Red lefty

My friend Megz tagged me on a post she shared for World Left Handed Day yesterday.

It included this pic:

Back when I actually used textas and biros, I was well acquainted with ink smudges on my hand.

It reminded me of a post I wrote four years ago called “They’d have killed me in the Middle Ages”. I’m still quite pleased with that blog post title, very dramatic.

It was about the fact that I’m redheaded, greenish eyed AND left handed, which means they’d have burned me as a witch back then.

I also noted in the blog post that it has been problematic in modern times too. My fifth grade teacher Mrs Watson tried to make me to switch writing hands, while I was often teased about my hair and called a witch by my contemporaries. Children are SO kind to each other.

Fortunately teachers don’t try and convert lefties any more.

I never felt attractive in my youth because of my red hair and pale skin. It definitely wasn’t a winner with the boys at Kotara High School.

If I could go back in time I’d be kinder to myself about my looks. There was nothing wrong with me other than a lack of confidence … and a sprinkle of weird. I wish I looked that good now!

I like reading positive stuff about redheads after spending so long wishing I wasn’t one.

One awesome thing I saw about redheads recently, but which was written back in the 1800s by a French doctor called Augustin Galopin, is that women with red hair and pale skin “exhale a soft odour of violets”. DD would beg to differ as I always manage to eat something with garlic in it just before he sees me.

While there are lots of jokes about rangas these days … eff off with your “it’s a term of endearment” platitudes …  we don’t call women with dark hair gorillas … the appeal of redheads is a lot more widely accepted.

Which is my roundabout way of saying I had a good laugh over James Weir’s wrap up of the season opener of the latest Bachelor series, which I didn’t see, but sounds like quite the car crash already.

There’s a redhead on it called Zoe Claire who has accused fellow contestant Areeba of discrimination.

“I’m a redhead and she targeted me because of the colour of my hair,” she rants. “It’s not appropriate. I can’t win. I’m not blonde or brunette. I’m not anything other than what I am. And I can’t pretend to be. I’m me. And if he likes me, than f**king awesome.

“I don’t wanna go through this experience feeling different, all because of the colour of my god damn hair! It sucks! It’s just the colour of my complexion.

“No one has my hair, no one has my bone structure. No one has my body. That’s not a lie – they don’t. But you’re still different. You’re still a f**king ranga at the end of the day and it sucks. Did Areeba do it to any of the blonde girls? Any of the brunette girls? No.

“You know what? I’m proud of being a ranga. I will be a ranga until the day I die. We are more striking than any other human that walks the earth. The way people treat girls and men with red hair needs to end right now.”

I hear you, sister.

Weir concludes: “We go to the rose ceremony and the angry redhead refuses to show up because her temper is as fiery as her hair. Producers force Locky to give her a rose regardless because they assume she has got, like, nine more paranoia spirals left in the tank.”

I’m not sure she’s the best advertisement for redheads, but Weir’s assessment of the episode is very funny, read the whole thing here.

And that’s it from this paranoid, angry redhead for this week. Catcha on Monday! Have a great weekend.

Song of the day: Dolly Parton “Jolene”