You knew when I dyed my hair dark that I had to be transitioning to an "outrageous" new hair project, right? I may be unpredictable, but predictably so. Most girls buy twenty pairs of shoes a year and change their hair once or twice. I prefer to do the inverse. Making and installing extensions soothes the mind as well. Much, like, oh, I don't know, knitting?

Please ignore my pallid complexion and the plummy, poetic circles beneath my eyes. It's all about the mermaid tentacles (black swirled with platinum and a few pink stragglers for Punque Roq appeal.)

This is a more formal look, for white-tie benefits, spring cleaning, etc.

Here's a blast from the past! Best dread extensions I ever had, courtesy of Hair Police. Look at my flushed, healthy visage! That's what happens when you grind dick all day, kids. But my poor right nipple looks so smushed--my fucking manager made me buy a corset because he wasn't ready for that jelly.

(Cribbed from the strippalicious ex-millennial girl. )

Ten Years Ago: I was a newly minted high school senior and utterly secure. I drove a silver '89 Taurus, sang in a shambolic funnypunk band called Yak Spackle, and dyed my hair jet black. I was completely infatuated with my boyfriend, a college sophomore named Matt who was away at the University of Wisconsin. I didn't miss him as much as I thought I did. The best part of being a senior was having access to the "senior lounge," a humid, stinky little room lined with reject couches. I recall the stench more than the company, though I remember everybody intermingled regardless of their caste. Seniors tend to gel like that.

Five Years Ago: In September of 2000, I was three months into my first job out of college, as the "creative assistant" (read: aimless secretary) at a midsized advertising agency in downtown Chicago. I had just moved into a brownstone at Lincoln and Montrose, and every day was like a hit of windowpane acid: thrilling, but with an edge. I remember feeling very proud of myself every morning as I rode the Brown Line to Belmont, then the Red Line to the Grand stop and sauntered up Michigan Avenue to My Real Job. It was overwhelming for a sheltered suburban kid who associated "downtown" with supervised field trips. It felt like life was finally happening.

One Year Ago: I had recently been hired as a claims adjuster (really) in the Minneapolis 'burbs, and was writing freelance for City Pages. My wedding was weeks away, and I was having a hair crisis, as usual. Jonny and I only had one car between us, so I frequently endured a two-hour bus trip to work, starting at 5:30 a.m. My book had just sold to Gotham, which seemed (and still seems) incredibly surreal.

Yesterday: I made Shake n' Bake pork chops for dinner, watched "So You Think You Can Dance?" with my stepdaughter while she waited for the lice shampoo to take effect (shudder!)  and then watched Beyond the Valley of the Dolls with Jonny.

Five Songs I Know All the Words To: The entire Beach Boys catalog and the theme songs to an exhaustive listing of '80s sitcoms. Wait, that's more like 5,000. "Streaks on the china never mattered before�"

Five Snacks: Dill pickles, spring rolls, Sour Patch Kids, jalapeno Cheez-Its, Hostess Donettes (chocolate or powdered, it don't matter)

Five Things I'd Do With $100 Million: Donate mad cash to schools and families, buy Johnny Weissmuller's abandoned mansion in Hollywood, travel to far-flung and luxurious places, finance really cool movies, build a recording studio for Jonny.

Five Places I'd Run Away To: Monte Rio, CA, Cody, WY, West Hollywood, New York City (never been there, but I have a feeling I'd dig it), home.

Five Things I'd Never Wear: I'd wear anything if my survival depended on it. That said: nude pantyhose, Bush/Cheney T-shirt, jeans with pleats, clown costume, a white bra.

Five Favorite TV Shows: Firefly, Mr. Show, Sex and the City, Saturday Night Live, American Idol

Five Greatest Joys: Talking to Jonny, eating sushi, spooning with my purrbaby George, hardcore karaoke, writing, writing, writing.

Five Favorite Toys: Celebrity dolls, Pez dispensers, G-spot vibrators, my frequently abused tongue barbell, the original 8-bit NES loaded with Super Mario Brothers 3.

Today I was buying some pork chops (they're trichinos-ensational!) at Cub and I happened to toss the latest issue of Us Weekly onto the conveyor. The headline was something about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's impending nuptials.

The clerk, a young woman, glanced at the magazine, then looked at me. "I want them to get married," she said solemnly, almost challenging me to disagree.

"So do I," I replied confidently. "So do I."

She grinned. "I thought I was the only person on Angelina's side!" she exclaimed, relieved.

I wouldn't say I'm on Angelina's side, per se, since such complicated matters of the heart rarely involve a purely innocent or purely guilty party. But I do think Brangelina is a more compatible couple than Braniston. I never understood why everyone thought Brad and Jen seemed like a good match in the first place. Superficially, they were both sunkissed and conventionally attractive, but Brad always struck me as a confident and eccentric (much like Angelina) while Jennifer, in her interviews, comes off as humble, down-to-earth, and slightly damaged. There's no way she enjoyed living in Brad's chilly architecture-geek mansion...you know Aniston needs a good La-Z-Boy to watch Beaches on. She's the kind of girl you can take to T.G.I. Friday's, while Brad and Angelina probably subsist solely on Marlboros, Ketel One and thinly-sliced Kobe beef served on hot stones. Brad doesn't strike me as a real brain trust, but he thinks he's smart and he thinks he's found his equal in that stunning weirdo. Shockingly, she seems to agree with him.

