Homey So don't play that! AKA a Very Bad Product Review

I am shallow.  We know this.  I am obsessed with two things.  The first thing is lip gloss.  It took me almost two years to find the PERFECT day shade and night shade of red in lip gloss.  Day shade is L'Oreal Infalliable Le Gloss 465.  The night shade is the same brand 320 (also happens to be one of Gwen Stefani's go to shades since she is contractually obligated to wear that brand).  I only wear lipgloss despite having a bazillion tubes of lipstick that people seem to give me. I like soft and shiney lips - what can I say?

The second thing I am obsessed with is my hair.  I have always had a very wild, almost untameable mane.  If I let it dry naturally - on a humid day I look like Rosanadana.  Unlike most people though - going blonde actually helped it as opposed to drying it out and making it frizzier.  I have gone to great lengths to get it to the perfect shade of multi-tonal buttery blonde.  This is my signature.  Seriously - between the blonde hair, the boobs and the red lip gloss I could have made a killing as a pin up girl back in the day. 

I also admit that I am totally a do it yourselfer.  The kind that make even the most patient of hairstylist cringe.  I will butcher my own bangs because I don't want to shell out $5.00 every three weeks as they start to creep past my eyebrows and into the vision zone.  I also do my own coloring.  Yes I know that when doing a root touch up you are only supposed to color the roots, then after it has processed for a bit, run the rest of the color through.  Yes I failed beauty school, but not coloring .  I have a LOT of hair though.  I mean Texas sized, mother of all manes sized hair.  I don't have the patience to do it the proper way.  It's bad enough that it takes me an hour just to flat iron it!  So I target the roots first, then take the 2nd bottle and attack the rest.  Process for 20 minutes, wash it out, condition the hell out of it & voila - the hair even a goddess would envy. That was until Sunday (insert sinister DUN DUN DUN here)

Since it takes two packages to reblonde - I always try to look for sales on product.  Garnier introduced a new product called Olia claiming to be oil based and not as harsh as the other products out there.  Anyone who has ever colored their own hair can tell you that the worst part is the ammonia smell and sting.  Garnier claimed to have minimized it.  So even though it wasn't on sale - I decided to try Olia  The shade 90.3 matched my hair color, so twenty dollars later I am out the door ready to reblonde myself.  The bottle was fancy and the gloves were black,  Good OOOH AHH factor.  The product didn't have the horrible ammonia smell and was very no drip.  It was almost lotion like which I acutally didn't enjoy because it didn't feel like it was covering properly.  I left it on the correct amount of time and went to wash it out.

When I saw myself in the mirror pre-shower - I was alarmed.  My hair looked darker.  I thought maybe it was just because I hadn't washed the gunk out. I rinsed, used their special conditioners and rinsed again.  When I came out of the shower - my hair looked light brown.  This didn't please me at all.  When it dried - it felt dry and went from my beautiful, shiney, buttery blonde to a dull dirty honey blonde.  I was PISSED.  I easily went about three shades darker.

I called Garnier and they were closed.  I left a message on their facebook page (I don't leave nice messages) and was told to call back.  I tried calling back the next day only to be hung up on by a recording 5 separate times.  When I finally did get through, their rep wasn't exactly helpful.  I'm trying to explain why I am unhappy and she is trying to give me tips on coloring. "Well ma'am, I can tell you this, if you purchase another product to do an all over lightening - it isn't going to work."  Uhm, if I go purchase a platinum blonde shade and do my hair - it most certainly will. I've done it before. It might fry it, but L'Oreal has pretty amazing conditioners with their kits. Then she tells me that I have to get a quality control number from the box and could I call back tomorrow?  REALLY?  You have an uber pissed customer on the phone and you want them to call you back with numbers?  I'm sorry - how many more minutes on my cell do you really want to waste?  Tell me you are sending me two coupons for  2 boxes of their Nutriusse line and now we are talking.  In the end - I ended up hanging up on her and I doubt I will get my compensation.

