Braids for white kids

10 things you didn't know about getting your hair braided (and which you might not get told since the hair salon is used to dealing with people who know better).

First of all, when I say 'braids' let's just clarify what we're talking about. For anyone who hasn't run into me in the last couple of months, I'm not thinking of some straight up-down french plait. I'm talking about 8 millions 6 hundred thousand 1 thousand 9 hundred and 12 little bitsy braids all over the head (okay, so maybe that number isn't 100% accurate, but it's got a good feel to it). The overall look was pretty dramatic and people stopped to comment on it all the time, which was awesome. Now it's all out though, I thought it might be interesting to recap on the things I learnt.

(1) Most of the hair braids are made of synthetic hair. I think I did know when I saw braided hair that synthetic hair was wound in with it, but I didn't appreciate how much. Apparently, you can just braid the hair as it is, but the braids end up super-fine which means they don't last that long and the whole look is rather thin, which rather defies the point of braiding it to begin with. Synthetic hair is cheap (only a few dollars per packet and I think I needed 4 packets for my shoulder-length hair) but if you have light coloured hair, you will need to get this in advance because chances are the salon will only have black and dark brown hair in stock. Since you're weaving in hair, it might be fun to put a totally different colour in with it. I had strands of blue added to each of my braids.

(2) Hell, it takes ages. The reason braiding is expensive is that someone has to sit there for hours and do it. You're looking at 3-5 hours depending on how thick the braids are you want. Also...

(3) .... if you get beads put on the bottom, then you can only have the finest braids and the beads take a lot of extra time. This was something I didn't appreciate until too late. If you heat the ends of synthetic hair, it seals itself which is a quick way of securing the end of the braid. If, on the other hand, you want a bead on the end, then you have to add the bead and an elastic band which will add several hours onto the process. On the other hand, the beads are cool so....

(4) Your braided hair will be longer than your normal hair. Apparently, it's normal to continue braiding the synthetic hair several inches past the end of your hair, so the bottom part of each braid does not contain any of your natural hair. Quite useful if you just want to cut the beads off rather than undo each one.

(5) For the first couple of days, the braids feel really tight. After this, the synthetic hair relaxes and it's much more comfortable. I read on the web that some people take aspirin for the first few days, but mine wasn't painful enough for that, just a bit sore.

(6) Sleeping took longer to get used to, largely because of all those beads! It's hard to know where to put them. I wrapped a scarf around the top of my head to protect the braids a bit while I slept (though the presence of the beads means I didn't move around too much in the night).

(7) Washing was no problem. Everyone asked me how I managed this, but I just soaped down the braids as usual in the shower and then used a spray-on conditioner afterwards. It seemed to work fine, since my hair wasn't a nasty mass when I removed the braids, although the synthetic hair felt a bit sticky as I unwound it. Possibly this is because it's harder to wash the shampoo out of it.

(8) I had my braids in for about 6 weeks (I lost count, but it's close to that +/- 1). After that time, I could see I had about an inch of hair growth before the braids started. A few braids near the back which didn't have much real hair woven in slid clean out which was an effective, if creepy, way of removing them. The braids themselves get frayed over time as parts of your actual hair escape. I thought this might be a bigger problem than it was for me, but there comes a point when the hair style is clearly at the end of its life.

(9) You loose an alarming amount of hair when you unbraid yourself. It's not really surprising, since for the last x-weeks you've lost no hair, whereas you'd normally loose a bit everyday from brushing. Now you loose all that at once. But it's still a little disconcerting. I found I had a number of small but ferocious tangles but largely my hair was in good shape.

(10) Beware of sunburn for the first few weeks. Your scalp is very exposed!

It's good to be bad

Star Wars, James Bond, Batman... you have to love stories with really bad baddies. I don't mean some confused, misunderstood fellow who is a good sort underneath. I mean the sort of person who, under no circumstances whatsoever, would you ever want to give your last rolo to. With such an individual, you can really get behind the hero as he seeks to destroy him and watch with satisfaction as he's pounded to a pulp and locked up for life... or at least until the box office decides there has to be a sequel. It's like sadism with no guilt.

