Hair apparent

"Jinxed!", the first film in my Netflix queue, arrived today, and I'm gonna watch it as soon as I update this blog.

A friend expressed surprise that I would want to revisit a Bette Midler film that flopped so badly when it was released in 1982 that it landed Bette in movie jail for six years.

I told him I remembered liking it in 1982.

"Yeah, but you were so much gayer then," my friend said.

Maybe I was gayer in 1982 —I have the Village People and Liza Minnelli ticket stubs to prove it— but I am definitely grayer now.

I noticed this over the holidays in the harsh fluorescent light of the men's room at the Hampton Inn in Agoura Hills.

I'm sure that my new gray hairs are the result of the annus horribilis that just ended, and my anxiety over the new annus just begun.

Of course, an evening watching "Jinxed!" may be no way to begin a brand new annus. It could turn even more of my hair gray.