badhairToday after school I went to the hair dresser and cried as my long, nice hair fell haplessly to the floor to be replaced by a much shorter style. I prefer to have my hair half-long, because it means that I can shape it the way I want without it getting in the way all the time.

But for the upcoming spring, I wanted to cut it short because I plan to bleach it. I am considering going blonde for a while. Or red. Or green. Or turquoise. I haven’t decided yet. I will decide when I sit down in the barber’s chair and get the brochure in my hand, and then it will be a beautiful choice.

Unfortunately, with raven hair like I have, I need to zap it with incredibly strong chemical things that probably should lead to me having a warning label on me. To lessen the pollutant impact on the environment, I had to cut my hair fairly short. In a week when my hair has settled, I’ll go back and bleach it.

“I have nothing to grab now,” Mark says when he saw me when I came home from school. “Why oh why?” Critics. There’s always critics. I don’t complain when he changes his hair colour three times a month, so I don’t see why he should voice any opinion about when I do it.

But I can see his point. When I had my shower after school, there was hardly anything up there to lather, and I looked like monk that had let himself go up top. I can’t wait for my hair to grow back more.

***

Vanity concerns aside, we found our new sofa this evening, and as is always the case the rescue came from one of Mark’s relatives. He gave us a ring because Mark’s mum had told someone that we were hunting for a sofa. So, given that I had all these aesthetic objections to sofas, Mark just gave me the mobile and we exchanged photos, and it’s a nice one.

It will take up every inch of two walls in our lounge if we don’t split it in two, but it’s a modular sofa, so we’re going to have lots of room (sic) to experiment. And, the best part, is that it is comfy too!

When mum and Auntie and dad comes back later today, since it’s past one am here as I write this, we’re going to have a stylish and proper sofa to sit in. I will also be able to lead the ceremony to burn (or at least banish) the ugly one.

***

Tomorrow I’m 18. Christ. Well, it is tomorrow since it’s after midnight. I’m all grown up, right? Why don’t I feel that way?

It feels like my insecurities and angst gets worse with age, not better. Let’s count the hours until Colin writes a long, long screed about how terrible everything is about having a birthday, shall we? Maybe posting two long things today will have cured me from that.

Or maybe not. In exactly 48 hours I should be in no state to write anything since we’re going to a pub. A bunch from my school, Abbie and Ben and some girls, are joining me together with Mark (of course) and Stephen. And Mark goes around playing relieved that he doesn’t have to break the law any longer by buying me beer.