Come at me Bro!

Late last week TMZ managed to spot Steve Perry outside The Ivy in L.A. having lunch, and filmed him from their tour bus. Who knew TMZ had a tour bus?

Anyway, once the video was published many fans were thrilled to get a glimpse of their elusive,
favorite singer. Fans like me. Others, were not kind. And to that I say - WTF Internet????

Steve has had a long and complicated career. He has been out in front in Journey and on 3 solo albums over the years. He has been very reclusive as well, for years and years at a time. He has had many looks and is somewhat famous for his hair - second only to his fabulous voice and music. Okay third, there is also his song writing. 

To many he is also known for his love of and graciousness to his fans. There are so many pictures out there of him posing with fans, and also photos and videos of him signing all kinds of things, even when it is obvious the 'fan' is going to turn around and sell his signature.

He's a good guy, and does good things with his time and money.

Over the years just like his hair has changed, so has his weight. He was rail thin when he joined Journey, and is usually fairly slim. But sometimes, like most of us, he has put on a few pounds. SO WHAT??? And omg in the TMZ video it revealed that he has let his hair go gray.

OH THE HUMANITY!!!

I have been hoping he would do that, actually. Super dark hair on someone who is older never looks natural, no matter what super duper salon you go to. It's not a great photo because it's a screen cap but to me he looks happy, and relaxed. That is important these days with the world on fire all around us.

Some people were saying that isn't him in the video, that it doesn't look like Steve Perry. The man is 72 years old, people! He has been aging all along, even if we don't see him very often it doesn't mean he has stayed 30 years old and untouched by time. If he had, people would be clamoring for his secret, for sure, and I would be at the head of that line.

What's funny to me is, any time he has put on weight he has always lost it again, so this is actually not new for him. I suspect he is very much in control and consciously decides to not watch his diet sometimes but when he feels the need he jumps back on the healthier road and takes care of business. And if he wants to dye his hair again (hope not) that will take an hour. 

Honestly though, why the hell does he have to fit some ideal for US? Let him be who he is. He has given us so much wonderful music and while we are always waiting for more, seriously, he doesn't owe us a thing, and that includes looking a certain way for us. 

So I am here to defend him. 

Next person who says anything unkind about him is gonna hear from me - like - we can take it outside if need be! Come at me, Bro! (Says the 62 year old gray haired woman) 

Be kind. 

And here, enjoy some of the many faces of Steve Perry, below, and the very first song he wrote with Neal Schon after joining Journey.

Why NOT Gray Hair??

A friend of mine was horrified when I told her I was keeping my gray hair. My hair is short and the color had grown out enough where I just had the dyed hair cut off. "No!" She exclaimed. "Don't give up!" As if I had suddenly thrown in the towel on caring about myself or how I looked. Ummm... 

Nope.

Jane Fonda was recently celebrated for going gray, Andie MacDowell made headlines when she showed up at Cannes with gray streaked hair, and fans made memes of Steve Carell expressing how much they loved it when he went gray. So brave! So pretty! So handsome! Blargh.

WTH!?!? A lot of us regular folks out here have been living our lives and letting our natural hair shine through for years, and this is what we get? No! Don't give up??? Certainly nothing about being brave.

I get it, they live their lives in front of cameras and their living depends a lot on how they look. But holy cow the difference between "us and them" is stark sometimes.

By the way, Jane Fonda was quoted as saying she had only just started seeing gray hair on her head the year before she went totally gray at .. ahem .. 82. Even Jane isn't a good enough actress to make that statement believable. 

For gosh sakes, people! Grow up! I mean - it happens to all of us.

If we're lucky.

Hair today ...

Remember the hair thing? Dyed, or not? I mean I know people have been coming from far and wide, checking my blog to see what color my hair turned out to be!

Remember? I decided to go somewhere in between. I dye it, but don't leave the stuff on very long. It doesn't cover all the gray and gives me a more natural salt and pepper look. Or salt and cinnamon or something. So ...

Here were the choices. Dyed - or Not.

And this is the mixed color that results when I do my brand of hair coloring.

Besides looking tired (yes) and angry (no) you may be able to see the variation in color. I KNOW this is what you have been waiting for and I am pleased to be able to satisfy your curiosity.

That's all. You can go back about your regular business. Thank you very much.

. . . survey says. . .!!!

