Once Upon A Hair Dye

I realize that over the past week, most of you have seen me a few times. And each of those times, I was sporting a different hair color. I have not been able to escape raised eyebrows, open jaws, laughter, and questions such as "Jane, are you hiding from someone?", "WOW! What'd you do to your hair?", "Wait, didn't you have black hair last time I saw you?", and my favorite: "Hi! Are you new to the choir? I don't think I've seen you before." Furthermore, I was almost marked "Absent" in Sunday School because Charlene didn't recognize me while taking roll. Yes, in a week's time I have gone from red to brown, from brown to blue/black, from blue/black to dark brown/black, and from dark brown/black to, well, orange/yellow. But no, I am not hiding from anyone. And no, I am not new to the choir, or Sunday school. Additionally, I am not going through a rebellion, I am not "hiding from myself" as Keiffer put it, nor am I looking for attention. My intentions have been as innocent as you can expect from a wacky 19 year old girl. Allow me to tell you a little story for your enlightenment, and hopefully your entertainment.

Once upon a time there was a young woman named Jane of the Golden State. Jane loved living in the Golden State. She loved her family, her friends, and her church, as well as all the fantastic people there. Jane was artistic, a regular free-spirit, if you can label a free-spirit as "regular". She was very, well, different, as she had been recently called. Many had described Jane as wacky, zany, out-there, eclectic, insane, eccentric, stellar...well, that may be beside the point, but stellar she most assuredly was! :) In fact, Jane was all of those adjectives listed above. In fact, many people may be slightly frightened if they could see how wacky and crazy she was! She embraced that, and enjoyed opportunities to express her "creative side", as she put it. Jane painted and wrote poetry and songs and enjoyed that as a creative outlet. But then moved on to expressing herself with her wardrobe, which she had loads of fun with. Eventually, she moved on to her hair. Not anything so wild as blue or green hair, which she often thought of with a chuckle. Simply blond highlights, or dying it to a redish brown. Then one day, Jane and a friend Samantha helped Jay (check out his blog), youth director and BBQ extraordinaire, with a youth activity, wandering around under the alias' of "The Window Shoppers". During said activity, Jane and Sam wore disguises with black wigs. The two girls decided that black was a good hair color on Jane, so the next day, Jane decided to dye her hair black. However, she did not think about tones and shades. Instead, she grabbed the first black she saw, which happened to be a most unflattering and unnatural Blue/Black. Jane's parents did not care for, okay, they hated the new hair color! Jane pretty much felt the same way, but as her hair was now a deeply saturated black and there was nothing she could presently do about it, she tried to keep an optimistic attitude. Her parents demanded she rid herself of the dreadful shade, so they set an appointment with her hairstylist, Myrna, for the next day. Jane thought the situation over very carefully. Her parents, Dad actually, had been suggesting for quite some time that she move on to a lighter color such as blond. She now took that into consideration. And if she could not have extreme dark hair, she decided it could be fun to have extreme light hair. Yes, she made the choice to go platinum. She expressed such to Myrna. However, Myrna also asked what Jane wanted when she had first dyed her hair black. The answer being that Jane wanted the black hair, but had imagined something softer and more natural looking. Myrna tragically got the past desire switched with the present, and after stripping all of the color from Jane's hair, dyed it about 2 shades lighter than the black they'd just finished ridding her of. Needless to say, the expectant parents and girl were quite disappointed and bewildered. After some questioning, they all realized the miscommunication. So Myrna, being the great hair-dresser she is, said that Jane could come back in a few days and redo the process at no extra charge. So come back she did. Jane arrived at the hair salon at 11 o'clock and wearily exited at 3:40 in the afternoon. 2 hours of stripping the color, the rest of the time spent dyeing and rinsing. When the color was finally rinsed from her hair, Myrna began to blow-dry it. As the hair dried, the color started to become more clear. Oh my! Jane's face sank as instead of seeing the beautiful platinum blond she had envisioned, she saw an orange top running into yellow, with the ends of her hair becoming a sandy color. So, she went home and styled it, wishing that she could hide until the color became , well, anything besides orange. But she remembered she had RU that night. Oh well. She figured God was just keeping her humble. So she put on her brave face and marched out the door, orange hair and all...secretly wanting to crawl under a rug as soon as she saw the first puzzled face. She spent the next day at a lake in the mountains with her family and was out on the boat all day. God mercifully toned the orange down quite a bit. Days after, it continued to have an odd tone, but Jane was learning to accept, if still not like, the new hair, and was very grateful that after all the trauma, she still had hair to hate! Jane also found solace in the fact that in a few days, after giving her hair a week of rest as advised, she would try lightening her hair up to a more natural blond, and then leave it alone. So yes, her family and friends would soon see her hair in another shade, but she vowed that it would not be a shocking one, but one that would hopefully be less offensive.

Check back, or just look for Jane at church, to see what happens with her hair, and what crazy thing she'll do next! =D