So here we go.. More snow. 14 inches perhaps by Monday evening? Sigh.. Over it.

I have Iphone, it is great!

Nothing new to report.

More to come.

I certainly wish it would be! Yet another birthday went by without too much fanfare, a simple, yet artistic brunch at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston with some friends, then Jenny and Rich’s Superbowl party in Quincy. I found my self watching it. I Love the Franz Ferdinand album a lot, wishing I didn’t miss them when there were here in Boston back in December. Got my Morrissey tickets already for late March or early April, can’t recall at the moment which date it is. His new album should be out around the sixteenth. Bowie is also said to be working on new material, which is quite exciting for us fans.

Flying over snowy fields right now on my way to St. Louis for another work trip. It looks like I am still in the black for this trip, I have been running the numbers in detail while waiting to board. I am going to start booking smarter and in tighter blocks on my calender to maximize my time there.

Not that I am a big proponent of making New Yeas resolutions, but I am going to try my best to get in the gym or a pool this year, as I am feeling worn down more than usual it seems these days. I do work allot and work late, which is good of course that I am busy. I also want to save to do some travel towards the end of the year. It is time we went to London or something out of the Continental United States. I also want to get some intensive Goldwell color education by traveling to Baltimore to their training facility. Of course finally finding out about weather or not I will be indeed teaching for Deva Curl at some point this year.

This is my favorite You Tube video currently--

Some things that disappoint me creatively:
Jennifer Saunders is heading up the production and the remake of her famous series Absolutely Fabulous for the American audience, I believe to air on FOX. BLAH. Simply not a good idea.
The remake of the Rocky Horror Picture show by MTV pictures is being made...SIGH. Unholy I tell ya, some things should just be left alone.
Grey Gardens the Movie? WTF? The original documentary is wonderful.

If indeed you read these blog posts, please let me know by leaving a comment, also please sign up to receive a notice when I post.

Look out for a NEW Oneshan website coming later this year. This site will be easier for me to update content and should be allot more fun, user friendly and would hopefully have items and content that would keep you coming back.

YELP EVENTS! 70's Dance Party 30th of Jan.

AIDS Action 70's Dance Party link

A good friend of mine posted this on his facebook, I thought I would pass it along:

How to hallucinate with ping-pong balls and a radio.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/graphics/011109_hacking_your_brain/

Sooooo, I know it has been way too long since I have written anything, but I sincerely just needed to get through the incredibly busy holiday hair scheduling syndrome we all had to endure at the salon. Whew! I have slowed down, but business is still steady and going along very well, so no complaints really.

Snow.. so much snow lately and I think we have more on the way.. Sigh, it is nice but I hate having to walk in it for almost 2 miles.

Christmas came and went, along with a trip back to St. Louis of course for hair and family. It was fun taking off from Boston in a snow storm and then landing in 12° weather in the old cold Lou..SIgh, but hey ice is never better than snow. I was back Christmas night and was able to share at least Christmas evening with Jay and Pru, but of course not for any religious reasons.. lol

I think I have come to the conclusion that I must have some sort of magnetic energy field surrounding me, because I seem to always have strange and wildly unusual electronics issues. Just this month, our new HDTV suddenly goes black (but still has sound) our cable modem will spontaneously recycle it self, my Mobile Me was syncing miscellaneous items and often would mis-sync items to my Outlook, thus not allow me to sync my BlackBerry. And not but not least my new Mac Book Pro had a screen crash (scary).

oh well, I will write again when I can.. multi-tasking and short attention span theater over here..

Ciao.
Shan

A new president was elected in this country and I have been watching and paying attention to this one more closely than I ever remember wanting to know what a President was up to. So I hope that people feel a sense of a new direction for this country that is under so much stress about the economy tanking. My business seems to be doing very well despite the media’s attempts at scaring everyone. I still even travel back to St. Louis to do hair every 6 weeks. Thanksgiving has come and gone. The two of us went local to the Bee Hive. I got the new Blackberry Storm a few days ago and I have the new Mac Book Pro on its way, so things are looking up.

Not looking good this week however…..

Our condo units tub drain has broken and is spilling water down the interior walls of our unit all the way down to 11’s unit. Guy in 11 came up sweating or wet after being in his shower on Friday to say he saw water forming on his bathroom ceiling, saying “it looks like tea” (he snickered after saying it) We suspect he is “family” (gay, that is). Jay was the only one home and stated that he only ran the tub for a moment, so that it must be 18. 18 came banging on the door after Jay was showering and reported, that he did NOT have water in his unit, BUT that he could hear it “flowing” behind his bathroom wall. We waited to hear back from 11 and continued to shower since we never heard from him in a few days. 11 was back and let us know.. water still…SO In come the plumbers. After negotiating with the unserviceable and disdainful management company to let us into 18, we finally got in so the plumbers could hear the water “flowing”, which turned out to be more of a strong trickle.

Plumbers now have to tear out the ceiling to 18 today just to run a diagnostic that costs only $450.00 to get to our pipes.

