the 1, 2, 3, of Anime Hair and Cheryl has a tree day

Due to every day being “Mission Impossible” I am exploded, I mean exhausted. Yup, Mission Impossible with parts of me going all odd or bursting into flame: “You will self destruct in 4, 3, 2, 1…” I pass out. That’s what A.A.N. is, an idiot of an autoimmune system hitting my self destruct button several times a day. So, after doing another three impossible things yesterday, and a couple the day before, apparently, it turns out (shhhhhh! BIG SECRET COMING!) I am (whisper..) mortal. So yes, that means my head flops over like an omelet going bad and I have days where the 100,000 little muchkins eating my nerves (which really hurts, REALLY), gets me down...on the ground...in a small puddle of my saliva. So more pictures than words today! Back to anime hair day!

Yes, hair cut with oxygen, please do not smoke during this…or use my head as an ashtray (really that last one goes for anytime, not just haircuts).

Ta da, the new me! Or so the salon would like to have me believe. It is a well known salon secret that this is the LAST time you will ever see your hair that good. This is due to various spells, potions and magnetized ions that all hair salons have. Once exposed to the harsh reality called “Earth”, you can kiss this look goodbye (unless you are a model or are getting married, or like to use enough hairspray to lightly coat the inside of your lungs). Notice the eyebrows – not red!

Now I am waiting for ‘threading’, the most painful word outside of ‘bikini wax’ and ‘high heels mandatory’. I am practicing ‘cleavage’. Just in case I need to distract someone for a moment while I bop them over the head just like one of the little field mice (bad little rabbit fufu!).

This is ‘threading’ from India where basically you take two twines of strong wax string and counter twirl them at speeds so they sound like a band saw cutting logs in half. Then they approach your face and do just that (only the ‘logs’ are eyebrow hair being ripped out by the roots at several dozen per second). It is one of the few times when I am actually whispering, “Go Go Gadget: peripheral neuropathy!”

Here is the post salon look, BUT I have nicely shaped eyebrows. Odd that while my hair falls out in bunches my eyebrows are thriving. I put it down to the fact that it might have to do with blood flow and blood to the eyes is considered important (by me, and my body thankfully).

Okay, arrived at park, I have the purple and red feather earrings and with the wind whipping, I have ‘Mt Fuji’ brow (this is a Japanese insult to women who had foreheads larger than about two inches I think). See, and you thought manga was useless – but now I can insult other women using five different cultures though ‘If ya going to run wi da boyas then ya can’t drink the sherbert’ might not be useful not that I have left a very particular valley in Wales (“Ack, my head is like a zoo on fire!”).

Here is Cheryl bonding with nature and with one of the Parks’ large trees. It is a very popular tree and seems to thrive despite being climbed all over day in and day out for several generations.

Douglas fir grows to over 200 feet, and since we are in the older part of town there are still a few trees like that around. The one house I was in, a heritage one, had Douglas Fir beams under the floors which ran the length of the house (50 feet?) and were 16 inches by four inches. The thought of the cost of that under - flooring is sort of staggering (which is why Japan buys all the temple beams from B.C., but they just take the WHOLE tree back to Japan).

And thus ends my tour of ‘Beths’ Big Hair Day’ with Cheryl and I looking into the bright shining future of Sakura-Con. Where all manga, binsen, doujinshi, and other delights await (oh yeah, and the demonstrations, and fashion shows, and masque balls and cos-play balls).