thoughts on having blonde hair

So I've decided I should never be a blonde.

I mean, I've got no problem dying my hair. At the moment it's a faded sort of burgundy that needs to be unfaded, in fact, so I guess it's lucky that I'm all intent on dying it all pretty and artificially burgundy again. With highlights.

At the moment, in the spirit of Halloween, I'm wearing a little blonde bobbed wig as I sit in the Box Office of Hale Center Theater Orem, dressed as a 1920's stenog. How thoroughly modern of me. I've got a cute little blue dress with cute little red heels and cute seamed stockings and a cute red hat, and this hair which is, on anyone else, a cute little blonde wig, but I look at myself and hear all kinds of sirens blaring, BAD IDEA! BAD IDEA!

Once upon a time, I wore a blonde wig all summer and was more or less convincing:
Clearly I'm thrilled about it, yeah? Actually, to be true, that wig was pretty good, and I was only partly self-conscious about my brown hair poking out around my ears. The ringlets were another story:
Note the suspicion in my eye. I felt like a Marie Osmond doll, where they all kind of look like her. You know what I mean? But for real, Marie Osmond dolls that look like Amy fully exist. Behold, little Adora My Dolly:It's freakin' Marie Osmond (or me, since we have matching enormous brown eyes and naturally dark hair aren't I cool I'm like a celebrity hair toss imaginary cigarette tap) as Amy March.

But okay, okay, duh-- that was a stylized thing, and in truth, ringlets only look good on tiny children and Wendy Darling. They look especially CA-RAH-ZEE on Irish dancers, particularly small ones, am I right?:
But the point is that I had to be blonde in that play. I couldn't not be blonde, regardless with how comfortable I was. I think the thing that bothered-- and is currently bothering-- me most is how dark my eyebrows look(ed) against the hair. And I am sooooooooo not confident enough to pull a Scarlett Johansson:
She's not my favorite to start, and call me crazy, but I just feel like this is a BAD IDEA! BAD IDEA! in spite of her pretty eye makeup and perfect teeth.

I bet if I had pretty eye makeup (and perhaps perfect teeth) at the moment, I'd feel less awkward about my light hair and dark eyebrows at the moment. Unfortunately, the wig was a last-minute decisions, and I didn't even put on any extra makeup for this costume except a swipe of red lipstick. So yeah, I'm pretty awesome-- mascara from yesterday, no fixes to the complexion, and red kiss-proof lipstick to go with light blonde hair. BAD IDEA!

I've done those virtual make-over things where you upload a picture of yourself and then the website puts outdated/ugly hairstyles on your crappy, pixelated head, and I've tried various colors. Turns out purple is a pretty good look for my coloring.

Why didn't I even grab a purple wig from the wig shop this morning, instead of a blonde one?

book people

I went to the library the other day. I went to the library because I live only two blocks from the library and I wanted to get a library card. I like libraries very much. I worked in one once. I like to read the books that are in the library, and sometimes use the computers because even though they're public access and slow and grandpa dinosaur computers, there's something more smart-- or at least more calm-- about a library computer than my teensy laptop which is so trendy and small and can fit in my purse, practically.

So I walked to the library in my favorite black cardigan that has the stitching on the outside instead of the inside, and my purple shoes from Target, and I was reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as I walked because it helps to pass the time. I like tripping across the cracks and the weeds in the sidewalk because I'm reading a book and not watching my feet. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has been called one of the Best Books of the Century, and it was given to me for my 23rd birthday from one of the Best People of the Century-- one julieannaface-- and it was pretty fitting for me to have that book with me, since I had three-- literally three-- people in those two blocks comment on that book.

"Oh, what a good book!" one woman remarked as she sat in her van in front of a stranger's house, windows rolled down, so suddenly that I jumped out of my cardigan almost and all I could do was laugh uncomfortably and reply with a shaky, "Yeeahahahaaaaah."

A kid with a backpack on a bike whizzed by, but not without telling me, "That is one of my favorite books!" I thought that was pretty neat because he's a man, but the swollen backpack hinted it might be filled with books, which made me assume he's either just one of Those People who have read and know everything, or he's a Book Person-- a Book Person like me.

I am a Book Person, I'll have you know. My degree doesn't automatically grant a person the title. I know a startling number of English majors who aren't, in fact, Book People. Maybe they're Writing People or Research People, or sometimes they're just I Don't Want To Be An Elementary Ed Major People, and I guess that's fine because at least they're honest. I'm a Book Person, and so was that kid on the bike. We're those who smell the insides of books at the store, or in the library, because there is something so familiar and comforting about the smell of books, new or old. We're those who probably haven't read all the latest Best Sellers, though we have read some, because we like to read the classics, the Best Books of the Century. We like to sit in libraries just because. Maybe we even carry our own books to the library, even though we intend to read other books once we get there, because we just love books books books. Am I right?