I guess I feel sort of sorry for Jennifer. She's handled this whole thing gracefully and hasn't gone all psycho-ex on anyone in the press. That said, I'm still on Team Jolie. We alleged "homewreckers" need to stick together, and she hasn't done jack to earn that distinction. (Few women do--I love the misconception that any woman who gets involved with a separated guy must be singlehandedly responsible for the dissolution of his marriage.) Either way, I can't believe anyone is actually scandalized by this. Can you imagine how they would have reacted if Brad and Jen had had children? Get a rope! Hang the whore high!

According to the gossip blogs, Britney's little Caeser was wrenched from her womb at Cedars-Sinai earlier today. Oh, I hope its's true!

You know, Britters got a lot of flack for being "too posh to push" and choosing a C-section over a pussy delivery. Whatever, girls should be able to birth as they please. Britney can have a C-section and an illegal Honduran wet nurse and a postpartum martini, for all I care. I admire her complete disregard of the clucking hippies. (And this is coming from someone who wants a home waterbirth when she hypothetically spawns--I'm all about choice, see?)

Come, Emmanuel! Come and be born in our hearts!

I just wrote a long-ass entry, possibly one of the funniest things I've written in ages, and my browser crashed as I was about to post it. Fucking A-rod!

I can't be the only person this particular misfortune has befallen. Right?

It was about vibrating-ring condoms, otherwise known as "Downeaster Elexas." And Cheez-Its! And Shake n' Bake! And my plan to mash Brussles cookies and vodka into an easily digestible paste! It even revealed a very special, exclusive Pussy Secret about my plans for the future!

I'm gonna go cut myself. Not really. But I am gonna listen to My Chemical Romance.

When is Britney going to have that baby, already? I can't be the only one hoping it looks like Big Rob.

I sincerely apologize for (choose one) not answering your email/not reading your script/not blogging/not returning your calls/not answering you even when spoken to directly this weekend. I am extremely busy. Not "hard week at work" busy, not "last-minute Christmas prep" busy, not even "chasing a hypoglycemic toddler" busy. I'm busier than that. BUSIER. Believe it. I am busier than Bea Arthur at Carpet World/Kirk Cameron in a roomful of Wiccans/Britney Spears at a prenatal wine tasting.

Ever heard the phrase "Don't write a check your ass can't cash"? That's me right now. And said posterior is mega-overdrawn.

I'm reduced to making Britney Spears jokes in 2005. That must mean the well is dry.

Okay, so like four days ago, Jonny and I both went on the South Beach Diet, which seems to have nothing to do with South Beach and everything to do with turkey jerky. After a couple of trips to L.A., we've decided we're bloated manatees and need to whittle ourselves down to Nicole Richie/DJ AM proportions. Anyway, I am craving sugar so fucking bad that last night, I dreamed I was crouched in front of the refrigerator, eating frosting from a can.

No, really. That's actually what I dreamed about.

Call Dr. Duncan Hines, stat. I need about 400 cc's of EZ-Spread Deluxe Fudge Tunnel.

P.S. Yes, I know dieting is boring and gay. Don't worry, I'll probably wind up making lasagna this weekend and binging like Meredith Baxter Birney in that one TV movie. 

I've heard from a varied spectrum of guys about my "Pussy Rant" of several days ago. Most of them--heck, all of them--opted to defend the darker sex's fondness for Hot! Teen! companionship. Here are some of the reasons I was given for why a guy would date (not just fuck) a naive teenager.

-Youngsters provide endless stimulation of the mindfuck variety. They tend to be noncommittal heartbreakers, and therefore are maddeningly desirable compared to some boring broad who's panting to settle down.

Cody counterpoint: When I was a teenager, I wanted to marry every guy who sent my Bartholin's glands into overdrive, thus soaking my size-2 Gap jeans in the sweet nectar of youth. Noncommittal? Not so much. Maybe that's why I always got dumped.

-A young girl will put up with more shit. In other words, you can act like a total dawg and she'll still make herself available.

Cody counterpoint: The same argument could be made for some ugly chicks, but I don't know any guys who subscribe to "Barely Attractive."

-Men are just getting revenge on women for preferring sexy jerks to chivalrous nice-guys.

Cody counterpoint: There's admittedly an ignorant subclass of women who blow off guys who treat them well in favor of Joe Charisma, the distant sex addict. But that has nothing to do with my question.

"You can't beat eighteen-year-old pussy."

Cody counterpoint: Yes, but...eh, you're right.

Thanks, Taco!

In other news, I attended my first Renaissance Festival yesterday. Jon and I were laughing our asses off--not at the hordes of Ye Olde Nerdes in attendance, but at the rampant anachronisms. For instance, ATM machines labeled "Coin of the Realm" and exhibits sponsored by Time Warner Cable. Would ye like a glass of honeyed mead or a 20 oz. Pepsi, m'lady? The whole thing ruled. Plus, I bought a pair of ceramic "Pan Horns." (Hippies refer to the devil as "Pan," so he sounds like a nonthreatening self-rising pizza crust instead of a dark overlord and eater of worlds. They even named a particularly gay-sounding flute after the motherfucker.) I got red Pan Horns, which give me a class-A license to be ribald.

Notice I'm a brunette again. That means I'm smart and clA$$y. The price of pussy just went up forty-nine cents, y'all. Blonde says "whore" but brunette says "business escort." Plus now I can go on Jeopardy.