I am so furious with this site right now. I had a completed entry uploaded but it never showed up on the homepage. So now I have to do it all over again. And it only took me an hour to write it last time. I could scream right now.
So on Thursday night, I went to a natural hair meetup hosted by Curly Nikki and sponsored by Mizani. Why am I just writing about it now, you ask? Because I had a busy weekend and I wasn’t able to get to it until now. I went to the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Friday night to see a band from Columbia, MAKU Sound System. Then yesterday, I went to the Central Park Conservatory and walked around Central Park with a friend, then I went to a slammin’ brunch today at what is quickly becoming one of my favorite restuarants, Bogota Latin Bistro.
Anyhoo, 1500 people RSVP’d to the Curly Nikki event. It was initially going to be held at a bar called Solas in the East Village but due to the overwhelming demand, the venue was changed to the Carlton Hotel. In the end, there was only room for 650 people. As Nikki herself stated, it would have been expensive to hold the event at a venue that could accommodate over 1,000 people and she wouldn’t have been able to meet everyone. So, it was what it was. Personally, I was overwhelmed and kind of lost at the thing. I’m introverted by nature and I get uncomfortable attending events by myself that have more than 100 people. I don’t have it in me to schmooze and “work the room” as I, like many introverts, find small talk shallow and pointless. So I don’t have a lot of juicy anecdotes for you which renders me a sucky blogger. But I have to be honest. I spent half the night being a wallflower, standing against the wall. I did get to meet Nikki and take a picture with her, which was the highlight of the night. She’s petite, warm and personable. Everything I am not. I’m not envious of her or anything, I’m just stating the facts. As I was walking up to her to greet her and get our picture taken, she gave me a hug. I would never hug a complete stranger as I guard my personal space, but I know not everyone feels they have to guard theirs. After the hug, I said that I loved her site and asked her if she liked New York. “I totally love it,” she said.
Then she said, “You know, you look like Tracee Ellis Ross.”
My mouth dropped open. I never get compared to celebrities as I don’t look like any of them. “Really?” I asked.
“I think so,” Nikki said.
I don’t see the resemblance but maybe someone else will.
Tracee Ellis Ross:
Yours truly:
To reiterate just how much I suck as a blogger, I had no idea until the next day that a couple of celebrities were at the event. Both Janet Hubert-Whitten and Karyn Parsons were there. They were the original Aunt Viv and Hillary on the “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” I had to read a couple of other blogs of other people that were at the event to find out they were even there. I totally missed them. In my defense, they don’t look exactly like they did on the show. For one thing, they’re both 20 years older and they’re both sporting natural hair now. And plus, at one point, there were 650 people in a cramped space that had dim lighting. It was easy for me to miss them. Can’t speak for anyone else, though. Here they are with Nikki:
Also, Mizani gave away goodie bags containing a brochure on all the different hair types and two tiny samples of product, which was a little disappointing, given how big a company they are. They did have stylists giving hair styling demonstrations on models, which was interesting.
Here are some more pics:
They spelled her name wrong, y’all.
Nikki and yours truly.
One of Mizani’s hair models.
Nikki’s husband
Someone joked on Nikki’s site the other day that the next time she came to New York, she’d have to rent Yankee Stadium. Given the response, she just may have to do that.
confessionsofladyv69 