Henna'd

In my sophomore year of high school, I went through that phase where I dyed my hair blue. The front sections of my hair next to my face were bleached and then slathered in blue dye, sometimes with multiple applications. My hair became straw-like and the dye would wash out pretty quickly (something about the color molecule being too big for my hair follicle...) so I would be left with tealish/green hair with blonde poking through. Also, my hair grows rather quickly, so I would have brown roots which would then have to be bleached and dyed. Overall, I had an inch of brown, then a couple inches of blonde/green where the dye wouldn't stay, and then faintly blueish/green for the rest of my hair. It was time consuming, expensive, and I didn't really get the affect I wanted. So I switched to purple for a couple of dye sessions and then decided to go back to my natural hair color.

For the last two years, the last remnants of my dyed hair have been growing out and this summer I finally cut them off. No more bleached hair for me! So what did I do to celebrate? Dye it red with henna.

I had been thinking about having the under layer of my hair dyed red for a little while, and when I noticed that henna was relatively cheap at the local health food stores, I decided I might as well. My awesome roommate stayed up with me at 11:30 and applied the greenish-brown gloop to my hair and then wrapped my head in plastic wrap. I don't know if it was because we had no idea what we were doing or if it was because the under layers of my hair are fairly dark, but it didn't show up. So I figured that I might as well dye the rest of it one night in the bathtub of my dorm's bathroom. And  I liked it.

I like the results of henna because it adds sort of a red coat around your hair, so you still see a bit of your natural color through it. This also means that the red affect is a bit more subtle and doesn't really look like you just bought a bottle of Manic Panic from Hot Topic. Plus, the henna powder only costs around six dollars. After that all you need is some plastic gloves, plastic wrap, hot water, and some old towels and you have a new hair color for under 15 dollars. Plus, it conditions your hair, so your hair feels all soft and amazing instead of feeling like straw. Win!

One thing I have to say, if you are considering using henna be prepared to get messy. Henna powder is made from the ground leaves of the henna plant, which when mixed with hot water releases a reddish dye which not only stains your hair, but your skin, your clothes, your bathroom tile, and your nails. If you wear clothes while using henna, make sure that they are ones you don't mind getting red splotches all over. If you can, try finding an application bottle or something you can use to squeeze the dye onto your hair with. Both times I've used henna, I've mostly just set down the bowl of dye in front of me and applied it using my hands. It's messy to say the least. Some directions suggest using a paintbrush, but I don't think that will prevent any drips from happening. Also, henna hair dye is a little gritty and it doesn't spread all too easily.

Also, if anyone sees you applying henna, you will look crazy. When prepared, the henna dye looks like those mud masks for your face that are supposed to be really good for you. It looks even crazier on your head. Some people are put off by the smell, which I think is a little like wet straw with coffee. Your hair smells a little grass-like for the next few days, but so far I haven't gotten any complaints. But then again, how many people smell your hair up close during the day?

After your hair is shellacked with the muddy mixture and you've mummified your head in plastic (keep the wrap close by while you're dying), clean the tub or wherever you did the coloring. I recommend dying your hair near an area with a hand-held spray nozzle. The henna will most likely drip everywhere, including on you, and you need to rinse it right away or it will stain. Dry off with old towels and I suggest wearing old clothes until your hair is mostly dry. My pajamas have orange splotches around the collar because the drips stained. As soon as my hair stops dripping, my clothes are safe.

If you don't mind a little mess and want to try out a new color, I would definitely suggest  using henna. I even pipped some of the henna paste onto my nails using a plastic bag with the corner cut off. I left it on for a half hour and then wiped off the paste, which left my nails an orangey color which will stay until my nails grow out. I would have left the paste on longer for a redder result, but I was trapped in the bathroom with no computer or any source of entertainment other than to watch my nails dry. Can you blame me?

One last note, I should mention that the finished result of the henna depends on your natural hair color. My hair is a medium brown, and the first time I dyed my hair with henna it worked out to a nice auburn. I used Rainbow Henna in the color Persian Red. This last dye job (which I did a couple of nights ago) has turned out to be a darker red which should mellow out a little bit over the next few days. This time I used Light Mountain Henna in the color "bright red". What's the difference between red and bright red? Bright red has a wolf on the box. Enough said.

Light Mountain Henna color chart
Rainbow Henna color chart

(image from here)

"I know how this ends, and I'm not going to stay around to watch it."

Oh Jacob, truer words were never spoken.

This Thanksgiving, I was thankful that I got to see Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1. I was also thankful that one of the people who worked at the theater told us to stick around for the credits, but I'll get to that later.

Where to begin? Well, first of all, I'm not a Twilight fan. In fact, I went to this movie hoping for a good laugh, and it didn't disappoint. It had the usual characteristics of the other Twilight movies. The bland acting, Kristin Stewart looking nauseous, Taylor Lautner  with his shirt off. Yes, it had all of those. And yet, it had more.

