I’ve been noticing for awhile now though that I really needed to take care of this, for me. Once upon a time, long, long ago my hair was so shiny that you needed sunglasses to look at me in the sunshine. My hair was radiant. It almost had a halo, like you see in religious paintings. These days, not so much. It looks a lot more like some fake fur you’d buy at Walmart to make your kiddo into a caveman for Halloween.

I’d always heard that when your hair turns grey that the texture can change too. I guess I’d never really noticed the texture changing because I’d always kept color on it. After I brushed my teeth last night I stood for a minute and looked in the mirror. I did a double take, kinda like Kramer would do in Seinfeld when he saw or heard something that shocked him.

My hair has always been curly, something I stupidly fought for decades. The last twenty years or so though, I’ve come to embrace my curls, really love them. Last night as I was running my fingers through my hair, AKA brushing, when your hair is curly,  I noticed that I had a knot in my hair and try as I might I couldn’t get it out. I had to cut it out. This was something new. This one part of my hair near the bottom, had become super curly, almost inhumanly curly and just curled itself into something that could not be undone. How odd.

At that point I thought that perhaps I should take a thorough look at my hair, something I hadn’t done in years. When you have really curly hair your hair just is- there are no styles except for putting it into some kind of ponytail or up do perhaps.

I took a hard look at the salt and peppery part. Instead of going into ringlets, this uncolored hair looked confused, like it didn’t know what to do. First it went one way, then another. Each hair looked like the path a pinball might take in a pinball machine. What’s with that? It’s like I just saw myself for the first time- and it was scary! How long have I been walking around like this? And why didn’t anyone tell me? I stood at the sink probably looking like the RCA dog with my head tilted to one size. I was puzzled.

Any thoughts of letting my hair go “au natural” have now gone the way of the dodo bird. If I let my hair go natural, eventually I’d look like the love child of Sam Jaffe and Professor Irwin Corey. No thanks. At this point I think at my end they’re going to have to pry my box of Miss Clairol out of my cold, dead hands.

When I was younger and so was he, I thought Robert Redford was the “best thing since sliced bread.” (You can insert your own witty description instead if you’d like.) Beautiful smile, big blue eyes, and gorgeous blond hair. Did you see him in Butch Cassidy? Have you seen him lately? This is NOT a good look for him. I’ve seen Maury with reddish hair, not quite as red at RR.  Arnold, the Terminator has had reddish hair too. Do they really think this looks good? Frank Gifford who’s older than my mom was has red hair now also. I think he’s in his 80′s.

A lot of us are choosing to alter our hair color as we age, both women and men. I have no problem with that at all. Do what makes you feel good about yourself. As I’ve said, when I really want to make a drastic change, I’ll go electric blue or maybe even neon pink. At least folks will know that that was a change I really wanted to make and not just a mistake. I know  I’ll never go blond. I tried on a blond wig once. (I looked like I’d taken the Velvet Jones home study course.) I just don’t have the skin tone to be a blond. On me it looks cheap and unnatural, which it is. These guys don’t have the skin tone to be redheads. The celebrities all have enough money to go in for lowlights. I wonder why in the world they’re not doing it instead of drastically changing the color from what they were born with?

I realize that the one time I took Doug into the combo nail shop and hair salon it didn’t turn out well. You may remember that I wrote about when he looked like Art Fern. I should’ve just done it at home like I had before. When the lowlights are done well, it takes at least 10 years off his looks. He likes it too. (Although he’d never admit to anyone outside this house.)

I’m thinking maybe these male celebrities are just splitting up a big multi pack of Miss Clairol they someone picked up at Costco. There has to be some reason for this. There just has to.

When I was younger I always said that I wouldn’t be one of those women who go running for a box of Miss Clairol when they spot their first gray hair. I said that in my twenties- what did I know of life? Actually I held out quite awhile, into my early forties. I had just started wearing wire rimmed glasses for reading. Our daughter Amanda was eight. She looked at me wearing my glasses and said “Mom, when get gray hair you’ll look just like that woman in Momma’s Family.” You know that old adage “Out of the mouth of babes.”? With my shortish curly hair and glasses I was 2/3 of the way to Momma AKA Vicky Lawrence already.

That day I went and bought my first box of color. Though I didn’t really look like I had any gray hairs yet, I knew they were there, just lying in wait for me. For about 15 years I colored occasionally using a Level 3, semi-permanent color; nothing really crazy for me, just various shades of dark brown. Once, just prior top leaving on a three month road trip I went to get highlights. I’d never had them before and had liked how they looked on a friend.  I really didn’t know what to expect. She painted my hair with what appeared to be neon pink icing. Laughingly I told her I hoped my hair didn’t look that way when it was finished. Later when it was rinsed out I got a good look. It wasn’t hot pink. It was hot orange. It looked as if someone had taken a Bozo wig apart and sewn the pieces into my hair.  I was mortified.  The colorist was shocked when I refused to pay. I wore a hat for at least six weeks. That was my last foray into highlights.

When I married Doug in 1982 he had black hair. As time went by the top layer of his hair got grayer and grayer while underneath it remained dark. He had for many years the quintessential “salt and pepper” hair. Now many years later it’s just gray-a nice shade of gray, but gray. Since I don’t really look like a trophy wife, by association everyone knows I’m older too. One day I saw a sign at a salon for lowlights. It was also a nail salon. In hindsight, that should have tipped me off. At any rate, I went in to get my nails done and told Doug to get lowlights. I was tired of seeing him look older than he was.

I was on one side of the salon, he on the other. When I was done I went around the partition to see if he was finished. Doug had vanished. In his place was Art Fern. Remember Art Fern and the Tea Time Movie Lady from the old Tonight Show? I started laughing so hard my eyes watered.  I was waiting for him to tell me to look for the “fork in the road” then tell me to “Cut off your schlossen.” I went over to the stylist and asked what she had done. I discovered she spoke very little English. I went to the owner of the salon who I had initially spoken to and asked how that had happened . She went to her and they babbled in what I perceived to be Vietnamese. All I could pick up was the word “Lowlights” repeatedly. The woman who’d turned Doug into Art Fern started repeating the word “Lowlights” while having a puzzled look on her face.  She said it exactly the same way numerous times then finally must’ve had an “Ah-ha”moment. She said “Looow- lights” her voice having an entirely different pitch. She finally understood what she should’ve done. When we got home our son Brett said his dad looked like a pimp. Doug and I did laugh about it. However his laugh came many days after mine. I just realized I missed my chance to be the Tea Time Movie Lady. (Of course I would’ve needed a blond wig to pull it off.) That was the last foray into lowlights.

Now as I alone continue to fight Mother Nature, Doug has conceded I’m afraid,  I am back using a simple one-step box color. The results aren’t very dramatic- no highlights, no lowlights.  However I can still recognize the person in the mirror when I’m finished.