Mamalogues®

Hair Round Deux

2010-09-02T17:19:34Z

I'm turning into some sort of hair blogger.

(In front of my green screen for PJTV in my office/studio this morning.)

Last night I went back to my genius stylist, Heather at Elan Salon, to get my second Brazilian treatment. A lot of you asked how well my hair held up in the waning weeks of the first treatment; honestly it did pretty well. Towards the end of the first cycle I did have to work a bit more with the hair dryer and use my flat iron some but even then it took me only about a half hour in total as opposed to a two whole whopping hours like before. Also, I could still dry my hair without a diffuser and it wouldn't hiss at me and reach to the ceiling. It was still soft and easy to manage and I could let it air dry without it going totally bonkers.

Last night the process took a shorter amount of time to complete, honestly, I wasn't watching the clock because we were too busy talking about the Vanity Fair magazine I was reading and how happy we were that my sartorial idol, Helena Bonham Carter, was on their best-dressed list.

Heather applied a gloss, very subtle color, and the keratin to my hair in total. I haven't colored my hair in ten years and back then when I did I dyed my hair black. She used a subtle chocolate brown to hide the brassiness and redness that tends to show in my ends, those well-worn parts of our hair. I have Irish in my family and red hair in my family and I am a cool tone type of girl, meaning that when I dyed my hair red when I was 19 it looked like I had a head wound oh, and AWFUL.

I had Heather cut my bangs a little shorter than last time only because my hair loooooves the very healthy keratin (think of it as extreme conditioning) and thus I swear it grew faster than normal.

Very happy with the results; I'll be doing this treatment for as long as they exist - I'd do it based on the amount of time it saves me every day alone, not to mention how much better my hair does and looks with it now. I should also note that when I was in the makeup chair at Wendy Williams the stylist went nuts over it, loved it (I love her stylist, FYI. I wanted to pack him up in my luggage and have him do my makeup FOR EVER) - a stark contrast to the HOUR I spent in his chair previously before I had the treatment. Good times.

Here are photos and video from the first time around:

A Whole Other Type of Brazilian

Hair Update

Side note: I've been traveling a lot lately and will be doing some more before we hit mid-fall, for speaking things and a premiere of a documentary film in which I'm featured. More on that later.

On Marketers and PR

2010-08-10T22:30:57Z

I woke up this morning, signed the kids up for their co-op classes, finished cataloging the leftover supplements I had from Liam's old kindergarten curriculum, did a hit with CNBC, and will be appearing on Larry King again tonight shortly to talk about stuff half of you don't want to hear. Them eeeeevil politickin thangs!

But not before I glanced in my inbox and took a quick count of the forty or so press releases sent to me just today. Yes, you read that right. JUST TODAY. A gob of them were marketers checking in. Did you get our press release about this INSERT PRODUCT NAME HERE? Do you need further images or would you like to spend an inordinate amount of free time you don't have to give us free publicity for our products or services without the courtesy of so much as an offer of any sort of reimbursement? Why no, thanks, I would not like to spend an inordinate amount of free time I don't have to fake desire to perform a function for you, for free, that most people with two brain cells to rub together either a) request payment for or b) offer some sort of reimbursement.

Is that harsh?

Maybe?

Look, my bag isn't products and reviews and all of that, there are some chicks who do it, rock out with your socks out, but that's not my scene. Last year I spoke about this and made the remark that there are a whole lot of women bloggers out there who don't recognize their worth, be it skill or with time. There are a lot of marketers out there who don't get that the majority of us don't exist to serve as the Flava Flav to their particular product. I get bored simply thinking about press releases and hi-res jpegs of crap I don't care about, to say nothing of the energy it would require to fake enthusiasm about it in written form. I feel more, and more varied, women bloggers should speak up about this and marketers shouldn't assume that we care to have our inboxes filled up with eleventy perfrillion press releases when, if you're like me, you receive on average a couple of hundred emails per day.

Basically, don't send me your press releases or expect me to do anything other than hit DELETE unless you do two of these three things, a) being non-negotiable:

a) Realize that I'm a capitalist. I work hard to sustain myself and my family. If you expect me to take more than a fleeting glance of a moment away from my family for the sake of your product you best make it worth my while and while you're at it, have the same consideration for the copious amount of other women bloggers as well.

b) Don't send me an email about your amazing product/trip/service without offering me or any other blogger to whom you write the opportunity to partake of it themselves.

c) Don't send me an email about your amazing product/trip/service without offering my readers a chance to partake of it.

