I Kinda Disappeared

I realized the other day that I had been sharing photos on social media but not on here since well my last post in August.  That wasn't intentional necessarily.  It was just easy to throw them up from my phone while I was sitting still for a minute.  Teaching during the pandemic, trying to take my own class and taking care of myself plus mom took more out of me than I thought.  My hair is growing quite a bit, mostly because it's locked into a style where I'm doing even less to it.  I'll show you photos of that in a second.  Part of that is to protect a weak loc and part of it was I had a ton of speaking engagements over the last few months and no desire to keep pushing my hair out of my face.  I like it, just hard to get to sleep initially for the last few months because the hair is getting longer which makes the spot in the back where they join up lower.  So I'm going to just dump photos in here for you to see and then I'm probably going to fight taking a nap so I can do some homework and grading.

September Photos

October Photos

look a little crazy in that last one lol

November Photos

I'm Struggling Right Now

There's never a good time for anyone to die.  Literally never.  But given the other million things that are going wrong right now, Chadwick Boseman's death is crushing me a bit more than I thought anyone's death might after Prince died.  You shouldn't assume that people you admire will always be there but that's what you do when you're a fan.  Y'all couldn't have ever told me Prince wouldn't be around to release my next favorite Prince song.  And you couldn't have told me someone who became a superhero for Black folks across the planet, and let's be honest quiet a few non Black folks too, wouldn't be around for the next opportunity to be a superhero again.  I'm hurt, like for real hurt.  And I'm going to say something in a minute that is gonna make y'all go--come on now sis.

One of my sorors and good friends asked tonight essentially why we are losing Chadwick when so much other fuckery is allowed to run unchecked and bad people continue to do worse things with no repercussions.  Where was God in all of this?  And that's where I got stuck.  This has been an ongoing struggle for me as of late.  Black folks are a praying folks.  We stay in church.  We tell folks to take it to God all the time.  Black folks in America don't universally have a connection to religion that may have been part of our heritage.  Our forced importation to be the free labor force for hundreds of effing years stripped us of language, history, memory, traditions and religion.  We're Christian because we were indoctrinated and part of that indoctrination was to keep us docile.  I hate most churches because they feel hella judgemental and nosy as hell sometimes too.  And right now, some Christians are the worst ambassadors of their faith.  I want to believe as fervently as other folks do but my brain goes but they keep using that to eff us over.  And I shouldn't question God theoretically but for real unless he's ready to light this one on up in a blaze of glory I am trying to figure out what the end game is here for people who continue to be oppressed for no other reason then they are readily visually identified as different.

Don't get me entirely wrong, my life is better than I probably deserve and I'm not struggling financially right now while a lot of people are but that doesn't account for why are all these other folks struggling.  The world is at a point of extreme wealth but also extreme wealth disparities.  Like I need it to make sense and depending on faith can't get me there right now.  It's not just this moment I promise.  This is an ongoing what in the hell man.

I'm going to try to go to sleep now cause I cannot process anymore.  Travel well Chadwick, I hope you are free of pain and with people who love you.

Staying Safe---No Retwists, Still Updates

Life has been hectic since the last update let me just tell you.  That was a few weeks before spring break and my plan to get back on my diet and workout grind.  And then spring break got extended.  And then the gym shut down because of city ordinances.  And then my state, like many others, issued a shelter in place so school shut down too (school is where I work for those that don't remember) so I had a week or so to figure out what to do with my classes and have been teaching remotely since late March.  My retwist was scheduled for the Friday after we started remote teaching.  Insert sad face but still happy face cause you know breathing and mom isn't sick and my hair is still growing.  I'm not sure when in May I might be able to get in because I haven't been rescheduled yet--I am feeling some kind of way about that but I'll come back to that later--I just know that by the time I am in that it will have been a minimum of eight weeks between appointments and I kind alternate between thinking my hair is cute, to let's cut it all off so I can wash it whenever I like without having a lengthy post wash process but really it's just a different process. I could wash it now and just forcibly detangle it until I can get back in but it's been a struggle to keep my locs from marrying each other right now.  Water is all the motivation my hair needs to tangle in on itself. And as cute as mom is, her hands get tired after prolonged action so she wouldn't be able to help really.  So for now I've just been waiting for my stylist.

