Finally did it!

(Note: Anything before December 31, 2007 was originally posted elsewhere, such as my Live Journal blog. I'm moving it all over here so I have just the one blog t keep track of.)

Kat's been telling me about this for months and I just never decided to do anything with it until now. With school out, I have a little time before summer school starts to write some.

Not much going on, though...I'm sitting around watching my hair get knappier and knappier since I keep getting hair appointments that get cancelled. For those of you who aren't predominately black, this means you spend the entire day beforehand NOT touching your hair so that you don't open your scalp up to the lye they throw in to straighten it. You go into wherever the place is with your hair decked out incognito (usually with some big ugly hat or some other type of head covering that can handle your "near-fro") with the expectation that you'll look all nice and sleek again within a few hours, so no one will blame you for coming in the way you did.

However, twice now I've had my hairdresser cancel or be sick.

And my hairdresser is at JCPenney's in the mall...so EVERYBODY is seeing me and since I KNOW I represent every black female most people will ever see, I'm constantly worried that people are staring at me and saying "See, that is JUST what I THOUGHT black women did...NEVER take care of their HAIR!"

Call it paranoia, but it's not like I haven't been asked such questions before! ;-)

Anyway, so I'm just trying to keep from getting the hair headache until Saturday (the one you get from having hair all tight and knappy on your hair), my next appointment. I keep saying I'm going to leave this woman if she doesn't stop doing this to me, but again, the hair experience is hard for women of color. Once you FIND someone who can do your hair and do it right (which, when you move a lot like I have, you literally have to do by asking total strangers with nice hair who does their hair, I kid you not), it would take an act of God to get you to leave them and they KNOW it. Heaven forbid you should open your mouth and complain or you'll be finding yourself another hair dresser...or worse yet, you'll be picking up the once long an luxurious strands of your coif off the floor to the tune of an electric razor...


Honestly, it's not all bad, even with the time spent. You'll sit with 4 or 5 other women who are all scheduled for the same time and be at the shop for 4 or 5 hours getting your hair done. Some women will actually plan theirs on the same day because it's the only time they get to see their friends and talk. This has got to be a shock for those of you who can run into a local Supercuts and be all set with time to shop afterward, but this is the way things have been since I was a kid...hence, the popularity of the movies Beauty Shop & Barber Shop. Much as I'm complaining, I can't wait to sit and hang out with Amarlis and talk about her kid and my kids (the ones I teach, not the ones we're trying to have) and just hang out.

But seriously, if she isn't there THIS weekend, I'm....I'm REALLY going to another girl...for REAL!