White Girl Hair Envy: Dissecting the Disorder

I remember being a young girl and loving blond hair. Not just loving it, being obsessed with it. Despite having a Black Barbie, my favorite one—the one who drove the Pink Corvette, was head of the dream house, got the guy and all the prettiest outfits—was my blonde Barbie. Her name was Jennifer and she embodied everything I wanted to be—everything society told me I should be. In my young mind, the grass would not only be greener on the other side as a White girl, the air would be cleaner, the people nicer, the cars fancier and the houses grander. Life would be perfect.

Yes, Lisa Turtle was a babe, but what young girl
didn't want to be Kelly Kapowski?

It’s no coincidence that many Black girls exposed to Western society grow up having “White girl hair envy.” While the 90s was a great period of diversity (oh hey, Power Rangers), the most desirable characters and the main protagonists of our favorite shows were pretty White girls. Their hair would swing every time they turned their heads, they could twist it around their fingers for days and boys could run their hands through it without getting snagged. The commercials depicted (and still do) beautiful White women as the final product: what you should look like if you use the proper shampoos, eat the right foods, drive the right cars and shop at the right places.

As a young girl, I couldn’t fathom what these images were subconsciously doing to my ripening psyche. I couldn’t have reconciled that the reason I was Team Monica instead of Team Brandy was because Monica looked closer to the White standard that I had been brainwashed to put on a pedestal. Growing up, I thought my hair was the absolute worst. My mom would put my hair in these stiff African braids that I was too embarrassed to show at school and so it was with agonizing elation that I accepted my first relaxer. Even getting braids was a thrill for me as I got to swing my head when I walked so that my hair would sway from side to side like a White girl’s.

Me with my baby curls.

But if you would have told me then that I’d finally come to embrace my natural hair texture, Jennifer and I would have laughed in your face. This acceptance is sadly very recent. Just a couple of months ago I learned to accept—nay, love—my hair the way it looks even after I’ve sweated out the effects of the flatiron. Because now, I’m not alone when I walk out of my house and face the world with my mini-fro. I see other girls proudly sporting their natural hairstyles, so much so that Black hairstyles have even become a trend among the White community.

“Traditionally women would think of braids as a kind of thoughtless hairstyle,” hairstylist Ted Gibson was quoted saying in a recent piece by the New York Times. “Now they’ve crossed over to the fashion space.”

Last week, the Times ran a piece about braids and the recent spike in the popularity of this hairstyle among all women. While braids have been popular in the Black community for centuries, the article (written by a Black woman) attributed the recent mainstreaming of braids to its appearance on the runways of hit designers like Alexander Wang and Viktor & Rolfe. It also recognized the “history” of braids as being synonymous with a “bohemian flair,” citing examples like Bo Derek and Willie Nelson. What they failed to acknowledge, however, was that the history of braids dates back centuries, the earliest occurrence being in Africa, according to Refinery29.

Me with my protective-hairstyle braids
…and post-workout sweat.

This isn’t to say that White people are appropriating our hairstyles, but that we, too, have hair that other races like to emulate. While we spend so much time, money and effort into getting our hair bone straight, plenty of White, Hispanic and Asian girls (and guys) have spent the same amount of effort trying to get their hair curly and voluminous via methods like perms.

“I think there’s more of an acceptance [of natural hair] outside of Black America than there is within Black America,” says educator Kierra Bussey. Having recently cut off almost all of her hair, Bussey’s new hairstyle has been embraced more from her White counterparts than even members of the Black community. After a lifetime of searing hot combs and scorching relaxers trying to achieve a more European look, she recently decided enough was enough and chopped it all off.

 “I come from the perspective of my mother being biracial and having straighter hair than me,” says Bussey. “When it got wet, it didn’t kink up like mine, and when it dried, it didn’t turn into a fro like mine. If I want my hair straight like hers, it more than likely means I have to damage it.”

Although her mother never wanted her to get relaxers, she’d take her to get hair straightened frequently, not knowing herself how to care for her daughter’s hair texture. After years of putting herself through the torture many of us Black girls know all too well, she decided she wanted to know what it was like to be comfortable in her own skin and describes the process of embracing her natural hair as an emotional one (in a positive way).

Beautiful photo courtesy of the regal
Kierra Bussey.

“I think we’ve become so attached to our physical appearance,” says Bussey. “Imagining ourselves outside of that realm frightens us. It’s important to remember that straight hair is not oppressed hair, it’s just your preference. But not loving your natural hair is what bothers me.”

I got rid of my Barbies a long time ago, but the caste system I created in that world still haunted me for a long time to come and, to be honest, it still creeps up on me occasionally. Just the other day, I spent 10 hours in the salon trying to figure out how to style my new natural hair and all I could think was, man, if I were a White girl, I’d just be in and out. But my hairdresser refused to let me carry on those thoughts. She reminded me that our hair incites just as much envy from others as anyone else’s. We have just as much to be proud of as any other race. Woven into our hair are history, culture, struggle, beauty and perseverance. Think about that the next time someone tries to convince you that the grass is greener on the other side.

