40 is the new 20

Like bloody hell it is.

Driving in to work this morning, a lady called in to give herself a birthday shout out, and the DJ commented that 40 is the new 20.

Even if I look at it from a perspective that with longer average lifespans, 40 isn't the 'end' of your life - but then, I never held to that, either. Hell, I don't consider 80 to be the 'end' of your life if you still have your mind and a good bit of your body and your health.

I'm only 30, and the idea that 40 is the new 20 was insulting as all get out - by the time I'm 40, I would have lived for 20 more year beyond my twenties. I'll be smarter, wiser, more confident, more secure, more Me. I'll have learned, and loved, and lost. I'll have overcome adversity, and I'll have given in to things I cannot change.

In fact, the ONLY thing that could possibly have NOT improved on me between the ages of 20 and 40 is my physical apperance - and nowadays, hell, that's not even a given. In ten years, I MIGHT not be obese anymore - it certainly gives me plenty of time to work towards it.

So, what, exactly makes 40 the new 20? Are 40y/o's now immature, still living with their parents, barely starting out on a carrer, and freshfaced and young? Holy shit, I most bloody well HOPE not.

I mean - really. Maybe that's what really pissed me off the most - the idea that perky boobs and a lack of crows feet are somehow better than all of the experience that extra twenty years provide. That if you could just stay suspended there - in your 20's - that makes you better than someone who has moved on and grown - maybe out, but DEFINITELY up.

But then, maybe that's the problem with this country and this culture, as a whole. We don't want to grow up. We want to stay children, and have someone else take care of us, and manage our retirement, and manage our health. We want someone to tell us what to eat, and when, and where to live, and what to want. Maybe we, as a country, HOPE that 40 is the new 20, because it means you can still be excused for not knowing better, for not caring more, for still having an adolescent attitude towards life.

No thank you. I happen to LIKE being an adult - with all the freedoms (and the pains) that entails. I only have two parents, and I don't need the gov't or society to be my stepparents of adulthood.

40 is the new 20 (0r 30) my ass. Droopy, stretchmarked, and bigger than it was 10/15/20 years ago as it may be.

Hmmm - I've been thinking of random things over the last few days that happened that was hair related...

1) My mother and my hair. She has a LOVELY head of two year old locks (that I talked her into getting) and I'm amazed by how long they are already - but then, I don't remember how long her hair was when she first started them. anyhow - I'm sitting on the couch, combing out my hair to condition it with some HH and retwist it, and she says in this 'Poor, poor *****cat' voice 'Poor thing, you've never been blessed with hair'. Now, at first, I wanted to buck up and get all - I just too kmy locks out! It's breaking off cuz of the dye! Do you SEE all this virgin growth??!?? but then I realized - ya know what? I don't WANNA be 'blessed' with hair - because that implies that it was just - given to me. I take great pride in earning what I got, and I know that I am going to (and have been) EARNING every. single. inch. of hair on my head. I might never be 'blessed' with hair - but I know that I'm going to have full, thick, long, lovely hair at some point, and it's gonna be because I worked for it. Dammit.

2) I started doing my 'style' in a slightly different manner - I'm starting out with tiny bits of hair - thus making the whole thing 'tighter' and smaller. Not only is it MUCH neater, it also seems to 'stay' better - I've got fewer stray bits and pieces - though, the fact that I'm now twisting it slightly HIGHER on my head means that the patchs of hair from in front of my ears tends to escape. If I remember in the morning, I give them a bit of extra love and leave them out to make cute little tendrils. If I forget, I jsut make two wee two strand twists, and tuck the twist behind my ear.
I like the thinner ones though - they are MUCH neater looking, and seem to fit my face better - I feel REALLY cute in them.

3) It's getting closer to trimming time!! I was looking at the thread on the Morrocan method, but I'm puzzled by how he achieved his dates - his date for trimming to encourage length is during the WANING portion of the moon, not the Waxing, as is usually said to be best - so I'm wondering where he is pulling these dates from. I think I'm going to stick with 'old schooll' lunar methods where you know the sign the moon should be in for hair growth, and you trim during the earliest part of the waxing moon in that sign. Hmph. I also think that I will henna -hmmm... I plan on trimming the 23rd (new moon is the 20th, and the solistice is the 22nd - so I'm not only getting the waxing of the moon, I'm also getting the waxing of daylight!), and while I would LIKE to henna the weekend before that (the 16th) I know that I'm going to at least ONE Yule Party that weekend - which pushes it back to THIS weekend - which would make it a full NINE weeks - that's OVER two months. And yes, yes, I did use cassia a few weeks ago, but that's neither here nor there - and besides, it didn't do me as well as my henna does me. So! I shall be *happy squeally noises* hennaing this weekend!! Whoohooooo!!! :) :) :) :hollie: But - I want to do the henna so that I have the BEST hair possible to trim with - as I'm going to base the amount of the trim on general thiness, as well as the feeling of the ends - and henna will let me 'cheat' on both.
I think that I'm going to do *thinks* 10 twists - five on each side - and trim mercilessly. If I trim too short to be able to do my usual style, I'll just switch back to the 'front bang' then 'side twist' style I started out with. I'm really lookin forward to having all virgin hair.