So as a public service announcement - I am of the opinion that if you are planning on trying one of the light shades of Garnier Olia line -  skip it and find another product.  It isn't worth the darkened hair and well I missed the just colored feel your hair has with other products. My mane always seems a bit more manageable the day after a coloring.  With Olia - my hair felt frizzy - not that I don't have 4 different bottles of  smoothing serum to fix that - but that is beside the point.

So Garnier, USA - you have lost a customer.  As I promised the customer service person - I am spreading the word as to how unhappy I am with your product.  If I can save one person from having to deal with the agony of "That wasn't my hair color an hour ago!!!" - then I have succeeded! To top it off; since it is significantly darker - my silver roots are going to be more prominent when they start to grow back in.  Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned by hair products and I am currently one pissed off she-devil!  You don't mess with my tresses!

WWPSD?

What WOULD Patti Stanger do?

I am ready to move on.  I am really, really am -  I think.  Ok.  Maybe not as much as I think I am.  Despite being separated and subsequently divorced; I usually had the ex sex or S(ex) as I have officially coined it to fall back on. That has gone the way of the dinosaurs though and it's probably for the best. It was more of a "I know what you like, you know what I like - let's wham bam thank you ma'am it and go to sleep".

I am supposed to be on a dating moratorium.  I am for the most part.  I am not exactly going out of my way to lure men into my twisted web only to have my time wasted, chicken out before it happens or let my insecurities ruin a perfectly good coffee interrogation. I am not putting much stock in the idea that any guy that could possibly make it to the texting stage will make it much further than that.  Heck, yesterday I was even willing to step outside my comfort zone to have a beach meet and greet.  I cancelled last minute though because he sounded like exactly like Baljeet from Phineus and Ferb.  I knew his ethnicity, but his voice had more girlish qualities than mine.  Ok, so add shallow to the list of why I am single too.

What it boils down to is that I am still afraid to have sex with someone new. The guy I had my fling with back in December suggested we hook up Saturday and while I agreed to it, I spent the whole day terrified of  how exactly I was going to handle it.  It didn't happen, so I wasted a day of worry and shaved nether regions for nothing, but that last detail is beside the point.  I was REALLY drunk that night in December.  Saturday I wouldn't have been. Nothing much has changed since December.  I might be a few pounds heavier, but not that much of a difference.  Maybe it was because I was a bit "ahem" theatrical that night, maybe it was I remember telling him how douchy his V-neck t shirt was (I STILL cringe when I think about that.) Whatever it was; my brain couldn't turn off the insecurities.

Hello - wasn't I the girl who gave a popular DJ on Z-93  a bj while he was on the air (and this was a couple of hours after I had finished up with the hot guy from Footlocker who forgot to tell me he had an amazon girlfriend who probably would have kicked my ass 6 sides of Sunday if she had found out). Wasn't it my ass plastered on the hatch of my Dodge Daytona in a nightclub parking lot.  Didn't I have sex with one of the multiple Kevins (or was he a Chris, maybe a Randy?  I don't remember) on some random piece of playground equipment at 3 am? Where did this girl go?  These days I have far more feminine attributes then I did back then.  My hair has been conquered.  I have quite the round butt without it being Kardashian huge and what I didn't have in cleavage back then - I have more than tripled.   Lena Dunham goes full frontal in almost every episode of Girls and her body isn't really all that.  If she can subject herself to the masses, then surely I can get naked in front of one guy right? Maybe?   

In the end, it's an ongoing battle of mind over libido.  It isn't like there is a shortage of guys out there willing to do the deed and most of them are pretty damn hot. The blonde haired Angel will tell me to stick to the moratorium, delete the dating profile and wait until someone presents himself in person.  The red headed devil will tell me to close my mind and just do it.  It's just sex.  It's just that thing I used to do for sport.  My issues are too grand right now to consider a steady relationship and my social skills are too awkward to actually just go on dates.  It's quite the conundrum.  I guess I'll just go home and contemplate this on my new bed that is much too big for one person.  I just hope I get over this mental stigma before Operation Code Name Kangaroo is supposed to happen.  THAT may be one you want to stay tuned for....

