Hay guyz!

I come to you with a matter of great import. Mine hair.

See, I have more hair (on my head, shush you) than is remotely desirable on any but the most devout of hippies. If I could somehow remove these pesky legs and replace them with the rear end of a large fish, I'd make a perfectly acceptable mermaid. I could cosplay as Cousin It with very little trouble. You get the picture. Something must be done before I go bonkers and sleep-shave the lot of it into the bin.

So, after a month of indecision, I have decided the remove the problematic decision from my own clearly incapable paws, and give it up unto the whims of the internet. Yeah, that means you luverly lot get to choose what I do with this mop of magnificance.

In case you're curious, I thought I'd illustrate the horror with a photo of the aforementioned excessive hairage: [link]

Yeah, it's long. LONG. And that is the natural colour and flavour (ie, marginally wavy) of the hair. Thankfully, you can't really make out the sneaking greys from this photo. Hurrah, saved!

And if you wonder what my face might look like behind all that hair, it looks not unlike this: [link] (only perhaps with less tongue).

So whatever shall be done? Well, clearly I want something new. I'm happy to dye it any colour at all (except blonde, because I make a very poor blonde what with them dark eyebrows). I'd prefer it to be much much shorter, though I probably shouldn't go for ultrashort or my sister (who favours such haircuts) will likely bitchslap me til next tuesday. I've been thinking of maybe a blunt fringe. Or maybe some sort of punky thing with ragged edges. Or maybe I should get the whole lot dreaded? I've always sorta wanted dreads, but never had the guts.

Also, I must point out... I hate and fear the hair salon and all its denizens. Hair dressers are weirdly judgemental creatures (okay, they might not be, but I imagine they are), and there's something very personal and uncomfortable about having someone you don't even know fiddle about with your head. I could force myself to go - but as you can see, the last time I did that was a LONG time ago... I've not ruled the hairdresser thing out, yet. But I will add; I'm seriously considering cutting the hair off myself, probably when the husband is out at work and therefore unable to stop me. This is another reason why dreads are appealing - no hair salon for the me! Very high maintainance, though, and I should add - I'm horribly lazy when it comes to hair maintainance, and I don't want any style that's going to require a regular hour of effort every morning. Low maintainance is key, folks.

Feel free to make your suggestions, for it is you who will decide what the hell to do! I am looking forward to hearing of my fate. :3 Or at least that of the hair.

(Note: any who choose to write anything along the lines of 'OMG YOUR HAIR IT IS BEAUTIFULS DO NOT CUT IT OMG OMG TRAVESTY KEEP THE HAIR PLZPLZPLZ!!!11!!1!' will be summarily ignored as a lunatic. Thank you.)

For those of you who have never lived in the midwest, allow me to speak briefly of Tornado Season, for we are in it. It occurs in Spring, and this is my first.

In England, I was accustomed to the occasional thunderstorm - the kind of affair with a lot of whole-sky sheet lightning punctuated by long silent pauses, and the sort of thunder that sounded like someone driving a large, stone-wheeled chariot around the sky rather slowly. These were the sort of thunderstorms I would lean out of an upstairs window to watch. Not so out here.

At the present moment, thunder and lightning are competiting for attention, and the garden has flooded again. This storm started around midnight last night and is still crossing over us, apparently opting to do it rather slowly, so it has been raining for a long time (which is somewhat unusual). Thick, heavy, midwest rain which drops from the sky in huge droplets and soaks everything in minutes. We've had no hail yet today, though it's common in storms such as these despite the very pleasant and warm weather that graces this state when it's not indulging in a storm. The sort of hail we get out here is usually at least the size of a golfball, but can get as large as tennis ball size - it is deadly hail in which you do not go out, not the little stinging hail I was accustomed to.

But hail and rain are nothing to the thunder and lightning themselves. Gone is the ponderous rolling of a single stone-wheeled chariot - and here I was foolishly thinking that was a fullblown storm, and wondering how on earth anyone could be afraid of them. Instead of the chariot, it often sounds as though someone is dropping huge boulders directly on to my roof, while many people in stone-wheeled motorbikes race each other around the sky at breakneck speed. Forked and sheet lightning flickers constantly, all around, sometimes so bright to make the night seem like day, if it happens to be night. The thunder is so loud and the lightning so bright - and both so constant and aggressive - that it actually scares me. For the first time in my life, I am afraid, and I find this fascinating.

Mind you, this is - technically speaking - the safe part of a storm. When it's raining and thundering and lightninging... (uhh, lightninging? How does one say, it is doing lightning?) ...when the storm is getting busy making lightning-children and rain, we know the worst of it has already passed, for the front that causes tornados is already ahead and moving away.

