curly girl wonder diaries - month 5

Today marks the beginning of my 5th month as a natural-head...which also means that I haven't relaxed my hair in a little over 8 months. This ride has had it's joys and growing pains, but today, I feel accomplished. Ever since I noticed that my shedding has eased (read here), I have been feeling much better about my decision. I want to thank everyone for their encouragement...including you, faye.

So, I tried a twist-out over the weekend. To sum it up in one word...fail. It looked dry in some areas, frizzy in others. It was a mixture of defined curls and a hot ass mess. There was no way that I was going to leave my house looking like that, so that was a wrap. My new employer is having a holiday party next month and I was trying out some new styles to dress up my look, but methinks that I'll just stick to what I know until my hair grows a bit more.

I can't go wrong with a coil-out. If it don't shine, then it's not mine, lol.

This is either 2nd or 3rd day hair. Me and Vati.ka oil are kinda boo'ed up right about now.

Anyway, my strands don't like to be manhandled too often, so my weekly regimen is working for me...which reminds me of the reason why people thought my hair grew fast when I was relaxed. I would wash my hair on Saturday and wear a roller-wrap all week. I wasn't doing anything crazy to it and I may have touched a curling iron once a week, tops. By wearing my coils for 3 days or so and then picking them out and wearing the coil-out for another 3 days, I am giving my hair a break. I'm thinking that coils will be my winter protective style and hopefully by summer, I can get back into my wash-n-go(s).

This Month's Mythbuster

If nothing is medically wrong, hair should grow...usually at a rate of 1/4" to 1/2" a month. So to read boards where someone posts something crazy like, "My hair grew 1 and 1/2" last month just by using Product A" and then reading these bandwagon-er responses is just bonkers to me. With health, comes length...concentrate on health. It's funny b/c Tee still asks me what my regimen was when I was relaxed b/c she's trying to grow her hair out. If I can give advice, whether relaxed or natural, I'm honored.

Comment of the Month

A former coworker of mine (she was given her walking papers during my round) emailed me to compliment me on my hair and ask when I cut all of my hair off. I explained that I did it right before my bday, but that it wasn't for the sake of it being short...I had given up on relaxing my hair.

Her response:

Oh my goodness, I'm glad you're not using relaxer any more. since I'm home all of the time, I sometimes watch Dr. Oz. I might cut him out though, I think he annoys me. Anyway, so just the other day he showed us how bad relaxer is for your hair. He took a paintbrush and dipped it in and it destroyed the brush. (oh looks like Dr. Oz is talking about Ovarian cancer today, guess I'll be watching.)

She's so sweet...I could hear her voice as I was reading that. She had just permed her hair before her bday, so that she could have curls. Curly seems to be "in", no matter the race.

Anyway...whether permed, relaxed, natural, loc'ed, braided, etc...just keep it healthy.

Back on track...

Curly Girl Wonder aka LB

kids today

J and I are going on a hike with the cub scouts Saturday afternoon. We're supposed to attend our Clay-mation class at the Visu.al Arts Cent.er that morning. I'm looking forward to the art class. The hike? I don't know. I don't have a problem with being outdoors...I have a problem with this group of lil dudes being outdoors. I used to think that if I should be blessed with more children that I wanted them all to be boys. Now? Eh, not so much.

We were preparing for the hike last night at the cub scout meeting.

Group Leader: "OK, I have a bag full of items that we should bring on the hike. Tell me what you think we should bring and I'll see if I have it in my bag."

Kid #1: "A Nintendo DS!"

Group Leader: "Really." **sad flatly**

Kid #1: "Well, I'm going to need something to do when I get lost."

I remember the last time that I was out in the woods. Believe it or not, it was for work. I was touring a site for future development. My coworker and I were out there crossing streams on logs, walking around deer feces, while stepping high to avoid getting tagged by twigs and sticks stuck upright in the ground. It was a gorgeous day, but those real-life animals are not as cute as they are in those Pi.xar movies. Anyway, I thought that I was doing fairly well, that is, until it was time for lunch.

We sat under a tree shortly after I bust my ass, sliding down a hill and I pulled out my sandwich and ate like I had never been fed. All of a sudden, I noticed that there were a whole bunch of bugs crawling on and around me...apparently, dropping from the tree. I didn't know what they were, but I didn't want to seem like a punk so I just dusted them off. I mean, they were small enough. And then I turned to my coworker and asked, "Um, what kind of bugs are these?"

"Oh, they're ticks."

"Ticks?! As in lime-disease carrying ticks???"