Yet, when you stop and consider it, is being the good guy really the best option? Take, for instance, the case of Dolores Umbridge in the later Harry Potter books. There is no denying that she is one nasty piece of work. She terrorizes all the students at Hogwarts before switching sides in a pin drop to throw her toad-like self in with Voldermort's crowd. At the end of book 5, you do have the satisfaction of seeing her carried away by centaurs to undergo alien-style anal probing with hoofs (okay, so that was never actually specified, but you find the idea a good one too, just admit it), but then she's rescued to show up again in book 7 tourturing more people in the Ministry of Magic. Finally, when Harry prevails, we are told she is locked up, but is this really very satisfying? I tell you no! The prison is no longer controlled by soul sucking beasts of darkness. It's probably run by an ex-bus conductor named Stan who hands out free sundaes once a week.

Now let's pause for a moment to think what would happen if Harry had lost. The lucky characters would be dead and then rest would be at the mercy of the Death Eaters and Dementors (who, for the uninitiated have names like "Lucius" in the first instance and don't even have names in the second. Now that's scary).

So if you're in a situation where you have to pick a side, isn't it worth taking a moment to think what would happen in all eventual outcomes? If you pick the "goodies", then the reward if you win is probably to return to your life and raise some chickens. If you loose it's probably TOURTURE IN THE FIREY PITS OF HELL. On the other hand, if you become a "baddie" then your reward for success is UNIMAGINABLE WEALTH AND POWER versis a cosy prison cell with your own TV.

It's a tough choice, so pick carefully.

A bus driver's advice

"And here," announced our Savannah tour guide in a cheery voice. "is the shop you can get home made candy. Totally delicious, but if you eat too much, you'll get a stomach ache!"

This, combined with warnings about crossing Bay Street (traffic lights often optional to drivers) and walking down the stone steps to the river side (footing often optional to pre-ER visitors) formed the basis for good advice that afternoon. The only mildly amusing point was that the above tips was issued multiple times and that myself and friend were the youngest people on the touring tram. (Apparently on Thursdays most people don't skip out of work to take a road trip to a historical town in Georgia). But then, you can't trust anyone with knitting needles to maintain self-control when confronted with candy, can you?

The tour was actually excellent, giving a great overview of Savannah. We rattled around the squares admiring the haunted houses, beautiful cathedrals, grave stones 11 year old boys with 12 year old sons and discussing the trenches piled with (now) dead (but at the time not so much) soldiers... I'm detecting an over-arching theme here, but I can't quite put my finger on what it was. Either way, the afternoon found myself and my friend going in search of this
sweet shop, chuckling at the wisdom of bus drivers.

The shop did not fail to disappoint. Caramel apples twice the size of my fist were laid out in rows, each with a different coating of chocolate and sprinklings. Racks of cookies, piles of truffles and multiple chocolate covered ... well, who knows really, but how could you go wrong?

I bought a bag of truffles and a huge ice cream in a giant, chocolate sprinkled cone with multicoloured "birthday cake" ice cream on top and pistachio underneath. Unconventional perhaps, but what an inspiration!

I then proceeded to be horribly sick for the rest of the afternoon.

Moral of his story: you're never too old to listen to bus drivers.

But then, it was worth it. Oh yes, trust me, you should have seen this ice cream.

Barbie Dolls

I never liked Barbie dolls and I have always been extremely proud of that fact. Not for me was the girlish past time of dressing dolls in the latest fashions, plaiting their hair or trying out doll makeup. No siree! I was into space ships and lego and .... a huge collection of pink equine plastic. Far more cool. Yes.

Nowadays, I reserve the term 'Barbie doll' to slam down slimmer, prettier girls than me who I dislike on sight. But there's no denying Barbie's appeal as she reaches her 50th birthday of modelling plastic feminine ideals.

Like any long-lived celebrity, she's come under a fair amount of abuse. Top of the list is Barbie's almost unobtainable figure which is perceived as a trouble spot for weight conscious teens. Allegedly, if Barbie was scaled to human size, she would be toppled by her humongous bust. A more recent report by the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7920962.stm) suggests the situation isn't quite so bad, but Barbie's figure is unlikely to be achievable for more than 1 in 100,000 women. Additionally, she is almost always blond although one of the first version of the doll was also available as a brunette. This tiny waisted, big bosomed blond bimbo is apparently the sole cause of all teenage girls problems, from anorexia to bullying to global warming.

