A Propos of Nothing

I just left my third class today, inflicted a test on my students, and at the end of class, the same two students who hang around were hanging around. These are black women about my age. One was trying to make her way to the door when the other, still at her desk, looking at the floor between her feet, said, "You know what, Ms. B?"

"What, Ms. [Student]?"

"They killed my neighbor this week." And she told us about this friendly guy who had recently moved in near her apartment (a neighborhood across the street from the first* house Ex-Husband and I lived in, it so happens), a guy about our age. He had begun to hang out with some of the young men in the area, drinking, staying up late, and showing the boys his guns, when my student took him to the side --Tuesday night-- and told him he'd better cut it out.

"Those young guys don't care nothin about you," she warned him. "Hit your knees and make friends with the Lord. You better pray." Of course, he paid her no mind.

By Wednesday morning, the police were banging on Ms. Student's door: her neighbor was dead, murdered, she believes, with one of his own guns. (It had disappeared earlier this week.) One of the worst things about this story was Ms. Student's apparent attempts to "get over this" as soon as possible. She said she didn't think she'd be able to.

"They murdered him," she said. "Murdered him. Murdered him. And he never meant no harm to nobody."

Dear Jesus, help us to know the advantage in being wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

*And last.

I have to do this now, while it's still fresh.

I'm ready to talk about my Tuesday now. You may not be ready to hear about it, and that's fine.

Those of y'all still here? This happened.

I woke up to rain on the morning it was my turn to take the dogs out. Used to be, Juice and Goobs took turns with the dogs, but since Juice left for college, I'm taking up the slack. I don't mind feeding them, combing them, training them or playing with them, but I hate taking them outside. When we lived at the other house, we used to just let them outside. But that house had a fence. This one does not, so the dogs must be taken, or one or both of them will make a break for it, and hours'll pass before it occurs to Nimue or Frody (especially that idiot, Frody), "Hey, I live somewhere around here. Better go home, where they love me. Kinda." Poor dogs. Now, there are definite advantages, actually, to taking the dogs, as opposed to loosing the dogs to the back yard: one is that the Taker gets to decide (more or less) where each dog pees and poops. Otherwise, there's pee and poop all over the yard, and I, personally, don't like that. YMMV*. But I hate taking them outside because I have to stand around and wait for the peeing and pooping, while mosquitoes feast on my person.

Such is life, though, when you choose to allow dogs to take up residence in your home.

It was pouring when I decided to stop stalling and take the dogs out. The rain wasn't really an issue, though, since I have a gigantic umbrella, and Frody, at least, doesn't mind getting wet. Actually, I think Frody is unaware of getting wet. As he is unaware of most realities. Nimue does mind getting wet, but she gets over it fairly quickly if Family is out in the rain with her. So we all went outside, did our thing,* and came back inside. I had cereal, and since Goobs is extremely finicky about cereal,* I told her to eat breakfast at school.

The day started out fairly normally, I'm tryina say.

But it was Tuesday, so that means when I got to work, I was probably going to have to walk "off-campus" to class. In the rain. I didn't mind walking to class; it takes about ten minutes and it's exercise. Even the rain wasn't an issue, right? Because of Huge Umbrella. So I walked to class, tortured my students, took up papers, gave them their new assignment, let them go, and then waited for the next class, reading essays as I waited. About five minutes before my next class, I went to my other classroom and discovered that my boss had put up a sign there: "Courses using this classroom will be meeting at the auditorium for today only." Why? As far as I could tell, the ceiling was leaking. Yes, there was a little water (and buckets) on the floor, but not so much that, IMO, one couldn't have class there.

But it was five minutes before class, and nobody but me was there. Usually, that class hangs around, as a body, in the hallway, until I show up, ask, "Why are y'all hangin around in the hallway? Get in here!" and escort folk into the room. Clearly, today, students had showed up earlier, read the sign, and gone off to the auditorium. Back on campus. But I went to the instructors' office and called our AA, left her a message to call me back at that number. She did so almost immediately and confirmed, yes, that she had heard that "the classroom was flooded," had written the note, and my boss had walked over and posted it.

