Tea, Cookies, and the Aging Lesbian's Hair Color

"What exactly do all those people do during the day?" I always wondered this whenever I sauntered around the streets sporting walls of windowed coffee shops on my days off or during lunch hours when I worked @ UCSF. People filled tiny singlet tables with newspapers, books, partially consumed creamy-colored drinks and plates of flaky pastries.

Now that I'm unsatisfactorily unemployed, I, too could be one of those cookie-crumble types, typing on a laptop all day and reading Penguin published books. However, my laptop's battery dies after about 17 minutes and most books published by that Antarctic animal house are too educational for my brain (DH Lawrence, Stegner, JM Coetzee, etc). And, perhaps most importantly, I find that whenever I eat cookies and pastries in a shop they turn stale faster as well as the fact that the clear glass edges from which I drink my coffee tends to have a residual of some past languishers' Adore U, Burning Desire, or Hot Raspberry Ceramic Dreams lipstick imprint.

I wonder, though, where are all the O-40Ls? When did I get so old that I wear baggy, tuck-in clothes and not the hipster, snug, below- and way above-ass tight pants/tops?

When did this happen? I've germinated a few unsavory gray, wiry hairs, and one in particular that chooses a path all its own rather than lying with its brown brethren. Shall I color them or let myself turn bristly and S.O.S. paddish? What do we do now that we've hit this 4th decade of life? My sister's highlights have changed periodically such that I've had to check my scrapbook photos to recall what naturally sprouted from her scalp. Good thing Polaroid created such fantastic yellowy film/instant photo papers. She always had some blond streaks. They've somehow become reddish, like mine, which are natural, btw.

I wonder: How many of us gay chix (O-40 Ls) color our hair? I know of three. Yep, three, including Nancy, Karen, and Sue. Of course, given the secretive nature of all this, I won't divulge their last names in case Others want to point fingers and state that this is some sort of defamation to the Lesbian cause.

Natural hair color. Is it something that we dykstras, we Tribaters, we lesbos clutch, or are we willing to step over to Miss Clairol's house for tea and cookies and spend a few hours sharing our thoughts? Is it a betrayal if we color then participate in some odd slow-mo "speed dating" event and not divulge in a "single word only!" to potential courtees that it's no longer the same lovely hue that we combed out in third grade?

Or, could we be like one of my many past roommates who heard that rinsing ones' hair in coffee & coffee grounds helped to add languid, brunette highlights? One scorching, hot summer day, Owen (a girl) and her gal-pal, Patrice sat outside my house in Denver, their heads covered with produce bags attempting to contain the clumps of Sumatra coffee grounds that hung like mobs of spider nests from their golden locks. The knots tied in the plastic bags hardly dammed up the streams of muddy cups of Joe that poured down their cheeks and into the divots of their necks. I suggested that they use some raw egg since I heard that eggs or mayonnaise add luster. "Oh. Right! Come on' Patrice," Owen said, and the two leapt from their lounge chairs into the refrigerator.
They returned to their leave-in posts, hair shiny with scrambled yolks and whites and the clusters of grinds. Had they left the shells on, tossed a couple melon rinds and wriggling worms into their bagged coiffs they would have become live, organic fertilizer art. Flies and stench hovered around them as they chatted, legs crossed, and flipped through fashion magazines a lá Salon-style.

They sat in the sun stinking of compost and sweat. One hour later, they showered -- of course the yolk-coffee grinds hung on the edges of the tub like the Cat in the Hat's pink ring-- and reappeared unsmelly and clean. I admired their new fashions, but noted that despite their finest sun-soaking, coffee & egg rinsing efforts, their lush heads of hair seemed neither shiny nor highlighted towards any other shade than what popped from the follicles that morning.

Owen and Patrice's faces, however, were both stained with brownish dripmarks that spilled down their foreheads, temples, chin lines, over their larynxes and onto their clavicles where a shade of mud puddle settled. Ochre rivulets were tattooed all over their faces similar to the pasted-on (washable) make-up of 1980s Boy George. Skin darker.... or in unsightly, brown streaks. Hair same.

They ended up at the local drugstore and returned home w/two boxes, of course, of the lovely Miss C.'s Autumnal Chestnut and Hazel. The stripes finally faded away four days later.

So, even for the organic dykes, is chemi-hair coloring verboten? My 20-something pals, organic that they might be (they rolled their own ciggs), appeared in class with shades of red, purple, and ghost white weaves. Obviously, Gen-Xers have no trouble with chemicals, but what about we O-40 Ls? Shame or no shame? Do we hide the Miss C boxes deep within our recycling or enter the salons wearing large Aretha Franklin sattellite dish hats and Jackie-O glasses only to step away 2 hours later, boasting with newfound youth and a subtle blond, brunette, or auburn-highlighted wash and fashionable trim?

I think I'm going to need a crumbly vegan ginger cookie and a tall, all organic latte please if I plan on pondering this much more.