Something · Clever

10 YEARS AGO
1.) How old were you? 15
2.) Where did you go to school? Hillsoboro High School
3.) Where did you work? The Enns' Dairy
4.) Where did you live? With my folks
5.) Where did you hang out? At home mostly
6.) Did you wear glasses? no
7.) Who was your best friend? Dawn
8.) How many tattoos did you have? none
9.) How many piercings did you have? none
10.) What car did you drive?: orange Toyota pickup
11.) Had you been to a real party yet? Yeah
12.) Had your heart broken? No
13.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced/Bitter: Single


FIVE YEARS AGO
1.) How old were you? 20
2.) Where did you go to school? I wasn't
3) Where did you work? InDezine, making curtains
4.) Where did you live? In a basement apartment in downtown Kansas City
5.) Where did you hang out? Some SCA events, but I was still pretty much a homebody
6.) Did you wear glasses? nope
7.) Who was your best friend? Amanda
8.) Who was your crush? I don't think I really had one, I was pretty happily involved
9.) How many tattoos did you have? none
10.) How many piercings did you have? none
11) What car did you drive? A very temperamental Pontiac Grand Am
12.) Had you had your heart broken? no
13.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced/Bitter: Taken


NOW
1.) How old are you? 25
2.) Where do you work? InDezine (again, not still)
3.) Where do you live? An apartment in DeSoto
4.) Do you wear glasses? nope
5.) Who are your best friends? still Amanda, and too many others to list
6.) Do you talk to your old friends? Most of them
7.) How many piercings do you have? none
8.) How many tattoos? none
9.) What kind of car do you have? A Ford Escort wagon
10.) Had your heart broken recently? yes, I guess I have
11.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced/Bitter: Single


It's strange how few of my answers on this are different, given how very much I actually have changed in the past few years. It's an interesting bit of reflection, and I don't know quite what to make of it. I've been thinking about the changes of the past 10 years quite a lot lately, maybe hoping that there's some clue to be found in them that will help me understand the clinging depression that I've been struggling against lately. There's no reason I should feel this way, I'm not that lonely, desolate, teenage girl anymore. I'm a grown woman with freinds I love and who love me, an honor roll student at KU and my future looks as bright as I could hope for.


It seems, oddly enough, that this depression simply comes out of frustration with relationships. This isn't anything new, I'm no prize beauty and when men do notice me it's usually with the casual indulgence of a big brother. I hate it, have always hated it, but what bothers me now is that I'm beginning to find in myself some measure of that same dismissal toward them, a "to hell with you then" attitude that isn't mine, or has never been mine before. Things enter my mind during otherwise friendly conversations that shock me in their meanness, there are even some people I avoid talking to at length because of how often I have to bite back those remarks. Cynicism doesn't suit me, and this feels like the beginnings of it taking root. I really hope that if I take another one of these surveys five years from now I don't have to answer the last question "bitter".

Banging the coffee-pot into the sink
She hears the angels chiding, and looks out
Past the raked gardens to the sloppy sky,
Only a week since They said: Have no patience.

The next time it was: Be insatiable.
Then: Save yourself, others you cannot save
Sometimes she’s let the tapstream scald her arm,
A match burn her thumbnail,

Or held her hand above the kettle’s snout
Right in the woolly steam. They are probably angels,
Since nothing hurts her anymore, except
Each morning’s grit blowing into her eyes

From “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law” by Adrienne Rich

One of the nicest things about school is that I often get assigned readings that I would never pick up on my own. Sometimes though, one of those readings just sits wrong with me. Last semester it was The Golem by Gustav Meyrink, and this semester it’s this essay by Adrienne Rich.

“The choice still seemed to be between “love”-womanly, maternal love, altruistic love-a love defined and ruled by the weight of an entire culture; and egotism-a force directed by men into creation, achievement, ambition, often at the expense of others, but justifiably so. For weren’t they men, and wasn’t that their destiny as womanly, selfless love was ours?”

I read this in a hurry, in the hour before my English class this afternoon, and I was surprised at the old doubts that it awakened. I’ve always felt chastened by writings like this, wise women telling me from their lofty writer’s perspective that I am somehow wrong because I don’t want what they insist I should. Altruistic love, she says, dismissing it, denying it, while all the while it seems to me far more valuable and worthy than any personal achievement. The woman in her poem struggles with universal dilemmas, egotism against self-sacrifice. The tragedy of the character is not her choice to refuse the selfish impulses, but the manifestation of that refusal in pain. Even further, Rich surrounds the poem with feminist dogma, as though the concept is feminine and mysterious, as if men never face the same choices. She glorifies with confident authority the idea of personal recognition as a goal, universal where selflessness is not.

