When your life is upside down, go cut your hair off.

Gets rid of the bad juju. Also means it’s time for a new banner shot.

It’s not that I didn’t love my gray – quite the opposite. I loved my gray. It’s just that we’ve been together three years, and found ourselves trapped in a relationship of convience, void of passion or adoration for one another.

Not to worry. I’m sure we’ll get back together – we just need some time apart.

Ms. Mary Jac came by last night after a drive from the Nantahala and a stop to see the horses. We walked over to Johnny’s, grabbed some pie, went back to my place, chit chatted over an episode of Inside the Actors Studio and she left an hour later.

I’ve had a long couple of days and was about to hop into the shower then fall into bed when she rang from her car a few minutes after walking out the door.

“Yeah, my car was broken into. I’m glad you made me bring my purse in.”

Sonofa…

So they punched her window and pulled out the backpack that had been sitting in the rear seat. Ironic that it happened to be my green employee edition REI bag from 2 years ago that I loaned her when she went to Germany? Maybe. Also inside: Converse, a $100 hair dryer (it’s her job, yo), a new dress she bought for a date last week and some unmentionables.

I called a few neighbors to see if they’d heard anything (they didn’t), we called the PoPo (got the same guy I had) and the five of us huddled in the street grumbling about the state of affairs in the ‘hood while MJ made her report. As it turns out, hers was the 2nd car “the guy” had smashed in the last 20 minutes. Awesome.

I feel horrible that it happened, wretched that it was because she was visiting me and betrayed by my own neighborhood. It’s one thing to have vandalism take place at 2am, but we’re talking 8:30 on a Monday night, for Chrissakes.

I’ve gone from having pity and empathy for those who have to steal to feeling responsible and flat out angry and vengeful. I’m not a fan of those emotions, and the whole thing has me imagining some sort of Charles Bronson/Paul Kersey hybrid scheme where I park my Jeep on the street, then wait in the dark of our top balcony with a cup of tea, my iPod and a shotgun.

The first picture was taken just after I moved to Atlanta in 1994. I was angry, lonely, fluffy and…lonely.

The second picture was taken in a photo booth in the US Embassy in London. I’d just washed my hat hair in the ladies room sink and shoved the last of my octaginal coins into a slot in the wall.

Funny that I had returned to the same hair style all those years later, but my eyes had somehow grown…was it the fear of being trapped in England forever, or the alarm at how much I’d just paid for a lack of barcode on an EU passport or the efficiency with which the government can work when not on American soil (though technically an embassy is on our soil, blah blah blah)?

The last picture was taken a few weeks ago at work. I look at it and in comparison I see a happier, more evolved and stabilized me – as though the uncertainty trapped in the other two had graciously lost its way.

Only an illusion, and one created for the US government at that.

Go figure.

P.S. I’d also like to point out that I’m wearing black in all three pictures. Some things never change…like black being perfect.

Update: Just because, here’s my Irish passport picture – dated, even. I look like a thug, and I’m not wearing black. :\

It’s done. Codie and my grey have arrived, the majority of my hair has fled the scene and I doubt Atlanta will ever be the same.

Before…

After, over drinks with Codie