the dreads

When pregnant, I made the decision that as soon as the baby was born, my hair was going to change. Something new, something I always wanted, one of those hair changes that just wouldn't go over fantastically at work considering what I did for a living when I made it to the baby-makin' stage of life.

Being paid to be a square squashed my want of tangible reminders of rebellion. I'm such a wuss.

Anyhow, when with child, dreads seemed like the logical choice. I had some dreads when I was 19 done on the library lawn by this punk guy named something original like Dan the Punk or Punk Joe. Whatever. He worked for smokes and it was fun sitting in the early summertime sun having my hair teased, backcombed, mussed up, and knotted beyond all recognition.

Of course maintaining it was impossible for a teen who loved bathing and spritzing as much as the next fluffyhead gal, so the dreads didn't last long, save for one that didn't respond to my daily assaults of deep conditioner. I kept it as long as possible. I called him Ted.

Each time I think of dreads, I think of The Doughboys and how much I wanted John Kastner's hair. For that matter, I wanted Slash's too but I digress.

Logical dreads were not to be had when the child sprung from my loins. Mostly because I had no time to have them done with a bambino hanging of my breast and PPD eating away at my initiative. And the dreads that formed naturally from the nose-dive in hormones were sparse (no seriously, I had two naturally knotted ones in my hair that made a hairdresser cry out in horror - not that it's hard to make a hairdresser cry in horror over my head). So I moved to the next logical, lazy, cabin-fevered choice - home hair dye.

I dreamed of having bright blue or cherry red hair. Off to the store I went, buying the best colours I could find. It is sheer luck that I live across from one of those hair salon stores that is actually open to the public.

Tubes and tubs of crayon worthy colours were bagged, bought, and dragged home. Test patches were done in hopes that I didn't need to use a peroxide treatment first.

Yah, I have medium dark brown hair that takes colour well but not that well. Blue made dick all difference and red just faded fast. Big sigh for the girl to lazy to peroxide her hair. That's something for the salon ($) and meant high-maintenance - something I wasn't prepared to do. I gave up.

The bag of dyes went to the back of the closet.

That was over two years ago and I tripped across the bottles and tubs this past weekend. Seemed kind of fitting that I started thinking about the hair again just when I started feeling that way again.

Identity theft by triads makes one want to exert their voice in the most strangest ways possible. I'm thinking a salon visit is in order.

In more positive news, I changed a light bulb yesterday. Not a high-skill task unless you are a punch-line to a joke, but to my pre-schooler (wah? she was a toddler last week) - to my child performing this chore garnered a "wow" with a deep suck in of breath (totally genuine). She then exclaimed "Mommy, you made it work". Yes my little Tim Gunn, I made it work. A little beam of pride burst from my chest and parted the dark clouds. I love this kid so freakin' much.