Natural Hair: Sometimes its just KNOT my night

This evening I decided I needed to give my hair a good clean scrub so I could start fresh. So I did my monthly shampoo and conditioner routine followed by my deep conditioning. Now I knew I was going to be in for a war because my hair felt a TAD bit tangled due to the fact that after my initial untwisting of my cold rod set, I was trying to stretch out my afro for a week. I still made sure to take care of it but I knew that I needed to get my hair clean.

So this evening I gathered all my products and went to work on my hair. Took about 3 hours from start to finish, and boy it was not pretty. I had so many knots in my hair I couldn't help but have to do some tugging and tearing even after trying to work through them with my rat tail comb. The pile of hair kept getting bigger especially after following through with my detangling comb. Hell even with me typing this blog post I am still finding a few more knots in my hair as a pause from time to time.

I think I seriously need  to look into an alternative to a wash and go's. Maybe start to learn how to two strand twist my hair while it's wet. I don't know maybe I'm over reacting  but seeing all that progress in my hand instead of on my head...well just a bit a downer.  Then again it might not look like much to someone else. Yet I have to remember this isn't normal for me. I know with me having had the cold rod style for about two weeks followed by me combing it out and wearing as an afro for 10 days, I didn't have my normal weekly hair washing days. So tangling was going to be an issue at some point.

Ugh....sometime I wish there was a magic pill I could just take already and have this damn hair grow like a big ass bush already. LOL Oh well the joys of progress are sometimes met with the frustrations of obstacles. This is one phucking frustration.


Until the next episode....

 All That MsJazz

Went to my first hockey game

On Friday a coworker of mine offered me 2 St. Louis Blues tickets since she wasn't able to use them. She told me that they were some pretty good seats but honestly I didn't care. I had never been to a game and I was excited to go. So after getting home I texted a few friends to see if anyone was available but unfortunately nobody was, so I went solo.

I drove to UMSL South Metrolink station, parked and then made my way down to the trains. Unfortunately as I was just making my way to the ticket machine, a train pulls up and I was too late to board. So I had to wait for the next train to arrive in 10 minutes. By this time it was 6:20 pm and I was nervous that I might be late for the game.

Eventually the next train pulls up and I take a seat and chill out until the train pulls up to the Scottrade Center. Now I'm not going to lie, I was a tad bit nervous because I figured I would be the only black person there. (Yea go ahead and laugh) But as I was walking off the train and walking towards the game, guess what I encountered?

A black guy!

So as I make my way to the doors to go in I notice more people of the brown persuasion (in various hues) and I'm thinking well I"ll be darn, black people enjoy Hockey too:) So I make my way into the Scottrade Center, I look around and check out my surroundings. I grab something to eat from one of the Concession stands and then make my way to my seat(s). When I tell you I had some good seats, I had some REALLY good seats.

So as I get settled in, I wait for about 5 minutes and then the announcer comes on and informs us the teams are about to come on the ice. Shortly after they do and the National Anthem is sung and then we are ready for the game to begin. Within 30 seconds a fight starts! I was like holy crap....and when they hit barriers around the rink they really make a sound. So since I really don't know the rules on hockey from what I could tell, they have three-20 minute periods and two-18 minute intermissions. So during the  intermission I made sure to take advantage of bathroom breaks. Yet I can also say I did receive quite a good exercise with all the times I had to get up to let people in and out of my row. I think I had to get up about 15 times (no joke). It was so much people started to apologize. It didn't really matter to me I was having a good time. 

Yet I will say I did witness a really cool person in front of me who was a Good Samaratian and bought some people in front of him who had some mental disabilities some hotdogs. It was pretty cool. Not to mention I'm SO GLAD I wore something long sleeved because it was cold as hell there. Yet I should have probably expected that when you have a sport that involves skating on a big ass piece of ice. I think the next time I go I will make sure to wear something that will provide a tad bit more warmth. 

So by the time I left in the final period with 3 minutes remaining the score was 4-3 with the opposing team winning. I wanted to get out so I could catch the Metro-link and be ahead of the crowd. Well unfortunately I didn't pay attention to which train I was suppose to get on and instead of the West bound Lambert Airport train I ended up the Shrewsberry train. So I didn't realize my mistake until I'm on the train and two stops have gone by. By the time I realize my mistake I get off at the Grand station.................................why oh why did I do this... So after I get off I take a seat at a bench just minding my own business and then two other females join me on my bench....

I don't know why strange people who obviously JUST got out of the Loony Bin (aka Mental Hospital) seem to feel comfortable talking to ME! While I'm minding my business a strange man comes up to me and asks me where the nearest ATM is.  I told him I wasn't aware and then he goes into a crazy story how he just got out of the hospital and some stranger informed him that he was homeless and he gave the homeless guy his last $50. So He was trying to find an ATM to get some MORE money out for the homeless guy. Then he all of sudden discovered that the homeless wasn't homeless and now wants to find the homeless guy and kick his ass.

He becomes more irate with his questionable Jamaican accent and FURTHER informs me that he is from Jamaica by way of New York.......and that his wife will be so furious because he left Jamaica without letting her know.  Because we all know that it only takes a few hours to get back to JAMAICA, especially if you are in Saint Louis, MO. So then he asks if he may take me out to dinner and I tell him no thank you.

All of sudden he gets an attitude with a guy that was standing near us listening to his story as well. The poor guy was just listening to the story and the "Jamaican" man tells him to watch himself because he was an ex-Navy Seal and he had no problem gutting him like a fish. I tell ya that Lambert-Airport Metro-link train wasn't coming FAST enough for me at this point.

So after 15 minutes the correct train finally pulls up and it's jammed back with people from the Blues game. Go figure, the situation I was trying to avoid in the beginning, I am now dealing with as a consequence of my misjudgment. So I'm looking at the train and thankful some people did get off but not a lot. Yet at this point I was going to get myself on that train regardless because I didn't want to have to encounter anymore crazy people for the night.

So as the train is about to take off, I wonder if the crazy man also got on. Yet I soon forget after making conversation with a few folks on the train. Well then we make it to Central West End Metro-link and that station is crowded with folks. I wonder what the heck was going on and some people informed me the Great Balloon race events had been held that evening in Forest Park. So I'm looking at people on the platform deck and they are looking at the Metro-link train pulling up....I tell ya the looks on their faces were priceless. For the most part they knew they were not going to be getting on our train. I think only one couple actually did, but beyond that, they decided to wait on the next train. Then we pulled up at the Forest Park Metro-link station, same issue. LOL

Eventually I get back to UMSL South Metro-link after an unusual wait that included them shutting down one side of the tracks from the Delmar Metro-link Station to the Saint Charles Rock Rd Station.

So as I get off the train at my stop and make my way across the tracks. I hear an argument going on the platform. Well would you believe the "crazy, questionable Jamaican man who was possibly a former Navy Seal" had been on the train as well and he was having an argument with a group of guys. Well I took that as my cue to run up the steps to the parking lot and get my ass in my car and jet my behind back to my  house.

I couldn't help but laugh after going through all of that, but after everything is said and done. 

I HAD A BLAST!!!!!!!

Until the next episode....

 All That MsJazz

Natural Hair: Trials and tribulations of combing out a cold rod set

This past Wednesday I had decided that my cold rod set wouldn't make it unfortunately for another week. I was trying to get 3 weeks out of it but unfortunately was only able to pull out a week and a half. The crazy thing is for the most part they still looked great. Just fuzz showing through but a few on the top of my head were starting to unravel noticeably  and I couldn't stop them. So I decided Wednesday night that I was going to just take them down and just FRO out for the weekend.

So around 9:30 pm (why did I start so late) I decided to take few pics at the beginning and throughout the unraveling process.

I put on a movie, The Grimms Hansel and Gretel and proceed to get started. After about a 1 hour, I knew I had made a mistake in not waiting until the weekend for this project. I had to start taking mini breaks because my arms were getting tired.

As I'm going through my detangling process I always make sure that I have bottle of water to lightly spray each coil AFTER I've gone through with my detangling brush. If I come across a knot I use my rat tail comb end and go through it slowly. So you can imagine how much of a daunting task this was to go through EVERY coil with this same procedure. I also made sure I use my duckbill clamps to section off the hair so it wouldn't get in the way of the coils that I still needed to do.

After about two hours my progress was this. I was also impress that my shedding wasn't as much as I thought it would be.

So after the movie I was watching goes off, I turn to another channel, but it's about 11:45 pm. I am so tired and I still am not done with my hair. My mom comes in to assist me with the last section on the back of my head and has it done within 30 minutes. Talk about being grateful. When my unraveling project was finally done I was left with a fluffy and soft big afro. It looked and felt great. I just wish my wash and go's would look so fab. So overall this project took about 2 hours and 30 minutes and you see how short my hair ( in my opinion).

So my beautician who gave me the cold rod set said my hair is probably long enough to start getting the Flexi Rods in the future. I sure do hope so.

Flexi Rods - Photo courtesy (Naptural85)

Until the next episode....

 All That MsJazz