By Gina Daugherty
The Cincinnati Enquirer

When I picture myself, I am blond. Though I've been other colors at various points in my life, I dream in blond. I have Blonde on Blonde on vinyl. I can appreciate jokes about blondes, and I admire blond bombshells. Whenever I color a picture, the woman's hair is always yellow.

I've been a blonde most of my life. Minus a smattering of photos still available at my mom's house of me with red or brown tresses, I have almost always been a blonde of one shade or another. I've been silver, icy platinum blond. California golden blond. Winter wheat blond. Ash blond. Champagne blond. Most recently, I am 10A blond with red streaks.

I once spent six hours in the salon chair getting the black stripped out of my hair - a New Year's Eve indiscretion. It took three bleaches and three toners to get it back to blond. It burned and singed and ultimately the ends of my hair broke off before I left the chair. But even with shorter hair, blond is blond.

When my hair first started to turn darker in middle school, replacing my towhead with a dishwater color, I started using Sun In. By high school, I was full-on blond in a box, spending the evenings with my two closest friends as we all colored our hair various shades. My shade was always blond. Usually the one on sale.

Sure, there was that period in college when I went to "the dark side" and dyed it black. (I refer to that period as Goth Gina.) And there was that other time I dyed it red. Though attractive, it wasn't me. I am not a brunette or a redhead, I am a blonde. It is my personality.

When truck drivers honk at me, I know they are honking at my hair. I know if it were brown, they wouldn't give me a second look. When roadside crews do a double-take as I drive past, I know they are looking at my blond tresses. I could be a mess - bloodshot eyes, puffy face, ponytail, mascara smudged - and still a guy in a Grand Am will turn and stare as he passes by. And I think, "Yeah, I've still got it. I can still attract balding, middle-aged men."

As a blonde, I am attracted to my opposite. I have had only a fleeting attraction to men whose hair could be considered less than dark brown. I am in awe of dark-haired beauties such as Jennifer Lopez and Salma Hayek. I envy their skin tone and their hair. But I am fair and Irish - I will never be a dark beauty. So I compensate with blond, like the aging man in the sports car.

I've dyed my hair so long, I don't remember my natural color. It could be dark blond or maybe a light brown, but I can't be sure.

It doesn't matter anyway, because in my heart, I'm always blond.

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Email gdaugherty@enquirer.com