Under Massachusetts law we are not responsible to repair 18’s ceiling since our liability policy does not cover anything unless we are negligent. We are not negligent because we acted immediately, therefore our insurance company will not pay. However it is the right thing to do and if we refused we could be sued. So we have to magically come up with some unsaid amount to not only pay for the plumbers to do all the work to our drain, but to pay for the ceiling they are going to tear out to be repaired or replaced. Then what if 11 decides he wants his ceiling replaced, but in that case, I would suspect that Insurance would need to step in. We have no money, my two credit cards at minimum credit limits are maxed out, and I doubt with the state of things, we could get a home equity loan. I was also unable to get approved for another credit card, I am depressed, angry and frustrated to go into debt to pay for someone else’s ceiling.. I am going to attempt to contact the owner of 18 and ask kindly if he could claim on his home owner’s insurance policy for the ceiling repairs. We could then perhaps offer to pay half or the full deductible. To repair the torn drain pipe under our unit is going to cost $4400 that I took out of my business account and thus wiped us out completly. The hunt for contractors start today.

This movie staring Sean Penn is the best Movie I have seen all year. A very moving piece with spectacular acting by Sean and Josh Browlin. I remember reading about Harvey Milk years ago and even then it struck me as a tragic yet inspiring story about early Gay rights. I was moved then as I was now by the shear number of people who attended the candle lit vigil after Harvey and the Major of San Francisco were shot in there offices at city hall in 1978. Gus Van Sant was brilliant this time by using original footage from actual events as well as the vigil crowd as far as the eye can see marching to City Hall.

Again I find myself too busy to update my blog and here it is a month later. October was a very busy month and every weekend was spent out of town. The first week was another St. Louis work trip and I got to see the hilarious movie Religilous with friends and also a fun relaxing Sunday with family. The second weekend was Devon and Jesse’s wonderful outdoor wedding and a spontaneous trip to P-town, in which we even took Pru down with us on the Fast Ferry. It was a crisp cool weekend and most of the businesses were having sales as the natives we winding down from the hectic season. We wore Pru out with the walks on the beach and up and down commercial street as well as ourselves with a bike ride through some of the trails. We even ran into some friends, which makes things so much better and fun. The weekend of the 17th I took off to Washington DC, to meet up with Alec (my son). We had a nice time just hanging out and Donna was so sweet to offer up her place to stay. It was nice to also see Alonzo (from the DZine days) and we all laughed quite a bit. At one portion at dinner, I had to leave the table because I was laughing so hard. We even took a short day trip to Mt. Vernon; George Washington’s home before heading back home via BWI. The last weekend in October was Jay’s birthday and we went to Jacksonville Florida for a family weekend to celebrate an early thanksgiving. The activities included a trivia night at a favorite restaurant, a rainy afternoon of shopping, bowling and a seafood dinner. We also took a day trip to St. Augustine, just south of Jax, and had lunch in this historic city after browsing the nick-knack tourist shops and one museum. I can tell you that I was happy to live in the North East after being in the conservative south for even that short weekend.

Halloween was again a great time in the South End, and we had a nice dinner at Sibling Rivalry after a long day at work. I know that next year, the salon HAS to be involved with this South End Halloween extravaganza. The streets are so crowded with trick-or-treaters and businesses stay open late to partake in this Holiday. I remember saying, as I did the previous year: “This is the only time of year Bostonians are friendly and inviting”.

OK, back to the Grind, and don’t forget to VOTE! Next time I write, I will be saying Barack Obama is our next president.

Having been rushed around working all week, it was a relief to take a Saturday off, but still I didn’t have the time to prepare for New York like I wanted to. We took off early Saturday for Six Flags alone, as we still don’t have any good friends.. SIGH.. We did however meet up with some of Jay’s co-workers and their partners after we had been at the park a couple of hours. The park was not crowded and it was so cool to be able to ride all the rides and get on them so quickly. The rollercoaster called Mind Eraser is certainly jerky and more of what I would rename the “Concussion Maker.” I enjoyed the Batman a lot as it was cushiony with plenty of head support and swift. Pandemonium or as Jeremy would continually call it the the Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, something or other, obviously he is confused; was a favorite with its spinning rollercoaster car. I especially loved the two young ghetto fabulous transsexuals who were “vogue-ing” while cursing obscenities going up into the air and being dropped on “Scream” the 220 foot freefall ride, I suppose they fit the description perfectly. I relaxed a bit and had some nasty park cheese fries while chatting with Cody and James as they were sitting out the last ride on the Superman. Jeremy ended up loosing his car key on the ride and after only a brief 20 minutes after the ride was closed, they found the key in a spot that the staff frequent after someone looses things from the ride – the G spot they called it. I can only imagine after a long day standing around and lifting up chest bars and pushing big yellow buttons they all descend under a steep turn or flip under the coaster and sift through the tall grass or shallow rock. Occasionally picking up chewing gum by accident, or perhaps a nice watch, a million coins, a TV or two, or even a car key that may have fallen out of the pockets of the patrons while they put their hands up to spiral through fun at Six Flags.

