When I went back to pink and red hair a month ago, I forgot about something that always happens when I have high-maintenance hair: the Pink Creep.
It starts the minute you get out of the shower. No, it starts when you first rinse the excess color out of your hair. Suddenly the water’s running and I’m in that scene from Carrie, except instead of starting my period in a really faucetty, axe-murder-bleeding sort of way, it’s like a head injury gone really wrong. Instead of screaming girls pelting me with Kotex, I should have screaming doctors, pelting me with the results of my CT scan. Or something.
I was a brunette when I moved into this apartment, and everything was pristine. “This time the Pink Creep will be different,” I tell myself. “The shower won’t turn pink. My neck won’t turn pink.” Lies, all of them.
After the grout and the shower curtain develop a pinkish tint, the Pink Creep spreads to other parts of my life. I use a dark old pillowcase so the pink won’t befoul the rest of my cherry-patterned sheets, but somehow the pink still gets all around the top of the bed. On that first day of the fresh redye I am always startled to discover later while peeing that my thong has turned pink…I now have a pink ass. The stems of my glasses are pink. Finally, things I touch a lot turn pink, like light switches and my wallet, which means I have pink fingers most of the time.
There is one really thing nice about having pink and red hair, aside from the fact that it satisfies the same sparkle-loving raccoon side of me that makes me obsessively wear initialed bling and giant hoop earrings, and that’s the fact that everyone loves a pinky-haired mom. People hoot at me when I’m alone, or assume that I want to buy or sell drugs or am a mean punk-rocker, but when I am the pinky-haired mom on the bus, with my pinky-haired little kid, everyone smiles at us because I am suddenly accessible, even more so than when I was a brunette. This is okay with me, because I love to talk about my kid. Who doesn’t?
Therefore, the pink creep is WORTH IT!
P.S. Will I ever see you again??
Aggh, I am buried in my thesis, which explains why I am writing once a week now. It’s very sad…I am hardly seeing my oldest and dearest friends. (Tiny violin.) All I can say is that I am getting liberated in June, and then I will get a job I don’t have to do round the clock.
I like these pictures better than the pictures of you on the old design. In case a strangers opinion matters!
this is how i imagine sj would have written this entry if she was on zoloft:
one of the NICE things about having pink hair: everything in your life turns pink!
because I love to talk about my kid. Who doesn
me too on the pillowcases, tub ring, funny colored fingers, and hooting/smiling depending on whether the kid is there or not.
I like it when little kids sidle over to where I am in the grocery store or somewhere trying to pretend they are not staring, and then they just forget and stand there with giant goofy grins until someone yells at them and removes them as they are obviously resolving to go home and magic-marker their barbies all punk and stuff. Muahaha!
I had a punk Barbie once. Her hair was all butch-cut with pink nail polish on the tips. Very 1985.
i have Blue Creep. although not as severely as you. my towels, my robe, my shirt collars, my shower, my earpieces on my glasses… good thing it’s my favorite color.
Pink creep aside, I reckon you’re the best mum EVER for letting Frenchie have pink hair.
mucho agreement with the monkey.
Life just isn’t fair. I’m mostly bald and none of my stuff has turned mostly invisible.
Except, of course, the little demons that hide my car keys, but they were that way before I started losing my hair…
Dear Grau,
SNORT!
SJ
i think you and halcyon (www.cockybastard.com) were separated at birth.
or maybe you are like the girls from the blind melon video.
Hey–
You left off comments on your previous post but I thought I’d commiserate on the ‘vomity’ feeling. I had to do embarassing self-help-y things in between alcohol binges to finish my thesis…and it was late at that.
I’m now behind on other shit and have a baby to feed and so I’m not just vomity myself but covered in someone else’s vomit as well.
I’m sure you’ve heard this before: Don’t think of it as a thesis but as a long paper (or something). Good luck.
At least you have hair to color; I only have scalp.Curse you, Male Pattern Baldness!
You are very magical! Like a punk fairy princess who turns everything pink!
Please turn my boss pink. Thank you.
who better than you to bring us a little ‘la vie en rose’? hurray for being an alterna-mommy – my tattoos get me a similar response when i am with my kid.