Curly Girl

Last night we went out to eat at the lone Star Steakhouse again. They keep sending us coupons, and it's free for all the boys on Tuesdays--we can't lose! We all ate for $15.38 last night (not including tip, of course), which I think is pretty darn good. ANyhow, after we were done, I didn't really want to go home yet, so we moseyed across the street to Borders. I have been trying to get this certain book out of our library for the last several weeks, but it is never in. Our library has the absolutely weirdest systerm--you can only check books out for 2 weeks, and you can only renew them once. BUT--there are no late fees, and so basically you can keep books out as long as you want, as long as you don't need to get anything new. You have to turn in your overdue books before you can check more books out. Sometimes I like the system--hey, no fines! But it makes it hard to plan for books because when you look online and it says that a book is due on say, Sept. 1, well, it could come back in anytime or no time--could be months later! So I've been looking for the book Curly Girl by Lorraine Massey, which has been discussed a lot recently on the Well-Trained Mind boards. Finally last night at Borders I was able to look through the book, and yes, I am very interested! She describes my hair perfectly (she talks about 3 types of girls for non-African-American hair--Corkscrew, Botticelli, and Wavy)--I have Botticelli curls and a bad hair cut right now. She also described accurately how I always feel coming out of haircuts. I always tell they stylist what I want, then they wet it all down, cut it, and it never turns out how I am imagining. My last haircut was very bad. I went in July and told her I was trying to grow the layers out. She proceeded to cut even more layers very short! Oh well. Massey has some very radical ideas for taking care of curly hair, such as no shampoo. Yes. None at all. Just conditioner. That is very hard for me to even contemplate, so I am just cutting down on the amount of shampoo I use. Maybe I will eventually become very brave and do without; we'll see. She also says never (or at least rarely) use a hairdryer, and then always with a diffuser, which I don't own. Today I air-dryed, and I look like I placed a mop over my head--not that attractive. She says it will take 2-3 weeks to see improvements, so I guess I should just keep on. Also, it will get better as my hair grows out, I am sure. I do think I will purchase the book at some point, however. It really is the first thing I have ever seen that gives specific ideas for taking care of curly hair. I am like a lot of the people she quotes in the book--I have never been very comfortable with my hair, it is not tidy-looking or polished on its own, which always bugs me, and I would much rather have straight hair, or at least hair without the wild cowlicks, especially at my bang-line. But maybe under her regimen I could at least learn to like my hair and it would look like nice long curls. And people with nice straight hair that lies where it should after a haircut, don't comment saying you have always wished you had curly hair--no, you don't! It is a real pain and a burden! That is another reason why I am glad I have all boys--no curls to deal with, and since I keep their hair so short, I'll never even have to know if they do have curls.