"I wish I had known earlier," I said forlornly. "But please? If you see my students, would you tell them I'm on my way?"

"I'll do that right now," she said. I grabbed up my stuff and, slogging it back on campus, I realized, as I reached my parking lot, that my front-passenger-side window had fallen down into the door.

Recently, I had the driver's side window thingy, the thing that raises and lowers it, what is it? The regulator!! repaired or replaced, I forget which. Two days after that repair, the window on the other side went on the fritz. (The mechanic who had fixed the other regulator was also on the fritz, having had a serious accident in his shop shortly after fixing my window.) So when the passenger-side window would no longer go up or down, Goobs fixed in in the "up" position, and she and Juice taped it to stay there. Riding along in the car, though, we all discovered that various and sundry vibrations made the window slide back down. The girls kept sliding it back into place and taping it more securely. Tuesday's rain, however, wet the tape, and when the window wanted to go down, all the way down, the tape gave out and let it go. It was raining hard and steadily --inside my car. I made an "Auuughhhh!" noise as I passed, but I couldn't do anything about the window, even if I had been able to dig it out of the door --because I was late for class.

I found my students in near dark in the auditorium. I could barely see my roster or the textbook, although the students looked happy and dry and friendly, as usual. So I tortured them a little, took up their papers, gave them their new assignment, and let them go.

My third class was in the same building as the auditorium, thank Jesus, but I'm learning to dislike the classroom mightily. For one thing, it's a "smart" classroom, with a computer for each student. For a professor who knows how to work "smart" classrooms, it's great. In fact, it wasn't long ago that a handful of the technologically savvy used to fight over that particular classroom. They had to learn to share it. When I discovered, however, that I had to teach in it this semester, my heart dropped. But beyond asking one of the Savvy to help me figure things out, I didn't complain. Much. The problem with the classroom is students' tendency to ignore lectures in the front of the class and, instead, play online with the PC in front of their faces. If I were a student in that class, I'd do the same thing. And, of course, the one bell/whistle of the situation that I could have used --the ability to see what students were looking at on their PCs (and even shut down the one on Facebook)-- wasn't working at present.

Most of the students in that class don't play with the PCs, though. They're older students (mostly) with paychecks that are paying for school, and they don't come to class to play on PCs. But there's always one. Last week, the second week of the semester, The One, during his first time in class,* ignored the in-class assignment and began to play with his PC. Although I made a general announcement about the assignment, again, The One continued to ignore me. And then, when I left my podium to speak to him directly, he became offended that I had said anything at all to him. Clearly, he was supposed to do what he pleased*. Because I had said something specifically to him, and he didn't like it, The One began to grumble about what I did or didn't "have to do." This prompted my popular "This is Blackwellia" speech, which lets my students know, early, that when they walk into my classroom, they do what I say. And I decide what I say. "Blackwellia is not a democracy," I point out. "It's not even a benevolent dictatorship." It's a thundering good speech, but I hate to have to give it. That day, however, I felt that most of the class was behind the sentiment. One student, an older* gentleman in the back of class responded, "HIT THE DOOR!" to my rhetorical question, "And if you have a problem with that, then. . . ?" (Actually, I was angling for "Sign up for another class," but "HIT THE DOOR!" worked, too.)

Despite my brilliant speech, a week later, The One repeated this performance. Essay revisions had been assigned the week before Labor Day weekend, the long weekend, remember, and those revisions were due Tuesday. Although nearly every other student in the class had his or her paper ready (either hard copy or flashdrived), The One decided that today was the day to begin work on his essay. Walking around, collecting papers, I noticed that he had started this essay and asked him, as I had last week, "What are you doing?" Of course, like last week, I was Just Wrong for saying anything to him, so I stopped myself and merely asked him if we two could talk after class.

"Why?" he asked, exasperated.
"Can you just do that for me? Talk with me after class?"
"Okay. Okay," he said.

The rest of the hour had his grumbling undertone as background music. He still didn't have a textbook, but as I was calling on students to do exercises orally, The One swiveled over to a classmate with a textbook, saying, "I just know she's gonna call on me next, so. . . ."

I did call on him, but not next. Because I don't have it in for him.
Yet.

But it's going to be hard not to have it in for him because I listened to him talk after class (as did a couple of the other students. Sneakily). See, The One didn't have a problem with me, he said, but he did not like the way I talked to him. He didn't understand why I had "called him out" on his first day. I pointed out that he had come to class a week late, with no textbook, and had deliberately ignored the class assignment, twice, even beforeI "called him out." I asked him what he thought I should do to restore order in my class. He shrugged.

"I don't think you had to talk to me like that," he reiterated. He was under the impression that my "Blackwellia" speech was "completely unnecessary." I was under the impression that we would have to agree to disagree on that. See, while the student agreed that he had been wrong to ignore the class assignment, and wrong to try to write his paper a week after it had been assigned, he really seemed to feel that I wasn't supposed to say anything to him about it in public. I was getting angrier and angrier, particularly at the sense that, whatever I said, the problem was that I was saying anything at all. He also didn't seem to understand the concept of Authority. After reminding him that I could do pretty much what I wanted in my class, he responded, "So as long as I do the work, I can do what I want?"

"When did I say that?" I asked.
"Well, that's what I understand you to be saying," he responded. I lost it at this point, and by "lost it," I mean "let the conversation drop." I could feel my face burning,* and I felt I was near to saying something I shouldn't. Somewhere up in there, The One said, "Okay. I don't want to argue with you anymore." I reminded him that the class rule, if he ever wanted me to read his first essay, was that he had to bring the essay to me during office hours.
"They run between 11 am and 1 pm," I said.
"I'll be there at 1 then," he replied.
"Um. My office hours END at 1."
"Oh. Well, I'll be there sometime before."

One of my sneaky students, also older, waited until the young man had left and said, "Ms. Blackwell, he's not gonna do anything you tell him to do." And she burst out laughing. But I had to run, though, so when she assured me that she wouldn't give me a hard time this semester, all I could say was, "Well, if you do, I can handle it."

"I believe you!" she laughed. Time does not allow me to relate how, because of a meeting, I was late for my last class, the class thirty students full, but a sweet class, and that Goobs, catching a new bus to and from school for the first time, got home an hour late. But you get me. This was not a good day.

I'm so glad some of y'all prayed. God, He knows what would've happened if y'all hadn't.

Jesus, my brother, I thank You. Anyway.

*As you might have realized, I have issues with walking the dogs outside the house, allowing them to pee and poop all over the neighborhood. If pee or poop occurs away from home, I'm not averse to cleaning up after my dogs; however, the whole idea of taking them around for the purpose of letting them eliminate all over the neighborhood works my nerves. We do walk the Nimue and Frody, just to be walking them, but we usually try to get them to take care of their toilet needs before they leave the house.
*Me commanding, "Okay, get your poop on," and them just looking and sniffing around for the rabbits they're sure will show up shortly.
*Meaning that if it's not some kind of sugar bomb, she won't eat it.
*Yes, that's what I said.
*Especially since he didn't have his textbook (the Best Excuse EVAR for not doing an in-class assignment).
*Meaning he looked to be about my age.
*I wonder (again) if I actually turn red when I get angry or embarrassed.

"And What About YOUR Husband?"

Seriously. This is a direct quote from a new member of our church. FWIW, I just love this new member: he's funny and smart and talented and happy with his life. But I nearly burst out laughing when he asked me this, not, mind you, with a view to a Relationship. (Brother is happily married.) But, in my not-so-humble opinion, with a view to All Up In a Sista's Bidness.

Hey, don't get me wrong: I really don't mind anybody asking me, "Are you married?" I'm not keeping secrets. I'm not ashamed of my divorce. (More ashamed of my marriage, to tell the truth.) But just ask me, okay?

Oh, and please, I'm beggin you with tears in my eyes, don't make assumptions about me simply because you know I'm not married. Yesterday, a very vocally devout used-book buyer was in my office when I was defending my right to sell used books. "Yes," I told a colleague, "I do that. Single mother? Child in college?" When I turned to the buyer (a Ukrainian gentleman named Yuri), he was smiling at me.

"How many children do you have?" he asked. I gave him the number and their general ages. "And no husband?" His question was just dripping with assumptions, and being a black single mother, my reception was just dripping with stereotypes. Surely, he was thinking, this is one of those welfare queens one hears about. Or, you know, not.

"Not any more," I replied. Then followed a discussion about why. I was vague, as one should be with random used-book buyers. Mostly, I said I didn't feel ready for a husband (yet). What bothered me most about this conversation wasn't the prying; as I say, my life's an open book. What bothered me was my feeling of being on the defensive. Somehow, I feel I should be married, which makes me just putty in the hands of folk who feel I should be married, whatever their reasoning behind it, which is Just Sad.

Related to this sadness is the assertion that if your marriage is failing, whatever the reason for the failure, you should work to save it. Or, as I learned recently, if you Have The Nerve to try to work through the end of your marriage by writing about it, publishing your thoughts and experiences is "a bit much."

On the other hand, I was extremely heartened by some things my pastor said during his Back-to School bible-study series. For example, he called out the young women and told them that, while he had nothing against marriage, these young women had better focus on educations and careers and not husbands. He preached independence and self-esteem. To young women and girls. And then, after bible study, he hugged those who came near him and asked them, "You hear what I said? You hear me?" I like it that my spiritual leader doesn't just assume, because a young person is female, that she should be obsessing about marriage.

If it weren't for this experience, I'd blame all men for this "Why aren't you married?" atmosphere. All out here in the twenty-first century. I guess I still could blame them. What the heck: it's men's fault. The problem is, women don't behave any better these days. Don't get me wrong. I think marriage, good marriage, is a God thing. And I do hope someday to have one. But I wish people wouldn't assume that an unmarried (or about to be unmarried) woman is a broken thing, something that needs to be fixed.

Dear Jesus, my brother, help us to make the best of the non-marriage relationships we have, especially those we have with You.

I Don't Even LIKE Obama Like That!

First of all, this is not a political rant. It's a rhetorical rant. What in the world has happened to the logical and sensible ability to talk about a politician? Any politician --even Barack Hussein Obama? I discover a lot about people's stances on Facebook nowadays, and I'm horrified by the way they argue.

The assertion that Sotomayor wasn't the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice is tacked onto a charge of antisemitism. The assertion that Obama can't craft a decent national health care plan is tacked onto his stance on abortion. The assertion that Obama is "incredible [sic] cold and arrogant" is tacked onto his ability to president* the country. I had to unfriend two people because of their rhetoric (and, frankly, their commitment to fallacy and inflammatory folklore), and I'm trying to decide about a third.

Clearly, I'm a naif, but I'd just like for people to focus. No, you don't have to love this president; I don't, for what it's worth. Look, I realize that logic is too much to ask for in this dialogue, but could you talk about this administration with some common sense and basic humanity? Less of the "I HATE HIS MUSLIM FACE!!!" and more of the "Eh, not liking this health care idea"? Less of the "But his middle name is Hussein" and more of the "His foreign policy's kind of weak"? This is all I'm asking. What is the point of all the irrelevant vitriol?

Frankly, I blame that idiot Bush.

Dear Jesus, my brother, help us to use the brains you gave us.

*Yeah, I turned it into a verb. You like that?

How Does Your Breath Smell?

(Rated R for pervasive strong language)

So.

I'm on Facebook (a LOT these days), and, surprisingly*, quite a few teenagers are my Fb friends, most of whom requested my friendship. This means, of course, I'm exposed to teenSpeak in its variegated forms. Most of the time, this amuses. But every once in a while, in fact, too often, it troubles. I admit it: it's the Language.

