New Skin/Equipment

So this has been a big week. On Monday I got my hair cut dramatically short and dyed. It was very exciting, getting a completely different style from a professional, fancy hair stylist at an expensive salon. I drove home and decided it would take a little while to get used to the new cut. The next day I completely hated it.

This is me on Monday night, trying to get a decent selfie with The Hair. (This was attempt #5)

For a variety of reasons, chief among them The Hair, Tuesday was a bad day. Nothing horrible happened, but everything seemed just to go wrong. I felt harried and stressed, as if I couldn't escape my life and my responsibilities. My solution? I cut my fucking hair. With scissors. In the bathroom. The best way I can describe this is essentially:

Kate: I'm going to cut my hair.
Life GM: Uh, are you sure? Do you have any skill in that?
Kate: No.
Life GM: Are you sure you don't want to just go and get someone else to do it?
Kate: No. I'm going to do it myself. What do I roll?
Life GM:  Two dice, two successes, difficulty 9.
Kate: I'm burning all my luck for the day...[rolls dice] 9 and 10.
Life GM: Let me see that...Jesus I don't believe it.

And so I sliced in some sweep-back bangs and hacked away the back until it was as thin as I wanted. And by some miracle (or ridiculously lucky dice roll), it fucking worked. My hair frames my face perfectly, and it's super easy to manage. After my little roleplaying session as Edward Scissorhands, I washed and polished down the bathroom til it sparkled and felt goddamn good about myself, and proceeded to play Skyrim feeling like I had scrubbed my soul with a pumice stone. Here I am on Wednesday night after silks, feeling pretty smug about my 'do.

This also shows off my awesome new super comfy unitard (which I did not know existed until I got one)

Moral of the story: From now on I'm going to the Hair Cuttery, and if I hate the result I totally have scissors at home.

And my big, big, big, big, BIG news is that I finally got a camcorder. An awesome, awesome, (ok it's not really that great) camcorder WITH a miniature tripod. Which allowed me to take the following 5 minute video of a routine I would one day like to do. Now, some warnings: 1) This video is boring. I spend a lot of time sitting there being tired. 2) I do not look pretty. I do not point my toes or lock my knees the way I should. 3) I move out of the view of the camera for a while, which is good, because that was when my shorts slipped down. 4) Just in case you can't view the video here, it's also on youtube.

This video is really important to me because it shows me all the ways (and there are so many ways) that I can improve. Clearly I need to engage my legs more, locking my knees, pointing my toes, and generally ensuring that my legs are a part of my performance, rather than stumps hanging off my torso. I need to work on my cross back straddle invert (3:25-3:40). I think Saturday I'm going to hit the gym and just work on my cross back over and over and over again until my arms ache and I'm crying and it looks slightly better. Naturally I also need to speed up this routine so that I can fit more into it. I think that's going to take greater endurance as well as just better familiarity with the moves involved. I need to get more used to linking moves together without dropping back to the floor for a rest between them.

Coming soon! More videos of me sucking at this stuff (and maybe cartwheels). Take care, Internet!