Hair

I have returned to my sports roots. Sweetie is a sports fan. He watches football, even if it is not one of his teams (the Giants or Jets) and watches the Yankees (even on the Internet), as such, since I like spending time with him, I too watch sports.

I have seen a lot of football this season. This is fine. One of my fondest childhood memories is learning the rules of football while watching a game with my Father. I am from Pittsburgh and came of TV watching age in the 1970s. The Steel Curtain. One for the Thumb in '81. I have a terrible towel, and I am in some sort of team photo with the Steelers that was taken at my Jr. prom as they were in the same restaurant we were eating in before the prom.

So me watching football is not that odd. I also like golf and hockey (again I am from Pittsburgh and they still do not have a professional Basketball team).

What I am finding somewhat interesting about current day football, is the hair of the black players. Where did they get such long hair that it hangs outside of their helmets in the back? Being a black woman my entire life I understand how black hair grows. I can not imagine that these football players have long enough hair to hang outside their helmets. So this means one of a few things. Either they are getting a relaxer to straighten their hair and then having it braided, and or they are getting extension. Either option leaves me wondering about the extent of their vanity to sit in a beauty shop chair and have either process done.

Then again, I do recall Frenchie Fuqua's shoes with goldfish in the clear Lucite heels, and other 1970s football players and their full length man furs, so maybe the vanity is something that has been present in football all along.

I am not against metrosexual tendencies in men. I like a man who cares for his skin, his hair and wears cologne and nice clothing. Sweetie is not a metrosexual but for him rugged and jeans wearing works. As explained in an earlier post, I find Johnny Depp and Prince sexy with their makeup and androgynous beauty. But I have a problem when you blend the image of a professional athlete and a beauty chair. Be rugged and have callouses on your hands, or be a metrosexual and use hair product and a hint of eyeliner, but don't blend them. Please.

Just admit that you don't know

Ok. It is finally over, the results are in and Hillary won the Democratic primary in New Hampshire. By 3%. I am not thrilled as I am an Obama supporter, but hey it was close and there are 48 other states to vote.

What is currently ticking me off, is the pundits and the 24 hour news cycle. It seems to me that the biggest looser in this whole thing, other than the American public, is the truth. Polls showed Obama winning by double digits, and he lost by 3%. The pundits and the news teams took the polls as the gospel and declared Obama the winner in NH before a single vote was cast. These same pundits are the ones who determined that this race was Hillary's to loose. Shockingly, not, they were wrong both times. I would rather have them be off the air from time to time, than filling the air with their speculation and desires. On MSNBC the hosts were nearly filled with what looked a bit like religious fervor when discussing the Obama rallies that they had attended. What happened to impartial reporting. Now, being a fan of Obama, I did not mind, but really.

This morning, at least on the Today Show, they are admitting that they were totally wrong, and that they actually can not predict what is going to happen. I am sure that as the day lengthens that too will change, and they will start to blame the polls or the weather, or some other totally unrelated issue.

Sigh, only 300+ days until this is over.

01.21.08

Today is a travel day, I am going to wear jeans and a sweater. No overlap, day 2.

Primary Season Is Far too Long

I am sitting here looking at the New Hampshire returns. Now more than ever I am regretting the 24 hour news cycle. Since 6:00 pm MSNBC has had moment by moment coverage of the returns, even though they were not allowed to talk about any real returns until the polls closed at 8:00 pm.

Who are these people who demand such coverage. I would be more than happy to see returns once they were all in. I don't need to know the returns with only 10% of the precincts reporting. I think CNN even has a real time counter. How are they doing that, more important, why are they doing that?!?

We as a nation are over informed, over stimulated and I am thinking about unplugging from the news cycle. The problem is that Sweetie is a news junkie, he watches CNN, C-SPAN, and the weather channel. If there is a good, well written TV show he will watch that, but as you can imagine they are few and far in between. The Office, Scurubs, David Letterman and Curb Your Enthusiasm are favorites. I also like the Daily Show, all Law and Order shows are also my favorites. Sweetie watches TV in the same way that some people only read non fiction. Oh yes, I totally forgot, he is a huge Yankee's fan, and loves football (The Giants). When I am at home I like to spend time with Sweetie, so he does watch some things that I am sure are not his preference, like the shows I like on HGTV (I like the designer shows, and the house transformation shows, he prefers DIY with This Old House and any wood working shows). All in all it works well, as I do like being informed, though not as informed as Sweetie likes to be.

You Tube is also a phenomena that I don't understand. Sure some of the videos are funny, but to me they are similar to chain letters and the jokes that people forward. Again, I am not part of that wave. I am far from a troglodyte, actually I am very nearly an early adopter (I would be one if I were not so cheep) but there are levels of information I choose not to participate in. Over stimulation, over informed and subject to people's personal lives on video are too much for me.

Dear reader, you can call me to task as I do have a blog, and it is filled with my personal musings, but it isn't that easy to find and I hardly ever tell people where to find it. I think that counts.

By the way, I did not go to work today due to a stomach ache, so I did not get dressed, so I have not repeated an outfit yet.

