I Fought the Bottle and the Bottle Won

Call me f'in Rainbow Brite. So, I decided to take a stab at coloring my hair recently. My hair is very dark brown, and I wanted to lighten it up to a light golden brown. Dear God, that has been so difficult!! There is a large section of hair that refuses to take the color. The roots suck it in like gangbusters. So I have one section that barely budges and another that will lighten at the drop of a hat! Not good. So (after a couple of tries) I managed to find a color that would lighten enough in one step to make me a little happier. It wasn't what I was shooting for, but it gets the job done - a medium blonde. NO, my hair doesn't get down to medium blonde. But it warms up and lightens up a little bit to the point where it's somewhat noticeable if you cared. I had just re-done those roots on Sunday. But silly me, it's not good enough. I want it lighter! Not quite Beyoncé, but lighter! I decide to use this highlighter to take it down a bit more, for some all over color. Wouldn't you know, the crown of my hair turns out to be almost freakshow orange? It's a strawberry blonde. And the rest of my hair barely budged. It got a little redder, a shade lighter, but nowhere near matching the circus display that is the crown of my hair. This was last night (Tuesday). And I had a deposition today. ACK!!!! It's not godawful but it does suggest that I'm a little freaky. I am, but it's not supposed to suggest it that loudly! Anyway, so it's back to the bottle again. This time I get a shade that will darken up the roots and hopefully bring down the resistant section again. Sigh. Well, it darkened the roots. That was priority #1. It took the edge off that super-light section. But the rest? Eh. It's okay, I guess. I have a bad feeling that to get the look I want, I will have to bleach the hair down quite a bit and then go up to the shade of brown I want. Doing the roots is going to be a joy. NOT! Too much fucking work, Batman! I dunno. I think my next step, in the next couple of months (when the roots start to show) is to go completely in the other direction and dye it shoe polish black. Okay, maybe not, but a darkest warm brown that is close to my natural hair color. Then a few months after that I can try again with a clean slate. So where are we? My hair has been 4 different colors in the last 5 days. Holy shit! My hair is now some shade of medium/dark warm brown, but there is a spot that is a little lighter (but not offensively so) at the roots. And now I have to do a LOT of conditioning just to keep it healthy. It does need a cut, and I'll ask my mom to do that for me next week when I go home. Until then, I'm just happy to be DONE with the bottle. For the next couple of months, anyway.