Whether I like it or not, I'm a grown-up now. I need to stop dying my hair without doing a test strand first. And I don't even have a major break-up to blame my hair experimentation on.

You've heard of the traditional Jewish prayer thanking God that the pray-er has not been born a gentile, a woman, or a slave? My personal version is to thank God that I was not born Britney Spears. And yet: dramatically unnatural hair-color switches is the kind of thing that perpetually adolescent starlets seem to do.

I was trying to get back to more-or-less my natural hair color (not that I'm sure I even remember what that is anymore). My roots were starting to show again, so I dyed my hair a darker shade of brown.

I overshot my natural hair color by a good five to ten shades.

I started to worry when I went to rinse it out and the water ran PURPLE.

The good news is that my hair is not purple. It is just ... DARK brown. Black-brown. (With, still, my red and gold highlights.)

I suppose I'll get used to it. And it will soften up over time. Nice thing about having short hair is that you don't have to wait too long to make a major change. Dangerous thing about having short hair is that it can tempt you into daring experiments befitting someone half your age.