Can you guess what happened to my hair since I last wrote here? No? Well, here we go. You know that I bleached it fairly white, using a mixture of straight bleach, hydrogen peroxide, and lemon juice. It seemed to work pretty well, but lately it had been growing out, and because of the contrast between my bleached hair and my unbleached hair, I ended up with what looked like a black streak down the middle of my head. So I decided to bleach my hair again, and see if I could get: 1. my already bleached hair to be absolutely white, and 2. the hair that had grown out to blend in a little better. To this end, I gathered together a few of the things I'd used last time (clorox bleach, large plastic bowl, dishwashing gloves, large rag-towel), and went outside to work on the first step. You have to be outside, otherwise the smell of the bleach will knock you out. (It very nearly did anyway.)
 
So I put the towel around my shoulders to protect my clothes (which I had made sure weren't ones I was particularly fond of in any case), put on the gloves, discovered that they were both for the left hand, muttered a bit but decided it wasn't worth the trouble to look for a right hand glove, poured a fair amount of straight bleach into the bowl, took a deep breath, and stuck my head in it. (A note: straight bleach kinda burns. You get this interesting feeling, sort of like your scalp is dissolving.) I swished my hair around a bit with my gloved hands, making sure it was all wet, then gingerly pulled my head out of the bowl and wrapped the towel around my hair. The bleach in the bowl had gone all foamy. It was very odd-looking, but I had seen it the last time I bleached my hair, so I wasn't worried. Holding the towel securely to my head with one hand, I picked up the bowl, carried it over to a russian olive, and poured it on the roots. (Theoretically this should kill it, but I'm not sure even straight bleach has a chance against that overgrown weed.)
 
Then I went back and did it again. I left the bowl upside down on the rocks by the garage door to drain completely (you can't put bleach in your drains--it does bad things), and went inside, carrying the bleach and wearing the gloves. I waited in the garage for a bit, making sure my hair was well wrapped up and wouldn't drip, and taking off the gloves (a feat I managed with difficulty) before I went into the house. I put the bleach away, and then sort of wandered around for a while, waiting for my hair to dry. When it did, I went into my bathroom with a couple mostly empty bottles of hydrogen peroxide, gingerly unwrapped the towel (holding my head over the tub), and poured as much peroxide on my head as I could. I used the gloves to make sure I was getting everything, scrubbing around blindly.
 
With the towel off my head, I thought, it seemed extraordinarily light. I hadn't noticed the weight of my head when I put the towel on the first couple of times, but now that I thought about it, hadn't my head seemed lighter than usual when I had taken it out of the bowl of bleach for the first time? I was unsure. My head had been swimming from the bleach fumes, and I hadn't been thinking or noticing things properly.
 
I finished with the second step, and rewrapped my head. It seemed to take forever for it to dry. I went and got the lemon juice out of the refrigerator while I waited. Finally I gave up. Somewhat damp, I decided, was just as good as completely dry. I went back into my bathroom and repeated the process, this time using lemon juice, rewrapped my head, put the lemon juice back, and started waiting for my hair to dry. I wandered about the house, one hand steadying the large pink towel on my head, and thought uneasily about the comparative weight of wet hair to dry.
 
Eventually it dried enough for me to remove the towel, and I went directly to the mirror. My hair was a dark, tangled mess. I wondered whether the bleaching had worked. It's true that my hair is always ridiculously dark when it's wet, or even damp, but surely it should be lighter than this, I thought. I was somewhat disturbed by this, and went to borrow Mom's hairdryer. I couldn't find it. It turned out to be in a drawer under one of the sinks in BookFreak and AnonymousGirl's bathroom. I turned it on as high as it could go, and set to work. The truth emerged fairly quickly. Under the blast of warm air, my hair dried into a fuzzy, inch-thick carpet on the top of my head. I ran my hands over it incredulously. It felt nice. I felt hysterical laughter bubbling up in my throat. The bleach had dissolved my light-colored hair almost completely. It was still there--on the sides of my head, in the back--but not on the top. I looked a bit like one of those top-bald hippies who refuse to admit that their hair isn't growing in the middle anymore. The sound of the hairdryer covered my mad giggles as I finished drying the longer hair around the sides of my head.
 
I think Mom considered disowning me when I showed her what I'd done. I asked her if she would try cutting it so the rest of it matched the top, but she wouldn't. I borrowed the razor she uses to trim the boys' hair, put on the one-inch attachment, and attempted it myself. I don't think it turned out too badly. It wasn't what I was trying for, mind you, but even Mom admits that it doesn't look too grotesque. My cousin Michael says I look sort of like Angelina Jolie in 'Hackers'. (Sadly, he's right.) On the upside, I think I'm done with bleach now. I've had enough fun.