People love getting stuff or being able to give stuff to their readers. Unless you just fell off the turnip truck, realize this.

Look, I have nothing against people out there doing their jobs and I appreciate the marketing and now super-saturated market of mom blog reviews and the like because there are women now able to bring in a little something extra to their households where perhaps they were unable to before. I get it. I'm glad for it. Imaginary noisemakers and related celebratory noises here. But please don't assume that a woman's time isn't valuable or that she has the time to dig the important emails out from under the debris of press releases, and don't hound her if she's unable or unwilling, because you as a marketer completely forgot the courtesy of making something worth her while, regardless whether or not she's on the radio every day or a regular stay-at-home-mom working her skills and juggling kids, bills, and errands. Don't think that "reimbursement" means the simple recognition of having sent a press release to a bloggers, either. They're worth a lot more than that. Yes, I've known of companies who've operated in such a manner.

Also, big government be damned. I've disclosed in the past, a couple years ago when I still did a rare product mention, without Uncle Sam getting all up in my bidness.

Reading

2010-08-10T00:43:36Z

Via one of my favorite websites, Pia Jane Bijkerk:

"Something I'd like to point out is how important it is for any artist, designer, photographer, writer to find our own voice, our own way of doing things, to find ourselves in our work. It is difficult to focus on what we want to do when out there is a vast ocean of inspiration, and I enjoy watching other artists' work too, but I think it is very important to stop looking outside and start searching inside when it comes to creating our work. I believe this is priority, it's a way of respecting others as well as respecting ourselves."

Kramerica

2010-08-09T17:54:46Z

Since the beginning of summer I've had an intern, Kramer-style, with me for three days a week. A tight schedule of daily radio, television commentary, not to mention the daily family routine which includes home education has made it to where I have to have some help for a certain amount of hours per week. It's also a great way for someone who wants to study the weird amalgam of broadcasting-plus-social media in which I've seemed to envelope myself these last two years to learn firsthand.

Julia's summer internship is winding down and she returns to the east coast at the end of the month. To say that I'm beyond bummed is an understatement; it's like when you lose a pet and you don't want to get a new puppy because OMG THE PAIN - and I'm not comparing her to a pet but you get the idea. I'll be starting over again with a new intern this fall, right after I got so used to Julia being around. Just this morning she texted: At Starbucks. Venti or grande this morning?

And then I began the adoption proceedings.

Everyone at the station has taken to her and she's become our collective kid sister; Church, my news guy, my producer Kevin, and myself have been helping her refine her iTunes library and every day Church has a new artist whose music she must download so she can go back to college and be all pretentious and snotty about music.

The boys are used to her being around and Liam asked when we were going to put a silhouette of her on the wall, right by his and Ewan's silhouettes. I didn't explain to him that mama would have had to be nine-years-old for that to be possible. OMG. Just typing that made me feel absolutely decrepit.

I'm going to miss her when she goes back to school; this has been the craziest summer of my life and she's been a tremendous help while I try to balance several plates and finish a massive project, helping with prep while I'm stuck at different airports or rushing here and there. By the time she's finished with school she'll be a force to be reckoned with. I look forward to seeing the transformation.

And now my ovaries hurt.

Four Mini Oreos is Like One Regular One. Or Maybe Five

2010-07-20T04:35:07Z

This summer swallowed me up. But like that gross concluding scene in MIB 1, I fought it from the inside and blasted it open with a laser gun.

Thoughts of the summer:

- Sometimes when I've nothing left to string together a sentence, bullets rock.

- I love my kids. They are so unbelievable well-behaved and I know that every mother likes to think that of her own kids but no, mine have been golden considering the pressure that their mother has been under, they've risen to the challenge of having a mother who accidently graded one of their papers with a lip liner pencil while sitting on the toilet painting her toenails before doing a radio show later that afternoon and a hit on Larry King. They've learned so much too, just by the nature of soaking up everything that sloshes off my palette.

- I'm very fortunate. Not just to be living in this country and for the opportunities I've helped to earn but simply for the clear head to recognize it all.

- We have to get a new car. I don't want a car payment. I've loved not having one but now we're at the point where there's not avoiding it. I joke about driving a Mercedes S Class 550 (black, black leather interior) but I don't need things ostentatious for the sake of it, just something that does the job and isn't a clown car of death. Groan.

- The grass is always greener on the other side of the septic tank, Bombeck once wrote.

- Ewan officially starts school this year. Yesterday he helped me check the mail and read off the senders on the envelopes. I have no idea how he did it. He knows his vowels and many of his blends but he's just now K5 this year. He read them off, placed them on the console in the living room, and walked off on his still small, not-quite-gross-yet baby ham feet.

- Mmmm, ham.

- I need a vacation. After my last whirlwind trip to NYC where I had to work after doing Wendy's show (soooo fun) and a bit of seeing the city, I returned and literally set up camp in the corner of our sofa where I resided all weekend, moving only when necessary. We watched documentaries, we read, together and separately, and it was the most amazing weekend I've had in such a long time. I purposefully stayed in my pajamas and so did the boys most of the day Saturday. It stormed outside, ruining a pool day, and we hunkered down under quilts. It's one of those weekends that will stay in my memory, one of the things I bring forth in my mind whenever times get stressful and I need a place to retreat to mentally.

- KISS on Jay Leno. They sound as good as they did 20 years ago.

- Little mini Oreos. Excellent way to trick the mind into thinking that you can eat more because they're smaller.

An Open Letter to AT&T

2010-07-19T22:25:00Z

Do you ever find yourself dealing with a company so slimy and incompetent that you feel the need to wash your hands even after waiting on hold with them for 15 minutes? Because THAT'S HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW ABOUT THIS COMPANY.

Flash back in time, back in March, when we ended our service with AT&T Uverse to go with another company. AT&T didn't want to let go. We had our billing set up automatically and we never expected that a company like AT&T would LOOT OUR BANK ACCOUNT like a bunch of (screw it, I'm completely over offending people at this point so pick your poison:)

1) hillbillies at a Bass Pro Shop free-for-all*

2) spray-tanned skanks at a Victoria's Secret buy-one-get-one panty sale*

3) idiot poseur anarchists at a G8 protest

After a tantrum on Twitter, because waiting on their help line for days on end only to get disconnected wasn't helping, we finally got them to refund the hundreds and hundreds of dollars they ~~stole~~ took from our account. We had to cite fraud with our bank and change all of our information which was a hassle but hey - whatever it took to get the message across to AT&T that they have to stop taking money from former customer's bank accounts without permission because, I'm not sure in what reality AT&T resides, but in my reality, in the reality of most of the mammals here on planet Earth, that is called "stealing."

That was last month. The story should have stopped there and we could say the end, goodnight, but this is AT&T, the story NEVER STOPS.

So Friday evening when checking the mail I noticed that those DELIGHTFUL LITTLE BUGGERS at AT&T sent us a bill. They couldn't loot our bank account so this time they sent us a bill of over $600 for new phantom services.

HEAD+WALL.

I called them on Saturday. "The office is closed" said the little recorded man.

He said it again on Sunday too, even though people told me on Twitter that no, HAHAHA, they're open. They just don't want to talk about why they keep trying to loot money from you.

Finally, after a long day with the kids and work, I called them in the 4pm hour. They were open! I was on hold for 15 minutes when a woman finally answered.

"I'm going to need a supervisor or manager because my problem is major," I said and she replied: "CLICK. DIAL TONE."

OMGWTFBBQ.

HEAD+WALL.

So I called back.

"Our offices are now closed," said the little recorded voice man.

"[redacted]!"

"What's that? I'm sorry, I'm having difficulty understanding."

And then I hung up.

I regret ever going with AT&T UVerse because AT&T has always been a nightmare with which to deal - and I've dealt with insurance companies, one who once told me that they couldn't cover the birth of my child because my child wasn't enrolled at the time of service. Yes. AT&T is worse to deal with than that. Take my experience as a warning and run like all hades is after you in the opposite direction.

Hopefully I'll have this settled, for the fourth time, tomorrow.

[*: No, I do not think that only hillbillies/skanks shop at Bass Pro Shop/Victoria's Secret, unclench, laugh, exhale. Yes, I do think that all poseur anarchists are idiots, that's why there's no asterisk by it.]

Hello, NYC

2010-07-12T10:44:17Z

This morning I'll be back on the ever lovely Wendy Williams' show for Momversation.

Can I just say how amazing her production staff is? Because they are. No stone unturned.

It's a beautiful day in the city and I'll be in and out after her show, when I'm not working (no vacations days in radio! I'm broadcasting from NYC).

Hair Update!

2010-07-08T01:00:59Z

I haven't meant to be neglectful - finishing a massive project that I have to send off plus work plus two very energetic children.

I got a lot of email from ladies very interested in seeing what exactly my hair would look like after a couple of weeks of washing, drying, and styling. Ta-da:

A Whole Other Type of Brazilian

2010-06-25T02:28:14Z

So the other day, feeling completely tired and utterly hopeless about my hair, I did something quite dramatic to it.

See, my hair is a lot longer than it was now when I made that chipper little video about how to finger curl my hair and look! I look just like Shirley Temple! Except that it's only cute to look like Shirley Temple when you're a kid, now when you're an adult women. I began to feel like an adult woman who might as well carry around a Hello Kitty accessory.

So I had a friend email me and tell me about how she read that Nicole Richie and all these people with infinity more dollars than me get this thing called a Brazilian whatever. I immediately wondered why she was telling me about a bikini wax but she was all "No! For your HEAD!" So I followed her treasure hunt of links and ended up convincing myself that if I were to survive the rest of my life I would need one of these Brazilian things. Badly. I also did some research so I would know what to call it other than a "thing."

There are several different types of Brazilian hair treatments, some are called Brazilian Blowouts with the trademark and everything, some are called Brazilian Silk, which is what I got, and others are called Brazilian Keratin Treatments, or BKTs for short, not to be confused with the BTK psycho killer.

A short backstory: From washing to completed styling it takes me two hours to fix my hair. Because it's so thick it's an easy 30-40 minutes of drying time alone, another hour just to smooth it down and style it. It would take a good hour on the days I didn't wash it just to smooth and curl it all over again because my curls would go haywire in the night. Even if I straightened it using a Chi flatiron it was heavy due to my massive amount of hair and the oil I had to use to help smooth and weigh it down. I would get a couple of good days out of it and then after second-day-hair, that was it, start over. I did it rarely because it was such a tedious pain. Also, because of my work now, PJTV, regular appearances on national television, I HAVE to fix my hair every day. I have two kids, they're homeschooled, I work, we're slammed busy and I cannot CANNOT spend that much time on my hair every single day.

My only other alternative at this point, since it was becoming unmanageable as it always does when I grow it out, was to cut it off again ... or get a Brazilian treatment.

I did the latter. A woman with whom I work named Karen told me about her friend who does hair, her friend Heather, and how she is one of the few stylists in the area doing any sort of Brazilian treatment. I made an appointment and prayed that it would make my hair fall out or that it would actually work. I washed and wore my hair curly (in a bun) for one last day.

Here is the before:

Here is me with two-hours worth of styled hair. Ignore Glenn Beck in the photo if he's not your thing. It's the most recent photo I have with me and my egregiously-long-to-style hair.

Look what I endure for you, Internet. I put up completely unflattering photos of my hair for you. JUST so another woman with freakishly uncontrollable curly hair that gets curlier and thicker the longer it grows may be spared the long hours I spent styling mine.

Dudes! It was STRAIGHT WHEN WET. For me, that's like watching a stream reverse course.

Ooooh.

With Heather at Elan, who is awesome.

And here is after:

Many thanks to Heather for staying late to treat my hair. Also thanks to two of my favorite girls, Heidi and Marjorie, for hanging out with me the three hours it took to get it done. It was fun!

ALSO - This is the video I did last year for Momversation showing you how I fixed my curly hair. It has grown a lot since then and the only way I could continue that regimen with my hair was to keep it that length, something I didn't want to do; I wanted it longer.

Last also: the Flickr photo set from the salon.

*UPDATED to add: I will update and let you know how it wears after a few washings. I purchased the special shampoo and conditioner needed to increase its longevity as well.

**MORE UPDATE: I can STILL wear it curly. It takes curl just as it always did, but it's waaay more manageable now and won't poof out like a dandelion just because it's humid.

***MORE MORE UPDATE:

- The treatment is to last 10-12 weeks.

- I have to learn how to dry straight hair.

- I purchased the Brazilian products to go along with it and omg folks, the conditioner is amazing.

Programming Note

2010-06-21T05:51:17Z

I'm finishing a rather meaty project which has been preventing me from posting as often as I'd like in this space. I can't go into it at the moment, but when I'm finished I'll be back here with more regularity/insanity.

In the meantime, Bustache:

Happy Father's Day

2010-06-21T05:46:49Z

... to all the dads out there. You play such an important role in the family unit, one that is often made a joke and sadly, way under-appreciated in today's society.

A special Happy Father's Day to Chris, for being such a rock these past couple of years as the world turned ... and spun fast enough to make my head spin. Thank you.

A Conversation

2010-06-17T15:08:09Z

Scene, EXT

It's 9 a.m. and I'm sitting at the dining room table staring/drooling in front of a breakfast burrito while already up for five hours and going on four hours of sleep. It's storming outside and the house feels chilly.

You know what? Forget the Snuggies. It looks like a wizard's outfit. Like Mickey from "Fantasia." Right now I could totally go for a blanket burrito. Like a swaddle.

CHRIS

Like this?

Chris demonstrates wrapping up in a blanket, swaddle-style.

Exactly. Sometimes a person, an adult person, just wants to be swaddled.

CHRIS

Yes, like a straight-jacket.

Where to Find Me

2010-06-16T15:36:24Z

If you're here because of the Playboy thing (a mention, not a photo spread, freaks) THIS is where I get dirty, politically-speaking. You'll also find links to my daily radio show, television appearances, et al. there.

This is a personal website wherein I remark occasionally about my boys, a.k.a. the future rules of the galaxy.

How AT&T Screwed Us Over

2010-06-11T15:43:35Z

Yesterday afternoon I checked my spam folder and discovered, lost in an assortment of porn solicitations, email from some dude in Africa who told me he wanted me to inherit his millions, were a few emails from AT&T with recent dates informing us that they had improperly removed a nice chunk of cash, for us, from our bank account after we canceled our service with them a couple months ago.

We called and called and called the customer number for AT&T and got nothing more than a fast busy signal. We thought this problem has been resolved, you see, AT&T had tried to take $220 from our account previously and we canceled service yet again. We've canceled service twice yet AT&T still likes sticking their hands in our cookie jar, and, to quote "Stepbrothers," DON'T YOU MESS WITH MY NUT.

So I did what any reasonable person would do, which was to take to Twitter and throw a fit since CALLING THEM ON A TELEPHONE wasn't working. I don't know if their customer service is based in the United States or is a fantasy and the whole of AT&T's customer service exists just as a number on a website that goes to nowhere, but it seems like it wouldn't be crazy to assume the latter.

So on Twitter @ATTCustomerCare said she would help. Chris talked to her on the phone last night after I emailed my basic account info to her. Apparently, she's having the same difficulty as we are at getting her employer to give a rat's ass about resolving our issue because it's 11 a.m. central and this has been going on since early evening yesterday. I don't have patience WHEN IT COMES TO MY NUT. I'm not sure if this person is real, if she's a robot that AT&T made to further exasperate people by promising to help, getting them within an inch of thinking that they were going to be helped and then leaving them hanging, I don't know. I hope she helps.

Hey AT&T! We're a middle-class family and that $220 dollars you take a month? That's way over a week's grocery bill for us. That's over a month's worth of gas. That could cover a couple of our utilities. In an economy which is the way it is, I don't appreciate being forced to grab my ankles by a company that thinks it's OK to bilk middle class families out of money they use for essentials and then refuse to fix the problem.

If AT&T doesn't fix the problem and refund what they took from us I will lodge a formal complaint and if I have to bring Johnnie Cochran up in here to talk about how in this case, the GLOVE FITS then so be it.

Nature vs Nurture: Your Kid's Personality

2010-06-04T18:07:29Z

My latest with Momversation: Nature vs Nurture?

I'm just going to say now that Ewan came from the womb with my EXACT personality. It was shocking. I once called him my little George Carlin, minus the smoking and excessive profanity. My mother replied: "Just like you at his age."

Touché.