Blogs I've been reading -- self injury; caring for curly hair

Illusion of Competence: Self-injury, complicated realities, and Big Emotions -- This is the blog of a young woman with Autism Spectrum Disorder. It's one of my favorite blogs that talk about disability. This particular post had me going HELL YES. (I don't self-injure -- unless you count picking at my cuticles when I'm nervous -- but I'm very close to someone who occasionally finds all other coping mechanisms inadequate.)

The College Curly: Laura Lee's All In One Guide to Going CG: Now Revised and Updated! OH MY GOD you guys this is so useful. I tried to do the Curly Girl thing when I was 13, but I forgot that you were supposed to use silicone-free conditioners, so while it worked, it didn't work as well as it could have. Then I chopped it all off because we thought I'd have to bike to school every morning (don't ask, my dad is just weird) and found I liked wearing it like that, and I'm only just now getting bored with it being short. So I did a bunch of research, but none of the reading I did was clear about what exactly I should be doing -- scrub with conditioner, use a leave-in AND moisture spritz every morning, or just one or two of the three? And then somebody linked me to this post, and it turns out it's the dewpoint, stupid. (And while weather.com won't give you the dewpoint, Weather Underground will -- you just have to get the forecast for where you are and scroll down.)

So my mother's visiting, since it's spring break. We went to the Crocker Museum yesterday, which has so much cool stuff you can only properly appreciate about half of it in one day. Then we went and got hair supplies, notably HUGE jars of agave nectar (a vegan honey substitute so good it even has similar chemical properties), aloe vera juice (moisturizer), and coconut oil (keeps curly hair from swelling and going POOF from too much moisture when it's hot and humid). Then we went to Target and got more hair supplies, but I won't bore you with that list. I also found shorts tailored for people with big asses like mine, so I got two pairs, plus some really cute cotton summer dresses. (What? I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and I was uncomfortably warm!)

Today we're going to the zoo -- our local zoo has a flock of African Greys, among other birds I'd love to see, so we're going to check them out. And maybe yarn shopping after...? We'll see. I'm hoping we can find some tussah silk in town so I can knit myself some nice headbands when my hair gets long enough to need pinning back.