My Hair #3

Here we are at week 13 and now I am starting to run into problems. Well, not problems per say. Let's just refer to them as obstacles. I started a work out regimen recently and that means sweating. This creates one of my new obstacles. Sweat and my new growth just don't mix. Usually, after I wash my hair, the comb extension on my blow dryer does a pretty good job of keeping my roots and edges straight. But the sweat voids out that entire process. I am not sure what I can do in order to counteract that right now. I am not trying to use more heat, but what else is there?

Also, I haven't really been styling my hair so much as pulling it back and sticking some low key hair piece in it. I really don't have time to do anything involved with my hair in the morning, even I did have a clue what to do with it. I am thinking of going with a curly fro for right now. Yeah, it will be a pain to put in, but it will be a low maintenance hairstyle that I can keep up with for the rest of the week.

And talking about time, I have very little of it to myself nowadays. I have gotten slack with everything except wash days. And even my wash days have had a few steps cut out of them. I'm not using my hair lotion, my hair oil, nothing. I just put my satin cap on my head and go to sleep at night. I suppose this is the time where I have to figure out how to shove everything into my 24 hours. My hair just feels so much healthier now and I don't want to suddenly stop this process that I have started. Plus there are going to be times where my life is busy and I need to figure out to keep everything balanced. Might as well learn it now.

I am trying out a new shampoo and conditioner from Organix. I really liked their Moroccan and Argan Oil, so this time I am trying something with a little more protein in it. I noticed that there wasn't really anything in my hair regimen that had protein in it, just moisturizing. So I am going to try this out for a couple of washes and see how things go.

Well, one more month down and on to another one. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Daily Write - Can't Find Myself

I honestly don't remember when I wrote this, but I can take a guess. Sometimes life does nothing but throw monkey wrenches...and bricks...at your face. I was probably getting pummeled with them daily when I wrote this. I guess the main takeaway point is...that time in my life passed and I'm still here. However, I did want to keep this here as a reminder that circumstances come and go. I, however, am here for the long haul.


At times, I wonder if I am losing myself,
Slowly falling to the circumstances and situations that are my life.
When did blue skies become grey? When did clear nights become so full of clouds?

How did I get here? To a place I don't recognize.
To a person I don't recognize.
When did everything fall apart around me?

I don't know what to do, but to keep falling.
I don't know how to pick myself up.
I don't know how to move on.

Is this what it feels like to have your soul slip through your fingers?
Is this what it looks like to have your life drain away?
Bit by bit. Piece by piece.
Colors fade, life wilts and every day another part of me is lost.

How many days do I have left?
How much more of me can disappear before I am lost entirely?
I want to leave this place I have found myself in
Someone show me how to turn around. How to go back.
To blue skies and clear nights, where I felt entirely whole.

Daily Write - Before the Ruin

This ruin wasn't something created recently. It happened many centuries ago. And since then has become lost in the passing of time, buried beneath the tide of years, slowly dismissed and forgotten. It used to be so beautiful here, which is hard to fathom when one lays eyes on it now. But it was a breath taking visage in a previous life. A splendor that really couldn't be captured in words, though many tried. There were endless attempts of those putting ink to paper, who tried to recreate in words what this place was. In rhyme, in song, in painstakingly organized prose; but there was no complexity of language that ever seemed to encompass everything. And now, this is all that is left of what was once indescribable. Simply broken and demolished. As if demons were belched from the cursed depths and devoured everything in sight, leaving their unnatural scar behind. 

Towers used to reach to the sky, glinting in unhindered sunlight. Everything sparkled, right down to the bricks underfoot. The very air was intoxicating. The city felt as if it were made with an essence of something that was unknown to us, yet it lived and breathed and poured out allure and exquisiteness that soaked into the very soil. The city was an entity, living, breathing, beating with a hypnotic pulse that no one could put into words, but everyone understood somehow. This place could not have been more entrancing had their buildings been made of crystal and diamonds, held together with gold and silver.

So how does something as legendary as a place that touched the heavens become dust and decay beneath our heels? Become forgotten and unspoken of, as if it never existed? The Purge happened. And not even this resplendent place could hold back that unleashed torrent. They washed through, like an ocean swallowing up the land. They ripped everything apart, from the heavens to the earth. And what they couldn't destroy with brute force, they burned to ash. Of course, that wasn't enough. Not for them. A beauty that cannot be defined had to be defiled beyond recognition, ground to powder beneath our feet, carried away on the winds of time and the tides of years. 

There was once beauty and splendor here that poured from the sky itself. But not any more. Demons came and tore it away.

My hair #2

So, it has been 8 weeks (closer to 9 actually) since I put in my last relaxer. Now I suppose the real test of this whole hair journey begins. New growth is starting to become visible and normally around this time I would start thinking about doing a touch up. I can't say that I'm extremely tempted to do so at this point. Let's see how I feeling in a few more weeks.

I am quite proud of myself for keeping up with this hair regiment I started for myself. I wash my hair every week and go through the whole process of hot oil treatments, tea rinses, deep conditioning and keeping the use of heat down to a minimum. With the help of my younger sister, I learned how to do roller sets better. So I will probably be going with the curly look as more of my natural hair grows out.

For some reason, I have never been a fan of hairspray, gel, or stuff like that. But it is humid summer in the south right now, and there was no way I am going to be able to keep a curl that won't fall within 2 seconds of me taking my rollers out if I don't use something. So I buckled and got the Olive Oil setting mousse. I have to say, it wasn't too bad. It did leave my hair feeling a bit dry and crunchy, but I used the Olive Oil moisturizing hair lotion afterwards. My hair returned to being really soft and my curls stayed in place. I really like the Olive Oil line of hair care products. It doesn't leave my hair feeling like it is covered in something slick and greasy.

There are still more things that I want to try and do with my hair, like learning new styles, better ways of taking care of it and what not. So far, I haven't gotten tired of doing this yet. Which is good, because I'm going to be doing it for a while.

Daily Write - My Hate

People always want some sort of explanation about why someone feels what they do towards them. Sometimes, the simple truth is that there is no explanation. The feeling is just there with no reason or impetus. It simply is, seated deeply inside, only growing stronger with each passing moment. And there was no action taken that caused the roots to firmly grip my soul. Nor any undeserved words spoken to cause the twisting of my emotions which shade out any hope of benevolent feeling towards you. It simply happened. 

Raw feelings of anger, bitterness, annoyance, jealousy, all writhing on top themselves into this firmly entrenched, roiling cauldron of hatred that sits square in my chest. There is no denying, fighting, or pretending not to notice. It leaks from my soul, into my heart, being pumped into every organ. It is all that I smell, that I hear, that I feel, that I think towards you. I hate you, with every poisoned fiber that is myself. I hate you.

 You will probably want to know why my loathing towards you burns with such intensity. And all I will tell you is that it simply does. Nothing you did started it, accept that you are. Nothing would give me more pleasure than have you simply disappear and be forgotten. And even then, I would still hate you.

My Online Family

I want to fill this space up with words that make an exciting story, but honestly, I don't have much of an exciting story to tell right now. My life has been pretty mundane these past few weeks. I don't mind it being mundane. Exciting usually means that I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off and praying for some time to myself where I have nothing to do.

Instead, I am going to talk about this phenomena that I am starting to see evolve around me. I think my online friends are starting to out number the friends that I have in real life. There was a time when I would have thought that something was wrong with me if this had been the case. But now, I don't really feel like that any more. My friends in real life (God bless them, I love them dearly) don't really understand any of my hobbies. Any of them. In fact, a lot of my friends discourage me. They don't realize what they are doing, but it doesn't make it any less disheartening. I am told that I'm wasting my time, or I don't have enough time to be indulging in things like that. The best one has to be that I need to get out more. But the people that I have met through writing and gaming seem to get it. I don't have to explain myself, because they already understand. Not only that, but they are involved in the same things.

There was a time when I wasn't very open to people who I couldn't attach a face to or were only words on screen or disembodied voice. I had to see them face to face. Somehow that was supposed to make the relationship that I had with that person "real". Now, those walls are slowly starting to crumble away. That whole mantra that used to be solidified in my brain that you couldn't be actual friends with people that you couldn't see is starting to fall apart. And the number of people that I'm getting acquainted with just keeps growing. I even met up with a few of them at PAX East.

On top of that, these people are really awesome. They are nice, they are cool, they are fun. And sure, most of interactions I have with them are just typed out words in chats, forums and on my Twitter feed, but still. It's more interaction than I have with people who I see face to face. The ones who don't talk, call or text because they are too busy.

But for some reason I have this strange concern. There is always this worry that it will all go away in a blink. One day I'm going to wake up and all these cool people I've met are just going to be gone. Or worse, I'm going to excluded from the cool kids table for some reason. I don't know why I think that, I just do. It's like I can't just enjoy what's happening as it happens. I know, I'm weird.

I don't know how I found all these cool people or why they let me tag along with them. But I'm enjoying myself. I like folks who have some of the same interests as me and don't make me feel like some leper for having them.

A blog about my hair

Girly update! I suppose this post was going to happen sooner or later, right? Those of you following my Twitter saw this coming. Three weeks ago, I declared that I was going to have my final relaxer put in. (I feel like the relaxer was angry about that, because I burned something vicious. And I usually don't burn at all). I have been wanting to go natural for a long time, it's just that I had no idea what I was going to do with my hair once I started down that path. For some reason when I thought about being natural, all I could think about was afros and plats. Then I saw all these girls/women with hairstyles that I loved. And then I was reminded that the press and curl still existed.

Plus, let's be honest, my hair is really just being ridiculous at this point. I have mismanaged this quaff for God knows how long and now it is going on strike. It's breaking, shedding, screaming, throwing tantrums, etc. So I am going to have to take the extra time in order to be nice to it and see if I can't get me some long sexiness out of it. (That sounded very dirty).

I think I have done more research on this going natural thing than I ever did for any project that I had in school. I feel like a lot of this is going to be hit or miss and talking things out with my hair dresser. Maybe I should call her my stylist. It sounds more flashy when I say stylist. Right now, I am able research all this stuff because I am in that lull period between "done with school" and "get a job". I'm a little worried, however, about keeping up a regimen once I start having pulls on my time. But I suppose I will cross that road when I get there.

Another worry I have is the time aspect. It takes over a year to grow a relaxer out. A year!! Closer to a year and half. And most hair journeys (as they are termed) take 3 years. Guess what guys? I don't think I have ever done any kind of beautifying regimen that lasted more than a month or so. Now I'm heading down some 3 year path. When I think about how long it is going to take, I don't even feel like starting. But what if in 3 years I had hair down to my waist? Would that not be amazing? It would my own hair, not hair that is mine because I paid for it.

I think another draw that is counter balancing the whole time issues is making my own hair products. There is something fun about doing kitchen cosmetics and DIY projects. This is definitely where the trial and error comes in. I am starting simple with making pre-poo oil treatments. I will probably add  more later on. I like the fact that I can make something cheaply with things in my kitchen cabinet and not have to spend gobs of money because someone has a fancy name written across the bottle.

I am going to start taking pictures of my hair tomorrow after I wash it. And I should take them monthly. Sometimes seeing a little bit of progress will help with continuing the process. And my stylist (hehe, stylist) did tell me repeatedly that it will be a process. Well, here it goes!