Things that give me goosebumps...

* This song from Dreamgirls (Broadway production, 1982, Jennifer Holliday).

* The last 10 minutes of the last episode of Six Feet Under.

* Rufus Wainwright's voice. And this song.

* Any one of a dozen Julia Sugarbaker speeches from Designing Women.

Because I wanted it to look that way...

I think if you're over 30 and do something different...or, let's say, unnatural...to your hair, people think you're mental.

I am not mental; it's just that my brain won't age with the rest of me. It still thinks we're a teenager. A teenager who likes to f*ck with her hair.

My most recent hair experiment: Dark brown with Manic Panic "Vampire Red" underneath. I won't bore you with how many trips to the stylist this required and how much work it will be to maintain, but I will share some of the comments I've gotten.

My mother: "That looks (pause) interesting. I mean NICE. I meant nice."
My sister: "It must be nice to not have to worry about what people think of you."
My boss: "I liked it better red all over."
My 3-year-old niece: "What's in your hair?"
The guys who moved in my new sofas: "Cool hair."

Here's the thing: I don't want to grow up. I like changing my hair. I don't want to be conventional. I don't care what other people think. Life is too short not to put vegetable dye in your hair.

Today I need this more than you do, part seven...

A weekend spent in seclusion with too much thinking and not enough sleeping calls for another installment in my random and occasional "what I love today" series.

J'adore: Jasmine rice, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel (nothing like watching someone try to scarf down turkey intestines while I eat Chinese food for dinner...totally fascinating), super samples from Sephora, that someone finally thought to create makeup + powder + SPF all in one, the "I'm taking your picture now!" clicky camera noise my new digital camera makes, the Visual Dictionary has many definitions for "love," love lines, going 48 hours news-free wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, other peoples' inspiration boards, Motion City Soundtrack's The Future Freaks Me Out, my teeny pink iPod Shuffle (downloaded almost eight hours of podcasts and still didn't fill the little bugger up), Parker Posey on the small screen, a little word-by-word inspiration.

Thinking cool thoughts...

* If one more person asks, "hot enough for ya?" I'm going to spontaneously combust.
* I don't like contributing to global warming, but I love air conditioning, which makes me an active participant in the destruction of our planet. Um...sorry.
* I can't sleep without a fan going.

I stumbled across this animated story of a girl and her fan by Lori Samsel on YouTube. Enjoy.

Forecast for a Sunday morning bike ride...

Hot, hazy, humid...

...and happy that my sunscreen is working.

Tax free weekend rocks...

I shopped a lot this weekend. I didn't think I was going to because tax-free weekend is usually worse than holiday shopping. I avoided the mall and hit the outlets instead. I bought shoes and pants and jeans and shirts and panties and more shoes. Then I bought some skin care products and makeup and a digital camera and more shoes. Besides being tax-free weekend, I also had two "friends and family" cards from Old Navy and Gap from my sister (good for outlets too) and got 30% off at The Gap and 20% off at Old Navy.This is my favorite pair out of the lot. They're BCBG and I am in love with them.

I added everything up (retail cost versus what I spent) and I saved $278 this weekend. I'm not going to tell you what I spent, because it's what I saved that really matters, right?

I'm the one in the middle...

“Summer Tan, Summer Not” © Nikki Hardin