I mean that's not all I'm doing.  I'm oiling my scalp and moisturizing my hair.  Especially over the last few weeks when my hair started to feel like it was super duper dry all of a sudden.  That has helped along with scratching my scalp as necessary because for real I don't care if it looks fuzzy on Zoom right now.  I am noticing when I'm on camera just a see of white hair because new growth is having a party but hey it's still growing right.  Now for anyone that's been around a while, like maybe about a year, you know that there was a stylist change about the four month mark because my original loctition went on maternity leave and when she came back her schedule was limited.  I stayed with the replacement stylist and I like both of them.  What I'm not enjoying as much is the longer drive to the shop and the one drawback of having a popular stylist--she stays busy so getting in if I need to reschedule can take a minute.  Or the baby loc dance we had to do for a while.  I know I'm tired and bored so this is probably not the best time to make any lasting decisions but I may have to at least consider a plan b to plan a and ignore plan C (me doing my own locs) for as long as possible.

Ahh well, I'm going to go either have dinner or a cookie depending on what mom has done.

How are y'all doing?

So February has been hectic

I didn't take my standard post retwist photo array because as soon as I got off the highway it started sleeting.  And the next day I loaded up mom and headed to Texas to see my family because my adorable niece was turning 10 that weekend.  And I saw her and it was great but I'm still dragging at the end of the week because we got home Sunday at 1 in the morning, so technically Monday, and I still needed to eat and try to get some sleep.  Thankfully I did my homework before I traveled and gave myself some space to get work done this week.  I'm only including one photo of my brother, mother and I right before we caught our flight home.  Since the nieces are younger and not mine I won't share them unless they want me too.  Anyway the hair on two of the three of us is gray and one just won't cop to letting it go gray yet lol.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Loc Update & End of Semester Praise Report

So let me start this off by saying as of about 8 hours ago I'm officially done with this semester.  I cannot at all begin to explain how excited that is.  No last minute grading or negotiations with students about their grades.  I was even able to help one out on a paper she needs to rewrite for someone else.  I stayed on top of my grading this term with my two official classes, internship and research.  Proud of myself on that front so yeah do a dance there.  Okay let's move on.

So yesterday was my loc retwist and my hair keeps maintaining well.  As they get longer I can see more closely what size they will likely be as they continue to mature as well.  Loving that.  I'm officially five months loc'd as of today.  I saw someone's locs fresh off her retwist when I was just getting settled into the chair and she's probably six months plus ahead of where I am but around the same size and I was like in love.  We started talking to someone else in the shop who started wondering if the loc life was for her and it was like ma'am totally depends on you but I'm loving this process in ways I can't actually articulate.  She asked if I was saving money being loc'd and I'd have to say probably not on one front.  I'm still having to pay someone at least once a month to do my hair.  That's instead of the every two month Senegalese twist life that would be the equivalent of three months of loc visits and one month of my hair doing whatever it wanted while I let it rest.  Plus products.  At this point, I'm light on products outside of oils and my hair is doing its own thing with minimal input from me.  We both shared that sentiment and she seemed to take it to heart but probably not ready for that and I totally understand that.  It's a lot to commit to.

Blessed but still quite stressed

I'm two weeks into summer classes which isn't horrible in terms of workload and what I need to do.  It also means only four more weeks of me actually having to be on campus and then yeah time off for the kid.  Some of you may remember I'm also in the middle of the four week span of suckage that is my life between the anniversary of my father's death and Father's Day.  In the middle of there I graduated from my MA program, my brother's birthday hits, my dad's birthday hits and this year for an extra added dose of well that's fucked up, one of my sorority sisters died this week.  She wasn't forty and she wasn't ill.  I haven't been really able to process her loss and it is for the best because I could come up with about eighteen thousand people that should be gone instead of her but that's not cool either.  I'll miss her and while we as a line were blessed not to lose anyone in fourteen years this hurts in ways I can't really articulate. 

