“You’re going to do what to your hair? No, No Michelle. Don’t do that, you already have the weirdest hair in the entire building”.
It was fall of 1995 and those words were spoken by Cheryl. She was a woman I worked with when I lived in Kansas City, Missouri. I worked in the West Port area, which is a funky little place near downtown Kansas City. I didn’t like Kansas City (no offense to anyone who calls that home). I had moved away from the Cincinnati area for the first time in my life and I was out of sorts. For a year. It wasn’t Kansas City’s fault that I was out of sorts, but I still blame Kansas City.
It was a period of high anxiety. I can’t type ‘high anxiety’ without thinking of Mel Brooks. My 20s had recently ended as did my second marriage. I moved to Kansas City to be with a man who I met on the internet. In an AOL chat room.
Don’t you fucking judge me.
So, after seeing this man a total of 9 times in person, my son and I moved deeper into the Midwest. I could write a book on how guilty I feel for uprooting my son’s life and taking a chance that seemed more than risky…it bordered on impossible. We stopped at least 10 times to get happy meals from McDonald’s. I maneuvered that moving truck time after time at nearly every McDonald’s we saw between Northern Kentucky and Blue Springs, Missouri. The happy meal toy was power rangers and I wanted to make sure he got all five colors. I would not fail. He would have all of them. I had to do something, anything to make up to him the fact that I was taking him away from everything he knew.
After being out of IT for a few years, I bluffed my way back in. My first job in Kansas City was at a chain of funeral homes. I made it three months before walking off the job. That is the one and only time I walked off a job, but that is a different blog post. I ended up working for a grocery co-op and that is where I met Cheryl who told me I was weird.
In her defense, I’ve always been a little weird.
I had recently dyed my hair black. Not dark brown. Black. Black is so harsh, y’all. Then I decided, after seeing a picture in a magazine, to chop off all my hair and dye it platinum.
I told Cheryl about my plan and she was horrified. That didn’t stop me, though.
The hairdresser had been processing me for 3 hours before telling me “You can’t go from black to platinum”.
What you can do, is go from black to orange. After 5 hours in the chair, I gave up and went home where I was promptly nicknamed ‘the tangerine queen’.
I bought hair dye and figured I would either burn all the hair off my head or I would fix that shit. It ended up a sort of sunshiny yellow. I got sunburned soon after. Between my face and my hair, I looked like a McDonald’s billboard.
I spent that whole year bouncing back and forth, everything was extreme.
We moved to Wichita and I dyed my hair back to it’s natural color. I wasn’t crazy about Wichita, either, but it was better. Life evened out some. We spent a year there and made plans to come back to Cincinnati when we learned the baby boy was on his way.
Here we are, nearly 20 years later, and even though that beginning was rocky, Randy and I are still choosing to spend our days together. I gave up dying my hair last Summer and the tinsel-y gray is coming in as highlights. I actually like it.
It’s not always smooth sailing here, but I do appreciate living our lives in a mostly predictable and calm(ish) manner.
You really can’t go from black to platinum. Not without some anxiety. It seems to me, however, that sometimes if you live through erratic and chaotic years that you can appreciate the calm years a bit more.
That’s actually an amazingly hopeful story. And if I haven’t told you this already, you are a good writer. I appreciate your attention to the craft of storytelling, using the hair-dyeing analogy to illustrate your point about drastic changes. Some people honestly don’t get that, and relate stories in a dry and uninteresting way…he said she said this happened… So there you go. You have skills you probably take for granted.
I enjoy reading your stories because of this.
Thanks for this. Glad to hear you’re living mostly happily ever after.
Thank you, sweetness! I appreciate that so much especially coming from someone whose writing I admire.
And yes, we are living mostly happily ever after. I feel kind of smug about it.
I feel the same exact way about her blog. It is not just that she has amazing stories, is that she knows how to tell them.
Thank you, sugar pop!
I guess your gamble paid off?? What an amazing story.
I don’t like Kansas City either. Something about the city being in two States makes its people territorial and weird!
It did! Randy and I really beat the odds with this one. We were lucky that we were as suited for each other as we are because it had a very rocky beginning…it was worth it though…all worth it.
My mother wouldn’t let me dye my hair as a kid, and by the time it occurred to me to want to, I was too old to do anything drastic and startling. As a result, the only thing I’ve ever done is get $200 highlights. So that’s dull. When my kids come to me and ask me if they can dye their hair some strange color, I’m going to not just say yes, but also, “Want me to help you?” I think everyone should have the freedom at some point in their lives to make themselves look like a spectacle, and dying one’s hair is a great way to go about that.
