( peacock oversized in black! )</div>

This soap must be awesome...because, already, I CAN'T get a comb through my hair.

I was going to wait two weeks to backcomb (because that is when time frees up)... but at this rate-
should I speed up the process and do it in a week instead? 

Last time I dreaded with the back-combing method I didn't detox my hair first-- and I really regretted that afterwards...

Here is my dichotomatic thought process:

I don't want my hair to get so matted that I can't section it...

I also think that this quick matting may work to my advantage in accelerating the locking process...

So, what do you guys think?
Thoughts? Comments?

Thanks All,
Britt

You know, for someone who took me to Paris for four beautiful summer days, for someone who kissed me on the Pont-Neuf while the sun set, you're failing pretty badly at romanticism right now.

What happened? Ever since we separated, all you've been able to talk about is the end. You think it has to end sometime soon. We don't have a hope of being together in the future if it doesn't end. You're not sure what the point of continuing this relationship is if it's just going to end anyway...but then you say you don't want it to.

And I don't understand. I get that seeing eachother only every eight months or so, for no more than two weeks, isn't really sensible, but it wouldn't have to be eight months--I'm moving back halfway across the world in August, back to an hour-long plane ride away from you, back to where we really stand a solid chance. I get that we should probably go and explore with other people before we settle down for good; this is our first real relationship for both of us. But this isn't just some fling, this is REAL LOVE. For you even more than it is for me.

I get that it's hard. I get why you might not think it's worth it. I know you're seriously hurting over there without me and it hurts me too, I can tell you. But those two weeks in April will arrive, I promise you, and they will be beautiful. Painfully, destructively beautiful, but beautiful. Beautiful like it used to be. Beautiful like our relationship is. Or could be, if you could just LET it be. We were so spontaneous, so wild and free. When did this rationality set in? This cold calculation that is telling you to throw away the girl you love more than anything? Love is not rational. Love is the bane of rationality's existence. Why can't you just close your self-righteous mouth for once and see where it takes us? 

I never thought I'd be the shepherd. But I am, and you are my nymph, whose inability to dream shuts off your heart and turns you to stone, while I continue to dance in my eternal April around a statue, making promises of beauty to nothing but the wind.

Dear husband,

I need to you to treat me better, especially now while I am pregnant. I need you to respect me and my wishes. I need you to not make me feel bad for crying. I need you to not stare at other women or talk about how hot one is in front of me, especially knowing how I am feeling about my body right now. Shape up please. I need you and you're not here for me.

Love,
Your sad and lonely wife

John-

I know "serious" talks with me make you uncomfortable, but I have a feeling we're more similar than you might think.
I want to know why you're not talking to Dad. I wonder if you feel the same way about things.
I have a lot of respect for you. I think you're very sensible. By myself, I don't know what to think of the way I remember things but if it turns out that you feel the same way - well it would mean a lot to me to know that we're in this together and that you're in my corner.

- your sister

Dear Rich (again),

I'm not putting this behind a cut this time, because I don't think I need to. What I needed to say that would warrant a cut, I wrote by hand, in a book that no one will ever read, last night. It helped. And tonight was cool, because we mostly skipped Stuff That Would Warrant A Cut.

It was a weird day today. My mum ended up in hospital, and then I found a half-starved cat under my kitchen floorboards. End of my day was meant to be going for a drink with my dad. Except going for a drink with him of a Wednesday, he'll buy me a pint, but he's busy talking to John. That's cool; I go for my fag breaks and you're there and I talk to you. It works. Me and Dad catch up every forty minutes or so and one buys the other a drink. I get time to talk to you, and I wanted to do that. I've not been out since Friday, and I missed you. I missed your face, I missed your voice, I missed the way you listen to me when I speak. I missed the way you smile. Except tonight you weren't there.

I spent about two hours drinking free beer (no complaints there), listening to conversation that barely interested me, and thinking about you. Not even thinking anything particularly schmoopy and weird, just wishing you were there for me to talk to outside. I planned out in my head what email I'd send you ("You given up on Wednesdays or what? Tone was wandering round like a lost puppy without you...") when I got home. I'd pretty much written off the evening.

And then I went for my last fag and you were there.

And it was ace. We talked. Like normal people, we talked. I saw your face, I saw your smile. But one of the things we talked about was the stuff I write, and you said it all seems very homoerotic, and I tried to explain the whole "slash fic" thing to you, and you sort of got it, sort of didn't. Throughout our talking and your explaining and my explaining of the concepts involved, you kept saying you weren't counting me as one of "those people" (whatever these people who write slash fic are). I'll refrain from going over details here because you were there and I was there and we know what each other said. But I'm not sure quite what box you were putting me in there. You seemed to be veering between "you've had sex so you know better" and "you don't do sex so I'm clearly not talking about your proclivities", with an emphasis on the latter.

What makes you think I don't do sex?

Sure, I said I was celibate. It was half truth, half trying to patch up a situation that'd got very weird very rapidly, and half a very complicated answer that's not worth giving right now. I don't do it because I've too many issues. I can be helped past these issues. I hope to one day be helped in such a way. Hell, why'd you think I latched onto you the way I did? I'd love it if you were the one to help. You won't be, though. That much is clear. And that's okay, really. It'll be hard for me, because it always is when my brain gets these ideas about people and what they could be, but I'll cope. I just wish you hadn't seemed so much more at ease when equipped with the knowledge that I don't do sex and so cannot want you. Because the latter half of that sentence? It's a lie. It's bollocks and it's complicated, but it's a lie.

Just because I don't do sex doesn't mean I don't want you. It just means I want you in really complicated, lengthy and roundabout ways.

And there's no way I could ever tell you that without it all being about me and my head and how my brain's weird.

I can pretty much tell from the way you are with me, but I'd like to hear it straight, what you want.

Yours &c.