Bad ideas and good friends

This is how my Saturday night began:

Yes, that is my hair. Sitting on my desk. With a pair of not-exactly-hairdressing-quality-scissors. Why? Isn't it obvious, I cut my own hair of course. Shall I explain?
See, after a week of very little sleep, a month of living on my credit card while sorting out government money, and a year of feeling pretty much like I'd achieved a big fat 'F' in "Life Class", I decided something needed to change and it needed to change immediately. It may have had something to do with my frustration at not fitting into any of my clothes, and probably a lot to do with the PMS that kicked in yesterday, but I decided my hair was going to be that thing that changed - so I cut it off. leading of course to almost instantaneous regret at the realisation of what I'd done.
Thankfully, I have amazing friends. I called out to my housemate, who also happens to be the ever-funky and most incredibly fabulous KAO, and she came running to tidy up my disaster and assured me I'd done a "great job considering you did it yourself". She absently placed a bobby pin in my *ahem* fringe, and sent me on my way with a big hug, assuring me it looked cute. I spent the rest of the night with Miss Crunchie and Miss Vodka, making fools of ourselves and laughing until our sides hurt. They both gushed about my new do, although noted I did indeed need to fix the fringe a tad, and we finished the night with these:

White Chocolate Raspberry Brioche Dumplings* from Freestyle Tout (come to Brisbane, eat them, discover heaven).
Needless to say, my night ended muchly better than it started, and made me unbelievably greatful to have such amazing and incredible friends.
Thankyou girlies.


*Photo Courtesy of Eat Drink + Be Kerry.

Fanta Pants

Last night two of my favourite Darling friends likened me to Botticeli's Birth of Venus:

They claimed, in all seriousness, that my hair was luxurious waves of copper-gold, or some such frippery. Now, I can't deny that the resemblance to venus in body is possibly there - Miss Venus certainly wasn't all skin and bones - but, being a redhead, I had difficulty believing her beauty or mine, lies in our shared hair colouring.
That said, I've spent most of the morning trolling sites devoted to redheadedness, feeling an homage to my fire-headed sisters and brothers is deserved.
You see, us redheads are a special breed, a race of our own, if you would believe Jonah from the hilarious Chris Lilley's Summer Heights High:

Doug: How is it ok for you to bully Ben?

Jonah: 'Cause he's a Ranga.

Doug: A what?

Jonah A Ranga sir. 'Cause he's got red hair. Orangutan, that's what we call him.

Doug: And does that make it ok for him to be bullied, because he has red hair?

Jonah Well, people are racist to FOB's...

Leon: To us.

Jonah So, so we can be racist to Rangas.

Doug: But red-heads aren't a race, Jonah.

Leon: But sir, there's heaps of them. They're everywhere.

Taken from wikiquotes

 
But we're also, it seems, a thing to be sacrificed, feared, and revered. Throughout history people with red hair and green eyes were said to be witches, warewolves or vampires, the Greeks sacrificed us to the gods to create fertile land, while a long line of esteemed leaders in history - including Queen Elizabeth I and the Celtic Queen Boudicca - were redheads. 
Botticelli, Modigliani, and their fellow artists throughout the centures have painted their fascination with flame-hair, the colour 'titian' deriving itself from the painter of the same name who often coloured the locks of his images in shades of red and copper. 
Literature delights in redhead rogues and burnished beauties also. Lucy Mongommery's Anne of Green Gables bemoans her tresses, stating "you'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair...People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble it is". Mark Twain believed that "while the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats". 
And even facebook can't deny a strange obsession with our kind. There's the Humans Against Redhead Extinction (HARE), The official Hug a Ranga Day page, and even a fella willing to legally change his name to Ranga (apparanlty he went through with it). 
Even with all the nicknames - carrot top, ranga, ginga, ginger, fanta pants, firecrotch, gingernut, just to name a few - it seems that everone either wants to know us or wants to be us, and who can blame them when we have the propensity to look this good:
 

1. Aussie Actress and Borat's wife, Isla Fisher. 2. The ever-handsome actor, Damien Lewis. 3. Prince of Gingers, Prince Harry. 4. Timelessly beautiful actress, Julianne Moore.
Of course, I have to acknowledge the most famous redhead of them all, the one and only, Ronald:
 

And the Legend who allegedly declared, "once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead" - Lucille Ball:
 

And, just in case you still haven't got enough fire in your life, and you think us bloodnuts good enough to eat, you can buy our sauciness in a bottle to slather on all sorts of things.