I’ve finally, after long struggle, become comfortable with my own passive nature. It’s a strange thing to realize, that I am content in the shadows, and strangely liberating to understand that there is no need to struggle for recognition that I don’t really desire. It was hard for me to accept through the gospel of independence that it really is okay to define myself by my relationships with others rather than my own achievements, if those relationships are where I find the greatest happiness and accomplishment (by relationships here I mean friendship and family, romantic relationships are a whole other can of worms). But that acceptance of myself has come at a price. There is guilt in it, as though by refusing to distinguish myself where I am capable of doing so, I am failing all those people who’ve long supported me. I’m uncomfortable with being the center of attention, and all my life that has been a source of puzzlement and disappointment for those who love me. They would like to see me shine, as my sister does so easily and comfortably. My proud father, my outspoken mother, my brash and brilliant sister, and all the glorious forceful personalities of my friends, they would like so much to pull me into the spotlight with them. It puzzles and pains them that I’m content in the shadows, but I am, really.

I suppose I should write something, but really I live a very boring life.  I should thank thegreatscot for finding me a sewing meme, that at least gives me something marginally interesting to say *grin*

1. What is the unfinished project that looms over you? Bonus points if you can remember how long it's been.
A t-tunic dress out of this amazing blueish grey wool/silk blend fabric. The dress is done, and has been hanging in my closet for....3 years I think... waiting for the embroidery to be finished. Single strands of reeled silk to fill a solid yoke in a spiral pattern, I’m clearly insane.

2. What is your secret sewing vice?
If my scissors are not within immediate reach when I need to cut a thread, I bite it off.

3. Which of your sewing friends do you envy and why?
Corrigan of course, but someday I will actually show up to an event looking spiffier than him, Gerald of Ipsley because he’s an embroidery god, and he starts all these amazing projects, then actually finishes them. Her Exellency Dejaniera, because she always looks so put together whatever she’s wearing.

4. If you could steal any costume sewn by anyone you know—and that includes in the LJ sense of the word—what would it be and who made it?
That beautiful green dress of Duchess Aislinn’s. I think it was the one she wore for their second coronation, I have no idea who made it

5. You’re stumped about how to proceed on a project, so you ask for advice from your pin posse. What is the WORST advice you received?
Well, I don’t actually ask for advice, I’m not very patient so I just do whatever, and if it doesn’t work I cuss a lot and then put the project in a bag until inspiration hits and I can finish it.

6. You worked hard on the costume, got it finished, and now you hate it and never wear it. What is it?
My first real attempt at a late period gown, based off of this one  I started it, got stumped, set it aside for a year, gained a bunch of weight, couldn’t fit into it, got mad at it, put it in a bag for another 2 years, lost a lot of that weight, pulled it out, finished it, loved it, and haven’t ever worn it in public. It’s in a box in my closet now (too heavy for hangers) and every time there’s a major dress-up event I pull it out and try it on again, then decide that the train is to much of a pain to manage at a crowded indoor event, or too much of a pain to manage at an outdoor event with mud and burrs. I may wear it to Twelfth Night.

7. Have you ever had a costume you made implode—while you were wearing it?
Not for a very long time, but I have had bodice seams give way back when I was subscribing to the rennie “if you can breathe, it’s not tight enough” philosophy.

8. You know you shouldn’t wear it—the costume is soooo unflattering--but you love it and wear it anyway. What is it?
My blue linen overdress, square necklines are not flattering on me and I screwed up one of the gores so if I lean a certain way it puckers all weird, but I love the embroidery on it.

9. Complete the sentence: I know I’m a costume whore because…?
I’m making a new Cotehardie for Kris Kinder, after wearing the one I made for Crown a grand total of one time.

10. You are at some kind of costumed event. You are trussed up in the pranciest of your prancy costumes. You are wearing a wig. And feathers. You see a work colleague. Do you step forward boldly and claim your geekitude, or do you flee?
Well, she was in garb too…

For the ones who "missed" it *cough*Hrothgar!*cough*, I stole this from the most recent Dragonflyre (thanks Roslyn).

Overheard at Valor XXVI:

* "Is that a war game map?" - "No, we are planning an invasion of Tuscany...with credit cards!"

* "Please take the Senator over there where he can eat some grass."

* "The Crown commands Corwin the Lost into their presence."

* "There's a hole, there's a hole, there's a hole in the bottom of his hakama."

* "No Mead for me, I'm driving - damn it."

* "I put all of your accomplishments into this poem." - "And it's just one page?" - "Well, I condensed."

* "But I'm a sandwich - and I'm the meat this time!!!"

* I'm sorry, there's an express elevator to the top of my soap box."

* "I'm just the parking troll, aka 'speed bump'."

* "Ma-Na Ma-Na, Do-Do Do-Do-Do, Ma-Na Ma-Na, Do Do-Do Do..."

(I am SOOOO gonna kill Aamir.)

* "You haven't danced the birds yet."

* "The dumbek sounds that way because the head is damp...and I suck."

* "I keep making Mead and my employees keep snatching it all up."

* "You're gonna need a spatula to get the fighter gunk off me."

* "Haven't you hooked up yet?"

* "Two sumos enter - one sumo leaves."

* "Want some stripper dust?"

* "Yeah - I'm getting married in Scotland so I'm forcing my parents to visit it."

* "I swear it's a Star Trek communicator."

* "Oh, Oh, Oh!!! Two people must have flushed at once!"

* "I didn't do it....Lenny did it!"

* "You won me many ponies!"

* "At least the man who beat my husband won the tournament."

* "Sweat makes the grass grow, stand, stand, stand!"

* "I am the Mistress of all things cozy."