One More on Hair

I realized, in my head-shaving post, that I had another story to tell about hair.

I held back. I didn't follow through. I thought the side-stories had reached a limit.

But it continues to simmer in my head, so here it is:

After I shaved my head, and some hair grew back, I dyed my hair for the first time. Blonde.

The color of the first year of my life -- the only time I was a real towhead.

I come from the standard mid-western family of six -- four kids -- 2 boys, 2 girls -- two parents (now in their 56th year of connubial bliss -- they've been married longer than I've been incarnate, which is actually a helpful thing, if you're concerned about your legitmacy).

My dad and I have dark hair -- the other four members of my immediate family are blonde or blondish (testament, perhaps, to the somewhat semitic paternal heritage and the clearly scandinavian maternal heritage).

I never considered my hair color a disadvantage in any way. After all -- my hair was long, luxurious, heavy, and -- as I have been assured by professionals -- it was "good" hair.

I think that the whole dyeing thing was a whimsy, really -- having become accustomed to the shock value of a shaved head, I just wasn't ready to devolve back to "normal" hair.

I had a willing accomplice -- my rather out-there hair-dresser, Gretchen, whose speaking voice was reminiscent of Sarah Vowell's, and whose bedside-manner as a beautician included such comforting phrases as "Okay, well, here we go!"

I was also, by that time, completely undaunted by the concept of cutting it all off again, which really helps when facing hairdo-angst -- if the cut (or the dye) sucks, you can just go back to ground zero -- the scalp zone.

So, Gretchen applied stinking, nasty chemicals to my locks -- spiked me up with foil wrappings and ammonia compounds -- and left me sitting in the exact middle of the salon in this state for what seemed like hours, accompanied by nothing but piles of dog-eared People magazines.

I let her dye my hair maybe 8 times over the course of a couple of years, usually just blonde, although she later moved into more daring experiments -- like "painting" my hair so that it actually looked like a leopard's pelt. ("Okay -- well -- here we go!")

But the first time that I dyed my hair, I had a socio-cultural epiphany.
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It was a weird and lonely time in my life.

I was "involved" with someone, but they were pretty much unavailable, except for the odd bi-weekly date.

The vast majority of my time, I spent alone. This was about three years after my "breakdown".

I lived, and worked, in the city. I shared a home with a roomate and my cat, Little, who is still with me. I had many "friends", many "clients", a "girl-friend", and hundreds of acquaintances. I was surrounded by people, but profoundly isolated at the same time.

When I left the salon, the first time I dyed my hair, I went to Lloyd Center.

I drop this name only because it might give you an idea of the significance of the place.

It's a Mall. In Portland, Oregon.

It sometimes claims to be the "original" mall. When it opened, in 1960, with 100 shops, it claimed it was the largest shopping center in the world. (Which might have been true at the time -- but seems a little, to me, like saying "Hey! Look at me! I am the original molecule that created the Black Plague!")

Not that I have anything against Malls.

On the contrary -- I think that I went to the Mall because it was the ultimate place to be with people without actually being with people.

I wandered. I shopped. I might even have had a purpose for being there. I don't remember that part.

But here was the epiphany:

As I wandered from store to store -- "Lamont's" -- "Newberry's" -- "See's Candies" (Old Navy and The Gap did not exist at this time), I noticed a strange thing . . . .

. . . . everyone was being very, very nice to me. Clerks who would normally give me no more than a cursory glance were greeting me with ultra-warm and gooshy "Hi!"s and "How are you today?"s and "Is there anything I can help you with?"s. The woman at See's Candies actually offered me two extra "sample" chocolates before accepting my cash.

It seemed kind of creepy, really -- I think that I had become used to being ignored and invisible.

When you cut, or shave, or dye your hair, you are the last person to realize that you look different -- because you're not looking at yourself.

It wasn't until I was standing at See's Candies, where there was a huge mirror behind the suddenly generous counter-girl, that I figured it out -- I was now a blonde.

They were all being nice to me because I was blonde.

There was no other explanation. I was just as surly, lonely, and weird as I had been the day before. The only difference was my hair-color.

I was so pissed off about this.

