It’s been one of those days, pals. Post-vacation workload, lousy weather, husband with the nastiest cold he’s had in years — just the sneezing makes me cringe — and even Wendy has lost her list. Apparently she went on a bit of a hunger strike at the boarding kennel, and still hasn’t bounced back; she’s sleepy and throwing up now and then, and had an accident in the house today. She’s in that gray zone between take-to-the-vet and let’s-give-her-one-more-day. Yes, she’s had all her shots and no, she doesn’t seem seriously ill. She just feels the way we all seem to, today.
I passed a mirror today and thought, Who is that old bag? I downloaded our vacation pictures from the memory card and thought, The short haircut is NOT working. I know, I know: Poor, poor pitiful me. Grow up. Stop complaining. Do something good for someone else. And consider the alternative. Sooner or later we all end up here:
But the haircut? Not working. Too short:
Louis looks pretty good, though.
Power through this week, and let’s see what the next one brings. I rowed 35 minutes on the erg today and didn’t die. Maybe spring will come. In the meantime, here’s something to warm your black heart: A man who had “been drinking all day” demonstrates to his girlfriend that his weaponry is unloaded, taking three separate handguns, pointing them at his head, and pulling the trigger. You can guess what happened. Hello, Darwin awards.
Tomorrow promises to take me out in the world a little bit. Tomorrow, I predict, will be better. Fingers crossed.
Sherri said on February 25, 2014 at 1:00 am
PSA for all the iPhone users out there: update to the latest version of iOS. The security flaw in earlier versions is a big one, and now it’s out in the open, and easy to exploit. The bug is also in OS X, but the bug fix isn’t available yet.
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jcburns said on February 25, 2014 at 1:31 am
Good advice to update. Also good advice not to see scary code exploiters around every corner. That’s a nice picture, Nance, you’re looking swell, Nance, but it’s nice to have you back where you belong.
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Sherri said on February 25, 2014 at 2:19 am
Agreed, jc, most of us will be fine, but as security bugs go, this is a particularly egregious one. Worth updating sooner rather than later.
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Dexter said on February 25, 2014 at 3:54 am
When I eventually get to New Orleans, my portrait with a statue will be with this guy
but the Louis statue by the Mahalia Jackson theater truly is the one to be photographed with. Nice picture of you and Satchmo. Do you suppose it was bad airplane air that made your husband sick?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 25, 2014 at 6:51 am
You could go for the Pink super-short bleached bristle. I’m seeing that spiking out all over.
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beb said on February 25, 2014 at 7:53 am
Talk about short hair…my sister is recovering from cancer so I’ve seen her bald…that not really a good look. I’ve seen her with hair maybe an inch long, which did look good, and currently her hair is about two inches long and developing a powerful curl, kind of like Shirley Temple but all salt-and-pepper. Personally I’d just glad she’s still with us and to hell with the hair.
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coozledad said on February 25, 2014 at 8:13 am
I had a room mate in college who owned a couple of pistols and played with the damn things while he watched TV.
A friend who worked the weekend shift at the emergency room said it was interesting to see what a fuckhead looked like before they were strapped in a gurney.
The older cops who hung out at the bar where I worked would talk about the lost man hours in the police department from dumbasses shooting themselves in the foot or blowing the roof and lights off a cruiser with the transom mounted shotgun.
If you ever have any doubt that a human is a goddamn monkey, put a gun in its hands and observe it from a safe space. A pistol is just shaped too much like a dick for them to keep from playing with it.
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Jolene said on February 25, 2014 at 8:17 am
I was rocking the same look as your sister, beb, but my hair has grown back in too. I’ve always had naturally curly hair, but now it’s more so. I like it and am interested to see if this will be a permanent change.
You look great in that picture, Nance. My first take: Wow, Nancy looks terrific in those jeans.
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Julie Robinson said on February 25, 2014 at 9:06 am
Congratulations to both you, Jolene, and to beb’s sister, for coming out on the other side. Curly hair has to feel like a bonus after having no hair at all.
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brian stouder said on February 25, 2014 at 9:21 am
Well, we seem to have another big cool-down coming, and it may well mean some more ILF, and with that front-of-mind clutter I clicked into nn.c-land this morning, and saw the most magnificent photograph I’ve seen in 2014, period.
