Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

1 May . . . the day in the sewing world, online voyeurism enclave, of the start of Me Made.  In that regard, I guess I've been doing Me Made since 2013 now.  That being said, I've made no quiet voice about the disdain of selfies . . . and the body image notations one makes during the 30 days of Me Made. Though, in 2013 I was nearing a year of being married, and what most now know is that my marriage was already on a very painful death.  That actually started six weeks after I do.  I'm not going into that here, but let's just say I stayed and held on for as long as I did from shame, status quo, and fear.  None of them are good reasons to stay . . . Though, looking back on the pictures the memories come back, in floods and spoils, about the incredible amount of begging to get him to take a photo, to partially engage in something I do (which, being a writer and with someone who doesn't believe in it  . . . ), and the skill changes. There was clear escapism ...

In the end, it is always about those left behind.  This we always know, but as the throws of life prove to us (every time) we never remember it until an end has arisen.  Every. time. In 2013 I met a woman named Barb, and when I met her she was recovering from just having discovered a cancer the size of a football in her leg.  A football.  A fucking football.  Barb with her three kids, a widower herself, a new husband with two nearly grown teenagers, and a suburban house.   When we met, she was just starting her home daycare up again . . . her Dad got certified so he could help her, and her family moved the daycare chaos up to the main floor since the surgery and cancer made walking up and down the stairs to the basement difficult on a good day and near impossible on most. I hadn't been married a year, when Barb and I met.  After that January meeting we saw each other again in the spring, after I helped moved a friend up there.  There was a par...

I haven't really posted anything about sewing in a while, since--well--probably in earnest since before Oregon . . . in all fairness, I doubt anyone wants another run down of my sculpting scraps into a swanky, borderline hooker bra, the abuse I'm giving my serger with a well crafted raglan after another, or of the hilariously obscene things I add to the crotches of my jeans and say while making them (okay the fly details are just drop dead jovial, and I will not apologize for kisses on my fly, compasses, or xoxo labels). Yet . . . I've also found myself making more basics and eschewing the need to deviate from classics, tried and true, and what I know works.  Why? Part of that comes from the six or so weeks I spent out left last summer.  I left New York with a backpack, a carry on, and one well-crafted suitcase.  In two months--during insomnia hours--reading and pinning notes on the capsule wardrobe craze, and then I spent several days combing through my closet and dr...

As any honest jet-setter will tell you, not every locale is splendid and storybook exciting.   Sometimes a stop along the way is just that . . . a stop, a meander, a moment.   Last spring I spent about a week in Romania.   I was there for a professional conference, but as with how these things go I also squeezed in some moderate sights along the way . . . as most travelers do.   Yet, this petite country on the edges of the once Communist impressed Eastern Europe and on the fringes of the old Ottoman Empire and nestled at the base of the Balkans served more as a conversation piece.   Unlike Rome—during the 2012 Christmas season with marzipan delights toppling counters and market stalls and Vatican City abuzz with clergy seemingly dancing in the unusual snowfall of the festive air, Romania was more of a cup of tea on a porch swing and not a debutant’s ball. I arrived in Bucharest, on a spring evening, and after the airport and hotel drop I wandere...

Even though I spend much of my life teaching and tutoring various forms of history, I still find the notion of knitting as resistance fascinating. Back in the '90s, in angstful high school days, I first learned of knitters and codes during the French Revolution. It was while reading A Tale of Two Cities for English that the portal of knowledge came to life. The tid bit has stuck with me, and the modern pins and symbols one wears for cultural resistance have manifested on me. Somewhere, in the back of a jewelry drawer, are the remnants of DIY Riot Grrrl feminism of the 1990s. Rusted with age, forgotten from wear, pins denouncing the patriarchy, demanding power for the people, and declaring women's rights... trinkets of a life's work, a long held passion, and the thrust and drive of much of my life's work reside in the images and memories of those tchotchkes.   And, then in an assaulting shock of night I--with the world--found myself awoken to a new world order. An ...