The Day the Blonde Died

"Let's just blend the roots this time," I offered to my colorist on Ash Wednesday.

"No," she said. "Let me grab a swatch. I'll be right back," and waddled off. She returned with a palette full of goth blacks with clown red hues, "What do you do for a living?"

I was repulsed by the swatch palette. "I work for a software company; I can't do that. Besides black is not me. It's not me at all." I looked ahead into the mirror to admire the blonde. I've been blonde since I was 18 and the only Georgia Tech student I ever dated dumped me because he only dates blondes, not redheads. I grabbed the bleach bottle just to spite him. He tried coming back after the switch, but the damage was done.

My colorist dropped the scary black swatches and pushed one full of reds towards me. "What about going red?"

"I was a redhead for seven years. I'm over it." I dropped my chin and studied my crown--the natural hair color was much longer than I anticipated. A level three brown, I've learned from years of coloring. It's hard to get hair that dark to blonde, but it's possible.

It's a battle I fight every time I sit in the Aveda chair. They don't want me to be so hard on my hair. I like what comes with being blonde. Having been every color on the hair spectrum, I know that blondes are treated differently. Blonde hair lightens the face and its features, making us appear happier and perkier. Brown is just so... Yankee. Yankees have brown hair and they aren't nearly as easy going as we are.

To shut up my colorist, I grabbed the blonde swatch she was hiding underneath all the others. I pointed to one of the darker ones. "What about that, with highlights?"

"No. I want something for you that will bring out your eyes."

"Er, my eyes are almost black."

"I know, that's why I wanted you to go black!" She grabs the scary black swatches and waves them in front of me again.

"Seriously, I'm not doing that. My skin is too fair."

She waddles back to the station and grabs more palettes. This time she returns with a dark chocolate. I didn't know why she was arguing with me. It's my head and my money. My head was already pounding from Fat Tuesday. The phantom baby made its first appearance and began kicking me, giving me sharp abdominal pains. Honestly, I just wanted to go home and sleep. And the only way to do that was to stop arguing with the Satanic colorist.

"Fine, whatever."

And the blonde in me died.

She pulled the gown off me and already I looked more serious. Less jovial. Less funny. Less.

And the reactions at work? Not good. Everyone wants to know who the new employee is.

It's the less version of me.

Lesson of the Day

When he calls to lament to you that he's had a really tough day and that he's going to blow off some steam by going to watch Bridge to Terabithia, you should probably tell him you read that book in the fourth grade and perhaps he should wait to see it.

I'm just saying.

I blame the cubicle neighbor

I thought my body was just tired and hungover, but after a solid week of hugging my trash can at work with imminent need and spending hours in the bathroom dry heaving and sometimes not-so-dry heaving, I think it's finally time to admit that I am sick.

Or carrying a phantom baby. Your call.

Omph.

I'm alive, but I'm not exactly kicking.

Recent partying has taken it's toll on me. Last weekend Bonnie threw another one of her gatherings. To review Bonnie's past parties:

• Beer, Sex, Beer: where you were guaranteed two out of the three.
• Stoplight: you wore green in places you liked to be touched and red in places you didn't.
• Jammin' with Salmon: The Nintendo Power Pad was pulled out and Will grilled salmon. Notably the exact moment he started juggling machetes was the exact moment the police showed up.
• St. Patrick's: My catch phrase "Beer me" was printed on t-shirts to read "Beer me, I'm Irish." Hilarious.
• Not a party, but there was the time Bonnie and I posed for a newspaper ad for a bar in our bikinis for the grand charge of one free shot each. Yes, I still have the ad. No, my parents don't know.
  

The lingerie party on Saturday was actually our second. Pictures are up on the MySpace account.

For Fat Tuesday, I drove back to school because my platonic lover for life and ex-roommate came home and we partied like it was 2003:




More photos on the MySpace page. Turns out 21 bucks in Athens will buy you 2 Sapphire and Tonics, 6 well shots, and 6 beers.

I miss Athens.

I at least had enough foresight to schedule a sick day on Ash Wednesday. However, I did not have enough foresight to cancel my hair appointment on Wednesday.

And that, folks, is a story for another day.

The Leavers and the Leftbehinds

"The Leavers put on lipstick and they cry like no tomorrow...
The Leftbehinds will try and land, pale-faced and fighting to the tooth."
--Steven Jackson, "Leavers & Leftbehinds"

I've never been much of a Leaver -- too many other people have that role filled. It seems easy for them to walk away, to give up. I don't know how they do it; I'll fight kicking and screaming for the people I love. I'll fight longer than I should, and only when I know I gave it my all, can I accept my status as a Leftbehind.

Being a Leftbehind, being told that you're no longer wanted -- that their lives will somehow be enhanced by the absence of your own -- is a very humbling experience. It's an experience that I've lived through more than I care to admit. It's also a status that I've become comfortable with. I know the drill: clutching a dog that doesn't understand only because I know she can't tell anyone and the tears. Oh, the tears. Inevitably, this is followed by equal parts of gin: a jigger of gin for every jigger of tears.

In the end, the gin will outlast the tears until the gin itself begins to trickle. In the end, I'm always okay whether I want to be or not. And maybe this is why I'm complacent with being a Leftbehind -- I'll always turn right-side up.

But after a particularly bad episode followed by undesirable results, for the first time I am debating transitioning to the Leavers. I am faced with questions I do not know the answers to. When do you give up on someone? When is it just too much to forgive?

And the guilt? The guilt is horrible.

But the more I think about it, the more being a Leaver makes sense. Hell, I'm in anguish over a person who hasn't even truly asked for forgiveness. Let that be a testament to my character and to hers. I haven't become a Leaver yet, but the idea gives me peace.

Maybe my father felt this peace when he chose another family. Maybe another felt this peace when he chose the bottle. Maybe another when he chose his music. And another for his art. Another, his fat-assed ex. Another... I don't even know why.

"And the Leavers fare better than the Leftbehinds this time.
The freedom and the broken ties,
the upper hand, and the last goodbyes -- this time."

Talk about arrested development

I was listening to my favorite Internet radio station today when this song came on:


I haven't heard this song since 1994, and, as usual, my freakish memory of song lyrics kicked in and I discovered I still knew every word as I tried not to sing along at work.

I could be so much smarter if I didn't have songs like Mr. Wendal tucked in the folds of my brain. I would be so smart. Like cure-for-cancer smart.

Mr. Wendal is killing the cure for cancer.

Fun with MS Paint