#burnt split ends

Although I should have probably just ignored it, the other day I saw some article/blurb about some actress/model/somebody who twists her hair, and then lights her candle and runs the flame beneath the twist and burns off her spllit ends.

I'll be honest, I didn't even READ the article, I just saw the picture and the headline and filed that away into my little rabbit brain and then the next day, or maybe the day after, I thought to myself, "Self, that seems like a great idea!"

I took a candle (handily having just found my stash of emergency candles all prepared for an earthquake that I hope will never arrive) and I started twisting and burning. And all the little ends just kind of fizzle up and you can practically hear them saying "I'm melting!" as they incinerate. It's kind of fun and there's this added thrill of danger (it's my hair, for pete's sake, and a flame), and had only worked my way through the front left quadrant, when I hear my neighbor come down the stairs and poke around and then go back up.  I go back to singing. Then I hear him come down again and he knocks on my door and he looks so confused and his schnozz is all wrinkled up like a family of rats fought a badger and they all died in the walls, together, and he says "It's something... burning?"

Scent travels really strangely in this house. I'm on the lower level and my bedroom is at the front- above me is the neighbors' living room and then above that is their bedroom. If sear I can put on perfume and they can smell it in their bedroom. It's actually kind of annoying and I am constantly on guard about what I cook and when.

Any way, half my hair is pulled back and the other half looks like my hair stayed up all night at a very wild party and decided to forgo the walk of shame and head straight to a diner for chicken livers and pancakes and eggs with runny yolks because why not? And it smells. Bad. Like, sulfur sick stench, like the way Barbies smell when you get sick of their lame, non-growing hair and burn it off in a a fit of pique. Somehow, I didn't notice how horrible it smelled until I saw Terry's face all scrunched up in a combination of fear and concern. Like maybe I needed a safety check and yeah, he's there to DO the saftey check.

I wave off the stench a bit and tell him, "Yeah, split ends, I'm burning them off" and hold my freshly burnt twist in his face. It's so gross- how offensive is it, really, to wave my smoldering hair at someone else. He shook his head and said, "Yeah, It's weird, the way scent travels..." and trails off because he doesn't want to ask me outright to stop making such a nausea-inducing stench, but he's obviously thoroughly grossed out.  I say " Aw, no worries, I'll stop."

I then blow out the candle and take the dogs out and it's not until I come back into the house that I realize that he was far more polite about it than he needed to be. It freaking reeked.