Of Time and its Terrible Trickiness January 25, 2009
Posted by Jen in : Journal , trackbackThere’s a time and a place for everything, right? Of course, some things are more important than others. When would be the right time, for example, to realise that you’re not really a ‘fringe’ sort of person? You may not know the answer to that but rest assured, dear reader, I do. I can confidently tell you that the time to realise you are not a fringe person is 45 seconds after all your hair has been lopped off in a bid to try new style with fringe. Bloody Nora.
There was a time, some time ago, when I used to make an effort. In previous workly incarnations, I used to spruce myself up good ‘n’ proper every day: foundation, anti-shine powder, lip liner, lipstick, eye liner and eye shadow and mascara and brow gel… you get the idea. Now? Pfffff. A dollop of tinted moisturiser, quick slick of lip gloss and some spit on my little finger to tame eyebrows. Even so, time being the tricky bugger it is, I’m still late for work every day. I’ve run out of excuses, not that I had the time to think of any good ones anyway.
“I know I’m proper late but I smell quite nice,” was one of my recent weak efforts.
The trouble is, despite getting up at between 5.30 and 6am every day, there are just too many things to fascinate me before I finally dab some drool on my face and head to work. There’s usually a good reason for my late-beingness: reading the whole of the internet; being swept away with conversations between people who only exist in my head; watching the sky in the hope that a rainbow will appear. I think it’s fair to say, bosses are not programmed to understand such flim-flammery.
The trouble is, I do not think I can exist in a world without tardy rainbows and flim-flammery.
As I drove home from my Tunbridge Wells Toni & Guy experience on Thursday evening, I considered that my boss is really rather ace. I’d arrived late (a promising sky, you see) and insisted on leaving early due to hair-cutting appointment. I’d been surprised by the fact that it was, apparently, almost a year since my last haircut. Time, you see? Sneaky sod. I considered that I’d had whole year’s worth of hair eliminated and now resemble Eli Dingle in drag. I pulled up outside the house at 8pm. I felt sort of groovy, being out in the dark like a grown-up.
No. 1 Son was scraping the remains of his self-cooked pasta into the bin. ‘Oh, you’re back then. What’s wrong with your hair?’
I tried to flick my fringe away. ‘Oh, just been for my yearly spruce-up’.
He shook his head despairingly. ‘Don’t you worry about us. I cooked dinner. God, you’re just like Kerry Katona.’
Time to get new children, perhaps? I don’t understand time but I do know one thing. I really need more of it at the moment if I’m ever going to be any sort of writer.
Comments»
Just like Kerry Katona? Ouch, that’s calculated to sting! You should put him in a book.
Sorry about the fringe. Hopefully it’ll grow back nice and fast. I don’t do makeup for work. At all. Never have really. I barely remember to do makeup when I’m going out, although the nice new eyeliners I’ve got recently are making it easier to remember.
Glad it’s not just me that reads the whole of the internet before work. The hubby is normally standing there looking reproachfully at me by the time I’m ready to leave. We should stop doing that, no?
Cor luv-a-duck, you reminded me it must be time for my annual shearing as well. Last time I went, I’d carefully clipped a picture of an elfin young thing from a hair magazine and asked the hairdresser to make me look like her. She did her best, poor woman, but it was never going to work. Now I sport a casual, Playdoh Fuzzy Pumper-style do.
My boss has often mentioned that I don’t look quite as spruce as I did on the day of my interview. Funny that…
My poor boss sat in an un-fazed way when, after asking how I was getting on with my new member of staff, I answered ‘Oh fine, I’m cancerian and she’s pisces, so we’re made to get on!’
I am now having six-weekly hair appointments, a first for me, and it seems to work. Though I haven’t got pasta-cooking, Katona sons to look out for.
In a bid to save both time and money, I cut my own hair with the kitchen scissors. So frankly anything could happen. I’ve spent all day writing – apart from the bits when I was looking at the internet, blogging and clearing up cat poo – but I still haven’t done what I wanted to do. Sigh. And it’s gone 9 O’clock and there’s a crossword to do with the Welshman. See why I’m not a proper writer?
