Returning to My Roots

I'm being literal. I have literally gone back to my roots, as in my natural hair color. My natural hair color looks fake because it's so freaking dark. I feel like Samara from "The Ring" or, possibly worse, Wednesday Addams. Why did I do it? I guess it was prompted by DSG asking about my highlights. As in, why do you have blond in your hair? I explained that on-air, my thick, dark hair resembles a hair helmet and the highlights give my hair some "texture" on camera. But it's more expensive to get foil put in my hair and who am I kidding with the natural highlights? There's no such thing as a woman of my ethnicity having warm shades of caramel and honey in their hair. Then the other day Larry noted how many colors were in my hair. But my colorist was booked so I opted to go to another salon on the Upper West Side.

The Filipino woman assigned my hair didn't exactly instill a surge of confidence in me. In broken English she demanded that I "Sit here!" and asked me what I wanted. I told her I wanted a single process, dark- like my roots. I warned her that my gray was stubborn and she nodded barely concealing her disdain at the split ends and rainbow of brassy highlights I had allowed to deteriorate with neglect. Two hours later, as she blow dried my hair the end result was revealed. I couldn't believe it. Elvira minus the obscene cleavage and vamp make-up. Christ. "It's dark," I remarked. "Yes, it's very dark. I don't like but you say natural color," she said. Whore.

But there are worse things than looking incredibly unimaginative and Goth-like with your hair color. For instance, you could have a cellular bill that exceeds $600! I was wandering midtown west in search of good eats with Larry today when I got the email from Verizon. Your automatic payment of $605 is scheduled for March 1, 2007. "Holy shit!" I yelled and everyone in line at Wendy's turned and looked at me. "Language," Larry said. "My fucking phone bill is $605!" I exclaimed loud enough for people to turn again. This public disclosure preceded a hasty exit, whatever the line was way too long for fucking Wendy's. Once outside I warned Larry that if I called Verizon and they stood by this invoice, he was going to witness a meltdown. Larry's eyes lit up in anticipation of this promising exhibition of consumer outrage. When I finally called, the customer service rep. patiently went through my whole bill and explained that my new blackberry, its charges, my texting (NO MORE TEXTS!) and my new broadband card together with various taxes and activation fees amounted to the price of new Jimmy Choo heels. Where the fuck are my priorities?!

The Bain of Her Existence

Not mine. My therapist's. Not me, the fucking Secret. Yesterday, I went to see her and as I started telling her about the latest Oprah-backed social phenomenon, I heard an exasperated sigh. "It's bullshit, right?" I said, lifting my head off the couch and turning to look at her. "You're the third one today," she said. Apparently, psychotherapists are being bombarded with queries from patients who want to know if they can actually will goodness into their lives simply by believing. "It's unrealistic to think people can banish all their negative thoughts all the time," she noted.

Confession: I bought the program for $5 and watched it online. Yes, this was after I ranted about it here. But, as a journalist, I thought it would behoove me to fully investigate the DVD before poo-pooing it. On some level it did resonate with me. The whole law of attraction theory is grounded in some truth. But after the spell wore off, I was struck by really irrational, idealistic, and Stepford-esque components to the best-selling panacea.

The various "experts" in the "movie" ranged from medical doctors to quantum physicists and self-proclaimed philosophers. A few of them used the inoculation theory to undermine skeptics. One example was a fruity life coach, originally from Houston to my dismay, who said that many people question how everyone can have everything they want. Won't the overwhelming demand of humanity's desires deplete the supply of the universe? No, he said condescendingly, because the universe is abundant and not everyone wants a BMW. The latter part of the phrase was illustrated with images of impoverished people in Africa. Yeah, they don't know what a fucking BMW is, they just want clean drinking water, asshole.

Another annoying soothsayer suggested that people who spend their time and effort fighting injustice, disease or rallying against war are in fact perpetuating those things. "You should have a pro-peace rally instead of an anti-war rally." Is this a life strategy or simply semantics? I strongly disagree with the law of attraction regarding this. Case in point would be the filmmaker I partnered with in Africa when we were covering the famine. He had spent a few years of his life chronicling the efforts of people all over the world who defied monster governments and powerful corporations simply by demonstrating against them. This was evidenced in Venezuela, South Africa, Palestine and even at the WTO meeting in Seattle. That inspiring documentary is available on DVD, by the way, and it's called "The Fourth World War" (www.bignoisefilms.org).

The above notwithstanding, it should be noted that I am willing to curb the negativity that pervades my existence. My therapist asked me not to refer to myself as an idiot or a moron, at least for a while. She agreed that it sounded more interesting to simply declare that I was a loser rather than take the time to explain, "I don't think I made the wisest decision at that moment in time and now I have some regret about my actions." But by putting that out there, I was in fact empowering others to do the same. Enter DSG. This man has been the source of amusement and self-doubt from the get go. I don't like it. I'm moving on. We're still friends though so it's all good. And, I've decided that I'm going to take the advice of friends and blog-readers and finally fucking write a book. In fact, I just signed up for a class on how to write a book proposal. The original plan was that my blog would be leaked to a senior editor at a top publishing house and they would come looking for me. But that pipe dream is about as realistic as my longstanding fantasy to strike oil at the altar (read: not gonna happen).