I Swore I Would and I Did!

Today was the third dirt track racing Saturday since the season opened. So it was the third Saturday in a row I've been left home alone from about two in the afternoon until near midnight. I was looking forward to these race days for months--about three anyway--since it became apparent that I would not be needed to sit with my husband's Grandma on these days as I did for the previous two years.


The three years previous to that, I used these race day Saturday's to clean our room, do laundry, work on the computer (the PC was the only computer then) and wash my hair. I could also listen to music of my taste at volumes to my taste. Mostly I could just relax, hanging out at the house, thinking my own thoughts, fending for myself for meals and all of this without that constant sense that everything I'm doing is being observed. Feeling like I am under observation is very stressful for me. Probably part of my anxiety disorder. But I can't imagine anyone would feel completely at ease having nearly everything the do (or don't do) observed by their in-laws--whether neutral or not.

So I had really been looking forward to these Saturday's belonging to me like that again and had worked up huge ambitions for them. And in the wee hours of the first one, two weeks ago, my laptop got infected by malware and the last two Saturday's had been completely consumed by tending to it. When things seemed to take a turn for the better yesterday, I had high hopes again as I laid down at six this morning. But I guess the fairly good day with the laptop on Friday triggered off the anxiety levels just enough that sleep was able to override them for the first time in two weeks. I had been catching my sleep in naps of under five hours and mostly under four since this thing started.

Well, today my bodyand psyche said time out and really meant it. My husband came in to tell me goodbye at two and I got up to hug him. I meant to stay up. But remember deciding to lay back down until the alarm went off at three. I think I remember the alarm going off and I think I remember hitting the snooze button but it could have been the one next to it that turns the alarm off for good. The next thing I remember for sure was seeing a three on the clock and thinking it was three-something but then realizing it was on the wrong side of the colon. It was really 6:33.

I continued to lay there until after seven, feeling totally zapped and frustrated that I had lost another Saturday. Lost the daylight portion of it anyway. I had planned to take some items outside in the sun to take pictures with my digital camera that has no flash. I want to get pictures to decorate my web sites and pictures to write posts about. But by time I could have gotten myself and all the pieces of the project swung around the light was going to be gone.


The other big project I'd had in mind for today was some major self-pampering time--you know, things that entail hogging the bathroom for more than ten minutes at a time without fearing someone else needs it There was still time to do that, if I let the laundry go for another day.


So I got up. I fixed coffee and sandwiches and sat in front of the TV in the living room. And the next thing I knew it was nine o'clock!! What is the matter with me. I chided myself as I continued to sit there another ten minutes. I still wanted to go back to bed! But I told myself, NO. Your mother-in-law has the next two days off. If you don't get your hair shampooed today then you are faced with trying to work around her housework schedule or not do it at all. And don't forget you have to walk your ballot over to City Hall by Tuesday evening!

That is the library levy ballot. The issue that I obsessed on from early December until the day my laptop was attacked by malware. My ballot had come in the mail that same week end and I had fully intended to get it filled out and turned in by the end of that first week.

The thought of walking my ballot over to City Hall with dirty hair got me out of that chair about nine-fifteen. I started getting my things together for a shower and shampoo. Then I could not find my brush or comb. I spent half an hour looking. The only thing I could find that would help me get the tangles out of my hair was Merlin's wire-bristled brush! I made a face at the thought but then I ran it through my hair and it worked. And I was desperate.

While I brushed my hair with the cat's brush, I was reminded once more what hard work is was to take care of long hair. And reminded of the threat I'd been making all winter that if we had not worked out a way to get me to a hair-stylist by April or the first 90 degree day, I was going to cut it off myself. It was reaching the bottom of my shoulder blades in back and too thick to be held up off my neck by the butterfly clip anymore. It is not just a chore but a painful chore to brush my hair when it gets longer than my collar bone. It triggers joint pain in wrists, elbows and shoulders.

When I put it back in the ponytail after a shampoo it takes it two days to dry in the place where it is bunched. On hot days it is like wearing a wet wool blanket. Wet because of sweat. Sometime because I pour a glass of cold water over my head. Hot here in the summer is high nineties to 105 and up. Last year we had our first 90 degree day in February. This year we have not had one yet, which is a bit odd. But we did have some in the eighties this past week and that was enough to remind me what I was in for.

All of this was going through my head as I brushed the tangles out of my hair with the cat's wire brush and felt my arms going limp with fatigue and realizing I still had the shampoo to do and after that some kind of styling care. I was wore out already.

I went to the kitchen and got the kitchen sheers. The only scissors big enough to do the job which I knew where to find them. Back in the bathroom, I sat down and hung my head between my legs and brushed my hair into a ponytail that stuck straight up off the top. Then I stood in front of the mirror holding the ponytail up in the air in my left fist. Then with my right hand I started sawing at it with the scissors that have ten or twelve inch blades. They are big and heavy and not very sharp. Keep in mind as you visualize this that because of my RP, I could see only the bottom of my fist and about two inches of the blades on the scissors as I did this. Some of the strands from the back got pulled out of my fist as I worked the scissors across. I had to get them later by measuring them against strands of the length I was going for. I was aiming for the jawline in front.

Well, it is obviously not done at the salon! But it isn't an embarrassing disaster either. My husband says it's cute. But then what else would he dare say.