In December, I made a change to my appearance which made me ask, for the first time in my life: Have I swam too far this time? I tend to crave change but resist permanence. Which is to say that I have a proclivity for spontaneous alterations to my hair. My doglike restlessness manifests like clockwork. Every three months, a little bell tinkles in the back of my mind, and I predictably salivate for scissors and dye. This habit has only intensified in recent years. French bobs and white bangs. Dying it brown and then black before chopping it into a pixie cut to excise the darkness. Growing it out and then bleaching it platinum on a whim.
I am not precious about my hair because I’ve accepted its inclination toward being a little ridiculous. It is an organism of which I only have moderate control. I live in a state of constant bedhead. It is at once too thin, too curly, and not curly enough to convey a consistent message. I am not woman enough to spend time blowdrying anything more than my bangs.
Since moving to New York, my hair has seen its shortest, darkest, and lightest iterations. While this makes me ambiently wonder if I am crazy, I look back fondly at each choice. Somehow, they all met the moment.
But, in December, I dyed my hair pink.
✩
Alex and I have been workshopping an idea for a while. When it comes to taste, we agree that being pegged not quite right is monumentally worse than being gotten dead wrong. It is uncomfortable to confront the many potential preferences that are so close, yet so far. Why is it so hard to explain that I would never wear cupcake earrings, but take pleasure in pairing a big ugly sneaker with a lacy sock? That I would never buy heart-shaped sunglasses, but that I sparingly carry a handbag shaped like an actual hand. There is so much Elvis Presley memorabilia in the world, and yet I feel convinced that my debauched “Love Me Tender” relief is the one true art object among them all. I wouldn’t want just any old crap from the street.
I police my nuances to stave off the horror that we are all just faded photocopies in a sea of shitty concert fliers. Individualism is a beautiful lie, to which I will probably cling until my dying day. Most of my least favorite sentences start with you seem like the type of girl who…
✩
In December, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw an archetype that I felt was one or two notches away from my true essence. Suddenly, I was Pink Hair Girl, and it didn’t quite fit.
Pink Hair Girls get a lot of attention because it’s fair enough for people to assume that they want a lot of attention. It’s a bold choice, made even bolder in my case. This was no rose gold. It was Gwen Stefani Return of Saturn neon slap you into Tuesday pink. I got hot takes and double takes every day. Even the birds seemed to be cocking their heads at me quizzically. People said things that made me want to hide in my bedroom. A well-intentioned woman called me a mermaid. A man stumbling zig-zaggedly caterwauled a little song at me, with a tune reminiscent of Who wears short-shorts?
Who wears pink?
Usually, the answer would be, well, me. I wear pink, and a lot of other colors too. But, as Pink Hair Girl, I started sticking with black and white. Because if you’re a Pink Hair Girl wearing pink, you transform into something else entirely, which is a Pink Girl. I knew a Pink Girl in college, whom I considered to be incredibly vulgar. Every article of her clothing, as well as the bottom half of her hair was a sickly Glossier hue. One day, in our twelve-person seminar, she arrived wearing a T-shirt that said something like: Fuck me, daddy. Our professor was a quiet, fusty British man in his sixties. He probably had a daughter. I thought that he shouldn’t have to see that.
The lunch lady at my high school always colored her locks bubblegum pink. She was an angry woman. Always yelling at her mother (the other lunch lady), yelling at students, and literally cackling with glee at the money she was making. I love money! she would yell to no one in particular.
Were these my comrades? Was this my culture?
✩
Yet, the problem was not that my pink hair looked bad. My stylist friend, Ian, did a stellar job. He gave me exactly what I asked for.1 I got compliments every day. People dug it. If I was only able to metabolize my discomfort, I could accept that my hair looked good.
What felt so precarious was that no one noticed it was not quite right. It received the same lukewarm-to-positive reception as any other style choice I’ve made.
How I looked with pink hair brought out a smattering of my particular insecurities. I felt gaudy, maximalistic, overdone. I felt like the quirky best friend. I joked to Evana that the combination of her mullet and my pink was marching us dangerously close to untouchable theater kid vibes. I worried that no matter how I presented myself, people would just be like, Oh, that’s Charlotte! Quirky, crazy Charlotte! Was my vibe that erratic? Had I changed my hair so many times that my fashion sense had no moorings? What was next? Cupcake earrings and heart-shaped sunglasses?
I think there are varying levels to the state of being understood. I can accept when people only somewhat understand me. But, to be slightly misunderstood feels an awful lot like being fully, drastically, ridiculously, wholeheartedly misunderstood. Being slightly misunderstood was a threat to my well-watered narcissistic fantasy of perfect individualism. If this could be true of my taste, then why not of my writing, too? Perhaps I am just another cog in what Eliza calls the Substack writer industrial complex.
✩
The dye has faded, and today there is only a whisper of peach near my roots. I think again of my friendship with Alex. While we agree on so many matters of taste, we, too, are guilty of getting each other slightly wrong all the time. We jokingly ascribe it to the Coastal Divide. I sent her a song I thought she’d like by Current Joys, and she replied: I think this band is too yung for me. Not age wise just in tone/ethos. She invited me to a Dent May concert, which I admitted I probably wouldn’t be willing to pay money for. When I told her I watched the movie Closer for pink hair research, she pegged me for a Jude Law when I was, in fact, a Clive Owen. I told her that if I could look like anyone it would probably be Natalie Portman. In return, she said: For me it is so, so Julia.
We are sharply honest with each other, but it never stops us from trying to figure out what the other might like. It’s a tender process, to try to understand another person. Yes, it’s true that an algorithm can instantly present me with a playlist, blouse, or perfume that I am chemically evolved to enjoy. But, I’m more interested in what Alex has got cooking up. On a recent work trip, she went to a thrift shop. She sent me a picture of a shirt she thought I might like. It was almost something I would buy, but not quite. I told her to pick it up for me and wore it proudly the moment it came out of the wash.
3.12.24 Mixtape
I’m honestly surprised I’ve never slipped a No Doubt song into the repertoire. Gwen Stefani was one of my first idols and Return Of Saturn is one of my favorite albums. Plus, it only seems right to choose something from her pink hair era. Where better to start than with Magic’s in The Makeup? The whole first verse is eerily aligned with what I wrote today, but I’ll clip the following: 🎶 So many different faces, depending on the different phases. My personality changes. I'm a chameleon. 🎶 Oh, and here’s the reference picture I used when I went to the salon. ✩ Sarah recently texted me: I’m dead at us both finally arriving at pop music in our mid twenties. I responded: It doesn’t have to be all Pavement all the time. Sometimes a girl can have a little fun. With that said, I give you Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl by Chappell Roan. I love how her whole album is girly and funny and horny. This dance bop begins with the incomparable remark 🎶 You know what they say, never waste a Friday night on a date. But there I was, in my heels with my hair straight. And so I take him to the bar. This man wouldn’t dance, he didn’t ask a single question, and he was wearing these fugly jeans. 🎶 ✩ I almost recommended This Year’s Girl, but instead let’s go with Lipstick Vogue by Elvis Costello. His 1978 album all reflects on a certain motif of an overcommodified woman, beautiful and broken with her mouth wide open. I like how this song’s rollicking drumbeat flows in this playlist. 🎶 Maybe they told you you were only a girl in a million. 🎶 ✩ The Frost Children have mad range and their song Bob Dylan kind of leaves my jaw on the floor. It’s so absurd and current and downtown and astute. It tells a whimsical story about Bob Dylan. Just listen. It’s indescribable. 🎶 It was a black-and-white photo of his face with big text that said “Dylan” right next to an ad about the new Jack Harlow bowl at Sweetgreen. 🎶 ✩ There are so many musicians that I know I would like, but I kind of just don’t know where to begin. I have Evana to thank for patching my musical blind spot for Bright Eyes. Conor Oberst has such a raw desperation in his voice that is intoxicating. When The Curious Girl Realizes She Is Under Glass is warbling and tragic. 🎶 I have seen the curious girl with that look on her face. So surprised she stares out from her display case. 🎶 ✩
🫖 I hope you enjoyed! If you resonated with anything you read, you can support my work with a like, comment, or restack. What has been a less prolific time for my writing here has made way for a fertile chapter of life. I’m trying to avoid the urge to fill the void. Hope that flies with you! And, last but not least, thank you to my friend Esmond, who gifted me a microphone to record audio! Hopefully, this sounds much better than the broken Apple earbuds I’ve been using until now. 🫖
Who else is thinking about that Fleabag scene?
Great read! Don’t let me be misunderstood by the animals is the song that first helped me identify how the underlying fear of being misunderstood was fueling my anxiety
looove! a banger as usual