I am not that smart, this is just easy

I wish every child could be lucky enough to learn basic sewing like I did (thanks Nanny!).  Tonight I decided I wanted a new top to wear to work tomorrow,  Something breezy and cozy and sleeveless to go under a cardie.  Fact: Librarians wear a lot of cardies.

Sorry for the trashy gray bra underneath, but everything else was in the wash and it was what I had on, but you get the idea...

Just add a cardie and you are ready to go!

Let me say off the bat, this is not a couture garment.  There are no French seams.  I didn't even use a serger.  But for around 6 dollars, about 20 minutes of my time and a perfect fit, this is way better than any sweatshop shirt you are going to find at Walmart.  

If you didn’t learn to sew as a kid it is not too late!  All you need is a sewing machine, a ballpoint needle, some thread, about 1/2 - 3/4 metre of knit fabric (depending on how big or small you are) and some pins!

Take your fabric and fold it in half.  Put a sleeveless top you already have that fits perfectly on top.  Cut around the edges, leaving about 1/2" of extra on the sides and neck for seam allowance.  Now you have two shirt-like shapes, a back and a front.  Turn them so the right sides of the fabric are facing.  Pin the sides of the torso together.  Sew up both sides of the torso using a straight stretch stitch on your machine.  Fiddle around with the neck and cut it in any shape you like (I added a cowl) and sew to close up as much as you want.  Ta-da.  You are done.  Seriously.  Well, turn it right-side out and try it on.  Now you are done.  No need to make hems on the bottom, neck or armholes, unless you have lots of time (I don't) or are feeling ambitious (nope, pretty lazy here!).

See?  Easy!

The Bridal Shower

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

― Jiddu Krishnamurti

It starts with obvious whispers behind manicured nails.  The giggles and lips pressed together to muffle repressed hostility.  Furtive glances at thigh jiggles, spider veins, plunging necklines, contracted abdomens, shallow breaths, too much blush.  Female vanity, built on the shaky foundation of socialized insecurity is nowhere more rampant than at the bridal shower.  Who has been chosen, who hasn’t.  Comparisons of diamond cuts and weights.  Talk of upgrades and settings.  Who has gained weight, lost it, gone off the gluten, gotten a boob job, who is too old for those booty shorts, who has worn the wrong shoes with that outfit.  There are no discussions of politics, world events, art, literature.  I have one solitary conversation about planting asparagus with an aging lesbian.  I suggest someone start a craft-based home business.  There are a few polite inquiries about jobs, but no one cares.  Everyone eats too much cake.  Almost everyone expresses their guilt about it.

I know we are more than this.

We are thankfully past the era where the cruel fate of being born with ovaries sacrifices your mind and talents to a lifetime of manipulating your aging body and neglecting your soul in an attempt to catch or keep a man who can protect you, feed you, shelter you, clothe you, and on a rare occasion, even love you.  Theoretically we can care for ourselves.  Right?

So what is this ambition, this game of superiority where women, like hens in a pecking order, rank themselves (and each other) according to height, facial symmetry, hair length and texture, tooth whiteness and straightness, breast perkiness, dress size, skin smoothness, ability to walk in heels without looking like a teetering giraffe on methamphetamines?

What does this superficial brutality matter compared to our warmth, our friendship, our intelligence, our empathy, our creativity?  Why does my self-esteem soar when I realize I’m the thinnest woman in the group and they all make a fuss about it?  Why does it plummet when I stand naked in the mirror and stare incredulously at my chest, home of two sad, shriveled, deflated-looking balloons, once the source of rapture for men, babies, and myself, and now a source of shame and concealment.  Surely these are first world problems.  Surely if I was scrambling to find food for my family, my lack of skin elasticity would be a non-issue.  Instead of abundance making me peaceful, generous and content, it has left me greedy, insecure, and dissatisfied.  I can’t be the only one.  Perhaps we were rightfully rejected from the metaphorical Garden.  I suspect God knew hardship and lack make us kinder.  Less entitled to Eden.  Less unwilling to share or let anyone else in the gates. 

