Pittsburgh Beauty Treatments

Here is a short clip of our Pittsburgh beauty treatments. Esther and I both got fancy nails and Esther got her hair did.

Yikes the grinding drill sounds of the nail tool makes my hair stand on end. The nails were nice and ladylike at first, but soon I felt like my fingers couldn't breath and I couldn't pick things up or do art stuff. SO not good. I had to get them OFF!!

It turns out the only way to get the dang things off is by soaking your fingers in acetone for 30 minutes. HORRIBLE!!! While I was soaking all I could think about is the bad chemicals seaping into my skin and growing cancer nuggets. Beauty shouldn't be dangerous right? What other stuff do we do that is soaking chemicals into our system? Does anyone care? What about all that hair spray? That can't be good to breath in. Oh my! I never really though about it before.

My nails still aren't the same. You can see the little dent in my nail bed where the fake nails were adhered. Esther said her nails are fragile and thin and breaking too. Just a little more growth and my nails will be fresh and not damaged. Beauty is a bitch!

Kansas City Symmetry

Below is an interview with two women we met while visiting Kansas City.

The ladies of Design Ranch gave us the best tour of this unexpectedly groovy city! I am so bad! I haven't properly thanked them yet (special thank yous are going out to all the people we met soon). Haven't had a moment since we got back. I need to organize myself better. TANGENT. OK back to the job at hand.

For me Kansas City turned out to be one of my favorite places on our trip. The people there were generous and kind and AWESOME! I had the best BBQ of the whole trip there too, visited Hammer Press and we were treated to a private tasting of crazy good snow cones by Fresher Than Fresh the best snow cones on either side of the Mississippi! On top of all that we met a bunch of cool people at Hallmark Cards and they let us look at the archives which was incredible. I could have stayed there for hours.

Anyway while we were on the tour we saw a little sign in the shape of panties and discovered this charming little panty and bra shop called Birdies. Of course we had to meet these women and interview them. Here is what they have to say about beauty. Interesting!



Please excuse the choppiness of the video. I am still learning about editing. Weeee!

Martha

More Beauty Coming Soon

Hello People

I have to apologize for neglecting the blog since we got back. After the trip we quickly got sucked back into the vortex of life. I am almost caught up on things and will be devoting some more time to our project soon. In the meantime, here is a beautiful piece of art we found at a gas station. Genius.



Thanks,
Martha

Beauty School Up-Do

After breakfast, we stumbled upon a beauty school in Pittsburgh. An up-do was only $15. The price was right for me!


My student couldn't find the up-do book. And an instructor had to come and show her how to get it done. Donna said the students often took the up-do books home. So I had to tell them what kind of style I wanted. I had no earthly idea.


Donna was pretty insightful. When getting an up-do, I imagine it makes the experience all the more worth while when you discuss relationships.


A lot of ratting and hairspray.



More ratting and hairspray.


Ah. Perfection.


I was told to wrap toilet paper around my "do" before I went to sleep. I'm not sure if it really made a difference or if I did it in the correct spot. Still, I liked having an excuse to wrap TP around my head. I highly recommend it.

Trust me your flaws ain't that bad

How come the minute I got back to L.A. I felt all blobby and ugly and awkward? Maybe cause I just spent a month eating and drinking my way across the country and only went running once. But dang, I didn't think that way while on the trip. On the trip I enjoyed every day as it came at me and didn't get all negative thoughty-like. I am going to get those feelings back. Just have to work at it.

Not surprisingly, during our trip we found that most people are obsessed with their own perceived flaws. They see bad things in themselves no one else notices. This is what leads to spending lots of moola on creams and lotions and getting people to operate on you or inject botulism into your head. No judgements, I am the worst when it comes to creams and stuff. Anyway I drew my perceived flaws.

This made me feel all bad so I decided I should do the opposite. This was much nicer and made me feel better. Doing the opposite of negative thinking really does make you feel good. I am practicing this from now, thinking positive first instead of thinking bad first. Below is a drawing of my good stuff.

Remember this, no one sees your flaws but you and if someone does point them out then they are being crappy and who cares what crappy people think.

Nails: Pros n' Cons

Hey we are on the 2nd to last day of our trip. YAY. Yesterday we had an AMAZING time in Kansas City, which I will get to later. I want you to know that this blog will go on despite the trip ending on Saturday. There is so much stuff we have not shared. It won't be in order, but who cares? Right?

OK so I got these nails in Pittsburgh. I am not sure how I feel about my hot pink, sparkly, airbrushed lady nails, so I thought I'd write down the pros and the cons of these dang thangs.

PROS
Kinda pretty
Good for scalp massage
Flirty
Guys will open things for you
Scratching stuff is easier
Makes typing hard so people won't ask you to do it (this would be a con if you like typing)

Hand puppets on your hand is way cuter

Pointing is more dramatic
Makes nice tapping noises
Express your individuality through airbrush n' color!
Not good for hard labor so don't do hard labor
Picking a Uke is so rad with fancy nails

You can't open Slim Jims
Lady like
Holding things looks nicer




CONS
Can't open stuff
Grabbing things is not easy
Zippers hard
They get caught on stuff and bend backwards. Yow!
Food gets stuck under
Can't perform surgery
Can't dial cell phones
Typing hard (could also be a good thing)
Makes you a little helpless
Lady like
Nose picking impossible and GROSS
Even though you look cool picking the Uke, the sounds aren't good
Contact lenses impossible to take out
Nails can't breath
OB Tampons (ewww) I won't explain (not my bag)
No teeth picking
Slows down the digging thru purse process
Painting ruins them
Annoying
Makes it looks like you don't work hard

So I don't know. What do you think? Is it more beautiful to have lady nails or can I go back to normal?

Pittsburgh Nails

Martha and I had acrylic nails put on at Bobby's Nails in Pittsburgh, PA. It took half and hour each and cost about $35-45 each. First you are fitted with plastic crazy ass long nails that are glued onto the tips of your nails.



Bobby's Nails was run by a sweet family. Mom started us off and soon her daughter Thanh came in to do the paint work. Thanh was a wise soul taking journalism. "Some people who get their nails done are trying to fill in something that is missing in their lives. But beauty is really who you are inside."



It is hard to get used to. I can't play the ukelele or even tune it with these nails. How does Dolly Parton do it? Did't her long nails even inspire the song "9-5" while she was tapping on her guiltar? One thing these nails are good for is shampooing my hair. I can give myself a great scalp scrub.



We were told the most popular colors were black and gold for the Steelers football team. There were airbrushed nails with images of palm trees, skulls, and even beloved Jesus, but you had to wait for the dad to come in to do the fancy airbrush.



Martha's zombie hands don't look quite like the "I love nails" poster on the wall. Maybe she just needs to be holding diamonds and jewels.