The combination of coffee, Sex and the City, and female driven music always creates a wish to write. Well, usually the combination of pretty much anything and coffee and I feel like I can take on the world. Maybe. I have listened to Florence + the Machine quite a bit lately. Florence Welch has an absolutely beautiful voice. And I must say, she is one of the few women in entertainment who has made me wish I could change my hair color to a brilliant hue of red. I am pale enough that I could pull it off. The last time I tried dying my hair it turned out relatively orange. No, that’s a lie. It was not relatively orange, it was plain old orange. Oh, the good old days of high school and attempting to define myself through drastic color changes and punk hair cuts. What am I saying, the days of high school? I still cut my hair short and spiky. In fact, I went to Great Clips (yes, I am that cheap) the other day and got about two inches sheared off. And I already have short hair. It really is so much easier to deal with when it is this short. That, and I actually like the way it shows off my face. Anyone who has ever cut my hair has told me I have the face to do any length and that my hair does exactly what they tell it to do (which I wonder at, because any time I try to get it to do anything, it does not follow MY directions). I have considered dying my hair again, as well. In October I went blonde and I finally have grown it out enough that it is back to my mousey brown. With Florence’s hair in my mind, I wish I could try doing red again. Or even revert back to my high school and early college years of multidimensional hair color. I would dye my hair at least three different colors at a time. Occasionally it was pink or purple, but I don’t want to walk down that road. I am way past the age of highlighting my hair magenta. However, blonde, black, brown would be a cool idea. But alas, no money and I do not want people to look at me as the girl with “weird hair”.
Jonathan once told my parents that the first thing he noticed about me was my hair. It was unique. He said he had never seen a girl or known a girl who had as eclectic hair as mine. When we first met I had dark brown hair with blonde patches and a few blue-black low lights. I had a cut that was later made famous by Posh Spice, but it was slightly longer than Mrs. Beckham’s. The front was at least four inches longer than the back and the back had haphazard layers so that if I slept on it and walked out the door it would create this sexy bed head look. And occasionally it would just be bed head, and there was nothing sexy about it. There are times when I still want to break out the old looks: darker hair, misshapen cut, black skinny jeans and white studded belt, wife beater and track jacket (my favorite still being the Senses Fail one I got my senior year of high school, which still hangs in my closet). Add on my turquoise (may they rest in peace) and black Vans, and that was how I looked until I turned twenty-one. Apparently when I reached the age I could buy alcohol I decided it best that I not look like a high school misfit but rather someone who actually acknowledged that good first impressions were necessary.
I had a boyfriend, back in the day, who had a lip ring and an eyebrow piercing, spiky hair that he mousse up into a faux-hawk, he had gauges in his ears, and went around skanking to everything. He thought it was cool to put on “Pop” by N’Sync (which I do love, by the way) and SKANK to it. He would always complain about how he could not get a job, they would never tell him directly, but he claimed he knew they were being discriminatory because of his appearance. Typically I would roll my eyes at him because the thought that would be going through my head was “no shit Sherlock”. He failed to realize that though it is a fine goal to see a world who does not judge or discriminate, he has to have some give and take with personal style and expression when looking for a job. If he wanted to work retail he would have fit in perfect with the Hot Topic crew, but he would be applying for office jobs and other such positions and when he would go in to the interview he would be wearing jeans, a t-shirt, eyebrow and lip piercing in, gauges punching holes in his ears, and hair spiked with so much gel if a ball landed on the end it would deflate. What is so hard about the idea of compromise? Give a little to get a little. (Look at me being all preachy, but truth is some times there are situations I refuse to compromise in, like music. That’s right, get a good laugh in. I know you are.)
(I just had a thought: it is amazing where the mind takes you. I had originally sat down, coffee in hand, to write about relationships a la Carrie Bradshaw, and somehow I just waxed on about “punked” out hairstyles and blasts from the past. Yeesh.)
I am currently watching the third season of Sex and the City. One of the Aidan seasons. Though Carrie chooses Big in the end, I have always debated if he was the right choice. Their relationship always seemed so traumatic. The extreme highs and lowest lows, this emotional upheaval and always drama. Not that there wasn’t drama with Aiden or even the Russian, but with Big it seemed masochistic. He was emotionally unavailable and unwilling to commit and she kept diving in hoping, praying, wishing he would change. Is it even realistic to believe someone will change? You cannot force it to happen, it has to come from within the person. And I guess in the end Big did change. He was the one who realized his love for Carrie. He realized he wanted the commitment, that he had in fact changed to become the man Carrie always wanted and needed. It just seems so depressing, though, that the major relationship played out on the show was one where the characters did not fit when they were both themselves, and only worked out when one of them came to his senses. What does that say about relationships and human interaction? Are there only a certain amount of people out there who get us for who and what we are? Or is change such a natural part of human nature that it’s perfectly reasonable to assume one or the other has to change or even will be willing to change. But then we get into the issue of where the line for compromise exists. If I give up a certain action that I enjoy because it annoys you, and you give up a certain action that annoys me, is this reasonable, or are we forever doomed to wonder when the compromise fails and secrecy and hiding true actions begin?
And that’s the thing, if you do behave in a way that is harmful to not only your partner, but to the relationship as a whole, is it okay to assume that it will one day stop? Or is it too much to ask? I guess it depends on what “it” is. I have thought a lot lately about character flaws. The tragic hero. And I keep thinking that everyone is the tragic hero of their own life. How sad is that? How absolutely depressing that my first thought is that each and every one of us is a tragic hero, and we are doomed by character flaws to fall into darkness. No positivity (like I have wanted to integrate into my life), no “we are the heroes,” but that we are the TRAGIC heroes. We cheer each other on, we support and talk and encourage, but the basic truth is that our actions and our desires come from within. The tragic hero is the one we all love and cheer for and want to finish out ahead, but he lets his demons consume him. Facing those demons is undoubtedly strength, admitting to having them is strong, and willing to move forward is definitely strong. But what sucks is that it takes energy, too, and it is draining. Being so strong can make anyone feel weak. Life’s little jokes, right?
Wow, so, excuse my diatribe on relationships. Apparently Sex and the City turns me into a romantic philosopher and a relationship shaman. Always interesting what comes out when I open those gates.
Stephanie A. W. Martin 
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