Add into that stress that I'm tired because of the mom care taking duties that are underway and I have made about a million excuses not to go to the gym.  Thursday and Friday I said no more of that.  I wasn't there more than 45 minutes, at least 30 though, working out but it felt good to clear my head.  Ate too much over the ensuing bad news days but have doubled down on the diet plan.  I have to take care of myself for a variety of reason but if for none other than to honor my 6.  Gotta experience life fully and that means getting my health fully under control. 

I also splurged on some DevaCurl bundle set and leave in conditioner.  My hair really does like it and seems to look healthy after I use it.  Depending on how this new set works I may scrap some of the older stuff that I've just been working through and may or may not be helping my hair.  I also gotta figure out how to take care of my hair more when it's out cause I'm not really up for twists right now.  I'm tired man.  Hope all of you are doing well.

I'm not in Witness Protection I promise

So apparently I was more neglectful than I thought I was with this page.  Y'all the last three months of the year have been high octane hot mess.  I'm going to try to keep these in categories that make sense so I'm not randomly but I can't promise that at the moment.  Let's get into it before I take a nap and say forget it again and boom it will be January.

Work: So in all the ways work can be frustrating and exhilarating it was this year.  I was heavily recruited to do something and after saying no to the first two proposals I negotiated a temporary gain to the salary scale and jumped right on in.  I've in in meetings I wouldn't have been privy to otherwise and have been able to share feedback that wouldn't have come up before either.  Lots of professional development opportunities for me and campus and that is flipping amazing let's just be honest.  It's also meant a crap ton more work and while my classes weren't impacted my normal response time to some things slowed up.  However, I was bright and shiny as much as I needed to be and have a few more major projects to wrap up before I can say I did some great work for you in ten months let's see what to do with it now.  I also got one major project to a point of completion and that ate up literally ten of the twelve months of the year.  It also led to a bit of frustration but hell it's over with in one regard for the moment.  New team is composed to move forward and we'll see how that goes.

Weight: Can technically keep this one short.  I am not back over the start weight but I'm only a few pounds still in the loss category.  The stress of the year meant I dropped the one thing that had been my saving grace over the last two years which had been self-care.  I spoke with my trainer about that  a few months ago and asked for a time out.  We're rebooting next week and I am going to try to spend more time taking care of myself as well.  Everyone is happier when I'm happier.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.  A girl needs some support.

Hair: So this one is weird.  I lost a ton of hair during my last take down but remember how I said I was slipping on the self-care? Well this fell into that realm too.  I'm totally responsible for the dry hair just saying girl please and taking a break.  It's still thick and while no gain was had from the last updo I wasn't bald lol.  The shape is slightly better now.  I may or may not put it back into a protective style before classes start but for now I am leaving it down, going to try to wash and style it for tomorrow so I can be cute on Christmas.  Regardless, this is part of the must do better option for 2018.  To that end I'm going to probably revisit some of the things I was willing to do a while back that I forgot about when I said this makes more sense.  Products are great but there has to be some routine that I'm willing to stick to at this stage.  And I may have to give away some more products and go with a plan B.  My hair dryer is great but my hair is too thick to be functional with that thing.  I need one made for thick hair with wider brush or comb options.  The diffuser is nice by my arm is literally mad as hell by the time I'm even half way dry.  Gotta use the next few days to plan some stuff out.

Random: birthday was good, dating is weird, friends are funny and my nieces are flipping amazing--big up to my brother for raising delightful children.  Butter London released polish inspired by the color of the year.  One was the direct color and one was Purple Reign.  Yep I copped that well both of them and a third light purple shade to add to my purple mix.  If it was gel I would have flipped my shit but it's not so my toe nails may enjoy it and I'll consider my finger nails.  Donuts are magical, meal prepping is easier when I'm tired for some reason, love my family and life can be good even when it doesn't seem like it.

