Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

image from juliusboatwright.com

I am a very colorful person.  That could describe my artistic nature but it also extends to my hair color.  My natural hair color, well when I was younger, was dark brown. Now there's quite a bit of grey under this light brown hair.

Now my boldness does not extend to blues, purples, greens, etc. But I do not judge those who have such adventurous natures.  Black, brown, red and blond are all the colors I need to express myself.  If I want to wear any other color, that's what hats are for.

Over the years people have said that African American women should stick with their natural hair colors.  HA!! I wonder how many of those same people wash the gray right out of their hair?  It's also been said that big women should stick to dark colors because they make them look smaller. Double HA!! The only thing that will make me look smaller is pushing away from the dinner table.

Have you ever did something that was considered out of the ordinary? Did it make you feel uncomfortable?

Wearing White After Labor Day

My friend, Dorothy, and I were walking down the aisle at work when we ran into two other coworkers.  Ms. Paulette was decked out in her usual attire--all purple everything.  The lady that was with her, whose name I don't know, had on an all white outfit.  Dorothy told the lady in white that she looked nice and she responded, "Thanks.  I figured I'd go ahead and wear it one last time."  I smiled and nodded but I was thinking, huh?  The outfit didn't look like it was too little and about to burst at the seams so what was she talking about.

As Dorothy and I walked away, it finally dawned on me what the lady in white meant.  The Labor Day weekend is fast approaching and she wanted to wear her outfit before it became taboo to do so.

For the rest of the day I wondered about the "don't wear white after Labor Day" tradition.  I even asked some of my other co-workers what the big deal was.  I mean I had heard about it all my life but I didn't take it very seriously.  Heck my grandmother forbade me to wear red because she said it was the devil or Jezebel-like or something.  (She would smack me with her cane if she could see this red fro on my head, but I digress...)

I asked Sandra, who sits in the cubicle across from me, her opinion about the issue.  She said that since they make white winter clothes, including a leather white skirt set that a friend of hers has, she didn't see anything wrong with wearing white or pastels during the fall and winter months.

Three other female coworkers said that they didn't know where the tradition originated but they were always taught that it was safe to wear off-white, cream, and winter white (whatever that means), just not plain white.

I sat down and continued to work but the notion wouldn't stop nagging at me until I made up my mind to write this blog post.

Last year, I asked a young lady on Twitter about this "no white" thing.  I can't remember her exact words but I do remember feeling kind of dumb and backwoods-ish after she finished her spiel.

Sandra told me to just Google it so I did and found a number of sites that gave me a lot more info than I bargained for.  It talked about people wearing white during the summer to keep cool but not in the winter because it wouldn't keep them warm enough.  They also mentioned that they didn't want to mess up their white duds during the rainy and sometimes muddy months.  As I continued to read, I happened across another reason.  Back in the day, early 20th century, middle and upper class people used the "rule" to differentiate themselves from the poor underprivileged souls who weren't worthy of being in their hoity-toity presence if they didn't know about the only wearing white between the beginning of spring and Labor Day thing-a-ma-jig.  This had to do with knowing which fork goes with which dish too but I don't get that either. *shrug*

This all sounds like a bunch of bull... spit to me.

Personally, I wear any color at any time as long as its clean and not so tight I have to hold my breath most of the day to keep from bursting it wide open.  But hey, that's me.

What are your views?

Are you for or against wearing white after Labor Day?

Proofreading is the Key

After reading Julie's (@WritingSpirit) blog post about keeping the way Facebook posts links in mind when writing opening paragraphs for your blog, I took a look at mine to see what it looked like.

There are two things wrong with this link. First of all, the comment, "Please forgive the formatting" was written a little after 1:00 am, when I was very sleepy. I wanted to make sure my post could be read at the top of the morning for Short Story Saturday before I went to bed. After tinkering with the HTML coding, I have corrected the formatting issue. Also, there's a misspelled word in the link. "The reports were off and some of the clients had been calling saying significant somes..." This should be sums not somes. This has been since corrected but just because I have changed the blog itself, the link on Facebook is still the way it was when I first uploaded the post. The lesson I learned from this is that I will definitely have to do a better job of proofreading before I hit the publish button.

Now, I'm guessing this could be the reason why I used to get so many rejection letters when I was actively submitting short stories and poems for publication. Who wants to publish someone who can't even write a single paragraph without a misspelling? I wouldn't if I were the publisher.

Please be careful how you send things out in the world, as they say, you only get one try to make a first impression.

In response to--Shine Online Blogging Tip 2

Dude, Pull Your Pants Up

What's the deal with these dudes walking around with their pants hanging of their butts. Is that suppose to be attractive? And if so, to whom? I've never heard a girl say, "I sure like how his jeans sag, girl. That is so sexy."

One guy told me that sagging is what they do best. I'm sure he was joking but GET REAL! If that is supposed to be a talent, these guys have alot more issues than I gave them credit for. When a guy approaches me, I do a quick once over just to see how he's looking. Nice hair cut or neat-looking braids-check. Nice smile, not alot of gold teeth-check. Clean t-shirt or polo shirt-check. Nice jeans, Sean Jean maybe uh oh-STEP AWAY, STEP AWAY, DRAWERS SHOWING, DRAWERS SHOWING. After that I just smile and walk away.

That is not the type of example I want for my son. And it is definitely not the type of man I want to be seen ANYWHERE with.