I colored my hair Sunday. I have premature gray hair and it was driving me crazy. Not because it was gray, because I just have a streak of it, and when my hair wasn't layered and parted in the middle, it really was a perfect 1/3" streak of gray that was sort of intriguing.

I first noticed it when I was 24 and when my color was less fresh that it would look a little green there- when the eggplant got reddier (because I'm told, hair color-wise that blue leaves first, then red, leaving gold tones to endure...) I couldn't figure out why my hair would be turning greenish in just that area, unless....

Sure enough- gray.

All over premature gray runs on my mother's side. My grandma who was only 56 when she died was steely gray at that time. My mom vigilantly dies her hair golden blonde since she was 18, so you wouldn't ever know she was also gray under that sunbonnet.

My dad's side of the family is the opposite. His mother did not go gray until she was in her 70's. Her gray is very tasteful also.

But anyway- I now have lots of layers, and I now have a dramatic zig-zagged part (because it adds so much mod height without even back-combing it!) My gray is distributed on both sides of my head as a result. And since some of the strands are shorter they are wiry. I hate them. I visciously pull them out like Alobar cheating death in Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins.

I hadn't colored my hair since 1996, because I haven't had the self-focus to do so, and I like the hair that isn't gray. My natural brown is a dark cool brown. Whenever I dye my hair brown, even an ash brown, it brings out a lot of red tones.

But I didn't want to go too dark, either because although I have great skin, I don't want to look in the mirror and realize that I can't do the Snow White- dark hair and creamy complexion thing anymore. I don't want to look into the mirror and look 35.

So I chose Truffle by Garnier Nutriesse "a medium natural brown". It turned out nice- not too dark, but with more red than I wanted.

And nobody noticed. Which just means no one ever noticed my gray hair in the first place, and I was coloring my hair for myself after all, so I should be happy, but I am curiously unsatisfied.

Because I should have just gone dramatic. I am not going to look old- I'll look great. Duh.

I am going to go get this color today.

Because that's what I was always going for- hair the color of a grape jolly rancher.