The Damn White Roots

Before I opened my eyes this morning, still thrilled from the dream of seeing an approaching tsunami and surviving (awesome!), I spent time shuffling the day’s agenda. I thought:

If I dye my hair this morning, coping with behead tomorrow at 4:00am before the flight is going to be challenging, and my hair will feel awfully gross during the drive to Sam’s college on Thursday.

If I merely shampoo this morning and dye my hair tonight– There’s not time. Yes there is. Don’t put it off, you know you won’t follow through– I will, I will– Sigh –

As I was saying, if I dye my hair tonight, I can blow it straight and be slightly more fresh feeling when I hang out with my family tomorrow night.

What if I don’t dye my hair before the trip at all? Go with gray roots? Yes. Live with roots for one more weekend. What will it matter? Who will see?

Relatives. They love me no matter what I look like.

Sam’s classmates. People over the age of 23 are invisible and/or irrelevant to college sophomores.

The flight attendants with a gnarly up-close birds’ eye view of my white roots. Hmmm. I’ll probably get better service if I look my best.

Time out. That’s bogus. I don’t think it is. It’s a fact that better looking, better groomed people are treated more kindly everywhere they go. A fact? Says who? Fact or fallacy: coiffed hair, colored lips—-

It’s too annoying of a question to think about at — what time is it? 6:14am.

I could pretend I’m in Pussy Riot and pull a hot orange ski mask over my head. Roots covered, pimple covered, shiny nose covered. But it’d get awfully itchy and sweaty and I don’t think the NSA would take kindly to it.

Oh, I envy the men whose only primping chore is to get clean and maybe moisturize. I know they have brows and nose hair and acne to contend with. I know many of them do take extra efforts with their hair. Even writing this paragraph feels like nothing but a waste of time, besides I’ve covered this topic before, and I’m already bitter about the 60 minutes I must budget today for the hair dying, so I guess I better get back on track.

But I can’t get it back, the time spent: all the hours I’ve spent standing in the bathroom, coaxing powders on to brushes and tiny sponges and touching them to my face. Am I the only one who finds it all annoying and absurd?

It’s my prerogative not to participate, I know. But then I better get used to hearing what my shrink told me last month, “You look tired today.”

You know what I want to do instead of dying my hair?

I want to plant this basil in soil.

I want to hear music in the park.

I want to make collages in my sketch book.

How do you feel about the time spent on primping? Do you really enjoy painting your nails and straightening your hair? Where do you draw the line?

—————————————————–