I used my extra hour this morning to go blonde.

I was trying to go for platinum blonde, but ya know, it's actually kinda hard these days to find a peroxide-based home hair bleaching kit in your local drugstore, and these kinder, gentler hair treatments can't quite deliver on my medium-brown base tone, so strawberry blonde it is. But definitely blonde. I rather like the way it brings out the natural red tones in my hair, without being garishly orange. (Orange is not a good color for me. Fall leaves, yes. My head, no.)

It's weird to see how different I look with blonde hair, because I still haven't really gotten used to the idea of myself as a brunette. After all, I only see myself for a few minutes a day, so the color of my own hair is not something I pay close attention to. I was a tow-headed little girl, and although my hair has been darkening by the decade, those childhood self-descriptions don't fade easily. Makes me wonder about the lasting effects of a highly sensitive child internalizing an identity less innocuous than "blonde."

Anyway. The hair change is a symbolic protest against the darkening days of winter. Yes, I know, it's irrational to protest the length of available sunlight. I can't do anything about it, other than move closer to the equator (or, I suppose, alternate seasons between the arctic and the antarctic). But to steel myself against the onset of SAD, I'm taking what little steps I can to add brightness and color to my daily life, whether by waltzing with tomatoes or by turning my hair a color that might have come out of a box of crayons.