In an era where I can buy myself beautiful, what is the value of it?  Once having a post-pregnancy boob lift (or let’s face it, a sweet sixteen set of knockers from daddy), becomes “normal body maintenance”, along with the full-body hair removal, hair color, mani/pedis, teeth-whitening and straightening, laser skin imperfection treatment, daily workouts, and severe calorie restricting, where do we go from here?  As Mindy Kaling said, “It takes a lot of work to look like a normal/chubby woman.”  How much time and energy are we, as a gender (because I can’t speak for the others) willing to invest?  How far do you want to go in the “one-upmanship” game?  Men seem to need to constantly upgrade their stereos and TVs and cars, women need to upgrade their bodies.  Why is our source of life also such a huge source of our pain?  No TV has ever cost a man a dance with a surgeon’s knife and $10,000.  Is this because our bodies, while life giving, are also unending sources of conflicting emotion and sensations.  Giving birth is humbling, empowering, rewarding, and excruciating.  Menstruating, like our sexuality, is both a source of pride and shame (and sometimes relief!).  There have been many great books written on these subjects (I’m looking forward to reading Naomi Wolf’s Vagina next), but no one at a bridal shower (or lunch date or shopping trip) is talking about them.  Instead they are talking about Vanity Fair.  I’m not going to pretend these are easy questions to ask ourselves, but that’s why they are so important.

No amount of beauty will save you from heartbreak.  You only have to glance at the tabloids to confirm that riches and double DDs won’t stop a divorce in its tracks.  To borrow from Cheryl Strayed, love is not a competitive sport.  But I often suspect, that even if men were removed from the conversation, the competition for attention and status would remain.  When our very sense of self-worth, our right to exist as people, is based upon a variable (our outward appearance) that is subjective at best, and doomed towards complete annihilation at worst (the reality TV show we don’t want to watch – There are no Survivors), there can never be contentment.  There is no winning in the war against time and gravity.  So judging how other people are playing the game when no one wants to admit the outcome is irrelevant seems, frankly, delusional.  Then again, delusions are often a coping mechanism for distracting ourselves from a painful reality we don’t want to see.  A closet full of perfect outfits and a facelift won’t save you at the emergency room.

I’m not suggesting we stop throwing parties or celebrating life events.  I’m not going to be able to change thousands of years of female socialization.  I like buying shoes.  I want to fit in with my peers.  I’m not about to ruin someone’s wedding shower by standing on the couch and yelling, “What does it all matter anyway, we’re all gonna die and he’s probably going to cheat on you by Christmas!”

I just think it is important to stop and question what it is we are doing.  To be mindful of how profoundly fucked up we are.  That is the crack in the wall.  The tiny, almost imperceptible fissure that will let in just enough light for something new to grow.  And maybe, just maybe, that tiny bit of room is enough for me, or any of my beautiful, talented female comrades, to let ourselves be more than what we’ve become.  And to not be afraid to talk about it.  To brag about our professional achievements instead of openly criticizing our lack of willpower towards limiting bread consumption.  To celebrate one another’s emotional strengths instead of rolling our eyes at skirt length.  We are all, every single one of us, guilty of it.  We blame men and the patriarchy for treating us like objects (and they do, and that is a rant-filled discussion for another day), but I've never met any woman who doesn't fiercely objectify her own body, and those of everyone around her, right down to the littlest stretch mark.  I have never spent more than a few hours with a woman before the subject of her weight comes up.  Often it is in the first ten minutes.  I know more about most of my friends’ and family’s body hang-ups than I do about their career aspirations or political leanings.  I have no idea how my best friend votes but I know she waxes her toe hair and upper lip.

I can’t control what anyone else does.  But I want to stop talking about my body (including that horrid internal monologue) and all the things it can’t do, or isn’t going to be, and instead celebrate all the things it can do and its triumphs.  I birthed two healthy boys vaginally.  I breast-fed both of them, despite complications.  I’ve survived trauma and ill health.  I can run and swim and jump (even if I pee myself a little) and teach yoga and give a really really good head rub.  I want to live happily IN my body instead of criticizing it as an outside observer with an agenda.  My body isn’t a project.  I’m not a project manager.  It isn’t a building I live inside and I’m not its architect.  It’s a home.  I want it to feel safe.

Knitting....all...the...time (what else is there to do, it's February?!)

I've just finished reading (literally, in the bathtub tonight) Knitting the Threads of Time by Nora Murphy.  I'm not usually one who reads much about knitting, as I'd much rather be knitting, or reading knitting patterns to lead to further knitting (you get the idea).  Plus all that talk of plies and wefts and weights makes my head spin (pun intended).  But this book is different.  Following Murphy's quest one dark, cold, Midwestern winter to make her son a sweater (having never knit a sweater before in her life) while simultaneously teaching me thousands of years of textile history centered around women's extraordinary genius, patience, and hard work is a piece of literary art.  I won't ruin the end by telling you whether or not she gets the sweater completed or about the fabulous knitting shaman she meets along the way, but I will tell you this: if you have (or had) ovaries, you like to knit or sew or crochet, and you have a few hours to spare (it is a pretty short book, 197 pages), you should read it.

