She wore scarlet begonias tucked into her curls

Consistently from the time I began attending UTS at age 12, my hair was never longer than a bit below chin length. During the spring I was 14, I got a really cool short haircut (it was exciting because literally people in every grade complimented me on it, and albeit UTS was small, but not that small) which I proceeded to ruin later that summer when I got it cut even shorter and more boy-like. That was a big mistake because my hairdresser made it too short on top so I always had so much hair sticking up. Luckily I grew it out that fall, but my hair continued along in a very boring, predictable pattern of fairly straight (even though I had curly hair as a little girl), not that exciting a shade of brown, and pretty short.

I moved to Berkeley with my usual chin length hair cut, and sometime during my first spring there, when I was 19 (one of my favourite numbers and ages!) I decided to grow it long. By that fall, it had already gotten fairly long. Sometimes I miss that fall, the one in which I grew my hair, met B., listened to the Strokes non-stop, and became best friends with L. While I was desperate for longer hair, she chopped her long golden hair off to above her chin. She cut hers to get at who she really was, while I grew mine in the hopes of discovering the same thing.

I knew I had made it hair wise (ah that sounds so cheesy but it's true!) when I was home in Toronto sometime during the fall of 2004. By that point I'd had long hair for over a year. I went to a bbq with some friends from high school and a girl I hadn't seen in two years asked me if I had gotten a perm. I was so happy to tell her that no, my hair naturally looked like that and my only explanation for why it hadn't looked perm-like in high school was that it was now much longer.

Later that same fall, L. and I went shopping for Halloween costumes at a few vintage stores along Telegraph in Berkeley. I decided to be Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany's and so I tried on this long black evening gown. L. and I stood in the change room looking at my reflection in the mirror and she told me that looking at me she was reminded of why she'd always wanted to be a brunette. I found (and find) this a bit odd (and of course also very flattering!) because L. has the most beautiful golden honey coloured hair in the world - the type of hair colour that is coveted the world over. But it was very sweet; and partly thanks to her I began to appreciate my dark shade of brown and definitely find it much more interesting and attractive than I did in high school.

The summer after I left Berkeley, I realized my hair - halfway down my back at least - was just too long. It was really hot that summer and by August, my hair felt permanently knotted and tangled. So I cut it pretty short, and ever since then I've gone back and forth between cutting it short and letting it grow. I get it layered a bit now and so I don't think it will ever grow as long as it was in Berkeley. But that's okay - it feels like that period of my life should be the really long hair days and so I don't mind that it'll never get that length again. For now I am happy with its decently long length. I think my ideal hair style would be long with curls. (My hair inspirations: a. the picture of the red headed woman below (except I'd have bangs). I like how her curls start near the top of her head; mine start lower down. And b. the blond hair woman at the top.) L.'s (a different one than above) wedding was last weekend, [side note: she was a lovely and absolutely gorgeous bride!] and I got to have my hair done. I decided to go with my hair pulled back, half up thing with the rest of it in long curl/ringlets. I really liked it a lot, and I'm glad I picked that because I wanted my hair pulled back like that. I think though, that maybe over winter break I'll go get my hair done and ask them to do it more like either the redhead or the blond below and above, just to see how it would like.

My hair and I are both big participants in the wavy versus curly debate. Which one better describes my hair? You'd think I'd be satisfied just saying I have wavy hair, particularly since both E. and E. and my aunt (whose name also starts with E. funny!) have all gotten perms just to have wavy hair. (And by the way, all their perms look amazing! Wavy hair is awesome! except when what you really want is curly hair...) But I'm not. My hair really lives firmly on the border between wavy and curly (although once in some emails B. and I were discussing wavy v. curly hair (his hair being decidedly wavy) and he wrote: "I always thought of your hair as pretty curly, but not too curly.") - some days it is so curly and some days so wavy and some days a mix of both. My favourite part about my hair now - and my strongest evidence that my hair is really curly, and not wavy - are the ringlets I frequently (although, much to my chagrin, not everyday) get. I even took a picture last Thursday specifically to post here and show what they look like, so look at it below. I have no idea why they are sometimes there and sometimes aren't, but I do wish I had them everyday. However in any event, I am just glad I have (sometimes) curly hair, and that I like my hair so much more than I did when I was a teenager.

