In my never ending and so far unsuccessful quest for the best and cheapest haircut, I have not made a repeat visit to any hairdresser/hair stylist/hair salon in the last five years.
This means that every time I get a haircut, I go through a conversation like this:
Hairdresser: So are you done with school? College?
Me: Yes.
[slight pause]
Me: I’m [32, 33, 34, whatever age I am that year].
Hairdresser expresses shock.
I explain I look exactly the same as I did in high school.
If I am feeling particularly chatty, I explain that I had about three years when my hair actually looked somewhat different, but have now gone back to my old high school cut.
Hairdresser diverges into soliloquy about the way Asians all look young for their age.
Hairdresser is still wielding scissors, so I decline to say what I’m really thinking, which is that maybe Asians look so young because they don’t have the time/inclination to sit all day in the sun/in a tanning salon and bake on some wrinkles.
Hairdresser: So when did you last get your hair cut?
Me: Three months? No, maybe five. Or six. I hate getting my hair cut, so I let it go as long as I can.
Hairdresser is horrified and picks up a lock of my hair and eyes it dubiously.
I mention casually that I have gone to a different salon every time I needed a haircut in the last five [four, three] years. I try to imply, with suggestive facial expressions, that she/he could be the one to make me break my destructive pattern and actually make a return visit.
Except I never do.
When I woke up with a headache last week, I was tired and grumpy and felt like I had a hangover. I’m almost always tired and grumpy, so I didn’t care about that part, but the headache and hangover were new and undoubtedly caused by spending the previous few days playing in a rock band.
Or rather, not just any rock band, but Rock Band.
Yes, I have finally jumped on the video game bandwagon.
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by Elizabeth Knox
ONE-LINE SUMMARY: Laura is a dreamhunter; someone who can step into the mysterious Place to catch dreams to be later broadcast to others, and must use her skills to complete her father’s mission.
I vaguely remember a time when books just had titles and not series titles. The series title might eventually show up around the time that the 2nd sequel came out, but nowadays it seems like every book has a series name from the beginning. The “Dreamhunter Duet” is one of the first series names I’ve heard that only involved two books, but once I read them, I realized why they belonged together.
Book one, Dreamhunter, does have an ending and not one that leaves you hanging mid-action, but I was glad I had checked out both books at once because I needed to start book two immediately.
Dreamhunter sets up the world — an early 1900s version of this one, with the exception of the Place. The Place exists outside of normal boundaries and only a certain few can enter, and even fewer can “catch” dreams which they bring out to the regular world to perform, so that others can experience them.
Dreamquake begins a bit slowly, though it starts right where Dreamhunter ended. But by the time the book ended, it had gone in a direction I hadn’t expected at all, and found satisfactorily fulfilling.
I wouldn’t mind reading more books set in this world, but the Dreamhunter Duet pretty much covered everything. Highly recommended.