I'm only edgy on the inside.

I got my hair cut Monday as a favor for a friend recruiting hair models for a class being taught at her salon. I have been "growing my hair out" for a friggin year, people, so what was I thinking when I said yes?

Well the instructor is a stylist at the salon owned by What Not To Wear's hairstyle "guru". No, not the owner himself, but before I knew it I was sitting in a chair with a hundred-dollar tee shirt-clad hipster running her fingers through my hair looking at me all thoughtful-like, sighing a lot and trying to figure out "what to do with all this hair"..... blah.

Some star-struck intern at the back of the huddle pipes up with a question about hair that I don't understand involving "deep vees" and "symmetry" and then it happened.

instructor: "I'd reserve those techniques for someone more..."
class: ..........
instructor: "we'd try that with a client who likes more..."
me: (WTF)
class: ........(uncomfortable smiles/ downcast eyes under Bettie Page bangs)
instructor: "those are great for the edgier types"
me: (oh, no she di-int)

So, I'm not "edgy". My pants don't have holes in them and my tattoos come from the quarter machines at Birthday World. And when I look in the mirror at myself I may very well see a girl once described as a nice, safe scoop of vanilla ice cream. But all the things I know and all the all the risks I've taken in my life have chewed me up and spit me out over and over again. I have scars on the scars of my heart and regrets filed away someplace. Just like every scoop of rocky-road walking around out there.

The difference is that I don't have to cut my hair in a five-minutes-and-fading fad hairdo to show the world that I have depth. Or "edge".

I got my plain jane haircut and I look the same, but whispier. And my jeans aren't ripped or bleach stained. But inside, I'm a patchwork of colors and textures made up of the moments I zigged instead of zagged and jumped instead of stayed still. And god-dammit, every time I'm offered I take the red pill.

I just prefer to look like I would opt for the blue.