Lisa Nutter's Locks

I am a starer...a person who stares a lot. If you are an interesting looking person or a person wearing locks, I will stare you the hell down. I will watch you like a hawk while you walk into a room and I will stare at your face and/or the back of your head until you leave the room. Yes it's uncomfortable to the person being stared at but it's something that I cannot control, so I've learned to be discreet with my eye stalking behavior. One person that I was REALLY looking forward to staring at (from a hidden location) the other day was Lisa Nutter, wife of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. She has beautiful, long, thick locks that compliment her dark exotic features. Mrs. Nutter attended the award show on Monday, along with Ms. Sonia Sanchez and CCH Pounder (other natural hair/lock wearers I was planning on staring down.) Of course, Mrs. Nutter decided to leave the show early. Maybe someone warned her about me. :-(

I did get a chance to glance at the back of her head once or twice, though. Le Sigh!

Anywhoo...here's some pictures of the woman.

Oh and for some really close pictures of her locks click this link. I included this post because I think that it is so cool to see women from different backgrounds and lifestyles rocking such an ethnic and strong look. For the split second that I was staring down the back of her head, I noticed some things...

1. That Mrs. Nutter has chunky tips and her locks aren't completely cylindrical...just like a certain someone I know who was stressing out about it a couple posts ago.

2. She dyed some of her hair (I believe it was her tips) a honey brown color.

3. Even though this was a formal event, she wore her hair down and it looked really nice.

So that's it.

And as a bonus...Sonia Sanchez and CCH Pounder

Isn't that picture behind Sonia Sanchez awesome?!

These women ROCK!!!

Check out my new do!

I have been working as an Assistant Producer on an award show in Philadelphia for the past couple months.  It has been an exhausting project (as reflected by my few and far between postings) but it all came to an end yesterday.  Being that this was a big event, equipped with celebrities and dressed up rich people, I wanted my hair to be perfect.  I asked my sister to do something with my locs.  She was the one who did my hair for the model shoot a while ago.  The thing with my sister is that she always uses weaves (which isn't a big deal) but she always makes the hair a little extra flamboyant (which means a whole lot of weave and a whole bunch of craziness sitting on my head.)  I usually end up taking what she does and turning it into a bun (like in the model pics) in order to tone it down.  In my head, I consider myself edgy and risky, but realistically, I'm a conservative prude that doesn't like to push the envelope.   So for the big event, my sister did this...

A long a**, unbeweavable ponytail.

And I turned it into this...

...a conservative (slightly big a**) bun.

(Try to ignore my bare feet-I can't help it, I'm from the country)

here's the back of the head, in case you cared

As you can see, she tightened the locs and then braided them which kind of creates intricate designs on my head.  It's really interesting to look at.  I've received a lot of comments about it since I started wearing it like this.

I wore it in a bun for an event the night before the award show.  I was very impressed with how I looked after applying some much needed makeup and decided that I'd get brave and wear it down the next day.

So here's how your girl looked the day of the award.

So I guess this is my way of saying, Thank you twin sister for a job well done.  I was skerred at first, but overall she gave me a great hairdo.  And I got A LOT of compliments as a testament to that.  I would have never thought to do this to my hair, but damnit...she had a vision, she followed through and I'm glad she did.  Somebody's gotta break me out of my box.

So thanks Sis, for making me look like this...

And they say locks are not diversable...(yes, that's a homemade word!)

Loaded Hair Questions - Your hair is nice!!! Is it real?

Lawd, I'm so tired...lol.

I have been working some really long hours lately, so a sistah has been tired.  And boy did I look it yesterday.  Let me just say that I did not retwist my hair in three washes and it looked like I was sporting a mini afro with some dred locks sticking out.  And then I had the nerve to try to squeeze that abomination into a ponytail and pop on a nappy bun.  LOL, it was a HOT MESS.  But sometimes you have to look like crap.  It's a part of life.  I wish I had a picture to show yall, but I took the hair down before I remembered I wanted to capture this bad hair day on film.

Anywhoo... I washed, retwisted last night and tah dah.  

Here I am today.  

I did a cute little behive type, updo thing today (trying to make up for yesterday) and it was REALLY cute.  But again, I forgot to capture the moment on film.  So I will have to do it again one day and post up a pic.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

Have you ever told someone that their hair was really nice and then followed up with, "is it real?"  I'll let you think about that.

I haven't done that before, but that's because I think it's really rude.  I haven't been asked too many of these types of nosey questions lately because I am wearing locs now and my hair is short, but I used to get these kinds of questions all the time when I wore braids or a perm.  I noticed that Black women and men for that matter could not possibly give me a compliment about my hairstyle without verifying whether my hair was "real" or synthetic, sew in or glued, box perm or professional or whatever.  Maybe it's just me, but I would get these kinds of questions from Black people in front of anyone at any time.  I call them loaded hair questions because you never know how to answer them.  Of course, I was always honest, but how do you tell someone that they are being inappropriate?

This reminds me of another story.  I had an acquaintance in college that was famous for asking me loaded hair questions every time she saw me.  And if I didn't answer her quick enough or if I gave her the "stop blowing up my spot" look, she would literally put her fingers into my hair to feel for a weave.  All of my friends thought I was crazy.  "Oh, she's so nice." "She wouldn't do anything like that."  And then, while at some event in the student center at my school, I see her talking to a close friend of mine.  My friend throws a glance in my direction that lets me know that homegirl just said something messed up.  When she walks away, my friend (her name is Tiffany) says that their conversation went like this.

Tiffany:  Hey (blank)!

Innapropriate Girl:  Hey Tiff!  I love your hair!

Tiffany:  Thanks!

Innapropriate Girl: (all smiles) Is that a box perm?  

Tiffany: Um, yeah.

Innapropriate Girl:  Oh (pause) I can tell.  I remember when I used to get box perms.

(I guess that's when my girl threw me the sideways glance that said, "you were right.  she is an asshole").

I got my hair permed twice, once while a junior in high school and another time as a junior in college and both times while transitioning back I wore my hair in braided extensions.  I wore braids every day for a whole year one of these times and I'll never forget a guy coming up to me...someone I never really spoke to beyond casual greeting.  He says "how long is your real hair?" I looked at him for a minute, because I didn't know how to answer his thinly disguised loaded hair question.

So I tell these stories because I think everyone's experienced something like this before.  And I just want to know how other people respond to that kind of stuff.  I see so many black women, regular people, actresses, singers, professionals, students, all types wearing their hair in a vast array of styles so I think to myself...they must be getting these kinds of questions too, or asking them.

And don't think that you are escaping it by wearing locks, because there are plenty of lock extensions out there and I have already been asked if I was wearing some.

Okay question...how do you answer a loaded hair question?

I Brainwash Myself

Yes, you heard me right.  I have been in my little low moods as of late, and even considered . . . (I'm so ashamed to say it) taking down my locks and starting over.  There!  I said it.  But this happens from time to time and cooler heads prevailed as usual.  So I decided to continue trudging forward and resort to utilizing my brainwashing regimen.  Youtube.  I watch these videos over and over again.  Listening to the music and seeing beautiful locks and listening to the journeys of women like myself.  I figured that I would share these videos with you all, so that if you are having an off day (like moi) it gives you the boost you may need to keep going...

I feel better already!!! :-)