Catfishing

Manti Te'o.  Never has one name rocked the world of internet dating so severely. Granted the circumstances surrounding his situation were borderline bizarre, but the base of it all isn't as far fetched as the media made it out to be.   This is one of the few times I have real world experience I can relate to stories in the media. I have to of them actually.  One led to a marriage and one almost led to the end of my marriage.

I met the ex online.  This was when online dating was still taboo and you didn't tell people that's how you met. It was long before Eharmony, Match.com, Plenty of Fish or OKCupid.  Sure AOL had Love@aol,  but you were considered pretty pathetic if you used it.  No, we met in a chatroom called Witty (yes I am really dating myself there).  We talked online for awhile, then on the phone.  We fell in love before we ever met because we had the opportunity to get to know each other without the complications of sex getting in the way. Fortunately we were both honest with each other, so there were no big surprises.  I flew out to meet him never even having seen his picture.  I just knew he was "the one".  I moved to CA 3 months later and everyone thought I was crazy.  I knew he was the man I was going to marry and felt that because I had gotten to know him so well that we would truly be the couple who made it to death do us part  In hindsight with the exception of Gman, we both wish it kind of never happened.  I can't regret it though because I got the most amazing child out of it. 

Flash forward a couple of years.  For the most part we were happy.  We went out and did stuff together,  We'd go on bike rides, out to eat, and we'd play wt the beach.  Then we discovered MMORPGs.  For you laymen out there - it stands for Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games.  That was where the decline of the marriage started.  Once we started playing Final Fantasy XI, real life stopped.  We no longer went out.  Neighbors wouldn't see the ex for days.  It consumed all of our free time.  We also didn't tell anyone we were married because we didn't think anyone would want to play with a couple; we were new the whole experience after all.  Since I worked and he didn't - he had a lot more time to develop friendships and while we had our own linkshell (i.e guild) - we still ended up playing with others more than with each each other. So I ended up in a group of people from Massachusetts somehow.  From that group I met a guy who went by the screen name Kaiden.  We started playing almost exclusively with each other mostly because the ex was off doing things with his group.  It became a different kind of online romance because we were interacting - it was just as a Hume monk and a Mithra Red Mage.  I admit I fell for him because he gave me the attention I wasn't getting at home.  He told me he had fallen in love with me, he sent me in game gifts and I would have to pretend to disconnect to wipe out the chat so the ex didn't see what was going on.  I even snuck calls into him on my work cell phone since I could have guys numbers in that phone without question.

I eventually got caught due to some circumstances as crazy as Manti Te'o (my married secret was about to be spilled by a guy who was pretending to be a girl to get the attention of a girl in our linkshell - only to find out the the girl  he was after was also a guy after they had a same sex female in game marriage.  Did you follow that? lol) and  and had to admit to Kaiden I was married and had to admit to the ex that I had feelings for Kaiden. I was then faced with the decision whether I wanted to save the marriage which was already starting to fail, or save my relationship with Kaiden and leave my husband.  Even though I was miserable - I stayed with the ex and tried to work it out.

So how does this happen?  Simple.  It is easier to be open with a stranger who isn't going to judge you. You control how much information you give them and you can paint the picture any way you want it.  The longer it goes on it can either become totally complicated if you have spun webs of untruth, or it feels very real because you have an emotional connection with someone who doesn't think you are fat, stupid or that the world would be better off without you in it. You are connecting with someone who wants to be there for you.   It also works on the flip side.  You can be the person on the other end.  The one who is there for someone else.  Sometimes it is just as important to be needed as it is to want the attention.

In a way, that is why online dating has become so popular.  We have become a culture of instant gratification.  We have smart phones that keep us connected to everything.  We have movies on demand, book on our e-readers, hell you can even get free porn when you want it.  It gives you a way to instantly connect with someone of your gender specific dating needs.  Who wouldn't enjoy the attention of a hot guy or gal who thinks your picture looks great and wants to get to know more about you?  Its a slippery slope that sometimes blurs the line between fantasy and reality though.  There comes a time when you actually have to say we need to meet or this is dumb.  I would say after a month of talking - if you haven't actually met the person - it is time to move on. 

