so things have been revolvin and spinnin and metamorphisizin on the work and the friendship fronts lately, but i’m not in a so this happened and then this happened and then this happened storytelling mood. i just want to talk about myself. because really, isn’t that the point of the overly self-indulgent personal blog anyway???
so remember how i grew out my hair so it would be its natural color for the first time since i was 13? and i was so proud of myself and kept saying “NEVER SAY DYE!!” all the time and thinking i was really funny and above it all, above all those petty vanities and social constructs of artificial beauty etc.? that i would NEVER EVER BEND TO SOCIAL BEAUTY NORMS AGAIN (with hair color).
well, i dyed it last weekend! i’m blonde and it’s a great color. an embarrassingly expensive korean salon color. boys on the street now tell me i’m beautiful. which is nice but also sad that no one noticed me when i was REAL. c’est la vie – i feel more comfortable with the blonde i’ve donned for most of my life, including my childhood. is that so wrong??? yes. ah, i am so ashamed. to cling to my old diy low-maintenance values in the face of my own hypocrisy, i gave myself a really weird haircut. i actually quite like it, and i could post a picture, but i will just say it’s pretty reminiscent of this:
oh, yeahhhhh. you can’t wait to see my hair craftsmanship!!
plus, i’ve gone running 15 times in the past month, go me! i feel pretty in control and on top of things in the small world of just me right now and i like it.
Aww… I wanted to see a brunette Claire during your visit. Oh well, a classic Claire is good too. I’ve been changing on the hair front too. I think I may actually grow my hair out for the first time since Freshman year. I’m currently undecided so I could still let those random urges to give myself a hair cut creep up and it could all be short again after another sleepless night.
In fact, I think one of the last times my hair was really long was when I temporarily dyed it blonde to make it bright red. It was only like that for a couple hours and yet you and Nathan made so much fun of me. I don’t think I could ever consider pulling off blonde after that.
I take it you notice a difference in regards to reactions about your hair color more in Korea than you do in the States. Or do you notice a different in the U.S. too? I guess I’ve never really felt a personal impact in regards to hair color here, but I’ve never been blonde either. My hair has been lots of different colors, red both natural and unnatural, purple, no hair, various shades of brown, bordering dirty blonde when I was really little. On second thought, I find it attracts comments from different types of people, or different types of comments. Which can tell you a lot about people you meet — an interesting social experiment on people’s tastes.
Though honestly I’ve had some really good conversations with people who didn’t agree with my particular hair at the time. Maybe since I worked at the library people felt like they could talk to me while I was checking out their books? I have no idea. People randomly talk to me now though too. I guess what I’m trying to say is that through all this I’ve never really taken away that one color was more beautiful than the other, or that even the people who didn’t like my hair were calling me ugly, or for that matter that people who liked it were calling me pretty (even the ones that explicitly stated so one way or the other). Perhaps it’s because I feel like I get comments that go both ways. They are more inquisitive conversations about something they found different, interesting, appealing, normal, approachable, off-putting etc. etc. in that time and space. Random impulses to act out a thought that feels right at the time like cutting ones hair in the middle of the night.
Also: Does having blonde hair make you less real? Regardless of whether it’s your natural color or not.
oh, now i feel bad about making fun of your yellow hair! i mean, really, it was ORANGE, so i think you could go blonde, it would just have to be not a crazy insane blonde like that one. i kind of just jotted off that post without thinking tootoo much, so i’m not sure about the “real” comment i made. i mean, when my hair was natural, very few people seemed to notice me, but now it’s like “hey hottie!” around every corner. maybe it’s in contrast to the sea of black hair? but i did get this in the u.s. constantly too. when i’m dating people, they usually say i should have darker hair, but they met me and were attracted to me when i was blonde and experience tells me they wouldn’t have been initially attracted to my dark hair. as sad as that is. everyone has an opinion. in the end, i decided not to let boys dictate my hair color one way or the other. i just like light hair with summery clothes! superficial as that is, it makes me feel more sunny! i even painted my nails yellow!
Ooooh cool! I don’t think I’ve even seen yellow nail polish before. I’m kind of having trouble picturing it actually. There are so many shades of yellow.
Don’t think tootoo much about my questions either. I just felt like being silly in a joking manner about semiotics, mostly because I say things similar to that too. Words are funny.
Also that night I dyed my hair is a good memory. So no worries there. People are funny too.
I had no idea the blonde was dyed. You had blonde hair even in elementary school didn’t you?
I don’t really appreciate the crass generalizations guys here make about blondes but it’s at least a good base to start dying from. In college my hair was pink, blue, black, purple, and stopsign-red. If you get bored of the blonde, there’s always those! Since you’re already starting from hair pale enough to dye without bleaching….