Laura

There was a winter in Boston where colorful hair was my thing. Mine was its normal color red at first. But then I started talking to this girl online and we decided to meet at the museum for a date. When I showed up, she was waiting for me on the steps and just about the cutest thing in the world ever. She was super short so right away I felt like a giant for the first time in my entire life. Adding to that, she was young. Of course, not as young as Joy, so that seemed okay. She was round like a ball of fluff and had the most darling adorable round face in the world. Everything in exact proportions of her tiny little features. She had pink hair.

Instantly I felt awkward because clearly this girl with pink hair was too cool for me and thus, I was the luckiest person in the world for just that day, for the couple of hours that I would get to spend with her. We talked about art and looked at exhibits and she talked about the time she met or hung out with John Whatizname from King Missile. So that was cool. Then I went home and was convinced she didn't like me because there was no way I was near enough cool.

Except I was wrong and she kept calling me, emailing me, wanting to hang out. This made me feel lucky except that I quickly realized the difference between looking cool and being cool. She was adorable, true. But she never talked. I mean, never. Every single conversation was a horrible awkward struggle. I felt like I was digging in frozen ground, so no matter how hard I shoved in the trowel, very little dirt would budge. This made me feel self conscious and weird. So when Christmas came, I took this as my excuse to say I was going out of town and I'd call when I got back. She sent me a picture she made on the computer: a cartoony drawing of a pink haired girl handing a red haired girl a flower.

I couldn't respond. I didn't know what to say. I didn't call when I got back. Instead, I decided that I'd be better off dyeing my own hair. First I went yellow with red at the tips. Then it was just red all over. When I bleached it back out it turned it's own pink, so then I covered it up with blue.

When I went out with my blue hair to the goth club one night, I sat scowling in the corner. A beautiful, exhuberant, busty woman with blue hair came up to me. "I like your hair," she said. "Wanna dance?" We danced all night and at the end exchanged numbers. When the time came to go out, I was surprised to find her with normal brown hair in normal normal clothes. "That was a wig," she said. Oh. Mine wasn't.

We had a fine time and either later that day or maybe it was a different one, I went to her apartment. In one way it was clear she wanted to make out with me, but then she pulled out a pipe and started smoking pot. Her apartment was a mess with piles of tangled messes everywhere. I said it was time for me to go and I'd call her later, which I never did.

Then pink haired girl called me one day. "You said you'd call when you got back?"

"Oh. Yeah." I lost your number or something stupid like that. "I'm sorry," was all I offered because I didn't know what else to say. I was not going to go out with her again. I couldn't bear to stab at awkward attempts to make conversation. It was too much work. It wasn't fun. I felt bad. It was exactly like Rebecca in college.

A year or so later, I was with my roommate at pride. We just saw Joan Jett and were headed back to the T to go home. By now my hair was crayon red and cropped short. I was my own pink haired girl indeed. While we were walking, we passed another girl with short crayon red hair. Our eyes made butterflies in an attempt to not recognize one another, then hers became steel shields.