haircut

"wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face"

--bruce springsteen

so i got my hair cut.

sometimes it looks like this:

(photo courtesy of katherine)

but usually it looks more like this (please don't ask about the face i'm pulling. i don't know where it came from either):

reactions have been cool. a few favs:

grant: "(disgusted gasp) OHMYYOUGOTBANGS. they look........new."

debbie: "oh my gosh! oh my gosh! oh my gosh!"

jake: "sorry, but all i see is summer." (aka: 70's retro haircut)

students: "you look like that girl off the disney channel." (perrrrrfect. just what i was going for.)

andrew: "you cut your hair. how do you feel about them." (them as in the bangs that are apparently extreme.)

the best has been that the most common reaction is that people don't recognize me. i mean, in eighth grade i started wearing makeup, in ninth grade i stopped wearing glasses, my freshman year i gained 78 pounds (just kidding world), but none of those produced the, "whoa, i didn't recognize you" effect. it's kind of cool to be a part of.

apparently THEY are just that drastic?

and just exactly how drastic of a haircut must you get for people to not recognize you, that is the question.

all of this has made me think:

wouldn't it be cool to get a soul-cut? to become such a different person, such a better person, that when people saw you they didn't recognize you?

so here i go

*snip snip*

off to cut my soul.

every day is a mid-life crisis, every day is kumran

"living deliberately means that you don't waste your life living for the moments that don't matter, but instead, you find out what moments are worth living for, and then you live your life for those moments."

(--k.m., 11th grader)

we've been studying thoreau and ralph waldo.

yesterday i took the kiddies down to a pond and we sat and listened to the oversoul and our innersouls point, sing, and make faces at us.

i've got them examining things

like their hearts.

and now i'm reexamining.

phd?

really???

or photojournalism?

or travel?

or languages?

or curating?

i told my friend jake about my big plans for my future.

he said, "sometimes, i wish i could fly.

but i can't.

it's impossible.

maybe your dreams are impossible."

well, as it turns out, my little heart is a transcendental one, not a realist.

and so i dream.

and i imagine.

and i build castles in the air, for that is where they should be.

i pretend all day in my head

and borrow light,

trusting that there is always more day to dawn,

that my imaginations are but intimations of future journeys,

and that the sun is but a morning star.

an invocation:

DEAR SPRING,

please get here faster.

LOVE, CAROLYN

(a drawing from the life of the artist)

to those who are so patient with me:

WHY. CAN'T. I. SLEEEEEEEP!?!

it's quarter after twelve. i've been laying in bed for half an hour now.

i get out and make peanut butter toast in the dark and smear enough peanut butter on it so as to totally defeat the purpose of having brushed and flossed my teeth. something i noticed: making toast in the dark is nice for two reasons. ONE. the wires heat up and make the whole thing g l o w. TWO. even if you burn your toast (which i always do), you can't tell just how badly it's burned! and after the inch of peanut butter, you can't taste the difference either.

big drink of water.

cross your fingers for dreams of disneyland and the first star you see maybe not really being a star.