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| Reblogged from Currently Obsessed with... |
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Look Ma, I got my hair cut!
Soooo...confession time. I accidentally kinda sorta hadn't gotten a trim in about 2 years. Hair fail, I know.
But like, I felt like any salon I went to, unless it was specifically a natural hair salon, was going to be all, 'we have to straighten your hair to cut it,' and y'all know I don't play that. So I just didn't cut my hair. And I wasn't really worried about it.
But then last Friday, the Princeton Association of Black Women had a "Black is Beautiful" hair event at--get this--THE BLACK OWNED AND OPERATED HAIR SALON THAT IS LEGITIMATELY A TWO MINUTE WALK OFF CAMPUS AND HAS SOMEHOW EXISTED THERE FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS WITHOUT ME KNOWING ABOUT IT. THE FUCK?! I wasn't sure they would be natural-friendly, but the event was free and promised goodies, so I RSVP'ed.
And I'm glad I did, because we each wound up getting free consultations by the hair professionals at the salon. Mine was from Mr. Godfrey Fitzgerald (these are bougie black people) himself, and he basically told me that I had a great head of hair and that he was impressed with my overall regimen, but that I was in dire need of a trim. He was surprised my hair was as healthy as it is given how long it had been.
And then they told us they were doing a 2-for-1 special in the month of December, so if we came in with a friend at the same time, we could get both of our heads done for the price of one. You know I was so quick to hop on that train that (after confirming that I could get my hair cut without having to put heat on it), I made my appointment with a girl I met THAT night at the event, haha.
So our appointment was forTHE GODDAMN CRACK OF DAWN 9 o clock this morning, and after re-asserting the fact that I was not going to have heat put on my head (in my I will walk right up out this bougie-ass salon voice), I got my hair shampooed (small cringe), conditioned, combed out with three different combs (including one that was approaching fine-toothed. I was impressed.), and then the scissors appeared. She combed small sections of my hair at a time with the almost-fine-toothed comb, following the teeth with her fingers, and when she got to the straggly ends, snip snip went the scissors. It had been so long since I'd had a trim that I was dying a little inside with every snip, but I tried to be strong. I knew it was for the best. [I told her that and she said a little more could stand to be cut, but she didn't want to make it too short. *GULP*]
Anyway, she gets through combing and snipping the whole thing, then goes, okay, let me fluff this up as big as possible so we can start shaping. And she basically combs all my curls out into a huge legitimate afro, and then begins snipping to form a perfect circle. And I mean PERFECT, y'all. Check this ish out:
Then I wet it and it curled right back up, no worries:
And thennnn, since I had an interview today, I concocted a little professional style. I did a side-part reminiscent of my straight-haired days, then loosely rolled the sides back and bobby-pinned the shit out of the back so it kind of all laid flat and then poked out again below my ears:
(Interview went well-ish, even though it's for a job I'm 98% sure I don't want. I advanced to the next round and now they want me to do shit. Ugh.)
Anyway, that's the story of my haircut! Princeton ladies, I officially highly recommend Godfrey Fitzgerald's salon on Witherspoon Street. My only complaint is that I have noticed a little bit of flakiness near my roots this evening, but any interaction with shampoo tends to dry my hair out like nobody's business, so I'ma DC in the morning and I think everything will be good.
But like, I felt like any salon I went to, unless it was specifically a natural hair salon, was going to be all, 'we have to straighten your hair to cut it,' and y'all know I don't play that. So I just didn't cut my hair. And I wasn't really worried about it.
But then last Friday, the Princeton Association of Black Women had a "Black is Beautiful" hair event at--get this--THE BLACK OWNED AND OPERATED HAIR SALON THAT IS LEGITIMATELY A TWO MINUTE WALK OFF CAMPUS AND HAS SOMEHOW EXISTED THERE FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS WITHOUT ME KNOWING ABOUT IT. THE FUCK?! I wasn't sure they would be natural-friendly, but the event was free and promised goodies, so I RSVP'ed.
And I'm glad I did, because we each wound up getting free consultations by the hair professionals at the salon. Mine was from Mr. Godfrey Fitzgerald (these are bougie black people) himself, and he basically told me that I had a great head of hair and that he was impressed with my overall regimen, but that I was in dire need of a trim. He was surprised my hair was as healthy as it is given how long it had been.
And then they told us they were doing a 2-for-1 special in the month of December, so if we came in with a friend at the same time, we could get both of our heads done for the price of one. You know I was so quick to hop on that train that (after confirming that I could get my hair cut without having to put heat on it), I made my appointment with a girl I met THAT night at the event, haha.
So our appointment was for
Anyway, she gets through combing and snipping the whole thing, then goes, okay, let me fluff this up as big as possible so we can start shaping. And she basically combs all my curls out into a huge legitimate afro, and then begins snipping to form a perfect circle. And I mean PERFECT, y'all. Check this ish out:
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| The name's Thunda...Afro Thunda. |
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| LOOK AT THE PERFECTION OF THAT CIRCLE!!! IT'S THE SEVENTIES UP IN HERE Y'ALL!!! |
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| The nerd in me wants to find the circumference of this ish. |
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| Tell me that ain't professional, I dare you. |
Anyway, that's the story of my haircut! Princeton ladies, I officially highly recommend Godfrey Fitzgerald's salon on Witherspoon Street. My only complaint is that I have noticed a little bit of flakiness near my roots this evening, but any interaction with shampoo tends to dry my hair out like nobody's business, so I'ma DC in the morning and I think everything will be good.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Who says big girls can't be sexy as hell?
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| Reblogged from Currently Obsessed with... |
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
My biggest fear:
There's this guy I know and really can't stand who likes to ask people very shortly after meeting them what their biggest fear is. When he asked me this, I said failure, because that's how I've answered that question for as long as I can remember.
But (as I actually knock on wood) I think I'm reaching the point in my life where failure doesn't really seem like a threat anymore. I don't say that to sound cocky or like I'm entitled to some kind of fabulous life. You never know what the future holds. But no matter what deviations from the "plan" I'll take, whether I wind up being a professor or something else becomes my end goal, I already look at my life and what I've accomplished and see success. And no amount of future change can erase that. I can change my goals, and maybe even change them due to unforseen circumstances, but I simply don't believe that I can, at this point, fuck up so badly that I'll deem myself to have failed overall.
So what am I scared of? I came across this quote by Sylvia Plath on my friend's blog, and it really resonated with me.
But (as I actually knock on wood) I think I'm reaching the point in my life where failure doesn't really seem like a threat anymore. I don't say that to sound cocky or like I'm entitled to some kind of fabulous life. You never know what the future holds. But no matter what deviations from the "plan" I'll take, whether I wind up being a professor or something else becomes my end goal, I already look at my life and what I've accomplished and see success. And no amount of future change can erase that. I can change my goals, and maybe even change them due to unforseen circumstances, but I simply don't believe that I can, at this point, fuck up so badly that I'll deem myself to have failed overall.
So what am I scared of? I came across this quote by Sylvia Plath on my friend's blog, and it really resonated with me.
" What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age."I think what scares me most now is irrelevance. The whole point of becoming a professor and living an academic life is to matter to someone somewhere, to do something important that might help or at least inspire people. I'm scared no one will give a shit.
Is this real life?
Princeton University will never cease to amaze me with the way it connects me to other people. Meeting famous people is always great. Meeting people with academic interests that are similar to yours is fantastic. But when you get to meet someone you admire and respect on both intellectual and artist levels, and substantively meet him, rather than just shake his hand or get something signed...that's amazing. And when you get to have a half-hour conversation with him where you talk about things you've both experienced and you realize you're both just normal people (except one of you has watched and wowwed at Youtube videos of the other), that's incredible.
That's what Princeton gave me today. Which is why I'm not even mad about being locked out of my room until tomorrow morning because I refuse to pay $30 for Public Safety to come open my door. It's why the seemingly endless monsoon outside isn't even getting me down. There is a smile in my heart if not always on my face for the rest of the evening (don't want to look like a smiling idiot sitting at work in the library) because I got to have that incredible experience with the one and only Joshua Bennett this evening.
