My ears, that is. I bleached, then dyed, the bottom half of my hair blue. Well, at home I got as far as bleaching and turning my hair a pale green color that made it look chlorine-stained. I got my ears, and they turned out the nice turquoise shade I was trying for. Then I went to the lady who cuts-ahem, used to cut-my hair. She told me it was hopeless and I should wait for it to grow out. She also told me to take lots of pictures so I would remember my horrible mistake. She didn't seem to get that I liked it way better than plain brown, even if it didn't turn out exactly as I wanted.

Then, my neighbor recommended a different hair stylist, who not only got exactly what I was going for, but also managed to dye it a nice, vibrant, rich blue for me, no problem.

I'm tempted to write about how free and self-expressed I feel now, but I guess that's obvious. :)   

My hubby and I are throwing a different sort of 4th of July party this year. Every 4th of July, I end up feeling all depressed, because I see all these people getting all jingoistic and swaggering around about what an awesome example of democracy the US is without doing anything to further democracy or to fight against creeping authoritarianism and the scary things happening in our country. So, I thought this year, I could assemble a group of intelligent, thoughtful people who would like to come to my place and discuss issues like patriotism, democracy, social justice, and peace. My little part for reinvigorating genuine political and social discourse as an integral part of our culture and political system. Also, we'll eat BBQ and drink beer and other traditional 4th of July beverages.

A couple of my local friends have insisted that we pick up the party as it gets on toward evening and caravan down to Lake Tahoe where (I've heard) they have awesome fireworks set to music. Or perhaps we won't all caravan down there, but the party will be early enough in the afternoon to allow for that.

Another exciting element of this party is (optional) costumes! I think I'll be dressing up as a wiretap. I'll certainly be dressing up as something, hoping others will feel emboldened to dress up as well. My husband will almost certainly not be dressing up, so the more reserved guests will feel emboldened to come without a costume, too.

In a fit of schoolmarmish enthusiasm, I've also been thinking about providing some suggested reading to sort of provide a common theme for our thinking and discussion at the party. I was considering maybe one of the Federalist papers (what was the one that provided such an eloquent argument against party politics?), the text of the Patriot act, and maybe a book about global poverty or the global water crisis. But these are just ideas off of the top of my head. Any other ideas?

I decided to just jump in and start e-mailing my friends as part of my continued quest toward self-expression. I've been wanting to do something like this for several years, but have always waited until I could do it 'right,' with an organized guest list and the reading material all carefully selected. It feels powerful just to declare the damn thing as happening and to let it come into shape gradually.

If you somehow found this blog and aren't one of the people whom I e-mailed about this party and you're like, 'Wow! I'm so the kind of person who would be into a party like this! I should go, and be DancingSinging's new awesome friend! And I happen to live in or near Reno!' then post your e-mail address in the comments and I'll e-mail you. You can give me your real-life name and I'll do exhaustive research to make sure you're not a creepy stalker or serial killer, and then you can come and we'll be bffs. It'll be sweet.

So, I just got back from the Potlatch literary science fiction convention. When I was there, I felt wonderful--interesting, vibrant, young. With no one but myself to clothe, feed, and keep track of, I felt like I was flying everywhere I went. Coming back to the ballast of my toddler's needs, our family's financial restrictions, and the relatively bland intellectual environment I've created for myself felt deflating, aging.

I've thought a lot about it, and I've decided that there's nothing wrong with my responsibilities as a mother, or with the homemaker career I've adopted since my child was born. Rather, I rediscovered a part of myself at that convention whom I've been neglecting, and life without her is drab and heavy by comparison. So, I've decided to seize every opportunity to draw out and nourish this bubbling, laughing, passionate intellectual I've recently become reacquainted with.  I think that she can co-exist comfortably with the cheese-sauce-stained Mommy; I don't have to choose between my love for and enjoyment of my family and giving expression to this long-lost person inside of me.

With this new decision to be more expressive and more adventurous in revealing my true self, I've done several fun and cool things since last weekend. One of which is starting this blog. I've been thinking about writing one for a few years, but have always stopped myself, never confident that I could be interesting or dedicated enough for it. But I decided, screw that! I might be boring, melodramatic, or narcissistic here, but it seems that if I'm going to be working on all this identity stuff, I ought to give myself permission to act like a teenager. It seems like it will be necessary to be awkward at first, and I decided that's OK.

So, here are the other things I did so far in my effort to be more interesting to myself and to have more fun. Yesterday, we had lunch with my husband at this burger joint/batting cages combination place. When we had eaten there before, I had looked longingly at the slow-pitch softball cage, but, having no memory of ever swinging a bat at a ball before, I was sure I would miss every one and feel stupid. Also, it would be a waste of money. But this time, with my experience at Potlatch fresh in my mind, I announced to my husband that I was going to do it. So, after my husband explained about buying a token and asking for a beginner's bat, I did it. And I didn't miss every one. I actually hit six of the twenty balls. Not bad.

Earlier in the week, my husband spotted a Streetfighter II arcade game at the restaurant where we were eating lunch. I noticed myself wishing that I was the kind of person who would be willing to "waste" the 50 cents playing it, even though I wasn't good enough to keep the game going very long. Thinking again of my Potlatch self-expression goal (and with some gentle encouragement from my hubby), I overcame my fear of embarrassment at how crappy I would play, got some change, and jumped in. It was fantastic. I even learned how to throw the cool blue fireball and to fling my virtual opponent down over my shoulder to thunk! on the ground. Whenever my screen avatar flexed his muscles in victory, I joined him.

Something cool think I've noticed about this self-expression thing, other than the joy I feel and the melting away of my resentments about the various drains on my free time, is that the people around me seem to feel freer to express themselves, too. I seriously doubt that my husband would have played Streetfighter II if I hadn't wanted to jump in. And the college kid who was serving us and who made change for the machine went from being a standard, polite waiter-guy to a friendly and enthusiastic real-guy after we started playing. Perhaps I'll end up with more genuine and close friends out of this.

I think all this is going to be a great influence on my writing, too. I'm already thinking about how I can transform this memory I have of doing cannonballs off of the diving board with the adolescent boys at a stifling lawn-party at my in-laws' into a short story. I'll post more if it develops into something.

In other news, I'm going to be looking into using Kool-Aid as a temporary blue hair dye. I heard that it works--we'll see.