First of all, I want to assure you all I'm not dead. I know I haven't written in a blog in a while, and that has been due to time constraints, lack of inspiration to write (though not for a lack of blog topics), and various other factors. However, I finally decided to write one, so here goes.

Have you ever wondered what your impact is on other people? Their actions, their words, their thoughts. Is anything you say really going to matter, be it good or bad? In most cases, I think the answer is no. If I didn't feel this way, I probably wouldn't be comfortable saying half of the things that I do. But what if it does? What if one word from you could determine someone else's choices? That's empowering, right? And a little scary.

I have known my friend Kimberly for about 2-3 years now. Soon after I became friends with her at college, I met her brother-in-law, whose name I'll leave out to keep him from shame. For the sake of convenience, we'll call him George. (This is about him more than her by the way.) He is a 28 year old Nigerian man, and he can talk like you wouldn't believe. Mostly, he just likes to spout on about politics and religion...and we all just allow him to think he's that entertaining. (Just a joke since Kimberly and he will probably read this. ) But before you say, "oh he's a talker/thinker type," think again. He's also one of those macho tough guys, who gets a kick out of singing Marine songs or pretending he's a cowboy and crushing people's fragile hands when they offer a handshake. All in all, he's mature, brilliant, and a very good-looking man. Not someone you'd ordinarily assume would take anything you say seriously, let alone be concerned of what you thought of him, right?

Especially because he also claims he has lots of other friends. Now who these people are besides the 2 of us is a mystery. Though probably solvable because it is our opinion that they are a figment of his wild imagination.

Now, George sadly has not mastered the art of detecting sarcasm yet, which often becomes a problem because Kimberly and I are the sarcastic type, and we express ourselves in this manner. So whenever we hang out together, Kimberly and I tend to...oh, I don't know...razz him about various personality traits he has or choices he makes, etc. All in good humor, all a ton of fun. Now he claims he hates it, says hanging with us is torture. Clearly lying through his teeth considering he continues to do it.

So, the 3 of us took a trip to Kansas City for a conference, and he had this shirt. A fairly dressy, button-down shirt from Old Navy. It was beige and had scribbled print on it, that you couldn't actually read and was merely for design. There was no real problem with the piece of clothing, after all, it's just a shirt. But at one point, for one reason or another, I kind of made a perceived slight about the shirt. Nothing terrible, of course. I believe the word "pansy" was bandied about. Though keep in mind, he was probably being annoying in some capacity or another because as you all know, I am never to blame for my actions. So when he seemed sensitive at this, Kimberly and I sort of latched onto it, as our go-to insult if he was being troublesome. At one point, right after we had teased him, we walked inside the coffee shop and sitting at a table was a man wearing the exact same shirt! Of course giving us all much to laugh about.

Then, on the trip to Nashville for the Call that I wrote about ( The Call... ) we discovered that apparently, he had thrown the shirt out! Not just gave it to charity, not turned it into something else with a little effort on the sewing machine. He had put it in the garbage! All because we teased him ever so slightly about it! Of course we told him immediately how crazy he was, that it was a perfectly good shirt, that you don't throw things out just because someone cracks a joke ...or 12. We also told him that we only joked to get under his skin, and that he really did look good in the shirt, because he did.

So yesterday, when they were visiting, a few more jokes were made by Kimberly at lunch, and it came out that he went back to Old Navy and bought the same shirt again!!! All because we told him the truth of how good he looked in it! Talk about behavior under the influence.

On the one hand, how nice it is to have someone care about you enough to be concerned with what you think. And how powerful you can feel when you've got someone wrapped around your finger that way.

(Albino Pygmy Marmosets- awww )

On the other hand, how disturbing it is to be responsible for the entire wardrobe of all your friends.

The moral of the story: be careful what you say because people will listen to it.

Or: never make fun of seemingly "tough" Nigerian men who wear pansy shirts from Old Navy, because it will most likely cause them to waste $20- $30 because they take your opinion too seriously.

Hope to be back to blogging more soon, have a nice day/week/month, whatever it turns out to be!

Well despite those lovely pictures I had of my black and red hair, which I had deluded myself into thinking would last because I used permanent dye, I'm afraid my hair was so porous and damaged that it had faded to gray within weeks. From permanent black! So I figured it was that time again, the time to go to the salon, have them put filler in and get it fixed up nice, then wait more than a few months before screwing it up again. So Friday, I had decided to go back to a permanent blue.

Salon interaction:

Lady: Blue?

Me: Yes, blue.

Lady: I'm sorry. I don't know if I heard you, Blue??

Me: Yes. B-L-U-E, blue.

Lady: Umm I don't think we have that.

Me: I assumed as much, but I was hoping you could mix it?

Lady: Lemme check.

(10 minutes pass and she comes out of the back)

Lady: Sorry we don't have that chemical.

Me: Alright then can you mimic what I've sort of got going here? Black with red streaks in it?

Lady: Sure. It's gonna take a while...and it'll be pretty expensive...

Me: I figured that as well. It's ok.

Lady: Ok so you want a funky colored red for the streaks?

Me: Yes, funky-fresh.

Lady: Oh well we only have normal reds.

*Sigh*

All this to say, I decided to go jet black. Just black. I love the way it looks...but I miss the funky colors already. So of course, this isn't the last we've seen of em.

But for at least a few months, my hair will be this color, because it needs time to recover. As for the dye job...

Though still a very painful experience due to my hair's continually damaged state, this woman was MUCH gentler with it and showed a lot more remorse for the lessened pain she did cause me...unlike Sweeney Todd.

