! I can't wait to see what it looks like! I'm absolutely dying of anticipation!





This is my "Oh My God What Have I Done I Hate This Please Tell Me It Doesn't Look As Bad As I Think It Does" cringe. Holy fucking crap. I cried in my room for roughly three days and then attempted to brush it out "too soon" (whatever that means) and ended up with an even bigger 'fro. One girl at school actually asked me, "Um, did you mean to do that?" Um, no, you little brat - I just fell into a vat of curlers and then accidentally showered in some perm solution! Oops! Silly me. (Bitch.)

I tried to embrace The Perm. Here I am visiting The Conservative Apple, my friend from college who has the world's most beautiful curly red hair. Big, awesome, perfect curls. It's SO. ROCKIN. So she showed me how to properly prepare my curls each day so they reach their optimal awesomeness - but it took roughly an HOUR and after one more try on my own, I gave up. I ended up enlisting the help of my now-ex-friend and her now-husband to straighten my hair with a home straightening product. Needless to say, my hair was completely fried. Totally ruined. My hair has never again looked as good as it did in the pre-perm picture.



In December of 2002, I took my mess-of-hair to the salon while I was home for the holidays. The girl that cuts my hair there is totally adorable, so I trust her judgement. She created this look for me and I just looooved it. It was totally different from anything I'd done before.

Three months later, sans hair product. I love this look, too. It was at my 23rd birthday. If I went short again, I'd do something a bit more edgy (longer in the front than in the back), but I think this is just adorable if I do say so myself...which I just did!





This was taken shortly after the last one but...I'm back to bangs!

Ladies, if you want to take a picture of yourself where you look really good - like if you hate your nose and want to blur it out a bit? Take the photo in front of a bright window. Features blurred out - and voila, you look awesome.


I call this look "Stripey McStripes." It's the skunk look. Very hot back in 2004, I swear. You'll be relieved to know that I traded this in for a less severe look 3 months later at my next hair appointment.

Then came this day. It was February 2005. I had decided to color my hair all by myself again, as having it done at the salon done costs an arm and a leg. (Literally. I'm a quadriplegic now.) So I colored it - and then, surprise surprise, I didn't like it. So what does your average crazed hair-coloring girl do? She goes out to get a different color, even though it says you should wait something like three days before trying again. Screw that! I don't care if I need to be at a baptism in 90 minutes! I'll be done by then, I promise! And I was done in time. And I still did not like my hair. (And I look crazy in that picture.)

Then came the day where I was given the most expensive haircut and coloring in my life (October 2005). I saw an ad in Craigslist for hair models needed. They said the results would be wearable. As anyone who has seen or been in a hair show knows, the results are usually completely UNwearable. (Unless you like having a birdhouse perched on your head or having neon green patches of hair covering your otherwise bald skull. Which I do not.)

So I showed up to "the call" and they ended up choosing me! (The company is Alterna.) I met with them a few days later when a woman colored my hair - and who told me, when I asked, that she normally charges $350 for highlights like the ones she was doing on me! Holeeeeee Sheeeeet! Then at the actual show, I got to walk down a short little runway and then the stylist, Michael Shaun (seen in photo with a very constipated look on his face) showed the event attendees how to do a certain cut (which he charges $300 for!). My look was something like "Businesswoman Chic" and they put me in that wacko "suit." They also had a gal from MAC do our makeup and she put the longest, thickest, craziest fake eyelashes EVER, OF ALL TIME on me. It felt like I had tarantulas on my face. Oh, but did I mention I got PAID for this? It was freakin' awesome.

And this is what I look like when the metro train pulls into the station at 60 miles per hour. (Ha ha *snort* - yeah right.) The attempt at modeling didn't work out, but I got some really great pictures out of it from local photographers.


So I got my hair cut again on Saturday, May 27th, but did not get new highlights. They're expensive as hell. (Hell is very expensive - it's like Nordstrom on earth but without someone playing a baby grand piano near the shoe section because, well, there is no shoe section in hell. That's why they call it hell.) I'm growing it as long as possible and hoping the current highlights continue to blend into the natural color seamlessly. And that, my friends, is Banana's Hair Diary. I hope you have been amused. However, you took nothing else away from this post but one thing, I hope it's this: Friends do not let friends get perms.