Story done, mental crash – the ideal hair stylist – a Ray day in Gulfport, FL – candied jalapenos – the perfect book
Adventures du jour!
Yesterday was supposed to be “a day off” but really wasn’t, and today I’m going to crash whether I like it or not, I guess.
Yesterday: I had three writing sessions yesterday, first thing in the morning to finish the climax of the story, then after yoga and walk, the validation/tying up loose threads.
Then we went to our regular hair appointments with our excellent hairdresser over in Saint Pete. She just started her own business and is killing it, graduating from renting the unused hours in a styling suite to getting her own suite in the same building. She’s decorating in 1920s/Gatsby style, of which I approve.
She said something about being shocked that people (us included) would follow her to the new location when they didn’t live in Saint Pete. I had to give her a double-take. *She didn’t know.*
So I told her: Unless people are like sixteen, they’ve been choosing their own hair stylists for a while. WE LIKE YOU. Not because you’re convenient, but because you’re YOU. We like going to YOU. Trust us. We’ve had alllll kinds of stylists. YOU are the right one.
She thanked me for the compliment but I don’t think she got it got it.
Ray has always had issues with anyone doing anything with her hair. We had discussions for years about whether she needed to use soap and shampoo or not, and how often. She’s never actually liked a stylist before.
No issues with Kaitlynn, enjoys going, told me that she was having a day where her hair was just good and she liked it.
“That’s called having a good hair day.”
“HUH.”
Meanwhile, as Kaitlynn’s rubbing this scalp exfoliator into my scalp to see if it helps (I get dandruff; the dandruff is under control via tea tree oil, but I still get all kinds of dry skin). And she’s telling me about an autistic teen she styles that she used this on, who was joking that it made his head feel naked.
He was comfortable enough with her touching his hair–he also hated having it washed and was uncomfortable with either touching it himself or having anyone else touch it, apparently–that he let her wash it, spend extra time with this scalp stuff, and joke about it.
Her haircuts are always perfect. She makes horribly inappropriate jokes (the first time she saw my hat & beach shirt together, she said, “You look like a Columbian drug lord from Miami Vice!”). She understands math and chemistry. She’s witty. She can keep up.
She just doesn’t know.
Like, my fear is that she’ll get overbooked and we’ll have to pout and wait longer.
After that, we went down to Gulfport Beach and hung out. Ray was having not-a-great day but didn’t want to talk about it, so we talked about random-ass stuff. I told her the plot of the latest story AND SHE WAS SURPRISED. We talked about religion. She described what it’s like not to have constant mental images: “It’s like, someone says ‘apple’ and I can take a book off a shelf that says ‘apple’ on the title, but I can’t see an apple most of the time.”–She can’t see the book either. AND she’s an excellent artist. A million other things. It was good. Then we picked up Japanese food from a sushi place we’d been to before, because the idea of trying something new was bleah to me (which is rare). Got home, ate yummy food, watched more Iruma anime (the one where the stern, annoying teacher is pressured into doing home visits and inadvertently reveals just how much work he does behind the scenes), murderized some zombies, and…
Then I did my last writing session, from nine until eleven something, making sure the details in the story were all in order and I hadn’t overdone it. (I had, in a few places.) Spell checked and sent in good time for the deadline, midnight Pacific.
It’s supposed to be a story to surprise the editor, which, hm, all things considered, perhaps not. The ending–in the validation that is–DID surprise Ray, which isn’t easy. But it’s a lovely story and I’m quite proud of it. Ray called it “hopepunk without the actual future part, lots of punk though.”
Hopenoir, maybe?
Today has been low-key: yoga, walking, long nap, trying to get my brain put back together. The story was a big stretch for me, and I don’t remember a lot of the last few days. Like, I know if I scroll back through my social media posts and my scratch-notes notebook I’ll be able to put it back together, but I can’t actually recall most of it. Yeah. I’m probably going to wake up tomorrow and go, “I feel like I had another break point, and am not quite the same person.” But okay. I do know that I used up so much of my vital energy that yoga and walks left my joints feeling dry and sore and that not even having music on left me feeling like I was walking properly. I had to watch constantly to keep from tripping.–But when I was on break or finished writing for the day, the dancing went fine. So it goes, I guess.
I made croutons out of the leftover cheese bagels (neither of us were in the mood for them, just the sweet ones) and put taijin seasoning on them; the extra sour flavor is MWAH. I also made candied jalapenos. I hit “off” on the alarm I set on my phone and accidentally let them cook too long (yay! ADD) so they were kind of a dark caramel by the time I got back to them.
Which: DELICIOUS.
And: It’s nice having my reckless cooking brain back. It makes me want to have a cooking party, though, and I can’t, not here. Bleah.
I’m gonna take a bath and read a book and eat Ray’s tomato soup with day-old bagel croutons in a hot minute here, but first:
“If only some eternal book existed, primed for our enjoyment and whims, no less inventive in the populous morning as in the secluded night, oriented toward all hours of the world. Your favorite books, reader, are like the rough drafts of that book without a final reading.”–Borges, “Literary Pleasure.”
–I still feel like The Annotated Alice is that book for me, but I see his point. No story ever fully satisfies; we always crave more story.
The candied jalapeno process pictures and tentative recipe are here.
This was the AI-generated image that I used for the latest story, as a tattoo.
Me’n’Ray, Gulfport, FL.