But, back to the really important stuff (feel free to fake gag on my egoism if you will)...I just finished my OWN first sweater.  Well, technically I have knit Oliver a sweater (but it was so tiny!) so that doesn't count.  I roughly followed a pattern I found in this Vogue book from the bookmobile:

I say roughly because...well, let's face it, I'm not super good at following directions and I like to be creative.  In other words, I make a LOT of mistakes.  That's ok!  That's part of the fun, right?  Here's the finished product:

It has a Mobius loop in the front:

 

I added some buttons to each side.

 



Oh, and I've been also knitting my first pair of mittens, but that will have to wait until another day, because I only have one of them finished.  But here's a pouch I made awhile back:

 

 

 

It's lined with stars!

 

A big thanks to my eldest son for taking the photos for me!

How to Be a Woman

Any writer, male or female, that can spend an entire chapter riffing on pubic hair so hard I nearly pee my panties and then turn around and deconstruct the entire recorded history of women into the depressing thimble of: we've-been-too-busy-and-tired-giving-birth-and-cleaning-up-after-you-twats-to-do-anything-important has my attention.  This lady is smart.  Smart and brash and awkward and so spot-on sometimes you'll want to argue with her but then you realize she's right.  The thing is, feminism has become a dirty word.  And not in a good way, like saying something naughty under your breath makes you feel powerful behind the back of an overbearing boss.  Feminism has become embarrassing, for everyone.  Conjure up the image of a feminist in your mind and I bet you picture a short-haired, ugly, makeup-less middle-aged woman screaming bitter tirades about absolutely NOTHING.  You just want to give her a valium and a warm bath.  Nobody in their right mind wants to be that woman.  Or sleep with her.

This is not Moran.  Moran wants us to take back the word.  She wants us to stand on chairs in bars, slightly tipsy, and shout, I AM A FEMINIST.  And not just us ladies, the menfolk too.  See, the problem is most people (that actually take the time to think about this) are walking around under the impression that feminism is a "female" issue, which is ridiculous.  Feminism is a female issue as much as civil rights are a "black" issue.  The right for one gender to be treated equally to another is a HUMAN issue.  Just like the right for one race to be treated equally to another is a HUMAN issue.  Feminism is a human right.  And men have as much to benefit from it as women, which is why we should all be standing on chairs right now shouting, "I am a FEMINIST" while wielding our furry muffs and spending our hard-earned paychecks on tequila shots.  Well, that's Moran's take on it anyway, but I'm pretty sure she'd be just as thrilled if you stood on a chair at the hairdresser and shouted while getting your eyebrows waxed.  The thing is ladies; no one is going to just give us rights and freedom, unfortunately.  The whole sad history of human affairs does not bode well for oppressed peoples being granted liberation from the money-hungry power mongers just because, well, the raging tyrants stopped raping and pillaging for a moment to say, "Hmmm....maybe we should share our wealth and power and get along!" 

My two grandmothers never learned to drive.  Not only were they not "allowed" to by their husbands, they didn't have the means to purchase and maintain an automobile or the freedom to use it.  And this isn't a story from 1688.  I'm not THAT old.  We're talking a few decades ago.  We're talking NOW.  These were my role models growing up.  That's why I get so bitchy and angry when I watch yet another movie/video game/advertisement/music video where the woman's role (sometimes we get lucky and there is two or three women!) is that of aggressive seductress or passive damsel in distress.  That's it.  That's what we are reduced to.  That's what all the little girls growing up have as role models.  Grotesque surgically-mutilated clowns teetering around in stilettos or else trembling ingénues waiting for a big strong man to protect them from the world and keep them safe.  Seriously?  Because that’s fucked.  Because that is not a single woman I know in real life.  And I doubt very strongly that’s a thinking-man’s idea of a solid life-partner.  A quick wank, maybe.  Real women are strong and courageous and tender and vulnerable and loving and sometimes horrible.  We are so much bigger and more complicated that society wants us to be.  And that’s what is so great about Moran’s book.  She wants us to celebrate the fact that we are bigger and more complicated than some puny, pathetic stereotypes.  As Meg Jay says, we need to get some identity capital: http://www.ted.com/talks/meg_jay_why_30_is_not_the_new_20.html