4) I've calmed down PJ wise - I'm still all over my vitamins, and I'm kicking around making some MTG to add to my usual hair oil (CHASM oil? *ROLFLOL*) and maybe trying out this 'Lenzi's Request' stuff...... and otherwise, I'm really satisfied with my hair.

My skin, on the other hand, makes me want to scream, and scrape it all off at once. I have what I like to call 'facedruff' - it's like dandruff, but it's not on my SCALP - it's on my face, and OCCASIONALLY it will creep into my hairline - esp. at my wee widows peak. I've been OCM'ing for - years - which helps CONCEAL the horrid patchs of flaky dry, dry, dry skin on my face, but hasn't really gotten RID of them. And if I 'exfoliate' them off (no matter HOW gently) it'll form little scabs, which then give me wee scars, which leaves me skin TORN up. So - I was reading up on this, because I wasn't really sure as to what the hell was going on with my skin - but I think it's dandruff - just - STUBBORN - dandruff. So - I think that I'm going to get some teatree oil and mix it in with my OCM oil. From what I've read, dandruff is actually an 'over reaction' or 'overgrowth' of your skin to a naturally occuring fungi that normally kicks in on our skin. Sooo.... the TToil usually both calms down the skins reaction AND the fungus - and makes things even better. Other than that - I really don't know WHAT to do with my skin. *sigh* And I drink more water than any one person (who isn't a camel) should so.... yeah.

Okay - I think I'm done now.

I plucked out THREE chin hairs today - THREE!! They were much finer than usual though - maybe due to my frequent plucking? I don't know.
I also realized that I really need to start taking more protien in - I'm almost CERTAIN that I'm not getting enough in a day.

I'm still planning on untwisting my hair tomorrow - I oiled my scalp last night with some SS Oil, and rinsed my head this morning (since I've started working out, I want to rinse regularily) and they are - so, so, soft - but still very tightly twisted, so that if I untwist one, it 'bounces' back into a spiral. I was a little worried about my hair getting too dry, so I rubbed some HH on it this morning too. I'm seriously considering going home tonight, SOAKING my head in ASC oil, and then untwisting tomorrow and seeing what I end up with.

So - after I rinsed out the henna, and decided that I would definitely have to DT, I figured - now seems like a good time to do the asprin mask.
I ground up 11 asprin, and mixed them with hot water - WAAAYYY too much hot water, I might add. I then dumped in some honey and mixed it - the whole thing turned into a messy slurry.
But, I sat down, and started dabbing it all over my face, then started rubbing gently. The asprin was ground up pretty fine, so it was a really nice bit of exfoliation. I felt a little stinging as I rubbed some areas (like my chin) and then a full face tingling. It's drying now (stickyly, of course), but I'm about to dab some more on and rub it in.

I figure I'll rinse it off the same point that I rinse the DT out of my hair. So! This should be interesting. I checked a couple of spots before hand to confirm that I still had the flaky patches, so It'll be interesting seeing what it looks like after I rinse.


Update:
Eh. I didn't see that much of a difference - my face feels good and smooth, and not as tight as usual, but - meh. It DID feel good, I will admit to that, and I'm sure that if I do it regularly, my skin will look better, but - didn't see the MAJOR difference that a lot of people have been seeing. But then, that might be because I'm already doing OCM, so - there isn't much further than my skin can go.

Oddly enough, I HAVE broken out - three or four pimples on the right side of my face that showed up this morning - not sure if that is from my pillowcase maybe, or what - but, I've got toothpaste on them to calm them down, and - I don't know. It's odd.

Will I do it again? Honestly, I doubt it.

It's funny - I actually ran across TLHC YEARS ago - at least two by now. A friend of mine on another site was talking about using the oil cleansing method, and she gave me a link to read about what it was. I looked at it, and at first dismissed it (what were all these white women with oddly long hair TALKING about??) but the more I read, the more interested I became.
I suffered (and still do) from oily dry skin. Yup, you heard me - oily AND dry. My skin becomes very oily, but I have these odd dry/flaky 'patches' all over the place. And the pimples! Ohh - the pimples! And - it was winter time in Indianapolis, and that wind and cold insured that my skin was ALWAYS dying for moisture of some sort - but the more lotion I used, the more I broke out.

