Mr. Travon the Hairstylist

Every now and then, I meet a person in my daily adventures who seems to be channeling Mr. Travon from Salt the Holly (he was, after all, based on a real person). I tend to take a more light-hearted tone in the comic though, as making him as realistic as he could be would be horrifying. In any case, this weekend, a Mr. Travon protege cut my hair.

Omitting the gritty details about getting sprayed in the face with water and a completely horrible haircut in general and the part where he ignored me most of the time to talk about stillbirths with someone else's customer, we'll skip to the icky bits.

Typically, when a person is cutting your hair, the chair is positioned so that your head is about chest level with the stylist, right? So they don't have to hold their arms in an awkward position and such. Well, this guy puts the chair on the lowest setting so that my knees are really close to my chest and my face is just above groin-level to him. Then... he rests his junk on my shoulder and presses his stomach against my cheek. Oh my goodness.

I asked him not to stand so close to me, and he looked really irritated and said, "Why?"

"Uh, because your junk is on my shoulder, and it makes me uncomfortable."

He looks down, observes his junk very obviously on my person, and replies, "No, it isn't."

At that point, I stood up, moved to a different chair, and asked another stylist to fix the mess he'd made of my hair. (I imagine it's difficult to properly cut the hair of someone whose face is shoved in your abdomen.)

Spring! And Recap!

Here it is, folks. That time of year when I use up all my energy trying not to bitch about the heat. And it's just *spring* - just you wait until summer. I'll be a giant ball of misery and complaints. Mwahaha! On the plus side... sno-cones! So yay.

Despite the rising temperatures, I actually kind of like spring. Austin's a beautiful city, and the Hill Country is a beautiful region. When everything starts turning green again after (what passes for) winter, the world just looks a little more pleasant. All the wildflowers are blooming too - I forget how much I love Indian paintbrushes. Plus, the promise of sno-cone season is too much to resist. ^.^

So. Here's a quick catch-up on the goings-on these days (since we're the world's laziest bloggers - actually, I really doubt that):

Jess and I are going to be roommates again! We found a lovely little townhome that is close to both our jobs and Jess's school. Our back patio opens up right next to the pool (and covered hot tub - woooo), AND our property manager is pretty much a bad-ass.

Salt the Holly is plugging away and, if I dare say so, doing rather well! I feel like the story is starting to really take off, but then again, I always feel like "the story is just starting!" regardless of where we are in the comic, haha. But really, the events that are happening now are like the NOS in a race.

We launched a second comic at the beginning of March called ...But Not Really - it's a photocomic with one-off stories and jokes, nothing plot-oriented.

Also in March, we went to the Kite Festival with some friends, played lots and lots of Munchkin (we even have our own version/expansion pack in progress!), and Jess survived SXSW (which is apparently the busiest time of year for her job). I also took a vacation and drove to Wichita Falls and Plano in a very leisurely fashion (stopped in lots of small towns and looked at lots and lots of historical markers).

Ike + Hair Dye

Turns out Ike completely missed us! Completely. We had slightly more of a breeze than normal - but otherwise it was sunny, dry, and a boiling 100 degrees. Galveston and Houston were, unfortunately, not so lucky...but things weren't as bad as they could have been.

Jess spent a good chunk of the weekend at my place working on the Salt page that will go live tomorrow. We also went to see her mom and a couple of her aunts who were having a pool party - complete with margaritas! We only stayed briefly, though. Then it was off to Hyde Park Grill...and I had polenta for the first time. Oh my goodness yum.

And I found out that I can make crepes using just-add-water pancake mix! They were quite good. Quote of the morning by Jess: "I wonder how much better you'd be at cooking if you had a skillet without lumps." Yeah - my skillet has been warped since 2004. I did snag a smaller, 8-inch skillet at HEB specifically for future crepe-making, though.

I also (finally) got to meet Andrew's little puppy Creasy (I don't know if that's the right spelling or even the correct name, but I'm 90% sure that's what he said). She's completely adorable, and if I could have melted, I would have.

And finally, I dyed my hair again - if you'll recall, I recently bleached it... so it went from it's dark reddish brown stage to orange. I snagged a box of red hair dye on sale and used that. Well...I think I found out why it was on sale. Instead of turning red...or even orangey red, it turned magenta and purple. I look more punk rock than normal, but otherwise, it's not bad! People at work seem like it a lot, which means that I can keep it this way for a while without appalling anyone. Woot.

Stuff-n-Things

This update brought to you by Bongotezz!

Haven't been updating much since I don't have a lot of import to say, but um. So I've been pretty busy with all this Drunk Duck Awards business - trying to get fifty different people to contribute to panels and presentations is like herding cats, only slightly less successful. It doesn't help that I keep making errors in my record-keeping (like assigning two different people to one presentation...yeah). All the same, despite the mini-fiascos, I think it's going to come together beautifully in September.

I've been thinking a lot lately about theme songs...mostly for the characters in Salt. I finally settled on one for Jane, but the others...not quite yet. Well, except maybe Brio. But to reveal THAT song would give far too much away, hehe. It's hard to think of the Brio he is today and the Brio that he becomes down the line as the same person.

Quote of the Day at Work: "No one in this office knows a damn thing about anything. I think you're out of luck." ^.^ I can never remember the contexts, but I work with some stellar and verra funny people.

I need to stop writing this and finish inking and coloring the update that's supposed to go live in two hours. Heh.