Let’s talk about the really big news around here.  My hair.

After 20 years of dying my hair blonde.  I have gone back to my roots. Well, with a few highlights as well.  I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.

I'm naturally blonde and I have a cake!

Hear is my Hair Story:  Like many of us I was a blonde little child.  Golden locks, wispy buttery strands that flew through the rich Culver City air.  I stood out in my clan as they were all brown haired, brown eyed people.

Make Blonde not war

Then in adolescents.. I started to change.  The hair became darker, so I sprayed on Sun In.  But, that left it kind of orangy.  By High School I was done trying.  It was all brown.  My super thick hair a blunt cut that sat on my head like a helmet.  So, I cut it SHORT.  Very Molly Ringwald 1980′s. Daphne Brogdon 1980′s.

Molly, not me, but very close

I went to college and let it go where it would.  I was thinking about saving the world and listening to Grateful Dead, wearing huarache sandals so I didn’t realize that I had developed (gulp)

A MULLET

It was even kind of blue for awhile and then red, due to some temporary dye that wasn’t.  But, hey college is a time of experimentation, right?

"Does that girl have a mullet?"

I went home one summer before my junior year and walked into my friend Carolyn’s hair salon.  ”OMG ” she screamed,  ” You look like someone from Sonoma County.”  This was before Sonoma county had great wine and cheese, but was hick central.  I finally came to.

“HELP ME”  She chopped the party in the back off.  Several weeks later she put in highlights.  Then I was on the road to blonde.  It felt like I was back to me.  The golden child.

Now, blondes do turn heads.  But, not so much when they are in sweat pants pushing a stroller.  I like my blonde when I’m all done up or on TV.

If only I always looked like this. But then I'd be on Real Housewives of Culver City

But, that’s not what most of my life is like.  I still want to be pretty.  I have not “given up”.  But, I don’t want to chase a look right now either. It’s also a lot of maintenance and money. I tell Vivien as I gaze at her naturally perfect highlighted hair, don’t chase the blonde Viv.  When you are older, go gently into the sweet night of brown. I don’t want her to spend time on that when she will be in a great scientist discovering a cure for cancer.  She has better things to do.

So, I’ve gone brown.  I’ve gone bangs.  Michele Obama said her bangs were her mid life crisis.  I feel kind of the same way. Although, I would prefer Channing Tatum or Bradley Cooper to also be part of this crisis.“Daph, we like brunettes. Brown brings out the blue eyes”

This is going to sound really goofy, but going darker is one of the bravest things I’ve done in a while.  My friends really see it.  Most like it, a few say they prefer the blonde.  Talking about hair sounds trite, yet it is a part of our identity.

I’ll probably go blonde again.  I always pictured myself a little old lady in a golf dress  with over tan skin in Palm Springs, short blonde hair dropping coins for the lifeguard to pick up for me

I would love to look like Cloris when I'm her age

We’ll see.