I could not agree more about allowing kids to explore their possibilities..my baby boy had a blue mohawk a few years ago. He’s a junior now and has opted for the Buddy Holly look.
I found my to you just the other way through my ever beloved Dilettante. You made me laugh, a lot and that is saying something. Sadly a sharp wit and good writing are two of my favorite drugs of choice.
Changes are where we often find what were made of. I love knowing that you two are still together. Perhaps if I have a third it too will be charmed. And as for grey hair, rock it sistah! I can’t wait to turn grey. I plan to wear each and everyone as the badge of honor they are.
Yes! Rock on with that gray hair. And thank you for your kind words! I appreciate it so much.
Most of my hair colour disasters over the years were not photographed for posterity . For this I’m very thankful, I doubt I’d be so lucky these days. The blonde era was short lived, for similar reasons, it invariably turned brassy yellow within days as my kind of dark curly hair doesn’t like being blonde apparently.
Also, I found the attention that came with it was so annoying that I went back to brunette fairly rapidly.
I’m still not brave enough to let it go natural so I will continue the battle with hair dye that is never the colour it’s supposed to be. It always manages to not quite cover the wee bit of silver I do have anyway, but I still persevere.
I’m glad you took that risk as you two are obviously good for each other. A relationship built on the written word was probably not as big a risk as most of my relationships which were based on face to face contact, so no judgement from this corner.
I’ve taken many risks over my lifetime, most have not paid off ultimately but they afforded me some amazing experiences I would never have had otherwise. I won’t say that they were all good but you don’t know if you don’t try.
Taking a leap of faith is something most people are too scared to do.
If you never take a risk you are denying yourself the possibilities that lie out there. I’d rather regret the consequences than spend my life wondering what might have been if I had, but most people seem to want to play it safe and regard someone like me with suspicion.
I guess I’m just weird, nothing new there then.
I hear exactly what you are saying. I regret the times I’ve played it safe way more than the times I took a chance..even when I failed.
What a fantastically written post, and one that really spoke to me. Sounds like you rocked the hair and the Happy Meals. I wonder if your former colleague, Cheryl The Bitch, can say the same.
My life these days doesn’t involve hair dye or happy meal toys, but yesterday I happened to talk about both. In preparation for celebrating one of those big-0 birthdays, I headed in for my semi-annual shearing. Kenny eyed the rapidly multiplying silver ‘highlights’ and asked if I wanted to think about color. The thing is, I’m finally in a place where I don’t have to think about it at all. I don’t have to look like I can still compete at work because my only colleague these days is probably not going to fire me, at least as long as I throw her ball every day. And she probably won’t even file a harassment suit if I rub her belly and tell her she’s my pretty girl.
And talking to my daughters yesterday, somehow we got onto the subject of Happy Meals. They said I was the only mom they knew who regularly sent back the pink girl toys in exchange for the much cooler and more fun boy toys. I asked if they’d do the same with their (still hypothetical, dammit) children, and they thought about it. “Well, probably. Except for the My-Little-Ponies. We’re still upset about not getting those ponies…”
I would have gone back for the cooler boy toys as well. Boy toys sounds wrong, doesn’t it? I wish they didn’t even identify them by gender at all. They are just toys ffs.
A friend of mine had very long and very dark brown hair. She died it black. Then she tried to go platinum. She didn’t go to a hairdresser – she did it at home. What she ended up with were streaks of black, streaks of blonde, streaks of orange. It was wild, it was weird, it was funky. And it actually looked good. People kept asking her where she got it done!
Another friend met a guy online. He lived in England. He came to visit her twice and then they got married. They just celebrated their tenth anniversary and are happier than ever. Sometimes people are just meant to be together.
I myself have never been in an AOL chat room. I do have some Yahoo stories that I won’t be sharing though. 😉
You just never know how things are going to work out! And now I want to hear those yahoo stories.
I’ve ended up back in Cincinnati every time I’ve tried to leave it, too. I don’t know what it is about this place….
It’s just home…it’s where I feel most comfortable..and my family is here and I like my family
Exactly. If my family wasn’t here I’d probably move north, though.
Well, you’re a girl who isn’t afraid of taking chances! Very inspiring. I know this post isn’t really about hair color but about that, my daughter is a natural honey blond, actually even lighter than honey. Guess what? 2 Years ago she dyed it dark red. She’s pierced and tattooed all over so I guess the sweet natural blonde wasn’t working for her. She now is going back to her natural color. I’m so very happy about that. I agree though, that hair color is a way to make an individual statement and we should allow our kids to experiment without freaking out about it 🙂 Great story, Michelle!
