eor

With the benefit of hindsight I can say it wasn't the right redhead. Still, I'd consider it again. With the right redhead.

For the relative population here in the U.S., 2% natural redheads, my personal interaction with that 2% seems disproportionately large.

A sample: I believe the first girl who ever had a crush on me was a fully freckled Catholic girl of Irish descent. If I was a little more clued in at the time I might have learned a lot from her. One of my regular companions in high school constantly cursed her complexion, build, and Ronald McDonald curly red hair. They were a bit over the top. The girl who sat behind me in Calculus class had long straight red hair and an incredible skill at name that lyric. Later she was kind enough to give me refuge when I needed it and gently ignore the fact I was insane.

Funny thing is at the time I didn't really notice the hair. If I see someone in a movie I might say, "oh, look at that hair!" But in personal interaction I'm too busy being wrapped up in the whole person. I tend to not consciously notice all those thing that would make me stare at someone on TV. I'm just too busy interacting, listening, distilling to pay much attention to those things. Later I might look back at an old picture and think, "wow, why didn't I notice that then!" I do notice the laugh though, I always notice the laugh.

Why all this ramble about hair color? It was just a line that fired off synapses in a particular way:

"Wondering if she'd changed at all,
if her hair was still red." -- Bob Dylan "Tangled Up In Blue"

I was listening to the song for other reasons and not even thinking of that line when I played it.

"Off like a feather,
he floats through the heather." --- Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts