A Year & A Day in the Life of a Red

In December of 2006, I threw a tremendous tantrum to show the world just how pissed off I was and how I wasn't going to take it anymore. Actually, the tantrum began sometime in October and reached it's pinnacle right around the middle of December.

In any event, the crowning moment of the tantrum transpired at a strip-mall-hair-franchise and the words "cut it all off" spilling from my angry mouth. The minimum wage stylist added her opinion (in a hybrid language somewhere between Russian, Armenian and English) on how great I would look if I colored my hair, "Copper, I think, yes you look good Copper."

It just so happened the WalMart across the street had a $2.99 box of color with the word "copper" in the description, and away I went.

I dove right into the pit of Red after more than 15 years as a tried and true blonde. In a matter of 3 hours, I disappeared from the world. By the time I left my garden apartment post-color, not a single person noticed me, or looked in my direction. My dog couldn't look at me. Since his birth, his mother had been a pretty blonde lady – he had no idea who this dark haired stranger was. My best friend avoided eye contact when he first saw the newly coppered Onagh. Everyone was amazed.

At first, I was a little stunned – I wandered around in a daze as people simply ignored me. Women looked right through me, men stared right past me. Even young children failed to notice me. I had become invisible.

For the first time in my adult life, I experienced the normalcy of the non-blonde.

I moved to Vegas, and where I could not get past the first interview as a blonde, as a red, I was offered a job at the first meeting. I had forgotten that blonde equates to stupid in the real world. I discovered an entirely new way of living. I was incognito, I was under cover, I was a Copper Fox!

I spent a year and six months as a red. It was strange and different. There was almost an "otherness" to the life I was leading. As if I had left my former life, and been transported into the body of this other person, this non-blonde.

This Red made decisions about my life that I never could have made on my own. When the Audio Thief returned, she rousted him from my psyche like a Dorm Mother on crack. When my old habits returned, she calmly shewed them away like dust bunnies from under the bed.

I found a hair stylist at a fashionable day spa who understood red and all it's complexities, most specifically the dreaded fade! He maintained Red in perfect golden and copper tones required of the Copper Fox.

Eighteen months went by – not a very long time – but long enough to forget the blonde.

And then, at a recent hair appointment, I found myself telling Johnny, "I can't stand the fade, I need serious highlights". Due to my ever creeping grey hairline, it becomes harder and harder to keep the red, red and the grey gone. And so, once again, I release control of my destiny to the person who stands at the ready with color bowl and applicator brush to transform me.

As Johnny was drying my hair, this stripped, blonde-copper-red tapestry hanging from my scalp, he looked in the mirror at me, and had the most perplexed look. "Why does this look so natural on you?"

I didn't know what to say. I was so surprised myself. I stared at the mirror and quietly said to myself "Oh it's you again".

I very calmly turned to Johnny and told him my deepest most California-sun-bleached of secrets. I confessed to my hairstylist that for over 15 years I was a blonde.

His eyes got as big as saucers and then squinted at me as he laughed his wicked little giggle. I could see behind his squint what he was thinking: another blonde hiding out in a red head's life, a dish water trying on the brunette for size.

I didn't see anyone after my transformation back to blonde. It was late in the evening by the time I encountered any of my regular friends. Archie was so glad to see me. He greeted me with an unusual amount of kisses and tail wagging. He stares at me a lot more lately. Most of the people who are seeing me as a blonde for the first time all have the same surprised look – as if they knew I was blonde all along.

So I start a new phase of "Life in Vegas" as a blonde. I have to wonder how much the next eighteen months contrasts the last. Only time, and a constant supply of bleach, will tell.