Thank you! I’m glad your daughter is going back as well because it sounds gorgeous.
Speaking of color…there are a bunch of women about my age who I know who dye their hair that freaky burgundy color. What the fuck is up with that maroon hair? It’s horrifying.
Proud of you for embracing that ferocious gray. I hope that I will have the strength of will to do the same.
I swore I would never. Not ever. Then last Summer I did a complete turn around. What the FUCK am I doing? It’s a pain the ass to dye my hair..it’s expensive to have it done. And I was curious as to what it would look like
Damn, Michelle, it seems like your writing just gets better and better. I usually claim to know about taking risks because of my history as a motorcycle racer and a rock musician, but the truth of the matter is that I find having to move (and not yet knowing where) far more terrifying than any muddy downhill in fourth gear surrounded by fifteen other racers. I’ve never dyed my hair (except for Halloween), but my friend Briana dyed hers electric blue for about a year about a decade ago, and it was an unbelievable pain in the ass. It was visually striking, I fully admit that, but mostly I remember “Can you please help me comb these caustic chemicals into my scalp? My roots are showing.”
Thank you so much. I’ve been trusting myself more and more and I think it’s helping. Thank you for noticing!
yeah, I”ve changed many many times in my life, marriages, jobs, locations..it does get harder the older I get,though..but honestly, I don’t think I”m done yet.
Ah yes, I remember a tangerine experience I had trying to henna away my silver hair. Bright effing orange!
I love the way you write. So vulnerable and funny and wise.
Thank you so much…from one tangerine head to another..
BUT DID YOUR SON GET ALL THE POWER RANGERS???
You damn right he did. And he had spares.
So you met Randy online? That was super brave (especially 20 years ago when it was all relatively new).
I SO wish you had pictures of the various hair colors! I think I may have one lying around from when I dyed my hair a burgundy color. Soooo hideous! Especially when it clashed with my favorite purple cheetah print knit pantsuit. Oh yeah — I was a fashion queen!
It was fairly horrible…pretty sure that is the worst hair I ever had. And that burgundy color..what the shuddering fuck? It’s such a horrible color and I see woman with that color all the time.
I tried to dye my hair a few times! I used to really want red hair! But my hair is so dark, I’d have to bleach it first and then dye it… so I eventually just gave up.
After a while it just gets to be a pain in the ass..you know…after 3 decades or so..
What an incredibly brave move. I am so happy it worked out for you. Sometimes the scariest ones turn out the best.
Thank you! I’m happy it worked out as well… 🙂
It’s funny that in times of stress women tend to add stress by making a radical decision about their hair (writes the woman whose hair is recovering from a wild color-in-a-box experiment).
It’s probably a good thing that the hair experiment went to crap rather than the one for your relationship. 🙂
I did the same thing when I got divorced the first time. Well, kind of. It was 1990 and my hair had been permed and big for most of the eighties. I got divorced and had all my curls cut off into a really short close to my head cut, except the top, it was kind of shaggy..maybe reminiscent of Flock Of Seagulls. It made my son cry when I got it cut. He was 3 at the time
Yeah..if something was going to fail..good thing it was the hair.
I can’t remember if I knew you met in an AOL chatroom but that is fecking fantastic. I planned on marrying a boy named Nathan whom I used to chat with but it doesn’t look like that is going to work out.
Yeah..that is where we met…haha…and it is Nathan’s loss
ahhh I went platinum and my hair fell out in HANDFULS.
and I await the greys.
the past 18 months Ive earned em!! 🙂
I am digging the gray, it’s all streaky and shimmery and I wish I had just let it go years ago…
So much to love in this post, Michelle, but mostly I love that you met-in-a-chatroom and are still married 20 years later. And also that the hair thing worked out. You are awesome.
Thank you so much! Yeah, we definitely beat the odds…
It is great to see that things of calmed down for you, my days never give-up trying too surprise me…
Well..we have definitely had many MANY ups and downs..but Randy and I have been constant and that makes it easier to deal with the shit life hands us sometimes.
There is nothing wrong with tangerine, is there? 🙂
Hmmm…I’m sure SOME people can pull it off…I’m not one of them, though…
Now THAT is a great story! I guess sometimes taking a chance pays off, doesn’t it?
I’ve been doing the crazy stuff with my hair for years. It’s been every color there is…including orange, pink, and purple. No lie. I’m not ready to let the gray grow in and still like to play around a little with the color…but nothing drastic and crazy like the good old days. Same with marriage.
I think it’s called being grown up…
I am not completely enamored with the whole ‘grown up’ thing. It’s not as fun as it sounded when I was a kid.