Tag Archives: down my rabbit hole

down my rabbit hole: Yarn and my other addictions

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I should probably explain a few things about myself. I am a consummate day dreamer, bizarrely coexisting with OCD. I can have five chores spinning at once, only to nearly walk outside in my underwear because I forgot to finish getting dressed. I am an avid reader and a movie buff, with tastes ranging from Agatha Christie to Anne of Green Gables, from fantasy and space sagas to torrid romances, from Twelve Years a Slave to Christian spiritual thrillers. I have become consumed with Middle Eastern Dance….I love the movement and the music, my hip scarves and zills, but am still building my courage to move from classroom to public performance. And then I have this thing about Yarn.

I knit and crochet. To those who share my yarn lust, this little sentence is synonymous with a password into a hidden international community. Yarn is not only about craft, but denotes a lifestyle of art, of history, of zen-like absorption, of sister(and brother)hood. Others like me will understand when I say that I do not leave the house without yarn. I always have some small project in case I have 10 minutes free, or need the associated serotonin-release that can be as effective as a drug, and is scientifically proven to calm the head, the heart and even pain.

This life means aggravation from a dropped stitch or an error found inches below your active work, or a knot in your yarn that will take hours to unravel. But it also includes the thrill of a project that becomes like a child you watch grow, the deep satisfaction of seeing someone you love wearing your work, and handing over a bag full of hats or blankets for the needy. The obsession affects old-country great-grandmas, twenty-something homemakers, high-powered executives, and new-age hippies alike. It brings us all together through an understanding that connects us as soon as we make eye contact on a bus or sitting in the park, our kindred-spirit connections usually starting with, “What are you making? Can I feel your yarn?”

down my rabbit hole: About My Bangs

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So about my bangs….I have fine, flyaway hair. It looks a mess twenty minutes after styling. I used to spend half an hour fighting to conquer it every morning, only to look in the mirror later and decide I should have just stayed in bed longer. My waves turn into frizz if it rains or if I even pick up a brush, despite putting two “smoothing products” in my hair each morning. I can almost hear those expensive little bottles mocking me from across the city.

Added to the fine frizz is my high, uneven forehead. During one of the few times when I opted to grow my bangs out, a ten-year-old asked me if I was going bald! Her grandmother defended my honor, stating that a high forehead is a sign of beauty. Yeah, in ancient China maybe.

My plight shifts from annoying to ridiculous as I attempt to hide my unruly hairline under this unruly frizz. Not only do my bangs not stay how I style them, they do not stay where I style them. A pair of cowlicks launch themselves over my temples, with the right-side arching into a cockeyed swirl that lands pointing inward and forward over my eyebrow. These cowlicks respond only temporarily to being redirected. And Heaven forbid I go out into the slightest breeze! I try not to hate on those lucky mortals whose hair drops right back into place. If someone even whistles in my direction, my bangs flip to a place where even a bad toupee would not go.

I have learned that timing is key for my styling solutions. If I pick up the hairdryer when my bangs are too-wet or too-dry, I risk straightening them to limpness, inviting the temptation to re-curl and land back where I started. I typically get puzzled looks when I tell stylists that my hair looks different every day; that is, until they find they cannot get my bangs to do anything civilized either.

And so I obsess about my bangs. I fixate. I keep a mirror at work, and may have a reputation as the vainest lady in the place. No, I’m just paranoid that I may be replaying some version of a bad school picture day. I keep hoping my forehead will shrink or my cowlicks will soften, but to no avail. I know my fate. I understand this is a First World problem. Still, on especially bad hair days I feel justified in wanting to call out sick from work on the grounds of emotional distress. I will try not to bring up my bangs too often during the course of our acquaintance, but if you catch me looking in the mirror one too many times, please be understanding. I’m trying not be medicated over something as silly as hair.

My First Blog Post

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Ludicrous: “adjective; so foolish, unreasonable or out of place as to be amusing; ridiculous.”

– Oxford Dictionary

Welcome! I’ve started this blog to share the ludicrous parts of life with you. Our lives are frequently soda out your nose, cracking up at a funeral, laugh-till-you-snort ridiculous. And even when they do not feel that way, the nonsense can still be amazing. As a human being that must deal with other human beings, it is obvious that God’s sense of humor and patience are at work. In sharing my experiences of this life and my tilt on it all, I hope to give you a catharsis about your own craziness. So, come along as I attempt to laugh at myself as much as I do everything else, and choose to search for the smile and hope available when things go south.