Here's looking forward to a productive 2018.

Apparently I can't count

So I was coming over to check something on the blog and realized the weeks post relaxer looked super wrong since I last got my hair relaxed June 15th of last year.  Yeah I was seven weeks off.  After an unintentional transitioning point and some random breakage prior to my big chop, it doesn't really seem like it's been that fast.  I'm glad my hair is growing, fuller and healthier than it has been in years.  It's not as long as it used to be when I was letting chemicals release the curl but that will come.  The twists are helping my lazy to be sure but I haven't totally done my part to keep it well protected and moisturized.  Since I got them reinstalled I have been trying to hit my scalp and length of my hair with either jane carter solutions re*store or Infusium 23 Olive oil leave in conditioner.  I've been doing it daily but I think it may be too much.  I'll see after this week how the buildup feels and if it's too much I'll cut back and wash my hair with the bottles again.

Honestly I'm super exhausted right now.  If I hadn't been in the mood to braid and roller set the twists I'd probably be drooling on the pillow right now.  I had a busy weekend with my sorority sisters at a conference and it was good be with them.  However, I'm so tired now it's out of control.  At least one of my classes ends on Thursday so I have a tiny bit of reprieve to sleep in and watch the start of Wimbledon in peace.  I didn't take any photos of my hair immediately after it was done but they are smaller than they have been without feeling super heavy.  Here's a photo from the weekend.  Not super close up but you can see my smiling and somewhat dressed up lol.

I need to go eat dinner but revisit that super lazy.  Hope you had a good week.

Woosah: Relax Relate Release

It's been an interesting couple of days for the hair movement around these parts.  After being lazy, having too much to do, and desperately searching for M51 Xpression braiding hair (thanks ebonyline.com you were a life saver) I finally took my hair down this weekend.  Sunday to be precise.  I knew I wasn't going to spend much time at work on Monday because I had to make an airport run and the most I would likely do is run to the gym so it seemed like having the few recommended days down between installs would both be possible, good, and relatively easily.  Except yeah my hair never does easy lol.  It was fine Sunday and most of Monday.  Gym went great and all was well as I got home, made some fresh pasta, and then finally got around to washing my hair.  The minute the shampoo made contact with the different textures they began a struggle to the death.  It was ugly, it was long and by the time it was done I had little remnants of anything that could be considered straight hair lol.    When I woke up in the morning it was thick and annoying.  I was about 20 minutes away from slapping a relaxer in my hair but I remembered in a previous update that I said I would let my hair sort itself out and to be fair it completely did.  On the upside, the long time post relaxer meant I had at least an afro to work with when it was finally trimmed the next day.  In a variety of spots there was no more relaxed hair to deal with.  In the longest spots it was a loss of another two inches.  I tied it down last night and woke up to a slightly smushed afro and wasn't loving the product that was in it so I washed it then added some of the curly products I bought last night on the way home from the stylist.  I ended up with this look this morning lol.

Notice the copious amount of gray hair and the little bit of black holding on for dear life.  If I stretch it there's maybe another inch or so of hair but as my plan today was to get retwisted I didn't see a point in blowing it out or trying to straightening it.  I'm sure I confused some people as I had what amounted to a twist out on Monday and showed up to the office rocking this midday.  They will be equally confused tomorrow because I did this tonight lol.

I am super sad because I just went to see if there was more M51 left in stock to make sure I could keep this color as again most of my hair is white but they don't have any.  I need at least one more back based on what happened tonight.   I can go with the slightly lighter M44 which seems to be more readily available in lots of brands but yeah I like the super gray.  Meh if anyone sees any Sensationnel Xpression braiding hair in M51 let me know lol.

How goes life with the rest of you?  Back to the gym tomorrow after work since dinner is made for the rest of the week now.  Yeah for diets and trainers.  Night all.

