Do you know who Desreta Jackson is?

While finishing the final one hour stretch to complete retightening my hair this afternoon (yah!!!), Jen popped in The Color Purple. As usual, trillions of emotions rose throughout this movie as it always has whenever we watch it. I laughed, I cried, I mouthed famous lines, thinking of Tyler Perry and how he loves to use Oprah (Sophia's) lines in his plays. The DVD we have is the 2-disc collection that has behind the scene interviews with Alice Walker, Steven Spielberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Quincy Jones and others in the cast. As always, the thought to google the "unknowns" comes to mind and I made sure today, I did such. If you know who actress Desreta Jackson is, then you are a true Color Purple fan. I was quite amazed to find out that when the movie was shot in 84, Desreta was about 12 years old. I was 14 at the time so that puts her at about 35ish. The last film on record she played in was Sister Act II. Not sure if Whoopi gave her the "hook-up" or if she had to audition on her own. She looks good and also has a myspace. Not bad for an all grown up young Celie Harris Johnson. She's doing her thang, and I ain't mad at her. It's funny how folks have to get on with their lives. And you never know who will make it "big" and who wont. I often wondered since her role was so negatively portrayed at that time if it would hinder her acting career. Only she knows and will tell. I will say she's not on the extras disc as many other key characters, such as Akosua Busia, (Nettie) are who were located and interviewed.

***Update on Desreta Jackson***
An online interview with Desreta Jackson and BET was posted February 2009. Read the interview here and get many many questions answered as well as see what she's up do these days. Thanks Christine!!!



That leads me to say how I believe my plan for this summer will be to get back to writing. I have too many good stories stored up inside me, waiting to be freed to the masses. Last summer I spent my tax refund money to go to Mexico to study Spanish. This summer, I'm leaning strongly towards hiding out to write. We shall see.

Jen suggested I bantu knot my hair for my Spring Break traveling to see friends and loved ones in Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. Here's what my length looks like along with my bantus. The longer my hair gets, the harder it is to bantu. I'm curious to see how this is going to turn out.


You can see some comparison shots of my length from the back in my fotki. I'm glad I took those pics because it shows how far I've traveled on this journey.

OK, I needed to add the results of my bantus. Here they are....
This picture was taken in the evening of 3-21-08. The curls from the bantu knots are tight!!!

Visit Wiley Dog's Blog

For those of you who know me or have gotten to know me, I love a lot of things. Two in particular are writing and photography. Since I've been teaching and going to school, that has taken away a lot of my "writing" time. The photo time has suffered in the case of "editing" but never snappin' shots where ever I go.

Anywho, since we have 5 days off for the Thanksgiving break, I've been trying to do a little "catch-up" on the dozen or so blogs I have among studying and other things. I know, I really need to get into the "condensing" mode. Well, one of my blogs that's been a bit neglected is that of my Mom's dog named Wiley. According to her AKC records, the dog was born July 17, 1976. Yep, that's right. He's supposedly 30 yrs old. The only confirmation I can give is I was in my early 20s when I met the dog after he was given to my Mom by a previous client she privately sat for. That would have been, 1992 circa. He was old when she got him but she never paid any attention to his actual DOB until I questioned her about him about 2 yrs ago. The rest is history.

Well, Mom and Wiley came over for Thanksgiving yesterday and he did his usual lazing around between trips to the kitchen to see if he needed to help with cleaning the floor. I took a few pics and of course that guilted me into updating his blog for him. I created the blog to help me in my creative writing and I tell you, putting yourself in the "paws" of an old male canine is no easy feat. Feel free to ask him any questions, but be prepared for some doggone straight forward answers from this ole' yet wise Doxie. Also, keep Wiley in your prayers, cause he has congestive heart failure. Jen seems to think he's losing his hearing and eye sight, but that should be no surpise. With that being said, visit Wiley Dog's blog and show him some love. Thanks in advance for visiting.

Blessings!

Maryee
ps
3 yr Sisterlock update coming soon!!!!

Maryee and Jen updated pics

Taken 6-11-06

Watch out now!!!

Jen and I are at our 30 month (2 1/2 yr) mark. I was locked 11-28-03 and Jen 12-13-03. It has been such an exciting journey for the both of us, mixed with more ups than downs. My stress level has actually gone down considerable since getting locked. Cause I promise you, I've lived a full 30+ yrs of hair care drama until getting Sisterlocks. I am sure I would have had high blood pressure by now considering most everyone on both sides of my family (mom and dad included) have hypertension. If you aren't familiar with it's deadly effects on Blacks, I'd suggest you click on the link above.

As you can see there has been tremendous growth, in more ways than one. As a matter of fact, for me this has been the longest my hair has ever been in my life. I always knew I had it in me (he he), but when you are a child and you have no control over the maintenance of your hair, you well, submit to what's given to you, right? Then when it was time to "take control" of my hair, I was rather ignorant of the "how-to"s of it all. Like India.Arie said in her song, I Am Not My Hair, I called myself getting a perm at 15 and by the Spring of the next year, it had all fallen out, thus forcing me back into a Jherri Curl and only 1 inch of hair for the beautician to work with. I'll have to upload pics later. Not to mention, I'd already suffered during my formative years under being misidentified as a "cute little boy". That does a lot for the self esteem doesn't it?

I'm getting closer and closer to my "summer ponytail", but I shant fret. Patience is a virtue they tell me. It's all good. I do think I need to get one of Denise Reed's loc socs Leighann and others have spoken about. I promise to post some fun and interesting stuff here real soon.

Last week was a major transition week. Jen and I found out we can't substitute teach over the summer because we're not "certified" to teach. With the No Child Left Behind Act and all they want more than just college educated folks teaching today's youth. They want proof you got some kind of training to reach and teach young people. When you read my guestbook of students who've visited my website, you'd have to wonder if certification means expertise. hmmm?? It's all good.

So we've been hanging out a lot at Beatnix Coffeehouse hosting Open Mic Poetry and staying Creative. I need to be listing more stuff to sell at Sweet Pea's Corner on Ebay, clearing out all these books, reading more, working on my soundclick and of course writing more. And I am...day by day.

Well, I'll leave you for now. Check back soon or visit my fotki album. There's some updated pics there, well a few anyway. Thanks B for the nudge!

Retightening hurts!

Well today I am trying to retighten my hair and between painstaking long periods of holding my arms up over my head, I am blogging. As a writer, I am supposed to be writing daily. My problem is I have written tons but most 80% of my writing is in manuscript form on paper, meaning it has yet to be transferred to a word document. Therefore, there's really no need for me to think I need to be writing something new, for my goal daily should be (until I get the money to pay someone) transferring my written stuff to electronic text. But, until then, I'll just switch back and forth. With that being said, I want to share some of my "verbal" text on my blog. We recorded the spoken word at the DFW Gathering II. Unfortunately Jen's computer crashed and we lost it all!! Shucks!