Hey, Waitress

I never really had a nickname until college. People just called me Jessica, and when I moved to Austin, I shortened my name to Jess. I was bestowed a few nicknames by new friends in college: Beast, Jess-Sex-Fayce (I never quite understood that one,) and Jestabeast. When B & I started dating, I received even more nicknames: Cake, Babycakes, Cakey (you see a theme).

I’ve been waitressing for almost half my life, starting when I was thirteen, and when faced with the expenses of living on my own in Austin, I returned to my old safety net of the service industry. My reemergence on the restaurant scene earned me a new nickname: Waitress. Or, alternatively: “Hey, Waitress,” “Excuse Me, Miss.” and “Hey, Sorry.”

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First Fashion Beauty Friend Friday

Occasion: Alamo Drafthouse with B
Shirt: XXI | Skirt: American Apparel | Shoes: Target

So, I’ve been kind of bored with style posts lately, not that they’re not fun, but with 108º weather, and a sparse summer budget, my wardrobe hasn’t exactly expanded. I really like reading Cathy of Austin Slave to Fashion‘s weekly Fashion Beauty Friend Friday posts, so I thought I’d jump on the proverbial bandwagon. Every other week, the group sends out questions to be answered by members. It’s like ready-made content, as well as a social networking group. Here goes.

1. As a someone who writes/blogs about fashion, have you placed yourself into some sort of blogging category?
I kind of changed categories a couple of times. When I started Hello Wife, I was really interested in exploring the idea of marriage, being a wife, and being a modern woman. While I’m still interested in those things, I found quickly that a.) I wasn’t nearly qualified or well-read enough to create content of that sort, and b.) I was complaining a lot! So, after the TXSCC this year, I re-worked my blogging category to encompass several of the things which hold my interest: fashion, food, and relationships.

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To Dye or Not to Dye

(image source)

That’s been the question on my mind as of late.

I noticed my first grey hair when I was probably nine or ten — a singular event, a fluke, brought on by a stressful event (the onset of puberty, anyone?). But around age 22, the greys had made the move permanent, right onto my head.

They started slow, one or two a day, but then I started noticing more of them, then I followed them home and realized … they had bred! I basically have a layer of grey hair living under the top layer of healthy hair. It’s pretty-well hidden for now, but I feel the day is coming soon where they totally take over — colonize — my head.

So here is my problem: do I give in, at the ripe ‘ol age of 24, to the grey?

Or do I start a cycle of dyeing that will continue into my 50s? That’s 25 years of dyeing!

I have no interest in dyeing my hair back to brown every six weeks. I neither want to, nor can I afford it. I’ve seen my mother struggle with the hair-dyeing issue for probably the last 20 years of my life, and I have no interest in torturing myself — or my poor hair! — with harsh chemicals.

But what to do? Youth culture is so embedded in our visions of ourselves. The idea of “going grey” at 24 is something I could never consider, not if I ever wanted to be seen as youthful, or attractive ever again. So what’s a girl to do? I’m honestly reaching out.

Here are some ideas I’ve come up with:

• Blonde highlights to blend it in
• Platinum pieces with lavender or “grey” coloring added
• Ignore it

That’s its folks, I’m stumped. I just don’t want to be a slave to my hair, you know?

What are your thoughts on grey? I know it’s something we’ve all, or will be, faced with. How did you/will you handle it?

On Being a “Stay-at-Home” Anything

There was an article published on Brokelyn this week called “How to Survive as a SAHG (Stay-at-Home Girlfriend),” which drew the ire of many a woman. If you read the article, you’ll know why, but in case you didn’t, here’s the summary:

Girl and boy live together, girl gets laid off. Instead of laying around the house all day and watching television, girl decides to wake up early, cook breakfast, clean the house, cook dinner, spend time with girlfriends day-drinking, makes herself sexually available at all times for her guy. Loves it, but knows it’s a small pit-stop on the way to the rest of her career.

Phew. The article itself is, I’m assuming, supposed to be just a little bit of a satire. It’s a little “my man” this, “my man” that for me. That said, it’s an honest article about something that a lot of people — women and men — are facing right now: what to do when you’re unemployed? It was met with less-than pleasant reviews.

It can be hard being unemployed. I did it for three months, and basically followed the same pattern as the SAHG writer. I became Julia Child, Betty Draper, and Martha Stewart over night. I washed my house from top to bottom, cooked everything in the house, and took up a new hobby: eating the cupcakes I couldn’t stop baking. I got experimental with food, made my own cleaners, painted furniture I found on the side of the road. I began to feel accomplished when I cooked a nice meal. I liked the feeling of having a clean home.

But, like the SAHG writer, I know that this momentary experience of housewifedom isn’t for me, it’s a fun pit-stop on the road to (whatever the hell it is) I end up doing. That being said, I don’t find it backwards or anti-feminist to enjoy housewifedom, the way that some of the feminist bloggers and commenters were expressing.

I see a new domestic movement happening in this country that I find really exciting. Suddenly, these women who have been told all their lives that they have to want a career, or they’re not on the feminist bandwagon, are finding satisfaction in the very things their mothers and grandmothers wanted freedom from. A step backwards? No. We went out and got jobs and realized, “heh, this isn’t the end-all-be-all, and I want to feel connected to my work.” The myth that a woman isn’t a feminist unless she tethers herself to a company is no more empowering than the myth that a woman can’t be a feminist if she tethers herself to the home. A tether is a tether, and working for something that isn’t your own can be dis-empowering, period. I experienced it.

So, to the idea that a return to the home is somehow a step backward, I say, no. To conform to the idea that a woman who stays home cannot be a feminist is, inherently, anti-feminist. Wasn’t feminism supposed to be about choice? So why are we hating on those who choose to stay home? Or have children?

There are people in Washington (and Texas, and Georgia, and South Dakota, for that matter) who want to take away women’s rights. Instead of sitting around judging each others’ life decisions for proper “feminism,” why don’t we play nice and protect those rights that our mothers and grandmothers fought for?

I’m attending the Walk for Choice this Saturday in Downtown Austin, check to see if your city is hosting a walk.