There’s a woman on the bus whose roots never change. Hair like cotton candy, the whitish color of the season’s first corn, the dark-brown roots are always an inch and-a-quarter long.
I’ve been riding the bus for just short of six years, I see her at least eight times a week, and the reverse-skunk effect never seems to change.
How can that be?
One imagines a scenario where the sun rises at exactly the same time every day, the barometric pressure always steady – like that, her hair remains in need of a touch-up, forever.
What’s it to you?, I hear you saying.
I say this even to myself.
What’s it to me?
But how can it never change? Trust me when I tell you that I don’t care about her lousy hair style – I just want to know why those roots never change!
Seems like something I should be able to understand, doesn’t it?
How can it always be in the same need of a touch-up?
Just about every morning, she takes her usual place directly behind the bus driver. And just about every morning, I take my place closer to the back of the bus.
What is it to me?
Nothing. It’s nothing to me.
But maybe it’s a sign that I need to look at myself.
What about me has not changed? What about me is obviously, glaringly, in need of a touch-up?
Because you know there’s something.
Because there’s always something.
She was there again, this morning. The same cotton-candy hair, the same roots.
We all have our “roots”. But how many are visible?
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27 comments:
my roots regulary show up. I only buy my Clariol when it's on sale LOL
But you DO get to the root of the problem, right?!
:-)
It was a frivolous post today -- starting out about the back of this woman's head and how fascinated I've become that it just doesn't seem to change; but the more I thought about it, the more I thought, if she doesn't see it, what kinds of things am I missing, things other people see clearly but I don't?
Don't go changing, to try and please me.....
You're just grand as you are!
xxx
Dammit! That reminds me; I need to get new underwear.
mapstew, yuo are fast becoming one of my favorite people.
kreg, I think you're going to fit right in here...
Pearl, it is her style. It's intentional. Now, I don't want you going all paranoid or anything but have you ever wondered if someone else on that bus has a blog where she talks about this woman who takes notes while she stares at all the other passengers?
I'm with you Pearl, it may not be of any great meaning, but just exactly now could it be ? Does her hair not grow?
I need to know the answer to this!
You know, this is the entire basis for that show, "What Not to Wear." I have a girlfriend from college with the same hair she had then. Since 1985. Sometimes when people declare, You haven’t changed a bit!” it’s not entirely a good thing.
Douglas, you may be on to something. I actually did overheard two guys and a woman talking once and one of them said to another, "Hope my life never gets THAT dull" and here he nodded toward me "that I end up writing in my diary on the bus!"
There's a lot to be said for perception!
Powdergirl, that's all I really want to know! It's never longer, it's never shorter! How does she do it?
Jodie, one of my favorite guilty-pleasure shows. :-)
When I was having a identity crisis..or some kind of crisis, I had my hair highlighted. I have dark hair naturally with a little gray coming in around my face and I was past midlife but it still could have been a midlife crisis? Hell, I don't know but I do know when the hairdresser would highlight my hair, she never ever took it all the way to the roots. No one wants that clean cut line that shows when it grows 1/24 of an inch. It was supposed to look more natural if it was a clean line of demarcation between the dyed and the natural color. Could this be what is going on with the lady on the bus with the corn colored hair at the first of the corn season? ROFL!!
Maybe she does it intentionally? Like that's the look she's going for? Or maybe her hair has stopped growing? Or she wears a bi-color wig?
Probably takes her ages to get it like that, without spilling dye on the white bits.
To explain this woman fully requires words like "glitter", "inappropriate", "watermelon-smuggler" and the like. I would guess her in her late 50s/early 60s, heavyset, heavy drinker. She looks like she's had a hard life, frankly; and while the sweatpants with "Juicy" on the butt are good "mock" fodder, she appears to be unaware of anything wrong with her attire. And while I can make fun of just about anything, the thing that really blows my mind is that that puff of hair never seems to grow -- and yet it never appears to have been trimmed. It is in a perpetual state of requiring touch-up, and yet it never gets it. Could it be that her hair no longer grows? Is that another trick Nature has up her sleeve?
apologies, Pearl, I've memed you
This sounds like the ingredients of great, supense-thriller! Okay. Maybe just a dime novel. But, heck, I'd buy it! (Hair-raising???)
That is interesting - keep us posted in a few weeks if it still doesn't change. I finally just let mine go all the way grey. I still haven't decided if I like it - I kind of startle every time I look at myself in the mirror, but I'm getting used to it. It is nice not to deal with the roots.
Maybe you can help me with a similar research project, since you probably see a lot more people every day than I do. I have a theory that people who are duck footed (toes point out - the opposite of pigeon toed), tend to be people who are very socially awkward and inept.
Male or female, I can't think of one person I've seen in the last 5 years who has feet like this who doesn't have that kind of personality. While you're doing your people watching, keep that one in the back of your mind and let me know if you notice it too.
Someone must care for these things and I'm glad you do....
xoxo
Stop looking at my roots, Pearl! I just keep forgetting, okay??
(seriously, I think I do have a decent stripe going at the moment. Don't tell the others.)
I heard the same song as mapstew. Does that make me your favorite, too?
Okay, then, I'll think of another song.
Yeah, whatever. I have no roots, ends, follicles, nada.
So shaddap already.
Hi Pearl,
"We all have our “roots”. But how many are visible?" That's a piercing question. I tend to not examine my roots; perhaps I should.
I think you've hit on something each of us does. We see in others what we fail to see in ourselves.
U
Just wondering if the woman also had painted on eyebrows and was wearing cobalt blue eyeshadow?
Maybe her hair only grows so long and then stops.
My hair is now all roots--I stopped highlighting it...wanted to see how much gray was actually in it.
I wish I had no roots. But 4-6 weeks will pass and oh, look who's back, my roots wanting another 40 bucks!
Believe it or not, some women out here do that on purpose. It came from Madonna, who did it on purpose. Like 100 years ago.
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