In closing, here are the best ways (in my opinion) to make your hair curlier (provided your hair is either semi-curly or wavy to begin with): 1. go swimming the ocean and then let it dry without washing it first. This is guaranteed to give you lovely (in appearance, although your hair will feel very dry) salt water curls. 2. Use Rosemary Mint Aveda shampoo. I have tried so many different curly hair shampoos (Sunsilk, Herbal Essences, and even Aveda's Be Curly) and none of them have made my hair curlier than Aveda's Rosemary Mint. I first used it this summer because it was the shampoo in A. and L.'s guest bathroom in LA and I quickly fell in love because it made my hair so curly. However, the downside is that it is pretty expensive, so I've only bought it once since then. But I need to buy it again because it really does give me great curls. In fact, I think I'll go buy some this weekend.

Louisiana is for Vampires

I bought Twilight in May 2009 when I went on a field trip to the Book People bookstore in Austin with the class of the two grade 5 kids I tutored. Each kid got to choose a book at the store, and a lot of the girls were choosing later books in the Twilight saga. Having had Twilight recommended to me on a multiple occasions, I bought it. I then read the whole thing on a plane a few weeks later. I did thoroughly enjoy it, and I went on to read the rest of the saga (I love how it's called that...) that summer. But I have to admit I sort of wish my introduction to vampires had not come from Twilight. Sure, those books were mostly fun and entertaining to read, but there were a lot of annoying things too. More importantly, all the other vampire things I've read or watched since are so much better.

L. also read (and really liked!) Twilight, and she then recommended Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels (also called Southern Vampire mysteries because they are set in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. Side note: I have a magnet on my fridge that says Louisiana is for Vampires which I love.) which I have now read all of (except the most recent one which is still in hardcover) and which I love a lot. I don't think the Twilight books even come close to the Sookie books. A part of that stems from the reality that the majority of the Twilight books take place in high school and I find life/people/pretty much everything way more interesting once people are out of high school, and are living more adult lives. I also find it really interesting that the vampires in the Sookie books are 'out of the coffin' (the Japanese invented a synthetic blood called 'True blood' which sustains vampires, thus stopping them from having to drink humans' blood to stay alive and allowing them to be open about their true natures), because it brings up a lot of interesting issues surrounding vampires' acceptance (or lack thereof at times) in mainstream society. (So much of the Twilight saga seemed devoted to Bella discovering Edward was a vampire, and then having to keep that fact a secret from her parents/everyone else in the world.) Hands down the biggest reason why I love the Sookie books is because I love Sookie. All the books are first person Sookie and she is a wonderful person/narrative! She's really funny, smart, pretty, practical, brave, loyal, caring, understanding, and she loves reading. I like a lot of the other book characters too - particularly Eric, Pam, Amelia, and Claudine; all in all, they are very enjoyable and addictive reads.

The books and the TV show based on them, True Blood, are pretty different, and I actually like it better that way. The show only loosely follows the books (I think season 1 definitely followed the closest) in that it has multiple characters that either weren't in the books at all, or weren't developed in the books. So I now have a lot of characters that I really like from the show (namely Jessica!) that I have no book opinion about at all. It's also fun to be surprised so I like that the show has really differed from the books. True Blood has also done a lot of cool things with making current day comparisons between vampire rights and minority rights. The two main things I dislike about True Blood are how short its seasons are (12 episodes, only lasting from the end of June to the second week of September is not long enough!), and how thoroughly different (and worse) show Sookie is from book Sookie. Hardly any of the qualities that I listed above as loving about book Sookie exist in show Sookie. I find show Sookie impatient, selfish, self-absorbed, and way too concerned with whatever vampire she is currently dating to the neglect of her friends/family. Not liking Sookie puts a damper on the show. Fortunately though, unlike with the books in which Sookie, as the narrator, is the star, the show's many main characters and (perhaps too) many story lines means Sookie is not in every scene.