Kerry Katona is………young?
Fx
Ha ha ha.
I bet your stats will go mad with searches for that Eli Dingle. That’s all I had to say … compare my hair cut with Crystal … shhh, you know.
I quite like make up, but as the years go by… well, it’s no miracle worker, is it?
B – There’s a lot of internet, especially when trying to read all of it in between tea and toast. You’re right, we should stop doing that. But we won’t, will we? Phew.
Tam – I’ve heard that Simon Cowell is partial to a Playdoh Fuzzy Pumper look. Interview’s are like first dates, aren’t they? In you waltz, all shiny and fragrant. After the first few days, it’s back to hairy legs and scowling. Much easier to maintain.
T&C – LOL! Luckily I’m Taurean and Taureans don’t believe in horror-scopes. I suspect my boss is just relieved that I remember to turn up at all really. 6-weekly hair appointments? Cor, that sounds glam.
Helen – I tried to cut my own hair once but hadn’t remembered to wash them first. Bacon is not good, all gnarled into one’s fringe. No cat poo for me, since I don’t have a cat. I don’t have a Welshman either; do you recommend them?
Fionnuala – Ooh, good call. You get a gold star for that.
JJ – Ha! I never did figure out the Crystal T*ps searches. People are weird, innit? No, it’s no miracle worker. I find it best to stand in the dark if I want to look good.
Ah gawd you make me laugh…almost forgot about feeling sick with nerves. ‘Spit on eyebrows’, ‘time to get new kids’, your excuses at work…lol! I regret getting a fringe too but I will have it forever because my mom said ‘I told you so’. Not that I am stubborn or anything you understand….
Amusing as always and a lovely start to a rather depressing Monday morning. Not living in the real world I don’t always understand your references to people but it doesn’t seem to matter. Love your photos and Haikus worth being late for any day. Well done.
When I cut my hair short a few years ago I was told firmly that mothers do NOT absolutley Not have short hair! Then I went dark and they same happened again. Kids are beastly however the dh always thought it was great to have a new woman in bed
!
lx
I’m sure you are most chic like with your new non Eli Dingle cut.
Now I am very impressed with your No 1 son (the cooking). If I were to return at such an ‘ungodly’ hour mine would be sitting with cutlery in hand, and accusing looks on their faces.
Yeeesss, I too have a bit of fringe issues….curly hair and fringes don’t tend to be a good combo!!
Here’s to fast growing hair…and yes, i definatley think you need to get new children!!
C x
Kid aye, don’t they have a way with words!
Oh, and you’re already a writer!!
A x
What, no photo?
I’m fairly certain I’m not a fringe person. Not much choice in the matter, to be honest. My haircuts should probably be classed as self-harm.
Time’s doing weird things for me too. I must be very old; I’ve no idea who all these soap characters are. Yesterday I wasn’t into writing at all, and I had a job and everything. Oh, hang on, that was two years ago.
Never mind, hopefully your fringe with do the decent thing and have a growing spurt for you.
I’m up at 6 every morning and never leave the house in time either, although I dare not go near a computer, or I’d miss the entire day altogether. Flim-flamery is good though, it keeps me going.
‘I think it’s fair to say, bosses are not programmed to understand such flim-flammery’ but we are! Trouble is we don’t pay your wages…
We have a rather depressed hairdresser with an alcoholic husband in our local small town who is called Mireille. We the anglophone community only have to take one look at someone to say ‘She’s been Mireilled!’ Her haircuts are blunt to the point of brutal and seem to express her bitterness toward the world.
Noooooo, don’t get new children, just sell the old ones and use the proceeds to go part-time.
If you don’t want a fringe, but you do want, say, some hair that’s shorter at the front but you don’t want it to hang straight down like Lily Allen’s, you want to push it aside in an artistic, I’m-too-busy-looking-for-rainbows-to-think-about-my-hair kind of way – how do you explain that to the hairdresser?