After reading about OCM, I figured - heck! Why not! I already had some vitamin E oil, and we ALWAYS have EVOO in the house - another 2 bucks spent on castor oil would be cheaper than another 'moisturizing and cleansing' face wash. I made the first batch - and I LOVED it.
My skin LOVED it - the pimples vanished almost IMMEADIATELY, and the oil kepy my skin moisturized and soft enough that the dry patches didn't show. That happened - sheesh, when was that? November of 2004? Since then, I have used something OTHER than oil on my face - maybe 5 times? Usually, it was because I was someplace where my skin just felt - tacky dirty, and I just wanted a little soap.
BUT! The dry, tight, flaky patches? Still there - and if I DARED let my face dry completely without oiling it - my skin would be tight, and the little patches would show up grey and flaky. I tried to 'scratch' or exolifiate them off, and that did nothing but break the skin, and give me ultra fine scabs - which then, of course, turned back into the flaky patches that I THOUGHT I was getting rid off. Most of the commercial products for 'smooth' skin have BHA in them - and THAT was too harsh for my skin - once again, I would be left with more dry patches than ever.
So, I just stuck with the OCM, knowing that as long as my face was oiled, the patches wouldn't show.

Then - I got interested in my hair again, and I came back to TLHC (these white women with the oddly long hair are actually some ROCKING chicks!!) and I've found out about something ELSE that sounds right up my alley - an ASPRIN mask. I mean, once again - it makes sense - a weaker version of BHA, and, it's lightly exfoliating!

I promptly went out and got a bottle of ultra cheap asprin, and plan on trying out a honey asprin mask the same time I do my henna. If it works even HALF as well as the other stuff I've learned about on here has (henna, CO, OCM, honey!, SS oil) - I'm going to be in love! I might actually have - smooth, even, FLAKE-free skin again.


Okay - so the nails lead in was a BIT of a put on, the only thing I've considered doing to my nails was MAYBE henna'ing them, and noticing that the vitamins, oddly enough, DO seem to be showing results in my nails. They are growing faster, and they are DEFINITELY stronger. Great hair AND nails!??!?! *fans self* This rocks!

Body Matters (Part 2)

I got this in an email today…. it fits what I was talking about earlier sooooo perfectly. And it fits me too…


Understanding My Beauty
I see you looking at me with that look of admiration and confusion I have come to know so well.
I see you struggling to figure out what it is about me that won't allow you to look away.
I see you trying to pin point the physical trait that is drawing you so strongly to me.
I see you comparing me to the type of women who USUALLY grab your attention.
I see you noticing that you aren't the only man noticing.
I see you getting frustrated because you can't figure out why you think I'm so beautiful.

Well Baby, Let me help you out...
It's not my face, you've seen much prettier I'm sure.
It's not my make-up, I don't wear enough to really make a difference.
It's not my hair, it's nice but plain.
It's not my clothes, lots of other women dress nicely.
It's not my body, I don't have the kind of measurements to be considered "superfine".
It's not my smile, it's warm and welcoming but not unique enough to stand out.

You see,
It's my confidence, the way I don't seem to care whether you look or not.
It's my humbleness, the way I acknowledge my flaws rather than disguise them.
It's my honesty, the way you automatically feel it's okay to trust what I say.
It's my tactfulness, the way you never have to worry about your feelings being hurt.
It's my submissiveness, the way I quietly allow you to take charge and be a man.
It's my aggressiveness, the way I go after the things I want in life.
It's my intelligence, the way I think deeply and articulate clearly.
It's my naivete, the way I am willing to let you teach me the things I don't know.
It's my integrity, the way I show you that I will always do the right thing and the way I expect you to do the same.
It's my naughtiness, the way I am willing to let go of my inhibitions sometimes.
It's my sense of humor, the way I bring out the "silliness" in you and the way I make you laugh.
It's my thoughtfulness, the way I comfort you when you are hurt, encourage you when you are strong, help you when you are weak and motivate you to do things you never thought possible.
It's my loyalty, that special way I make you feel like you are the only man alive when I am with you.
It's my independence, the way I have my own place, my own ride, and I pay my own bills.
The way I don't ask YOU to do the things I should do for myself.
It's the way I have a life of my own so that I don't feel the need to "sweat" you when you are doing things that don't involve me.
Yes, I'm beautiful.
I have the kind of beauty that does not fade with age or change with trends.
I see you looking, trying desperately to figure out why YOU are so attracted to me.
Allow me to let you in on the secret to understanding MY beauty.
Look at me with your heart first.
Then, look at me with your eyes.
Now, Ain't I the finest woman you've ever seen?
And, Don't you FINALLY understand why?