In between my endless stream of outdoor jobs, it's pretty boring around here. I find myself half wishing that school would start, or that I could drive. If I could get out of here myself without bothering friends to cart me around, maybe I wouldn't have these somewhat unpleasant weeklong periods of little or no human contact. I dunno. Gotta mow a lawn tomorrow and finish pressure washing my neighbor's driveway. People owe me too much money.

Ah, but on the bright side, I am in for a change of style soon! I'm getting my hair cut at a professional place for the first time in probably three years. I have decided that I'm going to turn this uniform-length blonde mop on my head into something stylish, although don't panic, because I plan to keep the length. I'm gonna get the stuff layered so it doesn't attempt to tear my scalp off my head anymore (goddamn, if you just let it all grow at the same time, it's HEAVY). I might eventually buy some darker-than-natural dye and play with different colors; the idea here is that if I'm going to be a model after all, I need to figure out what I look good in. Rafael, the Columbian guy at the Mayo-Hill place, said something that's probably good advice: "If you like the way you look, other people will. You gotta be confident." Which I am, usually. It's just that my head hurts, so some of this stuff must go. Hell, even my skin's starting to look not-so-awful anymore (I admit it's something I was embarassed over quite often during the school year, and had a lot of trouble figuring out what to do about it) despite me working in the dirt all the time. Once the working season ends I ought to look allright. *sigh*

I baked a cake today. Now, I admit, I'm no pastry chef, and I could probably be something of a visual artist, but I quit trying in eighth grade when my schedule filled up. My cake was a bit lopsided, granted, but despite appearance, I do believe I have the right to say I make a mean fucking chocolate cake. Two layers, covered in bittersweet frosting, and in between the two layers is a sauteed cherry sauce. This is the second one I've ever done, and the first I've done with no help from anyone, although damnit, it's kind of a two person job (you mix while I add brown sugar, etc.). Meh.

Faced with the reality of not being able to sleep until, well, about the time I'm writing this (continous patriotic explosive devices being detonated in the vicinity), I went for a walk among the smoke and flame tonight. I tripped over spent casings and fuses, shielded myself from showers of sparks and (probably) carcinogens, and watched junior high students throw bombs in the storm drain. Hooray for America! I toyed with the idea of wearing a turban (or a picture of John Kerry) on my head, but then realized that I would need a great deal of flame-retardant material.

My mother was just giving clothing to the goodwill, so I scrounged myself some camoflauge pants from Academy, and two really neat shirts (the button-up style that I wear just about all the time) out of a paper sack. They fit really well, and it's not like I really care if they're women's shirts, since they're not even feminine--one's a beige safari type thing and the other's a Bogari silk shirt that's sort of a mellow-blue Hawaiian thing. Anyway, yay for my wardrobe. I'm going to go begin a study on how long it takes for the side effects of generic antihistamines to take effect, since I've been having some weird insomnia recently. Happy Fourth, and if you hold a Party for the President I'll kill you.