While in many instances I scoff in a similar fashion at Barbie dolls, I do now wonder whether we're being a bit harsh. Okay, so the girl looks like she belongs on page 3, but the thing is, Barbie isn't a naked model. Her careers include doctor, vet, jet pilot, fire fighter, astronaut, cow girl, waitress and even the US president (one of Barbie's rare appearances as a African-American doll). In fact, it would seem Barbie could be anything she desires, reguardless of what she's been before, and isn't that exactly the message we want to give to our daughters?

Barbie also seems to be practicing safe sex, since after 50 years with her on / off boyfriend Ken and brief fling with the surfer Blaine, she's remained childless, preferring to pursue her 50-odd careers instead. (Of course, this could be connected with both her and Ken being named after their founder's children, making them practically siblings). While rumours abounded about the origin of "Barbie's little sister Shelly", she should still be applauded in emphasising the choices available for young women, without resorting to a version of "abortion Barbie".

This doesn't excuse Barbie's impossible looks but, as one reader of the above BBC article commented, boys play with alien villains all the time yet there remains a relatively low take-up rate of adult plastic surgery to make them look like Predator. Although... I do now wonder if I could be given a unicorn horn...

Once there lived a franky grotesque princess

The inaccuracy of fairy tales has been bothering me of late. Take your average story, aimed at an audience primarily consisting of 6 year old girls in pink trainers. A beautiful princess is miss-treated, probably by an evil step-mother, but who overcomes all the odds to marry a handsome prince and be born away to a life of wedded bliss.

Firstly, we must ask ourselves, is this girl really likely to be attractive? In such stories, the very mention of a crown basks the owner in an unobtainable ethereal light. In fact, their uncommon beauty is a common way of identifying such royal members, even when they are undercover. The reality however, is that royalty means this wench comes from an interbred, incestuous litter rife with inherited diseases and probably considerably too few grandparents for a healthy gene pool. This can hardly be the way to produce stunning good looks. Stunted looks and retardation are far more likely, which is probably how such individuals are really identified while in hiding.

This child's grotesquely bad looks are far more likely to be the reason why her step-mother (also probably one of her cousins), despite being hideously ugly herself, decides that the girl has to go. Probably it is a cost-saving measure to reduce the number of steam-cleans the castle carpets need after the servants vomit from seeing the girl first thing in the morning.

Cast out into the wilderness (and basing the details on a popular Disney-made franchise), the only place where this vilely deformed child can find shelter is in the household of 7 vertically challenged men, whose diminutive stature enables them to avoid the full frontal of the girl's cross-eyes stare.

Being severely mentally challenged, the revolting girl draws attention to her whereabouts through her warbling singing and the stampede of wildlife that charges in to see what has destroyed their home. Her stupidity is only matched by that of her step-mother/cousin who tricks her into an enchanted sleep, rather than decapitating her deformed head.

Placed in a glass coffin as a popular horror show item, our beastly little girl is awoken by a handsome prince (but no doubt actually suffering from similar aesthetic issues) and carried away for a life of bliss.

Apart from the obvious fact this has done nothing to improve the gene pool, this benighted child is a princess. This doesn't just mean her atrocious ugliness has to be politically denoted charming, it means she's the heiress to a kingdom. She can't just ride off to a neighbouring land! She has responsibilities. Additionally, what was a prince doing there to begin with? You can't just stroll through another country as the heir apparent for a rival land. The only two options are that he was actually heading an army poised for invasion, in which case our said princess was less of a bride than a prisoner of war, or he was her brother. Given what we've already seen, either seem quite likely.

To the small girl in the red cart...

The USA has a very successful website called "craigslist". Divided city by city, people post here to advertise as diverse objects as furniture, guitar lessons and, indeed, themselves. Within the "personal" section of the site, there is a category called "missed connections". Largely devoted to love interests, people post here when they wish to contact someone they briefly saw at a party / on the subway / the-neighbour-upstairs-with-the-annoying-dog whose name they never got the opportunity to discover. In this vein, I have drafted the following letter to the small girl I met yesterday on the way back from the Hogtown Medieval Faire.

To the small girl being pulled in a red cart on her way back from the Hogtown Faire,

It is true that you did have a better deal than me last evening. You, sitting there in your shiny red cart, while your brother towed it along the road for the hour-long trek back to the car park. I had to walk, clutching the giant soda bottle I hadn't been able to contemplate a free refill on. And yes, I was tired and maybe slightly envious of your cushy deal. Indeed, you might have felt that, given I had no shiny cart, I should have left the Faire earlier, enabling me to catch one of the buses to the car park before the line got too long to make it practical. You may even have felt that, given my situation, I should have arrived at the Faire early enough in the morning to park my car close to the Faire entrance and not in the overflow car park a few miles away. I don't know, we didn't get a chance to exchange thoughts.

That aside, I feel you labelling me a 'loser', as you so clearly did by making the "L" sign on your forehead, was uncalled for. You may be only 3, but there was clear consideration as you gazed up at my face before lifting your right hand in that premeditated gesture.

I feel obliged to point out that your situation was not as secure as you so clearly seemed to believe. I could, for instance, have reached down and tossed you from your cart and taken your place. Then, not only would you have had to walk, but your brother, who was likely no more than 10, would have been left pulling me; a 28 year old woman full to the brim with soda and a giant cinnamon bun roughly the size of your head. As it was, I noted with some satisfaction, your brother got board of his burden (perhaps you too, had partaken in a cinnamon bun) and dropped the cart handle without warning, and it was only your parents quick action that prevented it from rolling down the road into a bush.

So next time you're out there, in your shiny red cart, you just remember that you're not so big yet, nor able to consume nearly enough cinnamon goodness to make a difference, that you can call any person you see a loser. They might just extract revenge. As it was, the humiliation you caused me resulted in my sharp exit (accompanied by friends in mild hysterics). But next time, NEXT TIME, I will take your cart and force you to carry my soda bottle.

The Sims: a lesson in life

My name is Elizabeth and ..... and I'm a "Sims" addict. Actually, I'm more of a binger. I won't play it for a year and then I'll rediscover it and play non-stop for days. Since Christmas is all about excess, it perhaps isn't surprising that I indulged myself in a bit of virtual reality Sim-life. My sim-Elizabeth moved into a cute Tudor abode with her cat Tallis and lover, Keanu Reeves (complete with Matrix trench coat and sun glasses). Happy days ensued in which Elizabeth progressed rapidly through the medicine career track, Keanu became a sous-chef and even Tallis brought home a steady income as a rescue pet (earning rather more than Keanu). They had the best of everything; luxury bed, piano, hot tub.... and when Keanu presented Elizabeth with a diamond engagement ring, what could she say but yes?

It all went wrong when Keanu (who had family aspirations) strongly desired a baby. Time was running out for he and Elizabeth would become infertile elders in a matter of days. While pondering the issue during long star-gazing hours (ok, I sent him out there every night for a week) Keanu was abducted to return inpregnated with an alien child. But this left a problem: Elizabeth, now wanting a baby herself, was stuck with a husband no longer up to the challenge. The only solution was seduction of a neighbour in the hot tub while Keanu was resting his swollen belly upstairs.

So now we were expecting two children. A handful, yes, but I thought it would be kinda awesome: one alien child and one love child (rather obviously so, since the seduced neighbour was dark skinned). The happy day arrived and Keanu gave birth .... to twins. Within 24 hours, Elizabeth also gave birth resulting in 3 (3!) babies in the house. Keanu was delighted. It became his biggest ambition to have yet another child.

One day later and it was hell. I hired a non-stop cycles of nannies and a maid to try and stay on top of the situation... and failed. Keanu and Elizabeth became exhausted and fell asleep on the floor, the maid never finished the work and had to give up when it got dark, the nanny didn't have time to use the toilet and wet herself... 3 times ... and the cat resorted to asking the maid for attention. A few more days later and the game informed me that the kids aspiration meter was low and I should focus on fulfilling their life ambitions. Life ambitions?! Isn't being alive enough??

Keanu is now mopping up the nanny pee (which the maid seems to have an aversion to doing). His worst fear has become to have another child.