So don't judge poor Manti T'eo.  He was far from home, had the pressures of playing ball for one of the more prestigious school in the country and he thought he found someone special.  It happens to the best of us.  OK - maybe it just happens to me, but then if it didn't - this would be a very short blog!

Dear Spam Filter Stalker (as you are affectionately know on Facebook)

Dear commenter who always ends up in my spam filter and who is always trying to pimp out a different website with every new comment.  I would take you a little more seriously if you went through the proper channels of commenting instead of inviting me to risk internet virus with your websites du jour.  I welcome all comments and quite frankly wish more people would, but I can't respond if you spam me. 

Don't let the comment moderation code scare you! Go ahead, respond the proper way and maybe then I can answer your questions.   I however do not endorse any website unless I fully believe in the product or the writer.

Thanks!

K

I Just Can't Get the Hang of Being a Cougar

I am debating whether I should be cursing Jennifer Lopez or thanking her.  You see she is in her 40's and has her little boy toy Casper Smart who is in his 20's.  Suddenly I was hit upside the head with the proverbial bat and it all made sense to me as to why 20 somethings have been crawling out of the woodwork recently.  Up until reading that issue of US magazine in the lunch room - it had been a mystery as to why these uber young guys were trying to hook up with me.  No More.  Seriously.  My writer crush is 27.  There is another 27 year old who checks in once a week to see if I have changed my mind about letting him come over for movie night.  There was one who was 26 but has 2 kids from 2 different baby mamas (and he wondered why nobody would date him - sorry  I have 1 of my own and my own family drama).  There was also a 27 year old law school student who faded into the fabric which is just as well.  There have been a couple others, but those were the noteworthy ones of 2013.

I remember guys in my 20's.  They were not as smooth as this current crop of youngsters.  Then again, my 20's were spent extremely drunk and it didn't take much convincing to take me home.  I couldn't imagine dating anyone older when I was younger.  A 40 year old man seemed well, gross. (A pass would have been given for Harrison Ford or Dr. Drew). I did have an affair with a 35 year old married man in my 20's and he seemed so much more mature than me.  Even then  - it was only like a 7 year difference in age.

When queried as to why someone who is 15 years my junior would be interested in someone who is feasibly old enough to be their mother; I got a few different responses.  "Older women know what they want and don't play games" "Older women have it together" "Older women know what they are doing in bed".  Obviously these guy don't realize who they are dealing with.  I don't know what I want although if it involves ice cream or a nap - I might be game.  Have it together?  Give me a moment to collect myself as I am rolling on the floor laughing.  I am FAR from having it together.  I am still entangled by the marionette strings the ex seems to have me attached to.  Good in bed?  Maybe, but it's going to take more than coming over for Netflix to find out.

Guys in their 20's;  it seems are after the instant gratification (writer crush excluded).  When I was in my 20's - unless it was a club screw - the guy asked you and followed through.  They got to know you. I think the term was DATING.  Then again - that could just be an internet thing and not just a youngster thing because I have had older guys who just wanted to "hang"

 I admit I entertained the idea to of going out with one of these youngsters.  I owed it to the blog. I needed a juicy scandal to rock the writing. It was before the Mayans said the world would end - I mean wasn't that a good reason?  If the world ends tomorrow - you are damn skippy sure I am banging a young hottie tonight!  We made plans & he bailed last minute.  A few days later he was begging me to just let him come over.  He almost wore me down until he threw a fit over having to park a few blocks down the street.  (Nothing changes your resolve like a temper tantrum.  Doesn't work for the 6 year old or the 27 year old).  He still tries and I still turn him down.  I am probably crazy - the boy is hot and has an amazeballs chest.

