Caren Gussoff writer. geek. bon vivant. dot com

It’s been a long, long, long time since I’ve blogged. Been heavily preoccupied with a full-time contract, some major family health issues, and other sundry odds and ends. But here I am. Hi.
 
Recently, I was approached by a writer friend—and then asked similar questions by another writer friend—about my dreadlocks. They both have characters who have dreads (it seems a natural choice for near-future SF/apocalyptic fiction to have characters with dreadlocks), and were interested in some of the mechanics behind them. So, here is my writers-and-other-interested-parties-guide-to-dreadlocks. At least, my dreadlocks.

Dreadlocks are, essentially, felted hair. Any animal-based fiber can felt. My dreads been described as feeling like everything from “a mohair sweater” to “a baby goat.” They feel somewhere inbetween those two, IMHO.

 I decided to get these, my second set of dreads, because my hair is naturally dry and knotty anyway, and it always wants to tangle up all on its own. I get sick of fighting it. They are not a religious choice for me, not any sort of a cultural statement. I like the way they look on me and my hair wants to do this anyway. 

My husband and I made mine by dividing my clean, dry hair (after I washed it thoroughly to remove any buildup or natural oils) into sections, then backcombing it to break up the surface cuticle. This made fuzzy tubes that we held together, temporarily, with food-grade beeswax (the only time I used any wax) while the rough hairs attracted and tangled up with one another. This was the hardest and grossest part, because the wax is kind of sticky and the baby dreads are pretty delicate, so I spent a week or two with sticky, waxy dreadlets that I couldn’t get wet. After this week, I soaked my hair in a vinegar and lemon juice solution to dissolve the wax, and then started washing as normal, using castile soap.  No conditioner.
 
You cannot make dreads by:

• not washing your hair. Hair gets loaded with its natural oils and sebum, which act as natural conditioners. Aside from the fact that this is a little gross, the hair itself becomes too slippery to knot
• putting toothpaste, honey, glue, gel or some other goo in your hair and hoping for the best. You’ll attract dirt, ants, and misery–but not dreads
• neglecting your hair in general (not combing, etc). Your hair may dread, but it will dread in big, uneven clumps–or worse, one giant beaver tail looking thing
• twisting your hair. It won’t stay like that

 Over the next few months. I encouraged the fuzzy tubes we made to knot up by using a crochet hook to pull the dread in and around itself, then palm-rubbing and smoothing them down and in shape with aloe vera gel. Pretty soon, though, between natural friction and regular washings, the hair began to mat—felt—all on its own.

They really don’t require much special attention after that. I wash my dreads—in fact, more often than when I had regular long hair—2 to 3 times a week using castile soap. I blow them dry when I don’t feel like having a wet head for 4 hours. I use aloe when they get frizzy. That’s pretty much it.
 
There are places thats sell special products for dread: wax, shampoo, and stuff. It’s not necessary. Dread wax, as I said, is sticky and you shouldn’t really need it after the first week. Dread shampoo is just basically castile soap–same thing as Tom’s of Maine or Dr. Bronners, which you can get at a drug store. The other sprays and stuff–they are usually perfumed aloe, occasionally with mint, rosemary or tea tree oils to help fight dandruff (a problem for some if you aren’t good about cleaning your scalp). Buying special dread products is really the difference between buying hair products at Walgreens verses a salon. 

Dreads grow, just like normal hair. You lose a lot of length, though, as the hair gets “sucked up” into the dread. Case in point–my dreads are chin length, but if my hair was undreaded, it’d probably be halfway down my back.
 
When I get an inch or two of growth at the roots—enough to stick my index finger through—I pull the end of the dread up and crochet it through to take up some slack and to encourage the new hair to tangle too.

Dreads get fatter as time goes on, as well. This is because hair that would otherwise get shed instead remains in the dread. This grosses some people out, but really, if you think about it—hair is hair. The hair that is attached to the follicle still is no more alive than shed hair. As long as you keep it clean, that is.
 
Sometimes, dreads like to stick to one another, like velcro. Unless you want them to dread together into a bigger dread, you need to rip them apart. Sometimes, this hurts, if the hairs have gotten very grabby. 

