Is That What It Is?

"If This Isn't Love" by Jennifer Hudson

...L-O-V-E...the kind of love that fits right like a glove...

I want to go natural. I have been thinking about it for a while because I want dreadlocks so bad, partly because I bought into this "You look like Lauryn Hill" business I hear from many people.

I don't really look like her at all. I'm not quite as striking as she is. I think it's just that I am dark skinned and I have a pretty face and somewhere in Black people's minds, dark skinned girls aren't pretty. Somehow, I break some rule. "You're so pretty for a dark skinned girl." Wtf? I haven't heard that in a long time but I am prepared for when I do again. This another blog entry entirely.

I recently learned that Michelle Obama's hair is natural or at least the person that does her hair does not use any chemicals.

I didn't want to go natural because I wasn't mature enough but I did like to think about it. I like the feel of having a perm with hair that bounces and is lustrous. But now, I just feel like a sell out. Why is this hair so amazing to me? I know why. We have integrated a White standard of beauty into Black culture. It isn't totally bad. I think if you want to perm your hair and it's easier for you, then you're not any less Black and I wouldn't call you a sell out.

But for some, at some point, you might grow to consider why it is we relax, straighten, press, and all of that to change our hair. What is wrong with the way my hair is naturally? As long as I take care of it, apply moisturizing products, don't get it wet too often, wash it, condition it, don't expose it to too much heat and all the good rules we follow when my hair is permed, it should be fine right?

So I am going to do it. The perm I have in my heair right now is four weeks old and the poof has already started to appear. I washed my hair on Sunday, blowdried it, and greased it. I combed it all back and look at it. The curl in my roots is a kind of beautiful. My hair is beautiful. I didn't straighten it for a few days. I just wore it up and loved it.

I shall start with braids and just have different styles of braids in my hair until the perm is old news. I am a Black woman you know?

Perfect Ending to a Bad Day

"Favorite Mistake" by Sheryl Crow

...your friends are sorry for me / they watch you pretend to adore me / but i'm no fool to this game...

I don't know what my favorite mistake is, but I would like to imagine, given my affinity for this song, that I have one.

Today, I wonder: why do we like to ruin a good thing? Why are some of our urges, desires, likes, etc. so bad for us?

I have a good, good, great thing that deserves my attention and my energy in maintaining its beauty.

But honestly, I am not old enough to be good. I don't want to ruin it, but I don't want to be ruled by it. I know I am speaking rather ambiguously. That's why I created this blog, so as not to speak in concrete, identifiable terms.

I want acknowledgment from a person that I am cool and hot and desirable and awesome and all that. The acknowledgment must be packaged in a particular way and as of yet, I have not been able to evoke it from this person.

Now, I have another person in my life who acknowledges so much, far more than the superficial nods I am looking for, but I am a little, just a little, dissatisfied.

Shit.

So You Walked In

"Epiphany" by Chrisette Michele

...no more wonderin' what you been doin' / where you been sleepin' / i'm leavin' / i'm leavin'

The best part of this song is the end. There is this snag or discord or something that is the sound of breaking up. I'm glad Chrisette is back.

So, don't be mad or judge me or something, but I'm in Miami. Yes. Again. It was so fun last time I cried on the plane returning to the good old Commonwealth.

Of course I cried over someone. I am not so generic of a human being so as to cry about the separation from a place.

I came back though so as to repay myself for those tears. And it has been the splendid thing of art. If my life were art, this would be the funniest, most interesting foreign indie film or the grandest installation.

I did an exhausting table dance and then I cleaned up and then I made lunch and we ate lunch in the center of the room on a insidious and sophisticated table with the ability to be dismembered at any given moment. We ate lunch in the center of the room like an indie film scene in an Italian or Portugese villa with cheese, chicken, bread, hummus, tomatoes, and enchantment.

And he says all of the right things without a clue. Ikea here we come.

(good entry about my life in code).

Best of Me

"Best for Last" by Adele

...you should know that you're just a temporary fix / this is not rooted with you / it don't mean that much to me / you're just a filler in the space that happened to be free / how dare you think you'd get away with tryin' to play me...

Do you see my heart on my sleeve? I was born that way. The problem is, I have an addiction to wearing red shirts so you can't see my red pulsating heart most of the time.

So when you hurt my feelings, make my heart skip a beat, make me nervous, relieve me, I inadvertently can't show you because my compulsively chosen emotional wardrobe is really just a uniform. It even fools me into believing there is no heart there.

Ah, but today I switched it up. I wore this beautiful ivory smile, this golden glint in my eye, a green crown and this brown skin. And everyone could seem my magnificent, pulsating, red heart, including me.

And it beat, uninterrupted, without stress, even-paced, and satiated. I chased away my own melancholy.

I was overwhelmed up until I decided that I should not be. I sat, with my misery and negotiated his exit. I asked what it was he existed for and reorganized the things in my head so that they would no longer be conducive to his residency. I managed my time, made lists, and convinced myself that this life is very possible.

He quietly but not humbly seceded, vowing, in a final attempt to restore his grandeur, that he "would be back with a new sharpness."

I said, "Fine. Come back anytime." Not that I want to see him again, but I realize that he is unavoidable and all I have to do is employ the same negotiation efforts with myself and evict him again.