I am not referring to textspeak or slang. I'm talking about profanity, vulgarity and obscenity. For what it's worth, I'm really not a prude as far as language is concerned*. I am, after all, a wordsmith myself. I avoid strong language, but I recognize its place in dialogue. When I was a kid*, people cursed in public only when they were angry, drunk, or insane. If one adult cussed at another adult, there was a brief stunned silence, signifying (I believe) the presence of anger in the conversation. Maybe my adult friends grew up the same way: rarely does any one of them use Language in our conversation unless anger is there. (One of my colleagues, maybe ten or fifteen or twenty years older than I, no prude in any context*, and certainly privileged with the prerogative of cussin, has cussed only once in my presence. She was very angry. She also whispered the cuss word. I leave you to map out the implications.)

Then there is the thing about my faith. Because of the way I read the bible and follow the Lord Christ, I believe in the power of the curse. "The power of life and death is in the tongue," I was taught and I believe, because I've seen that power at work, for good and ill. So another reason I avoid strong language in my own mouth is the fact that I believe I am a woman of power. I believe that not only what I do, but also what I say has authority. Every idle word from my mouth smites my heart, bothers my peace for days, sometimes years. So even when I laugh and joke, I don't do it with strong language: contrary to current culture, I don't believe strong language is meant for joking around.

Which brings me back to my teenaged friends and their language. One young Fb friend used to status only about sex. One cussed profoundly about having to go to work. And to my horror, my own daughters began punctuating their Fb threads with LMAO and even LMFAO. These are the same people who gasped in shock when I called an ass an ass*, or when I said "damn it" after my older girl accidentally snapped me in the eye with a towel. (I use the word accidentally because, although she was playing around and meant to snap me with it, she did not mean to snap me in the eye with it. In response, I deliberately used the words damn it to help her realize that, even when playing, she should be a lot more careful.) In the same way, I recently told these people who live in my house that they should refuse to become "anyone's fuck buddy". And these people gasped in shock. (You see the hypocrisy --theirs and mine-- by now, I hope, because, I'm just not going to confess any more of my sins. In this essay, anyway.)

I'm reminded of Walter Mosley's character, Socrates Fortlow, the sixty-something ex-convict who, in the novel Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned,
caught a strange boy killing and stealing a neighbor's chicken. Fortlow makes Darryl clean, cook and eat the chicken, an object lesson in responsibility and accountability. When he asks the boy if he's ever had such a good meal, Darryl truthfully responds, "Shit, no." And then Socrates, the murderer-rapist (many times over, once outside and, consequently, the other times Inside) tells Darryl, "Keep your mouth clean, li'l brother. . . .an' then they know you mean business when you say somp'n strong." Some would argue, of course, as I used to, that there are many ways to "say something strong" without certain language. Point taken. But (again) I have come to recognize Certain Language's place in dialogue, even if I prefer to keep my mouth clean.

Among my teenaged friends, I'm just saying, I don't see even the knowledge of a distinction between regular usage and Strong Usage. There is no sense of propriety. There is no discretion. Why should your status say, "Take pride in your shit" when what you mean is "Take pride in yourself, your accomplishments, your standards, your creations"? Personally, I haven't taken pride in my shit since I was two. I flush it away, in fact.

So why, finally, is shit always in your mouths, little brothers and sisters? Aren't you aware of what that does to your smile and your breath?

Lord Jesus, my brother, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight.

*Because my older daughter refuses to befriend me or her aunt. And the younger one unfriended her aunt when she was called out on the LMFAO thang.
*I am, however, a prude in other areas. Deal with it.
*Yes, a hunnert years ago.
*She and her husband actually follow The Dead around. Nuff said.
*Yes, I use this word advisedly, but only in reference to certain people, never a certain part of their (or anyone's) body.

Merry Father's Juneteenth!

On Saturday, the family celebrated my stepfather's 80th birthday. I think I had more fun than anybody.

A very admiring young man at PopPop's church had noticed when, last year, he said he had just turned 79, and the young man decided to celebrate the next birthday big time (meaning borrowing one of the church conference rooms and feeding everybody who showed up). This young man began planning the shindig in January.