There’s really no way to hide bugs or anything inside a dread. I’ve heard those urban myths about people who cut open a dreadlock to find it’s a hair cylinder stuffed with bugs. My dreads are solid hair all the way through to the core. If you grab one, they feel firm. There’s no “inside” in which ickies can lurk.
 
Dreads are permanent. There are places that carry products which claim to remove dreads, but these are just very strong, oily conditioners that will help loosen the knots. Dreads, more than likely, need to be cut out to be removed. The first time I cut mine off, I had about an inch of “usable” hair.
 
Things peoples assume because I have dreadlocks:

• I know where to buy weed (I don’t)
• I smoke a lot of weed (I don’t)
• I like reggae (I like ska better, but sure. OK)
• I smell (I might. Probably not, though. I shower twice a day.)
• I attend Burning Man (Never been. Roughing it in a crowd is not my style)
• I’m a “hippie” (Varying definitions. Whatever)
• I like camping (in HOTELS)

And that’s that. Everything I know (or can think of) about dreads. Feel free to ask me questions, if you have any unanswered, burning need-to-knows.

And jeebus crow, pinky swear on the fact that I will start updating this on a semi-regular basis (July! My last post was in July!).

This seems like it should be the time I’d be pushing out frequent updates to the three or four of you dedicated readers. Instead, I have temporarily deserted you and experienced the last whirlwind month without you in my front pocket. What a terrible, negligent virtual pal I have been. I have been ensconced in velvet for the past few weeks and I have shared nary a corner.

Clarion West season is very consuming. There are now parties, weekly readings and all other variations of social engagements in which I get to see friends and make new ones—as well as honk incomprehensible love-words towards writers of whom I am a sick-ass fan. Maureen McHugh, my long-distance crush, materialized into this lovely woman with a gentle, no-bullshit personality and a wicked sense of humor. I did not curl up in her lap, although I wanted to, and remain convinced that she could have totally taken it without freaking out over my needy adoration. Plus, I was lucky enough to sit in on one of her CW classes and get proof-pudding that she the genius that I have lovingly expected her to be.

I was also present during the reception in honor of Octavia E. Butler’s induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and was blessed into meeting some of her relatives, her whip smart/red headed agent, and other friends and readergellencia.

The beginning of this week found me back to heaven-on-earth (AKA Hedgebrook) to a party in honor of the writers who were honored with this year’s Elizabeth George Foundation Awards. I was one of these honorees, and I was bursting with pride and nervousness and self-doubt. But, between the nourishment of Hedgebrook, Elizabeth George’s quiet, classy, feisty generosity, a rousing round of croquet, the spying of bald eagle fledglings, and some very, very, very wonderful conversation over red wine with Gloria Steinem, I felt wrapped in angel wings of printed paper.

To top this sundae of holy-shitness, I’m taking on as web manager for the SFWA website, creating and implementing a content plan that allows fresh, interesting, relevant, and useful articles, interviews, and reviews go up on the site nearly every day. I’ve spent the past few weeks ramping up. I have pulled back a corner as a place from which to jump, so watch for me pulling my parachute—possibly in your direction—starting this week.

Oh, yeah. I’m also trying to whip some novel pages into order so they can be sent out as partials.

Sometimes, I sleep.

I’m officially FUCT (like it? I just thought of it)–a freelance, urban, cat-owning thirty-something.*

This all interestingly dovetails with my last post…on March 15 (really? I am that lazy a blogger, apparently).

During my stay at Hedgebrook (post on that TK, I swear), I had the pleasure of being in residence with a group of amazingly rad writers, most of whom were working in literary fiction (with the notable exception of a genius poet working in form and a delightful NF/screenwriter), who, after hearing my work, grilled me tenderly about WTF the difference was these days between literary and SFF–especially since my own work was so obviously informed by what is usually (wrongly, IMHO) considered the concerns of literary fiction over SFF (character, language vs. idea and plot). I, of course, went promising a reading list of SFF that I think effectively (and once and for all) blurs the lines between speculative and literary–which, being me, has slipped until right this freaking minute.

