I smell bad. I showered today, but didn’t wash my hair while I was in there. Two reasons. One, it was just too damn cold to have wet hair today and since it was already 2 p.m. I didn’t think I had time to blow dry all of it. Second reason, I’m at week three of my first experimentation with adding wonderful new colors to my hair. Streaks of blue and green mostly. They are brilliant. But the less I wash my hair on the weekends, the less I have to touch up the colors. I started on New Year’s Eve; figured it was the best time to do something that I really wanted to do. None of that resolution crap for me. I just did it. I guess for some people this wouldn’t be such a huge deal. Dying one’s hair green or blue is kinda passe now, I suppose. Scoresby used to do it lot when we were young and punk, but I never had the guts even though I always envied his full head of purple hair.

My parents always made my hair such a big deal when I was little so I guess that is why it is still a big deal now. See, since my grandmother is Native American, there is this really nice thick hair in the family because of her. There are also a bunch of redheads, too. So, by some amazing luck, I got this uber-thick auburn hair. My sister sorta got it too, except hers is more strawberry blond. I actually think it is a little pink if you look at it in the right light. So, when we were little we were prisoners to our hair. We could never choose the style or length. We both had this long thick hair down to our butts. I’d have to hold mine when I went to the bathroom. Hair washing and conditioning was a chore, not to mention all the brushing to get rid of the tangles. Our mom made us dozens and dozens of barrettes to match all our outfits. On summer days, we could choose from pigtails or ponytails. By the time I reached about 12, I'd have to say I saw my long hair as a way for my mother to control me.

So, I decided to break free. One Saturday night, my siblings and I were left at my Aunt Wanda’s little apartment while my parents went somewhere. Wanda was a bit of a druggie at the time, as well as a hairdresser. I thought I’d use both to my advantage. Many times in the past, when we had been left with Wanda something bad had happened. Once, when I was 11, she made me stay up and watch The Exorcist with her. I sometimes wonder if this story is true or if I am blocking out something far worse, actually. But I do remember being in her living room with the other kids asleep, sitting in the dark watching Linda Blair’s head spin around while my Aunt Wanda snorted something. Another time, we all helped her move out of her basement apartment in the middle of the night, via the window because her boyfriend had burned her with an iron or something. Basically, Wanda was a fuck-up and I was going to use her to get myself a no-fault haircut. I went into the bathroom and put my hair in a long braid down my back, took her hair cutting scissors and reached around to the nape of my neck and cut the braid right off. Free at last. Then I took the braid of cut off hair and set it on the kitchen table in front of her. She looked at me like I had just skinned her cat. Oh my god, she said. Your mother is going to kill you. I think I told her, no, my mother is going to kill you if you don’t make it look good. So, in a marijuana haze, she cut what was left of my hair into a neat little bob.

And I’ve been running away from my hair ever since. It has been long and short and short and long again, but I have always known not to perm it or color it or anything like that. By the time I met Scoresby in college, I had that long hair again. He was sorta seeing this punk girl who had short multi-colored hair that had been manic panicked so many times that it was falling out. I envied her. When he told her he wanted to start dating me, she told him that I was pretty. Pretty! What a horrible insult from a girl like her. Ugh! So ever since then, I’ve wanted anime hair. Messy and blue or green or pink or all of those colors at once. Of course there are other reasons why I want this. One of which is my need to always make everything into art, even my hair.

My first steps towards anime hair have not been too hesitant, just like that day when I cut it all off. I started with a huge chunk that I bleached and then dyed a wonderful dark green. Then a few weeks later, I added more bleached streaks which I dyed blue. It really is very very, um, pretty. The other day, on the street, I was having a Felicity moment. If you ever watched the show, you know what I mean. Waiting on the corner to cross the street, the wind blew my hair in my eyes. Except the hair in my eyes was blue, which was so rad.

Now I feel addicted, I am so ready to just dye the rest of my shoulder length hair blue or various other colors. The only problem is that this hair color doesn’t stay in for long unless you wash it less. Which would mean that I would sometimes smell bad. I want anime hair, and then some. I think that means I will have to smell bad sometimes. I guess as long as it is only on the weekends, I can deal.

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