Philoillogica: The beautiful uncut hair of graves

I've dyed the nimbus back to dark. I've given up on the reddish thing, realizing yet again that redheads are evil, and the major orchestrators of all kinds of hideous manipulations of the cosmos, like athletic socks left in the bathroom and the obsessive consumption of yoghurt. I realized I didn't need to advertise my involvement in that kind of drama, and have settled for the much more common and more subtle hue of brunette from which to wreak my unique brand of universal havoc.

It's amazing what time can do. You never would've caught me fraternizing with a redhead ten years ago, let alone living with one.

In my 25 years on this planet, I've learned a few things about grudges, like which to keep and which aren't worth the energy. Most are dropped, like therapists and Oprah say you should, but a few I've nurtured from seeds planted long ago, and I'm keeping them for ornamental purposes. I've always liked that image in The Little Mermaid of the octopus queen's garden of people who pissed her off, made bad on an agreement, bastards who tried to hightail it without paying the bill. My garden's a choice few spiny Venus flytraps who these days require very little food other than the odd dismissal or scornful snort – they stopped needing regular watering long ago. On the left, is Amy something-or-other who stole my glasses for a week when I was eight; on the right, I've got a small bevy of hick cousins who abandoned me on a horse in a barn; somewhere there's a creeper vine of the boy down the street who only played with me for my BMX ride.

But pride of place is always reserved for Katharine.

I'm still not sure exactly how we met or why – all I can remember is that she appeared in my life one day and stayed for awhile. It was tenth grade and we were girls and her hair was down to her waist.

And that, I suppose, is the start of a lot of stories.

Needless to say, given Katharine's position as the rose bush in my garden of grudges, our relationship wasn't without more than its fair share of thorns.

"Katharine with a K-and-an-A," she said. "…or with a C-and-an-E. Those are the only ways to spell it."

"Fine," I said. "Sarah with an H. Or else you need to die."

And that was that.

I guess it must've been English class we had in common, since I never remember seeing her in the morning. She gave me a copy of The Fountainhead and I slipped her Hitchhikers' Guide. We'd skip class and drink coffee, and her hands were always warm on the back of my neck.

Her baggage was greater than mine, and occasionally she'd drag it out and want some help carrying it. I'd do what I could, but I had my own to worry about, and it just seemed to be accumulating as fast as I could adapt. Hers, I mean. But mine too.

I have pictures of the two of us still, her smiling benignly as if anything she did was benign, me incredulous as always. I think it was the end of school or thereabouts. We were going to a party that night, all girls, fifteen or so of us chortling blue curacao and dumaurier milds. We pushed the futons together and slept in a pile, Katharine curled around me like a vice.

Things got weirder after that, but not because of the party. I hooked up with some nineteen year old, and Katharine pulled away. Hurt, I think, but mad, definitely. I couldn't give her what she wanted, and I think she wanted to punish me for it.

And she tried.

Hell, I don't think she knew what she wanted, really. All I knew is that our "us" went from two to four pretty quick, as she hooked up with another boy. I still wonder about how exactly that happened, but it's not my story to tell.

And then there were three. My nineteen-year-old went away to college, and Katharine started to furrow away with her boy, always threatening me with a company of one. She got madder and madder, in both senses of the word. She stopped asking me to carry her bags, which left her boy standing there bewildered as she plied him with issues.

But by then he wasn't her boy. He was mine.

I guess a lot of stories start that way, too.

Needless to say, by the time I finished high school I'd well watered that rosebush, and I'd famously had it with redheads.

That year at commencement I won some award, and the prize, chosen especially for me, was a children's biography on Fergie, subtitled "The Redheaded Princess."

Everyone laughed, even me.

She still turns up from time to time. We both have husbands now, and she's ever eager to point out her daughter and smirk. Red-headed, of course.

It's a pretty ornament, my garden. At least, I think so. A few people've tried to make me raze it, but they didn't see it grow, never saw the energy of those seeds, the richness of the soil. They don't remember what her arms felt like or the contrast of her tongue next to her teeth.

But it's not their story to end. It's mine.