Tornados occur, I am reliably informed, at the leading edge of a storm front as the two temperatures of air collide. This collision causes the air to rotate, and sometimes to then spin off and form a tornado (which forms from the top down and is less likely to 'touch down' if there is a lot of ground clutter, and if it is rather weak. It needs more energy before it can start ripping up houses). So, tornados ought to be easy to spot...? Alas, no. They don't advertise their whereabouts and while they are more likely to form in certain areas of the storm (anywhere the 'rotation' effect is more pronounced along the leading edge) they can't be predicted accurately, despite the fact that the state I currently live in has possibly the most advanced weather detecting apparatus in the world. Radar... who ever heard of them using radar to detect weather...? Here in the midwest, they do, because our weather has balls. It's dangerous.

So, picture this. You are sitting on your sofa, and all outside is calm apart from a bit of strong wind (although you've been expecting a storm to come in for hours - locals develop a sense for this, and I'm beginning to, though my storm-sense is very weak, still). You are watching your favourite show, and maybe enjoying a nice cup of tea. Abruptly, the most ungodly wailing starts up - sirens from WW2 is the exact sound, and you (for an insane second) imagine you are in London, it is the Blitz, the nazis are about to bomb... you feel a shiver of misplaced historical fear. But no, you know better. It is not the nazis, it is something altogether more unpredictable - tornados are coming to town.

You grab the remote immediately you hear the sirens and flick to a local channel, where an earnest man points to a knife-thin line of storm crossing, it seems, the whole of the midwest. It is a slim red line trailing orange and yellow storm in its wake, until you zoom in, when it appears thicker, and drawn upon it are various circles. Some of these indicate merely rotating air, which may or may not become a tornado soon. Some of these are already tornados. Thankfully, the man on the tellybox has equipment so sophisticated that he can give you the exact street address of any tornados in your county, and does. He is using Titan 5D, he explains proudly, switching the view to show you something else... you gather that this means he has five radars which collect weather data, among other things, though it remains unclear. You spend ten minutes watching intently to decide if there are any tornados in the area, before the weatherman begins to repeat himself. At this point, sirens still wailing, you determine that the weather people are recommending people in your immediate area (as well as several other areas) prepare to take cover shortly if necessary. The weatherman adds that if you happen to be living in a mobile home, you should seek more sturdy cover right away.

So, you grab everything you cannot live without (important papers, passports, wallets, an LED storm-lantern you found at Bass Pro, family pets) and shove it in your 'safe room', which happens to be the cupboard-sized toilet under the stairs. It is the most internal room in the house, on the bottom floor and near several thick load-bearing walls, and contains no windows. It is ideal. Once your belongings are flung inside, you put on your shoes and a jacket and return to the sofa to listen for updates.

Outside, a nearby lightning strike knocks out a transformer and cuts power to a good portion of the city, renders the sky a brilliant blinding white for a second, and then a crack-of-doom thunder roll threatens to tear apart the sky. The lights in your house cut out for a moment but kick back in almost right away, and your neighbour's car, startled, begins to sound its alarm. The man on the tv explains that there is a tornado a mile away, and while it hasn't touched down yet (it is a mere baby 'nader), it can't be predicted. He draws a line of 'predicted direction' on the screen, which goes directly over your house. You wring your hands; the local sitting on your sofa beside you seems unconcerned. You decide to trust his judgement. Somewhere outside, the sirens of a fire engine join the wailing tornado sirens and race by at breakneck speed, disappearing into the night.

Your local goes outside for a smoke, and to look at the sky. Locals do this a lot. They seem to have a very finely tuned weather-sense. They know when a storm is coming well over a day before it does. They feel it in their bones. It's weird.

Perhaps an hour later the front has passed, and you are left with the thick storm trailing in its wake. The tornado failed to hit your house, but this becomes unsurprising, quickly... a single storm of the right kind can spawn hundreds of the things, most of which do not touch down, and none of which have crossed you directly, yet. For some reason, all the locals find it easy to sleep in these violent, amazingly loud storms... they seem to find it comforting.

I do not yet feel the same way. I always sleep badly during a thunderstorm.

Oh, and before you think to yourself, "ah, well tornados can't be that dangerous! Most of them don't even touch down!"... aha, well, yes. Most of them don't. Most of them are small. Lots of them don't even form. But here are some photos of tornados that were taken in my state: [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]
Some of them get to be rather big. In fact, my husband tells me that when he was two years old, a tornado completely destroyed his family home. Another tornado more recently hit a nearby city. It was a mile wide and so powerful it tore the asphalt off the roads, and when it struck it destroyed around 15,000 homes, or so I've been told. Only eleven people died. This state is rather well prepared - it is smack bang in the middle of tornado alley, after all. We get hundreds, if not thousands of the things a year.

The most recent tornatic activity in this area (June 6th) was comparatively small. It still managed to cut power to almost 50,000 homes and businesses, close a major highway, destroy homes and hospitalise several people with its 87mph winds. Lovely.

I'm getting used to this place. Sometimes, it's rather exciting.

You've probably noticed I've been absent for a while. I don't like to update my journal when there's bad shit happening. Kinda feel there's no place for that sort of whinging online, nobody really wants to hear it, and I don't really want anyone to hear it, either. So I feel reluctant to post.

But I'm going to anyway. Not because I want sympathy (and I don't really), but because I ought to update every now and again, and if I wait for fun nice things to say, I might never sodding update. (Ain't I cheerful today?)

So instead of telling you about any of the actually important things going on, I'm going to whinge about something completely pointless and stupid and unimportant because I want to, and because it pissed me off yesterday. A virus has wiped my computer clean. I'm typing from the laptop at the moment. I lost everything - all my art, my writing, my music, and... and this is silly, but true... worst of all, my Oblivion saves. I've tried to play that game through several times now, with various different characters. Twice I've gotten far and been doing well, with the plot and everything. Both times, a virus has taken down the computer and I've lost my save.

A bit frustrating. Clearly, I should back up my stuff more regularly. And I'm not sure I can be bothered to put in the 100+ hours of gameplay to get back to the stage I was at. Isn't that retarded, that the thing I'm most upset about is my stupid game save? But dammit, I put a lot of time into that. I'd just gotten to bits of the game I hadn't done before. Pain in the arse. Maybe I should start over as someone new, despite the fact that I think I had set up a practically perfect character who was kicking so much ass it was untrue, so much fun to play him. And now he's gone forever. Blah.

If I ever meet the person that wrote that virus, I'm going to kick him in the balls until he dies from it. No, wait... I'm going to make sure he LIVES through it. And I'll hire people. And we'll take it in turns to kick him in the balls for the rest of his life, until he's really old, like at least 92. And I'll hire a chap to kick him in the balls at his funeral and everything. He'll never get a girlfriend or have sex or get married or reproduce. He won't be able to get a job, or talk on the phone, and he'll never be able to talk to people. He won't be able to even go shopping. Because there'll always be someone there, kicking him in the balls. For the rest of his life.

Damn, I hope he's young. I want this fuck to suffer.

So, recently, husband and me ended up buying a big stack of dvds - there were lots on sale at Blockbuster. We've not watched 'em all yet, but still. I like having new movies to watch.

We got a bunch of things, but have only watched three so far. Stardust, which we both really loved, wonderful film. Kibakichi, which said it was a samurai werewolf movie - we got it because it looked low budget and awful and therefore promised to be hilarious. It wasn't hilarious. Just low budget and awful. We didn't even manage to finish it.

We also got Paprika, which we watched tonight! Which is the point of this journal... I wanted to recommend it to you! I actually picked it up because I happened across it in the "buy three for $20" pile, and remembered I had read another journal on deviantart recommending it as being awesome.

[link]

That journal wasn't wrong! It is a lovely and strange little anime, beautifully drawn and plotted, just difficult enough to keep you guessing without getting so confusing you don't know what's going on. The basic story is this: there is a new invention - a headset called the DC Mini which allows psychotherapists to record and view people's dreams. It gets stolen. Chaos slowly but surely erupts! Paprika is, in turns, wonderfully surreal, brilliantly disturbing, unnervingly bright and colourful, and completely involving. It watches like a really strange mystery, just the right amount of mystery and the right amount of revelation.

You need to see it, if you can! It will be well worth your time!

This especially goes for , and . If you guys haven't seen it yet, you need to. You'll love it.

OMGOMGOMG.

I have turned into a screaming fan. (Isn't that sad?)

I just realised - after a brief hunt, ahaha, detective work, ahahaha - one of my favourite comic artists EVER is on the deviantart! GASP!

Becky Cloonan!



Her!

Okay, so you might not know who she is. If you don't, you are a fool! FOOL! She is utterly awesome. She did the art for Channel Zero: Jennie One, as well as a ton of other things. Also this: [link] what is hers what she is writing and doing the drawings for also. And it is gooooood.

Anyway, so I'm a bit overexcited. I need to find a way to perfect the talent-stealing machine now. I want her hands so bad.