Nice Work If You Can Get It

boy this love shit's messy.

why is it risky to write about joy?

there is so much in and of this world i do not know.
i fumble in darkness, teased by pricks of light like stars on a velvet canvas,
stretching hands and knees against its softness while it whispers,
implores me to acquiesce.

apparently i'm not an invited reader.
was it something i said?
or something i read?

we used to wonder what it would be like to talk without lips;
we would fold our mouths back and nundle erds,
fall over laughing, hands clutching our ten-year-old bellies.

or we would shout jibberish out the bedroom window
in hopes that those on the street would think we knew french.

now i know i have a full mouth and language,
but one look from you and my breath is caught behind
open lips that are rendered useless,
my caged words too afraid of their own escape.

you laughed, and it erupted like a firecracker through the store.
the smile that laugh started tweaked at the corner of my mouth
and spread across my face in a wave as the echo of your sound and light
rolled above the tile floor and bounced off the painted ceiling.

you weren't even paying attention to me, caught up in some noisy phone call,
playing oblivious to the looks you garnered in this sacred house of the written word,
but i didn't care. i was happy to let the dazzle of your echo play on,
accompaniment to my crouching exploration of the rumi at the bottom of the poetry shelf.

I'd forgotten how stressful colouring my own hair is.

Or maybe it never was this stressful, it's just that, since the last time I was in the routine of colouring my own hair, the stakes have gotten higher. After all, I think to myself as I shake the colour-enhancing goo into the bottle of whitish liquid that will soon douse my head, I'm not sixteen anymore. I'm not sitting on the back porch, grounded and restless, combing peroxide into my hair from an errant bottle that mom's had on hand since the last time my youngest sister encountered one of her many ill-begotten lacerations. I'm in my mid twenties (no, this is not your cue to laugh). I'm also too broke to pay someone to do this for me. To further complicate the situation, I have a meeting with the university board of governors the day after tomorrow. It's not that the board members don't already like me; frankly, they can't help themselves. Like me or no, I still reside firmly in the category of "student representative." This affords me some luxuries (it's okay, she's just a student) but also sets up a series of expectations not placed over the heads of the more senior board members. A ridiculously splotchy, or at least ridiculously coloured, hair do is guaranteed to garner some disapproving looks.

That said, I've already purchased my box of Natural Instincts (Spiced Tea, if you must know), the solution is mixed, the gloves are on, and the roots are begging to be covered. I turn up the Douglas Coupland interview from CBC's Words at Large, step gingerly past the idea of pouring myself a glass of wine, and start applying the goo.

It's actually kind of soothing in a strange way. There is something methodical about it, and, not being of the persuasion to spend large amounts of time on my physical appearance, it's almost a treat. I let myself get a little lost in the application process, and let Coupland's lilting, mid-90s surfer dude, I'm-so-from-Vancouver cadence lull me into a false sense of security.

Ten minutes later, it's time to rinse. I bend ass over tea kettle into the tub and let the lukewarm water run over my head. I watch as my roommate's beige shower mat turns grape purple and pray to the chemists at L'Oreal that this will a) not be a permanent stain and b) not be the final colour of my hair. Slowly, ever so slowly, the water coming through my hair runs a little clearer. My back and knees complain bitterly; kneeling on the edge of the bathtub, bent over with nothing but one hand on the tub floor to support me? Who am I kidding? But I persevere, coming up for air once the water is mostly clear.

Now I'm sitting on my couch with my wet new hair in a clip on the top of my head. I'm not ready for that moment of truth, where my blow dryer and I join forces to reveal all the spots I missed while swooning over Douglas Coupland. I've also backtracked to the wine idea, hoping, perhaps, that it'll dull that inevitable "I flippin' knew it" feeling I'll get when I discover the equally inevitable patch of hair that still looks remarkably like it did half an hour ago.

Why do I do it? Is it boredom? More than one acquaintance has remarked that I change my hair more frequently than some men change their underwear. Is it because I like having people compliment on my new image alteration? Nope, I'd prefer everyone just thought I always looked this way. As I pull my freshly dried bangs in front of my eyes--the only inspection I'm ready for at this point--and let the wine and some old school Broken Social Scene lull me anew, I prefer to rationalize it this way: mehn, I haven't been a redhead in a while.

i realize now that,
to wear heels and not die,
you have to practice wearing them.

i'd settled in top side of the double decker,
plugged into headphones and pulled my
scarf up around my chin to listened in
on two dead men talking about what the
world was like before the flood.

she didn't notice me staring till after she'd
ducked down to pick up that butt someone
discarded much like she had been.

grey hair matted against a grey day she
met my eyes and looked away, embarrassed
at having been caught by an onlooker
from the dry side of the rain streaked window.

it's a sneeze that won't come out,
or a caught cough in
a quiet place.

half way through this afternoon i realized
my underwear were inside out.
hm. how appropriate.