Little Black Skirts

Once my mother told me that the well dressed woman can put together twenty different outfits (one for each work day of the month) without repeating in that month. I didn't think to ask her if you could repeat parts of each outfit during that month. I am going to try to do this (clearly I need a hobby) and I think I am going to only repeat shoes (though I could probably do it without repeating shoes).

Ok, today (day one) I wore a black skirt and a black and cream top with a 60's inspired design, black stockings and black wedges. It was nearly 60 degrees today, in January in Michigan, and right now we are having a thunderstorm of all things.

Tomorrow I am going to wear something else, but it will involve a black skirt, as I also discovered that I have nearly 25 black skirts. I am going on a business trip Wednesday and returning Thursday. I was going to try and travel with one small bag, only changing the top I was wearing, but since I am on this 20 day program I am going to have to pack a little more.

We have casual Fridays, and can wear jeans. I have never understood why Jeans are supposed to be a treat to wear, they only look good on the young and firm, and they are not really forgiving. I think it would be better if we had sweats Fridays, but luckily I have more than one pair of jeans, so I wont have to repeat those outfits. I actually got my first pair of jeans my freshman year in college, so me having more than one pair of jeans is shocking. I went to private school and we were not allowed to wear jeans, and until high school we were not really allowed to wear pants, except if it was under 20 degrees, so in reality it has taken me a long time to even think of wearing pants, let alone jeans.

I am going to have to keep some sort of log to make sure I make my 20 outfits without a repeat. Clearly the need for a hobby grows.

Firsts

Hooray for Iowa

I have secretly been a fan of Obama since he started in the race. I am so very happy that he won in IA and that he is increasing rapidly in NH. I am watching "Meet the Press" and something some pundit said captured my thoughts, thoughts that I had not voiced. Black Americans were waiting to see if white Americans will vote for him. When asked I always said I want him to win but I am not sure that America is ready. Well, judging from the results from IA, parts of the country are ready. I will wait to see, while I support him, out loud and financially.

Little beings that the universe trusts us to raise

I love my puppy Zak. He is a Bichon who is currently 10.5 months old. He is at a kennel because Sweetie and I are going to Pittsburgh to see my family for Christmas.

Since getting Zak at 3 months old, he has not spend a night away from either Sweetie or me. It was very hard driving to the kennel to leave him there. We were going to take him, but he is still at a point that he does not like long car rides. We were going to take the 5 hour drive to Pittsburgh with Zak, but his whining, and motion sickness made us think twice. I came to the decision quicker than Sweetie, but once we inspected the kennel (on line) and I talked to people who have used it we decided to give it a go. He has 2 hours of play dates a day, he gets to eat his own raw food diet, and drink his own water. He is also sleeping in his own crate and has a few toys. I hope he is fine.

When we first got Zak I was a bit freaked out. Here was this adorable creature that is totally dependant on me for food, water and hygiene. I saw my carefree single woman days flying away from me. As a small puppy he ate 3 times a day and went out every 2 hours during the day and about every 5 to 6 at night. He had several accidents (not his fault) and I thought we would never be able to go out to dinner, or to the movies again. I actually had to stay home from work one day -- well I worked from home, because Sweetie had to go to NYC to take care of some family things. Had Zak not been so sweet and cuddly alone together I would have returned him. I kept threatning that if Sweetie was delayed in returning that when Sweetie got back Zak would be gone.

It took me about 2 weeks, and now I am to the point that I can not imagine what it was like without him. He is far cuter than he is cuddly (twice as cute as he is cuddly) but we deal with it. He will cuddle, but only on his own terms. Which I can respect.

When we were packing his food and toys and crate where he sleeps, I actually got a tummy ache as I realized that we were sending him away for the first time. How do people do that with their kids! Yikes.

I am glad that I don't want children, I don't think I could take it.

One of the most biased phone calls ever

I was in the kitchen, a place where I am vowing to spend more time cooking so I can break my eating out habit, when the phone rang. It was a number I did not know but I answered any way. It was a poll. Political polls are interesting to me. At any rate the pollster asked me if I was voting in the Republican Primary this January. I said yes, he wanted to know if I am pro life, no; if I was anti gay marriage, No; if I thought that there should be a state or constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, No. Then he wanted to know who I was going to vote for. I selected McCain as the lesser of all evils. He then wanted to know if knowing that he voted with some democrats against Bush and his horrid Judicial nominees would change my mind, No. He brought up some other random middle of the road position of McCain's and asked if that would stop me. Again, No. He then gave up and ended the call.

It was so overtly conservative, and right wing nonsense that I was shocked.

Even though I am a registered republican and have been for 21 years, I could never vote for any of the current slate. Romney and his "Father marching with MLK," Rudy and his closet of horrors (just wait America... just wait); Ron Paul who is just nutty, and Huckabee who is even more religious and evangelical than W... Yikes. McCain is about the only one I could vote for from the group... but hopefully one of the really scary ones will be the nominee and we can have our first black president. Go Obama!