Indistinct Amanuensis ...

Of Lions and Lambs, Brent Bambry what it means if it's cold and doing nothing out. Me, I still think of as bright, warm and sunny vs. white, snowy and fluffy instead of the traditional fierce vs. calm. But it's cloudy with the sun peeking out now and then, not snowing (yet, though it's possible), around freezing, and with a mere puff of breeze. What the hell does that mean for the month? Eh? Eh?

The rest of this is pretty much the same post as yesterday's, only with way more words.

It was time ... they've both been gone for years. How long does one keep a hat noone else may wear in the front hall? Twenty-some years is long enough to keep a dead lover's hat hanging on the back of my bedroom door, I think. Birgit and Christine knew Phil, but not PJ. I told them the stories that go with each of the holes and stains on PJ's hat. I burned Phil and PJ's hats yesterday, with friends, with kids playing close by, out in the sunshine. Meant for the solstice, but fitting for a hat burning as well:

She who loved you is no more
but the part of me who was once she
is loathe to give you up again to the mists
farewell my loves, blessed be

Thinking Margot might get a chance to stop by to hang out on her birthday, Thursday, I make some cauliflower soup (which is currently back on the stove 'cuz I didn't test the barley and lentils before I added them and they're a little more firm than I like) and a curry. When I was bent in half, whisking up the cauliflower crumbs from the floor, a great song same on the radio and I leapt up ... or would have, had I not been under the cutting board. I caught the corner of it with my shoulder hard enough to rattle dishes on the counter and make a nasty mark through several shirts. After nearly passing out, stumbling around, cursing like a sailor and missing the song I was so enthused about, I realized that the shoulder ... which has been bothering me for months and months ... didn't hurt, aside from the bruisediness. I guess what I've been thinking was a soft-tissue issue is at least partially chiropractic. Cool!

I use lip balm. If my hands and/or feet are more sand papery than usual, or cracked and bleeding, I'll use lotion ... but I don't like it. In fact, I detest lotion. And I won't smear it all over. Yuck. It feels like my skin can't breathe through the stuff and every dust particle in the air sticks to the lotion on my skin. And the stuff gives me rashes. Detest it. Detest. I would rather (and have for years) put up with the dry, sandpapery, sometimes cracked and bleeding, always ashy skin (honest an' for true ... turns out pasty redheads can, in fact, have ashy skin ... colour me deeply surprised). I nod and say thank you when people recommend this lotion or that, or tell me that all my problems would be solved, if only I would moisturize. I am grateful that they care. SometimesI try this lotion ... put that in the bath ... then decide that it's worse than the alternative Sometimes it's so itchy I can't stand myself ... it almost always hurts ... but it's better than lotion. Get over it, they say ... you'll get used to it, they say. That's how much I hate having stuff on my skin. Rant, rant, rant.

So one day I pick up a bottle of avocado oil at Planet Organic Market, 'cuz it sounds like it might feel more wonderful than ew-ick-get-that-off-me and 'cuz something Randy had said about sesame oil and our kind of skin (wait! what? it's not just me being crazy?) had been rattling around in the back of my mind for a while. I've been putting it on after showering since October. My skin doesn't hurt. My tattoos don't look horribly faded. My feet aren't powder-white. My skin isn't cracking and bleeding, even though it's winter. Okie, it's still itchy out now and then, but it is still winter in Alberta, after all. It doesn't give me rashes. It doesn't make me itchy or break out. The little bottle of avocado oil lasted me three months. They didn't have more. Oh my, said the Planet O girls ... eyes wide, avocado is the heaviest oil we carry ... regular use? after every shower? Oh my! Try sweet almond. Try grapeseed. So I did ... they're okay, but not as good ... the yummy skin-ness from avocado lasts two or three days, from the others, only one or one and a half, and they make my towels smell funny. I'll look for raw sesame oil the next time I'm at the chinese market or Planet O, but in the meantime, I've asked them to please, please, please order in some more avocado oil.

And while I'm on about dry skin ...
I've been brushing the living daylights out of my hair before washing it with just water, and then rinsing with a couple teaspoons of cider vinegar and a couple tablestpoons of rosewater in a couple cups of warm water. My hair is soft and shiny (though no less crazy) and my scalp says halleluja.