You can just about feel the warm breeze wafting through that photo; and the sun seems to be high in the sky, so that thoughts of lunch (fried alligator bites, baby!) maybe are beginning to flit about. And, the hair totally works (at least for me!).
Aside from that – what Julie said
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Julie Robinson said on February 25, 2014 at 10:10 am
Oh, and I forgot to say thanks to jefftmmo for your Harold Ramis links, and the insight gained from watching them. I clicked on Netflix last night and discovered that Ghostbusters was available to stream, so we did. Anticipating the laughs did not diminish them in the slightest.
And anticipating another round of ILF meant the laughs were needed, badly. Our time in Orlando is already a distant memory.
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coozledad said on February 25, 2014 at 10:37 am
HaHa.
http://valleywag.gawker.com/mt-gox-died-and-took-the-money-with-it-1530533538/@sarah-hedgecock
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Kirk said on February 25, 2014 at 10:48 am
HaHa, indeed. What idiots who confuse computer games with real life deserve.
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brian stouder said on February 25, 2014 at 11:04 am
I never did understand this “bitcoin” thing, at all.
I think I’d sooner buy gold coins from G Gordon Liddy(!) than buy into some internet mirage.
If the NSA geek-squad of subcontractors are worth two shits (and they may not be, I suppose), these sons-of-a-bitcoin flim-flam artists should be rounded up by sundown
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Dorothy said on February 25, 2014 at 11:06 am
YOUR TOES ARE SHOWING! That’s enough to thrill me re weather implications. My husb had that cold last week and missed 2.5 days of work. He almost blew himself up with the god-awful sneezing he was doing, I swear. I slept in the spare room two nights to try and avoid catching it. So far it’s worked. I open in a new play on Friday night and canNOT afford to get sick. I’m playing five parts – who would fill in for me?!
I’m uber busy at my new job but I try to at least read Nancy early in the morning and catch up on comments on my lunch break or during my downtime at tech rehearsals. Y’all are endlessly entertaining!
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susan said on February 25, 2014 at 11:37 am
Anyone who would put his money and trust into something named M[agic]t[he] G[athering]o[line][e]X[change] and subsequently lost his shirt, tells me everything I need to know about bitcoin and said person. Ha ha ha ha! Indeed.
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Charlotte said on February 25, 2014 at 12:18 pm
Came home to 13 inches of new snow — they don’t plow in town, so park in the alley? on the street? gamble either way. Chose the street. Shovelled my steps and walkways — shovelled around the car — luckily my neighbor had snow-blowed the sidewalk.
Off to Seattle in the wee hours of Thursday morning for my day job, and braving the madness that is the AWP (Associated Writing Programs) conference. A visit to the career path I didn’t choose. But about to start pitching a new book, and my office is there, and at least it’s not snowy and they have nice restaurants and oysters. Have my little posse of non-academics, we’ve got our miner’s lights strapped to our heads and we’re going in … 14,000 creative writing teachers, students, and book people reading. Ack!
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adrianne said on February 25, 2014 at 12:30 pm
Nance, I like the short do. Dare I say you look sassy? (and svelte in the jeans, too!)
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LAMary said on February 25, 2014 at 12:36 pm
I’ve had two days of barfing and worse and somehow managed to activate my sciatica at the same time so I’m not feelign great. I am however at work today. The ugly parts of this virus are over and my work chair is pretty comfortable for my back. It’s the standing up that’s an issue.
Thinking of fried alligator is not a good thing to do after barfing for two days. Write that down for future reference.
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Scout said on February 25, 2014 at 12:37 pm
My iPhone 4 updated without a hitch this time, but my partner’s same phone refuses to complete the update. The last update totally screwed up my phone and her phone updated without a hitch. I swear they bug the older ones so you think, oh screw it, I’ll just get the new phone.
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Heather said on February 25, 2014 at 12:44 pm
Count me as a fan of the short hair as well! I like that it is not too short. When I was doing personal styling, I worked with a lot of older women who got that very short clipped look, which was aging. I think when women are older, they need a little softness. Of course the texture can change. My gray hairs are definitely more wiry.
