Any Enjoyable Waste of Time is a Good Break

Yesterday's day off was the direct result of the major work snafu that happened the day before, keeping me out much longer and later than scheduled - the cherry on top of dark week. Today's day off was scheduled, and still taken. We all know it takes more than one day to recover and to make up for everything else the ball was dropped on, and I already know I will not catch up on all I didn't do last week. Knowing that, I gave myself a full-day pass yesterday and made today a day to get some things done with the promise that I will be happy with whatever I get done, however little it is.

That being said, yesterday's “nothing” involved some old-school curling of my hair with the silly, squishy wraps you wear to bed. Why? Because I still had them and was trying to decide if I should keep them; because they were there; because I needed to see that I was able to finally ‘do’ my hair again after last year’s often-cried-over haircut; because even when I'm doing nothing I need to do something; and because nothing makes you feel like you’ve had a day off than doing something you never have time or need to do.



It was fun, wasting all that time wrapping my hair (my hair may be short, but it’s still very thick). It brought me back to the days when all I worried about was my hair.

Sleeping in them was every bit as uncomfortable as I remembered it to be (not that I was going to take them out after I spent all that time putting them in).

This morning I remembered the two main reasons I stopped using them years ago and switched to hot rollers: my hair never dries fully enough in these overnight – and I knew this back in 1979 (I had to wait two hours longer after I woke up before I was able to take them out); and my hair takes the curl too tightly with these types of curlers - trying to brush them out brought me back to the 8th grade after one particularly disastrous perm. But even those were good moments to relive. Made me feel like a kid again?

Now I’m all dressed up with no place to go, because you can’t do your hair without doing your makeup and putting on some decent clothes – not that I’m sure where I’d go looking like this. I’d like to say I’m rocking a Stefanie Powers Hart-to-Hart ‘do, but it’s probably more the style of Georgia Engel during her Mary Tyler Moore days. It’s definitely not the Kelly Garrett look I’ve always loved and rocked back when I had longer hair, but if Captain Stubing needs a companion for a walk on the Lido Deck – I’m that girl!



I doubt that my dishes will appreciate that I got all gussied up to do them, and I’ll probably end up pulling my hair back and off my face while I’m trying to write, but now I know it’s time to get rid of those curlers once and for all. And, despite everything I may foolishly feel I’m going through, I know that I’m still a Breck Girl. I work too many hours, and the one thing I've learned - the one thing that keeps me going - is that even the smallest and most ridiculous breaks can have a big impact.


No shuffleboard for me, Julie; Isaac’s about to pour me a drink. 

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