The Naïve Years. Left to right, me in second and third grades. Those two cornrows were go-to style #1 and the sassy pigtails were #2.

The first time I chemically straightened my hair it was because I really really wanted a perm - in fact I'd wanted one for over a year. I'd had childlike cornrows, a braid bang that needed to be curled with a sponge roller at night, and a press n' curl that caused other girls at school to call me "a bushwacker."