Ugh.
This is a beautifully simple place with beautiful people who are just the kindest folks you will ever meet.
But they don't like dreads.
Why not?
Hmmm. Not sure any of them could tell you.
Why do they have beards? They'll respond humbly that ..."well...Jesus had a beard, didn't he?"
Some people speculate that Jesus had dread locks.
Especially if the speculations about his pre-crucifiction nazarite vows is accurate.
Nazarites took vows that separated them from the rest of the world. Remember Sampson? He had those famous seven locks? He was a nazarite and perhaps Jesus was too. (Drew could explain those speculations better than I can...)
So...Jesus might have had dreads.
He sure didn't seem to rebuke anyone for their dreads anyway... Not to my knowledge.
Even so, the folks in this area just...don't want to hire someone with dreads. Some of them have said this right out, others have just implied it.
I love you Holmes County but you need to loosen up or my fiance and I are going to be a dirty-lookin pair of broke vagabonds.
I'm grateful for my jobs and for the non-issue my dreads have become at my work-places.
Maybe it's asking too big a favor...but could Holmes County forgive TWO dread-heads for their unusual hairstyles?
please?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
neglect dreads
So ....now I'm engaged to the only other dred-head in my tiny little burg-town. We are the oddest looking pair in the Amish Country Creations store or the local grocery-mart. I love it. Drew is sort of apathetic about it.
Which leads me to my point in today's blog...
We have very different dread strategies.
I got dreads partially because I am a reaction-junkie and I love stirring things up a little. And I'm just egocentric enough to love the attention, even when it's negative. Drew on the other hand has no idea why he got dreads. He just wanted them and never really thought about why. Very much like a normal person I suppose. (ask yourself...why is YOUR hair the way YOU'VE done it...)
Our strategies are different too.
I use dread wax at least monthly, and I use my crochet hook to tighten up roots slightly more often. I do not however...wash them very often. I've washed them about....twice in the last three months.
Drew does nothing.
and his look dandy.
Part of his strategy is really just a side-effect of his unrealistic expectation that as his fiance, I am meant to be the sole care-taker of his dreads.
No thanks.
I'll work on my own.
But oddly both strategies seem to be working. Which is making me reconsider my own. If doing nothing works just as well as doing lots of tedious things.... welll...maybe I should neglect mine a bit more...
Which leads me to my point in today's blog...
We have very different dread strategies.
I got dreads partially because I am a reaction-junkie and I love stirring things up a little. And I'm just egocentric enough to love the attention, even when it's negative. Drew on the other hand has no idea why he got dreads. He just wanted them and never really thought about why. Very much like a normal person I suppose. (ask yourself...why is YOUR hair the way YOU'VE done it...)
Our strategies are different too.
I use dread wax at least monthly, and I use my crochet hook to tighten up roots slightly more often. I do not however...wash them very often. I've washed them about....twice in the last three months.
Drew does nothing.
and his look dandy.
Part of his strategy is really just a side-effect of his unrealistic expectation that as his fiance, I am meant to be the sole care-taker of his dreads.
No thanks.
I'll work on my own.
But oddly both strategies seem to be working. Which is making me reconsider my own. If doing nothing works just as well as doing lots of tedious things.... welll...maybe I should neglect mine a bit more...
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
I like to think that I'm one of those tough cookies who doesn't let anything knock me out. As a kid, I didn't take sick days. The annoyance of a cold in my school-day or even an upset stomach wasn't worth the eminently greater annoyance it would be to try to catch up from a missed day. I was one of THOSE kids.
Then again...as a kid I just didn't get sick that much either. It's still a little funny for me to call off of work or play hooky but this past week Strep throat turned me into a lifeless mess and I just removed myself from my own world for awhile. I showed up at my sister's house and she said to me, "you really like looking sick when you're sick...don't you."
I love those comments that aren't questions when they should be. "don't you."
Point is, my dreads and...well...my person as a whole is a mess.
One of my good friends returned to town for a quick visit and she did the eager once-over that girls tend to do: that little thing we have to do to be more believable when we say "you look great!" or "You got a new haircut!" or any such greetings of flattery. This particular friend is a sweet sweet person so even though she saw me in the thick of my pathetic-ness, she said "oh you look great!" and then very quickly and maybe unthinkingly added "can I...work on your dreads...they're kind of growing out?"
I still like em.
Maybe i'm one of the few who still like em.
Facebook and conversation has indicated that 2 of my 6 dreaded friends have given up and chopped their dreads off. Another 2 of the 6 dreaded have been talking about chopping them off.
We're rare one day, then not the next.
But because of the mess this hairstyle really is to keep up...those of us who stick it out probably will be rare again.
There's a reason why the most common comment to dreads is "I USED TO have dreads once..."
hmmm.
well i'm stickin it out.
Then again...as a kid I just didn't get sick that much either. It's still a little funny for me to call off of work or play hooky but this past week Strep throat turned me into a lifeless mess and I just removed myself from my own world for awhile. I showed up at my sister's house and she said to me, "you really like looking sick when you're sick...don't you."
I love those comments that aren't questions when they should be. "don't you."
Point is, my dreads and...well...my person as a whole is a mess.
One of my good friends returned to town for a quick visit and she did the eager once-over that girls tend to do: that little thing we have to do to be more believable when we say "you look great!" or "You got a new haircut!" or any such greetings of flattery. This particular friend is a sweet sweet person so even though she saw me in the thick of my pathetic-ness, she said "oh you look great!" and then very quickly and maybe unthinkingly added "can I...work on your dreads...they're kind of growing out?"
I still like em.
Maybe i'm one of the few who still like em.
Facebook and conversation has indicated that 2 of my 6 dreaded friends have given up and chopped their dreads off. Another 2 of the 6 dreaded have been talking about chopping them off.
We're rare one day, then not the next.
But because of the mess this hairstyle really is to keep up...those of us who stick it out probably will be rare again.
There's a reason why the most common comment to dreads is "I USED TO have dreads once..."
hmmm.
well i'm stickin it out.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
diners
Since about September, my Dad and I have been meeting every Monday to hop in his car and drive far enough away to get lost in an unfamiliar town, at which point we will hunt down a completely random diner to eat at and evaluate in my little sketch/journal. We started our little diner-review days when my twin sister moved away and I was left all alone with a disoriented heart, an empty room, and a home-town I was working hard not to resent for its lack of coffee shops and its lack of an airport. It seems travel is my coping mechanism for loneliness but a couple commitments made that look impossible.
So my folks got tired of worrying about my sleep-less, meal-less, dodgey-eyed and pathetic lifestyle, so they stepped in with compromises I've come to love.
Mom and I traveled from coffee shop to coffee shop every Friday and Dad and I went on our diner hunts each Monday.
These little weekly adventures could make a blog of their own one day. (dream big...i know.)
All this is simply to say that I found myself in a random diner in a random town on Monday morning and for the first time in quite awhile I noticed a few head-turns. I cherish these turning heads like trophies. I am, after-all, a reaction-motivated punk of a kid most of the time, despite the adult life I try to look like I'm leading.
As a matter of fact, an entirely different set of events that can most easily be summed up, though not entirely accurately, as "car trouble" landed me in Massillon in the middle of a snow storm last Thursday. I had about a buck 75 and the only places still open included a pawn shop, a bar, and a little Italian Restaurant. I figured a buck 75 couldn't get me anything in a pawn shop, and couldn't get me anything good in a bar, so I tried my luck at the Italian restaurant. I popped in, still wearing my scrubs from work and hoped I looked helpless and pathetic enough to earn me loitering privileges.
"Can I wait for a ride in here? I don't have any money but..."
before I could finish my sentence a young man named Smiley told me to have a seat and "would I like a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, on the house?"
I love meeting strangers like this. I wish I had money to shower on people who make my day in such simple and satisfying ways. But as I said...a buck 75...
I accepted SMiley's kind offer and commenced in a delightful bout of eavesdropping.
"A guy came in here the other day with dread locks that went all the way down to the floor!" I heard Smiley say to a couple sitting just in front of me.
a kid like me loves to know she's started some chatter
I would like to give some major props to Smiley who started his own chatter simply by giving me some free coffee and good conversation.
props Smiley
props parents
So my folks got tired of worrying about my sleep-less, meal-less, dodgey-eyed and pathetic lifestyle, so they stepped in with compromises I've come to love.
Mom and I traveled from coffee shop to coffee shop every Friday and Dad and I went on our diner hunts each Monday.
These little weekly adventures could make a blog of their own one day. (dream big...i know.)
All this is simply to say that I found myself in a random diner in a random town on Monday morning and for the first time in quite awhile I noticed a few head-turns. I cherish these turning heads like trophies. I am, after-all, a reaction-motivated punk of a kid most of the time, despite the adult life I try to look like I'm leading.
As a matter of fact, an entirely different set of events that can most easily be summed up, though not entirely accurately, as "car trouble" landed me in Massillon in the middle of a snow storm last Thursday. I had about a buck 75 and the only places still open included a pawn shop, a bar, and a little Italian Restaurant. I figured a buck 75 couldn't get me anything in a pawn shop, and couldn't get me anything good in a bar, so I tried my luck at the Italian restaurant. I popped in, still wearing my scrubs from work and hoped I looked helpless and pathetic enough to earn me loitering privileges.
"Can I wait for a ride in here? I don't have any money but..."
before I could finish my sentence a young man named Smiley told me to have a seat and "would I like a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, on the house?"
I love meeting strangers like this. I wish I had money to shower on people who make my day in such simple and satisfying ways. But as I said...a buck 75...
I accepted SMiley's kind offer and commenced in a delightful bout of eavesdropping.
"A guy came in here the other day with dread locks that went all the way down to the floor!" I heard Smiley say to a couple sitting just in front of me.
a kid like me loves to know she's started some chatter
I would like to give some major props to Smiley who started his own chatter simply by giving me some free coffee and good conversation.
props Smiley
props parents
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