Knotty Girl

I've been in a relationship for 3 years now... with my dreadlocks. It all started when I was a young girl in middle school searching for a definition of beauty that I could agree with. I saw it every day in school, at the mall, on mtv. Beauty! Ahh so beauty is a size 0 waist, bleach blonde hair, and a Roxy label! Aha! I get it! I'm fuckin on it! And I so was. Wore Roxy every day of my life, highlighted my already blonde hair, and battled with myself behind closed doors about why I couldn't squeeze into those Tiny Wahine jeans cus they fit me perfectly fine last year, damn it!

It was precious. Me and my 20 girl friends looked exactly a like, sometimes wore the same thing to school (fucking bitch!), and spoke like the cast of Legally Blonde. Eventually we grew out of it. I went polar and tried the goth look for awhile. There was something so dark/mysterious/dirty about that whole getup. My parents sat back in horror thinking, "what the hell has happened to our pristine child?" I sat back in defiance saying, "Hey guess what I'm going to peirce next?" I guess we all go through that stage, right? Anywho the point is, during this time I began experimenting with dreads. I would twist off sections, stick it with gallons of hair shit, and VOILA!!!! My mother's nightmare! (Looked in the archives for some evidence, but none of such has been recovered. I might have burned them all. haha) Ma flipped and my step father demanded that I "never do that to (my) hair again."

Okay... I won't... Until I'm 18 and don't give a FUUUUHHHCCCCCKKK. Almost immediately after graduating high school I took the plunge. After so many years of posing as this homecoming cheer vanilla queen it was time to recreate myself, in one sense or another. My boyfriend at the time was fully supportive which made the first year of my transition easier. The first year is always the hardest. I ended up looking like Sideshow Bob for a good portion of it and kept them back more times than not. It was crazy how much people's perception of me changed. You see I was born in raised in a small town in Northern California. You walked into the market and you see 12 people you went to high school with (AT LEAST 12). They're going to have something to say. I got a lot of "what did you do's?" and "when are you going to brush them outs". These questions solidified my decision to keep them.
"Because I fucking want to and this is America people!"

Little did I know that this being America also gives employers the right to not hire me. Going from never having issues getting a job to barely scraping an interview, reality struck. Redding, CA hates my hair!!!*^*&&%!!!!! >:0 Those mutherfuckers.................

From dis to dis

What to do? OOhhhh yea! Move away! GENIOUS! So I came to Portland. Finally I'm not stared at like a psycho every time I go to pick up a sammich at a public establishment! And yet, another block.... Once I turned 21 I realized a few ever so disturbing trends happening in my social life....
Here I am 3 years have gone by since my last solid relationship and I'm starting to feel like there is a coincidence here... Are guys afraid of my hair? I mean I've definitely encountered those who didn't want to touch them (yea... if that wasn't sure enough of a sign that it wasn't going to work out) and then there are those who act like they don't care but really don't show any interest in taking me home to mom (you were boring anyways.) I was seriously starting to feel like I had some how weaved a voodoo curse into my do. I'm currently still battling this, though my closest friends feel that the reasoning is my hair could be projecting an overwhelming and intimidating confidence that most guys don't want to deal with. Fair enough.

But still! Guys do approach me. It only came upon me quite recently why I thought they weren't. Whenever the sharks go sharkin, my beautiful lady companions get hit on instantly. As they should, they're fucking hott malicious predators. But I, on the other hand tread water. I make friendly conversation with people and then... people... all kinds of people, boys and girls come to me and say...
hey I like your hair".

Really? You have nothing else to say to me? I am instantly turned off. It sounds stuck up but it's just how I operate. I finally realize that I do get hit on, it's just the same line from EVERYONE. I appreciate the sentiment but you've got to see where I'm coming from here. *Ssnnnooore zzZZzzz* However, one guy did ask if he could smell my dreads the other day, 10 seconds after meeting me... Original. but creepy. I appeased his desire for a sniff, smiled and nodded when he said "hey they don't smell bad at all, I was expecting gnarly!", and got the hell out of there as soon as possible.

So there is my rant on my hair. It's been quite a conversation piece over the last few years so I have a ton of thoughts on it. Bottom line, I wash them, I'm not a rastafarian, I don't smoke weed (that often), I don't listen to Bob Marley (that often) and I have no intention of getting rid of them anytime soon. I bitch and I moan about all this but in reality, I love my hair. It's easy to maintain, I can still feel beautiful, my bearded dragon can hide in them, I never need a hair tie, and I like to think it challenges people. My mother has now accepted them and they're growing on my boss. It challenges me in a sense as well because I have to project my personality out even further to those who don't know me because most of the time, they get caught up in my appearance. I promise I'm clean and polite! Most of the time.....