Hair to dye for

Okay, I’ll admit it. I color my hair. I started going gray at 16, but put off coloring it until I was somewhere in my thirties. My hair is naturally curly, very coarse and very dry, so those gray hairs stick up like crazy gray antennae. I don’t even attempt to color it myself. I’ve heard too many of those color catastrophe stories, and let’s face it–we all have at least one girlfriend who always has a big patch of gray at the top or back of her head that she can’t see–but we can. I have one friend who always has a gray halo because she insists on coloring it herself. People! If you must do this yourself, get your husband or girlfriend or somebody to glop that stuff on the back of your head for you! Also, just because you had coal black hair at sixteen (like me) doesn’t mean that it looks normal for you to be walking around with Morticia Addams hair at fifty. And don’t get me started on old ladies who dye their hair I Love Lucy Red in their seventies. Okay, rant over. The other reason I pay cranky Doug (whom I secretly adore) lots of money to do my hair is that I like the results. The process he uses leaves my hair much softer and shinier. Not to mention not gray. And I’m not ready to go totally gray yet. Sunday, I went to a wedding shower for my college roommate’s daughter. The shower was sweet, and the bride-to-be is beautiful, and I got to catch up with another roommate whom I hadn’t seen in a couple years. Lyle’s hair has gone totally gray. And her gray is lovely. It’s shiny and cut in a flattering style. At the end of the shower her husband came by to pick her up, and I remembered why it’s okay for Lyle to go totally gray. Her husband–who is three years younger–is totally white-haired! My husband, Mr. Mary Kay, has only a healthy sprinkling of gray in his dark hair. I am a month older than he. Of course, we realize that most men CAUSE our gray hair, or, as Doug calls them, “stress highlights.” So, as you can see, I will not be going totally gray until he does. I am just not ready to be mistaken for his mom, or to be fitted for a set of Barbara Bush pearls and a granny swimsuit. Yet.