Day 67

Today the Fedex guy didn’t recognize me until he saw my signature. It was pretty awesome. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the Witness Protection Program, but that could just be because I watched In Plain Sight last night. That Mary Shannon, she’s a firecracker and she’s BLONDE, too.

I don’t know what it is that makes me glad that people don’t recognize me. Sometimes I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. It’s a very strange sensation to be delighted about. Maybe it’s the “I fooled you!” feeling that I like. It’s kind of like Halloween everyday, but I’m not pretending to be anyone other than myself, which is pretty incredible.

It’s also very easy to be blonde during the summer. A lot of people get highlights naturally; BLONDE can often be synonymous with SUMMER, which is just cool. I’m hoping that in the fall and winter, I will feel like I’ve brought the sunshine with me – on my head. But who am I kidding? This is Southern California – it’s sort of like perpetual summer here all the time.

I guess having people not recognize you is confirmation that people actually look at you. I think it’s easy to walk around feeling invisible (I tend to associate this with being a woman, but I’m sure men feel it too). When someone comments on my appearance, I never really know what to say. When someone says, “You look pretty today,” I say thank you as I try to remember if I did anything different to my face today. When people say, “I didn’t recognize you,” it’s not necessarily positive or negative. I like being able to color people’s comments with my own perspective. I interpret “I didn’t recognize you” as a positive comment because part of my goal in going blonde was to discover who my personal identity does not have to be linked to an external signifier. I don’t have to be “that redhead” or “that size 10” or “that ghostly-pale girl.” Those may be physical characteristics that I once had, but they don’t define who I am. I’m sure most of you reading this are thinking, “DUH.” I KNOW all this, but that doesn’t mean that I feel it. Just like when you fall in love with a person you know isn’t good for you, sometimes you have to experience certain situations against your better judgment. Could I have had this thought, vowed to not let it affect me negatively and move on? Sure, I’d save money on hair care, too. But, thinking about a situation is not the same as experiencing the situation. You can know the way a baby is born, but until you experience it yourself, you may never understand it completely (I haven’t had a child, but this is the only fitting example I could think of).

Sometimes, it’s nice to walk a mile in someone else’s hair color.

Today gets 5 Barbie Warhols: