In between the ordinary sort of princesses I used to draw magical beauties; I debated luxuriously, my magic markers stroking the page, whether the green girl with blue hair was more beautiful, or the orange girl with red hair.

Summer-born, fond of rubies (covetor of my sister's prize marble, deep red as a ruby - mine was green, and inferior) and strawberries, I came down on the side of heat and the sun. My hair is dark brown, if color exists where there's no one to see it. What can be seen of my hair is bright red-orange, a magic-marker-color. First bleached, then daubed with color out of a little paint-pot, my hair feels a little nasty, sticky and dry at once, but ever since that page I wanted red red hair like the magic girl from the sun.

Before that, and counting backwards, my hair was white-blond, stubble, white-blond, black, fire-engine red, bluish-lavendar, alpine green, blond, checkerboard, stubble. Before that it was long and brown. Short and brown. Long and brown. Short and brown. And (I am a baby now) sparse, wispy and brown.