Purple boy crush

Tomorrow is my one-year anniversary with Cowboy. I’ve celebrated it by dying my hair box red. You know the kind of red that you see high school girls walking around with that’s really purple (or some exotic endangered rain-forest wood color)? That kind of red. What came over me I have no idea. I was in Wild Oats over by the shampoo and I saw all those boxes with the little swatches of fake plastic hair hanging out and I thought ... you know, red might be a nice change. Hmmmm ... I want something different and I can’t really afford the boots I’ve been ogling at JL Coombs or a new pair of 7 jeans from Bliss or (even nicer) some Earnest Sewn jeans from Chantal, the new ultra-hip store opened by the co-founder of Wallis Girls. So, the logical choice was red hair. Right?

Cowboy and I opened up a nice bottle of Cabernet and I mixed the tubes of color and he frantically applied it like he had suddenly become John Cleese in Fawlty Towers telling Manuel to "fix hole in wall" that the Irishmen bungled up, all through my hair missing only my temples, which now look sort of dark brown next to the mahogany maroon color of the rest of my head. I was always a blonde. Now I’m a purple. Purple is not a very stylish color I don’t think — is it? But it did used to be a color of royalty.

I have no idea what possessed me to do this except that maybe I like to annoy my mother around important family events — for instance plucking out all my eyebrows for my brother’s wedding. And now the purple siege on my head.

This morning when Cowboy got up at a regular hour to go to work I heard him snicker as he kissed me good-bye. This was not a good sign; I rolled over to avoid confronting the mirror before noon. When I did actually see it I have to admit I sort of snickered too. It’s like a red-wine stain on your favorite shirt that won’t come out, dull-red-brown.

Anyway, Cowboy shouldn’t mind too much because he currently has a boy crush. For those of you unacquainted with straight guys and their crushes, a boy crush is when two ostensibly straight guys take a shine to one another and think the other one is the funniest coolest most brilliant stylish awesome thing ever in the whole wide world. This happened last week when a performer from New York came up to Maine to do a show none of you came to (thanks a lot) called "Letters to Katrina." At the cast party those two were sitting on the couch getting baked and eating chocolate bombs from Standard Baking like they were going out of style and admiring each other’s belt buckles when another friend Parker (note: a playwright, and Algonquin wannabe) offered, "Hey guys, I think it’s still early enough for you two to catch a viewing of Brokeback Mountain downtown." And then my friend Anne said, "Did you just call it Butt Crack Mountain?" Ah, artists. So politically correct.

Home I go for Christmas with a Cabernet head to accentuate any pre-holiday stress pimples, which will surely grace my brow around the time I turn into to Mommy’s driveway. She’ll have lots to notice (and comment on). Cowboy’s coming with me. I’ve never had a boyfriend come home for Christmas before. This seems kind of serious (or it would if I didn’t know about his boy crush) because my Mom is even making him a stocking.

It should be fine. By the time Christmas rolls around no one will be able to distinguish me from the cranberry sauce and everyone will be so sauced themselves that my hair will be the least of their worries. Plus, Cowboy might steal away to the theater to catch a late-night showing of Brokeback Mountain. My only question is: Is he more a Heath or a Jake? Please say Heath.

Caitlin Shetterly can be reached at bramhallsquare@yahoo.com