On undyeing

I decided to undye my hair. I didn’t even know you could do that until I had not lunch with my friend Rachel (font of all hairdressing knowledge) and she told me you can get this stuff that just take out all the fake colour from your hair leaving it…virgin. 

So why did I want to do it? Why now?  Well I’m not entirely sure but maybe it’s because I’ve been looking through old photographs again and I just sort of wondered what the hell colour my hair is now – cos, seriously, it’s been thirty years since I looked.  And when I was very young it was…this colour…  

Well, actually, that looks a bit light. Could be the film. But, if not, wasn't it nice of my parents to design a whole room around my hair? Or maybe they just wanted me to blend in. 

This is a bit more accurate (at least according to my memory which is, as we know, not too good).  Yes, that's my foot (bad habits start young). No, those weren't my glasses.  

Anyhow. I bought a box of stuff called Decolour Remover. Nice, no-nonsense name there.  ‘Safely removes all types of artificial colour pigments’ it said. So there are unsafe types?  ‘Ultra kind,’ it said.  Hmm, does that mean it proffers tissues and pats you on the back when your original hair colour proves to be solid grey?  ‘Precision “non-drip” cream’ it said.  Well, fine. Whatever.

So it sat on my bathroom shelf for…weeks.  Cos, really, I kinda got a bit scared.  And then, one day, I just thought, sod it. It’s only hair. I can always cut it off or dye it if it’s ghastly. 

Except. No instructions and no plastic gloves. Now the gloves weren’t a problem (I have a whole box of surgical gloves – don’t ask) but the instructions were kinda vital.  So I told the guys from Decolour and a nice chap sent me another box, no questions asked.  So now I had two boxes. But hey, I also have a helluva lot of hair.

First up. The “non drip” thing – might be great once it’s on the hair but the bloody stuff wouldn’t come out the bottle.  Second up. It stinks. Really stinks. ‘No ammonia, bleach or peroxide’ it says. So they must have used extract of cat piss instead. 

But hey.  It sort of worked.  Okay, I missed a few bits and the ends are still suspiciously dark but…yeah.

And I was quite pleased.  Except…

‘What have you done to your hair?’ said James.

‘I’ve undyed it,’ I said.

‘Huh?’

‘This is the real me.’

‘I’m not sure I like the real you.’

‘What?’  Cue hurt look.

‘Nah. I mean, I do like the real you. Of course I do. It’s just I hadn’t realized what the real you was.’

‘Huh?’

‘You said your natural hair colour was red.’

‘It is.’

‘Nah. It’s ginger.’

What?  After all these years of teaching my boy to know that racism, sexism, homophobia and so on are all totally risible – and I’ve brought up a gingist?  Holy smoke.

‘It’s okay, Mum. I love you. Even though you’re a ginger.’

‘Unconditional love, huh?’

‘You bet.’

PS. Apologies if you thought this was going to be a post on rejuvenation or immortality. It's all in the e.  :-)

Guinea pigs and Caitlin Moran wrecked my weekend

I have had a seriously crap weekend and I’m laying the blame fairly and squarely on guinea pigs and Caitlin Moran.

Years back when we visited a friend of mine in Italy, I got this revolting virus which left me with palindromic rheumatism. This bizarrely crap disease means you get totally random pains in random parts of the body at random times – so maybe nothing for months and then suddenly it hits you in the neck or the knees or wherever.  My ex-doctor and I played detectives on what could have been the cause and we narrowed it down to guinea-pig urine.  Don’t ask – you really don’t want to know but no, I wasn’t drinking it (at least, not intentionally). So now you know why I hate, loathe, despise guinea pigs. And if (heaven forfend) you keep the bastard stinking little shits as pets (why? why?), may I urge you to handle them and their piss with rubber gloves and industrial quantities of disinfectant.

Anyhow. Usually I take SAMe (S-Adenosylmethionine) and haven’t had a ‘session’ for nearly a year.  To be honest, I was feeling smug and figured I’d banished the damn thing from my body through sheer wishful thinking and force of will.  So I came off the SAMe while we were in Turkey (okay, I ran out and it’s relatively expensive so I didn’t bother to re-order).  And yesterday I got sledgehammered with pain: knee, neck, shoulders, both wrists, jaw.  Jaw?  Not on, not remotely on.  All of a sudden, in two seconds flat, I went from feeling pretty good about myself to ancient and crone-like.

And then I made the big mistake of re-reading my old books.  Not all of them but just bits of a few – and really, truly, I don’t think I’ve learned a thing in fifteen, twenty years or whatever.  So mind as well as body slapped me hard with a kipper. 

Never mind, I thought.  Lie on the sofa and cheer yourself up by reading Caitlin Moran.  Now I don’t read newspapers so she hasn’t really been on my radar.  I knew she was a columnist for The Times  and that she had a reputation for being funny and that was it.  Frankly columnists make me twitch (witness my pal, Liz Jones) but a friend recently thrust the book at me saying I had to read it. So last night I started reading and, despite myself, I started laughing…a lot.  She really is funny.  And smart. And self-deprecating.  And I agreed with everything she said. Everything.  Caitlin Moran and I are in total agreement on:

·         Bushes.  As in pubic hair. 

·         Porn. 

·         Feminism.

·         Sexism.

·         High heels.

·         Giving birth.

·         Children v careers.

·         Children + love

·         Strip clubs.

·         Weddings.

·         Shopping.

·         Gay men.

·         The music industry.

·         The newspaper industry.

·         Knickers.

·         Celebrities

·         Katie Price

·         Childlessness

·         Designer handbags

·         Per Una in M&S

In fact, I had to struggle to find something, anything I didn’t agree with. Yellow shoes. That was it. I can’t see a situation in which I would wear yellow shoes.  Though, feck, who knows? She’s probably right about that too.  I had to stop reading when she started talking about going out clubbing with Lady Gaga because by then I was just rolling on the floor in a foetal ball sobbing.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Caitlin Moran is 35.  Thirty-fecking-five.  I’m fifteen years older than her and nowhere near as smart or funny.  Everything I think she thinks better. She writes like a fucking dream. She’s got two kids and a wildly successful career and she sounds nice, really nice: she’s not a screwed up narcissist like Liz fecking Jones. Really I might as well stop writing and just post up chunks of her book instead with ‘I agree with Caitlin Moran’ scrawled at the bottom. 

So, there you have it. I spent the rest of the weekend feeling totally, pathetically, self-indulgently sorry for myself.  Hating guinea pigs.  Loathing myself.  And loathing and loving Caitlin Moran, damn her fecking 35-year old eyes, in equal measures.