GRAY

Proof that the universe likes creatures better than women?

 

Behold the highlights on my puppy.

Take a close look at the gold, brown, blond, black, caramel, white, tawny tones he wears so naturally and effortlessly.

His coat is stunning.

And he cares far more about sticks and slippers than hair hue.

Blatantly unfair.  People pay big bucks to sport such gorgeous hair colors.

And God gifts them to a dog.

God gifted me a Hair Challenge, which interpreted in any language means, “I challenge you to make something of this mop.”

It’s been the challenge of a lifetime.

Toddlerhood till youth, my mom used ‘pixie cut cuteness’ as an excuse to cut my hair as short as my brothers’.

Junior High through Senior High, I blow-dryed every curl, believing poof and frizz trumped the curly-q-fries look.

Young adult, I ignored the Challenge. Curls reigned.

Babies-to-be eventually turned every curl poker straight, and I had to accept that Hair Challenge had become Hair Crisis.

It was time to bring in the professionals.

So I delivered a 320 page manuscript. And a fourth child. Then I ventured out to get a haircut. (I tell you this so you can comprehend my mental state at the time.)

I will not name the Manhattan salon I visited (PTSD blocked it from memory.) I will not name the Scissors Master who dared to take my case (I hope he doesn’t remember mine, either.)

I sat, ruler straight, in a salon chair, waiting for my consultation with the Scissors Master. I was dressed in black stretch pants and a maternity top with flaps. My skin was a Google Sky map of stress and hormone overload. Hair Crisis was smoothed and tucked beneath a candy-cane colored headband.

Did I mention that Cindy Crawford - and a bunch of guys whose names appear on expensive hair products - were cutting, shaping, conversing and laughing behind me?

Eventually a Scissors Master looked up from Cindy. Noting my fabulous posture, he slid across the salon floor toward my chair –scissors extended in the air. (Picture Brian Boitano - in black scrubs - gliding across the ice at Rockefeller Center.) As he approached, I couldn’t help wishing I had, just once, paid attention to the names stamped on hair products.

Scissors Master stood behind me, gazing into the enormous mirror in front of me. I could not see the expression on his face, because he had confiscated my glasses, and was distractedly wiping baby smudge off one lens.

I considered asking for my specs and heading for the door. But I had waited for this appointment for four months. And Scissors Master had a clump of my hair, and would not let go.

 
“One startling patch of gray,” he said, examining IT. “Where did this come from?”

“From a pound and a half preemie.”

“Oh,” he said. “Perhaps we should avoid such things in the future?”

Spinning my chair right, then left, Scissors Master flipped and fluffed my hair. He lifted handfuls above my ears, sliding his fingers from roots to split ends. Then he tried to flatten the mess that now looked like miniature bird nests sprouting from the sides of my head.  

 

Glancing back at the mirror, he shrugged, calling out, “Mousy, mousy, mousy!”

Everything happened at once. I lifted my feet onto the bar of the chair. (Rats are a problem in Manhattan. Casual observers and tourists often mistake them for mice. It was not a reach for me to think that Scissors Masters had, too.) In military mode, a team of young men and women assembled; arranging squirt bottles and tools, pushing carts, fastening robe ties. Squinting, I could just barely make out all of the quizzical looks and nodding of heads.

It was the clicking of tongues, and horrified whispers that informed me there were no rodents in the salon.

‘Mousy’ had been used to describe my hair.

Colorist and Understudy arrived to break the bad news: “The human eye sees silver or gray, and equates that color with old.” I needed Sparkle. Glow. In any color but silver or gray.

So I caved, selecting highlights (like Cindy’s.)

Lowlights were eventually added. Then the full paint job. Ten years, and the cost of two college educations later, I have no idea what color my hair is.

Last month I stopped for coffee and noticed three women- about my age - chatting at a table. All three had salt and pepper colored hair. They looked amazing. I wondered if they were some sort of club. 

Then George Clooney began appearing on every news show and magazine cover. Each time I saw Clooney, I remembered my mortifying salon experience from a decade ago.

George is gray, so why does the human eye equate him with ‘gorgeous’ rather than ‘old’?

Confounded, I consulted my dear, wise friend, who is a doppelganger of Uma Thurman. 

“It’s OK to be gray,” she assured me, “as long as it is a bright and happy gray.”

Or you look like Uma Thurman.

Sigh. Time will tell if the colors beneath my current ‘young’ hair color are happy or sad.

Regardless, it won’t much matter.

Ann Coulter made it clear last week that I don’t stand a chance, anyway.

Even the universe prefers puppies.

QUING Hereby Decrees: Guy or gal, gray is gorgeous!