Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....Iran

I've mentioned before that when I was in high school I was a part of the institution so lovingly known as show choir. Glee it was not. We had competitions every year in the winter, and if there was one thing that you absolutely did not forget to bring to competitions, it was this: BIG HAIR.

I have very disagreeable hair. I have a ton of hair, but it's very fine in texture, and therefore very limp. It won't hold style, and it is generally content to lie flat against my head with no volume whatsoever. I've tried all the gels, all the mousses, all the different hairbrushes, but it's all for nothing. FLAT HAIR. Not big hair.

This lack of big hair therefore required some serious attention going into these competitions. While the other girls could all slap some hot rollers in their hair an hour before going on stage, apply a generous amount of hairspray, and then be good to go for both performances in the general round and then in the finals, I had no such luck. Competition time required that I borrow perm rollers from my cousin that owned her own hair salon and weigh my head down with said rollers for over 12 hours.

It would work like this: Competitions were on Saturdays. On Fridays after school, we would have a several-hours-long rehearsal, then run through our program for friends and families that came to watch. We would all eat dinner together, and then everyone would go home to get some rest before getting up at the ass crack of dawn the next morning to head off to the competition. After parting ways for the evening, I would go home, take a shower, and then roll my wet hair up into those perm rollers. And I had really long hair, so that was A WHOLE HELL OF A LOT OF PERM ROLLERS. My friend Jessica would often come over to help me get my head all done up.

During my senior year in high school, the Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City. Jessica and I were working on my hair while we watched the opening ceremonies one Friday evening. If you watched the opening ceremonies in Vancouver this weekend, you may have noticed that it is tradition that the country's names are read during the March of Nations first in French and then in English. And you may have also noticed that while some names are very similar in both French and English that some are wildly different. And while watching that, I had a flashback to that night during my senior year, hair full of perm rollers, watching TV with Jessica, and that announcer's voice saying "Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.....Iran."

It's Iran. Two syllables. And it was blah blah blah blah blah blah blah in French. COME ON, FRENCH PEOPLE, HOW COMPLICATED IS THIS?

Jessica and I laughed for about ten minutes straight that night at the absurdity of the fact that the name for Iran in French was so ridiculously long. And I know it's totally silly, and that you totally had to be there, but you know those moments? The moments that eight years later you stll remember and laugh at? Those are the best. Thanks, Olympics.

And just as a side note: my hair was MAGNIFICENT.

With Friends Like Her

This is an official shout out. The first shout out on my blog. I really wish there was something else to call it other than a shout out.

My official first shout out on my blog goes to the wonderful, the lovely, the ridiculously cute little blonde with good skin and an impeccable taste for shoes and bags, my wonderful friend Jessica. Who was also my maid of honor one year ago yesterday. Boo-yah.

Jessica receives the first official shout out on my blog because she was the first person to leave a comment. THIS IS WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR.

Jessica is my Bia. She is Bia J, specifically. Bia A would be me. I'm not really sure when we even started calling each other "Bia," but I'm pretty sure that it was like 10 years ago when there was this rap song called "Bia Bia" and it was HILARIOUS, especially for two white girls from the suburbs. And thus, the nickname stuck, and it's still awesome after all this time.

Jessica and I met during our freshman year in high school. She was new to school, and during second period choir the teacher sat her next to me. And, lo and behold, we had accelerated English together third period! A friendship was born. Bia, do you realize that that was 11 years ago???? The Disney Channel hadn't even heard of Miley Cyrus at that time, a time when the world was a much more peaceful place without her nasty, grating, fingernails-on-a-chalkboard voice. Dear Lord, we are getting so old.

Anyways, Jessica and I bonded over general boy craziness and the fact that we were just so much cooler than anybody else. Because we were. Say what you will. And we both loved the movie The Kid with Bruce Willis because of that fat kid when he says "Well, I came back for my plane, but then I saw the popcorn......". She also helped me roll my long hair into about 10-bazillion perm rollers on the Friday nights before our showchoir competitions so that I could have curly hair, because showchoir was ALL about the curly hair. Yes, we were in showchoir. Like I said, we were cooler than everybody else. She was also my partner in crime when I cut off all of said curly hair. And the conversations about sex and boys....I think that the entire last half of our junior year up through graduation was one endless slumber-party conversation.

After graduation, Jessica went off to Purdue and I ended up at Eastern Kentucky University. Yes, I intentionally went to Kentucky. But I realized the error of my ways and went back to Indianapolis to finish up my degree. And once we were in the real world post-college life I had to fuck it all up by moving away from all of my friends to California. What kind of a person am I?!

P.S: Jessica cried during Finding Nemo when Nemo's mom dies.