(For younger folks, I'll give a little background -- when I was a kid, there was an ad that posed the question: "Is it true that blondes have more fun?" -- by Clairol, I think-- and later, Rod Stewart made an album called "Blondes have more fun" -- seeming to answer the question definitively, but frankly, I dismissed this as advertising in the first case, and, --well-- advertising in the second case as well. I was absolutely convinced that hair color could not be the answer to the fun-factor.)

As I stood there, looking at my own reflection -- my own shockingly yellow shock of hair blazing out beyond the clerk's oh-so-beaming-smile -- it began to dawn on me that maybe Blondes actually had been having more fun than I had-- for more than 40 years!

All this time, blondes had been -- catered to at candy counters! -- loved up at lingerie stores! -- favored at the five and dime! -- while I had lingered in stultifying obscurity.

It was an outrage!

I wondered what jobs I had lost, what opportunities I had missed, and just how many extra chocolates had not been surrepticiously stuffed into my sack over the years.

I don't think the clerk noticed when I had to lean over and put my head between my knees to keep myself from passing out as a result of pure rage.

My sister was blonde. She had never said a word about this preferential treatment.

I had blonde friends. Not a peep out of them.

On my way out of the mall parking lot, I started to chuck the sample chocolates into the dumpster in disgust, then defiantly stuffed them into my mouth -- after all -- these were chocolates I should have had long ago, if I had been valued for my talent, rather than my tint.

As the months passed and my roots begain grow out, creating a ragged brown DMZ at my part-line, I decided to dye my hair again -- blonde.

And I noticed that I was becoming accustomed to the pampering. Which is probably why my sister never said anything. She probably didn't even notice it.

When I was blonde, it was definitely easier to schmooze a policeman out of giving me a ticket, pick up girls, and get a refund for an item I had bought over a year ago.

Which I still find bizarre, and slightly icky.

The first time Gretchen "made" me a blonde, I asked her to do something that looked reasonably realistic. Now, as I realized that I was becoming numb to the red-carpet experience, I asked her to make me increasingly unbelievable as a blonde -- with each treatment, I was a little more peroxidish -- until finally, it was so apparent that I was not a "real" blonde that even a two-year-old wouldn't have been fooled.

I expected this to inhibit my privileged status with clerks and cops -- but no. In fact, the blonder I got, the nicer they seemed to get. Not that I intentionally alerted them to my subterfuge -- in fact, I think, as things progressed, that I might have been a little gleeful about the ruse.

Which, I suppose, means -- blondeness corrupts, and absolute blondeness corrupts absolutely.

I considered that being nice to blondes may be a cultural compensation for all the degrading jokes that we tell about them -- an unconscious form of pity -- but I don't think so.

My Marilyn phase ended when I picked up my spiritual work in earnest -- at that time, I shaved my head again, and when it sprouted once more, it was in my natural hue -- a dark warm brown with occasional reddish highlights (that's my Clairol advertisement for myself).

I don't miss the special status. I've actually been enjoying the anonymity that is afforded me now, as I've grown older, chubbier, more "ma'am-worthy". No one tries to hit on me at the tavern. If I weren't such a loud-mouth, I imagine I could walk through the world entirely unnoticed, if I wanted to.

I will close, now, with my two favorite blonde-jokes:

A blonde dyes her hair brunette, hoping the world will finally stop seeing her as a bimbo, and recognize her native intelligence.

After her visit to the salon, she takes a drive in the country in her convertible, and stops when she sees a man tending a large herd of sheep.

She calls out to him "Hey! If I can tell you how many sheep you have within 60 seconds, can I have one?"

The guy says, "Sure."

She sweeps her eyes over the herd for three seconds and announces "472."

"That's amazing lady! Come out here and take your pick!"

She staggers out in the field in her high-heels, wraps her arms around a smallish, furry bundle, and trots back to the car, depositing her prize in the back seat.

The shepherd calls out after her: "Hey, if I can tell you your original hair-color within 60 seconds, can I have my dog back?"

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A blonde driver is stopped by a blonde policewoman. The policewoman comes up and says: "I'll need to see your driver's license, please."

The blonde driver opens her purse and puzzles at the assortment of items within it.

"Which one is my license?" she asks.

"It's flat, square, and has your picture on it," replies the cop.

The driver pulls out her compact, opens it, peers into the mirror, and then hands it to the policewoman, who looks at it and says:

"Well, hey! Why didn't you tell me you were a cop!?"