hair down to there

some nights, while i'm losing sleep, i get to thinking about trivial matters but in a consuming way.  i'll have you know that i just spent about three hours googling about.  and still didn't find the answer i was looking for.

asking jeeves is worse.  what the hell does he care about the minimum length of caucasian hair needed to micro-braid?  i even tried more general terms.  it was not time wasted, because i learned lots.

go ahead, ask me anything about braids, micro-braids, etc.  just not the minimum length required.  i still am clueless regarding that one.

usually, when i get a hair up my butt and wanna do something different with my head, i go see a stylist before i make an appt.  i explain what i want and ask them if they can do that, to my head of hair.  i do this cuz folks tend to seriously underestimate the time it takes to do anything to my head.  this way they have no excuse and cannot claim that i mislead them in anyway.  cuz ya know, it's not like i came to ask them questions and left my head on my other set of shoulders.

over the years, i've done lots to my head.  hair-wise alone, i've sported everything from long sit-on-the-hair to clean-shaven scalp.  also, i've had various colors and perms.

awhile back, i had extensions braided in.  that was one of the more memorable hair-raising tales.  i won't go into all the details on that, at the moment.  suffice it to say that she ended up spending over twice as long as she thought she would (time-wise) and had to send out for extra packets of weavables several times.  in the end, she decided i would be the one and only time she'd ever try to mess with a white woman's head.  good decision, i thought.  it was a very unsatisfactory experience, complete with a wedding party and unhappy women with canceled appointments.

three states and several years later, i decided to try micro-braids (just my natural hair, no extensions added).  when i visited the stylist, i warned her that it would most likely take longer than she thinks and asked if we could do this during her non-working hours so that i didn't block her time for her regular appointments.  she agreed and so i drove over an hour to sit in her kitchen on super bowl sunday.  it was a much more pleasant experience and she was great.  we provided the entertainment when the game didn't hold the guys' attention.  after 6 or so hours, she ended up calling for reinforcements.  her mom and her aunt and her sister and she ended up taking turns, one pair of people at a time.  my head ended up with every size braid possible.  that was just fine with me, cuz it was funky and fresh, and i liked it very much.

i got three months of wear outta that style.  when some braids started to unravel, that was cool too.  they were intertwined thru-out my head so the style still remained intact.  think angelina jolie in 'gone in 60 seconds'.  at that time, i was the day program director for a rather large facility and professionalism was key.  the look worked well for me and i received compliments from the higher-ups.

i know i will end up going to several folks to see what they might have to say, if they'd want to work with me, and if they think my hair is workable.  but before i did that, i was wanting to know as much as possible and thought the internet would yield some answers.

but it has failed me.