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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

And the Winner, By a Hair...

I was probably in junior high school when I realized I had a thing for guys with long hair.

One of my earliest memories of that is from this:

I'd known about Menudo for years.  When your mom is a Spanish teacher, you learn about things like that.  But they didn't really become mainstream in the English speaking part of America until I was in junior high.  That's when they started being featured in the teen magazines.  I think I might have even had this poster at one point.

Anyway, see the guy on the left with the white shirt?  That's Sergio.  I was very much in love with him.

And my obsession with long hair on guys had begun.

For the record.  Sergio grew up.  And he kept the long hair.

Oh my.

Surfer Pirate has expressed an interest in growing his hair out again.  I'll get back to that subject in a little bit, but that got me thinking about a funny story from my high school days involving another guy with long hair.

I was a freshman.  He was a junior.  I had seen him in the halls from time to time and just thought he was adorable.  His hair came to his shoulders.  He was really cute when it was down and loose, but when it was pulled back in a ponytail?  Be still my heart!!

Turned out he was one of my mom's students and apparently a really nice guy as well.

He was in one of those tough situations where his parents split custody for half of the year.  He would go to school in Montana for part of the year, and then he would finish up the year back east somewhere - I had heard in a fancy prep school somewhere.

Unfortunately for me, I was usually pretty shy around really cute guys until I got to meet them.  And when you're too shy to even say "Hi", it's kind of hard to introduce yourself.  I'd been trying to get the nerve to speak to Mr Ponytail when he was suddenly gone.  Custody change.  I was disappointed, but at least I hadn't started something just to have it taken away.  I figured I would see him again in the fall and I could try then.

One bright, sunny, summer day, I was at a park near my house for a music festival that was happening there.  My house wasn't too far away, and I decided I would walk home for some lunch and then go back in the afternoon.  As I was leaving the park, Mr Ponytail walked past me with a friend.  I was STUNNED!  I was so shocked to see him that I couldn't even think!  If I had been able to think, I might have said to myself, "Now's your chance, crazy girl!  SAY SOMETHING TO HIM."  Instead, my whole brain shut down.  Once he was past the trees and could no longer see me, I collapsed to my knees.

Later, I really regretted that I didn't say anything to him at that moment.  I never saw him again.  I assume he must have decided that he didn't want to switch schools halfway through his senior year and was just there for the summer.

I can't say I knew him, so I can't say it was a huge loss to me that I never got to know him.

But he had some amazing hair!

My love affair with long-haired guys continues to this day.  Oddly enough, I've only ever dated one guy that had actual long hair, and that was very short lived.  (I don't count guys with the mullets that were oh-so-popular when I was in high school.  That was only long in the back.  Just not the same.)

The ponytail has never lost its appeal to me either.

Here are some fun object lessons to show you what I mean:

Let's start with Antonio Banderas.
With long hair

Pulled back in a ponytail for the movie Desperado

Val Kilmer.

Semi-long hair of his own

Two different long hair looks from the movie The Saint (where he changes his look a dozen times or so)

The always amazing Johnny Depp.

His beautiful natural hair

Wearing a messy ponytail in the movie Chocolat

And just for fun, here's the back of the ponytail

Braided, also from the movie Chocolat

Emile Hirsch

From the movie Lords of Dogtown
(This movie is really close to Surfer Pirate's heart.  It's about surfers/skateboarders in California.  He has a family tie to the actual real-life kids the movie is based on.)

Chris Momoa.

If you don't know who he is, he was in the movie Conan the Barbarian.  He's also married to Lisa Bonet.  She's a lucky, lucky girl.

A ponytail AND a great suit??  Does life get any better??

Chris Hemsworth.

His beautiful, blonde locks.

Pulled back in a ponytail.
(If you want to see something REALLY adorable, Google images of him with his baby.  Nothing sweeter than a big, burly guy snuggling a teeny, tiny baby!)

And of course, as Thor.

This list definitely wouldn't be complete without the guy I consider to be the REAL Thor, Clay Matthews from the Green Bay Packers.


Hey look!  It's Clay Matthews with his hair down AND pulled back, in the same picture!!
This is from his Fathead commercial.  If you haven't seen it yet, look it up on Youtube.  It's really funny.

FYI, it's REALLY hard to find a good picture of him with his hair down when it's not all messy from a football game.

So, back to Surfer Pirate.

What do you think of when someone says California Surfer?  Sun bleached blonde hair.  Dark tan.  Strong and muscular.

That was Surfer Pirate.  

At least before he moved to Montana and then became a farmer in North Dakota.  

