The Neverending Head Pain I'm off to bed. I don't know why I stayed up as long as I did, other then my head is so bad (all day today, yesterday, before that...) that I space out and fail to go to sleep. In addition to the re-occuring borderline migraines all week, I've been having major problems getting to sleep as well as weird "hot flashes" for lack of a better word. I am perpetually cold - always - and this week has seen me break out in flushes and even sweating - something I barely do even outside, walking around in the middle of Florida summer! It's just been a poor week health wise and these almost-migraines aren't helping. I've been so on edge and my eyes are just continually killing me when I use them to see it's been a frustating few days to say the least.
Off to bed with me. Overheated, hyper light sensitive, near-migraine and all.
Before and After Alright, I just got back from the mall. My Mom came down to spend a little time together. Anyway, this is the first chance I've had to upload my before and after pics. The after was taken last night but I'll need to work on taking some shots where you can see me and the hair together. *laughs* I just wanted to post the color results.
So without further ado.....Before and After:
Doesn't look much like "Radiant Ruby" but it's definately red. My Love wants me to go to a salon and have it dyed like a real, orange, redhead red. Maybe one of these days I will though it frightens me to think about having to bleach my hair to really achieve that shade. Though I notice that right away my eyes pop out a lot more color-wise against the red then they do against the brown. The blue-grey-aquaness of them is more striking. Like I said, I'll get some photos with me and my hair soon enough, but here at least is the color - and the difference. It doesn't seem like that much until you put them together. Heh.
And yes, Cy.......change! Dreded, horrible change. Isn't it great sometimes?
Red #44 So.....I'm sitting here, really close to my computer screen since my hair is covered in dye. Because of that, I can't put my glasses on without ruining them. Since I am uber nearsighted, this means that for the next 45 minutes, there really isn't much I can do. Heh.
Let me tell you, red ears are the new look for Fall. Oh yeah. Love seemed to enjoy dying them instead of my hair itself. I hope I got the worst of it off so that I'm not the Wicked Witch of the South with day-glow red ears and forehead. *laughs*
Demolition = Headache There's nothing quite like the headache you get from being woken up by demolition in the apartment downstairs from you and then said noise continuing without pause for hours. It seems that they are one-by-one gutting the emtpy apartments (and there were something like 80 empty as of a month ago since they're not renewing leases and not writing new ones in the new owner's attempt to go condo). I first discovered this yesterday when I went to get the mail. One of the first-floor apartments from the building we used to be in was being totally gutted. There was a trailer with sinks, cabinets and related piled outside the building, a new window that had been installed in the building and work going on within. I didn't think much of it until they apparently stated in on the empty apartment directly below me.
just one pile of stuff removed this morning as seen from my balcony
All day my walls are shaking, floors vibrating, pipes rattling, and the incessant POUND THUD POUND POUND THUD THUD THUD is enough to drive me fucking crazy. I can't take this noise, let alone ontop of having gotten no sleep and that it doesn't cease!
Hurricane Patterns I first heard this on the news a few days ago, thought how odd it was and then pushed it to the back of my mind. Thinking about how we just may dodge the Ivan bullet in this area (though the Panhandle appears not to be so lucky), I recalled the information I heard and decided to look it back up.
Hurricanes are back and they're not going anywhere anytime soon.
See, most of us who live in Florida have come here in the last, oh, 10 - 30ish years. Prior to that, though this area was populated, it wasn't the massive metropolitan areas is it now. So most residents - myself included at 18 1/2 years in Florida - have lived in a window of time where we had less then normal hurricane landfalls. But it couldn't last forever and now scientists say we need to get used to facing more years like this one, rather then everything we've come to know all this time.
"Scientists say we are in a period of enhanced hurricane activity that could last for decades, ending a 24-year period of below-average activity. They also say the law of averages has caught up with Florida, with a change in atmospheric steering currents turning the state into a hurricane magnet."(source)
This is some scary shit. It's not the kind of thing that comforts you as you watch the third major hurricane in a month barreling towards your state. You want to think of this as the freak year, but it doesn't seem that simple.
"Starting a decade ago, scientists began warning coastal-zone residents that big hurricanes were once again headed their way. As if to underscore the point, 1995 produced 19 named Atlantic Ocean storms, the second busiest season on record (after 1933, which had 21). Most years since 1995 have followed a similar trajectory. Colorado State University hurricane expert William Gray is now projecting a total of 16 named storms for 2004, including five major hurricanes.
By contrast, the period between 1970 and 1994 averaged less than two major hurricanes per year..."(source)
It's hard to grasp how quite things have been in our calm period compared to how it used to be. And the time shift between then and now.
"One has to go all the way back to 1964 to find a year when Florida had three major hurricanes.
Lyndon B. Johnson was in the White House. The Beatles were a novelty act. Universal Newsreels still played in movie theaters.
"They call her Dora, but she's no lady," goes the narration of one. Hurricane Dora passed over St. Augustine and Jacksonville, and then up the Georgia coast. "If you had to put it to a vote, Dora was the most unpopular girl in town."
The other hurricanes to hit Florida in 1964 were Cleo and Isbell. But somehow, in all the years since then, Florida has defied the odds."(source)
Thing is that no one exactly understands why we go through these cycles. Though the fact that the Atlantic has gone up in temperature by about 1 or 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit is one factor they believe is involved, as well as upper level winds not being as strong and therefore unable to disrupt these storms once they start. But, that's all best-guess. And no one can say if it's part of a global warming trend, or just Mother Nature's cycles of change.
"The only unusual thing is the fact that Florida hasn't been hit by hurricanes like we used to get," said National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield. "I think nature's just righting itself and the statistics are going to balance itself out here before long."(source)
So, with nine storms so far this season - four of which became major hurricanes with winds 110mph and over - and the season being only half over, it's a trend of what's to come. And it makes the realization of just how vunerable, isolated and targeted we really are down here. We've taken our calm seasons for granted, never thinking that there's good patterns and bad patterns and eventually, the bad pattern would catch back up with us again.
Dinner So tonight I'm making lasagna. It's not something I do often as it's prep-work intensive. (Not to mention expensive by the time you add all the ingredients up!) But I've had a major craving for it all week. Tonight I finally gave in.
I took photos of the process (it's cooking now) and I'll put it all together into a step-by-step reciepe one of these days. It's nothing fancy, just simple lasanga with lots of cheese, but it's tasty.
No word yet on the apartment situation. No eviction notice yet, so hopefully, if we pay rent next payday (next Friday), we at least won't have to worry about that. But no idea what's going on with the place we applied at. We're playing phone tag. Her last message though didn't sound very positive. (In tone of voice, not content.) I knew it was a long shot, but dammit, can't something work out for once?
Anyway, just sat down for a moment while I wait 45 minutes for dinner to cook and thought I'd babble a bit. Cooking is hard work and not something I often do, nor enjoy doing (Love's the cook of the family) but somethings only I make so I break down and get it done.
I'll let you know how it turns out and put together my photo receipe for it later.
Photo displays placed at Union Square in New York on September 10, 2004, include the name and face of the over 1,000 U.S. Armed Forces members killed in Iraq. The total represents troops killed in both combat and non-hostile accidents since the beginning of the current Gulf War. Photo by Chip East/Reuters
Anyone still think Bush should be re-elected now? What's the magic number where we realize it's too much? Where we come to our senses and say ENOUGH? How many more have to die for one idiot's warped, spiteful, twisted war of hate?
Enough already. Make a change in the world and kick Bush out.
