It seems that the most memorable/distinctive thing about me is my hair. In June, Amos and I attended Mary and Jared's wedding. One of the bridesmaids was Kat, Mary's sister and my old roommate. Kat didn't know that we would be coming to the wedding, but when she walked down the aisle with one of the groomsmen and caught sight of the back of my head, she thought, "Oh, Jennica's here!" (I later recognized her by the shoes she was wearing; I need to wear my glasses, haha!)
My little brothers and sisters, Brenda, Luke, Alexis, and Gio, have paid attention to my hair and sometimes use it to describe other things. "This weed we found in the yard looks like Jennica's hair." Now that weed is referred to as Jennica Hair, and everyone knows what they are talking about. Oh dear. When Brenda was little, she said I had "hill hair." Haha!
My hair comes from my dad's side of the family. It is thick and blondish red-brown and falls in a series of curly waves. If you look at the back of my head, you can see the horizontal waves; they aren't noticeable from the front. Now my hair is turning grey, silver, and white, also a present from my dad's side. Oh dear.
I really like my hair now. I didn't always. My hair got curlier as I got older, and neither my mom nor I knew what to do with it. I'm pretty sure I walked around looking like a lion with a triangular mane most of the time. When I was in high school, my mom took me to see our former neighbor, Cindy, who was also her hair dresser. She told me to stop brushing it when it was dry, not to handle my hair after it was styled for the day, and to wash my hair every other day so that it wouldn't be so dry and brittle. In college I learned to use hair gel and a hair dryer with a diffuser attachment. I got my first-and-only professional haircut to take away the pyramid shape. My mom's been able to duplicate the cut every time since then, which is nice because it's saved me a few hundred dollars in the last several years. :)
My roommate for two and half years was Katharyn, with a head of beautiful, straight, dark hair interspersed with several grey and silver strands. She expressed the sentiment that I think many people feel, that while she liked my hair, she wouldn't want it herself because of all the work it takes. Another girl on my wing once told me that she actually had curly hair like mine but she always straightened it. When I asked why she put hours of time into her hair to make it straight, she replied unthinkingly that "curly hair isn't popular." Ummmm, thanks for that. About a year ago, I introduced myself to a girl named Sarah at church while we were waiting for our Missions Leadership Team meeting. Sarah's hair and my hair look the same, except that hers is more red (lucky!) and a little thinner.
Anyway, that was a lot just about my hair. Here are a few things you probably didn't realize about curly-haired people, unless you are one yourself.
-Curly hair takes a lot of work. Frizz is constantly waging war on our heads. A friend in college roughed up my hair one time because he thought it was funny; I did not. He eventually married one of our straight-haired friends, which is probably good.
-I've said this before, but in most movies, a heroine who starts out with curly hair doesn't get a break until she straightens her hair.
-Curly-haired girls can usually tell if a straight-haired girl actually has naturally-curly hair. It's very hard to achieve perfectly-straightened hair all of the time. Also, there is a big difference between curled hair and curly hair, and especially between scrunched hair and curly hair.
-No curly-haired person likes to walk past those hair-straightening booths in the mall or Sam's Club. I already don't like drawing attention from the poor people trying to sell their remote control helicopters or Dead Sea mud masks or customized license plate holders, but I really don't like talking to the hair straightening people. I should carry little cards that say, "I like my hair. I don't want to walk around the mall with one thin strand of straightened hair just so that you can prove that your little gadget works well. I'm also an introvert, so no, I don't want to talk to you about this." I'd just give them a card and run away. Typically I just try to look absorbed in something else so that no one will call out to me.
-Few curly-haired girls look good with really short haircuts. Of course, you could always go for a fro, but unless you are black, that probably won't look good...at all.
-Humidity does wonders to curly hair. When I stepped out of the airport in Delhi two years ago, I literally felt my hair start to expand in the damp heat. Not fun. However, I am much more forgiving of my hair when I'm overseas; there is no way that I would stay home just so that my curly hair would look normal.
-Curly-haired people understand each other. I have friends that I met way back when I was about twelve years old, and we occasionally mention each other in a curly-haired status on Facebook, either to invoke sympathy or to call for rejoicing. I suppose our mascot would be Frieda from the Peanuts cartoon strip, who is always talking about her own naturally curly hair.
-Though curly-haired people usually like their hair, there are days when they long to have straight hair. It would be so much easier, and straight is very pretty, too.
I'm not really sure why I started this rather long post about curly hair in general and my hair in particular, but I will end with...
My little brothers and sisters, Brenda, Luke, Alexis, and Gio, have paid attention to my hair and sometimes use it to describe other things. "This weed we found in the yard looks like Jennica's hair." Now that weed is referred to as Jennica Hair, and everyone knows what they are talking about. Oh dear. When Brenda was little, she said I had "hill hair." Haha!
My hair comes from my dad's side of the family. It is thick and blondish red-brown and falls in a series of curly waves. If you look at the back of my head, you can see the horizontal waves; they aren't noticeable from the front. Now my hair is turning grey, silver, and white, also a present from my dad's side. Oh dear.
 |
| Daddy and I, about to walk down the aisle... |
My roommate for two and half years was Katharyn, with a head of beautiful, straight, dark hair interspersed with several grey and silver strands. She expressed the sentiment that I think many people feel, that while she liked my hair, she wouldn't want it herself because of all the work it takes. Another girl on my wing once told me that she actually had curly hair like mine but she always straightened it. When I asked why she put hours of time into her hair to make it straight, she replied unthinkingly that "curly hair isn't popular." Ummmm, thanks for that. About a year ago, I introduced myself to a girl named Sarah at church while we were waiting for our Missions Leadership Team meeting. Sarah's hair and my hair look the same, except that hers is more red (lucky!) and a little thinner.
 |
| This is a very good hair day |
-Curly hair takes a lot of work. Frizz is constantly waging war on our heads. A friend in college roughed up my hair one time because he thought it was funny; I did not. He eventually married one of our straight-haired friends, which is probably good.
-I've said this before, but in most movies, a heroine who starts out with curly hair doesn't get a break until she straightens her hair.
-Curly-haired girls can usually tell if a straight-haired girl actually has naturally-curly hair. It's very hard to achieve perfectly-straightened hair all of the time. Also, there is a big difference between curled hair and curly hair, and especially between scrunched hair and curly hair.
-No curly-haired person likes to walk past those hair-straightening booths in the mall or Sam's Club. I already don't like drawing attention from the poor people trying to sell their remote control helicopters or Dead Sea mud masks or customized license plate holders, but I really don't like talking to the hair straightening people. I should carry little cards that say, "I like my hair. I don't want to walk around the mall with one thin strand of straightened hair just so that you can prove that your little gadget works well. I'm also an introvert, so no, I don't want to talk to you about this." I'd just give them a card and run away. Typically I just try to look absorbed in something else so that no one will call out to me.
-Few curly-haired girls look good with really short haircuts. Of course, you could always go for a fro, but unless you are black, that probably won't look good...at all.
-Humidity does wonders to curly hair. When I stepped out of the airport in Delhi two years ago, I literally felt my hair start to expand in the damp heat. Not fun. However, I am much more forgiving of my hair when I'm overseas; there is no way that I would stay home just so that my curly hair would look normal.
 |
| Curly hair has a mind of its own! |
-Though curly-haired people usually like their hair, there are days when they long to have straight hair. It would be so much easier, and straight is very pretty, too.
I'm not really sure why I started this rather long post about curly hair in general and my hair in particular, but I will end with...
Curly Hairs Unite!
Don't be discouraged because our culture says that straight hair is better!
We don't want superiority, we just want equality.
;)
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