So I was talking with a person lately. (This is news, right?) And the person has, well, really weird hair.
I can’t describe it to you, because I’m not that good a writer. Just kidding. Because I don’t want to offend any more people this week. It’s a goal. Let us just leave it at this: The hair? It’s weird.
And here’s the thing. I found myself trying not to stare at the weirdness thereof. So much so, that I sort of found myself missing the person’s words. Most of them. Like I couldn’t focus on the conversation, because I was Distracted.
Which begs this question: What’s my Weird Hair Issue? I’m pretty sure I don’t have generally weird actual hair. I have way more than my share of bad hair days, but not a noticeable penchant for doing strange things on top of my head. People are much more likely to be moved to sympathy/empathy by my hair than to be struck dumb and deaf with wonder at the bizzarrity of it all. But what is my thing? The thing that gets in the way of communication? Or completion? What is The Distraction?
I have a tendency to write far too many shoulder shrugs. My characters shrug a lot. A lot. This must cause some readers to throw my books across rooms in frustration. Although no one has ever actually approached me with this particular complaint, I imagine it’s out there. And I am working on it. I have a little shock-collar-and-siren arrangement hooked up for when I slip into shruggery. (That was a lie. I don’t have any such thing.)
Also, I lie. Mostly here, on the blog. Is that distracting?
Sometimes I make lists, and I find great satisfaction in crossing things off these lists. (Is that a good thing, like being organized? Or a bad thing, like serious overdependance on outside validations? Both? I’ll take it.) But sometimes I find my lists distracting me from actual completion of things. For instance: Can I count the words I write on the blog as part of my 1,000 words to be written today? The answer is NO. I can’t. But sometimes I do. Because I get to cross it off my list, and that is connected to a thoroughly distracting thrill.
Projects become tangential, and that’s distracting from the goal. Like, I need to deep clean the pantry (always), so I start taking things off shelves. I find a Halloween bucket in there. (Don’t judge. It’s a big pantry. Plus, I may have suggested that Kid 4 use a Halloween bucket as his Easter basket this year at Grandma’s house.) So I take said bucket to the basement, where there is a great storage room full of strange and wonderful and distracting items. Such as my high school yearbook, which is for some reason open on the floor, right next to a carton of powdered milk. No, I can not explain that. Thank you for asking. Eenie, meenie… I choose to pick up the yearbook. And look at a few pages. Two hours later, I pull my wretched bones up from the concrete floor, determined to reconnect with at least seven Dear Friends who must, must be on FaceBook. Cue the forty-five minute time-suck. Meanwhile, the pantry isn’t getting any cleaner. See the problem?
I could go on (and on, and on) but I’ve already passed half my necessary word-count for today. (Just kidding, Husband! Working! On the Manuscript! That’s what I’m doing! Completely!) But really, it’s an interesting thought to me – what’s the “weird hair” that gets in the way of my goals, wether they’re health-related, or parenting-based, or writerly, or something else altogether? And would it be helpful to me if someone pointed out that I do, in fact, have really weird hair?
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NOTE: It would NOT be helpful. I have plenty of issues already. I do not need another one. Thank you.
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(16) Comments for this blog
No. You don’t have weird hair. I get distracted by all sorts of things (my latest downfall is Pinterest. Oy.) And I tend to over use ellipses when I write….oh, well.
No. You don’t have weird hair. I get distracted by all sorts of things (my latest downfall is Pinterest. Oy.) And I tend to over use ellipses when I write….oh, well.
Weird hair distracts me, too. Weird faces, hair, clothes. It’s like a tractor beam and my ears stopper up. =P
Weird hair distracts me, too. Weird faces, hair, clothes. It’s like a tractor beam and my ears stopper up. =P
This is good to know. I like experimenting with my hair, so if choose to have an interesting hairstyle on a day that I am having a conversation with you, I will understand why you may not catch everything I say. 🙂 I try not to do weird things per se with my hair, but rather fun and unique-ish hairstyles.
This is good to know. I like experimenting with my hair, so if choose to have an interesting hairstyle on a day that I am having a conversation with you, I will understand why you may not catch everything I say. 🙂 I try not to do weird things per se with my hair, but rather fun and unique-ish hairstyles.