Long Overdue Update

Hey everyone,

not sure when I posted last but it's not when I wanted to for sure.  There's lot to get to so if you don't have a lot of time then you may want to head on to something else and come back later lol.  Well the last two weeks has been jammed pack.  After moving in, finally getting our stuff and unpacking slowly but surely I had things on my agenda almost immediately.  Lots of trainings and planning meetings and then last week was prepping three brand new courses, not completely alone I have gotten a lot of help from the current staff as well as the new staff, and getting things set up, tweaking calendars and trying to plan things out to fill 16 weeks of teaching instead of five.  I mostly finished that on Friday and had minor things to tweak yesterday and today and while it doesn't feel perfect I am ready for the semester.

Relaxer Day & Yummy Goodness

Yesterday was a good day for the most part.  I went to sleep at a reasonable hour, woke up at one as well and then watched both my Serbian tennis boo and my French tennis side piece lose their semifinal matches at the French Open so I can't watch them play on Sunday and be conflicted.  Instead I get to root against Rafael Nadal and that God awful digging in his crack he perpetually does as he faces David Ferrer (not to be confused with Roger Federer--those last names used to trip me up).  I really hope Ferrer wins cause as I'm sure you picked up on I don't really like Rafa, he bugs the piss out of me.  I'm trying to stay up for the Serena and Maria match but I went to sleep not too long after I ate dinner--I know bad--woke up for a hot second and then went back to sleep only to wake up around 2AM.  The match doesn't start till 8 AM  and while I'm wide awake now there's no promise of that continuing.  Anyhoo let me stop rambling and get to the heart of this post.

Weird Stuff

So yeah been having a busy few days. Well emotionally busy anyway.  I think I need to disconnect from some more networks longer than I did.  I was off of one of them most of the day yesterday and it felt better to just be in my head.  And I took a mommy break too which was helpful.  She seemed to get that I needed some space too which helped.  Everyone is right in that I need a more formal break but yeah it's hard to get one that won't put her in a bit of debt which I am trying to avoid in case she really does have to be on her own at some point in the future.  I don't really see that happening in most scenarios but I plan for the what ifs along with reality at the same time.   

I was offered a chance to teach one more class before I leave but I don't know if I'll take it or not.  It would force me to be here until the second week of July which wasn't my plan.  I don't want to be rushing towards unpacking right before my new job starts BUT I could use the check right before I leave.  It's very ill timed actually.  I don't want to be grading papers right before I either drive out or fly out either.  Even though the money from class could pay for tickets.  I'll think it over for the weekend and then let them know on Monday.  

Interview Dread and Working It Out

My insomnia is not my bestest friend.  In fact it is quite annoying.  Last night I thought exhaustion was winning again but after about four hours of sleep I was up and couldn't get back to sleep for the rest of the morning.  I fell back asleep mid morning but it was annoying as it threw off my day.  I ended up doing what I had planned, just like yesterday when a similar but not quite the same sleep interruption happened.  Grades are in for both of my classes and no one is yapping about them so tomorrow morning one class will get final grades submitted and the others have nearly a week to get the next batch in.

In the interim I have to whip together a presentation about my past research and future research plans even though the position I'm interviewing for has no research component to it.  Just a lot of teaching.  Considering the fact that I haven't taught in a while at a traditional college and don't have an active research line of my own I am very flattered to have been invited.  The travel times, my sleep issues, my tummy issues, all have my fearful about how this trip will end up working out especially since I have to be on the road at 6AM for the return trip because I'm an hour away from the airport and I have to return the rental car.  Other than the research presentation the interview day looks just the same as the others.  I'm not wearing the cute girl shoes cause there's enough walking, even in the building, that my feet would be on fire by the end of it.  And there's dinner involved too unless of course I can't pretend to keep awake and then I'll try to beg off of it.  That probably won't happen but eh.  Plus it must be some sort of kismet since of the interview days the only option I had that would really work is the day my class has ended so I am not scrambling to have anyone fill in.  I think I'm just burnt out on interviewing.  I would like someone to make an offer so I know what I'm doing and can make my reservations to go see my brother later this year.