I think the prevalence of the internet has increased the popularity and ubiquity of tv shows. Back in the early to mid 1990s when I was obsessed with Beverly Hills 90210, I only ever really discussed it with friends. The internet didn't exist (or at least not for regular people) and the idea of going online to talk or read about a TV show would have been so totally foreign to me. Now, however, whenever I see a movie or watch a show that interests me, I love googling it and reading what other people have to say about it online. (I sometimes do that with books too, but usually I talk about books in person more.)

True Blood is the first show I've ever watched where I've gotten really into the analysis, and where I religiously follow vlogs or podcasts about the show. At the end of the third season, I found out about this blog talk radio program where two black women had a weekly show analyzing True Blood from a racial and feminist perspective called Talking True Blood at Merlotte's. I only listened to their episode for season 3's finale but I loved their analysis. They articulated a lot of what I thought about certain characters on the show, and it was fascinating to me to hear people engage with and be critical of a lot of the social aspects of the show. This past June when season 4 started, I discovered they had started up a regular website called Fangs for the Fantasy where the two women - now joined by one gay man - analyze lots of fantasy books and shows from a social justice perspective. I subscribed to their weekly podcast and absolutely loved listening to their assessment of the episode each week. I share all of their dislike of Sookie, and enjoyed both being made aware of other small things from each episode I had sometimes missed, and reflecting on the way the show sometimes does perpetuate negative stereotypes about minorities.

The one thing I can't get fully behind the Fangs for the Fantasy bloggers/podcasters is their negative opinion of Charlaine Harris. They really really don't like her, even though they keep reading the Sookie books, and have read some of her other books too. I like Charlaine Harris because I think the Sookie books are really great, fun, smart and interesting reads; and I also admire her after watching this interview she gave once in which she explained that writing the Sookie books was a conscious career move. She was getting a bit bored with writing mysteries and wanted to expand her readership, so decided to go into fantasy. I liked how she took control of her career, and has been so successful. I've read the first book of two of Charlaine Harris' other series: the Aurora Teagarden mysteries and the Lily Bard mysteries, and I've really liked both. But at the same time I've felt a bit guilty for doing so, particularly liking Aurora Teagarden, because the Fangs for the Fantasy people are so critical of it. In fairness, they particularly don't like the later books because they say there are very few minorities, and the ones that are present are often pretty obvious stereotypes. I haven't read enough of the books to know if I agree with everything they say, but I do think it enriches my own reading experience if I am aware of things like that. I am eager to read some vampire books by L.A. Banks who was a black writer and I am sure writes from a different perspective than Charlaine Harris.

The other True Blood commentary I made sure to watch each week was this vlog at a website called Camp Blood. M. told me about it at the beginning of season 3, and I've been watching the two men who make it ever since. Their vlog is a funny contrast from Fangs for the Fantasy as they are way way less critical of the show. Their vlog is funny, very silly, and doesn't take
the show - or themselves - very seriously at all.

The first time I lived alone, that September in my Hilgard apt, I remember joking with a friend that I needed to leave some garlic out to keep the vampires away. Vampires were something I knew nothing about (and was somewhat surprised when I discovered just how far back vampire fascination and vampire culture goes) and probably never imagined I'd ever know about. But I am very glad to have gotten into vampires over the last few years. I am excited that I now read another genre of books - fantasy - which I rarely touched before. There are so many fantasy books about vampires out there - next on my list are the Anita Blake vampire novels, the LA Banks ones, and finishing up the Blood books series by Tanya Huff (which takes place in Toronto in the early 1990s.) Fantasy has, actually and cheesily, through all its vampires, werevolves, telepaths, and shape shifters made me think about what it means to be human, and how humans, and what we do, appear odd/different to creatures like vampires. I may have many months to wait for True Blood to start up again but in the meantime I have many more vampire books to read.