Osborn Fiber Studio

I wrote my celebration report last Sunday, but through a design flaw in my bloggy software and a little inattention on my part, it was completely eaten. I didn’t feel that bad… they aren’t that interesting to write, so I assume they must be pretty boring reading. It’s more an experiment in accountability than a literary exercise.

But I have to talk about my hair. So I’ll give you the highlights (no pun intended).

Wednesday in Easter 4 was the day that everything awesome happened, all at once. I had a meeting I’d been anticipating for a few weeks, which led to a final decision being made that I’ve been working up to for months. It wasn’t my first choice, but at this point, it was the best one, and I was just happy it was made. Then on the same day, both us and our roommates got confirmation on our next residences. After a day like that, doing wild things to my hair seemed like an appropriate way to celebrate.

Some people will not like the fact that I dyed my hair. Some people will be enthusiastically supportive. Most people will not care (and a surprising number have not seemed to notice). My reasons for dying my hair are simple. The inimitable Aunty Bubbo-Pants once said that she dyes her hair in shockingly fun different colors because, when she looks in the mirror, it gives her something that makes her smile. Now, I have plenty in my life to smile about, and I’m not any more insecure about my looks than the next chick. But I’ve always wanted to dye my hair, and colors make me smile. I think that is good enough reason.

Here is the obligatory “before” picture, which says more about my laziness with a straightener than anything else

In goes the bleach – this is the scary part! My poor virgin hair.

I only had Michelle do the front. I’ve been wanting to try a look like this ever since I started reading Scary Go Round back in college, plus it’s one more step towards my life-long dream of becoming a real-life anime character. (The next part of that includes being able to walk through walls and use a magical katana.)

The bleached look was pretty awesome all by itself. It exacerbates the enormity of my forehead, but I don’t really care… when the dye fades, I might well leave it like this.

But in the end, when the dye went in, I was very pleased with it. The fabulous purple-ish auburn is just what I wanted – interesting-looking, but subtle and earthy enough to still go with my wardrobe. I am working my way up to wilder colors.

(My necklace says “Keep Calm and Carry Yarn.” Many thanks to Erin for this gift; I wear it all the time.)

It goes without saying that Saturday in Easter 4 and Easter 5 were the incredible celebration that is the MD Sheep and Wool festival. I have more posts to share about that, as soon as I iron some silk, acquire a few buttons, and rediscover the cord to my cameraphone.

This past week? The end of classes, a flood, and party central. It was so much work and fun that by the end, I deeply resented it. There’s a point at which celebration actually becomes work.

Monday in Easter 5 was my actual last class, the final meeting of my independent study. It’s also the day that Roommate A successfully defended her thesis. Desperate to celebrate but without any time to plan anything interesting, the Scooby Gang went out to Rooks (the least seedy bar in town) and had dinner together before D&D.

It was technically Tuesday in Easter 5 when we got back home and discovered our flooded basement. I think we handled it pretty well, considering. After doing flood triage ’till about 2:30, we gave ourselves a solid 8 hours of sleep, then got up and splurged on breakfast at the local Sheetz. That was the celebration for the day: Sheetz. If you’ve been there, you know that counts. We lost the whole day to sorting out crap to trash and moving things to the dump. This wasn’t a whole day’s work, but half that time was spent staring off into space and dealing with the emotional shock of a flooded basement. As an update: everything’s fine, and the carpet is nearly dry. We’ll be returning the borrowed humidifiers within a day or two.

Wednesday in Easter 5 was one of the three days we spent huddled in the library, trying to crank out our final work due. I only had one paper, so the pressure wasn’t on that high, and I was still a little shaken from the flood; this is a very bad time to find a new webcomic and decide I have to read through the entire archives. I did manage to at least acquire all my sources on Wednesday, though I did almost nothing in terms of actual work. The evening, though, was a seriously celebratory event, as we went to our sister church in the city and cantored (sang the psalm) at our friend’s ordination. It was a very emotional time, but an amazing celebration of a couple entering into ministry. And, quite literally, nothing is more celebratory than the Eucharist.

On Thursday in Easter 5, my body clock woke me up early. It is an amazing mercy of my wacky personality that stress and avoidance sometimes gets turned into productivity. I somehow got the rest of the sources copied for my paper before working a full shift at the yarn shop, then between yarn shop and an evening work gig, I started writing the paper. The evening gig was celebratory in my book; it was fun to serve dessert to the school board and mingle with them and the faculty a bit.

But Friday in Easter 5 is when all the party on earth started to break loose. I cranked out the rest of my paper in the morning and early afternoon and proofed it once before Baccalaureate in the evening. That was an amazing service, and it was the last chance for this school’s population to have a Eucharist as a body before a slew of us graduated. The worship was a pretty great high. Then I got home, edited and finished my last paper, clicked submit, and watched a goofy zombie movie with friends. (It involved David Tennant, which is the only reason I watched it.)

Saturday in Easter 5 was graduation, a big day for Roommate A and many of my other friends. Jared and I got to serve as marshalls again, which means we got to wear purple dresses and order people around and march in lines. Then about twenty friends jammed into our favorite local Ethiopian place, and went home for a small and low-key (read: exhausted) party. It was chill, but it was lots of people time. At that point, celebration really felt like work, but our friends are worth it.

Easter 6 began, as Sundays generally do for us, with worship. Eucharist at Grace was quite the multi-tasked party, between the three students graduating from the congregation, Mothers’ Day, and a baptism. The reception that followed was pretty epic. After the week we had, we were pretty determined to take a sabbath, so our first order of business at home was PJs, then some quiet. I finally caught up on laundry; Jared played mindless video games. The afternoon and evening was spent with friends, watching British mysteries and talking about virtue ethics and theological anthropology.

Lesson for this week: really celebrating is actually work! And like anything, it can be overdone. I’d like to say the next week will be chill, but by the next time I write one of these updates, I will be in a different house. The order of business for this week, therefore, is mostly just packing, but also a good bit of time with friends enjoying each others’ company.

At least tomorrow I get to sleep in, if my body doesn’t decide that packing is so important that I have to get up and start packing at 6. I’m thinking no.