anti:freeze

on a hillside in Iowa, 1996 (too bad there was no lomo in my life then - this hill would have looked amazing)

Think about the hair you've left behind. The texture, the color, the tapered, razor-cut tips, the highlighted strands you were trying to grow out ... Have you ever shed the same hair twice? Where did you leave your best evidence?

When police collect hair from a suspect or victim, they must test the strands right away. Otherwise the samples lose their value, no longer useful as evidence. Hair changes. Sunlight. Chemical colors dripped into the shaft. Curls twisted around a hot iron, cuticles torn. Over time, strands lose color. Change texture.

Hair grows in three phases - anagen, telogen, and catagen. Anagen is growth, when the cells around the dermal papilla are still metabolizing, dividing, pushing upward. Cells lie dormant during the telogen phase, stop dividing. Strands stop growing. Catagen is the transition between the two. At any given time, ten percent of your hair is in telogen. This is the hair you leave behind.

I have lived in Oregon approximately 1095 days. The average anagen cycle lasts 1000. With ninety percent of my strands in the anagen phase at any given moment, this means I am only just now wearing a full head of Oregon hair.

And I have noticed. In the picture above, my hair was several shades lighter, streaked from the sunshine in Iowa. My hair is darker now, more brown than gold. My skin lighter, less rosy.

It's too late to perform any forensics. My sample no longer matches what I left behind.