Mayne, I jumped up and started dancing like Ge.orge Jeffer.son to get those things off of me. He was all non-chalant and said, "You'll probably have to shake your clothes out when we get back to the office." And I'm looking at his For.est Gu.mp-looking ass, pissed the hell off! May I just say that I live and work around a bunch of hillbillies.

I only saw maybe 2-3 of them at the time, but those bugs were hiding in places that required me to strip...in the bathroom...at work. I found a couple hiding underneath my bra...in my socks...and the waistband of my draws (excuse me, panties...lol). I was mostly concerned about them being on my scalp and kept feeling around my hair. After I thought that I had shook dem haters off, I breathed a sigh of relief.

And then I got home...

I was playing a game with J in his room and I noticed that my back kept itching. I assumed that it was a mosquito bite. And then something said, "go check." Apparently, this was the alpha tick, b/c he wasn't going anywhere. I didn't have tweezers, but I had acetone. So, I soaked a cotton ball with acetone and drowned him in it. The tick was dead, but he was still lodged in my back.

I couldn't contort myself to get the damn thing out and I wasn't about to suffer any more injury at the hands of J. So, I let him stay there. When I went back to work, I asked my bruh-coworker to help me get the tick out of my back. After being hemmed up in a car with him...with my shirt over my head, while he was trying to tweez the tick out of my back but ONLY got half of it (looking mad suspect, I should add)...I was disgusted. I ended up having to go to the doctor and paying over $100 for her to remove it.

So, I'm going to enjoy this hike on Saturday but if I have to choose between a tick and a lost kid...well, I hope that he remembered to pack his games.

supply and demand

2 AM, Sunday morning. I receive a text from my girlfriend. I don't know if it's b/c my phone is old, my screen is too small, or if she doesn't understand that texts are meant to be short and sweet, but I received 3 of those bad boys back-to-back. The gist of her paragraph was that she was visiting some dude, who in the midst of her visit, proceeded to go in another room and download music with a friend of his. She was feeling bad b/c this CONFIRMED that he has no interest in her.

I didn't respond b/c I didn't know what to say. Well, I figured that whatever I had to say would come off harsh and despite my frustration with the situation, I love her and I don't want to put anymore distance between us than there already is. Since we discussed my needing a break, she doesn't call anymore. I call maybe once a week (if that often) and then immediately afterwards, she sends me some text talking about how she's missed me and has appreciated my call. It really doesn't take much for me to get weirded out, but all of this is just odd to me.

So, I spoke to my cousin today. She is the sweetest person and I just KNEW that she could take my words and wrap them up in sugar so that my message could be received with some tenderness. I mean, she knows the whole story and was comforted to know that my girlfriend is, at least, interested in men. Well, she told me to pray about it. That is NOT the answer that I wanted.

But I sat at work and said a little prayer at my desk and then proceeded to type my girlfriend an email. Mayne, me and God were battling, b/c I was deleting whole paragraphs and sentences here and there. Apparently God let me THINK that I was going to write out the draft and get away with it but he was editing the heck out of my words.

In my mind, if a dude only calls you during the double-digit PM hours, he's not interested. If a dude is not trying to be seen with you during the day, he's not interested. And ANY dude that will have you come and pick him up when he stays more than 45 minutes away is NOT worth your time. I've said all of these things before, so God took that out of the email, lol.

I was left with...

"When will you decide that you want and deserve better? I understand that you want companionship, b/c that's normal. But sometimes better is simply being alone. Maybe that's easy for me to say since I tend to be a hermit, but it can't possibly be as bad as accepting how these so-called men treat you. I understand that you're lonely, but something has to give."

I'm not even sure why she would text me this stuff in the first place. I cannot save her from herself and it just makes me sad b/c I wonder if her decisions are going to lead her into another crazy situation. It's not even about being too old for this. How many times do you have to take the same test before you pass it? It's not that I've never failed, but you just have to reach a point where you say, "I like you, but I LOVE me" and keep stepping.

Chele once said, "You train people how to treat you." I'm sure that I botched that up and she said that more eloquently than I just did but I'm too lazy to look through her archives b/c I believe that post was from a while ago. I don't think that I even commented, but that line stuck with me. This dude has absolutely no reason to straighten up his act, b/c she doesn't demand it. I can't even recall when she's ever demanded it. I dropped off the scene when she was dating some dude who was mentally ill (and that's no joke).

I know that there's nothing that I can do. At this point, I just hope that she doesn't shoot the messenger...