It's been a nice weekend so far, quiet and productive. I got my laundry out of the way Friday night because I knew I was going to have a lot to do.
Saturday I went to Vidal Sassoon on 56th Street to get my hair colored - the first time it's been done by someone other than Edison in a few years. My stylist was named Kelly, an Asian woman, so I felt a little reassured about that. I loved the color she had in her hair, a lavender purplish tint, so we tried for that.
Mine turned out to be more like fuchsia, but it might change after a few washes. It's the first time I've had chunks of my hair tinted like this - usually I get highlights that are more subtle and natural. But I guess part of my explorations includes playing with my look and pushing the envelope. Fortunately, I feel more and more comfortable at work expressing my non-mainstream identity with my co-workers and not feeling like I'm being judged for it (even though I probably am by some of them, but I really don't care).
The coloring took 3 1/2 hours, a lot longer than I thought it would, which made me a little bit late for my 3 pm meeting at the Ziegfeld Theater with my Women's Poly Group. Loli came for one more visit before she leaves for the summer to upstate New York, and Sylwia came for the first time in almost a year. A new member, Katie, also attended for the first time - she's been to the last two Open Love NY meetings though. She's 24, a recent graduate from Ithaca College in journalism (what's with all the journalism students crossing my path lately?) and dating a college sweetheart named David while exploring an open relationship.
We saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which was just okay. I'm not a huge fan of this franchise, although I liked the first movie when it came out. I felt like it was a little too tricksy with the 3-D effects, like having characters point their swords on a few occasions at the audience. I'm not a fan of 3-D in general because they usually give me a headache, and did on this occasion. I think I'm going to actively avoid 3-D from now on, which shouldn't be hard since I don't get to see many movies in the first place (although I do want to see the new X-Men movie , Green Lantern, the Harry Potter finale, and of course, Breaking Dawn, Part 1 this fall).
After the movie we went to the nearby Topaz Thai restaurant for a long, enjoyable meal and talked for almost three hours until the waitstaff were practically begging us to leave. I had to share Sylwia's pitiful umbrella to keep my freshly colored hair from getting wet. All in all, it was one of our best meetings in a while, and I'm going to make an effort to do more fun things with this group.
Today I did a lot of my grocery shopping at my usual stores in Chinatown and the Food Emporium on 9th Avenue. I'm planning to make curry chicken with liver and hearts again to eat with the fried rice I made last week. Then I also had to spend a few hours working on Nearing's sustainability report, which I didn't have enough time to do last week.
Monday I'm taking a rare day off (probably only my second day off this year so far, not counting holidays) to visit my endocrinologist and maybe do some shopping. Tuesday is Open Love NY, and then the holiday weekend beckons. It will probably give me a sense of deja vu because I'll be going back to the same salon on Saturday for a haircut to go with my new color.