We need to get off the poles, get into office, throw on our big-girl granny panties and get on with getting shit done.  If that means we need to put our kids in daycare or have abortions or stop spending money on “investment bags” or get a divorce or piss off a lot of people, then so be it.  We need to let go of the boring, heterosexual get-a-man-and-have-a-baby-and-everything-will-be-perfect dream we have been sold because it isn’t a dream at all, it is a nightmare.  Everything is not perfect just because you are married with kid(s).  Sometimes those husbands leave, or die, or hate you, or leave their damn shit all over the place and expect some magic fairy (you) to pick it up for them.  Sometimes your kids get sick, or die, or hate you, or leave their damn shit all over the place and expect some magic fairy (you) to pick it up for them.  Sometimes you stare in the mirror at three am with baby-vomit on your nightgown and think, “THIS is what I was waiting for?”  All those nights at the club grinding my pelvis against some over-cologned idiot hoping he was “the one” lead to THIS?  I could have been in Paris eating truffles!  I could have painted a masterpiece!  I could have slept for more than three hours in a row for the last ten years!  I’m not discounting the joy and delight there is to be had during the coupling of two people leading to reproduction and parenthood.  I’m just saying it isn’t necessarily the pinnacle of your existence.  We need woman doing other things.  Like men.  Because men can seem to have babies and wives AND also invent shit and lead revolutions and make art and get things done.  Because they aren’t usually the ones up at three am cleaning baby vomit off their nightgowns.  They are sleeping blissfully in their cozy beds with their hand down the front of their boxers dreaming of their next merger or the blonde next door.

For throughout history, you can read the stories of women who - against all odds - got being a woman right, but ended up being compromised, unhappy, hobbled, or ruined, because all around them society was still wrong.  Show a girl a pioneering hero - Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Joan of Arc- and you’ll also, more often than not, show a girl a woman who was eventually crushed.  Your hard-won triumphs can be wholly negated if you live in a climate where your victories are seen as threatening, incorrect, distasteful, or - most crucially of all, for a teenage girl - simply uncool.  Few girls would choose to be right – right, down into their clever, brilliant bones - but lonely. (p.10)

Just imagine how much other shit you could get done if, instead of worrying what your boyfriend thinks about how your butt looks in your new jeans, you just GOT ON WITH IT.  What if you took all that money you spent painfully and tearfully ripping downy little hairs off your beautiful body and went to Paris?  With or without said boyfriend.  Moran claims there are four things a modern grown woman needs, “a pair of yellow shoes (they unexpectedly go with everything), a friend who will come and post bail at 4 a.m., a fail-safe pie recipe, and a proper muff.  A big hairy minge”(p.45).  This big fluffy muff is not only a political statement, but it is also a subliminal message to yourself that you have better things to do than spend time and money making your front door look like a cold, itchy, child’s vagina.  Your vagina is worth more than that.  You are not going to hurt it any longer.  It has been hurt enough.  If a man takes one look at your lovely mess of curls and gags, well, let him.  I’m sure he’s no prize himself.  Maybe he’ll asphyxiate on his own vomit.  Any man who spends more than ten seconds tending to his own love triangle is a deranged sheep.  Leave him to the fold.  His vanity is his own affair.  If this narcissism also leads him to bake like a potato in tanning beds and hog the bathroom mirror during those crucial minutes you have to get ready when the kids are actually occupying themselves: RUN.  He is not a man.  He is a plastic Ken doll.  Spooning a pillow would be more emotionally fulfilling.

Even though Moran makes a thorough argument for all the ways she has been repressed or discriminated against during the long road to adulthood she never becomes morose or despondent, but instead encourages us to embrace the future with new hope that women will, one day, earn as much as men for the same work.  The future is bright; not because everything is just so much better, but because WE are getting so much better at standing up for ourselves.  Louder, more visible, angry, motivated, and banding together.  We now live in a world where Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Amy Sedaris, and Caitlin Moran make a living BEING FUNNY.  Not being cookie-cutter sexy.  Not being rescued.  Being smart and witty and powerful and hilarious.  And there is pleasure to be had here girls.  Pleasure in making it on your own.  A deep, satisfying, post-orgasm “ahhh” in knowing you paid your own damn way and did it on your own terms.  And it doesn’t have to be lonely.  We’re all in it together.  And believe it or not there are men out there who don’t give one lick whether or not you have hairy legs.  Find them.  Don’t settle for less.

I’ll leave you with this from Moran:

Lying in a hammock, gently finger-combing your Wookiee while staring up at the sky is one of the greatest pleasures of adulthood.  By the end of a grooming session, your little minge-fro should be even and bouffy – you can gently bounce the palm of your hand off it, as if it were a tiny hair trampoline. 