Which is from how long, I think, Juice, Goobs and their cousins, Auntie's nepphies, have been practicing the songs my sister forced them to perform for PopPop. Things got really hairy towards the end: tempers flared, children revolted, adults threatened. This is as it should be. I guess.

In the meantime, the young man at the church dug up pictures and little-known facts about the man Bethel Temple called Papa Kelly. I knew what his birthday was, but had paid no attention, over the years, for example, to the fact that he shared his birthday with Juneteenth; or that he had left school so he could work and his sister could finish school; or that when he came back to school, he finished in record time as valedictorian. I knew that he'd hurt his back when, in Korea, he'd been blown off of a mountain, but I didn't know he'd met General Douglas MacArthur and President John F. Kennedy. I didn't know his favorite team was the Brooklyn Dodgers (but I figured I knew why).

His daughter and granddaughter came and spoke about him in front of God and everybody, and Mama told jokes (which she'd written down, by hand, on the front and back of a sheet of notebook paper)*. The step-grandchildren (who had finally succumbed to the plea, "Y'all are doing this for PopPop") sang and played two songs. I was rewarded with a big metal grin (he's got braces) from one of Auntie's Nepphies when I said, "That was NIIIIIICE" at the end.

His stepdaughters (my sister and I) and stepson-in-law sang for him, too. We were at least as nervous as the grands.

We ate baked chicken and brisket (with three sauces available!!!), string beans and new potatoes, salad, and a mixed cake of chocolate and lemon. The best part, though, was when we all milled around and hugged each other and caught up. Toward the end, my younger nepphie walked up to a microphone and told the story of when he (the nepphie) lost a ball in one of PopPop's trees. Before PopPop quietly got a ladder, balls and other objects had joined the first ball: the kids had tried to knock the first ball down, and the tree had just grabbed everything.

"But why are your shoes up here?" PopPop had asked.

This occasion cast my mind back to the beginning of our relationship. Mama married Mr. Alford when my sister and I were teenagers. We hated him: when we got chicken to eat, he got steak. He bossed us around and changed the rules of the house. We didn't know what Mama saw in him. But I will always remember when things changed. One evening, the newly-married couple were watching television. Too loudly. (At the time, I didn't know that my new stepfather was hearing impaired.) I had the nerve to knock on the bedroom door and demand, "Could y'all turn the TV down, please?" My stepfather burst out of the bedroom in his robe and began to lecture me.

"I understand you read the bible a lot," he said. "Do you know what it says about honoring your parents?"

"I know," I said. "Do you know what it says about fathers not provoking their children?"

This began a years-long dialogue between That Man and me. He adored me, and I, of course, adored being adored. But the adoration became mutual when my sister and I had kids. That Man treated our children like --well, like his grandchildren. He happily spent time and scads of money** on them, lectured them, loved on them, taught them cool stuff, and grinned and laughed at them. THIS --this smiling and laughing-- was what, finally, showed me something of what Mama had seen years ago: my stepfather looks a little like Sidney Poitier. THAT was when he became PopPop.

On Sunday, the family met at a Chinese buffet. PopPop and I crossed paths on the way to the dessert.

"Happy Father's Day," he said.

*My second older brother, the one who used to live with us, didn't even crack a smile. He hates it when people try to "make" him laugh.

**Most recently, PopPop came through with $300 when Juice's father broke a promise to provide half of a college dormitory deposit.

Hairy Issues : Never Say Never

This is about my hair again, so those of you looking for political commentary (which-- What in the world?? Is this your first time here?) should move on.

Some loc lore: the hairstyle's history is rooted (no pun intended) in Jamaica, where Rastafarianism taught that Haile Selassie was the Messiah, Africa was the promised land, and dreadlocks were NEVER to be cut. Personally, I've heard even unloc'd folk come near screaming about the cutting of locs: it's a religious thing, a spiritual thing, something to bring one closer to God, and NO one should cut another person's locs. Ever. (You oughta see how tense I get when a loc'd sister shows up on What Not to Wear. Is Sista going to whoop up on Nick and his scissor fetish?)

