how many episodes of the west wing does it take to dye your hair?

 well, if your hair is like mine, long and of moderate thickness, and you are doing the work yourself instead of commissioning a licensed hair person or delegating the dirty work to a friend, i would say one-and-a-half episodes. and that is just for the application and set time.

before boldly making the decision to dye my hair red 100% by myself, absolutely no assistance, i looked like this. though, it should be noted, that is not virgin hair. my natural color seems long-forgotten, though i figure it is somewhere in the light-brown category. however, i find something remarkably liberating about being able to change my hair. it is a sort of assertion that my life is my own. that's why i chose red today. a part of me hoped it turned out bold little mermaid red. for no other symbolic reason other than i desire to live my life boldly. (i wasn't thinking i ought to leave my life behind and sell my voice to a witch to follow some man i saw briefly one fateful night, not at all.) also hoped that the dye would have some fancy-pants name like vermillion, or ideally soviet red (i would love to tell people my hair was soviet red), but it was just red, but to figure out how it turned out you will have to scroll further into the depths of this post.

 i made a bloody mess of myself that is for sure. also made a bloody mess of the bathroom. the money i saved buying the cheap dye (do i look like a Rockefeller? well, did they have any red heads?) will likely be spent buying mystical cleaning supplies like the much heralded magic eraser. however, i won't need to magic erase my face as the poor man's solution, warm water, did the trick.

waiting was intense. i could feel my hair physically heating. it was like it was letting me know that there was a chemical change in process. molecules were going wild, while i was fretting over the possibility of my hair bursting into flames and missing a spot (though missing a chunk of hairs would have fled from mind had my head ignited). once i lathered the stuff on the first strip of hair, i figured there was no going back, and truth be told the application process had been more arduous than i anticipated. nervousness and excitement abounded in my little bathroom while a symphony of witty political banter played on my laptop propped on the toilet. will i look like a fool tomorrow? will president bartlett and his wife reconcile?

and then, my shower was the scene of a murder. MURDER OF THE OLD AND BIRTH OF THE NEW! if i had known i was going to get the irresistible, spontaneous urge to transform the fibers growing out of my scalp today, i probably wouldn't have spent all that time cleaning my bathroom yesterday. c'est la vie. 

and the result was subtle. no one will mistake me for the little mermaid. but it is definitely a red made for the summer. the crimson hues glisten in the light. and mad props to the world's greatest sister for the world's greatest sheep pajamas.

now, here is where i planned to get introspective and tell you more about the wild wave of assertiveness i was riding as a decided to dye my hair, such a simple process, but doing it was a weird reminder that i can do what i want. i can follow my irrational dreams to see if they pan out. hey i could move to new york, buy a fedora and become a playwright. except i don't like fedoras. maybe a boat hat, i hear everybody looks good in those.