Y'all probably remember me gushing about how amazingly talented he is a few months ago. (If not, click here.) A friend of mine posted his 10 Things I want to Say to a Black Woman video sometime last year, and I said "Mmmmmm!" more times than I could remember ever saying in response to anyone's words ever before.
So when my friend M told me he was a first year graduate student here in our English department, I pretty much died. And by "died," I mean started concocting a plan to meet him without seeming like a stalker. And the very next day, I heard his voice while I was walking down the street, and looked up to see him walking along across Prospect Street. And once I saw him walking through the student center. And so, when he walked into my Mellon Mays Holiday Mixer this evening, an uncontrollable smile broke out on my face. And when we got paired together to learn more about each other and introduce each other to the group, I wanted to squeal.
I tried to play innocent. We did introductions, I talked about my research, we got food, but by the time we sat down to keep talking, I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to tell him. "Okay, I have to be honest--I know who you are. I've watched your YouTube videos and I think your poetry is amazing and when I heard that you were a grad student here I just had to meet you. I hope you don't think I'm crazy..." And do you know what he told me? Joshua Bennett told ME that I made his day. That he sleeps on a futon, and so for me to say that I'm a fan is humbling. And I was just honored to meet the man.
It's strange having someone you've admired from afar/the internet materialize as a real person with real jokes that you can laugh at and have him laugh back. That you could be in the same place at the same time having different experiences with shared stories and compare notes. He's looking for more of a connection to Black students on campus, and thinks my thesis is particularly interesting with respect to Princeton, and there's a decent chance we might just get to be friends over the course of my last few months here. He was also just mad chill and it was fun to be around him even after I was over the shock of my good fortune in getting the chance to talk to him (hopefully without coming off like a stalker). How can awesome people be so normal? My mind is blown.
That's what Princeton gave me today. Which is why I'm not even mad about being locked out of my room until tomorrow morning because I refuse to pay $30 for Public Safety to come open my door. It's why the seemingly endless monsoon outside isn't even getting me down. There is a smile in my heart if not always on my face for the rest of the evening (don't want to look like a smiling idiot sitting at work in the library) because I got to have that incredible experience with the one and only Joshua Bennett this evening.
Y'all probably remember me gushing about how amazingly talented he is a few months ago. (If not, click here.) A friend of mine posted his 10 Things I want to Say to a Black Woman video sometime last year, and I said "Mmmmmm!" more times than I could remember ever saying in response to anyone's words ever before.
So when my friend M told me he was a first year graduate student here in our English department, I pretty much died. And by "died," I mean started concocting a plan to meet him without seeming like a stalker. And the very next day, I heard his voice while I was walking down the street, and looked up to see him walking along across Prospect Street. And once I saw him walking through the student center. And so, when he walked into my Mellon Mays Holiday Mixer this evening, an uncontrollable smile broke out on my face. And when we got paired together to learn more about each other and introduce each other to the group, I wanted to squeal.
I tried to play innocent. We did introductions, I talked about my research, we got food, but by the time we sat down to keep talking, I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to tell him. "Okay, I have to be honest--I know who you are. I've watched your YouTube videos and I think your poetry is amazing and when I heard that you were a grad student here I just had to meet you. I hope you don't think I'm crazy..." And do you know what he told me? Joshua Bennett told ME that I made his day. That he sleeps on a futon, and so for me to say that I'm a fan is humbling. And I was just honored to meet the man.
It's strange having someone you've admired from afar/the internet materialize as a real person with real jokes that you can laugh at and have him laugh back. That you could be in the same place at the same time having different experiences with shared stories and compare notes. He's looking for more of a connection to Black students on campus, and thinks my thesis is particularly interesting with respect to Princeton, and there's a decent chance we might just get to be friends over the course of my last few months here. He was also just mad chill and it was fun to be around him even after I was over the shock of my good fortune in getting the chance to talk to him (hopefully without coming off like a stalker). How can awesome people be so normal? My mind is blown.
POWERFUL image I stumbled across:
An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Everyone has the right to own his/her own body.
Damn, sometimes I sound like a feminist.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
"None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are." -- Anne RiceReblogged from Indie Art Nerd
Sunday, December 4, 2011
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