Friday, March 9, 2001
Well, I think I'm going to have to stop calling myself a blonde.... From now on, I shall be a calico, I think.
As I've gotten older, my hair has not been able to make up its mind what it wants out of life. (Rather like the rest of me....) First it was a pale blonde, then it got darker, then it turned yellower, then lighter again.... now it's gone a funny combination of colors ranging from slate to silver, brown to pale gold. (No, I don't color it, it just does this stuff, itself.)
Sometimes I have the urge to bleach it all platinum and then color the tips something outré, like purple or green.
I expect the official change from Blonde to Calico Kat to be beneficial, over all. One of my friends declares a certain distaste for "blondes", not the hair color, the attitude, and has decided that I can't possibly be blonde, because I'm not air-headed or venal enough.
Is hair color an attitude? Can one be a brunette in blonde hair? Are brunettes really smarter than blondes? Are people with black hair more dangerous? Are platinum blondes, as of Hollywood's golden age, sexier? Do red-heads have fiery tempers? Realistically, no. I know people who do fit these stereotypes, sure, but just as many who don't. But do we, inadvertently, fit ourselves and our friends into little boxes because of it?
I always liked being a blonde, though the blonde jokes get old really fast.... I've always thought it a particularly nice color: bright, sunny (camouflage, you know). I never considered myself silly or air-headed or mercenary. I doubt anyone else ever has, either, but it was kind of strange to think that, despite the fact that my hair is undeniably blonde, at least in streaks at the present time, I had been ruled a non-blonde by my friend. For attitude reasons, of course.
Is one defined by what one is not? Sounds terrible, doesn't it? I'm not tall, by most standards, nor am I short. Not fat, but not thin. Not excruciatingly blonde, but not really a brunette. I am "not" many things, but I am also decidedly some things. Most of these are things I either can't or won't change. Many are things I fought to become or acquire.
I'm an amalgam of parts: writer, wife, ex-journalist, sailor, nut-case.... Not a deep well of knowledge, but a broad and spreading puddle, a patchwork of ideas and stolen bits of who and what. I hold together pretty well for all that I seem to be made of parts.
A calico. Yeah, I guess I'm a calico....
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