First off, the theme this time around was sex. I know, the whole point of Twilight is sexual tension, the theme of abstinence and all that. Well now the waiting was over, and the the filmmakers didn't want you to forget it. There's a joke about Edward being a virgin (5 min in), someone saying during a toast at the wedding that Bella "won't get too much sleep the next few nights", and then off course Bella going through the film cliche getting ready for sex routine (brush teeth and hair, shave, etc). She tries to seduce Edward with lingerie, has a sexy dream, and ends up pregnant. All signs point to sex. And yet, it wasn't a very sex-positive movie. The whole point of the film (SPOILERS!!!!!) is that Bella gets pregnant with a vampire/human hybrid and almost ends up losing her life because of it. So basically I learned that if you find a handsome guy you really want to have sex with but still wait for a few years until after you are legally married, you will still have to pay the ultimate price for your lust and have a demon baby inside of you which will kill you. Wow, Eve's curse much? This whole movie was like the story of Bluebeard or those other cautionary fairy tales which were made up to make sure that girls kept their virginity. I mean, Bella had the upper hand was actually the sex aggressor, but then the baby snaps her spine like a twig and she almost dies. Girl power!

That was the one thing that really irked me on a conscious level, and the rest of the movie was just hilarious. The acting is bad. Like, really bad. It goes beyond Robert Pattinson saying his lines like he's half asleep. One of the wolf pack, Seth, was truly horrible. I wanted to Blue Skidoo into the film and smack him every time he opened his mouth. And then there was the fact that Jacob "imprinted" on Bella's baby, thereby making it immune to attack from any other werewolves. As Edward explains it, when a werewolf imprints, the others can't hurt it, and this is the only law that the werewolves truly uphold. Well, considering that the last half hour or so of the movie was the werewolves scheming to kill the baby, Bella, or both, I'm inclined to say that the werewolves are upholding the law of plot convenience. Clearly Stephanie Meyer couldn't think of a better way to resolve the issue. I know, it's supposed to be romantic and all that jazz because Jacob can finally stop whining over Bella, but I was actually snickering at this point.

Stephanie Meyer's inability to resolve issues crops up another time when Carlisle, Esmee, and Emmett (Edwards adopted father, mother, and brother) are forced to break through the line of ravenous werewolves in order to go hunting and get Bella the blood her baby craves (just go with me on this). Jacob distracts his former pack-mates long enough for the trio to escape and then everything is hunky dory. Um, what about when they come back? Are the werewolves okay with the vampires coming back but not leaving? Was Jacob going to distract them again? How would that work? WHY DON'T THESE MOVIES FOLLOW ANY SEMBLANCE OF LOGIC!?!

The cherry on top of this sundae was the scene they snuck after the credits. I am so glad that the theater employee told us to stay, because it was a train wreck. Bella had just turned into a vampire and the credits rolled. And then the Big Bad Vampire clan, the Volturi pop up in their lair. There is one who looks like Sméagol, another who looks like Fabio, and then Antony from Sweeny Todd (no, I'm serious). Through my inner rendition of "I Feel You Joanna", I hear the Volturi learn that Bella has been turned, although now they are after her baby. The acting is so over the top and I almost wet my pants when vampire Sméagol said that this went beyond the matter of a "mere hew-man". He sounded like a Ferrengi from Star Trek! Dear god, it was terrible.

I guess I should throw in that the visual effects for the movie were alright. The wolves up close looked pretty cool and Bella turning looked pretty good. However, I doubt that becoming a vampire suddenly means that you are wearing eyeshadow, but what do I know. Also, it sort of looked like the opening to Fight Club for me, but I was probably trying to remember what a good movie looks like at that point.

All in all, Breaking Dawn Part 1 lived up to my expectations....that it was going to suck. If you hate Twilight, go see this movie.

(image from here)

RIP VCR

I heard of a culture that believes that you die three deaths. The first is when your body stops functioning, the second is everyone who knew you dies, and the third and final death is when everyone forgets your name. It seems that the VCR is reaching that final stage of death.

Remember VCRs? The whir of the tape, not having to go through the main menu to get to the movie, having to rewind when you were done. Those were good times. Back then, we didn't say "VHS". We said tape. Now it seems that people can only remember the term VHS and not VCR. I have no idea how many times I've heard someone say "VHS player" instead of VCR. This is probably because we're used to saying DVD player, but that's still no excuse.

Well, at least I have a working VCR at home so that I can watch my Disney movies. I don't feel like spending all the money to replace them with DVDs. Plus, it's always hilarious when you pop in a tape and hear "Coming summer of 1998...Mulan!" I'm getting old, aren't I?

Healthy eating?

Much as I predicted over the summer, I have lost weight since going gluten/corn/soy/casein free this year. In fact, I have lost about 35 pounds since September. Yay me!