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Dexter said on February 25, 2014 at 1:35 pm
Different hairstyles for ladies , to each her own. I have a fondness for old “B” movies, and in May, 1998, changed my hairstyle to mimic the great Tor Johnson, and I have been paring the dome of hair ever since, almost 16 years now.
Feast your glazzies
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brian stouder said on February 25, 2014 at 2:22 pm
Since Cooz has me reading Wonkette –
http://wonkette.com/542641/pat-buchanan-would-it-really-be-so-bad-if-we-repealed-all-civil-rights-laws#more-542641
What we are seeing in Arizona in microcosm is what we have witnessed in America for half a century: the growing intolerance of those who preach tolerance and the corruption of the concept of civil rights. and A radical idea: Suppose we repealed the civil rights laws and fired all the bureaucrats enforcing these laws. Does anyone think hotels, motels and restaurants across Dixie, from D.C. to Texas, would stop serving black customers? Does anyone think there would again be signs sprouting up reading “whites” and “colored” on drinking foundations and restrooms?
My answer to that one, if I was talking to Pat Buchanan, would be “Is the Pope Catholic?” and/or “Does a shark shit in the sea?”
It is interesting how deftly Pat and his sheet-wearing (and cross burning) ilk shifts from how people were so much better in the old days (the infallible Founding Fathers, and “Greatest Generation”, and so on), to how much better we are right now – depending on what the subject is. Civil Rights protections? We’re WAY past needing those!! But…. –protections for gun ‘rights’? Vigilance!! Vigilance!! (and you can just forget all that malarkey about “well regulated militias”, b’God!)
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Deborah said on February 25, 2014 at 2:35 pm
Nancy, I think the hair looks great and the jeans too. I like the striped shirt as well, very Finnish.
I had been thinking about getting a pixie cut, but Heather, you’re right about older women needing softness around the face. Jennifer Lawrence (and way before her Jean Seburg) can get away with it. I’m so sick of my hairdo, I’ve worn it this way for ages, sometimes shoulder length, sometimes chin length, but always the bob. Mostly I pull it back and put a scrunchy around it. Yes, seriously, a scrunchy.
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LAMary said on February 25, 2014 at 2:39 pm
I need a haircut now, but usually I keep my hair just below chin level which I think works just fine. I had short hair all through my kid raising years because the ex preferred it. It looked great when I was free of any extra chinnage but not so much when I wasn’t. I know I’m citing bland role models, but Martha Stewart and Diane Sawyer seem to get it right.
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brian stouder said on February 25, 2014 at 2:57 pm
and, I’m tellin’ ya NOW – msnbc’s Alex Wagner
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jcburns said on February 25, 2014 at 3:02 pm
Tech update: there is a fix for the OSX SSL vulnerability now. Just do ‘software update.’ (Restart required.)
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beb said on February 25, 2014 at 5:14 pm
Turning the table on the hair issue for a moment, here’s Harry Potter sporting should length hair for his role in Frankenstein.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-news/10657499/Daniel-Radcliffe-managing-my-hair-is-a-nightmare.html
He discovered that long hair is a lot of work.
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LAMary said on February 25, 2014 at 7:11 pm
Deborah, these are slightly cooler than scrunchies:
http://www.birchbox.com/shop/brands/twistband?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=twistband%2520hair%2520ties&utm_campaign=Partner%2520Brand_Twistband_Google&gclid=COui58fA6LwCFQVafgodyj8A5w
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Deborah said on February 25, 2014 at 8:40 pm
LA Mary, I’m not understanding how those twistbands work. The reason I wear scrunchies is because they’re gentle on your hair. I found that the other ponytail holders were breaking my hair off. And the scrunchies I wear aren’t the normal kind, they’re modified, much smaller. But still scrunchies.
I updated my OS on my new iPhone, worked just fine. I love my new phone.
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basset said on February 25, 2014 at 11:00 pm
Nance, come on down to Nashville and get your picture taken with the Chet Atkins statue… at least you’ll have somewhere to sit:
http://musiccitymike.net/2013/05/27/music-city-landmarks-1-chet-atkins-statue/
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LAMary said on February 26, 2014 at 12:42 pm
Deborah, These don’t break your hair. I know the covered elastic ones that aren’t supposed to break your hair break mine too. Twistbands are like soft elastic ribbon. you can double them or triple them if you need to.
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