Cat Mad Crochet

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

I have finished nothing this week. I worked on things, but I have finished nothing.

I can happily tell you that I am about halfway done with the latest ball of yarn I added to Hannah’s project. I can even more happily tell you I have started the decrease bit of Adia’s mini-shawl. These are good things. Projects are moving along. I should be happy. Alas, I was not.

So I started a new project, everyone!

Behold the yarny goodness! It’s going to be a capelet for Hannah because I’m on a sort of theme right now. I’m basing it on the peplum sweater I made for her a while ago, so it was easy to get started. Of course, the best part is that past me did all the damn math so that present me can just skate along making wonders without the horror of math poking its horrible little nose into my plans and messing them all up with its logic and measurements. The audacity. I cannot even with math.

On the subject of things I cannot with anymore, I othered myself this week and the public reaction has been . . . something.

My hair is going white, not gray, at a pretty good pace. I was never going to dye it brown or any other natural color, so I’ve been experimenting with different brights. First was a toned-down blue, then a bright purple, and now a bright blue. I dyed it on a Monday then trotted my butt to the local Costco on Tuesday. People, it was an education.

Toned-down blue-haired me got looks. Bright purple me got looks. Both colors got compliments interspersed with the looks, so it was fine. Bright blue-haired me is apparently a freaking horror. I had several people refuse to look at me when I said good morning to them in the parking lot as we passed each other. The local Costco is a friendly place. People nod and say hi to each other as we wander in, or they did before I othered myself with my hair. Now, not so much.

In the store, after already encountering a bunch of people giving me unhappy looks, I had one man lock his very old eyes on me and stare at me as I went past with a look that could have seared me to death if he had such a skill. Thank goodness he does not.

Leaving, I encountered another woman who looked visibly shaken when I said hello, followed quickly by a couple. The man glared at me. The woman refused to look. It had been such a weird little morning with nearing a dozen upset people at my hair that I just started to laugh. I kid you not, they fast walked away from me as quickly as they could go. Hannah suggests they thought it was a cackle, and I was cursing them. Oh, for such skills.

So for me, this was a morning of silly people whose politics are so toxic that the mere sight of my unnatural hair is enough to turn their days upside down. I’m sure they told the tale of how “they walk among us” for the rest of the day. I am the wrong kind of white woman. I get it.

But here’s the thing. I’m still a white woman. I can still laugh about it, class these people as fools, and move on with my day. Not so for scores of different “others”. For them these people are a menace who can rain down horror on their lives. They do walk among us. I am not sure how we come to terms with that. They hate me on sight because of my hair while they know nothing about me personally. I hate them because they are bigots and homophobes and misogynists.

Imagine if they knew I can’t knit?

I make light, but seriously. The hair color change is teaching way more about people than I ever thought it would.