Thursday, March 29, 2012

Hair Today: Craving Pink and Braids for Spring

I've decided to spend half of my lunch break deciding how I want to get my hair done this weekend. The other half should be spent eating, but more than likely it'll be canceling my apartment utilities like interwebz and energy. Not to mention changing my address... Did I mention I was a child of extreme procrastination?

Hair is most important right now. It's spring, it's lovely outside, and it's HOT!! I mean, summertime-style hot! Hot means pools, pools means swimming, and for Black girls, swimming means at least an hour of washing, drying, styling, and straightening--unless you're natural. This Black girl loves the permed look, so natural is out of the question; although I am pretty sure it still takes a long time for natural girls to get their lovely lady locks back to normal after a swim, they just get to skip the straightening part. (Luckies.)

Since I've put the pink hair in my bangs and cut the rest of my hair short I've gotten a lot of compliments...mostly on the pink. I went about a week and a half looking like Goku, unsure of what the heck to do with my super short hair after it lost its "fresh from the salon" look. It wasn't pretty...but I seem to always need about a week to figure out what methods work best to deal with post-salon hair depression. The last time I removed my weave and went with my own hair for a while, my savior wound up being bobby pins. Since that style they've been scattered from Atlanta to Washington, DC, but I don't have need for them anymore. Thank you, oh bobby pin angels!!!

What saved me with my current style was remembering hair bandanas. The most ornery part of my short 'do was the middle where there were layers of long hair were supposed to go to the front and short hair stayed in back. Sometimes these wisps of long hair found their way to the back and gave me a weird Gollum look, for lack of a better description. I solved that with a bandana headband right across the middle. It even allowed me to try spiking the back in a more rock star, less roadkill sort of way.

And NOW, I'm craving pink again. Not just for my bangs, but all over! I'm going to blame my blossoming love for cherry blossoms (pink and white), mixed with my ever-growing love for Nicki Minaj's fierceness, and my unconditional love for the "late" Pinky Shear's ability to own the color and style so royally!

I've tackled the short hair and I'm excited to have it start growing healthier than it was before, hopefully. But this is not a style for swimming or profuse sweating. And while I've notices that long hair is quite sweat-inducing in its own way, I'll take the low-maintenance, high-style-possibilities route over short and sweet.

Now, the real question is HOW to do the pink! I want to keep my bang style, maybe a little lighter pink if I can find it. For the rest of my head, there are so many possibilities! I've managed to boil down to are these styles:
  • Full braid extensions, half dark brown/half pink wrapped (ipukeglamour)
  • Half dark brown braids with loose pink weave ends
  • Braided extension/twists with pink braided/twisted into certain strands
  • Straight up long weave with pink highlights (hairstyleideas)
That last one seems the easiest, but it's also requires a lot of maintenance when washing, etc. And it's pricey. Actually...they're all pricey, so let's just forget I said that without me actually deleting that line.

So what do YOU think? Of course, I'm eager to get this done ASAP, like Saturday morning! (It's Thursday now.) Spring deserves a cute look and I've been drooling over ponytails, pigtails, and cyber-dread updos all day. (Well, all day between getting all of my work done!) A work buddy actually suggested that I contact her mother, a stylist nearby, for braids since my amazing Hair Goddess doesn't do braids. She will, however, be redoing my relaxer and bangs tomorrow, and I'll more than likely stop by the beauty shop near her to find pink color options.

Hooray for hair! Gotta look cute when fighting aliens! Or at least try to blend in with their stellar style if they're civil!

Monday, March 26, 2012

Captain Wren Tackles Racism on YouTube

This will be a rather short blog because I spent most of the night editing a video so it can fit on YouTube. (Did you know there was a 20 minute time limit?) You can also see this video on YouTube via my Captain Wren channel. It's pretty bare at the moment, but maybe with time it will be a blossoming broadcast station!

Basically you'll get the gist of the video from the title. Racism is bad and people who openly make negative comments about others' races are ignorant. Period. So I'll leave you with some cosplay photos of mine that transcend color and focus on craftsmanship and the even more amazing miracle of great photography (unedited, might I add!)






Remember, the only way to survive the alien invasion is to come together as the HUMAN race, which we can't do if we're so focused on race in terms of skin color.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Confessions of a Chronically-Impaired Procrastinator


What a weekend! It's almost as if Saturday didn't exist, which really sucks because I had a LOT I needed to do that day. A lot of appointments missed, promises broken, engagements not kept due to a little car shuffling that was totally my fault! I'm almost too upset about my lack of follow throughon Saturday to even go into details. I'd like to just forget all about it and just say SORRY to everyone I let down, including the boyfriend who was so gracious to drive nearly 100 miles to help me out at 3am Saturday morning.
Sigh....
I say this too often and don't follow through but I'd like today to be "the first day of the rest of my life." I actually heard that phrase on "Rocko's Modern Life" years ago and always thought it was pretty philosophic for a cartoon about butt-jokes and other disgusting bodily functions. A good start to a new rest of my life is to admit my issue: I am chronically-impaired. In other words, frequently tardy. Time-retarded. Always late.

I can almost rewind any big issues I've had in my life with procrastination and being late to something. If I had started earlier/on time for A I would not have been late for B, run into C situation en route, and could have been ready when I needed to be at D event. And thus, I might be considered for E more often.

I should give up blaming things on physical barriers, namely anemia, because I know a LOT of talented, famous, and on-time people who have much more dire health situations than something that makes me a little sleepy and can be put in check by an iron pill once a day. I think my whole body just got into a lazy, procrastinating groove that's never really been punished to the fullest extent. Sure, warning at work and the occasional demerit, but usually I fix the issue just enough to get by. It's by no means acceptable and everyday I fear it'll will be the day I pay biggest for it.

Playing around with my work schedule is pretty dangerous (I gotta pay those bills!), but I'm most disappointed in myself when I let others down in areas that I care about the most. Showing up late for call time, forgetting to post an important flyer, missing an event completely because I've overbooked or underestimated my time. It's terrible because no one wants to work with someone who cannot be on time or follow through with commitments. And even more sad that I talk so much talk about wanting to perform, travel, meet tons of people, maybe even get a bit of stardom and fame one day for talents I can improve on. No one's ever gotten famous oversleeping, miscommunicating, making excuses, or showing up late.

As of right now I'm prepping to move out of my apartment, and wouldn't you know it I have until Wednesday (3 days from now) to be out. Percentage of my apartment packed, cleaned, and ready to ship out? I'd say maybe -4%. That negative accounting for all the trash and useless crap I shouldn't even still have lying around, but do because in my case procrastination seems to tie in with a bit of hoarding. That, however, will have to wait for another blog.


This move is supposed to help me save money and maybe get me closer to downtown so I can be closer to the action there. Contrary to the boyfriend's beliefs, it's not all about partying and clubbing. My hoop instructor is downtown, members of Musee de Coeur and the Imperial OPA perform downtown, and there is so much I haven't explored to the fullest after living in the Metro area for 16 years! The downfall is that my commute to work will go from 7 minutes to 47 minutes (without traffic), at least for a couple months until I find a nice happy medium between my work and play. Still, distance won't mean a thing if I can't manage my time better! This should be the ultimate test of my ability to change. I know have it, the ability, but I need to shake myself violently from my comfort zone.

Again, sorry to anyone who reads this who I disappointed this weekend. I really dropped a few balls, maybe even made some dents in the pavement where they fell that could lead to bumpy roads in the future. At this point all I can do is keep going forward with what I have and prove I can do better. This is pretty far from the usually content of BGVTA, but had to be said!

Thanks for all the opportunities! :)

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

A Confession of Hoop Love from a Student of Flow

Photo by Kevin Stoll.
Woah! I have a blog! Actually, this one never went anywhere, and I've at this point probably had about 100 different ones I've manages, but we won't go into my day job....
I found through a rather helpful website, Brownielocks.com that this week is Yoyo and Skill Toys Week! While my yo-yoing days are behind me for the moment, anyone who knows me is aware of my new love for the hula hoop. To some I'm even known as "The Hula Hoop Girl," which is incredibly funny because I'm nowhere near as good as my other hooping friends or my hooping sensei, Rebecca DeShon!

Still, if there is enough room and music to dance to, I'll have my hoop in tow! It's been great learning even up to the level I am now and I don't plan on leaving it behind anytime soon. I have about 5 hoops currently hanging up in the entryway of my apartment and I don't plan to stop the collection there! I think what makes hula hooping an activity I can remember to do is the fact that there are always those hoops hanging right within sight. Unlike drill team or belly dancing, there's no colorful prop to scream "Hey! Let's play!" while I'm sitting on the couch munching on french fries. Thank goodness my living room has just enough space for me to practice in, because without music and a couple of friends I still have not built up enough confidence to head outside of my apartment with my toys.

All of my hoops, except for my newest LED hoop, were handmade by Rebecca's HoopEssence. She's also who I've learned almost all of my skills from! My LED hoop was made by Cosmic Hooper's Emporium of Bliss in North Carolina. I found him through a work buddy who, surprising, also is a hooper! She's taught me a bit too, like the very basics of leg hooping and a few isolations pointers. After that, it's me in my living room flinging the hoop around, trying to remember all I've been taught, scuffing up walls, knocking over glasses of sweet tea, and destroying my window blinds. It's going to be hard explaining a lot of that damage to my landlords when I move out in a week, but I never expected to get my deposit back anyway!

Like a yo-yo, the idea of "flow" is something you'll hear a lot of hoopers, aerialists, poi performers, and other dancers talk about. Of course you have to grasp the basic skill of keeping hoop on your waist, then you move to your hands, and before you know it you can reproduce that circular rhythm with almost any part of your body. I can remember getting excited about doing an Around the World with my yo-yo in high school and college, but I could never dodge the feeling of smacking myself or someone else in the face if I wasn't careful.

Now I'm not saying that the hula hoop is safer than the yo-yo because I've definitely smacked a girl in the face during practice with my hoop. (Super sorry about that!) But with yo-yos the look is about skill more than that feeling of flow. I couldn't dance with a yo-yo and draw in astonishing looks of a crowd with it like I can with my hooping. Sure, it's not the most amazing skill display, but the overall look of hooping is more than just up, down, around the world. Not to mention, that string on a yo-yo is almost invisible when its moving fast enough, making it hard for anyone to get close without the inevitable clock in the face.

Photo by Kevin Stoll.
With a hoop, unless you're seriously not paying attention or rolling really hard (which, to be honest, is definitely a possibility depending on where you're hooping), you'll see a hoop and will probably avoid it for fear of either breaking the flow. (By the way, if you knock someone's hoop over after you HAVE seen it and can easily avoid it, you're just rude. No one knocks books out of YOUR hands when your reading or cigarettes out of YOUR mouth while you're smoking. Just saying.)

The best part about hoop flow is that you're whole body is moving. I mention belly dancing again because, even though I can't break out in an enchanting tribal routine, I can use what I've learned of isolating parts of the body, arm placements, and hip movements to put on at least a semi-entertaining show. Even if I only do the same 5 moves over and over again, I'm still maybe 4 moves ahead of the girl twerking on some stranger across the room. Believe me, I can grind, and thinks it's great when the mood and music call for it, but it's about as restricting as dancing with an airplane seat compared to the freedom of hooping.

Since I've never really had the chance to express how I much I love hula hooping before now I got a bit out of control with the word count. Still, now was as good a time as ever to mention it given this obscure, albeit appropriate observance this week. In the midst of a million things I need to get done this week, I'll try even harder to pick up and play with my hoop for at least 30 minutes of my day. And with a few new hoop isolation videos I've found, I have a lot of learning to do!

Don't let go of your skills! Whether you like to hoop, yo-yo, jump rope, sword fight, breath fire, belly dance, pole dance, pole-vault, whatever! Fall back in love with it this week or give something new a chance!