Sept. 8: Red

The woman's hair was the most impossible shade of red. I kept looking at it as she talked to me at the New Year's Eve Party, which was taking place in the living room of a magician friend of mine in northwest Calgary. The woman was telling me how adorable I was, how she was positive the girls in my Grade 10 class found me irresistible. She was wrong. The girls in my Grade 10 class thought I was a loser.

"Well, what do they know at that age?" she asked, dismissing the thought with a wave of her hand. She leaned in and planted a heavy kiss on my cheek. Her breath smelled of too much red wine. "You'll be fine," she promised.

Later, her son, only a year or so younger than I, apologized, saying his mom got a little over affectionate when she drank.

"That's okay," I said. I was ashamed to admit that I was flattered by the attention. I could still feel the kiss on my cheek and later that evening, when I was putting on my coat, I felt the woman behind me. Her warm lips on the back of my neck. "Goodbye, sweet one," she said.

I was not offended. I certainly was not traumatized, though I might have been if I were a girl and my suitor was a man.  

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I am of the opinion that when a person exits a disastrous relationship, it is natural to change something about their physical appearance. Usually it's a different hairstyle though sometimes its a new wardrobe or drastic weight gain or loss. 

A friend of mine got out of a year-long relationship with a manipulative narcissist who drained her bank account and left her thousands of dollars in debt. My friend was a blonde. When I saw her post-breakup, she had dyed her hair red.

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There are a whole lot of movies with the word RED in the title. The Internet Movie Data Base gives me dozens including Red Planet, Red Eye, Red Dragon, Red Dawn, Red State, Red Riding Hood, and the Hunt for Red October. But you have to go down pretty deep in that list before you arrive at Red: the last movie in Krzystof Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy. It was the last movie he ever made; he died less than two years after its release.

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I met that red haired lady 10 months later at a movie theatre. It was happenstance that I saw here there, she was attending a movie with her husband and son. She did not recognize me so I had to remind her who I was. "Oh yes," she said. "It's nice to see you again."

She did not kiss me or tell me how adorable I was. This did not make me sad but it did not make me happy either. It was the last time I saw her. Her hair was not as red anymore. She had let it grow out. It was mostly grey.

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Every car I've ever owned has been a different colour. The first car was beige. The second was silver. This was followed by brown, blue, red, and now orange. Orange is my son's favourite colour. 

I like my new orange colour but I have to admit I liked the previous red one a wee bit more. Not sure why. I just do.

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The Three Colors trilogy may be the ultimate art house movies. Each movie is named for one of the colours of the French flag and the stories are loosely based on the three French virtues of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Of the three, Red (or Rouge) is the one most celebrated. It was so good that earned Kieslowski a directing nomination for the Academy Award, but he lost to the guy who directed Forrest Gump. If you watch the video, you can see that Kieslowski didn't care at all. He was not surprised in the slightest that Gump would be so popular in America.

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It has been a long time since I have watched the Three Colors trilogy. I would like to watch all three back-to-back-to-back, but doubt I will ever have eight hours of uninterrupted time when I can do that. My dream would be for an art house theatre, like the Bytown in Ottawa, to dedicate a day to their viewing. Then I could go and indulge myself.

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I have no evidence to back this up, but I suspect that women are more likely to change their appearance once they leave an unhappy situation. A psychology student should look into that. 

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Here is a brief collection of red things that I like:

- the Calgary Flames

- my old car

- strawberries

- the blood that falls down the screen in the James Bond opening

And at that point I rest