I just I just should own it.
I’m a locs girl.
Here’s my story briefly. I first got locs my first year of grad school. I’d been natural about four years. They were great. Palm rolled and no cares in the world. I did have an addiction to hair color that eventually turned them some kind of only-visible-to-me dark green and then jet black thanks to more hair color. I cut them off after my heart got broken and I was in such a state as I would’ve done anything “reckless” aside from harm myself.
And then I went back to braids. This was TERRIBLY convenient as Wudia, my braider, had a shop right below my apartment and I could literally roll out of bed and be there. No travel time!
And then I was with my buddy Schwellie at Jimmy’s Uptown when it first opened, before the stick ‘em ups and the disappearance of Jimmy, when I saw this older women with the most stunning hair. She had the loveliest little locs I’d ever seen. I HAD to know what she had. She told me they were Sisterlocks (I really hate the name and I don’t care if people chastise me for hating the name…I don’t hate anyone attached to it). I got the number to her stylist and I went to my consultation. Well, mine plus about four other women. We were all packed up in her upper Westside apartment to learn about SLs. I was misunderstood because I thought it would just be me and I had put some money away, not knowing how much it would be, in case she wanted to start then. Oh no. This was the opposite of what I thought. With all my hair, she said it would be 800 bills EASY…my breath left em. I was a just started working woman! Plus, even though I group up in Detroit with its 24 hour hair salons, I was not the one to put hair over rent.
I went back traditional. I went to the same woman who started them before. Roberta in Brooklyn who’s house smelled of all of her Aveda stuff. Heaven. She also died them the loveliest shade of bronze. I’m sure all around me were overjoyed given I let my hair rock a blowout afro for 1.5 days before it deflated and shrank.
The second loc exodus just happened November 2008. I took two days off and, with the help of Jamyla who’d done this before, I armed myself with a spritzer bottle of water and a rattail comb. I undid my locs.
I had dreams of I’m not sure what. I think I thought I’d get my hair pressed, I’d do braidouts, I’d do twistouts…I did no such things. I did buns. For a year. I realized something about myself. I’m not really a DIYer because that implies doing things. What I am is a “I don’t want to deal with it” er. The only hair thing I like doing myself is hair color and even sometimes I don’t mind somebody else doing it.
Through a series of life happenings, I was able to finally afford SLs though not at the 1998 price I was quoted (I guess that’s when they were like Howard Hughes…now they’re a bit more known). I have come to terms that I need to put my big girl pants on and get to know who I really am with my hair. I’m somebody who doesn’t like to do a lot and now I’m somebody who starting to put money aside to get my hair done. My mother used to INSIST she and I get our creamy cracked scalps tended to every two weeks and perhaps I was trying to run from what that felt like - being in the salon for HOURS (because we always had the stylist that EVERYONE went to), not scratching my head, fear of it turning out horrible. But now it doesn’t have to be that way. Now I can consider some necessary me grooming time and even make myself believe I’m a little girly for it.

Anyone who really knows me knows that I have ZERO problem with being addicted to certain reality television shows. If Bravo squats it out of their a-hole, I watch (except for that Nine By Design and that’s just because it sounds boring and like somebody higher up made this show happen against better judgment). Also, there’s a slew of crazy wedding reality shows. Having never been married myself, perhaps I roll around these things like a pig in shit too easily. I don’t know what it’s like to feel pressure to chose a big puffy dress or scream on my bridesmaid friends or rob Sallie Mae to pay a caterer. Maybe I should but I don’t feel the urge to destroy my life so much. I hope when the time comes, it will be lovely and peaceful and without bill collectors.

It’s a psychological study for me to watch these things: Say Yes To The Dress, Bridezilla, etc. To be fair, I also enjoy House Hunters but more so House Hunters International (I am FASCINATED how people “work from home” and then decide they need to relo to Fantasy Island at the ripe age of 40). These people, I guess, are the Bridezillas after?

Back to reality…heh…tv that is. It’s now getting to a point where I know people on these shows are just going on to act a fool to get on television. Even my beloved Say Yes To The Dress, which is relatively mild in comparison to the Springer-like shenanigans on Bridezilla. Say Yes To The Dress is just about a bunch of women trying on dresses at the infamous Kleinfeld’s. Whereas before these were princess from Long Island, it’s now turning into African girls from London who are on holiday in NYC and just so happened to stop in with her fiance to spot a one of a kind tissue paper like thing for the price of a village (this actually happened - I suspect she was an actress because she was stunning and so was the fiance and they never came back to purchase the dress despite a long hemming and hawing).  Is reality not even sacred anymore.

This post primarily came about as I was cruising my New York magazine Fashion Trend enewsletter and came about a little Vera Wang tidbit. Here it is:

“I dress a great many rock stars and I’m always surprised when they want the most traditional dresses,” she said. On the wedding gown she designed for Jennifer Lopez: “It took eight months and we made three dresses. It pushed me out of my own box and comfort zone.” Read: Lopez almost pushed her over the edge.”

DELICIOUS…where is THAT show? Jennifer’s career is on the downturn so why not make a show about her being a Lifezilla or something? I mean her back up plan could not be Back Up Plan so she might as well go ahead with it. Why am I not a tv show head? I mean seriously.  This also got me wondering which damn dress Vera was talking about. Jenny’s been around the block a few times if you know what I mean.