Blood, Sweat,…Flats

I've always wondered how women manage to stroll around New York City with skyscraper-like heels like it's nothing. I don't regularly take cabs nor do I have the luxury of being driven around in a town car so, in my NYC experience, there's a lot of walking involved. Plenty of commuters (specifically those commuting to and from work) slip out of the heels and into something more practical until they've reached their destination, but I guess what the truth comes down to is this: some women are just pushing way past the pain.

Well, on tonight's episode of Bravo's new hit reality television show Blood, Sweat and Heels, former video model Melyssa Ford admitted she's one of those women. But as her boss brazenly told her, if you really wanna get stuff accomplished, stop trying to look cute and get some flats, girl. So I'm assuming (rather, hoping) that the women strutting around in heels have already paid their dues in flats.

Demetria (center, left) was our featured speaker
back in 2011 (I'm on the far right in bright yellow!).

Okay, I'm jumping into this a little fast. Let's start from the beginning. BSH premiered last week on Bravo to the highest first-time ratings in the network's reality-focused history. It features six women balancing success and their personal lives in the Concrete Jungle. Admittedly, the only two I know are Melyssa Ford and Demetria Lucas. Demetria, of course, is a journalist, blogger and author whom, a few years back, my organization hired to speak at our event when I was still at Temple.

We all knew her as an editor of Essence magazine and as the "Black Carrie Bradshaw" (a title bestowed upon her by the very own Washington Post) so we were excited that such a prominent figure in the media industry was even giving our little start-up the time of day. Demetria and I met again a week ago (she remembered!) when she threw a premiere viewing party in Brooklyn. I had made it from MD -> Philly -> NYC following her formula and she was as fabulous and pleasant as ever. We hugged, she gave me some advice and we even high-fived about being honest

Reunited a little over 2 years later at
the premiere party of BSH in BK.

journalists who don't hold back and don't apologize for our audacity.

If it hadn't been for the fact that Demetria was on the show, it honestly would've probably slipped under my radar. After all, when you premiere three new shows a week, it becomes a bit much and the quality starts to lack, Bravo. I still have mixed reactions to it but, so far, I can't say I'm disappointed. One of the things that stuck out to me was how real the girls are. When there are reality shows in existence called Rich Kids of Beverly Hills, you start to get the feeling that these shows are here only to remind you that you're a bum and other people eat meals that cost more than your rent.

It was nice to see on tonight's episode that nobody was putting on airs about the lifestyle they live. Melyssa Ford, especially, has been a pleasant surprise. She's a very likable woman and is clearly not one to stir the pot. She also has the potential to be making a lot of money on her name but is instead choosing to turn over a new leaf and do it the hard way. After a break-up with a high-rolling rapper, she's honest that she's in a tight situation with money and is learning to live within her newly-defined means. As a writer trying to make it in the proverbial Big Apple, I completely identify with living #thestruggle and I'm glad it's finally being addressed realistically.

BSH is on Sundays at 9pm ET on Bravo.

Geneva Thomas opened up about hustling in the media business only to make peanuts (tell it, honey!) and she also admitted that money is also tight for her. Two of the women on the show (Brie Bythewood and Daisy Lewellyn) come from wealthy backgrounds already but, all in all, these women are not housewives.  They're a modern representation of todays' women and living embodiments that success comes primarily through connections, a lot of elbow grease and opportunities. I'm sure, just like all reality shows, there will be fresh weaves, new sets of teeth, and grandiloquent homes for all the women involved as the seasons continue. But for now, they are definitely putting their heels--or should I say, flats--to the pavement and making it work.

Movie Review: Not Exactly Your Grandmother's Gatsby

Critics' reviews for Baz Luhrmann's interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's culturally and generationally transcendent masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, have been mixed, to be coy. If I could shout anything from the rooftops in response to seeing this film, it'd be this: the common denominator for enjoying this movie is Luhrmann. If you come into it expecting to see, not only an American classic, but a Luhrmann film, in all its gaudy, festive glory, you should walk out of the theater having enjoyed yourself.

However, if you want to see the book played out before you exactly the way Fitzgerald wrote it, be warned. After all, this is the same guy who dressed Harold Perrineau in drag as a Black Mercutio. What were you really expecting?

Movie poster for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby

If anything, Luhrmann is allowed to take liberties with the story because, at this point in time, who hasn't either read the book (even if it was only because you had to in high school) or seen one of the films? We all know the story well: the central themes of opulence, the American Dream, the decadence and restlessness of the Jazz Age. The callousness of love and the lengths we would go to in order to hold onto it, no matter how far away it is. And we are reminded that it can seem impossibly far away, even if it's just across the bay. 

Still, knowing how the story ends allows us to feel everything so much more profoundly. All of Gatsby's boyish optimism about his future with Daisy is heartbreaking because we want to believe it with him, as we did when we first encountered the story, but we know the tragedy that awaits him for wanting so badly things he simply wasn't "born with," as Tom Buchanan puts it. But our knowledge of the material, and the high pedestal on which we place Gatsby, can also be a downfall for a director who has to impress a cynical audience. We know what we're looking for in each of the roles and Luhrmann's way of introducing his reincarnated characters seems to be a grand reveal that drags on a bit long or comes off a bit too forced. For example, Daisy's first appearance is only her hand and the sound of her childlike giggles. You see a body part here and there as she is slowly uncoiled among a room of excessively billowing white curtains, until she is finally uncovered, emerging like an angel from the sea of milky white. Except, it doesn't really end up having that impact. It's more, "Get to the point, already! We know it's Carey Mulligan."

Now, it wouldn't be a true Baz Luhrmann film if it didn't have two things: an audacious, scene-stealing soundtrack and an outrageous party scene. Give Luhrmann a party scene and he becomes a kid in a candy store. "It's like an amusement park!" Nick beams wondrously at his first Gatsby party. And an amusement park it is. Luhrmann's ability to create a party scene in which everyone appears to be on acid is no new feat. Creating an ambiance of the craziest party you've ever been to is a trademark of his most famous films (again, Harold Perrineau, white wig, shimmery ensemble). But it's unfortunately not enough to make the first half of this movie any less draggy than it ended up (no pun intended, there was no cross-dressing in this film). 

The second half, I will say, surprisingly stuck pretty closely to the book and the 1974 film. And that's where it takes the cake. Although I thoroughly enjoyed Robert Redford as Gatsby and loved hating Mia Farrow as Daisy, that movie (146 minutes long) seemed to go on forever. This one (143 minutes long), while the scenes could have been shorter, was at least entertaining to look at. And to listen to. With all the hype and controversy surrounding the film's soundtrack, it's safe to say that it was hard not to notice all the modern music these 20s characters were dancing to (at one point, a group of African Americans pass by the central characters in a car being driven by a White man, while they sip champagne and blast Jay-Z's "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)"). 

But with that being said, most of the songs barely appeared for more than a passing moment. I was able to make out the opening lyrics of Florence + the Machine's dramatic ballad "Over the Love" before it left as quickly as it came. I also heard a glimpse of the barely recognizable Beyonce cover of "Back in Black" before that, too, faded away in a flash. At the end of it all, it was Jay-Z and Lana Del Rey who were the clear centerpieces of the film. Jay-Z's "$100 Bill," "No Church in the Wild," "Who Gon Stop Me" and "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" appeared in the film/trailer. 

But Luhrmann makes it clear that Del Rey's "Young and Beautiful," which he co-wrote with her, is the real star here. The song surfaces, ever changing, several times throughout Daisy and Gatsby's encounters and really reminds you of the beautiful synergy between film and music. Sometimes, certain films are elevated by their scores and soundtracks. Similarly, certain songs are more powerful in the context of a scene. This is the case for "Young and Beautiful." While it's another musical triumph for Del Rey, on its own, it doesn't reach the crescendo, the grand finale, that you want it to. In the context of Gatsby and Daisy reuniting for the first time in years and staring ravenously into each other's eyes, it's enough to give you goosebumps. It works perfectly as the theme song of Daisy's life, and her sorrowful, passionate, if not vapid, relationship with Gatsby.

DiCaprio as Gatsby, anxiously awaiting a reunion with Daisy (Mulligan)

While I may have (and perhaps still kind of do) have my reservations about the modernized soundtrack (I would have liked to hear an Eight to the Bar song), it speaks to my earlier reference that the story of Gatsby is intergenerational. It works as well in 2013 as it did in the 20s, 40s and 70s. And it's even more so exemplified in people like Jay-Z, who can easily be considered a hip-hop Gatsby. He went from poverty to extreme wealth, prestige and being married to one of the most beautiful and powerful women on the planet (who, interestingly enough, comes from money...see what I did there?). The soundtrack is an interpretation itself of how we interpret a universal theme all these years later from a pastiche of our favorite artists across multiple genres of music. 

And of course, the film could have completely flopped if not for proper casting. Leonardo DiCaprio recalls his earlier boyishness as Gatsby, making you fall for him all over again in a way you haven't since Jack Dawson. Tobey Maguire is a perfect wallflower as the observant and perceptive Nick Carraway. Newcomer Elizabeth Debicki is stunning, yet understated, as bystander Jordan. Carey Mulligan makes for a Daisy that is more difficult to hate as she doesn't appear as vain and materialistic (probably more a result of the writing), but fairy-ish and aloof nonetheless. Joel Edgerton is deliciously virile and wicked as Tom Buchanan. And some nice surprises appear, such as Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan as Meyer Wolfsheim. 

I could go on, but I've already given you a mouthful to chew on while you contemplate how you'll feel about the remastered Gatsby. It's not perfect, and I certainly WOULD NOT recommend seeing it in 3D, but all in all, give it a fair and honest try, go in with a complete open mind and remember: it's definitely not your grandmother's Gatsby.

kNOw Justice, kNOw Peace

Oh, I was going to get to this sooner or later. I held my tongue when Lupe came out with "Bitch Bad," a song that was supposed to hold a mirror up to Black society and preach about the abomination it's turning into, but was instead met with "Oh, shut up, Lupe." I didn't say a damn thing about the ignorant backlash regarding "Hunger Games" star Amandla Stenberg (a mulatta) playing the part of Rue, who readers had (mistakenly) thought was a precious White girl. Enough is quite enough.

Amandla Stenberg

Before you proceed, please heed this caveat and abstain from getting the idea that I am lumping any race into one category. When I say Whites, I am speaking of a very specific group of White people: those who perpetuate intolerance and/or ignorance. Back to your scheduled program.

On Sunday, Jamie Foxx was presented with the 2013 Generation Award at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards (which I don't go out of my way to catch anymore). As he walked onstage, he gave the cameras, and the world, a clear shot of his t-shirt: an homage to Trayvon Martin and the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. Above a big portrait of Martin were the words "kNOw Justice" and below the photo the words "kNOw Peace." Surrounding Martin's massive portrait were smaller photos of the children who perished at Sandy Hook. 

The backlash was immediate and unfiltered. People (specifically, White people) on Twitter were pissed. How dare he wear a controversial Black face so proudly near his heart? What nerve he had to make Martin's face bigger than the innocent (mostly White) children. The audacity that he can't just let it go, that he's standing in solidarity with an important face of the Black struggle, the Black injustice, the Black truth.

Jamie Foxx at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards

Because that's always been a problem, right? It's seen as unity and comradeship when Asians help their fellow Asians, when Hispanics look out for their fellow Hispanics and when Whites support their White brothers and sisters. But when Blacks have each other's backs, we're being exclusive. We're racist. It's a problem. It's scary. That's why we've always been divided, isn't it? They love seeing us fight each other. They bring out their popcorn and enjoy the show, the gaping fissure they've created that causes tension, even hatred, among Blacks. The second we start getting along and banding together, we must be stopped. Stopped before we become too powerful. Before our voices are heard and the truth rings free, out in the open.

Some of the tweets that were publicized in reaction to Foxx's statement t-shirt were just ignorant and others were downright hateful and meant to be degrading. It doesn't surprise me that racial tensions are at an all-time high. In fact, according to a Huffington Post article I read a while back, the percentage of White racists today is higher than it was right before Obama was elected into office. Now, don't get me wrong, we've come a long way. And I have tons of White friends who couldn't care less about race. But in this day and age, we should be a little further along than we are collectively.

Then again, we are in the age of the Internet. Where people are free to say as they please. I believe what these people do is put out this vitriol under the cloak of anonymity just to ruffle feathers, just because they can. But they spend so much time doing so, they really begin to get sucked into the contempt they put out; they become the hate they create. Perhaps so much so, that they begin to live the atrocity that they had previously preached only for a reaction.

Most of the tweets that were highlighted in the article referred to Martin as a "thug," a "nigger" and a "criminal" who got what he deserved and was rightfully wasted from this world so that he could no longer carry out crimes that CLEARLY all Black men exclusively are bound to commit. They even called Foxx a racist who "wouldn't be wearing that shirt if Trayvon Martin were white." Again, standing up for each other is "racist." Would Jamie Foxx have worn that shirt if Trayvon Martin had been White? Honestly, probably not. Not because he's a racist, but because of the cultural significance the Trayvon Martin case had in America.

Just some of the Twitter backlash in response to
Foxx's shirt (Photo courtesy of Public Shaming Tumblr)

Black culture is riddled with adages made popular by 90s hip-hop like "fuck the police" and "the White man's always trying to keep the brothers down." Of course, many people have chosen to turn a blind eye to the injustices done to African Americans both through individual racism and systematic racism. These ideas have been brushed off as conspiracy theories and excuses made by the Black community to justify their servile standing in society. Imagine the guilt that would befall White people if they had to admit that the system was really designed so that Black people have to work ten times harder just to have a remote chance at the American dream. It's comfortable to live in ignorance. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. 

If we didn't flip the channel every time a poor child in tattered clothing in a third world country showed up on the TV screen, we'd be forced to think about the things we take for granted everyday. We'd have no choice but to rot inside at the thought of living our hedonistic, gluttonous, ostentatious lifestyles. So it's comfortable not to know. Because there's a certain discomfort that arises, a guilt, if you will, when our actions don't match our beliefs. This feeling of unease is cognitive dissonance. In order to alleviate this vexation, we pretend we don't know so that we don't have to readjust the way we live to match what we actually do know to be the right thing. 

Trayvon Martin wasn't harming anyone. Nor did he have any intent to harm anyone. What he may or may not have done at any point before that night had nothing to do with the fact that he was merely walking down the street minding his own business. What happened could have been avoided had George Zimmerman followed police instructions and stayed put. The consequences of his actions exposed on a national scale what Black people had been saying all along: we're targeted simply for being Black and in the wrong place. In a place we are not welcome.

Yet still, while most of America conceded that his murder was undeniably wrong, certain people sought any reason to demonize Martin. They dug up any dirt they could to assuage the guilt of witnessing the slaughter of a teenage boy who was armed with nothing but a few snacks. Rather than calling him a "guy," "young man" or a "person," they refer to him as "thug," "nigger," "criminal." Anything that takes away his humanity and replaces it with bestiality. And they wonder why Black people get so riled up about this.

One of my favorite books is Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, about a Black man trying to find his way in a society that consistently degrades him until he is forced to become a recluse and live outside the law. From that book comes one of my favorite lines: "To whom can I  be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me?" A perfect example of what sociologists refer to as the labeling theory. If you tell someone they are something enough, eventually, they will believe it and become the very thing you've labeled them as. You tell a woman she's ugly enough, no matter how scientifically beautiful she actually is, she will begin to see ugly every time she looks at herself. 

This is what Black people have succumbed to. So long have we been told we're not good enough, we're not worthy, we're not beautiful, we can't make it, being brutish is in our nature, that we actually start to believe it. Many of us either stop trying, dumb ourselves down, act out violently or start trying to live up to White standards of perfection. For example, Nicki Minaj, who fancies herself a "Barbie" and models her look after a European aesthetic (blond hair, blue contacts, light make-up, etc.). So essentially, White people paint a picture of who they think we are, we subconsciously live up to it, and they're provided with more ammunition to say "I told you so." It's like asking someone repeatedly to slap you in the face and then getting upset when they actually do it.

Great quote from a very wise man (Photo courtesy of
Interracial Dating Facebook)

When is it going to be okay for us to stick up for each other? We've been pitted against one another for so long because they fear that when we stand together, we will become a force. We will be powerful beyond measure. But we've bought into it. Light skin vs. dark skin, Black Americans vs. Africans vs. Haitians, upper class vs. lower class. We divide ourselves up into any category we can squeeze ourselves into. It has to be okay for us to come together. It's not a matter of gathering an army so that we can take over, but so that we can merely stand next to our brothers and sisters of all races and ethnicities in equality without any struggles for power and superiority.

I wish I could relay that message to these Internet gangsters. These people who feel so safe behind the veil of a computer screen that they can so easily spit quick, reckless, spontaneous bits of venom that spread like wildfire and become immortalized in the vast abyss of the World Wide Web. But I know many of them are far too proud, too resistant, too set in their ways to listen to reason. But I want them to know anyway, that we will continue to wear these bold displays of support for all of our brethren who have been wronged, be they Black, White, Asian, Green, Red or Blue. If there is no justice, there will be no peace. And until we know justice, we cannot know peace.

Reaction to the Boston Marathon Explosions

The statuses and messages I've seen throughout the day regarding the tragedy at the Boston marathon has been overwhelmingly synonymous: look for the helpers. Don't think about the lowlives who did this; think of those who are pulling together to fix it. In all other tragedies I've lived through,

A popular photo currently making the rounds on social media.

Columbine, 9/11, Virginia Tech, Aurora, and Sandy Hook, to name a few, the reactions were all shock, horror and disgust in the realm of "What kind of monsters would do such a thing?" and "What kind of a world do we live in?" 

Today, most people didn't bother to ask. They ceased to ask these questions that prove to be counterproductive and instead their instinct was to help, to do something. To answer one of the questions above, we live in the real world. A world that has never been devoid of tragedy, horror and villains. And it is tempting to focus on the villains because we cannot comprehend what would possess someone to do this. We, with our golden hearts, who would rather create and heal than destroy and break. It's moot trying to rationalize the actions of such cancerous psychopaths. Some things are beyond comprehension. 

I think the most important thing is to show them that they can't so easily break us. We may bend and get shook up, but we mustn't break. No matter how far removed we are personally from these incidents, we should take the perspective that if it affects one of us, it affects us all. We need to reach out to our neighbors and help strengthen them so they feel less like victims and more like warriors. I believe that if we rally together in this way, then, and only then, will these perpetrators learn to fear us rather than us loving in constant fear of them. They will want to shake and rattle us. Let them shake and rattle us, but let us not stir or stumble.  Let us stand firmly as though our feet are nailed to the ground. Let them know that they can stand with us or against us, but it is in their best interest to stand with us because together, we are a force. Together, you really don't want to piss us off.  

Today, I heard the voices of people who have had enough. Who know there is more to come and are willing to fight and start focusing on the positive in order to make the negative feel more insignificant. Today, I saw the faces of people who did not hesitate to lend a hand in any way they could, who did not let their shock keep them on the sidelines. Today, everyone was on the front lines, and although I still feel a heaviness in my heart, I still retain faith in humanity.

We live in the real world. We can say all we want how we shouldn't have to teach our daughters how not to get raped and teach our sons how not to get themselves killed, but that's not how life works. In life, there are and will always be bad guys and good guys. Good guys are not those who refrain from delinquent behavior. They are those who risk danger to fight the good fight. Who deliberately try to restore the damage caused by the bad guys and bring them to justice. Teach your children that. This is the real world. It will get tough. You will cry. You will want to give up. But you won't. Because you're never alone in the fight. Because for every villain, there are multiple times as many helpers. 

The Fall: A Poem

Do you know what it's like to fall in love with something you essentially know nothing about? Like, you've already made up your mind in your head of what it will be like, so you've fooled yourself into thinking that's what it actually? I do that all the time.

I fall in love with things and people the way I want them to be. Before I've even experienced them for myself. Most of the time, I'm setting myself up for bitter disappointment upon the discovery that the fantasy does not synchronize with the reality. I was worried about that same disappointment setting in when I first moved to NYC three months ago.

Ever since I first moved to this country at age five, I coveted New York City. The Big Apple. The City of Dreams. My parents had visited NYC together before we officially made the big move and I was hoping they'd trake me straight there. They didn't. They took me to Maryland. But I never lost my passion for the city. I swore that I'd make it there one day.

New York City now isn't what it used to be. That's what people say. It used to be uninhibited. Audacious. Bombastic. And now it's lost its fire. Famously, in a Sex and the City Scene made epic by Kristen Johnston, she plays life-of-the-party-girl Lexi Featherston, who hasn't stopped even after the party is over. No one wants to do cocaine anymore. No one is fun anymore. "New York is over," she says, cigarette in hand, before falling to her death.

I'm sure NYC was an amazing place before recessions, AIDS and the Internet but it still possesses some of the very things that made it what it was: diversity, eccentricity, the ability to make things happen for yourself and pursue your dreams on a bigger scale than you'd be able to in Nowheresville, MD. And after nearly a decade of wanting it, I finally made it happen and it was the most terrifying thing ever.

I had been so eager to reach this goal that I hadn't thought about whether or not it was something that I still really wanted or was worth it. That didn't hit me until I was here, sitting along in a strange room and contemplating for the first time what I had done. But at the end of it all, I know my biggest regret would have been not taking this risk at all in the first place. These are the moments that make the most enchanting stories. Cheers to refusing to play it safe. Oh, and then I scribbled this poem onto some rusty piece of paper.

The Fall

Something uncontrollable stirred inside me,
like I was a teapot.
Water or hot lava perhaps
bubbled to the surface
and emanated furiously from my eyes, stinging.
Tears I had not cried in years.

Everything hit me all at once.
That I had accomplished what I set out to.
That everything would change from now on.
That I had to change with it or risk
being left behind.
That the kindness of people had led me
to this moment.
And that I was completely alone.

My comfort had been an enemy to my success,
so my discomfort would have to serve as its companion.
There is nothing so terrifying as uncertainty.
That leap of faith is no longer frightening
because of what lies below,
but because of the fact that
you can't retract once you've taken it.
There is nothing left but the landing.

So taken aback was I by the intensity
of my emotion that I forgot to be
thankful that I could feel again.
That I was bold enough to risk the pain
of crashing.
And so, if my landing is rough, I hope I have
the strength left in me to do it all over again.
And if my landing is smooth, I hope
to never forget the rush of the fall.

-Maryline

Three-Minute Shower Challenge CONCLUSION

I completely forgot that I had documented my three-minute shower challenge here and turned my experiences into an article for Grid Magazine, Philly's sustainable living publication. Here is the link to the original article on Grid's site, in case you can't see it below. I highly recommend checking out the publication itself, too. Enjoy!

Dispatch: Money Down the Drain - How I learned to say goodbye to half-hour showers.

FRIDAY, JULY 1, 2011 AT 3:23PM

Story by Maryline Dossou | Illustration by Kirsten Harper

I distinctly recall my sister pulling back the shower curtain and telling me that my dad was seconds from exploding. I was in elementary school and had developed a habit of falling asleep in the shower every morning—staying in there for easily half an hour. I used to stay up all night knowing I could get some extra sleep in the shower. I’ve never been a morning person, so I switched to taking nighttime showers. That worked until I got to college.

My best friend (and roommate) would blast music while in the shower, and I always found that to be weird. One day, while innocently recording her singing in the shower, I was intrigued by how much fun she seemed to be having and decided to try it out for myself. I created a shower playlist and went to town. What began as harmless fun soon turned into a wasteful, careless, time-consuming habit.

I’d stay in until my skin got so pruned, it was almost numb. There was nothing like washing off days of classes, work, gym, activities and internships with an R&R party for one.

Right around Earth Day this year I heard that the online magazine Her Campus (to which I contribute, hercampus.com) was partnering with the Body Shop to encourage girls to take daily three-minute showers for two weeks and blog about it. As if the world had caught on to my dirty secret, I was also bombarded with shower facts from green advocates around campus—like that for every minute the shower runs, we waste, on average, one gallon of water. It seemed as good a time as any to change my habits, so I started my own two-week, three-minute shower challenge.

It was awful. I felt like a lifelong smoker who had quit cold turkey. How am I going to shave? How could I possibly be clean? Will my life retain any meaning? Questions swam through my mind. I timed my showers using three-minute songs, counting the days until I could return to my beloved routine.

One week in, curled in the fetal position in bed, I tried to find meaning in this torture. Was I doing this to learn a lesson, or simply to say I’d completed a “green” challenge? The latter seemed like a poor reason.
Then I started to see the light. I learned not to waste time just standing around under the spray, and how to shave in the sink. I also realized (and I’m very embarrassed to admit this) that not only did I spend a long time in the shower; I kept it running for a long time before I even got in. Often, I would be on the phone for an hour at a time with the shower on blast. Then I’d get in for 25 minutes.

Today, I’ve turned it around, but it’s still a daily struggle—I’m a recovering shower-holic, after all. But I’ve managed to cut my shower time down to about 10 to 12 minutes, and I’m pretty happy with the progress that I’ve made. It probably all seems pretty dramatic, but, sadly, the issue of water waste was never really addressed in my world until I got to college. My schools didn’t consider it a priority and my parents were unaware of the damage I was causing because, as renters, they didn’t have to worry about the water bill. Many people don’t concern themselves and their children with these issues because it doesn’t affect them directly. Luckily, it’s never too late to recognize our faults and gradually work through them. Who knows? Maybe—maybe—one day I can upgrade to taking under-two-minute Navy showers.

Maryline A. Dossou is a senior in Temple University’s Journalism department. Read her work for Her Campus at hercampus.com/maryline-dossou.

gridphilly | 1 Comment | Share Article | #028 July 2011

tagged Dispatch, Maryline Dossou, conservation, water

Dying Young and I'm Playing Hard

"I'm not old. I still have my legs, my force, and my spirit by God's grace. And I use them everyday. So I'll never be old."

That's what my dad just said to me on the phone. He turned 53 today. He said as long as you live

He's actually pretty hot.

young, you'll never be old. And those who have fully functioning bodies and minds but are too lazy to use them are the old ones. I've always admired that about my father. We've had a difficult relationship and differences that run deeper than I can even scratch the surface of in a blog post (or care to, at that), but he's always possessed certain qualities that I find refreshing.

He looks at life with such a youthful, if at times naive, alacrity. Everything is an adventure waiting to be had, new territory waiting to be explored and new experiences waiting to be memories. He lives life hard, with passion. He's more active and engaged than most men I've met half his age and can probably even still drink them under the table. He laughs hard, parties hard and spends every dime he makes trying to ensure that he never lives a dull moment.

In that sense, he's the complete opposite of my mother. She plays by the rules, never daring to go where she's told not to go. She keeps to herself and only ever does what she has to do, as opposed to what she wants to do. And yet, for a split second, sometime decades ago, they saw something in each other that perhaps they wanted to see in themselves. In my father, my mother probably saw a spontaneity she secretly longed to have. And in her, he saw an impressive and awe-inspiring level of self-mastery.

And they came together and bore a Libra; a balance.  A perfect coalescence of yin and yang. I like to think I'm the perfect balance of their opposing personalities, but I'm not. Not yet. I've struggled all my life with the two extremes. On the one hand, being too unhinged and unpredictable like father and on the other, too reclusive and inhibited like my mother. I've learned to tone down the wild side of myself but still struggle to ignite a fire in the tamer side.

"No one ever excused his way to success."

But my father is right. I've been out running and seen people three times my age pass me. I've heard people old enough to be my parents make exciting plans for the weekend while mine consisted of doing laundry and catching up on reality television. Life is for those who realize how much it's worth living. it only asks one thing from us and that is effort. We can sit around all day expecting our goals to be miraculously met, but that's not how life works. We have to get up and earn it. We have to take the initiative and stop putting things off. We have to go out and engage in the world, or as Chbosky would say, "participate." That's the only way to ever truly avoid getting old.

Oh, and happy birthday daddy...ya old fart.

The Crisis: What Do I Stand For?

Wow, time's a bitch. It felt like just yesterday I posted here, yet it's telling me I haven't written a blog post since December 2011.

It also feels like just yesterday I moved into my dorm room freshman year of college. I remember how nervous I was, how I couldn't believe I had made it to university. A good one at that, on a partial academic scholarship. See, I'm the first in my family to accomplish this, so it means a lot. It wasn't written in the stars for someone like me, but somehow it was.

And on the first night, after my family left from helping me get nestled in, I sat outside my dorm on a bench. I sat there at 3am alone, listening to the Beatles and looking up at the sky, taking in every single element around me. The cool August night air, the drunken chatter of eager incoming freshman, and the bustle of Broad Street mixing magically with the music in my headphones.

That was the first and last time I got to savor it. I had no idea how quickly the next few years would pass by. All I knew was how badly I needed to experience this: college. A sort of halfway house between living under my mother's suffocating thumb and the big, bad real world that eventually awaited me.

What I didn't know was how real that world would be. You think you've got the timeline of your life all figured out and then you realize one day that it's never been yours to determine. Sure, you can be the master of your fate, but only to a certain degree. Someone else has mapped out your life for you and you have no choice but to take the blows as it comes. Your part is to figure out how to react to the blows. I just graduated college. Three months ago. Cum Laude. With a job lined up. I was on top of the world, right?

Not exactly. I had never been more miserable or cried more in my life. This was it. I was supposed to be ecstatic. Everything was supposed to be different; I would move to New York City and become the woman I've always wanted to be. All my hard work would pay off. Everything would fall into place. Everyone seemed to agree: my family, friends, colleagues and professors. With all I've accomplished, they said, there was no way I wouldn't have my dream job and be living large. Well, I'm jobless on my sister's couch, still freelancing and still looking for a full-time job.

But I'm okay with that.

Let me go back and explain. I was offered a spot in a prestigious teaching program in New York City and took it, feeling lucky just to have been given the opportunity. I thought I would teach, freelance on the side, leave the program eventually and begin working full-time at a magazine in New York. See, ever since I was a kid, when I first stepped foot in this country, I dreamed of New York City, but never made it past Silver Spring, Maryland until I got halfway there at Temple.

But the teaching program proved to be more effort than I was willing to give it and, after many heart-to-hearts and tears and anxiety, contemplation and meditation, I quit before the first day. It was nearly mid-June and I had just joined the job hunt. The more time passed, the more anxious I became to find a job. There was no way I was going back to living under my mother's aforementioned suffocating thumb.

Watching my friends and peers get full time jobs, although I'm happy for them, I do not envy them. Many of them have fallen victim to the trap: mundane jobs that could mean less to them, jobs they undertake to avoid the stigma of "unemployed" and to pay back the student loans that got them in their position in the first place.

College is over now. Our bubble is burst and we're left trying to figure out how to adjust to the alien sensations that are surrounding us. No longer will our best friends be just down the hall or down the street. Gone are the days of seemingly endless resources and helping hands right around the corner. We've spread out all over the country, all over the world, and some of us are in new scary places alone.

But I hope we all eventually find what makes us happy and refuse to settle for anything less. I hope we always remember what we stand for and the legacy we want to pass on to future generations. And I hope we never forget the remarkably gratifying outcomes that can arise from working hard and keeping your fingers crossed.

I realize that I'm doing the right thing for me. I could choose to work with some big Fortune 500 company and be slotted into some generic position, but I won't. I'm staying true to myself and going after places that I want to be at. I may be shooting for the stars and it may prolong my search, but to me, the stars have never seemed that far away, anyway. Just a hop, skip and a leap of faith.

An Education

My title may have swayed your mind into thinking that this post is related to the movie, but it's actually about education. I've been seriously looking into Teach for America the past couple of months and it may have been because of my proximity to the Philadelphia education system. Since discovering something other than the adequate education I received growing up, it's been an issue that I've become more and more passionate about, leading to countless discussions and debates relating to the topic.

Today I had yet another discussion (albeit an accidental one) regarding education. This time, the discussion centered around a comment I made about education being free. Apparently, my counterpart had the idea that education is something that can only be paid for. I drew this conclusion by his statement that he was giving himself a free education by researching things online. I responded to this by asserting that most education is already free. He said he would need to research that and I told him that my point exactly is that not everything can be researched.

Some things you just have to experience to fully understand. I found myself explaining that the meaning of education is the acquiring of knowledge. Nowhere does it say that education must be paid for, therefore you can't refer to learning as getting "free" education. Anytime you're learning something, you're getting an education, regardless of whether or not it's free.

I've known plenty of people who didn't go to college but are still very smart and very successful. There are people who learn from the streets, from hard life experiences (see Slumdog Millionaire) or by simply being curious minds who thirst for knowledge on their own terms.

This just goes to show that you can take your education beyond the classroom, deeper. You're not limited to whatever reading your professor assigns you. You have the ability to seek out information for yourself, be it in a textbook at your local library or on Google. The Internet is literally knowledge at our fingertips, though most would rather spend it twatching or Facebook stalking.

Be a thinker. Be your own thinker. Share what you know, learn what you can, open your mind. xoxo

I Swear I Always Fall for Your Type

       Drake said it best in his sleeper hit, "Same Mistakes" aka "Fall for Your Type." Love is difficult because you want it so bad that you fall into certain traps. Some people settle. Let it be known in this moment that I am not one of those people. But I suppose I can understand why that is. In the pursuit of love, we tend create our ideal scenarios in our heads and expect things to play out in real life exactly the way they do in our fantasies. These people focus more on the circumstances of falling in love than the person they fall for.

      The other group of people do the exact opposite. We fall victim to is narrowly defining a "type." This is the guy/girl that fits all of our, usually vapid and pointless, criteria. We take pieces of different people and construct this "ideal" person, and we refuse to settle for anything less. Or we prioritize all the wrong qualities to begin with. We'd rather have him look like Ryan Gosling than be a complete gentleman. I'm no better. I'm a Libra and therefore consumed by my vanity. As much as I hate to admit it, looks mean so much to me. And it's not just the guy's looks but how he wears it, how he carries it.

      While my definition of good-looking is not one-dimensional, I do have a tendency to, every now and then, want what every other girl wants. This guy will be the heartthrob, the guy that girls do stupid shit for. The guy that knows how hot he is but will never actually admit that he does, thus leading you to think that he's so humble and sweet. But you can't hold on to this guy. He'll never belong to you. He doesn't belong to anyone. So after he's swept through your life like a hurricane and left his mark, you're left shaking your head, thinking to yourself exactly what Drake says in his song. But you do it all over again, don't you? Stop.

3-Minute Shower Challenge: Day 14

     It's over. It's really over. But I'm left wondering: "What now?" Sometime before this journey began, it never occurred to me that this would be a lifestyle change. I never thought about what it would be like afterward.  But somewhere along the way, as I miserably counted down the days until the torture was over, a thought crept in my mind that I couldn't be doing this for nothing. I couldn't spend two of the most crucial weeks of my college career cutting out something that abnormally meant so much to me. Otherwise, I would have wasted my time and yours.

     So maybe what's next is finding a happy medium. Looking back, I'm appalled by how much water I've wasted over the years. But believe me when I say: it is physically and scientifically  impossible to take 3-minute showers for the rest of your life. Admirable, yes, but there's something morally corrupt about it in the end. So what I really want to do next is find a reasonable shower time. I'll have to do some digging to find a satisfactory answer, but I'm sure I can find someway to keep me happy and still be respectful to the environment. I'll keep you guys posted.

     So I ended this thing off with a bang. One of my favorite Disney movies growing up was Mulan. This movie meant a lot to me for several reasons. It was awesome to see a Disney movie moving beyond the norm and speaking to topics such as Asian culture and male impersonation. Also, it was the first time I realized my love for Asian men. Shang was a cartoon, yes, but that doesn't make him any less of a man. I was putty in his hands when he vowed to make men out of the gentlemen at the camp in the song "I'll Make a Man Out of You." Oh, you know you love it, too.