I Love Me...I Love Me, Not?

Twas a Monday…Not a bad Monday but not necessarily a good one. Aside from the general suckiness of Mondays as a whole, I was also having a pretty stressful day at work and wasn't feeling too hot because the Red Death was upon me (See what I did there GOT fans - LOL *smiley face*). Anyway, after work I decided the best thing to do was head to Sephora for a little pick me up and maybe buy myself a little pretty.

When I got home later that night, for some super random reason I started thinking about the little mermaid – Yes, Disney’s the little mermaid. Don’t ask me why. Anyway, I got to thinking about that song Ariel sings in the cave with all of her knick knacks and whatchamacallits, you know, Part of your world. The song starts with the line “I want to be, where the people are…” yaddie, yaddie yadda. So of course I decided to do what any sane, rational person would do and that was begin to craft my response to Ariel's "directed at no one in particular" statement. And so, my response to her would have gone as follows:

Pardon me, you want to what? Be where these people are? Part of this world you say? Hold on a sec, explain this to me one more time, because I can’t quite comprehend. B**ch, you’re an effin mermaid?!?! You can swim in the ocean at your leisure with no f’s given. You can breathe under water AND get your hair wet without having to think twice. I can barely get my ass in the tub without a nose plug and some GD goggles, but YOU want to be where I’m at?!

PAUSE. FLAG ON THE PLAY

Look, The Little Mermaid is in fact one of my favorite Disney Princess movies but right then and there I realized just how young they begin to train little girls not to like who they are and to undervalue what’s good about themselves for the sake of someone else. Heck, don’t even get me started on my theory about Disney’s contempt for mother figures – Case in point: In almost every princess film the mother is already dead (Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid), about to die (Bambi), OR an evil stepmother of sorts (Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, shall I continue?); leaving these adolescent girls with no positive female role models. 

Yes I know...#MINDOFFICIALLYBLOWN

#WalksOffAndDropsMic

Now, I’m sure that wasn't the intent of the song or the movie (eh, still not so sure. Sorry not sorry) BUT for the purpose of this blog post I’m going to focus on the negative and keep on going. Literary freedom!

Anywho, #IsItJustMe or does it seem like these little ones are doomed out the gate. They’re immediately taught to want to be like everyone else; to covet what other people have; to look like this girl, or the next. I mean I don’t know if you noticed, but the moment Ariel was unavailable, prince Eric was onto the next b***h. Granted, the witch did make herself a little look-a-like, but he went from being head-over-heels in love with Ariel, to ready to marry o’girl because her voice sounded familiar. That ain’t nothing but the old school equivalent to “You sound cute over the phone”. 

And this is the guy Ariel wants to change her entire being for?

Ehhhhhhhh...Neh

All I’m saying is, we have to teach them (and each other) to be confident in who they/we are and to stop worrying about what other people are doing. Teach them that they are not disposable. That who they are is worthy -- I think now would be the time for me to throw in an inspirational quote photo of the line “You is kind, you is smart, you is important” from The Help, but, not gonna do it.

I admit it, I too can be guilty of allowing the insecurities get to me; I’m human. But the older I get, the more I realize the importance of knowing that I already have what makes me enough. 


So, until you love you the way Kanye loves Kanye, you’ll just have to fake it until you make it.

In the meantime (and speaking of Kanye), here’s a little theme music for inspiration:

I’m the Sh*t – DJ Class ft. Kanye West and Estelle

Can't Touch This!

DISCLAIMER: I do love my melanin-impaired sisters and brothers. I promise...That is all


So I've been wearing my hair natural for about 3-4 years now which for someone like me is a blessing and a curse. I get bored quickly with hair styles so it allows versatility, especially when I feel like randomly chopping off my hair (which happens every year and I have been extremely strong in 2014. Whoot whoot!). On the other hand, being natural does require a lot of work which sucks for me because I'm also extremely lazy when it comes to hair. On a good day it's a coiffed fro, on other days it's in my Lady of Rage afro puffs and when I REALLY feel like showing out, I get it blown out by the Dominicans and wear it straight or throw some flexi-rods in it and Shirley temple that ish up. WHY am I telling you all of this you ask? Well I wanted to give you some back story. 

Growing up I attended a pretty diverse high-school so I never really had to deal with The Questions when it came to my hair. You know, those questions...

• When you get braids -"OMG, how did your hair grow so fast?"... 
• And the reverse when you take them out "OMG, why did you cut your hair?"
• "Do you wash it every day?"
• "How did you make it curly like that?" 
• "Do you wear weaves?" etc...

No, those questions did not come until college. The college I attended was fairly diverse BUT you had kids coming from different parts of the country and the world who only knew what they saw on TV so there was a bit of a learning curve. Hell, my first college roommate actually wanted to help me take out my sew in...and I let her (my arms were tired, so what. Don't judge me lol).

Anywho, what I did NOT expect living in a city like New York, was having to deal with these questions daily at my place of employment. 

Let me explain, I work in a corporate office and am one of a few brown M&M's (yes, that's what I call us. Copyright). But working where I work, with educated people and all, I thought that maybe these questions would stop or at the very least be deemed inappropriate to ask a colleague that was not at a "work friend". Wrong. WRONG. It's actually worse.

For Example...

Like I said before, sometimes I can get lazy with my hair -- We had an event coming up so the night before I put flexi-rods rollers in my hair and the next day when I came into the office, I had the whole 50's pin-up look going. Next night, not so much. I was exhausted and entirely too tired to roll it again so I wrapped my hair, put a scarf on and called it a night. Now, for those of you ethnic-hair-challenged folks, a wrap is that doobie thing Rihanna wore to the Grammy's

...Yeah, us brown girls (and some guys) wear that to bed :)

Anyway came into work the next day and the comments began...

"OMG you changed your hair again" 
"How did you make it straight so fast?" 
"Did you wash your curls out?"

Listen my Caucasian love muffins; I love you but a) Why are you clocking what I do with my hair and b) Please stop acting like I just morphed into a Power Ranger right before your eyes every time I change my hairstyle. It's not that serious lol.

But alas; it's not just the questions. Now there seems to be this culture of touching. For instance...

Last September I was in two, count'em two, weddings so I decided to add some length to my hair (notice I said length because for some reason if white girls get length it's called extensions but when we have them it's called weave. No thanks). 

Now I kept this look up for a while. One day as I'm walking down the hall on my way to see a client, I bump into one of my "colleagues" -- I use the term colleague loosely because we are not in the same department, we don't deal with each other often and she usually just gets the generic "Hey how you doing" wave. You catch my drift. 

In passing she says:

"OMG, your hair got so long. Wait is that all yours?"...Then proceeds to reach out and try touch the ends of my hair. 

PAUSE B***H 

1 - I was completely caught off guard. WTF. We are not friends. We don't hang out. Why and how is that any of your business? And furthermore, since when is that an appropriate question to ask someone just off the cuff?

2 - I have never matrixed out of the way so quick in my life. You'd of thought she tried to stab me.

But nonetheless, where and when did it become 'OK' to lay hands on my person. I am not a dog, you do not pet me or anything on my body.

And that was just extensions. Could you imagine if that was a wig?!?

I have a piece I like to call She,Me,Her that gives me a little Diana Ross feel. I like to break it out every so often when I go out; you know, for fun. But I would NEVER wear it to work for that very reason.

*Celie voice* I swear fo' Gawd, IF somebody were to EVER put their hands through She,Me,Her and that ish shifts to the side; I promise you boo boo, I would end up in HR and/or my friends would have to bail me out of jail.

Unfortunately, that was not the first or the last time something like that happened to me at work or even outside of work with a complete stranger. Honestly, I could go on for days. But I guess what I'm asking is does this happen to anyone else? And if it does, do you too find this as annoying as I do or #IsItJustMe

Hey nerds, just a quick PSA before I get out of here: 

The blog is still a work in progress - Logo and Facebook page coming soon - BUT in the meantime... Like, Comment, Share, FOLLOW 

Love, Peace and Hair Grease