For better or worse, there is a breed of Book People that surpasses all-- the Librarian. I revere librarians and their Book Personedness. When I bounced into the library and up to the front desk to get a new card, I had half a mind to play Francie Nolan-- you know, being inspired by trees growing in Brooklyn-- and ask the librarian, "Do you know any good books for 23-year old girls?" I didn't, though. I didn't need to. Because I am a Book Person, and I Get It.

The librarian, looking every inch her part with perfectly smoothed hair and a forest green turtle neck and her gold-rimmed glasses connected to a chain so they could hang around her neck, eyed me with my messy ponytail and skinny jeans and tiny purple purse (which maybe I'm not even cool enough to carry), and asked how she could help me. I suddenly lost all my nerve. It turns out, I am unnerved by Supreme Book People. I stood there like a jumbly mess, thumbing the corner of my book and rolling back and forth on the side of one foot. "I'd like a library card, please," I did manage to stammer and felt my cheeks start to burn for an unknown, and very discouraging, reason.

I suddenly reached out and rested A Tree Grows in Brooklyn on the counter so she would somehow know of our kindredship and she wouldn't look at me That Way. She nodded at it, but didn't comment, and said, "I think we can do that for you. Do you live in Orem?" By my uneasiness, I'm quite sure she figured I might be 17-years old, 18 at best, and probably still lived with my mommy and daddy. After the fact, I guess I could have drummed my married-fingered left hand across the cover of my book, but maybe that would have been trying just too hard. I nodded that I did, somehow unable to form any kind of words in my mouth, and growing more and more annoyed that I couldn't stand before her with poise and an air of don't mind me, I come here all the time. "Do you have a driver's license or picture ID with you?" she asked, the brooch on her sweater mocking me. I nodded again and started to fumble with my purse to get my wallet. Why was this so difficult? "We'll also need a proof of address," she added, and when I paused, dumbfounded, I could swear there was a condescending glint in her eye.

I haven't printed a new driver's license yet, see, with my new name and address, and most of the mail I receive still has my maiden name. "I... I... I don't have anything like that with me," I admitted quietly, screaming in the back of my mind, "NO! NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! I GET THIS PLACE! I BELONG HERE! I'M ONE OF YOU! A BOOK PERSON, LIKE ONE OF YOU!!!!" while she shrugged politely sort of and oozed a strange kind of pity and judgement. "You'll need to bring those before we can issue you a library card," she informed me. I nodded and backed away slowly, hoping the bottom of my pants wouldn't catch on the carpet and send me tumbling to the floor, since that definitely would be the most graceful way to bow out of this situation.

I crawled away to the Adult Non-Fiction section, feeling less of a Book Person than I ever have and intending to find some solace in William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb and maybe some A.A. Milne if I could be so lucky. Book of the Century or not, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn couldn't cut it being fiction, and a novel, and therefore out of the general realm of my recent (read: past three years) experience. While pleasant, and inspiring, and beautiful to read, and borderlining on non-fiction, Betty Smith was no match for the personal and intellectual ramblings of Vernon Lee. I breathed a literal sigh of relief when I got to that row with all those beautiful authors and the word "essay" sprinkled throughout most of the titles and wanted to hug the whole shelf so that scary librarian could see because something tells me she probably doesn't even love essays and while she may be the Mother Superior of Book People, there are only a handful of us that are ESSAY BOOK PEOPLE.

I am an Essay Book Person. I love to be an Essay Book Person.

I started pulling collections of essays from the shelf almost at random, really only intent on reading The Essays of Elia which I grabbed specifically and tossed my hair about it because how many people in the world can actually say they even know the title The Essays of Elia and grapple it off the shelf specifically? NOT MANY, YOU SCARY LIBRARIAN BOOK LADY. And I took all those books and plopped into a comfy library chair off in the corner all by itself, with all these books scattered at my feet, and I read that Essays of Elia for an hour before I trekked home to be with Ames, and you know what I did? I put away all those books I didn't even touch right there on the Books for Reshelving shelf-- all except The Essays of Elia because maybe that librarian will find it and smile with satisfaction, happy that someone finally took that book (which she has probably never read, thank you) off that shelf and enjoyed it for a while and enjoyed it enough to leave it for her to find and enjoy herself.

Because I am a Nice, Essay, Book Person, and I hope you will be too.