Political Wishlist

No matter which Democrat gets behind the reins of the White House, the next four years will be a time for change in political appointments--judges, cabinet members, foriegn ambassadors, secretaries to the ----. I am hopeful. I am also wishful. Here are some of my greatest wishes:

Suze Orman to head the Federal Reserve, explode credit card rackets and bring the US out of debt in 5 years or less.

Oprah appointed as new FEMA chairwoman. Her Angel's Network makes homelessness a thing of the past, finishes rebuilding New Orleans in six months and deputizes middle-aged homemakers everywhere to be first responders during disaster conditions.

Angelina Jolie takes over as the US's G8 leadership position, partners with Bill & Melinda Gates to stop the spread of malaria, lower AIDS transmition rates and provide vaccines and medication to poor countries.

Madeliene Albright for Secretary of State. 'Nough said.

Herbie Hancock as Secretary of Education--renews all Arts and Music funding to public education ($$ available thanks to Suze, of course) as well as emphasizing the Sciences.

Gloria Steinem put in charge of National Defense. (Oh, shush. She's brilliant.)



*sigh* It'll never happen...but maybe? This is proof that I'm not a complete pessimist. For proof that I am, click on the cartoon and read the full post. Yes, I really had that dream. It still haunts me.

I can't...I have to wash my hair

I washed my hair last night. It is, of course, still damp.

People have been in the habit of asking me "How long did it take you to get your hair like that?" for quite some time. I've always answered with another "How long..." based question: "Oh, I've had it this way for about 5 years."

Both of us usually walk away a bit unsatisfied with the exchange.

Last week, a woman stopped me in the supplements section of the grocery store to ask: "How long did it take you..." The lightbulb went on--they're assuming I just let these happen. As if I were lucky enough to be Jamaican and these 6 winters in Olympia have just bleached me out.

I answered her, "Well, I got them in in about a day and it took around six months for them to tighten."

"You mean," she said, "that you didn't just let them happen?"

I laughed a little. "No. I'd look like a filthy hippy if I did that."

She looked a little relieved. "My daughter, she wants those. She thinks she can just let them happen."

"Well, yes. Lots of people think that. Unless you have increadibly thick, coarse and textured hair, you cannot just let dreadlocks happen. You'll look like you have hairballs glued to your scalp."

That made her laugh. We talked about the websites that help we melanin-challenged folks to acheive evenly sized, healthy dreadlocks--we even talked about which cultures, historically, have worn dreadlocks and why. We walked all the way to the checkout lanes and then parted ways.

I'd ask where this myth came from, but I suspect it has something to do with the feel-good PC dogma of color blindness, the equality of all people and the New Age desire to "get back to [our] roots." Not that I haven't been accused of stealing African heritage--as though I were The Grinch That Stole Kwanza--but as someone with several times the hair of the average white woman, I feel I have a right to do what I can with it. I agree that a less than pure motivation is no doubt at the root of some cauco-pasty desires to wear dreads or mumus or hiratchi sandals and shell necklaces. The kids out here want to piss off their parents, bathe a little less often and feel like a Stevie Nicks groupie. Carefully grooming in well-shaped dreads is not part of that mystique.

So I wash my hair every week or so, oil my scalp, tighten, powder and wax. My hair is still damp. Thankfully, it's Monday and my day off, so I can stay in and let it dry.

Now, I have a logo to design for The City of Tacoma's Bike Month. My life as an artist-for-hire begins!

Sunday in the Beauty Salon

After a complete crash-and-burn experience with conventional corporate advancement (flunky to manager in four months flat) I am currently experimenting with doing nothing at all and getting paid for it.

I don't do nothing, exactly. I answer the phone and schedule appointments and check people out after their appointments. I sell shampoo and skin products. I put makeup on people who don't want to look like they're wearing makeup. It isn't, as they say, exactly brain surgery. At least I can read at work.

Today is the second Sunday I've worked, giving the other receptionist a much-needed day off; she works two jobs, six days a week. Today I get paid hourly to gossip, read my book, check up on the news and, at the end of it all, do a load of laundry, clean out the color brushes, count the till and go home.

And yet I am dissatisfied. My brain hasn't seen much action lately. As I've always felt when long in the exclusive company of men, being in the salon atmosphere where 95% of our staff and 99% of our clients are female, I'm getting dumb.

In my more conemplative moments, I've started a theory that the two sexes and inherent (whether physical or socially derived) differences there between are essential for social progress. That's vague and more or less a "yeah, I know" statement, but just as people of disparate personalities push our buttons and keep us on our toes, the company of a strange and foreign body is antagonism of an entirely different kind. Biologically, this has been proven--pheremones, reproduction, etc. However, what of academics? I can't help but wonder if the surge of scientific, medical and theoretical breakthroughs of the last century and a half aren't so much due to humanity's innate velocity but to the gradual education and inclusion of women in academia, worldwide.

And I've done it to myself again. Inside a voice whines: "I wanna go to grad school...."

Yesterday a woman told me I should be a math teacher. I had just successfully explained to her in 30 seconds what even college-level math never had: how to figure out a tip. I'm not sure if that's adequate reference to get me a teaching job, but I'd do it in a second if not for the going-in-to-debt issue.

In case anyone reading this doesn't already know: Move the decimal point one number/interger/space to the left, then multiply by two. That's 20%. For you stingy types, divide by two and add the result to your first number, that's 15%.