How can someone who doesn't even comb her hair be vain?

As I ripped the 172nd gray hair from my head, I asked myself: "Am I vain?"

And I've come around, once again, to Cheryl's way of thinking. I'm not vain in the most obvious and traditional senses of vanity. I'm not thin, not pretty, not all that stuff that people usually get obsessed with. But I am vain about my age. Ever since I skipped first grade, I've been "the young one."

But now I've reached the point at which I'm no longer sure how to make this "youngest" thing work anymore. At least not until I become "the kid" of the rest home. I recently got promoted to a job that I am fairly young for. Not a ton of people at my level are under 40, and I still have a couple of years to go before I hit that milestone. The irony is that I am an assistant managing editor with an emphasis on youth, more specifically attracting younger readers to the newspaper. Talk about a Quixiotic task. Good thing we also have a Web site. I don't think the newspaper is a lost cause for younger people, but really, the victory will come as much in stopping the slide as turning things around in some dramatic fashion.

Anyway, the "youth" aspect of my job makes me even more sensitive to the grays than I otherwise would be. And that's saying something, 'cause I'd be pretty damn bugged even if it was my job to attract bluehairs (and not of the punk rock variety). I'm due for a haircut this weekend, and I will once again face the question of whether or not I want to start coloring my hair. I'm not sure I'm there quite yet. I'm in that awkward phase, like when you grow out your bangs. It would be cool if I could do temp colors, like washing out red and then purple and blue and then others. You know, a relatively dark and subtle red and purple and blue. I am a quasi-executive. A quasi-executive prone to using phrases like "fuckin' a!"