You had me laughing out loud on this one, Miz Becca. Totally in the funny zone! Hope you’re still there; get over to your manuscript and crank out some hilarity.
I clean in circles, just like you described with your pantry. At the end of the day, I’m exhausted and nothing is really any better. I actually paid a friend $100 to clean my bonus room (Vegas’s idea of a basement; upstairs instead of underground) because every time I went in there I spent hours looking at photo albums.
Your hair is gorgeous. You are gorgeous. And hair is one of my favorite hobbies, which means I occasionally go out the door looking a tad…distracting. If people stare, I’ve no one to blame but myself. Thy sins are forgiven thee.
And I’ll take a shrug over an inane “she said” any day of the week. Novelists need to learn how to weave body language into their stories, since so much of communication is non-verbal. For me, I do way too much eye-rolling. Oh, and so do my characters. But it’s better than, “That was stupid.” “Oh, yeah? Define stupid.” “Stupid is doing that thing you just did.” “Oh yeah? What thing did I just do?”
For crying out loud, someone please just SHRUG!! See you TOMORROW!!!
You had me laughing out loud on this one, Miz Becca. Totally in the funny zone! Hope you’re still there; get over to your manuscript and crank out some hilarity.
I clean in circles, just like you described with your pantry. At the end of the day, I’m exhausted and nothing is really any better. I actually paid a friend $100 to clean my bonus room (Vegas’s idea of a basement; upstairs instead of underground) because every time I went in there I spent hours looking at photo albums.
Your hair is gorgeous. You are gorgeous. And hair is one of my favorite hobbies, which means I occasionally go out the door looking a tad…distracting. If people stare, I’ve no one to blame but myself. Thy sins are forgiven thee.
And I’ll take a shrug over an inane “she said” any day of the week. Novelists need to learn how to weave body language into their stories, since so much of communication is non-verbal. For me, I do way too much eye-rolling. Oh, and so do my characters. But it’s better than, “That was stupid.” “Oh, yeah? Define stupid.” “Stupid is doing that thing you just did.” “Oh yeah? What thing did I just do?”
For crying out loud, someone please just SHRUG!! See you TOMORROW!!!
I used to get in trouble because I’d start cleaning my room by emptying all of the dresser and desk drawers first, thinking that I’d organize, which never happened and eveything would then get thrown back into said drawers and I’d be to exhausted or just plain didn’t want to clean anymore. Things usually ended up worse than when I started… sadly this habit hasn’t changed much.
I used to get in trouble because I’d start cleaning my room by emptying all of the dresser and desk drawers first, thinking that I’d organize, which never happened and eveything would then get thrown back into said drawers and I’d be to exhausted or just plain didn’t want to clean anymore. Things usually ended up worse than when I started… sadly this habit hasn’t changed much.
You didn’t have to tell the whole blogworld about my terrible hair. Sheesh.
You didn’t have to tell the whole blogworld about my terrible hair. Sheesh.
It’s me, isn’t it? Way too short. Grey popping up everywhere…
We all have our weirdness, huh? I like to think of it as gimmicks, or quirks, or shortcomings.
I get easily distracted too. A friend in one of my classes at BYU last year asked if I had ADD because I was always so fidgety in class. Hey, I am a mom and I can do a zillion things at once.
It’s me, isn’t it? Way too short. Grey popping up everywhere…
We all have our weirdness, huh? I like to think of it as gimmicks, or quirks, or shortcomings.
I get easily distracted too. A friend in one of my classes at BYU last year asked if I had ADD because I was always so fidgety in class. Hey, I am a mom and I can do a zillion things at once.
I once had this huge argument with a referee…she was kicking me out of the game…and all of a sudden I looked at her hair. All I could think of was she combed her hair, looked at it in the mirror and said, “yea…” It was the worst hair, didn’t she see it?
I once had this huge argument with a referee…she was kicking me out of the game…and all of a sudden I looked at her hair. All I could think of was she combed her hair, looked at it in the mirror and said, “yea…” It was the worst hair, didn’t she see it?