Sleeping Beauty

I dyed my hair tonight.

I had to go to CVS to pick up my new prescription, and I spotted the hair dye aisle as I waited the hour to get it filled. I looked through it and, on impulse, bought a color that I liked (it was also on sale). I've been thinking of rebleaching my hair for over a week (to shock the relatives in the Philippines when I go there later this month) and why not dye it at the same time? One-two punch! So, I bought the hair dye.

I bought Clairol Natural Instincts hair color in Copper Red. It's bright, but not something that looks too artificial, so I went with that. Funny, thinking about dying my hair a "natural" color when seeing me in anything less than my normal dark brown would be completely unnatural. Still, it didn't look too wild of an "orange", so I went with it.

Bleaching my hair is no problem. I've done it maybe a dozen times myself and my hair seems to retain the same consistency, so I don't think I'm damaging it too badly. I also have The Scalp of Steel and the bleach doesn't burn or irritate my scalp in the slightest. I love seeing my roots blonde so, I goop the stuff on to my head, not worrying about getting it on my scalp or on my forehead by accident. I'm know it's something I'm not supposed to do (so sayeth the directions on the box) but I do it anyway. Maybe one day my scalp will violently react to the stuff and all my hair will fall out or something. But so far, all is good and I ignore the rule.

I think it looks weird when people have lighter hair color than their skin color. When someone with naturally blonde hair tans themselves really really dark, I think it looks a bit peculiar. Then again, I can see someone with partially blue or green hair and think nothing of it. My strange set of standards. I started bleaching my hair when I was in college about four years ago. I saw a model with "chunked" hair: Shalom Harlow. Chunked hair is when large chunks of the hair are dyed or bleached a striking color over the rest of the hair and was popular in the mid 90s. I thought it looked cute and started wondering what I would look like with chunked hair.

Like all things I get thinking about, it became an obsession. I just had to get my hair done and I think I spent around $30 in magazines looking for just the right kind of hair I wanted. I found it and got a professional to do it. It looked really wild and I loved it. It grew out. I decided I'll try it myself after my friends convinced me that I could do it myself and not spend $40 to just do bleach a bit of my hair.

I discovered it was really easy and all I needed to do was pull my hair back and drop some hair bleach on it. I've been doing it ever since.

After I bleached my hair, I dyed it. This was the third time I've ever dyed my hair, so it's an awkward process just doing it by myself. I thought about asking Mike to help me, but decided that I could do it myself and besides, he wouldn't care for the smell of the chemicals. My hair is still wet in this picture and when it dries, it'll tone down in color to a more muted orange-copper. I like it. So far.

I went to CVS to pick up my first ever sleeping pills.

I've always had insomnia off and on and for the past two weeks, I have been sleeping very badly. So, today I decided to go to the doctor and actually do something about it.

My doctor told me to do all the things that Mike has already suggested that I do, plus gave me a prescription to Sonata. Supposedly, it is a very mild sleeping pill and I should take it at the lowest, 5mg dose. I should call him again on Thursday to let him know how the pills are doing. It's supposedly non-habit-forming. I hope so. If it doesn't help my insomnia, he might opt for a stronger sleeping pill or an anti-depressant. He says that I'm definitely not depressed (which I completely agree with him on that point. I haven't been feeling sad or anything like that. Just exhaustion to the point that I feel I'm too tired to sleep), but that the anti-depressant might help to make me drowsy enough to fall asleep if the Sonata doesn't work.

After I asked Mike to drive me to the doctor's this afternoon, he asked me, "What would the doctor do to help you? Prescribe something to help you sleep? Would you take it even if he did?"

I didn't answer him then, but now that I've got the medication and I'm going to take it, I think that answers his question.

I'm off to try and sleep. Make myself a warm cup of milk and use it to take my first sleeping pill. I wonder what will happen...