He's still really strong, but the muscles aren't quite as defined because the kind of work out here uses totally different muscles than swimming and surfing.  Plus, I feed him really well.  ...take that as you will.

The tan is pretty much non-existent.  He doesn't see the sun nearly as much as he did back then.

The blonde hair is quite dark these days from a lack of constant days in the sun.

The long hair he used to have was gone long before I met him.  

He misses it.

He has gone back and forth with wanting to grow it out for as long as I've known him.  He made a pretty good attempt at it when we were still in Montana.  It had even gotten long enough that I French braided it - just to see if I could.

How lucky are you??  That's an actual picture of the back of his head!

He was going to leave it long when we moved here, but he wasn't sure how conservative people were.  He wanted to make a good first impression on the nice people of Northern Middle of Nowhere, ND.  

I cried when he cut it.

I was pregnant with Pirate Baby, so I was hormonal, but I genuinely loved how long his hair was getting.

He's been trying to grow it out again lately.  It's in that really scruffy stage when it's not long, but not short either.  Sometimes when he takes his hat off, his hair reminds me of Christopher Walken in the movie Joe Dirt.

I guess his hair was longer than I thought it was in that movie, but you get my point.

He told me a few days ago that he needs to get it cut because he doesn't like how it's looking lately.  I'm hoping he's going to have it cut in a way that will work with him growing it out, and not just have it cut off again.

I want my man to have long hair.

* I had too many pictures on this blog entry to list all my sources.  I hope no one takes offense.  All of the celebrity pictures in this entry are from Google Image Search except for the screen shots from Chocolat, The Saint, and Avengers.  The screen shots were done on my laptop off the dvd's.  The picture of the back of my husband's head was taken by me, of course.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Worth A Try

I'm sorry for the lack of posts lately.  Life has taken me in a different direction these days and I haven't been sitting down at my computer nearly as much.  But that is a story for a different day.


Once upon a time, I was a 14 year old girl.  (I know, shocking, right?!)  I was a Freshman in high school, and I had the undying heart of a True Romantic.  I was obsessed with the Victorian age and would spend hours and hours watching classic movies on cable.  As often done in high school English classes, we read Romeo and Juliet, which just further fueled my addiction to classic love stories.

So when our English teacher announced that we were to write a book report on a book of our choice, I of course decided to read a classic love story.

I chose Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
Pictures of book covers in this post both from Amazon.  A great place to pick up a good book for a bargain price!  That sounded like an advertisement.  Maybe Amazon should pay me.

Piece of cake, right?  A True Romantic like I was could never find anything but a complete love for such a classic story!

How wrong I was!!

By the time I had muddled midway through the book, the deadline for our reports was MUCH too close.  There was no way I could possibly get through it all in time!  Not only was the reading a huge challenge, but I'd actually come to hate Cathy and Heathcliff with the passion of 1000 burning suns!  I was disgusted with all the characters and just wanted the stupid book over with already!!

So, I decided to watch the movie again.

1939 Laurence Olivier version.  Classic.

I read the last chapter of the book.

Then I wrote the report.

To my surprise, I got an A on it!

But I did decide that I was done with Emily Bronte and had no interest in her sister's writing either.

A few years ago, I was in my favorite used bookstore and came across a cheap copy of the book.  I decided maybe I should give it another chance sometime, so I bought it.

I still haven't attempted reading it again, but I'll get to it eventually.

In the process of this last move, we decided to go back to using satellite (quite honestly, so we could get the football package.  GO FALCONS!!)  As is often the case when you sign up for new cable or satellite service, they like to give you lots of extra channels in the hopes that you'll decide you can't live without them and will pay the crazy extra charge for them.  During the last few weeks of our free movie channels, I took advantage of our large DVR space and started recording any and all movies that looked interesting to me - while we still had them.

One of the movies that I recorded was the 2011 version of Jane Eyre.

I figured as much as I love classic movies, I MUST HAVE watched a version of this one at some time or other.

One night, I sat down to watch it.

Apparently I never had seen any versions of it.  But, ohmygoodness!  What a great story!  No wonder I've heard so many different people talk about how much they love it!

That settled it.

I needed to read the book.

The following week, when I was in town to run some errands, I stopped by the library and picked up a copy.  

I finished it early yesterday morning.  I decided to take it to bed with me the night before, figuring if I woke up early, I could lay in bed and read.  I literally cried through the last 2 chapters!  So sweet!  

Okay, so the Bronte sisters aren't all bad.

Maybe it's time to give Wuthering Heights another try.