Walking around a room, undressed, in front of appreciative eyes, the reflection in the mirror shows the right thing: a handful of darkness between your legs, something you refuse to hurt.  Half animal, half secret -  something to be approached with a measure of reverence, rather than just made to lie there, while cocks are chucked at it like the penultimate game on Wipeout.

And on proper spa days, you can pop a bit of conditioner on it and enjoy the subsequent cashmere softness, safe in the knowledge that you have not only reclaimed a stretch of feminism that had gotten lost under the roiling Sea of Bullshit, but will also, over your lifetime, save enough money from not waxing to bugger off to Finland and watch the aurora borealis from a five-star hotel while shit-faced on vintage brandy.

So yeah.  Keep it trimmed, keep it neat, but keep it what it’s supposed to be: an old-skool, born to rule, hot, right grown woman’s muff. (p.49)

oooooh....Fashion.

I am not a fashionable person.  If, by fashionable, we mean someone who keeps up with current cultural trends and clothing styles.  I am not by any means an "early adopter."  I've never owned a cell phone.  I don't have cable or satellite or Netflix or a TV that doesn't run on cathode ray.  I listen to CDs and vinyl and don't have an MP3 player.  I am proud to say I have never worn a pair of Uggs or Crocs.  I couldn't tell you what colour is hot this season.  I've never watched an episode of Sex and the City.  I think those shorty jumpsuits everyone was wearing last year looked like something I romped around in when I was wearing diapers.  I know women want to look young, but...toddleresque?  Then again, I still wear clothes I owned in high school...well over a decade ago.

So, that said, why the HELL do I read so many books about fashion and couture?  Because I have an ongoing and lifelong obsession with clothing.  Mostly, its shape, its construction.  Raised by a grandmother seamstress who made a lot of my apparel, I have been fascinated ever since with the design and drape and texture of garments.  Watch me walk through a clothing store and I could care less what everyone is wearing or what is most popular, I'm touching the fabric, looking at seams, collars, darts, watching it hang.  As a child, I would sneak down to my grandparents' basement to watch Fashion Television in secret, blushing at the occasional nipple or bum cheek and terrified I would be caught looking at "garbage."  I would spend hours and hours dressing my Barbies and drawing outfits for them and "sewing" them new ones from Nan's scrap bag.

I now can sew for real, but I spend most of my time making pedestrian things like pyjamas and sundresses, napkins and place mats.  There is not a lot of time in my life for couture.  But a girl can dream, can't she?  Which is why the bedside floor is always covered with beautiful hardbacks, begging for a ruffle.  Here's what I'm currently drooling over:

Great picture book and inspiring read.  Goes through a timeline of realistic fashion purchases for those who actively seek vintage garments, either for real-life wear or collecting.  Points out key pieces from each decade and suggestions of how to shop smart for these fragile used goods.

This is not a coffee table book but a resource for the serious fashion researcher.  More encyclopedia than Cosmo.  If you want to read an essay on the folklore of sneakers, this is the book for you.

My all-time fav stutter-inducing picture-perfect book from Taschen, it gives us a tiny but unforgettable peek into the vast Kyoto Fashion Institute's collections.  Your mind will be blown. 

Most of the crazy crap that is churned out of the Japan clothing market either confuses, mystifies or worse, disinterests me.  Mostly, I just don't get it.  Why do 30-year-old women want to dress like creepy babies?  Why do some Japanese men call themselves "Mamba" and go tanning and wear make-up to try to look black and therefore more "hip-hop"?  Why is it all so extreme?  Surely not everyone in Japan under the age of 40 is THAT attention-starved?

Yohji Yamamoto, from the "Wedding" Collection, Spring/Summer 1999

That said, there is a lot of awesome happening right now in the Japanese high-end fashion scene.  I'm thinking of the well-tailored menswear being created by Hiroki Nakamura for visvim or the stunning sculptural formalism of Yohji Yamamoto.  As usual, anything mass-produced for popular culture seems to turn me off, but the real artwork of master creators is enough to make me want to sift through any culture's junk drawer and pull out the gold. 

This book is a real hodge-podge of both high and low end Japanese fashion and is worth a read if you are even slightly interested.

Lastly, a weird one.  My interest in fashion occasionally forays into decorating and architecture, but rarely for long.  This book attempts to take interesting or famous people (often not mutually exclusive) and document their houses, gardens and lifestyles.  Some of it is interesting, but mostly is just leaves me wondering: do people REALLY have THIS much MONEY?  People LIVE like this?  Every day?  It's too depressing.  It's the kind of book that belongs on a coffee table in a yacht, not on the dusty floor next to my unmade bed and pile of snotty kleenex.