Thursday, July 28, 2011

Switcheroos and Baking Soda

I am so lazy! I've been having a hard time finding the desire to write anything. Really, all I'd like to do at the moment is a whole fat lot of nothing. Or sleep. My dark circles have bags. Even when I get enough sleep, I look exhausted.

I haven't done anything more with that essay about abortion that I talked about - I've been busy ignoring it in favor of things that require much less brainpower. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my brain has just completely deteriorated to a point where I'll never be able to think deeply again. That's kind of a scary thought, so maybe now I need to work on that essay and post it.

I'm listening to my favorite song by M at the moment, which is making it hard to sit and type everything out because it's so beautiful that I want to sit with my eyes closed and just listen to it.

Last night, I switched from my poor Frankenstein of a computer (which I never posted any photos of) to S's old XPS that used to be J's a few years ago. S inherited M's XPS (they're actually almost the exact same computer, except M's old computer has a better processor and RAM but a smaller hard drive than the other XPS), so I get a computer that I can actually keep most of my crap on, but now I can't play the Sims, unless I turn this one off and put it somewhere safe and hook the other one up with its eight thousand cables, because the optical drive on this one is broken from J dropping it so much. However, this computer has a much better, and less broken, keyboard. It's also faster, has Windows 7 instead of XP, and it's prettier. Not to mention, I could theoretically take it places with me that allow me to use the electricity, since the battery does not work at all. And I can close it if I need to, which is nice and something I've definitely missed. Anyway, I was intending on formatting this computer before using it, but then discovered that because the optical drive only works sporadically, it can't reinstall Windows (or run the Sims, since you need the disc to play if you don't want to play pirated copies), so what I've done instead is delete all of S's old files, reconfigure all of her settings and basically change absolutely everything to suit me. It's almost like having it be mine, except that it says Users>S-- instead of Users>L--, which just bothers the hell out of me, but honestly, if that's all I've got to complain about, I'll take what I can get.

Anyway, so lots of excitement surrounding the transference of computers - I'm keeping the Frankenstein as a way to play the Sims until I manage to acquire one with a functioning optical drive and other good parts, and this also means transferring my music library over - that's almost 18 gigs of music! And I have to completely resort it and delete all the stuff that I only deleted out of iTunes last time, because it's all back now since I never deleted the source files. (Over 1,000 songs, actually, that I'm going to have to go and find and delete. Oh joy.) Then I have to readd my audiobooks and fix all of them as well, probably, knowing my luck. Maybe it'll let me fix the chapter titles so they don't suck anymore, though, because a lack of formatting makes my head want to explode. And I need to find a better copy of Order of the Phoenix, as the one I've got is missing the end of the chapter The Woes of Mrs. Weasley.

Well, that's probably enough bitching about how disorganized I am and how much work I'm going to have to do in iTunes before I can even attempt to sync my iPod, so in other news, S and I are going to be trying out this "No 'Poo" thing that I found on a blog, which sounds completely awesome - basically, we won't be using store-bought shampoo or conditioner on our hair anymore, but a mixture of baking soda and water (and after J gets paid, we'll also be adding essential oils to give it a scent) for shampoo every few days and apple cider vinegar with water for conditioner, though just on the ends at first. Funnily enough, I found this not by searching for ways to stop using shampoo, but to find ways to make my hair healthier with food items, out of a combination of curiousity and frustration at how pathetic and weird my hair is. And because I just joined a long hair forum, hoping for some information that I might find helpful in growing my hair out. Anyway, I found this blog after a bit of googling, and it sounds like an absolutely terrific idea, especially after I got a load of her before and after pictures - her before picture had her hair looking dry and weird and poofy with this weird wave, and in the after picture, her hair was tame and soft and silky-looking, and it had darkened, too, to a shade of brown that she apparently was in love with.

Anyway, I've devised a schedule of how often I'm going to use the baking soda mixture on my hair, and I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to use the ACV every time I wash my hair or every other time. The way I've drawn up the schedule looks as if I'll be washing my hair on Saturday, Tuesday, Friday, Monday, Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday, and then back to Saturday again, in a nice little cycle, so there'll be two days between each washing. I don't know if I'm going to need to move them closer or not - you're supposed to just rinse your hair with warm water in the shower on the days you don't wash it. It's going to be an interesting first week, though - the first 10 days or so apparently involve some truly horrific hair days while the scalp stops being all weird and re-regulates the natural oil production, which is basically the purpose of this experiment. I'm going to give it about a month and see how I like it by the end of August, and if it ends up looking okay, that's just how I'm going to wash my hair from now on. Hopefully, I'll never need to use a styling product again.

I'm really excited about this! I've read one account of someone's hair falling out in clumps, but 90% of them say that after the natural oils of the scalp regulated, they were so happy with it that they'd never go back. Also, some people discovered that they had curly hair, or straight hair, or another entirely different hair type than they previously thought, and it cuts out frizz almost completely. Also, if this works and we keep at it, we're going to save SO much money in the long run - we use a lot of shampoo and conditioner right now, and it'll be nice to only have to buy a box of nice, cheap baking soda instead of shampoo and conditioner for every person in the house, if J and Girl Child switch to it as well. Actually, I'm doubtful that Girl Child will make the switch, since it's so close to the start of the school year, but J probably will, if it does good things for our hair. I'm hoping M will make the switch, too, from what I've read, it does amazing things for people with very curly hair, and I think he'd be very happy.

Today, we went on errands involving the Kansas Department of Revenue - specifically getting the car registered and going to get Girl Child her first state ID and to get my instruction permit so I can work on driving and get my license. Unfortunately, I'm listed as having suspended driving privileges, so I couldn't get my permit today, or take the test, or do anything but be hung up on by customer service in Topeka. So I'm calling tomorrow morning, after I call the other relevant places to get more information on why this happened. Hopefully, it'll be quickly resolved with little effort on my part and I'll get my permit on Tuesday or something. If I'm lucky and it doesn't turn out that my driving privileges are suspended for life or something ridiculous.

In D&D news, we're starting another new game what W is going to run, and I'm going to try out being a rogue.  Basically, I'm a fancy beat-stick, but it's still a slight departure from the norm, and since I'm not all that good at the roleplay aspect as of yet, that's the best I can do right now.  I decided to name my new rogue Zoe, and S told me that I'd damn well better live up to the name and be a Big Damn Hero.  It should be interesting with W running - I've never actually played a game with him running, because LW was born right as he was about to start running the last game that I was going to participate with him as DM, and we basically had to give that campaign up after one session.  So, yeah, I'm a little nervous, as from what S has said, W's games are usually something that turns into a Lovecraftian horror.  Anyway, because J's work schedule is changing, we're moving game from Saturdays to Mondays, which is handy, because that is the day I'll be watching LW every week, so we'll be able to get started sooner since they won't have to drive all the way out to Raytown to pick him up before even getting here.

I applied for a job with the county a day or two ago, I can't remember for what position right now (it's in my email, so it's not like I'll be totally clueless if they actually called me), and I'm intending on applying to be an election worker, so maybe that'll help me get a normal job.  The permit thing is going to cause me problems, though, but maybe not too many.

I don't really have anything further to add, so I'm going to go and be very frustrated with iTunes now.

Also, thanks to The Bloggess, I now want a scary metal chicken sculpture.

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