Did you know that you can purple something? Why don’t we use purple as a verb more often? Purple, like the way we feel about graduating: not quite blue, because at this point it’s kind of more funny than sad how little we know about where we’ll be in five months. Purple, like Amanda’s hair. Because Amanda purpled her hair. An interesting tactic for job interviews, but we’ll go with it.
Amanda came up with the idea to dye her hair a while back. She blitzed Seanie about it. Subject line: Serious consideration, seeking opinion. Content: the purple hair proposal, and a line that said, “Your opinion only. I am certain others will tell me no, so whatever.” Seanie’s reaction was intensely positive. She felt that Amanda’s hair should be purple. She felt it in her soul.
It took a night, a morning, five bottles of bleach mixture, two and a half bottles of dye, two bottles of conditioner, some shampoo and a lot of patience before the hair, which was throughout the process referred to as stubborn, difficult and really freaking annoying, finally turned purple. Already having dyed her hair pink in the mildly distant past, Seanie offered her expert advice (“Yeah, it’s totally okay to leave the bleach in for over an hour!” — is it though?) and retreated to bed before the process began.
A text conversation between Amanda’s mother, Seanie’s mother, Amanda and Seanie the following day went like this:
Amanda sends picture of purple hair to group.
Seanie: [Thumbs up emoji.] [Piglet emoji.]
Amanda’s mother: Sweet! [Heart emoji with the little yellow sparkling diamonds.] I guess the heart wants what the heart wants, but tell me ... does it wash out?
Seanie’s mother: Haha — but wait — is there another person’s photo I need to know about? [Winky face emoji.]
There was more emoji use, more confusion and cautious and slightly panicked motherly support. The conversation ended as Seanie’s mother confirmed that the dye does not wash out. She later sent Seanie a private text: “Um — is your hair purple, too?” Seanie said no. Seanie’s mom sent a heart emoji. It was purple. Seanie had never felt more loved.
Back to the way we feel about graduating. Beyond the purpleness of it. In case none of this week’s column makes much sense, that is because we don’t make much sense right now, either. All of these senior-y things and senior-y feelings are starting to happen. Like getting nostalgic about the disgusting act of dancing barefoot in a fraternity with our dance group for the last time. And crossing things off bucket lists we never actually made, like going to pub trivia at Three Guys (Amanda, who admittedly contributed naught to the team) or going on a run for the first time since early 2012 (Seanie). And having the urge to run around in the rain late at night, like we used to do during freshman spring.
It may sound like we are getting sentimental. We are not! People are trying to get us to be sentimental. To them we say: cease and desist. We are rejecting sentiment. We are like two bulls in a china shop. After our last frat show performing with our dance group, a fellow member came up to Seanie, teary-eyed and nostalgic. Seanie pushed her as if she were a troll and not a close friend and ran away, chanting the word “no.”
In case you were wondering about our writing process, Seanie spent a long time coming up with that simile. Instead of “troll,” Amanda thinks she should have put “button,” “Push-Pop” or “in the ‘Push It’ music video from the ’80s.”
We are rejecting sentiment because we can’t afford to accept it right now. We still have to make it through a month of classes and will not be able to do so if we start thinking about how this is the end, how we feel like we’re staring into the abyss, and how next year we are likely to be somewhere around 2,048 miles apart, though there’s no way of knowing at press time.
This is what we do know: a formerly unidentified stuffed animal sent by Seanie’s mother has been ID’ed as a piglet. This implies that Seanie’s mom does not want us to purchase a real piglet, but rather be satisfied by a stuffed one. We will not settle. We accept the toy piglet but desire a live counterpart.
In case your interest was piqued by the window into our fine-tuned and sophisticated writing process above, here’s some more about it: we considered writing this entire column in emojis, but didn’t. We considered writing this entire column in text messages, but didn’t. We considered writing this entire column as an homage to our mothers, the only people who read it, and kind of did. We sent this entire column to our editors in purple font. If it appears black, that is because we chose a very deep, plum-like shade.
Yours, indigo,
Lucy & Ethel
