Boing

~ Haircut day. Not much shorter, just a sort of temporary lift in the interim while I'm waiting to get my curls (mid-September). I don't know how L manages to make it look longer when she's cutting it, but she does and she's a genius and I love it and adore her.
    While I was at the salon, I picked up some new polish, although I'd just gotten two yesterday. My new colors: Outback Aphrodisiac, It's Sheer Luck, and Glacier Bay Blues. The latter will be for toes only--I don't think I'm brave enough to do dark blue on my fingernails.
~ Tomorrow will be an interesting day. For one, it's my last full day as a 33-year-old. I think that's more significant than turning 34 on Friday, because what do I know about being 34? I've never been there before. It'll be a good last gasp sort of day if I have anything to say about it.
    It's also going to be sinking-in day for the M.A. It clicked for me this evening while I drove home from work--this is the first time since I was 23 that I wasn't a student, and the first time in my entire life that I had no concrete intention of starting school somewhere, sometime, in the future. That education thing has been a huge chunk of my identity (self-defined or externally-imposed) for the great majority of my life. I suppose I could be freaking out about it, but for the moment it's a much more relaxed feeling. I'm really glad to be through with this particular degree.
    Coincidentally, tomorrow's 'Sleek Day' at the library. Always a pleasure and a pain. I wish I could adequately explain the atmosphere when we're alone in a room as opposed to when someone else is in the room--it would require a weather analogy, for sure. Perhaps physics will do: when it's just the two of us, it's potential energy. The combination of our pathological auras creates a chemical reaction that feels like the room's going to explode. But when someone else is in the room, it's diffused and we're suddenly extra-funny, super-talkative, all-about-eye-contact, hyper-aware of keeping the other person in the room. Like a frenzied, short-term windstorm that kicks up a lot of dust and makes a hell of a lot of noise but doesn't cause any damage.
    And speaking of noise, the best thing about the next couple of days will be the absence of the Head Banana, who's taking the time off to see a concert. The rest of us can kick back (er, more than usual) and relax, but also get some work done. There are days when I have to say to her, in no uncertain terms, "Please leave my office so I can do [x]!" She can talk until the dawn of time about everything and nothing. That, in conjunction with her nemesis (a woman "at my level" who dresses like a fucking tart, bleaches her hair, self-tans until she's Blogger-orange, screeches when she laughs, walks like a duck...) who bitches to me about the Banana, is enough to make me utterly insane.
    So. A peaceful Thursday, prehaps. After the goddamned traffic and other irritations of the last three days, that sounds like heaven.
~ One last thing that was terribly fun--I've designed my own Hell!:

Hipsters
Circle I Limbo

General asshats
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Trixies
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Parents who bring squalling brats to R-rated movies
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Bill Gates
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

DMV Employees
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

Uday Hussein
Circle VII Burning Sands

The New York Yankees
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

People who drive more than 10 mph under the speed limit
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell