The Fro Chronicles: Part 1

It's week one of wearing my hair in it's natural state. Long gone are the days of my addiction to the thick, white substance known affectionately to many as "the creamy crack." I've been clean, now, for a few years. But transitioning from chemically straightened proto-hair to thick, luxurious African bush is not an easy one... and unlike the brave brown beauties who lop it all off and start from scratch... I just grew it out a little at a time, compensating with death combs (or "straightening combs", as some call them), and evil hot pieces of metal and ceramic that burn the crap out of your fingers and head and neck, but leave you with beautiful silky tresses that rival Beyonce's. I thought wearing an afro would be a bit easier for the summer. After all, my hair grows out of the scalp like that, right? It should just fall in place, like Little Michael Jackson's back in the 1970s.

Growing the fro also automatically gives you the cool, 70s stoic look.

Then I actually tried it. My hair, when attempting to wear a fro, does one of two things. It either 1) flops around defiantly, laughing at my futile attempts to get it to be perfect and lovely like the girls in the commercials, refusing to curl at all in some places, and taking on the identity of Shirley Temple in others, while holding a base of Little MJ, and a constant frizz that never works for anyone ever, or 2) grows to the height of the Himalayas, and the girth of Precious, and takes over my entire body, causing me to look like Cousin It's SoulSista. Previously, if I wanted to wear any type of natural style at all, I had to apply entire cartons of conditioner while wet, scrunch feverishly, and let it air dry. This time, I looked up an afro tutorial on the web, and copied the instructions word for word. A bit of shaking and diffusing, and ... another entire carton of conditioner, and I was out the door. Finally. With my pseudo-fro that actually sort of looked like a fro, this time.

Going out in public with my massive head full of ringlets for the first time was an interesting experience... and completely opposite from what you'd expect. People stare. They stare hard. They stare as if they're worried that, by osmosis, some of your blackness will rub off onto them. They stare as if they've entered a twilight zone of 1970s Black Panther rallies and funk concerts. Then there are those that comment, and compliment, and... it almost seems like they feel more comfortable talking to you, thank your average, everyday negro. Like your afro symbolizes that you're peaceful, and natural, and you probably smoke ganja and live out of a van or something. I call it the "Hippie Effect."

Peace, love, and afro sheen, man.

Having an afro is an automatic invitation to be gawked at all day everywhere you go. You've also now just become an ambassador for blackness, so expect a lot of diplomats from other races to extend the olive branch to you, and let you know just how much they love afros and think it's so beautiful and what not, and ask a million questions about shampoo and ... blackocity or whatever. Whether or not you have an opinion on the subject of you blackness, you will be prompted with a wide array of questions concerning this subject, because wearing an afro is the best possible way in the world to say "yup... I'm black!"

But it's so worth it. I couldn't be more in love with my afro. Nothing's bad about it, at all, not a thing... except the fact that I'm having to relearn how to style my hair. But, if it means I get to be a cool, natural beauty like my afro icon, Solange Knowles, it's worth googling all the tutorials... and buying all the vats of conditioner that I can. Because this...

... is just the bees knees.

Tommy Lee Jones: I'm on to you.

This is Tommy Lee Jones.

He is an actor, known for such films as some cheesy popcorn flick about old people that have no home country or something (gypsies?), and the celebrated Oscar winning film and sequel Men In Black & Men In Black II(about alien gypsies.). Yes, Tommy Lee Jones is a hero, beloved by men, women, and gypsies of all ages and species, a legend that will surely go down in history as the greatest alien loving bastard of all time. But what most of you don't know is that Tommy Lee Jones has a secret. Not only is he an alien regulating, old man country finding, hero of the gypsies. No, I've discovered another awesome, yet super secret career that Jones has managed to hide from the masses for all this time... mostly because he has to, or else people would've began to notice that there are two of him. The biggest secret of all is that "Tommy Lee Jones" is not his real name. What most people don't realize is that the "Tommy Lee Jones" we know today is just an identity invented by actor and future time traveler Josh Hartnett.

Also Tommy Lee Jones.

This is clearly the same person. In the future, Josh Hartnett will be invited by the US Government to participate in a super secret government project called "OSCAR" or Operation Send Covert Actors in Reverse. The actors selected for this mission will then travel back in time and assume new identities as other, older actors, and begin acting as this new actor as part of an experiment on how altering the time space continuum affects future events. So future Josh Hartnett was given a simple name that only a man who was born in the 1940s could have, and an entire back story was created for this fictitious person that was invented. The future US Government infiltrated the current US Government, creating documents and evidence that "Tommy Lee Jones" has existed since 1946.

With a back story like Tommy Lee Jones', I don't see how anyone could have believed that he is a real person. We're supposed to believe that Jones attended Harvard, and lived in a dorm across the hall from who would later become Vice President Al Gore. He then later roomed with Gore, and Bob Somerby, who would later become the editor of the Daily Howler. He just happened to play on Harvard's undefeated 1968 varsity football team, in a game lauded as the most famous in Ivy League history. Oh, come on. It just sounds like Josh Hartnett put together a list of things he'd want to include in his awesome life and tossed them on the pile.

No. I'm on to you, Tommy Lee Jones. I know who you are and I know where you're from, and I haven't figured it all out, yet, but I will. Oh, I will. What evil scheme have you and the US Government cooked up? What top secret assassination plot is being set in place? Or are you rescuing the world from some future attack that we have yet to hear about? Is that why you filmed the Men In Blacks? Those movies are prophetic, aren't they, Tommy Lee Jones?!

Most importantly: what does this mean for Edgar?!

... I can't blame current Josh Hartnett for this time travel plot, because he has no idea that this is happening, yet. Or, is going to happen, in his case. But if anyone knows Josh Hartnett, tell him to take a good, long look at Tommy Lee Jones, because that is what he is going to look like in the future. Because that is the future him. Oh, and tell him to maybe not date Tommy Lee Jones' daughter or anything, because that would just be wrong.

Even wronger than this. And that's pretty wrong.

When did I become an adult, exactly?

There's this place called the future. When you're a kid, you get to invent all types of cool futures with all types of cool jobs and interesting happenings, and cool dream romances and houses in Narnia, and for you, it's totally possible, because you're just a kid, and nothing in your life has started yet, and everything in your life is ahead of you.

The world is their oyster. Also, Jackie Chan.

But when you're an adult, you already live in the future. Sure, new things may happen, and you might still get a cool job, maybe a dream romance, but in order to not go insane, you have to have more practical expectations. Maybe instead of the house in Narnia, you can settle for a house in Austin. Or your mom's basement. Let's just be realistic, here.

And at some point, you have to let go of your dream of being Indiana Jones, and discovering the elusive velociterityranigigantisaurus raptor and making a gazillion dollars and living in a mansion and never having to work again. (That's... not possible, right?) But the weird thing about becoming an adult is that it doesn't develop slowly over time, giving you just enough time to prepare for it. It happens pretty much suddenly. Sure, in most cases, they give you four years between high school and NEVERENDINGSUCKTASTIC real life, often called "college" and sometimes called "university" if you're from Australia or something (in which case, why are you even reading this? Australians don't live in real life, they live in Narnia. Which means you're already living the dream. Stop being unfair, Australians!), but during those four years, you feel less like an adult, and more like a kid that someone handed freedom too. You think all you get to do is watch anime and eat pizza for breakfast, and drink beer at 4AM, and stay up for three days straight, and WHOO! nobody can tell you not to! But then college ends, and all of a sudden you're an adult.

Pictured: responsible adults being responsible.

Ask just about any 23-year-old if they feel like an adult, and their answer will probably be "Hahahahah! What? ... Wait, did high school really end five years ago?" Ask any child if a 23-year-old is an adult, and they'll probably look at you like you're a crazy person and yell "STRANGER!", but if they don't they'll probably look at you like you're stupid and say "duh, stupid!" Which is why being a young adult is like living in some paradox where nothing make sense. Sometimes, I still have those mental restrictions on myself as if I were still a teenager. I know that when I was a teenager, if I sneaked out in the middle of the night to throw champagne-filled water balloons at unsuspecting pedestrians, my parents probably would've frowned upon that, so I don't do it. Even though it's what's popular with the kids right now. (I'm hip.) Then there are those moments when I get the notion that I'm an adult, and I can do whatever I want to do! I make all the necessary plans to move to Australia(Narnia?) to become a kangaroo farmer (they do that in Australia, I'm sure), but then I realize that there's just one small itsy bitsy problem. In order to do that, I need something called money.

Ah, money. When you're a teenager, it's the stuff that buys your snacks, and movie tickets, and puts gas in your old hooptie when you want to go hang out with your friends, that your parents just give you because that's what they're supposed to do, right? When you're an adult, sure, your parents might give you some money here and there, but because you no longer have teenager needs, the $20 your dad gave you on Monday really don't help with much. There's no more school lunch, and meal plans, so now you have to buy food. And you could live with the parentals forever, but that's just not cool (because life is like high school, and you need to be cool, even when you're an adult.), so you need to make money to pay rents and utilities and all of that fun stuff that you didn't even think about six months ago when you were still a kid. That way, people don't think you're a loser. And in order to have money, you have to have a job, which means you get to go somewhere where more people tell you what to do and yell at you. And that happens for the rest of forever. Until you die. Being an adult isn't absolute freedom where you can do whatever you want, and move to Austr-narnia, and be free or anything cool like that. It's where you have to work in order to not die, until you do die. (Yes, it's pointless, but everyone must do it.)

Because you must work for a living, and do that until you die, the world looks at you when you're somewhere between 16 and 23 and asks you to make a decision. "What stupid thing that you hate do you want to do for the rest of your life, Number 625338827?" If you're like me, you spent that entire time going "uhhh... oh! No, wait, ummm..... Ehhh.... Stuff?" It wasn't that I didn't have dreams. It was just that my dreams weren't practical enough, and good, responsible adults are always practical. I spent my entire college years worrying about picking a practical career, and then they were gone, and I was an adult, and the world said "too late! You'll either be a loser, or a desk-job loser. Pick one." I chose to be an artistic stuff loser.

And the best part about that is that I never have to be an adult! But I'm still working on how to turn artistic bs that nobody cares about into not-having-to-live-in-my-parents'-basement-forever... I'll let you know if I ever figure it out.

Why I like Asian men: Part. 1

Many of us in the "interracial" community are used to all of the questions that we get from the rest of "normal society."

"Why do you date white guys?"

"Do you hate your race?"

"Isn't he a little... not black?"

And my personal favorite:

"Why do you hate black people?!"

The questions get a bit more interesting when your desired is not only not black, but not white, either. Then, the questions become:

"Why do you date Asian guys?"

"Do you have some sort of Asian fetish?"

"Don't Asian guys have... tiny packages?"

"Do you want to be Asian?"

and...

"Why do you hate black people?!"

Which is a valid question, because, you know, dating someone who is not your race reflects that you clearly do not like your race. Unless you're, you know, white, and you date non-whites, in which case, you're just spreading some good ol' whiteness.

But, it will disappoint some readers to know that I neither hate being black or wish to spread my... good ol'... whiteness...

No, there are other reasons that I find myself drifting over to the yellow side time and again when it comes to love partners. Reasons that are so secret and sacred that sharing them is probably a violation of some super secret Blasian code somewhere... but I'm risking arrest by the Federal Agency of Black and Asian Relations just to share this with you. Brace yourself! Below is content so shocking, so interesting and amazing, that ... it might shock you!

1. Asian men are hot!

Once upon a time, I was a child. When I was a child, I soon became interested in boys, and males, and members of the opposite sex, and I started noticing that some of these male type people were... attractive. One of my first, earliest crushes on a male man type person was on, perhaps the most gorgeous of the male men type species to ever live, Bruce Lee.

Pictured: AJFHCSRTRW!

My dad, brothers, and I would watch countless hours of Bruce Lee films, and while my brothers were drooling over martial arts perfection (and breaking tables imitating that perfection), I was drooling over gorgeous Bruce Lee ab action. And muscles. And cool. And fine. And sexy. And... where was I? ... From that point, to the present day, Asian men have been at the top of my most-attractive list.

I know that most people have a different "Asian male stereotype" seared permanently in their heads.

And he does Calculus and delivers Chinese food from his dry cleaners.

But what burned into my head from a young age was "Oh my God, Rufio is so GORGEOUS!"

Badass Lost Boy Action.

2. Asian men are male men type people.

If there's any main reason that I am attracted to Asian men, it's because they fall into a unique category called "male." When Asian men are born, their parents are informed by doctors or midwives that their new child is male, it gets stamped on their birth certificate, and unless they decide otherwise later, they typically remain males and become men. When this happens, it makes them eligible to all female women type people who wish to mate and cohabitate with male men type people.

Pictured: male.

As a female who primarily wishes to mate and cohabitate with a male man type person, I find that Asian men tend to fit well into that category. Because they are male, I have a tendency to become attracted to them. I know, this is shocking stuff. Consider your mind blown.

3. I want to add more Blasians to the world.

I like racial mixing. I know, I know, it's blasphemous to admit that! We're all supposed to stick to our glorious... individual races... and be conveniently color coded so that people can tell what type of person we are when they look at us and stuff. But something amazing happens when you mix black people with Asian people. I don't mean to sound like Hitler, but Blasians are clearly a superior race. No, not because of the godlike abilities to do math, dance, and play sports, but because of the godlike ability to be ridiculously gorgeous. I mean, if hapas are the race of the future, then Blasians are the gods of the hapas.

Pictured: Venus.

That's also why there are so few Blasians, compared to other mixed race people. If blacks and Asians all over the world started procreating, we'd soon rule the world. There's a secret, that those in the Blasian community don't share too often, and I will share it with you, today (Risking assassination by the FABAR). Blasians are very similar to Super Saiyans. They possess powers and abilities that normal humans do not. One of their super secret Blasian powers is the power of extreme cuteness.

The cute is just to distract you from her world domination plot.

The other 474 powers that Blasians possess I could share with you, but then the Blasian ninjas hiding in your room right now will be forced to kill you.

These are only a few of the reasons that I find myself a part of the AMBW community, and don't soon plan to leave it. If I typed all 12,000 reasons, I'd be here for the next 1000 years, and then, well, I'd be really old. And unless science has advanced to the point where thousand-year-old women can still give birth to perfectly healthy super human offspring, I'd miss my opportunity to provide the world with Super Saiya- er... Blasian babies. And nobody wants that, do they?

Humble Beginnings

I began this post listing off all of the things that this blog is to be about, and rambling on and on about how you don't want to read it now, but you will. The truth is, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't, and you don't, and none of us do, and this is what this blog is about. It's about trying to figure out this cruel joke that the gods have played on us called life. In this blog, I hope to chronicle my many stumbles through my so-called "adulthood", and talk about all of the little topics that are important to me and what not. You may laugh, you may shake your head, you may become enlightened on a new subject, who really knows? Also, sarcasm. So, venture with me, if you will, into the world of a weird 20-something with a weird need to write long rants and articles about topics and what not.

Oh, the topics will be in the labels & tags & what nots. Also, other things that aren't there.