Now everyone knows the only thing you can do when getting your hair done at a salon is to either read the drivel in In$tyle magazine, make small-talk with your stylist...or of course, listen to other people's conversations who will hopefully be talking about something interesting, however unlikely that may be. So while I was getting my hair shampooed (and conditioned. She literally conditioned my hair 6 times every time she washed it...that was like 18 conditions!! ), there was a hairdresser next to me. She was washing the hair of a teenage boy, clearly a client she knew fairly well. They were discussing a mutual friend from what I heard, and the woman said in a slightly condescending manner, "...but do you notice if you ask her a question, she hesitates before she'll answer?" The boy agreed and they continued talking.

But I did not continue listening. Those words got stuck in my head and my mind began to race. "Hesitates?" She hesitates before responding? Doesn't that mean she's thinking? It all seemed so simple in my head. After all, it had been burned on my brain since childhood: THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK. I'm aware how few people actually do that; most of us just run off at the mouth and, at least in my case, feel immediate regret at whatever it was we said. 83% of the time (totally made-up number) the moment AFTER I speak, I slap myself in the forehead, knowing that if I had only hesitated for a moment longer before opening my yap, I could have said something more clever, less insulting, or just BETTER.

I think that's why I like writing. You can think over every word you say, and if you want, you can even go back and read when you wrote to rethink it again! And isn't that what communication should be about? Even if you have to wait a little longer, you actually get across the thoughts and ideas you intend to. And yet this woman decides that thinking is a bad thing?

Anyway, after my scalp was sufficiently sore, my hairdresser's back was sufficiently achy, and my hair was sufficiently BLACK, I was ready to go home. When paying, I put away my wallet while waiting for my change, assuming I could tip her with whatever was there. The change was a $10 bill and two $1's and without doing any math or giving the situation proper thought (I was pretty tired at this point, but then again, so was she) I just gave her the $2. Of course, the second I stepped out the door and began walking to my car...I started thinking. $2? For working for 3 hours on my hair? That's so wrong...what's the matter with me?? And yet, by the time I thought to rectify my actions, I was already at my car. I tried to blow it off...figured it wasn't that big of a deal. But while driving home, my guilt and shame only worsened. Literally the first words out of my mouth the second I walked in my front door, I posed the fairly rhetorical question to my family, "How wrong is it that I only gave the woman a $2 tip after working for 3 hours on my hair?" My mother and sister, just as mortified as I was, began to guilt me, like I really needed that. After just a few minutes at home...even though I was starving and dying for some dinner, and I figured that woman would be heading home by now, they had convinced me I should go back. My sister, or rather my conscience , decided to go with me. Thankfully, it's only 10 minutes away. So I shamefully and hungrily returned to the salon, with another $6 in hand. When I couldn't find her, I just asked one of the other girls to give it to her and express my apologies.

Now, one could argue it wasn't worth all that effort for $6, but I can assure you, my guilt would have cost me so much more.

So my hair is black, my heart is not, and I hope you all have a nice week! Shalom!

Well Mondays always get me down. Not usually rainy days. The Carpenters (or rather Paul Williams & Roger Nichols who actually wrote the song) are on their own for that one. But the title fit for today because I'm tired and it's raining. And I just like the Carpenters.

However, I did not bring an umbrella to work today. I rarely ever bring an umbrella anywhere. This isn't because I don't have an umbrella...we have more umbrellas than members of our immediate and surrounding family. This isn't because I don't realize how adorable someone looks carrying an umbrella; it reminds me of Mary Poppins.

And this isn't because the umbrellas I have don't work, I even repaired one myself which had broken due to being flipped inside out during a strong wind. I had to rewire it, and normally I wouldn't give so much care to fixing an old umbrella but it was so beautiful, with Monet's "Water Lilies" printed on the top, so I couldn't just throw it out.

Anyway I don't carry an umbrella because I really don't see the point. First of all, it's another thing to carry (who wants more of that?) unless you get one of those smashing hands-free umbrellas that make you look like a circus performer or a hydrophobe.

No offense to the zany guy and girl shown here who just happened to come up in my search for circus umbrella hat pictures.

And when you finally get it inside whatever destination you intended to reach, all you have is a soggy plastic thing to continue carrying, or leave sitting around in hopes that it dries without people stepping on it, tripping over it, kicking it off the designated "umbrella-drying" area, etc.

Second, it rarely protects you from that much water. Wind blows, water drips down from the edges...either way you're gonna get a little wet. Toss in the fact that getting in and out of your car or building doorways requires it to be closed to fit, and without going to extreme difficulty to protect yourself from the water, you end up getting wet during that time anyway.

And lastly, it's just water! Unless you're the wicked witch of the west, you're not going to melt, your not going to get hurt, and as I said you're not going to get that much wetter than if you carried one. Maybe that's why she wore that wide-brimmed seemingly water-resistant hat, hmm?

I don't mind getting a little wet, and even if it's pouring rain and I get soaked, I'll live. The only downside to rainy weather is that my hair poufs, but that's not going to change with the use of an umbrella. But during my 10 minute walk up to the building I work in, I spotted all sorts of umbrella carriers and it was barely drizzling! Seems to me unnecessary. I think even in flood-like rains, the only thing I'd use my umbrella for would be a floatation device.

Anyway that aside, I'm very sleepy lately, physically and mentally and emotionally, and that leaves me with little inspiration for a blog. So this will have to do.

Side note, as a few may have noticed, I now have a video uploaded on here. On another website we were talking about our singing voices so I decided to record mine, and for one friend, the only format her computer could handle was a video on youtube, so I just added a nice visual to look at and put em together and viola! Ari in a box. Enjoy.