Another rush to pack after returning from Out In the Park and an early morning drive to the real city of NY. I arrived around noon waking up the girls on my phone call informing them of my proximity to the financial district hotel in which we were all staying. I could tell they had a rough night and they began discussing the previous night stories of debauchery in the Meat Packing district with a nice dinner and a continuous fight to get into clubs and bars (Apryl had forgotten her ID). I think they managed to get into a few places, but Jenny described it as feeling like she was in the movie “Knocked Up” running to the begining of the line and arguing with the bouncer. See IMDB link-- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478311/quotes

We got right to some shopping in SoHo - my favorite spot. We ended up waiting 45 minutes for this very cute stylish restaurant called Delicatessen which turned out to have the most unbelievably horrendous service I have ever experienced from a server whose brain was de-commissioned before she arrived to work. See my Yelp review.. http://www.yelp.com/biz/delicatessen-new-york

No planned reservations for dinner, but we managed to find a pretty good place near China Town called Boroco. It was a cavernous place, more of a romantic getaway, but nonetheless, where else would I have the opportunity to try “creamed cod” – Seriously?!
After dinner the girls went back to crash and I went uptown to…well…be out in NY. I soon got bored and tried one other location, “The Cock” over in the East side, and again got bored and took an early night in.

I awoke in a sweat in the middle of the night and immediately went into a panic attack as I couldn’t feel my left arm. I crouched around in the dark only using my cell phone to light my way to find my Xanax - only took a half to start this attack from becoming worse. I felt ill and my stomach began to churn so I decided to run a bath, knowing that would calm me down. So here I am at 3am in a NYC hotel shallow bath tub pondering the reasons why my more recent anxiety attack came on: (1) Stressed at work, from being so busy and with all the new and sometimes demanding clients, (2) Recently being sick, and I hate being sick, and (3) Too much caffeine? I realized after soaking and calming down that I believe that my left arm completely fell asleep and when I turned over in my sleep all the blood started to rush back into my arm with painful vengeance. OUCH.. sigh. Of course the running joke when I get flustered or hyper in the salon is, “Shan why don’t you take a bath?”

Deva Day at the Departure Lounge in SoHo. I am super excited to finally be officially trained in the Deva concept of cutting and coloring curly hair. I must say, the staff was very nice and down to earth, much more than I expected from such a reputable salon in New York. Our team from Pure really absorbed the details, and I think added more education through questions to the other 14 or so stylists in attendance from all over the country. Apryl cracked herself up and us with her imagining that she had smeared hair color all over the back of my vintage black jacket between swipes of painting strands of hair since we were in close proximity to each other. I suppose it was more imagining my response and her carelessness that defined the whole pretend scenario. At the end of the day and after seeing my techniques, one of the instructors/stylist said I should come work there. I want to work there, what if I did a few days a month in NYC?

Over all we had a super time in NYC and it was always in my thoughts that it would be good for us to bond and chat as a team outside the salon. The Drive back was split up, Maria and I in the lead speed car and Jenny and Apryl following us up the FDR highway to 95. We got caught in Connecticut construction for about 30 minutes and while traveling Apryl would occasionally call Maria, just to chat. At one slow going bumper to bumper traffic Apryl was seen by us and many surrounding drivers crawling back into the of Jenny’s Hybrid. She put down the seats and was pulling her pajamas out of the suit case. The truck driver next to them certainly enjoyed the show. Maria was sad that I had forgotten my binoculars. We were so slap happy that at times I would burst into laughter just thinking of Apryl’s reaction to meaningless random items along the drive that might inspire a thought from her.

It is always a joy to be back home in Boston with my man Jay. This week has been busy, but I have been much more relaxed. My 1 year anniversary of returning to St. Louis to do hair is upon us and I am excited to share my enthusiasm for good looking hair.

Ok so here we are on our 1968 Riverside mopeds yesterday at the Boston Moped Massacre '08 rally...about 30 of us on mopeds swarming through the streets of Boston...blocking intersections, blowing through red lights and pedestrian filled crosswalks...for once, as a mass unit, taking over the streets usually very unfriendly to moped riders (although we have every right to be on the street...just as much as cars, trucks, busses and taxicbs)...unfortunately Shan's bike made it for 10 minutes and then died...LOL...

We sat in a black top parking lot for 4 hours waiting for the damn ride to start - but with the moped culture (READ: partiers, drinkers, stoners)... We have learned that schedules are tentative at best...

We think Shan's bike got overheated but who knows...[sigh]...guess we'll have to look at the plug, carb, condenser...(god do I sound BUTCH or what? Who uses words like plug, carb and condenser???)

Anyway, we met some new people, other 'ped heads drooled over our bikes...now we need to get Shan's back up and running...

(This is a copy of an email Jay sent to our friends, I thought I would share with everyone on my blog, enjoy.)