I'm a 10!

So....all you bitches know that I'm classy, right? I like beer, I cheer like a redneck for the crappiest baseball team in the whole damn American League (let's not discuss that), I like nothing more on a rainy day than an US magazine and a grilled cheese made with Velveeta cheese....and I color my hair with boxed hair color. This is not really so unclassy, I guess. There are many people who dye their hair with boxed hair color, and they are upstanding, wonderful citizens who drink cab and have good credit. It's just when I was younger, I remember riding in the back of the car on a trip from the mall, listening to my mom and grandmom talk. They thought I was asleep, as they usually did, so they really started dishing the good stuff (by the way, this is how I learned about sex, drugs, and Jack Daniels--God bless those midnight car rides!). On one particular evening, they were discussing a woman who had (presumably) once been a prostitute and once beat up her husband before getting on a bus bound for Indiana and the waiting arms of a truck driver. I remember their voices getting extra hushed and my grandmother saying, "Well, she dyes her hair that awful red...that Clairol red. Buys it at the drugstore every month." For some reason, that just really stuck with me. I imagined a sad and lonely woman, trekking out to the drugstore, her streaked red hair hanging loose and whore-like around her drawn face, only to see my ethereal grandmother behind the counter, doling out presecriptions and advice like candy. My grandmother's hair was naturally and beautifully gray, and it laid around her head like a halo--totally the opposite of "Clairol red." So I guess, accompanied with this image of old age done gracefully and the washed up (albeit imagined) old age of the town slut, I decided right then and there that I would never dye my hair "Clairol red."

I guess it is telling that when I first decided to try dying my hair at home that I went for the much more buttoned up L'Oreal Natural Match. No sluts here! However, as it usually does, In Style magazine tempted me toward whoredom. In a feature they did in the March issue, they talk extensively about new products and how they have "revolutionized" the beauty industry. I don't know about that....but anyway, Clairol Perfect 10 hair color was one of them. So, well, if you read this blog regularly, you know that I have no self-control and am horribly gullible and you of course know what I did next. Yup, I bought the stuff, not even really knowing if I would like it, if I even really needed it....I'm really a quite horrible person. I bought it at Target and brought the crap home, along with $70 of other stuff that I neither needed nor know if I truly wanted. Ah, such is the way of the Target. Now, if you don't want to think that I'm a horrible consumerist person, go read that post that I wrote about being a good bargain hunter. Or for that matter, find a new blog. Perhaps something written by a nun?

ANYWAY...so the haircolor...the big hook is that it takes...10 minutes. That's pretty much the selling point. Yup...10 minutes rather than 25 or whatever the other was. That's what sent me panting to Target IN THE RAIN. 10 minute hair color. Hmmmm.... But hold up--I actually really like the stuff. Once I got it on, I determined that it really is more than the fact that it can just be done in 10 minutes. This stuff feels much more gentle than the other L'Oreal stuff. The L'Oreal stuff made my head feel like it was being devoured by an angry troop of fire ants. This...not so much. It was just there. And it just took 10 minutes. So, if you're like me, that's 10 minutes to read In Style magazine and plot the demise of Eva Longoria Parker. Or to make 1/3 of a 30 minute meal. Or to do the last writing section on the SAT. Or to ponder the meaningless of existence. You know, whatever.

And when I was done....pretty damn nice, if I do say so myself. Not only is the color shiny and shimmery and all the things that a good out of the box hair color should be, but it also gives my hair some body. Which, with all the other stuff giving my hair body right now (again, see that other post about cheap stuff), I'm a regular Monica Lewinsky. And yes, that's a dated reference, but didn't you just love her hair? I remember my hair stylist telling me that if I used Redken Body and Bounce, I could have that "Lewinsky bounce." Which sounds like something that you'd find in the Starr report, but whatever. Yeah, it didn't work (the Redken stuff), but THIS DOES. My hair just feels thicker.

So the 10 minute hair color doesn't make you a whore (unless, of course, you want it to, and in that case, I would defs. go with the red). It will just give you lots of body, and you will like it. And it will only take 10 minutes. So that's 15 minutes you don't have to spend dying your hair--15 minutes you can prepare half of a 30 minute meal, 15 minutes to save the world from itself, 15 minutes to go to Target and buy more shit. But ultimately, it's 15 minutes to just bitch about Eva Longoria Parker, because isn't that what you want to be doing anyway?

I've totally lost all fashion credibility.

I mean, it's not like I had much to start out with. But for the SECOND day in a row, I have somehow come to the office in stained pants. Ok, say it with me now: CLASSY.

Yesterday I kinda knew what I was getting myself into because it started out as a crappulous day. My family is sick right now (my husband got something at school and brought it home to incubate--thus infecting everyone in a 10 mile radius of my front door), and so I rushed around yesterday morning, doling out Tylenol Cold and washing dried snot off of cheeks as I got ready for work. I felt so lucky when I found my favorite jeans laying in the floor--hey, at least I didn't have to look for them. I put them on, put on a cashmere sweater that makes me feel better (because nothing goes with stains quite like cashmere), snapped on some hoop earrings and left. I realized on the way to work that there was a humungo stain right on the shin. Like just a bunch of white stuff. I tried to pick it off, but it wasn't coming. I have no idea what it was/is. My best bet is some kind of food detritus, but again, no clue. My husband thinks it looks like a stain of the Monica Lewinsky variety (now there's a dated reference!). Anyway, it stayed on my shin all freaking day. I tried to ignore it.

Then today, I put on The Holy Denim Trousers, actually pulling them off of the hanger in my closet where they had been lovingly hung. I put them on with a purple Dream sweater from J Crew that I just got in the mail yesterday (yea!) and my dark red peep toes. I looped a teal pashmina around my neck. I liked it--the colors didn't match but they did "go". I came to work feeling sassy. However, wouldn't you know that as soon as I stepped out of my car this morning I discovered that this time, there was a skinny, oblong stain on my thigh. Probably just coffee I thought. But no. It's an actual stain. And it's there. Calling out for the world to see. Now I'm going to have to hand wash my pants when I get home, which I'm not really cool with, but seriously, I would do anything short of sell off a kidney to keep these things in running order.

And here's the piece of fashion wisdom I'm going to impart to you. Keep your hair trimmed and in good fashion. Seems unrelated, but hear me out. I need a haircut--hella bad actually. My hair looks rough. And I haven't gotten a cut, the chief reason being that I just haven't gotten around to getting an appointment and there always seems to be something better to do, and whatever. If my hair were looking fine, it probably wouldn't matter one damn bit about my pants--I might not even notice. But because my hair isn't right, and looks overgrown and sad and underappreciated suburban mom (which I guess I am, but damn if I want to look like one), everything just seems a little bit worse. Does that make sense?

I think I'll make an appointment this weekend.

Idol Hands

Last night I did something that I'm still not exactly sure of why I did it. I think mostly because I was bored and because I wanted to avoid watching another scary movie with my husband. Keep in mind that I did this, not because I don't enjoy my husband's company and not because I don't like scary movies, but because he Netflixed a TON of them, and there's just so many nights one can spend with their guts in a bind, watching some poor bloody person try to exact revenge for the murder of their whole family at the hands of crazy mutants.

Last night I colored my hair. At home. With a drugstore brand hair color. Classy.

I have to admit that my life has been relatively free of hair color, on all levels. The last time I colored my hair, I was about 14 or so. My mother knew that I had this desire for technicolor hair in me, so she found Mickey, which was probably the best thing she could have done as the mother of a wayward teenager. Mickey was the best hairdresser a 15 year old could ask for: he listened to what I wanted, smiled and nodded, told me what a great idea it was and then did something totally different, and thus, socially acceptable. But the best thing was that it actually looked great when he was done. I'm not sure how he managed this, but whatever. It worked. After a few tries with color, he got it to be a very dark red with one very chunky blonde streak in the front. Ok, this sounds horrible here, but I thought it was AWESOME. And it was the mid nineties you see, so it was pretty awesome. Very angsty, with a side of fashion.

However, one day when I was at practice for the academic team I was on (yes, I was a nerd. I was totally That kid. I work in SAT test prep now--what did you expect?), I decided not to ever color my hair again. I was sitting in the floor of the auditorium, reading about World War II, when all of a sudden this conversation transpired:

Tom: Exactly, what color is your hair?

Me: Ummm....I'm not sure. It's just...red.

Tom: That color is not found in nature, you know. No one's hair is really that color.

Me: I know. That's kinda the point.

Tom: Isn't that kinda dumb?

And with that, it all came crashing down. I desperately wanted to impress Tom, he being the bastion of high school academic team excellence that he was. I didn't want to be dumb. I wanted for us to watch Monty Python together and make witty comments and then talk about Winston Churchill and that whole Yalta thing and then go to a nice restaurant together and maybe make out?!?! That's what I wanted. I didn't want to be the dumb girl. So I looked down, memorized a bunch of crap about WWII and decided to never color my hair again. I never told Mickey why, and we made do with some fun asymmetrical cuts and a few updos that garnered me a lot of attention at various proms and dances. But no color.

Last night I went back on that. I went to Target yesterday, and I bought a box of L'Oreal Natural Match hair color in Dark Brown. First off, finding this stuff is pretty trying. Who knew there are so many ways to become another person? I sifted through all the different colors and formulas, deciding that if this went well, I'd go with the hardcore dark ash brown later. I ended up buying the one I did because...wait for it...this formula was the most expensive. And obviously it's going to harder to ruin my hair with something costs $10.94 than another box priced at seven bucks. So, with all my loot, I settled my husband on the couch, dared him to come and bother me and spread all the crap out on the bathroom counter. It actually didn't look too hard. So I got started. My main fear was that I would end up with Dark Brown polka dots in my medium brown hair, so I covered the HELL out of my hair. It was dripping everywhere. I imagine this is what the bathtub looked like when they finished filming the shower scene on Psycho. So, while I waited for the crap to sink in, I feverishly rubbed at the splotches on the floor. And on my face. And my whole body.

And the result? Well, pretty damn good if I say so myself. It's just my regular haircolor...with punch. It is quite a bit darker, but also very shiny and multifaceted. I feel very cool with it. Of course, I don't have much to compare it with, having not done this before. But I did achieve the look that I wanted, which is darker for fall, and a bit more mysterious.

So for that, I invite Tom to come out to SF and see what he thinks. Perhaps while he's here we can watch some Monty Python, eat some Thai food and talk history. And I can kick him in the shin for making 14 year old me feel bad (no, really, Tom. If you want to come, that's cool. I promise not to kick--maybe).