~*...becoming a dreadlock...*~

wow. these blog entries really take a long time for me to write, and because they take so long i don't update my blog that often. hell, i haven't even finished my burning man blog yet and i've been home over a month. so i'm going to try to update my blog more frequently, just not as detailed. my forum will be up soon, so you can tell me if you prefer these blog entries thick and juicy or short and sweet.

my friend genny arrived last night from wisconsin with her boyfriend jason and were staying at my place. i haven't seen genny since harvest festival last year.

it was so good to see her, and finally meet the man in her life. i met genny five years ago through the om community. its been a while since i've mentioned an om connection eh? five years ago, 11 omies, including genevieve and i, met up in vancouver and drove to bc kootenays to attend the shambalah festival. it was the beginning of many magical friendships for me.

today, i took genny and jason to kensington market. it was jason's first time in canada, so it was fun to take him to the most multicultural neighbourhood in the world. we stopped off at the roacharama and smoked a fattie at the hotbox cafe. yah, things are different up here in canada. pay your taxes, bundle up, and keep your stick on the ice eh?

we then met up with turtle and my friend lori for some happy hour dim sum at sky dragon in china town. this restaurant, at the corner of dundas and spadina on the top floor of the dragon center mall, was recommended to me by dreadmaster drew, the locktician responsible for my head of dreadlocks. it seems drew and dreadlocks would be theme for the next few daze. you'd think the dreadmaster would be an old jamaican with grey dreadlocks...but when i got my locks done on my bday last year, i was surprised to see that drew was a middle aged trini bwoy with a jerry curl.

after dim sum we headed back to my place where the process of turning genny into a dreadlock began. genny's very cute friend (also named jason) hooked up with us and was instrumental in the genny transformation. jason had recently got his dreadlocks twisted up by dreadmaster drew. they were nice, new, and short. junior dread ;) with instructions from dreadhead headquarters the two jason's and i began to transform the golden hair of miss genevieve into golden locks.

anyone who has dreadlocks knows the pain you have to go through to get your hair knotted up. backcombing your hair is a very painful process. but it is part of the transformation. you will never forget the pain you feel, or the experience. and every day that you look at your locks you are reminded that a story has been twisted up in each one.

i must give dreadmaster drew the props he deserves. he uses a special twisting/knotting method that he developed over the past 20 years of dreading hair. his locks are tight and most importantly he uses NO WAX! as we learned dreading genny's hair, backcombing alone does not make the lock tight. you need something to hold the dread together so that it locks up, thus wax. three daze later, genny's hair was finally ready to have the wax applied to it. yah, it took three days to backcomb all of her hair. at times she was in so much pain the backcombing had to stop. but in the end, daam she looked hawt. i realized why the wax was necessary to hold the lock together, and was pleasantly reminded why i chose drew to do my locks. the wax never leaves your hair, and makes your hair feel waxy.

then its time to start taking care of you hair. contrary to popular belief, dreads take a hell of a lot of work to lock up and require a lot of attention. but it is all worth it imho. welcome to the world of being a natty dread genny. i would post pikchaz, but my camera is still hosed :( so i'll leave you with an older pik of genny and i from five years ago, before we were dreadz ;)
- natty norm (=D)----