Oh, and folk who wore dreadlocks smoked marijuana. Also to get closer to God*.

Further, the process of "locking" the hair can not be reversed. Ever. "Dreadlocks" aren't ever supposed to "unlock." Those of us with the applicable hair* were told if we ever loc'd our hair, it'd have to stay that way unless or until our heads were shaved. Seriously. It's a commitment, one way or the other. A friend of mine, who has had locs for years longer than I have, emailed me recently and said she was having her locs undone. "Yes," she said. "Unlocked." She explained that the process was expensive and time-consuming, but it could be done. I didn't believe her.

I guess I should say something about the process of loc'ing hair. Currently, there are (at least) two schools of artificial* process : palm rolling and latch hooking. Palm-rolled locs are just what they sound like: hair rolled into the desired loc shape, maybe helped along with styling oils or beeswax or gels. Latch hooking threads old hair through the new growth, making the locs tighter and neater. Sometimes the "loctitian" actually uses a latch hook, but s/he doesn't have to. A cousin (who had never loc'd her hair, btw) told me that palm rolled locs could, if desired, be relaxed and unlocked, but latch hooked hair? Never. When I decided to take the latch hook route, I was told that there was no turning back; that latch hooking would guarantee that I could never "unlock" my hair. Never.

Over time, I found out that a lot of the loc lore was just dogma. For one thing, locs are older than Jamaica and Haile Selassie. Loc wearers weren't necessarily Rastas or marijuana smokers, of course. And, finally, locs could come unlocked.

See, I got my hair cut, over the objections of my regular loctitian. When she began to complain that our conversation about cutting my hair was making her eye hurt, I decided to go to a friend who had been employed by SuperCuts, and I asked her to cut my hair.

I was mildly intrigued when, after the cutting, the ends of my locs --that is, the oldest parts of my hair-- began to unravel. "Huh," I thought. "Maybe Amy [the email friend] knows what she's talking about." This is an earth-shattering revelation.

And now I'm obsessed with the stuff. Or, at least, the ends of the stuff. When I first did research on locs, I became aware of "hand in loc disease," where folk waiting and waiting and waiting for their hair to magically lock up can't keep their hands off of it. Leave it alone, says Daezhavoo. It will happen; get your hands out of your hair. I never had that problem. I was never one to play with my hair. There wasn't any to play with. But now, now that my hair is unraveling, I can't keep my hands out of it, feeling the forgotten softness at the ends, finding the latched areas and pulling more hair loose, wondering if there's a point at which the unraveling will stop. Wondering if I want it to stop.

Because, see, at bottom, a lot of black women chose locs because they wanted hair that cascadades* down their backs. Hair that moves. Yeah: Like white women's hair. This style might be or might not be, initially, about "heritage" or "history" or "self-love." Today's locs are about beauty. Otherwise, we would, all of us, be taking that "natural"* route. So now, my hair's at a length I really love, and the locs are coming out. Do I keep cutting to keep the length? Do I keep unraveling --until I decide, "Hey, I've got all this loose hair now. I never could grow it this long before. Could I get it (and keep it) Dead Straight? Dead Straight is the style now, after all. . ."? I'm also imagining myself with long, thick, nappy hair*, and liking the image. I wonder how long it'd last before my hair dried out and began to break off --because it was neither Dead Straight nor loc'd.

With me, though, the answer comes down to just how much work I'd have to do to my hair in either case. Loc'ing my hair means that I don't have to do deep conditioners. I don't have to sleep in rollers. I don't have to use a curling iron. I don't have to use a blow dryer because, after I wash my hair, I can let it dry in the wind. See, I chose locs because I'm a lazy git.

Dear Jesus, my brother, teach us that self-love is at the root of neighbor-love.

*Look. Don't ask me. I don't know.

*Because there are white and Asian Rastas with dreadlocked hair (and dreadlocked non-black folk who are not Rastas). But, I understand, a good wash, with the right shampoo, will end that particular style for them, while for blacks, no. Wash all you want, once that lock kicks in, it's not going anywhere.

*Because there is also the "natural" school of thought, in which one allows one's hair to just do what it do, become what it be when one doesn't wash or comb it.

*Whoopi Goldberg's term.

*Read "dirty and uncombed."

*Yeah, after I unravel my hair, all my fat'll fall off my body and I'll look just like Gloria Reuben.

Worth Repeating (from May 08)

For ALL the Mothers
(I don't know who wrote this, but I some like it. For all my friends who are mothers, used to be mothers, are about to be mothers, and/or are acting in loco parentis: Keep your heads up. Your work means everything.)


This is for the mothers who have sat up all night with
sick toddlers in their arms, wiping up puke laced with Oscar Mayer
wieners and cherry Kool-Aid saying, "It's okay honey, Mommy ' s here".

Who have sat in rocking chairs for hours on end soothing
crying babies who can ' t be comforted. This is for all the mothers who
show up at work with spit-up in their hair and milk stains on their
blouses and diapers in their purses.

For all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies
and sew Halloween costumes. And all the mothers who DON'T.

This is for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see. And the mothers who took those babies and gave them homes.

This is for the mothers whose priceless art collections
are hanging on their refrigerator doors.

And for all the mothers who froze their buns on metal
bleachers at football, hockey or soccer games instead of watching from
the warmth of their cars, so that when their kids asked, "Did you see
me, Mom?" they could say, "Of course; I wouldn't have missed it for
the world," and mean it.

This is for all the mothers who yell at their kids in
the grocery store and swat them in despair when they stomp their feet
and scream for ice cream before dinner. And for all the mothers who
count to ten instead, but realize how child abuse happens.

This is for all the mothers who sat down with their
children and explained all about making babies. And for all the (grand)
mothers who wanted to, but just couldn't find the words.

This is for all the mothers who go hungry, so their
children can eat.

For all the mothers who read Goodnight, Moon twice a
night for a year. And then read it again. "Just one more time."

This is for all the mothers who taught their children to
tie their shoelaces before they started school. And for all the mothers
who opted for Velcro instead.

This is for all the mothers who teach their sons to cook
and their daughters to sink a jump shot.

This is for every mother whose head turns automatically
when a little voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their
own offspring are at home -- or even away at college.

This is for all the mothers who sent their kids to
school with stomach aches, assuring them they'd be just FINE once they
got there, only to get calls from the school nurse an hour later asking
them to please pick them up. Right away.

This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who
can't find the words to reach them.

For all the mothers who bite their lips until they bleed
when their 14-year-olds dye their hair green [or pierce their lips.
Don't ask].

For all the mothers of the victims of recent school
shootings, and the mothers of those who did the shooting.

For the mothers of the survivors, and the mothers who
sat in front of their TVs in horror, hugging their child who just came
home from school, safely.

This is for all the mothers who taught their children to
be peaceful, and now pray they come home safely from a war.

What makes a good Mother anyway?

Is it patience? Compassion? Broad hips? The ability to
nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a shirt, all at the same
time?

Or is it in her heart? Is it the ache you feel when you
watch your son or daughter disappear down the street, walking to school
alone for the very first time?

The jolt that takes you from sleep to dread, from bed
to crib at 2 A.M. to put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby?

The panic, years later, that comes again at 2 A.M. when
you just want to hear their key in the door and know they are safe again
in your home?

Or the need to flee from wherever you are and hug your
child when you hear news of a fire, a car accident, a child dying?

The emotions of motherhood are universal and so our
thoughts are for young mothers stumbling through diaper changes and
sleep deprivation...

And mature mothers learning to let go.

For working mothers and stay-at-home mothers.

Single mothers and married mothers.

Mothers with money, mothers without.

This is for you all. For all of us.

Hang in there. In the end we can only do the best we
can. Tell them every day that we love them. And pray.

Dear Jesus, my Brother, thank you for Mama.