BUSY

[shanmonster]

Another day, another crazybusyland. The calls keep pouring in, and I remain a booking machine. If I was paid commission, I wouldn't have to worry about my student loan.

Too bad it's a basic hourly wage, hmm?

My henna design remains really dark. This is the darkest it's ever turned out on me, and I like it.

I danced again this morning. This arm stuff isn't progressing as quickly as I'd like. I've been practicing my floreos when I walk home from work, and that's helping, but the Indian and flamenco arms are still pretty rough. I think I just need to pick one move and drill on that until my shoulders fall off. That'll teach 'em.

And at some point, I also need to figure out juggling. I still haven't practiced with those balls Sephira gave me, and they sit on my bureau taunting me.

Comments

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

Keep this up, and someday you'll be manager!

[sageincave.livejournal.com]

Then she can be saddled with all the "escalations" calls from assholes who are too "special" to get service from anyone but a manager. Fun!

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah! Manager's great! A miniscule pay
increase, with tonnes more responbility
and stress!

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

*shudders*

Dark Henna

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Shan,
I'm a long-time reader and also a belly-dancer. Love your journals. :)

I just wanted to let you know of a bad experience I had with dark henna (it was not the brown-red kind, but the black stuff). I was on vacation in Zanzibar this past September and I got my arm hennaed with the dark variety. Lots of local women wore it and it looked fantastic.

Alas, I had a bad reaction to it. So bad that coming off my flight from Nairobi to Heathrow I had to be rushed to the hospital. The paramedics say that many, many people have bad reactions to a chemical called PPD that is often added to henna mixtures to make it look darker (its basically like a hair dye). I got a second degree chemical burn from it..it was nasty having a medical problem in Africa I can tell you.

Two people I was with had no reaction to it, but the doctor said that sometimes its the SECOND or even third application that can react. If it's black or really dark, it's not truly henna. I just want to warn belly-dancers because this was nasty. I have gory pictures. :P

I love henna by the way and have had it done many times at parties and once in Morocco.

Regards, Jen (vanneholm@hotmail.com)

Re: Dark Henna

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Post the gory pictures!

Sorry your experience was horrific, though.

My girlfriend is telling me there is a blue
henna. Does anyone know about that? It sounds
cool.

Re: Dark Henna

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Don't worry--it is normal henna. The lemon juice just made it turn very red-brown. I know the dangers of black henna. That shit is NASTY.

Did you have any permanent reactions? I hope you're all over it, now.

Re: Dark Henna

[(Anonymous)]

Well, it's been three months now and the skin just looks really really white where the pattern was.. I'll probably never tan there, but as I have the Curse of the Celts already, I probably wouldn't tan anyway. Could've been a lot worse.

Anyway, glad you knew about that. I posted a pic of it when it was really bad on my blog--heh, good for a little sympathy from friends, but really just better to avoid the situation in the first place!

Jen

Re: Dark Henna

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, I'll try to link to that pic:

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<a [...] henna</a>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Actually, I'll try to link to that pic:

<a href="http://bathtubspider.blogspot.com/2005/09/did-shark-eat-you-with-really-gross.html" My gory arm three weeks after trying black henna</a>
Jen

Re: Dark Henna

[(Anonymous)]

Drat, the html didn't work. Ah well, it's archived on Sept 22 at www.bathtubspider.blogspot.com, and it's titled "Did a Shark Eat You?"

Jen