I have has a few publications this year that are eligible for Nebula and Hugo nominations, if you were, you know, feeling the spirit.

Also, Brain Harvest is eligible to be nommed for a Hugo semiprozine, and Eden, Shane, and I are ripe for the editors short form category.

Just sayin’. You know. *kicks some gravel*

Happy holidays, everyone. I hope this day finds you surrounded by people you love with easily-cured heartburn caused by delicious food.

I didn’t do a holiday letter this year. I meant to. Consider this my holiday letter to all of you.

This year was a year filled with financial hardship and great kindnesses. I learned some good lessons about how to be an adult, how to ask for help, and how to accept help I’ve asked for. I’ve made some strangers into friends, and I hope they know how much I have begun to treasure them.

(I hope I taught some lessons too: how to endure, how to take risks, and how to start again, again. I’m pretty good at all that.)

There were also some triumphs—a few good publications, awards, and wins; the start of a new novel; the birth of Brain Harvest; Chris’ first school transcript showing all As.

I am often terrible at keeping in touch; even worse at regularly blogging interesting things. But I thank you for bearing with me and continuing to take this ride.

Here’s to 2010 kicking metric fucktons of ass.

I really do love doing research. I’ve been doing a lot of it (on plagues, pandemics, and public health) as I work on this draft of the novel (if you’re remotely curious, I’ve been keeping a running bibliography on what I’m reading for the novel over here). Today, I came across a gem that I just have to share (and for the ethnically Jewish out there, it’ll probably explain quite a bit about our mothers’ constant fascination with our digestive health while we were growing up), a reference to a “plague” thrust upon the Philistines as punishment for stealing the Ark of God.

From the Old Testament, 1 Samuel 5: 6-12

6: But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof.
9: And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts.
12: And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

After exercising the full extent of my google-fu, I came to learn that emerods can mean…hemorrhoids. Yes. Jehovah smote them with hemorrhoids.

There’s also a bunch of scholarly research that contends that emerods actually refers, in this instance, to bubonic swellings–which is, probably, more likely. But, hemorrhoid smiting paints a much, uh, richer picture, doesn’t it?

Just wanted to share a quick and potentially amazing place I just happened to find during my nightly “avoiding doing work” internet jags—the Seattle Free School. This jives really nicely with the second blog post I’ve been tinkering at, on saving monies: part deux.
Anyway, free classes. On interesting stuff. Really. I just signed up for a hot process soap making course on December 3rd. There’s also a Russian cooking class I’m eyeballing.
Did I mention the classes are free?

On Monday, John Howell posted an excellent article about the ridiculousness of the SFF “ghetto”:

“For a genre that produces some of the most intelligent, thought provoking, creatively challenging works imaginable, it’s hard to understand how they could be overlooked so aggressively and consistently for so long.”

Especially interesting to me is that this continues, considering that the top-grossing films of the past several years are all, you know, SFF.

Also interesting: to read that Brian Aldiss was informed (when he was on Desert Island Disks) “…that SF readers were nerds who were poor and could not ‘get a woman’.” Rea-lly.

Today is Support Our ‘Zines Day.

… ‘zines are where we go to find good, new short fiction. Magazines like Asimov’s or Weird Tales. Fanzines like Electric Velocipede or Shimmer. Webzines like Clarkesworld or Strange Horizons. Podcasts like Escape Pod and The Drabblecast. There are hundreds and maybe even thousands of ‘zines publishing speculative fiction stories, and from the largest to the smallest they all contribute to building the SF community (thank you, Damien Walter!).

Since March 2009, we’ve been working hard on Brain Harvest. We’ve been bringing the best, baddest-ass speculative flash and micro fiction to the web while paying our writers a fair (professional) rate. We’ve been really lucky to have readers and supporters like you, and today would be a great day–if you haven’t already–to show your support for what we are doing by making a donation, posting a link to us in your blog, telling a friend who may dig what we do (and not have found us yet), or just stopping by and catching up on stories you may have missed.