I have decided what I am going to do with my hair. I know people have been waiting on the edge of their seats for this revelation. It's really not anything exciting. I wish I could say I'm going to dye it candy apple red (which I've done accidentally) with splashes of blonde throughout, but truth be told - I don't have the energy to deal with that.

My decision is really a compromise. Several people liked the idea of letting it go natural, and others liked the idea of color but not a straight all-over single color. I appreciate the opinions and they actually did help me decide to go back to a sneaky trick I developed a year ago or so. Yeah, cause I invented this - uh huh! No one else has ever done it, I'm sure.

I found that my gray was coming through the color to a certain degree anyway - 3 or 4 weeks after coloring it, and I kind of liked it. So I started coloring my hair every 4 weeks or so, but I only left the stuff on for less than 10 minutes probably. I did the roots and got them covered really well, when that was done I would work it through the rest of my hair and then rinse it out. No sitting around with it on my head. Never had that 'look I just colored my hair it will fade a bit in a week' look, and the gray came through enough to give me those natural highlights. It allowed me to keep some color but to have some really nice gray streaking that I liked.

The sneaky part? It looked more natural than if it was all gray or all one color!

Not really for someone with long hair, but for short hair - it's great!

Oh and Joy - God bless you - but I have not grayed prematurely. Honestly, until I let it go gray last year (or was that earlier this year?) I didn't know what color my hair really was! Growing up it was blond, then kind of a dirty blonde. In high school I used "Sun-In" remember that? I had perms for a while which lightened my hair, and I started coloring it in earnest in my early 30's when I thought my hair was just plain dull. What a surprise to find out just how much gray there was! AND that my natural hair color was more brown than blonde at that point. I wasn't upset or disappointed, I actually thought it was kind of cool, thinking that I may get quite a bit of white someday, like my mom.

And really, now that my daughter has cut her hair so short, I owe it to her to let her be the young one. I need to do something so people will know I'm her mother and not her sister!!!

*cough cough*

Cause I'm generous like that. * :)

It's just hair.

I went and did it again. Cut my hair off I mean. Oh my gosh it feels so good to have it gone! When I was a teenager I had hair down to my waist. I cut it sometime before I left high school and it seemed like I was always trying to get it back ever after. Cut it, then going through the awkward stages until I couldn't stand it anymore - and then cutting it again. It's just what I do.

My thought is always - it's just hair. If I don't like it - it will grow. And I mean it. I have to tell hairdressers to err on the side of too short as opposed to leaving it too long. They must be gun shy because of people who have melt downs when their hair doesn't turn out the way they want it to. My line is "I don't freak about my hair. Cut it shorter."

So this cut is fine, great as a matter of fact. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to get up in the morning and not have to 'do' my hair. I would recommend it to anyone. But this time I am in a quandary.

The last time I cut it I cut all the color off and left it gray the whole time it was short. When it started to grow a bit longer I colored it again. Now that it is short again, I am thinking of letting it go gray again. I kind of liked it last time, as surprised as I was about that. So what do you think? Color? Or no color?

Oh - and if you think the gray hair makes me look more tired - that picture was taken later at night than the one with color. So make allowances for that, and tell me what you think!

Click to see the pics larger

~ * ~

I need to find my leg warmers

Does anybody remember this? The 20 minute workout? It was an exercise show in the 80’s. It was permed hair and “let’s get physical” workout clothes. It may have been one of the first aerobic workout shows on TV. I had just had Andy, my first child, in 1984. This show was a big part of my losing the baby weight. It was hardcore for someone not athletic like me, and I didn’t have to have the coordination of a choreographer to do it.

At least that’s how I remember it.

The show was on at something like 5:00 a.m. so I’m not sure how I found it, but when I discovered there was no way I was going to get up at that hour to exercise – I taped as many episodes as I could and would do it later in the day. Because we had bought our first ($700.00) VCR. Yes, you read that right. They were expensive back then. Or possibly my ex-husband told me that’s what he spent the money on, but anyway .. !

There wasn’t a single person who was the star, from episode to episode there would be different women leading the work out for that day. There were always other women doing the routine with her and managing to look gorgeous all the way through.

I had not seen anything of the show since the 80’s and trying to find it on the internet now, I was in for some surprises.

I do not remember the way it was shot and the makeup and spandex looking anything like porn back then. There were a lot of shots of women from above looking down on them as they bent over and touched their forearms to the floor and bounced, bounced, bounced. Again shooting from above there was always at least one girl who would make that eye contact with the camera as she slowly did the cool down, raising her arms over her head and looking up as she did so.

It was shot ‘in the round’ basically; it had to be the camera going around the girls because they couldn’t have been working that hard on a moving platform. But the camera angles allowed you to see every exercise from all the angles you would want or need to. Now I kind of wonder how many guys watched it for a completely different reason than I did!

I will say that looking at it now, the stills look worse than the video, but I just didn’t see it as super sexy back then. Was I that naïve? Or did I just want to get into shape that bad?

All I remember was looking at those women and thinking what perfect bodies they had, and how badly I wanted to look like them. There were no fake boobs on that show either, just pretty, very well toned women.

Exercise and I are not friends. There have been times in my life where I got into a good routine and worked out on a regular basis, and sometimes it lasted quite a while. But I’ve always stopped. And for a long time I’ve thought – man – that show ought to come back – I loved that show! I would exercise if I had that show to motivate me!

Uh huh.

I decided to try to find it and it was very difficult. I finally found a 2 DVD set with 8 episodes on – where else – eBay. Of course I bought it and it’s on its way. Either I will kill myself trying to do the work out I did literally 20 years ago, or I will give myself a break and alter it until I can catch up.

Or, I will remind myself that when I did that work out I was 25 years old, didn’t have any plates or screws in my ankle, and no cats to trip over, and plop down on the couch with a tub of caramel corn and a creme soda and watch my daughter do it. She is SO going to laugh when she sees the hair and outfits. If nothing else – it will be good for a chuckle!

This video is 10 minutes long, but at least have a peek. I know you'll want to go dig out some sweat bands and leotards and get going! Or not. But it IS worth a look.

Admit it. You SO want to get physical now, don't you?

Suffering

I am horribly dependent on my computer. Attached would not even begin to cover it. The last couple of days I have been getting errors of impending doom, a few blue screen of death errors and today, well, I am posting from my daughter's computer. Hi Dani! She is not home.


Today apparently I have no bootable devices. Sigh-h-h. So, if I am not visiting or commenting or even posting as much as usual, that would be why.


Oh and then - right after my laptop took a dump I went into the kitchen to throw something in the garbage and saw these black splotches on the floor. I had to get my glasses to see the splotches were ants. Freaking ants! Not very bright ants either. This house is on a slab and when we get a lot of rain like we did last night the ants decide that INSIDE is where they need to get out of the rain. So there was a trail of ants from the side door to in front of the garbage cabinet. They were all milling around a crumb or 2 not 3 feet away from cat food left over from kitty breakfast. ??? Fighting over crumbs while a veritable ant feast sat a few feet away.


The ants picked a bad time to mess with me. They are all very dead, the kitty food is in the garbage and my computer sits abandoned. Sounds like a really good time to take a nap.


Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day without any ants or dead boot devices!

Mark my words ..

I will never, ever, in my life have 4 cats all at one time again. Ever. Did I mention never?


Don't get me wrong. I love these cats, I do. If I had a bigger house with a basement room just for litter boxes and could afford to pay someone to come in and vacuum and de-fur every single day, I would probably have more than 4.


But this house isn't that big and I don't vacuum every day. The litter boxes are in the utility room because there is no basement. And the cats are everywhere. Or so it seems.


I only meant to have 2 and I think that is a reasonable, manageable number for most people, and I have told how I came to have more. I'm really not sitting here plotting how to get rid of any of them and I'm not waiting impatiently for any of them to die. But oh, the hair.


My daughter did not tell me how allergic the new boy is. The idea of someone who may be severely allergic to cats coming into my home makes MY throat start to close. I can vacuum, I can wipe down furniture and poke into the corners and crevices where hair can hide and it would still never be enough. I can de-hair to my heart's content but if someone is truly horribly allergic none of it will make a difference. I cannot get rid of all the dander and cat bits that can't be seen with the naked eye.


So, for Mother's Day I am hoping my daughter will come home and I will meet the new boy without having to jam an epi-pen into his leg. Wish me luck, will you?

And for all of you mothers out there, I wish you the best day ever!

Happy Mother's Day!!!