Bet yours looks fab.
Oh sweet baby jeez, you do make me larf. This totally rings a bell, in fact I’m about to do a post on it
) The last time time I had my yearly trim, my daughter said I looked like one of the Beatles. She didn’t specify which one…
Mine are completely disinterested in the cooker, so big up to yours for that!
I’d really like some more time for my birthday, please.
DJ – Oh, not the ‘I told you so’ fringe. I too am a stubborn bugger. That’s why I keep going to work – I was probably sacked months ago but was looking out of the window instead of paying attention…
Sheepish – Not living in the real world is to be commended. Eli Dingle is on Emmerdale: really grungy and revolting. That’s me, that is. Haven’t mentioned the haikus & photos yet as an excuse. Saving it for an emergency.
Liz – Ooh! Your hubby sounds fun
Mine mostly torment me about the greys so it makes a nice change to come under fire for something different. Less hair = less greys, no?
Lane – He accidentally cooked gluten-free pasta. Ew. Think it was even more hideous than my Eli wig.
Carol – Curly fringes are really not good, are they? Mine’s not even proper curly, just sort of springy and unreliable. Fast growing hair AND children – sounds expensive.
Mandy – A writer has to write, yes? Not scrub about like Kerry Katona. I cleaned the house though. Oh, that’s not writing either, is it? Pfffff.
Cap’n Black – No photo. Not now, not never. Two years? Oh. Um. Yes. But it’s better now than then. Isn’t it? You have us now. Mwah ha ha haaa.
Debs – I rather like the idea of missing whole days at a time. I can’t however, work out whether it would me me younger or not?
Lucy – Even the word ‘Mireille’ sounds as if it must be said with a downturned mouth, doesn’t it? I imagine her as a tragic clown type, wielding scissors at the unsuspecting until they cry…
Zinnia – Yes! YES! Sell the children. Oh, I’m sure there are all sorts of lucrative things we could conjure up if we’re willing to sacrifice the children..?
Honeysuckle – Oh, I wish you were my hairdresser, you make me sound hippily fairy-like, rather than mentalist. I don’t look like Lily Allen though. So that’s good.
Karen – One of the Beatles? Apparently, a midwife said that about me the day I was born. Maybe we are sisters? Ooh, birthday? Not today, is it? No. I’ve decided it’s not today. But thinking nice thoughts, just in case. Happy Birthday. (In advance.) (Probably).
When I get home from from the hairdresser with straightened hair, the whole family screams and yells, “what have you done with my mummy?”
Haircuts er?
“…reading the whole of the internet; being swept away with conversations between people who only exist in my head; watching the sky in the hope that a rainbow will appear…”
You describe me so well…
‘The trouble is, I do not think I can exist in a world without tardy rainbows and flim-flammery.’
Man, you sure can write. Hope the next novel is raring to go although loved the excerpts of first one and think you should give it a whirl.
I feel your fringe pain: I went for an ill-advised fringe for the first – and only – time in my life two days after my wedding. Mid-honeymoon hubby plucked up the courage to tell e it looked ‘mumsy’.I grew it out again…
I’m a perpetually late employee too. People who get to work on time are ust plain wrong!
Hullaballooooo – Children are horrible. It’s official.
Liane – Maybe it’s the writer gene that makes us a bit daffy? Glad to hear I’m not the only one like this!
Fia – Aw, aren’t you lovely? Next novel is brewing, rather like a storm. It might fizzle out at sea though.
Kate – Talking of ‘mumsy’ I just saw your bump on Facebook! Ooh, it’s lovely! Late’s the new black, innit?
I admit to having a fringe. I find it useful for concealment of deep frown lines. I suppose if you cut back on the brow gel (BROW GEL fer chrissakes??!!!) ,do a bit of back-combing here and there….you could create a sort of fringe/uni-brow combo for special occasions…and then get rid of it when you wanted to look less like a freak again. Just a thought.
Mya x
Hey, if you can see past your fringe, you have an Award to collect, over at my gaff. x