Day 146

BLONDE THINGS THAT ROCK: GWEN STEFANI

Gwen Stefani, lead singer of No Doubt and a solo artist in her own right is a BLONDE who ROCKS. She literally rocks. She sings, she dances, she designs clothes, she’s married to Gavin Rossdale, has a family and still manages to be awesome. How does she do it? I think it must be the power of the BLONDE.

Most recently she’s become a spokesmodel for L’oreal lipstick. I haven’t tried it, but I am likely to in the future. In 6^th grade, I remember singing songs from the “Tragic Kingdom” album in the girl’s bathroom with Maggie Vandersnoot*. Gwen became and icon, especially when thrift store shopping – always wanted to have some fun clothes that I could make funky. I also always wanted to be platinum blonde like here. And now I am.

Does it feel like I thought it would? No, because part of being Gwen Stefani is being the lead singer of No Doubt and I don’t sing. But I’m having a lot of fun despite that fact.

*not her real name

Today gets 4 Barbie Warhols:

Day 145

Survival of the fittest is true. You want to know how I know? Because I survived. There are some days that you swear you don’t know how you made it through. Today was one of those days for me. I can’t actually remember any of the particulars of what made today absolutely impossible, but it was and I can’t believe that I’m finally seeing the other side of it. It’s flabbergasting.

I don’t know if I just think quickly on my feet, or if I just roll with the punches, but I tend to make it through days like this when they come around. It never ceases to amaze me. Being blonde should have nothing to do with this, but more often than not, I have been muddling through even if it takes a toss of the flaxen strands and a giggle. I’m a hussy.

Today gets 2 Barbie Warhols:

Day 144

Oh Stress, thou art thy sworn enemy. There are times in my life when I can literally feel the stress crawling up my spine, kidnapping every muscle in my back along the way, and holding them hostage in my shoulders. It’s not very pleasant.

I wish I knew where stress actually came from so that I could stop it from happening. I know that it’s all psychological but there has to be some sort of source for the madness. So far, the only solution for stress requires time, which you tend to not have a lot of when you’re stressed.

I think that the power of the BLONDE has helped me immensely. I still get really stressed, just like I have in the past, but now I tend to let it all roll off my back. I definitely employ the art of BLONDE ZEN ™ and zone out for a solid 5 minutes.

The key to BLONDE ZEN™ is to take a little bit of quiet time for yourself and completely wipe your mind. All your thoughts and troubles and worries drain out of your head out your ears and beyond your reach. You have a blank stare on your face and people may be convinced that you’ve had some sort of lapse in consciousness. This is a good thing because they may then assume you are crazy and will also leave you alone.

Today gets 3 Barbie Warhols:

Day 143

I was so busy today, I didn’t eat lunch. This has been happening a lot lately and it’s probably not good. I get cranky when I don’t eat.

Today gets 1 Barbie Warhol:

Day 142

Mondays are like the brunettes of the week… dark, serious, and often sinister. Is that unfair to brunettes? Probably. While today was a hectic day, I had fun. I also realized that I may not have ever fully defined what it means to be blonde. Granted, I’ve been newly inducted into the blonde club, but I think that I have experience enough to speak plainly.

Being blonde means being sweet and salty; being smart and air-headed, being bad-ass and gentle. Being blonde means being a contradiction and walking the fine line between who you are and who you want to be. Being blonde means being beautiful both inside and out. I like to think that we all about a little blonde inside us.

Now that my blonde is on the outside, the world is different. I know I write that everyday, but it’s true. I feel different with my blonde-ness on the outside. I still identify myself as a red-head on some strange level on the inside. It’s hard to let go of an identity that you’ve held onto for so long. But, to me, being blonde is important – not only because this entire blog is based on being blonde for a whole year, but because without the blonde, I sincerely doubt that I would be the woman that I am today.

Today gets 5 Barbie Warhols:

Day 140

HONORARY BLONDE: GLORIA STEINEM

Gloria Steinem is pretty much responsible for who I am as a woman. I hate to say this because that puts a lot on her. I never really fancied myself a feminist until I went blonde, but lately, it’s been on my mind a lot. It’s shocking to me that some people, including women, are anti-feminist. I guess I should begin by defining feminism – “Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women.” [Wikipedia] Does any of that sound like something you would like to disagree with? Sometimes I think the idea of feminism gets warped into other things and uneducated people start spouting their mouth off in disagreement before actually knowing what they are disagreeing with.

The reason I have elected that Gloria Steinem become an honorary blonde is because that woman helped the feminist movement and had to put up with a lot of bullshit along the way. She’s not just a feminist, but she’s a social activist and seems like a wonderful, open-minded lady.

When you take a look at our patriarchal society out of context, it’s pretty astonishing. In what world would it be acceptable for a faction of people to only have two choices in life – a career or a marriage? You’re either the saint or the sinner, the Madonna or the whore. Why can’t we just all be equals as people?

I was thinking about things like how “history” is the white male perspective and there’s “women’s studies” and “black studies” but why isn’t there “white male history”? Why does that have to be the norm? Without Gloria Steinem in my life, I wouldn’t think about this stuff in an analytical way.

So, today, I bestow the title of Honorary Blonde upon Ms. Magazine co-founder and feminist icon Gloria Steinem for being a harbinger of truth and equality and a bad-ass bitch.

Today gets 5 Barbie Warhols:

Day 139

This is the first image that comes up when you google "anger"...

I can’t even begin to describe the craziness of my life. I have no patience in my life for hatred or self-importance, but today I witnessed both things. I saw a guy skip past a whole line of people waiting and didn’t even take a second glance. I saw two women arguing with such fury, I actually feared for what would happen next (seriously, for a split second, I wondered if they would knock over a display of wine).

I couldn’t discern what exactly they were fighting about, but I do know that there are few things in life that should merit that type of anger and fierce words. The guy who skipped the line, I thought maybe he hadn’t seen the line, but upon further inspection, there is no way you can get up to the counter without going through the line. There are those velvet rope-y things. They are about as enforcing as they can be, but it’s not as though they are electrified (yet).

I don’t know if I’ve always been like this, or if it’s my new BLONDE ZEN ™ that has washed over me, but I’m seeing the world differently. I really hate those people who have this self-important bullshit and just waste so much energy over such trivial matters. I can get mad just like anyone else, but you shouldn’t get mad over stupid stuff. It’s not worth the wrinkles.

Today gets 5 Barbie Warhols for self-enlightenment: