Izzy J.'s Open Salon Blog

Playing With Fire, or Just Having Fun?

Sat, 4 Jun 2011 19:06:12 -0400

If there is anyone who has followed this feeble blog for any amount of time, you'll recall the rise and fall of my previous, and only, romantic relationship.

This may be happening all over again.

After nine months, four of which we didn't speak, we've gradually became friends again. About three weeks ago, he was dumped byhis girlfriend of one month (I'm still the reigning champ- three months strong!). Being the amazing friend I am, I was there for him when he was down and out. I comforted him when he was sad. I really care about the guy, and I made sure to let him know.

His best friend is also a good friend of mine. He told me a few days ago, "You know, he can tell you still have feelings for him."

Subtlety was never my specialty.

The friend then asked if I wanted to know what said former lovah had said about that fact. Curiosity killed the cat, but I was anxious to know how he thought of me now, regardless of whether or not it would hurt.

Apparently he said, "I wouldn't mind being with her again. I'm going to think about this."

I'm happy. I'm confused. I'm daydreamy. I'm scared. I'm anxious. I'm all sorts of things.

I'm scared of getting hurt like I did before, but I've daydreamed about this situation too much to just say no. There's still things about him that bother me, but I miss the times we had last summer. I'm worried that it's not going to last, but I think it might be worth the gamble.

If this does happen, I'm going to sit him down and tell him outright, I'm not getting into a relationship that has an expiration date. He's not exactly known to be a serial monogamist. I'll promise him that I'll always give him 100%, and I'll request that he do the same as long as I am, and to always be straight with me.

Does that seem like a fair plan?

I don't have a clue, really. I've only had one relationship, and it was with this same guy.

You OS patrons are mostly adults, am I right? Do you have any sagely, adult advice for a smitten 16 year old? When you were a teenager, did you ever go back with an ex? If so, how did it work out?

Yours, ever so confused-ly,

Iz/AJ

twitter.com/izzyzilla

Do we choose our pets? Or do our pets choose us?

Fri, 27 May 2011 20:05:54 -0400

This Wednesday, I became the proud owner of one adorable kitten.

I've grown up around cats. When I was born, my parents had four grown cats, so although I never got to experience the fun of having a kitten, I loved cats and grew accustomed to having them around. Over the years, they've all succumbed to old age.

And when I say old age, I mean REALLY OLD age. The last of the original four, a... charismatic calico named Miss Piggy, was euthanized at age 23. She was energetic right up until the final few months, when her tired old body just couldn't run on it's own anymore.

It's been almost three years since the death of Piggy, and ever since then my sister and I had been begging our parents for another pet. We loved taking care of them and having them around, and our house just felt so empty without a furry little friend.

Mom's answers were always the same: "Ask your father."

Dad was a tougher nut to crack. He would say, "I'm too old for a cat. I don't want to be cleaning litter boxes anymore. I've rescued my fair share of animals." But after a few arguments with my sister, I think he was feeling guilty, and when I casually brought up the topic again, he gave.

"Dad, I miss Piggy. We need to get another cat."
"I'm too old too take care of something for another twenty years."
"What if I take it with me, when I move out?"
"Promise?"
"Yeah."
"Alright, let's get a cat."

And the next day, we went to the shelter and inquired about kittens.

The lady told us they had relatively recently received 4 kittens, but they had just been fixed that day and couldn't go home til the next day. She said there was one particular little runt who hadn't had much luck with potential adopters.

Not wanting to miss out, we took a gamble, and told them to hold him for us. We returned the day after and saw him for the first time.

He was absolutely perfect.

He was tiny, with a little head and giant ears. When we took him home, he sniffed cautiously for a while, and then jumped up to my lap, curled up around my neck and fell asleep.

It feels like he was almost meant to be my cat. We get along so well. He follows me like a little puppy, and sleeps in my bed every night. He loves to run and play and chase things and be silly, but he'll also cuddle with you when you're watching TV. He's everything a pet could be.

My family, who was skeptical of adopting a kitten at first, have all fallen in love with him.

Sometimes, I guess you don't know what's missing in your life until you find it. I suppose I was missing a furry little friend and some unconditional animal love. Now the family feels complete.

No cat can replace the ones I grew up with, like Miss Piggy, Whiskey and Boots, but the new guy, little Howie, is a great addition!

Adorably yours,

Izzie/AJ/Howie

twitter.com/IzzyZilla

The things us teenage girls go through to look pretty...

Wed, 11 May 2011 10:05:42 -0400

Whenever I read a fashion magazine (which is a rare occasion, as my bookshelf is too full of comic books to accomodate any other type of reading), I always see those stick thin models with their rock hard abs and perfect legs and flawless skin.

Now, I've been "blessed" with a bizarre lack of acne on my face, and I've got my fathers tall and lanky French Canadian genes. I'm hardly ever one to call myself fat or ugly because, let's face it... I'm awesome.

I've spent too many years being self-deprecating and loathing my appearance! Now I realise that hey, I'm actually pretty, for someone who is pretty, er, androgynous.

But summer's on the horizon, and that means all us teenage girls are going to be going out in the sun, flaunting whatever assets we have for all the world, or at least the teenage males of the world, to see.

I got a pair of awesome short-shorts from my sister, and since the forecast was calling for sun tomorrow I planned to show them off to school. After months of hiding under pants from the snow and rain, though, my legs were in pretty rough shape. Let's just say I rival Casper the Friendly Ghost.

I bought an expensive bottle of self-tanner, and some Nair hair removing cream. Of course, I had that naive notion that if I used these products I would instantly achieve the smooth, golden, sexy legs you see in the Venus ads all the time.

I just spent the past half hour chemically burning all the hair off my legs and dying them what I THOUGHT was a golden brown.

When I rinsed off all the product and looked in the mirror, I had bright orange legs polka-dotted with an angry, red rash.

Somehow I don't think that if you snapped a picture of my legs in their current state, and slapped in on a buildboard, it would persuade people to buy these things.

I've learned today that maybe, just maybe, it's a better idea to rock what your DNA has already given you, than to mask it in fancypants beauty products.

Looks like I won't be wearing shorts tomorrow.

Love from my Oompa-Loompa-y self,

Iz/AJ
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twitter.com/IzzyZilla

My sadness became one little girls "Diamond Strawberry"

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 18:04:15 -0400

Last year I was with the first boyfriend I ever had.
I know right, fifteen years old is a little late to the game. Let's just say guys weren't exactly clamoring over each other for my digits.

But some guy decided I was actually worth a shot! And hey, I liked him too.

We dated for about three months, which for adults like you folks, is NOTHIN'. But for a teenager I guess it can feel like a long time.

Around the three-month "anniversary," my sixteenth birthday rolled around. He gave me a little necklace, just a simple silver chain with a sterling silver and rhinestoney heart pendant. Not atrociously expensive, of course, but I thought it was adorable, and immediately put it on and wore it every day.

Well, I wore it for six days. Like I thought, it was too good to be true and six days after my birthday, he broke up with me.

After that, I took off the necklace, put it in its box, and never looked at it since.

It was definitely not the most amicable of splits, either. Lies were discovered, accusations were made, tears were shed. After that, we didn't speak for almost five months. Around Christmas I decided to be civil and drop him a note, and we gradually started getting friendly again.

Of course, being the mentally unstable, hormonal adolescent girl I am, I started to remember why I fell for him in the first place (although all my friends were convinced he was a Hobbit). And yeah, I admit my friendliness might have been undermined by alterior motives. Okay, I wanted him back. I cannot help the chemical setup of my still underdeveloped brain!

The fact that we are most definitely never getting back together, although I've made peace with myself now, made me sad. I cried. I was angry with myself for not "being good enough," (screw that now, I'm fabulous!) and I had anxiety attacks. I decide to just try and erase him altogether, and get rid of all the things that reminded me of him.

We're okay now. I've stopped trying to date him, and I've stopped trying to hate him. Neither of those worked. I can't be his girlfriend, or his best friend, or even his worst enemy, so I'm just going to... be.

I took that necklace, still in its box, and I gave it to a little girl who's mother works with my own mom. She's only four or five.

She told me it was the prettiest thing she had seen, and called it her "diamond strawberry on a string!" Mom tells me she wears it every day to preschool and shows it off to her little friends.

She drew me a picture of a fairy, and in preschooler-handwriting, scribbled "Thank you Izzy For the Necklace," and gave it to me today. It made me smile so big my face hurt, and I taped it to my mirror so I can look at it every morning.

She doesn't care about all the pain and hurt and sadness behind that necklace. She doesn't see any drama or baggage attached to that little piece of jewellry. All she sees is a pretty diamond-strawberry, and that diamond strawberry makes her feel pretty too.

It put all my little boy problems into perspective. Sure, I was hurt. Sure, I did my fair share of crying myself to sleep. Sure, I snapped a rubber band across my wrist for weeks. But after all that I made a little girl happy. Suddenly, it all seems worth it.

Thank you, Amelia. You're cute little smile with your missing front teeth and the way your face lit up when you saw your diamond strawberry made me realise that there's a bright side to everything. I hope that strawberry makes you feel pretty every day! I'll look at that fairy picture every morning and smile!

Adorably yours,

Izzy/AJ

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twitter.com/izzyzilla

Hold Onto Your Hats... I'm an Athiest.

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:03:33 -0400

A couple Sundays ago I was just workin' away at my part-time job at a local grocery store.

A cheerful-looking middle-aged man came through my lane. As I rang in his things, he asked me a question. A bizarre question, to someone like me.

"Did you make it to church today?"

I was a little thrown off by that. Nobody's ever really assumed I was Catholic or Christian or Muslim or whatever church he was talking about before. And if they have, they hadn't openly voiced it.

I didn't really know what to say, so I just said, "Nope."

He seemed, well, appalled!

"Poor thing! You would think your job would let you have Sunday mornings off to go to church!"

By this time I was darn well flabbergasted. "I, uh, actually don't go to church."

"What do you mean you don't go to church?"

"Well, I've never been."

"You've never been to church?"

"I'm an athiest."

This guy went visibly pale. I thought, oh jeez, now I'm pissing off a bible-thumper.

"Athiest? Are your parents athiests?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Were you Baptized?" (Are you supposed to capitalize Baptism? Who knows these churchy terms. Certainly not me.)

"Yeah, but I was a baby, I didn't really have any say in the matter."

"Then you're a Catholic."

Now it was ME getting kind of pissed at this guy.

"I'm not a Catholic. I've never been a Catholic. Athiesm is just what makes the most sense to me."

At this point I was done with his groceries. I handed him the recepit. He took it with a snuff and said, "Shame they don't teach you children the right ways in school anymore."

Then he turned to the old lady in line behind him, said "God bless you," and was on his way.

Now, I have nothing against Catholicism or Christianity or any religion whatsoever. But this dude, this dude made me MAD.

For me, the idea of having some bountiful overlord or deity doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. I'm a real sciencey kind of person (yeah, sciencey is a word. What are you gonna do.), so the "theories" (more like facts, but I don't want to offend anybody...) around evolution and how life on Earth was ACTUALLY created (meteors crashing into the Earth billions of years ago caused chemical reactions which created amino acids- thank you, Discovery Channel) is way more sensible, in MY opinion.

But hey, if your religious, good for you. You have your beliefs, I have mine. I won't try and lecture you on evolution if you don't try and preach Creationism to me.

It's just guys like this that make irate. If you're a devout Catholic, please don't shove it in my face. I don't appreciate trying to be "converted."

Religions are great. They give people hope when there would otherwise be none. They give people guidance when they don't know which way to go. They give people purpose. For the most part, they give people morals and happiness.

But my beliefs are mine, and yours are yours. And I don't think peoples beliefs should play any part in how they are accepted in society, and how other people look upon them.

It's the 21st century. The gap between science and religion is widening, and some of the more old-fashioned folk are going to have to realise someday or another that not everyone is put into a certain box when they're born. I was born into a Catholic family (hardly Catholic, I've never seen anyone in my family say Grace or even touch a Bible), but they didn't force any opinions on me, and they let me decide for myself, what do I believe in?

Everyone's got choices. Everyone's mind works differently. People are people. We're all made of flesh and blood. That's the bottom line.

"God bless you"...?

Izzy/AJ

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twitter.com/izzyzilla