I had a lot of time on my hands last night, since it turns out lounging in bed all day with ice on your knee, taking naps and relaxing, isn't conducive to falling asleep easily that night. Who knew? So I started out analyzing my husband's snoring habits, putting them into definable categories. First came the Blitzkrieg, next to the short-lived snort the loudest of them all. Then the life support system: pause pffffffffffffffffff… pause pffffffffffff… etc. Then, finally, the low rumble in the distance – my personal favorite aside from the unexpected SNORT! directly in my ear. That's fun! Especially when you've just drifted off to sleep.

When that got tiring my mind drifted back to the comment Dina made on my grey hair post a couple days ago, then to the of fun bodily changes in the early 40s in general. I decided – remember I had a lot of time on my hands – my favorite thing about grey hair is it makes its presence impossible to miss. When it first starts growing it sticks its wiry self straight up. It's like having antennae to communicate with the mother ship. All those theories about Area 51? Totally true. I was getting messages last night to go out and buy up as much chocolate as possible, because there would be an upcoming shortage. Take this very seriously, people!

When the antennae start coming in you can pluck them. I do, on occasion. That worked best in my late 30s, though, when I found the lone straggler. Then my daughter hit 16, and the nervous disorder kicked in. Hellloooo hair coloring! Only I like to go the cheap route, using the boxed stuff in the hair aisle at Walmart. I used to have it colored professionally, but the expense! And the touch ups! I'd rather keep changing color every three months (as often as you're supposed to color your full head) than pay out the cash (keep in mind, this was while we were paying my Master's tuition…) for a professional.

I made the huge mistake of deciding to try RED on my own (mid-life crisis). It looked okay on the box, definitely noticeable but not too, too red. So I thought. But once I got it on it looked like I'd dipped my head in a bucket of redwood stain. And, I decided to do this the night before we left on vacation, once the packing starting winding down. So not only did I look like Little Orphan Annie in every photo, before Daddy Warbucks bought her a brush, strangers kept thinking my head was on fire the entire vacation.

Stranger child: Mommy! Mommy! That woman's head is on fire!

Stranger parent: Keep walking. Don't make eye contact.

Good news was, every time I washed my hair a little more of the red came out, making it scream FAKE a little more quietly. I would see it in the shower water, gurgling its way down the drain. Then on hotel towels. So every Best Western between here and the Pacific Northwest is wondering who committed a murder in their hotel, and why no body has been found.

When I got home I decided to go brownish-blonde. It was closer to what I suspected my original hair color had been, but it turned out to be not that great at hiding grey. Blonde was the way to go, I decided. Only I picked a color that wasn't capable of lightening my shade back up to blonde blonde. So now it's a reddish, brownish, blondish – a couple steps above dishwater blonde but well below flaming red. So you can guess what I'm choosing next time – Marilyn Monroe  platinum blonde. I'll let you know how that goes, just as surely as I tell you most embarrassing things about myself. Because, after all, it's not like this is something I'm telling anyone who stumbles by, something that will never go away. Pshaw!

Even more positive than finally figuring out my hair coloring needs, that shot of cortisone I had under my kneecap yesterday? The one that kept me shuddering all day just thinking about it? It made my knee feels the best it's felt since before my injury. There are still little tweaks here and there, depending how I bend or twist, but  man oh man! It was so worth the disgusting thought of someone sticking a needle in a very tender area. Not as tender as when I gave birth, mind, but tender. I had an epidural with my last child, that needle going between my vertebrae. Let's just say that was worth it in the long run too, but at the time I wanted to turn around and give the guy two black eyes. During a wicked contraction he was telling me "Don't move!" while he was cramming a mile-long needle in my spine. Hey, okay! But the knee thing? You feel the initial stick and that's it. Once the epidural's in it's same thing. All of a sudden you hear wailing on the bed, and realize there's a baby there. While you were watching Jeopardy, shouting out all the answers. Mostly wrong, but the spirit was there. And your husband? Reading the paper. Take the kid to the sink, squirt him off and wrap him in swaddling clothes, and there's still time for the final round of your game show before the doctor gets there to rip out the placenta.

Medical science.

Well, looks like another day of resting the knee since I don't have to go into work 'til the evening. I need to finish up the last bit of The Picture of Dorian Gray for this evening's Classics Group discussion, which won't take too long. Then it's whatever I choose from my pile. It should probably be a review book, I'm thinking, and I believe I know which. Full report to come. Which means tonight I'll probably have time to mull over something else I can tell you too much about tomorrow.

Around and around and around she goes… Where she'll stop, nobody knows.