Judy Combast is not a typical history major. Her hair is the color of a pink highlighter. She wears a “Squirrelly Wrath” t-shirt, the mascot of a cult Internet cartoon, and “bonded” shorts that barely touch the top of her ankle-high combat boots. She walks with a determined pace, her thin lips pursed in a slight smile, oblivious to the hurried buzz around her. But it is more than her appearance that sets her apart from her fellow students. She is 32, a Pagan, a proponent of “open marriage,” and she’s pulling a 3.5 GPA. Combast says she has always been different. “I’m a natural redhead but when I was 14, I decided to change the color and I’ve been doing it ever since. This is called ‘nuclear’ red”, she says, pulling on her fuchsia locks. She says that her “off-beat” style has nothing to do with her Paganism, a polytheistic religion often referred to as “hedonistic.” Her hair and clothes are her own personal expression. She even goes as far as to call herself “hateful.” Yet, despite her pink and plaid exterior she does not feel ostracized or judged by others, at least not at FAU. “This is college. People here are more liberal. But I do get problems outside of here,” she says. “Sometimes people follow me around stores like I’m gonna steal something so I purposely move stuff around just to mess with them.” Combast grew up in West Palm Beach, attended Twin Lakes High School and took occasional classes at Palm Beach Community College. She has been a part-time student at FAU for the past five years and, all tolled, it will have taken her 15 years to finish school by the time she graduates in May. “I refused to take student loans or money from my family. I have paid for my entire education myself, which is why it took so long,” she says. Her dream is to be an anthropological curator and work getting “covered in dust” in museum basements. She would like to get her master’s in archival studies, but since FAU does not offer this program, she will have to continue her studies elsewhere. Though she won’t take financial help from her family she is not opposed to cashing in on her uncle’s clout in Washington to help secure her a museum position. He has a high-powered job at the Pentagon and has already gotten Combast a special off-limit tour of her favorite museum, the Smithsonian. When she is not attending classes at FAU, Combast works as an office manager for a drywall contractor in Lake Worth. Her classmate, Sarah Dreher, also a history major, giggles at the irony of Combast’s job. “I still can’t picture you running a construction office. You are so not normal,” says Dreher. However, that depends on how “normal” is defined. For Combast, being a Pagan is normal. She grew up in a family of Pagans, dating back to her grandfather. She and her husband Brett, who was a Pagan before they met, are now “solitary practitioners.” “We have our own belief system. There is no Christian God. We worship the Earth more than anything and we believe in equality, the male god and the female goddess,” she explains. “We don’t do anything Pagan on a regular basis. We’re not part of a coven but my family is.” She and her husband join the family for Pagan holidays like Sawhain, the Pagan All Saint’s Day and Yule which is their Christmas. “A lot of Christians are Pagan and they have absorbed Pagan rituals to make it easier for them to convert to Christianity. Paganism is actually becoming very mainstream,” Combast explains. Many universities, including FAU, now have Pagan clubs and activities. As for her marriage, Combast is very matter-of-fact. She met Brett, a computer programmer, at Respectable Street Cafí©, an alternative music club that Combast calls “Goth-Industrial,” on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach. The club hosted a weekly retro-new wave night and Brett was the deejay. She introduced herself to him and the next day he showed up at her workplace. A month later, they moved in together and have been married for eight years now. Though they have no children, they have three cats and a yard, and life is not hard, just different. Combast has a boyfriend, coincidentally also a computer programmer, whom she met on the Internet. She visits him every few months in Michigan and her husband doesn’t seem to mind. “Brett is fine with it. He has a girlfriend,” she says. “I’m a Scorpio. I don’t do well with that whole ‘one man thing’.” This is the first year that Combast has ever personally interacted with anyone at school and she credits Dreher for “bringing her out.” They shared a couple of classes, got to talking and eventually became friends. “We bring each other out. We make trouble and expand on our evil ideas,” Dreher says with sly smile. “We even send invoices to people who waste our time. The last one was to a guy that stood me up so we sent him a bill for $1000.” Dreher says she knows that some people are put off by Combast’s appearancewhich she believes is Combast’s “disdain for the institution.” But she considers Combast her best friend because “she doesn’t judge anything. Nothing shocks her and she is always supportive.” “Judy and I have no tolerance for stupidity. By appearing aloof we look like angry lesbians so people leave us alone,” Dreher says. In her spare time, Combast is a seamstress. She learned to sew from her grandmother who used to make clothes for Combast’s Barbie dolls when she was a little girl. “I didn’t like the clothes Barbie came with, so Grandma would make new ones.”Today, Combast’s hobby is collecting Barbie Dolls. She has a vast collection, most procured through eBay, and some, like her Bob Mackie designer dolls, are worth over $1,200. Despite her unusual appearance and alternative lifestyle, Combast is rooted in the heart of the all-American girl. She plays with dolls, dresses up, flirts with boys and tries to do well in school. Maybe she is typical after all.