  J Lo can have her boy toy.  I want a guy who is willing to make some sort of effort, but in a world of cell phones, DVRs and porn on demand - these boys don't understand the meaning of that.  I think it's even sadder that a younger women would entertain the "Main Hang" theory.  Make the guy date you proper.  You deserve it!  Seriously - if you aren't worth the effort of taking out - he isn't worth the effort of taking off your clothes.  Guys will usually take the path of least resistance as long as they are allowed.  Not on my watch though!  I think they forgot one key element of the older woman.  We have heard it all, done it all and seen it all.  That experience they seek will be their downfall because they aren't accustomed to putting in that time to get to know the person which is what I at the very least expect out of any suitor. So, as it stands now; I won't be cashing in that cougar voucher any time soon!  If you want to run with the big kitties - you gotta be a lion - not a cub!

Valentines Schmalentines

Guys - only 9 more shopping days left.  9 days left to make sure you have the reservation to that over priced restaurant that is overcrowded with a bunch of schmucks.  Only 9 more days to get those flowers ordered, that candy purchased and to make sure everything is just perfect so maybe, just maybe your night ends up naked and sweaty. Ugh - seriously - who needs that kind of pressure? Not me.

February 14th has never been a favorite date of mine.   I was never the girl who got flowers at school and had to watch the Heidi Maugers of the world walk around with armfuls. Flash back to third grade. I gave Rick Leiter my favorite valentine because I had a crazy crush on him.  He laughed at me and threatened to tear it up.  Crush turned into Crushed.  I can recall 3 positive Valentines days.  I was 20 and my boyfriend had class really late, but showed up before midnight with an Elmira toy which was my favorite Tiny Toons character.  When I was 1st dating the ex, he showed up and knocked on the front door.  When I answered it - he had a pair of earrings and asked if I would wear them to dinner.  We ended up at TGIFridays, but it was still a night out.  Then there was the following year where the ex really didn't do anything but drive all over town trying to find somewhere to eat.  We ended up at a crappy restaurant with fake roses on the table - but it was the effort that counted.  The rest of them have just generally sucked.

This year I thought I was so close to having that elusive date, but it wasn't meant to be.  Next time I will just listen to my gut when it tells me not to bother.  It will save me many wasted months on trying to meet a guy that wasn't going to amount to anything anyways. So what if he romanced with promises of winning my heart, climbing my walls and being strong for me so I can be weak.  Dude cancelled on me 3 times. This also means that I have to follow through on a promised dating moratorium because well - this online dating thing just isn't working. I don't need a man to be happy.  I don't need a man to buy me flowers, or candy or jewelry (but I would gladly accept a car just in case there are any potential suitors reading this). I won't lie and say I wouldn't enjoy the lavishing, but I don't NEED it.  I can't exactly toll the joys of purchasing the domain BeingSingleistheNewBlack.com if I am bemoaning the fact I can't get a date.  Sure - a man would come in handy for some sexy time, but the only thing stopping that is my brain.  I mean hello - I have a very hot 27 year old after me and an UH-Mazingly hot French guy coming into town (but I fully admit I am terrified of his uncircumcised penis).  We all know that I will do nothing about Frenchy and I still can't bring myself to do someone in their 20's unless I am drunk.

But I have bigger fish to fry because I have one guy in my life who is more worthy than any other.  He gives the best hugs, the sweetest kisses, can always makes me laugh and well - if I could find a 40 year old with the qualities of my 6 year old - I would have to change the blog name.  I mean seriously - my kiddo kissed all the pearls on a necklace he got me for Christmas so when I am having a bad day, I can reach for a pearl and have a kiss from him when I need it most.  This is NOT his father's child!  He is going to need my full attention though because at the tender age of 6.75 and being a first grader - he landed the role of Aladdin in the school musical.  This means we have to memorize songs and scripts and practice acting for the next 3 months.  How could I even imagine trying to find a date when this could be my child's big break he is dreaming of.  This is so big a deal, that his dad has postponed to move out of state so he can do the play. 

So while yes - it would be nice to have date on the 14th, I won't be alone.  I will be next to a gorgeous blonde haired guy watching season two of Total Drama Island on Netflix, sharing a bowl of ice cream with him knowing that I am luckiest woman alive.  I may not be Jasmine - but this Prince Ali is all mine!