One Month Dreadiversary!

First, let me say the new Blogger interface is scaring me. I have a 23-inch monitor and the text box now takes up the entire screen. That's a lot of white space. I guess I need to fill it.

I am now at one month! Well, four weeks. Much to my consternation, my dreads don't look a whole lot different. They don't stick up at the roots as much, so I guess they look a little better to my mother-in-law. And they are starting to feel different in a way I can't really describe. Sure, there is still the straight hair, the bane of my locks, in some. I hate that stuff. I want there to be a salon around here that does dread maintenance and spend about an hour there. I've seen pictures online showing what some of those dread salons can do, but if you know of one in Des Moines, Iowa... let me know! I really want one!

And I want a place that sells tams. So far, I've resorted to ordering them online and they all seem to be $20+. Even on Etsy. So now, I'm supposed to be switching my maintenance routines. Instead of having wax in them all the time (in which I've been slacking... pretty sure that's why some of my dreadies feel different, is the wax just wore out), I just have wax in them part of the time. I get all the wax out using a hair dryer and a couple good washings at the beginning of the month (I'm thinking Tuesday, cause I'm due for a washing then), then I spend the rest of the week trying to make knots. I don't have to palm roll them that week, thank goodness. I'm pretty sure I've gotten more arm muscles from doing that every day. Then, the next week I add a tiny bit of wax and spend that week compressing knots, doing stuff like palm rolling. And when that week is over, I was my dreadies real well again and start the first week over again.

Jonny Clean calls it the A-B Maintenance routine. First week, making knots, is the A Week, and second week, compressing knots, is the B Week. I just can't wait until they are solid enough for me to take the rubberbands out. Those are tacky.

I take most of my pictures out on the balcony, cause I get a decent amount of natural lighting. So what you see behind me is the siding of our apartment building. The other pictures, the grainy ones, are in the bathroom because when it is too dark outside, that room has the most concentrated lighting. Still not good, but better. I suppose I could use flash, but I'm taking these pictures myself with the camera on my LG phone. It has two lenses, one on the back case with a flash (that can be used as a flashlight), and one on front with the screen with no flash. I can switch between the two, and it makes it awesome for taking these pictures of myself, cause I can see the viewfinder and take the picture. And check my teeth for stuff.

Oh, I should also mention, I went back to the family ranch to help out with stuff. Fencing, actually. I decided there is nothing in me that wants to be a farm kid. But to get to the point, the fence posts were about eight feet tall and five to six inches wide. And covered with this nasty stuff called creassult. Ok, ok, it's not called that, it's called creosote, apparently some sort of oily substance made from distilling tar. All sorts of fun. I call it creassult (kind of like Missouri, Misery) because it helps me remember that the nasty stuff assulted me. And my clothes. AND MY HAT! So I got it all over the thighs on my jeans, all over the borrowed work shirt and gloves, and a tiny bit on my only tam.

Not happy. I guess I will be conducting experiments with dish soap seeing if I can relieve my poor hat of a nasty stain. My mother-in-law is actually buying me new jeans. I don't have work jeans because I just wear my jeans until they wear out and demonstrate that fact by ripping near the crotch. So I can't use any of my old jeans because that would be downright indecent. Meaning all I had was my new jeans, which have been assaulted. But now I have a little money from this venture, and I am using some of it to buy a new tam from Knotty Boy.












[Image from Knottyboy.com]

It looks really cute on her, and it probably won't look as cute on me, but I like the slouch look better than the pancake tams. I am dirt poor right now, otherwise I'd probably have like five different hats for all occasions.

Like dinner with grandma. My family has conveniently forgotten to notify my grandparents of my recent hair change. And they will hopefully neglect to do so... oh, how long do you think I can drag this out? I only see my grandparents every few months or so. And if my mother cannot understand, my grandparents might disinherit me.

I'm not changing my Facebook picture anytime soon, I can tell you that much. And I'd prefer to face any hate from my friends with a set of almost-mature good-looking dreadlocks, not the little dreadies I have right now. Well, that's all I have for now! I'm going to go to dishes and then meditate on the removal of creassult from one's tam.

[Disclaimer: Apparently, Blogger no longer preserves my line breaks. I guess I will be exploring html code next.]