December catch-up

Ok. It's been a busy couple months for all my usual reasons. In November I caught a nasty cold. After two weeks that morphed into a persistent cough and a sinus infection lasting another week plus. But I'm recovered! finally Now it's just my own immune system kicking my butt, which I'm actively not thinking about until Jan.

I returned to the pain clinic in Nov as well, the one that cold turkeyed me off morphine in 2013 thus trashing my hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. This time I got two new meds that didn't help and made me miserable. I won't be going back there! Hopefully the resulting night sweats decrease enough that I can stop changing pjs nightly and leave the towel in the bathroom.

In early December I visited a friend in Centralia for a long weekend. We had a lot of fun and it was a perfect break :) I was able to drive down, too, which was fantastic!

This year I put up my first-ever Christmas tree and it's very cheery. We all need a sign of hope this year so I knit a pussyhat for top. And since I'm an internet dork, a glittery teal dear decorates the base. Ella, remarkably, has shown zero interest in all of this.

In knitting news, I knit this winter's #resist hat. It worked up fast in worsted wt yarn.

Knit hat with "feminist killjoy" in rainbow letters.

And more ornaments, taking advantage of the 8 days each year that I'm motivated to knit such things ;)

It's been a hard year but it was filled with love. May you all feel cherished this winter.

No Woman, No Drive

To honor the 60-plus Saudi women who protested by driving today, I give you this awesome video:

SuperFast Fashion

Fashion so fast that it's obsolete before it leaves the store.  That's what I saw at Old Navy and other clothing stores this spring.  I saw rack after rack of badly drafted, sloppily finished garments in increasingly cheap fabrics.  It's a painful waste of resources, and leaves lower income customers without decent clothing.  As fit deteriorates visibly each year, what will we wear in 2-5 more years?

Photo: Oldnavy.com

Most of the pieces I saw had no waist shaping, no darts, and poorly fitting shoulders and armscyes: the draft bears little relation to actual anatomy.  The shirtdresses are simply lengthened versions of an unfitted oxford shirt, with no shaping aside from a self-tie or drawstring waist.  Well drafted loose clothing can fit well and be flattering, not just look like a feedsack.

Many retailers are adding a hefty proportion of polyester to their previously all-cotton t-shirts, to save money.  Poly blends don't breath, so you feel sticky and get stinky even in mild weather.  They also pill faster, stain easier, and hold static.  For a wardrobe basic like the t-shirt, the small change of switching to cotton/poly blends has a dramatic impact on petrochemical consumption when multiplied over millions of shirts worldwide.

I hope that more people start to take a good look at clothes before they buy.  In the US, we're trained to assume that our bodies are at fault when clothing doesn't fit or flatter.  Hopefully women can start to see that no one, not even the mannequin, looks good in super fast fashion.

A $20 dress that doesn't make you feel attractive, so is only worn a few times, is not a bargain.  A $100 dress that fits great, is comfortable and versatile, becomes a wardrobe staple that lasts for years.  We need to seek out better clothing and support those stores by purchasing from them.  Viva la fashion revolucion!

Men and Women's Fashion

Peter asked a question (actually my question): Why are men the arbiter of women's fashion?  His answer, and the answer most commonly given in comments, is that men are bored with their own clothes.  I don't see this as an acceptable reason to tell women how to dress, and with it how to act, how to walk, and so on.  If men's fashion is boring, make it interesting!  Peter's toile jeans and cabana wear attest to the unexplored possibilities in men's wardrobes.

In my opinion, it's a quantum leap from "men's clothes are boring" to forcing women into painful and impossible molds.  Maybe women's tenuous roles over the last 150 years made us easier to manipulate.  What better way to do this than by reaching into the core of how we feel about ourselves?  Male designers may mean to create something new or make women beautiful.  But by decreeing what's hot and what's not they draw a line down the middle of each woman that separates her strength and intelligence from her fears of not measuring up.

The unrealistic standards that proliferate in the West today, and have been rampant for over 50 years, make sure that women can never measure up.  This is not a world I want to live in so I stopped buying into the dominant paradigm.  By rejecting the idea that women look like ageless 16 year-olds, have beauty before brains, and sacrifice everything just to look good, I've created a more healthy space to create my own self-image.  Yet I'm like an avalanche survivor: you can create an air pocket with your hands, but eventually you run out of air.  Maybe by joining together we can save each other.

Crazypants; Or Putting the Fun in Fanatic

More dating stories from yours truly.  I honestly had no idea there were so many broken men out there!  I asked out someone I met at a book group.  This is part of his reply:

Now women are allowed to take the initiative to invite men to certain social gatherings where men are able to then take initiative...e.g. `Hey, there's a hike...' or `party' or `trip' . But if it's just for the sake of `going out', then a man must be the one to ask you.

Whose rules he's citing, I have no idea.  All the people I know, men and women, have no problem with women asking out a man.  Then Whackjob Crazypants said, "You're plenty pretty enough that you don't need to worry that a man you will be happy with will at some point pursue you."  Grrrr.  I'm quite proud of myself, however, as my responses were family friendly.  Nor did they require paging the Grammar Police ;)

Then I had a nice date last night, with a good guy I've seen a couple times.  I had been hoping to find a nice Christian guy but nice and Christian seem mutually exclusive, so I'm happy for an enjoyable date in pleasant company.

Women, Crafts and Building

So often I read sewers and other hobbyists write about how their wonderful husband built their sewing area.  Why aren't we at least helping, if not doing this ourselves?!?  Or does post feminism mean that we're back in the bad old days?  I can't be alone in this feeling...

Sexism in Print

Screw the small talk, I'm jumping right in:

image by Fith Fath

A friend is writing a novel and chose to use a male main character to appeal to a wider audience (which I understand).  We discussed how upsetting it is that females are expected to imagine themselves in a male character's place.  Men and boys are rarely, if ever, expected to put themselves in a female character's shoes.  It's helpful to understand other points of view and male-centric writing deprives boys and men of that exercise.  It also reinforces the men-as-leaders paradigm.

Growing up my mom read to me and replaced male pronouns with female.  Kids' books are rampant with pointless male pronoun-ing.  I didn't realize she'd done this until I read the same books to my siblings.  I babysat two sweet little girls and they got all female leads :D