Diary of A Bitchy Black Woman and Her Hair #2

I have been itching to blog since I last did on Monday.

But I have just not had the time to! It's been crazy.

At first it was annoying me, but then it began to excite me because I knew that this evening I would, some way or some how, find the time to talk about all the random things I've been experiencing/ noticing/ whatever-ing.

Just now, on my way home, aside from the song I was singing in my head, I heard the following:

"To station cleaner. To station cleaner. There is some vomit to clean. Come and get the vomit."

"To the man at the bottom of the escalator. Please remove yourself from the station. The police have been called and they are on their way."

"There is a delay on the Victoria Line between Warren Street and Brixton due to a person lying under the train at Green Park."

Is this what London is normally like? Or have I just not been listening for a long long time?

Now... to yet another discussion about my hair.

But it's probably not the kind you're expecting.

Earlier today, I went to my "beauty therapist" for a quick "beauty treatment".

In actual fact, I went to this thin and over-worked Chinese (or is it Korean? I'm not sure) woman for an under-arm wax. Ha! There! I said it!

I only started having my arm-pits waxed a year ago. Prior to then, I had done what I thought all Nigerian women did with their arm-pits. I had been using razors. But I got tired of having to use a razor every other day (and I am not even hairy!!) so I thought I'd give this wax thing a go.

The first time I had it done, was in Lagos, where I happened to be last July. I had been walking past the new "beauty spa" right next door to my hairdresser for close to three weeks at that point, and thought, on one random afternoon, "what the heck, I'm going to do it jo!"

By the time the lady was done, my throat was hoarse, and there was no husky or sexy vibe to it.

I had yelled the place down. I knew I'd been yelling, obviously, because I'd been opening up my mouth to actually do the yelling. But I had no idea how loudly I'd been yelling until I walked into the salon next door to have my hair done, and my regular torture-master/ self-appointed body-fat monitor/ "hair therapist", Joseph, said "Nawa oh. That thing was painful abi?"

I got sucked into waxing my arm-pits from then on (which is why I'm still doing it and hating it now), because they all promised me (and by 'they', I mean everyone who has ever either come close to my pits with wax, or with whom I've swapped waxing and hair-removal tips), that it would get less painful with time. Another promise was that the growth-rate of my under-arm hair would slow down, and I'd soon be able to go weeks on end without waxing.

Bull Shit!

In the last year I have discovered that there is no such thing as a pain-free wax, and that when it is close to being that time of the month, or when it is that time of the month, or when it has just been that time of the month (basically all the damn time), a woman's skin is more "sensitive" to waxing.

I have also 'discovered' that my hair grows back "very quickly" (even though, like I said, I am not hairy), and that my hair grows in different directions. This, apparently, is why it needs to be ripped from my hair holes (are pores hair holes? I got confused about what the right term was just as I was typing now) with brutal, mind-shuddering, scream-inducing force!

Where my "beauty-therapist" works, they know me well, because I scream the place down. My name is often difficult for even Nigerians to pronounce (although I dunno what the hell is so difficult about it, it's not like my name is Ogheneginigba, or something like that). But everyone at Busy Body (what an odd name for a "beauty spa" I hear you say) knows my name. They know how to say it, they know how to spell it, and they recognise me instantly, even after a two month-long hiatus, when I arrive with different glasses, different hair, different everything... even when I am a different me!