I'm not a poodle, but I played one in the 80s.

The lovely folks at PBN (and I mean that genuinely, not in a "Oh, you've put your brother in a doll's dress and locked him in the dog's cage? Lovely," kind of way) and someone of whom I've never heard (Beauty Confidential) have come together to offer free stuff. I need a reason to post something a bit more upbeat right now, so I'm jumping on this bandwagon.

I need some laughter. My cousin was always laughing. Everyone who knew him is gushing about that smile of his. Even if that laughter is at my expense, I'll take it. I need it right now.

My biggest beauty blunder would be that perm I got in the late 80s-very early 90s. Would you believe the damn thing didn't go away until some time after 1996? I did not at all understand the finer points of caring for curly hair. So I continued to brush my hair every day. I looked like a poodle--not a cute poodle, mind you. Oh no. The word "Cute" would never have been used to describe me at that time. "WTF," may have been more appropriate.

I, of course, could not let sleeping dogs lie (even if they were ugly poofy poodly ones). No, no, no. Always one for the adjectives, I had to then go and try to make this poodle one of the technicolor variety. At 15 or 16, I tried to dye my naturally strawberry blonde hair to a shade of electric blue. Anyone who has paid any attention to the color blending thing in kindergarten knows that yellow and blue make green. I, however, in my infinite teenage wisdom, didn't even think about that. My hair turned green. I later tried using one of those very temporary dyes to bring out the red in my hair. Instead, it turned bright orange. Some of my friends called me ,"L'orange." In French class, when our teacher held up a picture of a pumpkin, one friend yelled something along the lines of of, "I know how you say that in French. Reiza."

8 washes the dye manufacturers proclaimed it would last. They lied. My hair stayed bright orange for 3 or 4 months.

Oh yeah! Good times!


While I like the fine folks at Parent Blogger Network, they, however, seem to hate my readers. They're giving bonus points for those who post pictures. And so, I'm afraid you're all going to have to suffer. The worst of the photographs, however, have been tucked tightly away. So you'll have to deal with whatever I happen to have on the hard drive. It might not seem that bad, but that would be because all of the ones that qualify as "that bad" are in hiding and I've conveniently forgotten where I left them.

This is actually pretty tame (my hair and the shock value), but here, you see the remnant of the perm from 5 or 6 years before.