One of my favorite shoots I've been a part of to date. The photographer and the make up artist are both BEYOND incredible. They are also incredibly cool and down to earth. Google them, book them and pay them the loads of money they deserve (and give me a cut).
Photographer: Hadriel Gonzalez
Make Up: Victor Amos
Hair: Andrita Renee
A woman I've looked up to and admired since I was 12.
...And they wonder why I am the way I am ;)
I actually remember the original cover she did for the magazine. She was wearing a Matthew Williamson dress and hadn't yet married Nas (not sure about that last part). Loves her
This is why I love Gags. She didn't just do her avant garde shit on this one, she actually broke it down for simple minded hoes who think she's just crazy without a cause.
My best friend in life (Drizzy Drake) has spoken to me once again. I've been listening to Take Care (the single and the album) obsessively for the past few days and I am very proud of my guy. I'll probably be writing about the tracks off the album in the near future but right now I'm too in love with 'Take Care' featuring Rihanna. The song samples the late Gil Scott Heron's original and it does it justice, in my humble opinion. Its so relative. This is how I know Drake really is my best friend- he always gives me something to mellow out to right when I need it....
I've asked about you
and they told me things
but my mind didnt change
I still feel the same
When you keep hearing the same thing about someone or something, its usually safe to assume that its at least halfway true. Reputations exist for a reason and a lot of a persons actions are a direct contribution to their own. That's the easy part.
But what about that other half?
And what about when you can't help but wonder about that small glimmer of hope that a person, or situation even, isn't all that bad? Fuck if I know. That's why I have Drake in my life.
They don't get you like I will
My only wish is I die real
Cuz that truth hurts
and those lie's heal
Its a natural desire for a girl to want to feel/believe that she is the exception. We should be, actually, now that I think about it. Every woman has things about her that are special and unique and deserving of being treated as such.
I know you've been hurt
by someone else
I can tell by the way
that you carry yourself
Obviously the experiences we have in life shape us into the people that we present ourselves to the world as. Some people just can't help the fact they've had experiences that have shaped them into an asshole. So when you are pretty sure that this is the case, should you give them a free pass? Like, ok, you're clearly only acting like that because you are damaged in some way, like everyone else, except you choose to carry your baggage around on your shoulders 24/7?
Maybe this is a case of the pot calling the kettle, but thats a whole 'nother story.
Its my birthday
I get high if I want to
Cant deny that I want you
But I'll lie if I have to
So is it worth risking your heart in hopes of possibly saving someone else's? Especially when yours isn't exactly in tip top shape itself? Not bloody likely.
For men to be so stereotypically simple, why am I having such a difficult time finding interesting topics to write about for them. I kind of thought I was a creative person, silly me. This is the test, i guess, and I am failing miserably. I feel like there is a ceiling to how many creative ways I can relay the message that color is in for men next spring or that no self respecting man should be purchasing his entire Friday night get-up from one spot. Shiiiiiit. I have no fucking clue. I have NEVER had a clue as to what men like, clearly. My name is Andrita, after all. Thats just preposterous.
So I did what any other wannabe James Baldwin would have done, I fucking Google'd it. 'What do guys like' spit out 89.2 million results in 0.83 seconds. Unfortunately 99.9% of them were somehow related to sex. Dude. This isn't Cosmo over here. I'm more like the anti-Dr.Ruth. What's a girl to do?
everytime I blink my eyes my mind is being pulled in a different direction. I have been working on trying to Dee-Bo my way into a real entreprenuerial career lately. While at the fashion house I work for ("assisting" aka blogging), I realized that I may really want to self publish a book. I started writing a fiction novel when I was, like, in the eighth grade in a Mead notebook but I deaded that shit like I do with most of my bright ideas. Now, fifty years later, I think I'd like to pick back up where I left off. My dad would so be shaking his head at me right now if I told him this :). Clearly I am the directionless, overly ambitious child. I can't help it. And I don't want to.
I started my latest course at FIT recently(Flat Pattern Design- don't ask me what that is, thats why I'm there lol....it's patternmaking). Very interesting to be there with all the newcomers (Fall semester fresh-meat). I was equally inspired and annoyed by them lol. I do NOT fit in. And I dont mean that in a cool way, either. I think that my twenties are panning out to be how normal peoples high school years go. Except I don't really mesh with the jocks OR the nerds lol. I'm bugging. Twenty-four and I embody Jeanine Garafalo's character in Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. I'm the foul-mouthed, all-black-wearing girl smoking cigarettes behind the bleachers. Minus the cigarettes....well, and the bleachers.
So. Way to aggravate an already slightly psychotic Black woman. These assholes at the Wall Street Journal decided it would be a nice idea to recommend that Black women simply go out and marry white guys since there are essentially NO desirable Black ones available. So, first I'd like to let you know that this didn't piss me off, despite how it may come off. It was just annoying. As fuck. And I am not remotely racist in the least bit. People have told me plenty of times that I'll probably end up marrying a White man anyways thankyouverymuch ;). I just don't appreciate the WSJ acting as if I can just go to the Banana Republic and pick one out to marry me. I mean, as awesome as it sounds, do they think I could just sit in some downtown bar near Wall Street, bat my eyelashes and make some megamillionaire supergreat White boy swoon? Absolutely Ridic.
I'm just annoyed. I can't quite articulate exactly why I'm annoyed, but I just am. Sometimes I feel like the media is out to destroy the Black woman. Mind you, I am only half serious right now and I know that this is a bit extreme and slightly militant but wtf, this is my blog.
But seriously, society in general treats us like left overs or something. Either that, or we're kinda like the Flavor of the Month. Like, some months "they" decide we're cool and we'll be in a few magazines (never covers though-unless you're Bey or Halle). A high end fash rag may decide to cast us in a few spreads. We may even have the opportunity to be the fiesty best friend/sidekick/assistant in some really critically acclaimed Hollywood flick. But that's pretty much it. I mean, we still get excited when a Black actress wins an award. It's 2011 people. Really?
Then, we are often disrespected or even worse disregarded by our own for women of other races. So we get the non-love all the way around. And now its like some cool ass intellectual dinner conversation to discuss why so many Black women have never been and probably never will be married. I really wish there was a Rolling My Eyes acronym. RME, there.
I, obviously, can go on and on about this but I'll spare you the headache and implied neck rolling.
I guess with all this attitude I won't ever have to worry about anyone wanting to marry my ass
The situation is that my hair is naturally like this:
no fucking lie, just short as shit
But I am hell bent on trying to get it to look like this:
by way of weaves and flat irons.
I go on and off of relaxers and right now I'm going on 11 months off. I'm actually considering doing a natural but seriously, I don't think I can pull off the look and braids will bore me after a while. I love burying my fingers in my tresses too much for that.
I colored my hair pink a few weeks ago and I loved it but then I got experimental and made it a weird purple-y color. I'm actually starting to like it. That pink was way too 'LOOK AT ME' for me. It was dope, but I'm not friendly enough for that hair ;)
So now I am at a stand still. I have no clue what to do with this coiff.