If this was an actual diet, I think I would be doing a lot of things right. I completely cut out junk food (well, unless you count Rice Chex as junk food, but I'll get to that later) and instead I have been eating lots of fruits and veggies. Also, I have shifted the focus off of meat in the meals. We only use meat in about two of our dinners every week, and now even that's starting to feel like a little too much. Of course, that's probably because I recently got my boyfriend hooked on bacon and we've been adding it to things like magic fairy dust. I think we might need to stop buying so much of it (sad face).

I'm not going to lie, I feel great. I still have a few rolls of fat here and there, but I'm comfortable with them. Plus, I have some confidence that if I keep eating this way they will start to recede. If not, well, I've lived with them for almost 20 years so far. It's gotten to the point where when I eat Rice Chex, I feel gross and bloated afterward. They are almost too sweet and taste too fake compared to the other things I've been eating. After I finish off this box, I'm not going to get any more. I hope the trend of being disenchanted with "normal food" will continue, because I feel guilty sometimes for craving junk food. I hope the next time I have a chance to eat them they won't taste as good as I remember. Odd, I know.

Even though I have sworn off junk food, that doesn't mean I don't eat fat. As I mentioned before, we are cooking with bacon and even go so far as to cook the veggies in the bacon fat so we get more of the flavor. We also sometimes splurge on Coconut Bliss ice cream and use massive amounts of potatoes to get our starch fix. However, these things don't feel "bad" to me and I don't feel guilty eating them. Sure, they're indulgences, but not the dirty secret kind.

That being said, I don't know if I am eating healthily. Dinner is really my only meal of the day, because for breakfast I usually eat a Larabar and lunch is either non-existant or (more commonly), a bag of safe chips from the on-campus market and a bottle of Reed's Ginger Beer (so good!). Sometimes I snack on Rice Chex or just go hungry until it's time for dinner. Or I cave and make myself some home fries. Sure, I'm eating "good" things but I don't know if I'm eating enough. Am I getting the right nutrients? Should I be worried about skipping meals? In all truth, I would probably eat more meals if I had the time or the resources to cook them. However, leftovers are usually saved for the next night's dinner or are lunch for my boyfriend (the food is housed in his room and he tends to get to it before me). I can survive this way and I don't feel weak or sick in any way, but I hope that I am not depriving myself of anything.

New favorite

For the longest time, The Phantom of the Opera was my favorite Broadway musical, although this was sort of out of default. My parents were kind of Phantom nerds back in the eighties and even followed it up to Toronto just so they could see it again. Whenever we were going on a long car ride, we'd pop in the soundtrack and sing away. I've seen it on stage at least three times and each time it's been magical.

And then there was War Horse. Dear god, this play blows Phantom out of the water. What Phantom has in sheer gargantuan extravagance, War Horse had in unadulterated awesome. The set is minimal, consisting of a rotating stage, a narrow screen above the stage, and some moveable props. Oh yeah, AND THE PUPPETS!

My favorite scene. 

Yes sir, that is a puppet. Three people are required to operate it, two inside and one on the outside to control the head movements. The puppetry is absolutely amazing. The ears move, the body looks like its breathing, and the tail swishes. There were times when I forgot it wasn't actually a horse on stage. Plus, people ride these puppets.

If you don't know the story, it's a (yet another) tale about a boy who finds an amazing horse but they are separated and then try to find each other once again despite the odds. Okay, it's not the most original of story lines, but it started off as a children's book (as if that should be an excuse). Basically, Albert falls in love with a young hunter foal and names him Joey. He teaches him to plow in order to win a bet so that he can keep the horse while simultaneously making Joey a work horse for their struggling farm. When Albert's father sells Joey to the British cavalry and he is shipped off to fight in World War I, Albert has to find him among the trenches of Europe. Now imagine this done with life-sized horse puppets. Here's just one of the videos you can find on YouTube:

Another amazing aspect of the play is the music. It's not a musical per-say, but it does have a man who sings various war-era English folk tunes which compliment the scenes. Since much of the play deals with Joey and Albert's desire to return to England where everything is safe and they can be together, the folk songs feel like pieces of home they can take with them.

Knowing that eventually Joey was going to go to war, I went into the play expecting to cry. It first drew tears from me within the first five minutes when Joey as a foal appears on stage and I thought "Oh, look at the little horsey. The little horsey is going to go to war!" I then cried four other times during the rest of the play. I don't know if I'm just that much of a wimp, but from what I hear this is a fairly common reaction. The story deals with some pretty dark subject matter, and the fact that the main character is a horse just doesn't make you want to see a helpless animal die on the battlefield.

Whether or not you want to cry your eyes out in an auditorium full of strangers, I highly recommend that you see the play if you can just to see the puppets. Right now it's only in London, New York, and Toronto, however in 2012 they're going to kick of a US tour. I am going to go see it as many times as I can.

Plus, it will be nice to see my favorite character, the comic relief goose, again.

(image from here)