#sheepaday

Before I met Collin I wouldn't have been able to identify the Iron Man symbol emblazoned on his sheep drawing. I had also never heard of CrossFit or the Paleo diet or people who routinely get up at 5:00 in the morning to work out. Consider me enlightened. Collin is a passionate physical education teacher, the youngest board member for SHAPE America, a podcast host, and the most accomplished goal-setter I've met. (As in, he actually accomplishes the goals he makes for himself.) He's also a great friend and my college roommate Angie's husband. But before that he was "the guy we met at church who happened to live in our apartment complex." Soon after that he was promoted to "the guy Angie is dating." This, of course, meant that we talked about him a lot. The moment I realized Angie and Collin were destined to be together, Angie and I were standing in the kitchen of our rented condo in Bend. She held up a blue piece of cardstock printed with a clipart unicorn standing majestically under an arc of Microsoft Office word art that read "Happy Birthday, Angie! May your wildest dreams come true!" "Look at this!" Angie gestured the unicorn card toward me. She didn't have to say much else. "I know!" These are the types of profound conversations you can have with someone you've lived with for the better part of five years. The magic of the unicorn card, inserted into this early juncture of their relationship, was that it was so quintessentially Angie. It tapped into this bizarre, quirky humor we had shared with our closest college friends, and a side of Angie most casual acquaintances didn't really know about. "This is like something we would make for each other!" "I know!" I visited Angie and Collin in Bend this past weekend and held their 11-day-old baby boy while their two-year-old daughter danced around the living room to repetitive toddler music videos. Collin looked over at me while queuing up the next one, featuring a cast of cute monsters who sing about jumping. "This is our life now." I think that's part of the wonder of growing up, realizing that the friends you knew before they got married now have a mortgage, a remodeling project, and two little people who rely on them for the world. And just beyond the living room where I sat with the baby and the jumping two year-old, I could see the unicorn picture, still hanging on the fridge, still standing majestically, declaring "May your wildest dreams come true!"

"Do it all! Do it all!" One of the most vivid and lasting memories I have of my college friend Julie is of her jumping up and down in the middle of my dorm room yelling "Do it all! Do it all!" This was the end of freshman year, and the floor on which Julie was enthusiastically jumping was strewn with class schedules and college catalogs and several 19-year-old women trying to make life decisions. These particular life decisions were about majors and minors and what classes to take in order to earn those degrees. At one point Julie figured out that she could double-major and double-minor in some combination of disciplines I can't quite recall. Hence the jumping. Though it didn't all add up to a double-major/double-minor situation, throughout college Julie delved into classes, taking upper level Communication Studies Rhetoric and Religious Studies Classes, just because they interested her. We both graduated with English Literature degrees. Julie now lives in San Francisco, where she's pursuing a graduate degree in social work. She's involved in a beautiful church that's deeply committed to caring for people in the city. When we get together I hear about the church services they hold at the women's prison and the way they're working to make the church more inclusive for the LGBTQ community. I've always loved being Julie's friend because talking to her is like running through the range of human experiences. We always laugh-- Julie has the most amazing laugh-- and I leave with some piece of conversation that shifts my perspective and pushes me to think differently. One of the last times we got together, we sat outside Philz Coffee in San Francisco and talked about relationships and money and social justice. And then a bird pooped on my head and we crammed ourselves into the tiny coffee shop bathroom and laughed and laughed while Julie helped me wash out my hair in the bathroom sink. At the heart of Julie's drive to "Do it all" has been, I think, a desire to learn as much as she can in order to affect change and help people around her. Julie is a shining light and breath of fresh air to the people in her little slice of San Francisco. And to me, she's the dear friend who will clean bird poop out of my hair in a coffee shop bathroom while asking about how I'm adjusting to life in Portland. She also drew this sheep.

In the middle chapters of The Little Prince, the mysterious little boy journeys to other planets in his strange, tiny galaxy. He makes visits with a king, a vain man who wants to be admired, a drunkard, a businessman, a lamplighter, and a geographer. Each of the interactions leaves the Little Prince more and more puzzled. Why do each of these men spend so much time counting stars, lighting the same lamp over and over, and making maps that no one will ever see? "Grown-ups are certainly very very strange." he says. In October of the year I did the sheep project, I started a new job, and I felt a bit like the Little Prince visiting his strange planets. Even though I was working at a brewery and there was a steady stream of brewers carrying pitchers of beer by my desk, it was the most corporate environment I had worked in. There were a lot of phrases like "gross margin" and GL codes and a mysterious corporate ladder fit for climbing. Compared to the private school where I had spent the previous five years, this was quite a change. For the first few weeks, I kept the sheep project quiet. I didn't want my new coworkers in this serious new job to think I was absolutely ridiculous. After a few weeks, though, I was desperate for sheep. I asked several coworkers all in one afternoon, answering lots of questions about the project. And here's the good news: none of them thought I was absolutely ridiculous (maybe only slightly so). I also learned, thankfully, that people are more dimensional than their jobs, even if they do use the phrase "gross margin" in regular conversation. Unlike the cast of characters The Little Prince meets on his interplanetary journey, I quickly realized that my coworkers had interesting lives outside of our corporate 9-5 ones. They were journalists and moms and homebrew enthusiasts. And they were crazy enough to draw sheep for their new, strange coworker. Work Sheep October 28: Nick, the homebrewer who held the company record for the highest score on the Cicerone test. October 29: Bill, who once stood by my desk for 45 minutes sampling all the flavors in a 5-pound box of chocolate one of the vendors sent during the holidays. October 30: Anna, a sassy and amazing amazing mom whom I bonded with over the next year during 2:30 tea time in the Graphics room. October 31: Gabriel, a follow English major who edited an online news and opinion publication for Jewish students.

My group of college friends have often joked that our friend Lori is the most likely to experience a major life event without telling anyone. We have all half-expected that at some point we'll all be hanging out and Lori will reveal that she's been married for the last three years, or has become the CEO of a small company, or bought a house, but didn't bother to share the news. She's never been one to draw attention to herself. And so her boyfriend Kevin quietly sneaked onto the scene. Whereas some of my friends have sent out email chains or group texts or spent Sunday afternoons calling everyone to share relationship updates, Lori waited several months before telling any of us about Kevin. Even then, the word leaked slowly and with very few details. We asked a lot of questions. Eventually some of us got to meet the mysterious Kevin, and we were quick to understand why Lori liked him so much (not that she really gushed about him. We just knew.). He's easy-going with a good sense of humor, a savvy business owner (and part of the Portland food truck scene), generous, kind, and the type of caring boyfriend you always hope your close friends will end up with. They also grew up together in Hawaii, which adds a sweet element to their relationship. I must have still been enamored with the fact that I was spending time with the real Kevin because I wrote "Kevin!" with a large exclamation point on the sticky note next to his sheep drawing. I think I've mentioned this before, but Lori is also a master of deflection (hence the amazing ability not to share news about herself). She diverted my request for her to draw a sheep several times throughout the year. "I'll do one later in the year. Kevin will draw this one." Classic Lori. I can see all of my college friends shaking their heads in agreement. Kevin, we're really glad to know you. Thanks for the sheep.

Ghost Sheep wishes you a Happy Halloween.

And speaking of Haley’s sheep drawing, I really love it. I love the one fluffy sheep-cloud floating up above. And I love the girl reclined in grass, smiling, gazing into the sky. I think she’s imagining a different world.

Sheep Sometime life seems like a series of instances in which I realize I'm kind of a snob about things. Coffee, restaurants, those little wooden signs people hang in their houses that make self-declarative statements like "Queen of Wine" or "Coffee Snob." I'll tell you who the real snob is: me. And I don't need a faux distressed wooden sign to declare it. On this day in October I added "craft fairs" to my list of curated snobbery. In late October one of my childhood best friends came up to Portland to sell hand-sewn silk scarves at a university craft fair. Between stints of hanging out at her booth, I wandered through row after row of crocheted potholders, patchwork aprons, and homemade soap with kraft paper labels typed up in Curlz MT. If it is ever possible to be overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time, this craft fair lived in that space. At the very end of one of the halls, however, was a breath of fresh air. Well, the type of fresh air someone with a low tolerance for crafty crocheted items and a radar for thoughtful marketing would appreciate. The beautiful pieces of jewelry, colorful chunky-knit scarves, and leather bags were more art than craft. They were pieces you'd expect to find in a downtown boutique, or designs Anthropologie would copy. There wasn't a bad font in sight. I chatted with the brand ambassador Elizabeth and learned that the fair trade company employs artisans from developing countries. I spent theoretical money on a necklace I fell in love with, and justified the purchase on several fronts (fair trade/art/investment/I-didn't-buy-anything-else-that-day-so-why-not). The necklace arrived in the mail shortly after my new roommate Candice moved in. "Did you meet Elizabeth?" And because the world is small and connected, Elizabeth turned out to be one of Candice's good friends who lived in her hometown. "Yes! And she drew a sheep." I still have that necklace (and still love it) and have seen Elizabeth a handful of times since that first chance meeting. Candice and I became great friends, and she feels the same way about self-declarative signs (Live, Laugh, Love, anyone?) and regrettable fonts. She just started working for the same jewelry company, and I love telling the story of how I discovered it, the gem in a sea of regrettable crafts.

Every Monday night dozens of dancers pack into a small, dimly-lit tavern on a corner in Northeast Portland. They order drinks at the bar and cluster around tables in the cozy brick interior. Once 9:00 hits, the music-- always courtesy of The Kung Pao Chickens-- starts, and everyone abandons their chairs for a spot on the dance floor. This particular night at LaurelThirst was about two months into my foray into the swing dancing community, and I was absolutely enthralled by the bustling bar filled with gypsy jazz and smiling, sweating dancers. This was also the night someone first asked me "Do you know balboa?" Balboa, I've since learned, is a dancer's dance--which is a nice way of saying, it's not very pretty. It's danced to fast music, with quick steps that don't take up much space. I've always thought Balboa dancers kind of look like two animated playing cards pressed together and hopping around the dance floor. But it's perfect for tight spaces and tempo changes. On this October night, I soaked in the atmosphere packed into this little corner pub. I danced, nursed a gin and tonic, and asked all the people around me to draw sheep. I loved every minute of it. And for some strange reason, I haven't been back.