That's What You Get

Every twelve weeks, one could find me heading to the nearest salon to rebrighten my blonde coif. Back home in Virginia, this appointment cost me almost $250 including tip. I feared what would become of my hair once I got here. Turns out, I had every single right for that concern.

My first visit to a salon here cost me $165, including tip. While that is not as much as I was spending previously, it is more than I can budget when I no longer have a job and therefore do not contribute much more than my beauty to the good of the household. Not only that, but for that much money, you seriously could not tell that I had just highlighted my hair. There was a bit more sheen there but those pesky dark blonde roots still glared angrily at me at over an inch and a half off my head. I'm just not into the ghetto look. Steps had to be taken.

Going back to the salon and doing it again was apparently not going to do me any good if highlights aren't really highlights. After years of having my hair highlighted, I felt that I was surely an expert on how to do it as I have - like 'watched', you know. I bought the kit, went home and died away.

And oh my God did I die. A little inside. Bimbo bright blonde is what I got! There were highlights all right... as in on my entire head. And a friend mentioned something about hot spots... now I know what they are. My initial take was that if my hair was down, it wasn't so bad. A little on the fakey gold side but doable. And if I just actually styled my hair for the next month instead of being the slacker babe that I am and tying it into a knot on top of my head every day, I might be able to get away with it. Only when it is up like that do I look like a leopard. I asked Kimono Hubby nicely (read: badgered) what he honestly thought and he said it wasn't bad, just very blonde. So I left it. I mean, he's still thinks I'm hotness, so we're moving on!

Then we were out running an errand last night and I just FELT the stares.

"The staring at my hair!!!" I hissed.

"No one is looking at you," as if I can't turn heads.

I huffed and puffed and finally dragged him into the hair product aisle without his knowledge. He tried to run when he saw where we were but I caught him by his ankles and forced two boxes up towards his face.

Pleading... "Which do you like better... the natural neutral blonde darker shade like Jennifer Aniston or the pale golden shade like Reese Witherspoon????" I think I was even shrieking... only a little.

After all day harassment about the dead hairs I have on my head, to say he was annoyed would be an injustice to his true position.

"DARK, dammit!" And off he ran in the direction of the book department. He later confessed that he still didn't care but he knew he could escape if he just said something... anything. I hate being shut up.

But I had my answer! Now that I had it, well... I just wasn't so sure he was right. And I debated it the whole way to the counter, at dinner, driving home, going to bed. I just don't understand why he gets so upset when I just want to have a simple 9-hour long conversation with him.

Just about to drift off last night, I actually decided that maybe the hair wasn't so bad after all of my fretting. I would leave it.

Oh, but life is never so simple when you are me.

I was out hat shopping this afternoon. Hat after hat I looked in the mirror and I realized the horror that truly was my hair. And how it didn't match a single hat! Empty handed, I stomped back to the car, headed straight for home, and got out that box of dark goodness.

Oh, yes - I did.

The result... blaaaah. DARK blonde. Now I am Team Aniston all the way, but I just can't do her hair. Did you know this is my natural hair color? No one has seen it for years and years. I know God gave me this hair color and all but it just isn't right! I have corrected it all these years without telling him... because who am I to judge his decisions? Yet here I am again, right back where he wanted me.

I'm honestly so horrified with myself and my fried hair and what I have just done (twice, dumbass!) that I can't even bare to show you a picture yet. I won't even look in a mirror - it's that un-me.

For the love of God! Someone find me a hair stylist anywhere near Tokyo who can do my blonde hair and make it look pretty like it used to! I'm giving it three weeks and then I am flying back to my hairstylist in Alexandria.

Ok, maybe not. But I'm going to threaten it a lot.

And the next time I talk to ANYONE back home, I am having them make me a hair appointment for Christmas. At least once a year, I'm going to look normal.