Friday

If you haven't see the movie Friday and don't mind vulgar movies, you should. My Friday was not as exciting as Craig's and Smokey's, but here was my Friday.

Friday was a long day. We had to be in San Francisco by 8 am, to give Gerry a ride to the DMV. We were also supposed to meet up with some people at 6:30 pm to watch a baseball game.

We woke up at 6, got ready, and hit the road at about 7. I've said I'm a morning person in the past, but I'm not a 6 am in the morning, morning person. I'm more a 7:30-8 am morning person.

We got to the city, and headed to the DMV. We were in and out in 40 minutes, then ran some errands. It was about 10, and we didn't know what to do. Gerry thought we should get lunch...but it was 10 am. We went to Clement Street, walked around for about 20 minutes, but the cold, and the fact that Gerry can't walk for too long got us back into the car, and off to Chinatown. I thought we were dropping Gerry off at that point, but she really wanted to go to lunch, so we went to lunch at the best Chinese Vegetarian Restaurant (which we always go to with Gerry) at 11 am. After lunch and getting Gerry home, it was 1 pm.

Lauren and I then hit two museums. The California Historical Society and The Museum of the African Diaspora. The California Historical Society is pretty small, and houses one exhibit at a time. Currently their exhibit is on the history/background of Chinese Americans in California. I thought it was extremely good, and I recommend everyone go see it.

We then went to the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), which was somewhat disappointing. As a member of the African Diaspora, I felt the museum could have done a much better job. Lauren later said "they were trying to do too much and ended up doing too little"; that does a good job of summing it. There was WAY too much focus on African Americans (not that that's a bad thing, but the Museum of African American History has that as its focus and does a spectacular job of presenting it). There was almost no focus of Africans in other parts of the world - very little mention of the Caribbean, almost no mention of African Diaspora in South America, no mention at all that there has recently been a huge migration of Africans to Europe, and to a lesser degree, Asia. After all the fanfare that the MoAD opened to, I expected a lot more.

After the museum jaunts we walked the east end of the city, finding a coffee shop, only to find out that they were closing right after we bought our coffee and sat down.

At 6:30, we met up with people for the Giants game. This was a surprise party for a friend of Lauren's that I had never met. Neither of us had met anyone else in the group (and I don't think many of them had met each other) so it was odd waiting to find people you didn't know.

This was the first baseball game I had ever been too, and no offense to all you baseball fans out there, but baseball is up there in terms of live events I do not want to see again. I hear people say how soccer is hard to watch (which I've never understood, by the way, because there is always movement), and that's exactly how I felt about watching the game. The fact that they have to have little entertainment things between 1/2 innings just to keep the crowd alive must say something about the energy (or lack thereof) the event. People seemed far more into the kiss-cam than the game itself; I can't imagine people getting into a kiss-cam at a soccer game.

Another thing I didn't get is the number of people who go to the game and don't watch it. We left at the end of the 6th inning, and the concourse with food, etc, was PACKED with people just walking around, in no hurry to get back to watching the game. Is that a Giants thing, a baseball thing, or a professional sports thing? At MSU football games (they come to Cal to spank the Bears on August 30th) I can't remember anyone wanting to leave their seat while the game was going on. We left the city and headed home.

We got home at 10:30 pm, and that was Friday.

All about hair

I've been thinking about my hair this weekend. I changed all my profile pictures to show more of my hair, and then there this blog post....

The other night, at about 11:17 pm I started playing with my camera, and took pictures of my hair. It was still a little damp, which means it was longer than it is when dry. Anyhow, looking at the pictures, I thought 'man, it's getting really long', so I did the next obvious thing - I measured it. The one dread I measured was over 15 inches long!

The other day I was walking down Castro St., on my way to catch a bus, when one of those California Environment people tried to stop me. I told her I was late for work, she responded by asking how long I've had my dreads, and how great they looked.

Because I never really 'see' my hair, except those times it comes close to ending up in my food or drink, or when I fall while playing soccer, I don't really know what my hair looks like. Sometimes I just think my hair is a bother - while sleeping, while eating, while it is stuck in the shoulder strap on my backpack, while washing (and especially drying) it, while twisting it, and many other times. I do like having 'different' hair though, so I want to use this opportunity (because I don't know what else to blog about) to discuss the history of my hair, and answer questions people hesitantly ask me about it.

I had a shaved head in high school, and wanted something different in college. That's when I saw (I never formally met him) Thomas. Thomas was a friend of a friend of mine. He was a math major (like me), who was a year ahead of me. He was mixed, with one parent from Africa (like me), and he had dreads (not like me). I thought he looked so cool, I had a non-sexual crush on the guy. I wanted to be Thomas. It was also cool that his name was Thomas and mine, Jefferson.

Anyhow, starting in the Summer of 1995 I started on my first incarnation of dread-locked life. I didn't know how to get it started, so I just grew my hair out, didn't wash it much, and twisted, and twisted, and twisted, and twisted....about 6 months later, I had stubby dreads. I only grew them on the top of my head, and they grew out pretty well. In 1998 I got into the habit of trimming them. This eventually led to a couple falling out. I thought I was going bald (and I was told by a recruiter that his company wouldn't hire me because of my hair - I should have sued), so on January 2, 2000, I cut off my dreads.

For the next several months, there were a number of 2nd takes when I would run into people who didn't recognize me on first glance. It was funny.

Flash forward to 2003. I had been at De Anza for 2 years, taken a year off to go to Berkeley, and thought now is the time to start up the hair again. I started dreading again in early 2004, and by Summer 2004, I had the stubs again, and they grew and grew and grew, and now, 4 years later, they are 15 inches long.

People often want to ask me things about my hair, and I can see they hesitancy in their faces (sometimes they never even ask), so I'll answer some of the questions I've been asked.

The most asked questions deal with washing it.

I wash it about every 3 days (it's actually not the best idea to wash your hair everyday, you everyday hair washers). The drying part is the real pain. I use a combination of hair drying, towel, and flicking. After I use a hair dryer and a towel, I spend about 45 minutes twisting each one from the root to about an inch or two from my scalp. I then flick water out of the dread. It usually takes 5-6 hour to get completely dry.

My also get (often from kids) requests to touch my hair.

In college, I remember being at house parties, and having drunken students (usually women) coming up to me from behind and touching or running their hands through my hair. I never really saw why they did this, I just assumed they were drunk.

I also remember a friend of mine with 'spring-y' wanting to play with my hair. I would let her do it, if I could play with hers.

About a year ago, my then 4-year old cousin-in-law asked why I had my hair like I did. I said I liked it. I then asked him the same question. He said he liked his. We then proceeded to touch each others hair (it sounds odder than it actually was).

It doesn't bother me at all when people ask me questions about my hair (or even want to touch it). I'd much rather people ask than assume. I've gone through my life (and many airport security checkpoints) with too many people making assumptions about who or what I am.

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008