Blondes have more....

My buddy John lives in a small studio but simultaneously has a great desire to throw large gatherings on certain occasions. More specifically, annually, on New Year's Day evening.

So he appropriates the Back Bay Hotel downstairs bar and tells everyone he knows to come visit after 4 pm.

As you might have inferred, he knows me, has known me for years. So I come visit. And when NYD evening falls on a Friday, it means drinking ridiculous $13 cocktails instead of beer, just because ... why not.

It was after first the espresso-cream martini, second the Grey Goose Cosmopolitan, and halfway through the first of 2 Smithwicks that I started conversing with John about frustration and desires and love. (Gay men are the best men to have this conversation with, BTW, if you're a straight woman. No one trying to impress anyone. Just old-fashioned lay-it-out-there.)

This is not an unusual conversation for John and I to have. On this night, it mostly centered around his new ever-so-possible flame, who had been in attendance earlier. Although it was followed by a delve through my annoyance, obviously exacerbated by drink, that I could still possibly be single after a year of hardcore dating effort.

Sigh.

But then the conversation took a turn. Out of nowhere. I don't even recall what led into it, except that suddenly I was listening to John say:

"You know, you're one of the only people I know whose natural hair color doesn't work for your face. Have you ever thought about changing it?"

Ouch. I've known John since 2001. Not only have I had the same hair color since then, I pride myself on having had the same hair color since then. It's a combination of conviction that dishwater-brown is what God gave and meant for me and the snobbery of not succumbing to that degree of vanity.

But once I got past the sting of a friend saying he's never liked my hair ..... I found myself glad for the input. Thinking it was the perfect New Year's foil. Debating the merits of a possible auburn rinse -- a shade found on my paternal side of the family -- against going completely and shockingly blonde, the color of my youth. To wit:

The Fam, c. 1982

So? Ya think?

Update 7:32 pm: Look what I just stumbled onto at salon.com.

Thanks for the Quote of the Month, Mary Elizabeth:

"Coloring one's hair, whether you're a teenager sticking it to your parents or a dowager looking for new lease on life, is like having Ty Pennington standing outside your house with a megaphone and a demolition squad. I'm not saying a pair of Spanx and a good blowout can't change you in the blink of an eye, too, but nothing, nothing can do it more dramatically -- and enduringly -- than dye. Makeup and control garments are mere loaners from the fairy godmother. By the end of the night, their time is up. Hair color, on the other hand, will give you at least a good month, which is more than I can say for several of my relationships. And yet, if things go wrong and you don't like it, it's easy to wash away and forget it ever happened. Try that with the guy who gave you that urinary tract infection."