Namely a Hairy Matter

"It's your hair. Who cares. Fuck it!" said my friend Beau from the slightly scratchy Skype portal. "Why do you care about people's opinions so much anyway?"

I thought about that for a minute. Why did I care? I know back in the day, when I was a successful, working actress, that my hair was not my property. I remember being ripped a new one by a wig stylist for "Peter Pan." I was 18 and new to professional theatre. I was wigged for every performance and thus thought that my hair did not really matter. No one told me that if I went from long hair to a little bob that it would misshape the $3000 human hair wigs I had to wear. But I learned my lesson, and after that I have tried to maintain "castable" hair, except for the occasions when I was not working, like now, where I reveled in the experimental. As my mother says, "It is only hair, after all, and it grows back."

And here I am, again without any acting prospects in the future, save the ones I make for myself, and no real job opportunities except for writing (an occupation decidedly antisocial) or maybe food service (but the Japanese girls get to have crazy colored hair so why not me?) and I honestly can't come up with a reason why a little purple hair dye (not even permanent!) should be a big deal.

Of course I do recognize that I am turning 30 in less than half a year and I feel the need to connect to my inner rebellious teenager. You see, I never did much wrong as a teen. I was too busy planning my acting career, a bit like Rachel from "Glee." I had the biggest plans in the world and did everything the way I thought it should be done. And I succeeded. But now I have no major plans, and even if I did I would have no means to them. I am living better than I have for my entire adult life. I am supposedly all grown up and doing things properly. So no I feel the incredible need to be improper. I know it is completely ridiculous, I know it is almost akin to a 50 year old man with a small penis and a boring life buying a red sports car and suddenly picking up 20 year old chicks in bars called "Echo" or "Slag" or whatever.

Women mature quicker than men. Does it not follow that our midlife crisis' occurs much earlier? Why were so many women in the 60's downing a handful of "Mother's Little Helper" in their late 20's/ early 30's? When faced with eternity in a house, making dinner, overseeing the cleaners and repairmen and the laundry etc etc....does it not follow that a little madness ensues?

Look at "Revolutionary Road," a film very dear to my heart. Here you have a woman, an actress, who marries an exciting young guy who is into all the things that she is. Adventure, travel, the arts. Flash forward and she has been moved to the suburbs, is a housewife with accident kids, her husband has a great job that pays for a great life, and she given up everything for this. And she is miserable. She convinces him to move to Paris and live the bohemian life again but the rut is so deep...and well, all I can say is I hope I never get pregnant.

Harsh this may sound, especially as I started this diatribe whining about my hair. But, IT IS MY HAIR. And MY name...oh yeah...that was a peach...

So this afternoon, whilst the completely inept repairman for the dryer was mucking about, I got a call from my darling husband, ranting and raving about the fact that he couldn't pick up the boxes from the post office because it had my last name on it. Well now let me preface this by saying he did not even try. The line was too long or some nonsense. He was SURE that they would not give him post because we had different last names. This is not the case, but there was a whole THING about the fact that my having my Ragsdale last name was a pain in the ass. Completely inconvenient because he had to EXPLAIN to people! I think mainly it is a slight to his (and all men's) archaic manhood that he must EXPLAIN that his wife chose to stay herself rather than take on a family heritage that she had nothing to do with.
"Well but no it would just be easier.." Fuck that! Was it "easier" for Jews, in the holocaust to pretend they were Christians? Was it "easier" for very light skinned black people to pretend they were white before the Civil Rights Movement(a la "Imitation of Life") or for Okinawans to change their nationality every five minutes because they were being taken over by China or Japan or the US? Was it easier for my mom to take on all the last names of her(ex)husbands? Sorry mom but a point has to be made!

YES. Yes it is easier for all involved if I become Mrs. Jason Garlock. But at what cost to me? I already feel as if I am nothing more than "Jason's Wife." I am struggling daily to retain a part of the amazing person I used to be. Don't take away my name!

How did I come to live in this society that is still ensnared in Victorian sensibility. A woman can serve in the military, but if she marries she HAS to get all new patches for her uniforms with her husband's last name on it? And I, I who was Ragsdale at birth, I who was christened by my parents, by the creators of me, Natasha Cristina Ragsdale, who has always known myself as that person, am asked to not be any longer.... well, and we ask ourselves why I feel the need, the desire, to dye my hair purple and flip the bird to the world.....