One thing I've noticed about driving around here in Washington is that people love riding their brakes down a hill or mountain. I want to yell at them to downshift. Why should they wear out their brake pads any sooner than they have to? Honestly, you'd think they would know all about that from living here and that it would be foreigners like me who ride the brakes.

Sigh.

So of course the day before I fly, people are arrested in London for trying to take liquid explosives on the plane. The next morning I arrive at O'Hare at 7:15am to find that the line to get through security is 2.5+ hours long. You can't take liquids, gels, lotions, or even stuff like mascara or toothpaste. I had my dog with me; he weighed a ton and kept moving around in his carrier. My flight was delayed 2.5 hours and then I had to sit next to a lady with a baby and a 2-year old. The latter cried a lot. The lady had to get up several times to take her children to the bathroom and do other things. That was probably one of my worst days in recent memory.

I'm stuck out here in Seattle with basically nothing. I do have a car and a DVD player, but that's about it. I'm at the local library right now. I hate not knowing where I'm going when I'm driving around. I hate not having anything to do besides shopping.

Blah. The end of this week can't come soon enough.

Today's my last full day in Naperville. It's weird to think about. Tomorrow I get the privilege of flying my dog to Seattle.

The other night I stumbled upon what appears to be a cult of curly-haired people. Despite having worn my hair curly for the past 8 years, I had no idea that I was supposed to care for it differently than how one would care for straight hair. I've been inducted into a world of ritual, superstition, and science, all so that I can have pretty, bouncy curls. Shampoo is bad. Conditioner is good, but only if it has certain ingredients and lacks others. Touching hair = frizz. Plopping = good. I am a 2b/3a Botticelli PJ, modified CG as of 7/15/06, and my goals are BSL hair and a HG.

Honestly, though, I'm glad that I found the Naturally Curly message board. Looking at before and after photos, it seems the methods espoused by the book Curly Girl really work. I went to a few different stores and read every single ingredient on every single bottle of conditioner, looking for something that had the things I need and lacked the bad stuff. The conditioner I ended up going with has rosemary and oregano in it, and my hair smells like pizza. This will take some getting used to...

Tonight I saw A Prairie Home Companion. Overall I was about as disappointed as I expected. Here are my slightly scattered thoughts in bullet points. Spoilers abound.

• I hated what they did to Guy Noir--he was a bumbling fool. There were a couple times when he was as eloquent as he was on the radio show, but his dialogue pretty much had been lifted from the radio show (the part about her skirt being so tight he could read the embroidery on her underwear seemed particularly familiar).
  
  
• The Virginia Madsen character was ...odd. She had said that she likes making people happy and also bringing people to heaven. When you saw her (particularly at the end of the film), I guess the implication was that she was there because someone died; however, they were all laughing and having a good time, so maybe she was just there making them happy.
  
  
• I love Lily Tomlin. I wish she were my aunt.
  
  
• I also love Jearlyn Steele.
  
  
• molly--single mother--couldn't see angel
  
  
• tommy lee jones--killed--no reason
  
• lindsay lohan--lyrics sheet
  
• lindsay lohan--notebook--g-d
  

Note: I accidentally clicked "publish" instead of "save as draft". I don't know how to hide the post. Just know that I'm going to come back and elaborate upon the last bullet points.

Pita chips with sea salt from Trader Joe's taste like dead tongue skin. And if anyone knows what dead tongue skin tastes like, it's me.

My bloodwork came back and my doctor upped my dose of synthetic thyroid hormone. Good.