So, as it turns out, I am vainer than I realized and apparently I'm not going to age as peacefully as I had expected I would.

I tend to describe myself, as a shorthand, as a "sixties kid". I was born in 1953, and became a teenager in those years when all sorts of things were being redefined. Not that I would have gone with the girdle and garters if things hadn't changed. I mean, eons ago, I swore (hah) that I would never take a job where I couldn't dress in a tee shirt and jeans. Yeah right, but I did manage to avoid wearing a suit (with as I recall one, and only one exception.) But so much changed, so many new things took place in those very formative years, huh? Pantyhose instead of girdles and garters. Bouffant hair helmets shaped with hairspray like our moms wore changed to bangs and falls (remember falls? "It's real Dynel"). Trial periods for girls wearing - gasp - pants to school (my senior year of high school.) The last time I used hairspray (except for the YWCA summer musicals) was for my Junior Prom. I got to college with my new wardrobe, spent one semester in New London damp, and swore of skirts for four years.

I was made for these times. I once designed my dream home and the living room furniture consisted of a denim couch, and armchairs covered with mattress ticking material. Pillows made of bandanas, red on one side, blue on the other. I was so not chic. I disdained the matching shoes and purse rules that my mom's generation grew up with and taught us girls. I gave up on the Bermuda bags and used one canvas bag after another, then switched to those Greek bags, then leather, usually handmade.

While I was totally into Yardley cosmetics and was in awe of Jean Shrimpton (but no, not Twiggy) I never did, never got the make-up thing. I used lipstick, lip gloss,chap stick even. I acquired other make-up I think, but used almost none (except, again, for performances. Theater (dance as a little kid) but not every day. i don't have drawers of discarded make-up - something I seem to read about a lot in novels about women. I tried mascara in high school and ended up with vertical lines on the lenses of my glasses (we tried contact lenses on me; I never did manage them. I probably tried eye liner. i never curled an eyelash in my life. And honestly, while it's not totally like this, not 100 percent, most of my make-up comes courtesy of Clinique's occasional promotions. If it weren't for those, I'm probably never have learned about certain eye shadow stuff, not found hat amazing moisturizer. Yeah, moisturizer because I'm in my late 50s and well damn. Yeah.

HOWEVER, despite that, despite that apparent disdain for all that, I recently realized that hoo-boy, I am very very vain about my hair. Oh yeah. From putting lemon juice on it as a teenager to "give it highlights", to using rosemary rinses, I have tried for years to make my hair, well, er, "interesting". It's great hair. Don't get me wrong, I than my parents for some really excellent hair genes. It's got great texture, does almost anything I want it to (I used to be able to twist it and put it up without anything holding it). But, well, I have always found it to be boring. It's brown, yeah. But it's just brown. Boring brown. So some years ago, I when I discovered henna, well there you are. Perfect. A natural product for this sixties kid. It was very good for my hair and added color. It was terrific. Right until i started having those upper back problems that meant I simply could not hold my arms up long enough to put the goo on my head. And all that long hair. Pooey.

I got lucky for a few years, having found a couple of great guys with a small hairdresser place near Mae's Phinney Ridge Cafe who helped me put some fabulous purple streaks in my yair. I'd admired a co-worker's purple hair back at CIL in the 70s, and always wanted to try that. But they moved away to Tacoma where they'd bought a house. Oh well. So I gave in and started using a commercial product. And loved it and have used it for years. the color I've been using, however has gotten harder and harder to find. So maybe, since it really was the color I wanted - that and no other - maybe it was time to stop.

Heh. Right. That worked. Oh man. I felt awfully sheepish when I spent far too much time looking in the mirror recently and finally realized that nope, I was not ready. That it wasn't about aging, and it isn't about my gray hair. I'm find with that. But once again, after years, my hair was back to boring. Brown, but boring. It cried out for a streak. Anything. I'm in the middle of severe back pain. a torn muscle or worse and learning that sometime in the last year or so, I fractured two ribs and didn't know it. So what exactly am I doing coloring my hair?

There. That's better.

I wonder if I'll ever be able to stop. I don't want to be once of those women who can't face aging. I can't imagine going with "champagne" colored hair (as I told Barry, my scooter guy, a few years ago when he was telling me about the new scooter color - champagne - I said "Barry? It's beige. Get over it." But I need to find a cure for boring, or maybe someone who can do a good purple streak again.