Sun shines on freezing weather

The last couple of days have been freezing cold and absurdly sunny. Five years in this country and I still don't understand the weather! Sunshine is nice though. Once I've reminded myself to disable the associations between that and warmth.

I wrote my intro finally and sent it to my supervisor. Surprising how little effort it actually takes once you get started. And pity that the getting started takes so much out of me. Oh well, one shall learn at some point. One hopes!

Made and sent leg-warmers for a swap. Now waiting anxiously for them to be received and hopefully liked. And working on bits and pieces for other swaps. Speaking of swaps, I received the most awesome sewing machine case from my partner.
Is that cool or what?!

Very Frida-esque. Right down to the bright, huge beads on the handles. Oh and the back.

And a close up of the front panel with the stencil of frida surrounded by flowers.


On a related note, I finally managed to hang out with Luke yesterday. He broke his laptop and the way there, which was depressing, but was otherwise fine. It was nice to catch up and if there was far too much to catch up on in the time we had that is entirely my won fault for not keeping in touch with him while he was in Japan. To whence he will be returning in a couple of days. I must endeavour to do better this time around. In any case, the relatedness was that he gave me a spoon. And not just any spoon, but one that I could aptly use to shovel food in my mouth. Ahem.

I belive eating cookies and cream would be a worthy beginning. On that note, I run.

A little bit tired, a lot miserable.

I don't quite understand the concept of coping at the moment. Keeping busy is good. So is crafting. So is reading books I've read innumerable times before and so is eating. The line between coping, procrastination and denial are feeling very blurry indeed.

Am impatiently awaiting Di receiving my second package and receiving both my packages from her soon. Ooooh the excitement! Am also quite at a loss as to what to make for her final package. Mostly because I have several ideas and can't choose between them. And can't decide whether I want it to be a complete surprise or if I should ask her for something she specifically wants. Oh the dilemmas of the conscientious crafter.

I'm making a pair of booties for Amanda. They are going to be prettier than the first ones I made and have a pattern involving colour and texture and stuff. This is one of them laid flat.

Please note the absence of holes indicating that I dropped stitches and failed to pick them up. Also please note the evenness of the knitting of which I am most proud. And then there is the two coloured garter slip stitch that I also managed to do with no errors... shiny!

I did a stall at the Aro street markets this weekend. Booked myself in before I realised that I would thus be missing the Operation 8 protest. A shame this, given that it was the only protest in the past year that I would've felt any real desire to be at. I consoled myself by talking to people about it at the stall and annoying the hippies. So that was fun. Sold the cunt rags that I'd made and some of the soap. And managed to make back the money I spent on the stall and feed myself some lunch to boot. So not an entirely wasted afternoon. Got hit on by random people who seemed to think that showing a tepid interest in my work would be enough to make me swoon at their feet and drag them off to bed. Notably far from the case.

Am working on my Method section and Intro (still). Getting quite panicked and sick of myself. Difficult to believe in myself and think I'm an idiot at the same time. And I wonder why the work isn't getting done. Sigh! But this week is the week of Lady of No Choice. I have a chart with domains of functioning and tasks. I shall jump mathematically. And I shall not take sleeping pills. I took one last night and although it did mean I fell asleep promptly it also meant that I slept 12 hours straight. Perhaps my body needed that sleep? Perhaps. Well it has now got it and shall do my bidding once again.

Dancing around poles

Is my latest interest. A friend and I are going for pole-dancing lessons at a local studio. The space is women-only, the music is cheesy in the extreme, the attire is hideous and the classes are fun. Part of the reason the classes are fun is that the instructors are brilliant. Mostly middle-aged women with greying hair and lots of this and that and these and those... well over the accepted levels of fat and cellulite and absolute joys to behold! This is becoming quite a theme in my choice of dance classes, somehow makes me feel a lot more comfortable and even a bit safer because they are there.

First time in my life I've worn hot pants. Why do people consider them attractive? I consider them one of the more major fashion disasters (along with Capri pants and push up bras). The fewer the clothes on your legs the easier it is to grip the bar though. And hanging on to the damn thing is pretty damn challenging as it is! Oh and I had my personal crisis of whether to shave my legs to go to class or not. Dithered endlessly. I struggle so much to fit in being brown skinned it seems silly to put myself on the line even further. Then again, no matter what I do, I'm going to stand out... so I may as well stand out for the right reasons. Hairy legged, pierced and unfashionably loud. Fortunately for me, I can dance... so that privileges me somewhat in a dance class.

Oh as for fat... I've decided: being fat is like being brown... there isn't really anything you can do to live it down. Everywhere I go I see people making jokes about 'tubby' people. Anyone who is not stick thin is made to feel unwelcome in just about any social setting: going clubbing, attending a dance class, walking down the street, trying to get in a car. Slight tangent... but the wellington cable car now has little gateways that you have to pass through. They are about 35 inches wide at their extreme and so anyone with a waist 34" or over will have to twist to get through. This is justified as being the norm. This makes me spitting mad.

Gaaah.

craft for sanity

At least that is what I tell myself. If you look at some of the stuff I've made lately you may be moved to disagree but that would be your problem. Not mine.

One of my key coping mechanisms at the moment is the 'not my problem' bubble. This a variation on Grace's force-feild and basically acts to repel all the things the world throws at me that are, in fact, not my problem. Like when everyone you know (including yourself) is having a nervous breakdown and you feel compelled to help. Or people are making a miserable hash of something you really care about and you feel the need the step in and clean up the mess. Or when you can see that someone is heading for a fall and they don't want to talk about it. Yep. Not my problem.

Still struggle with actually putting that boundary into place but at least I'm trying. Does mean that I get to make concious choices about when and who I'm going to bail out and when and to whom I need to say no. Which is good I guess. Foreign, but good.

On a completely different note... I made a pig puppet for a swap. I found the fabric in a dumpster and couldn't think of what possible use I could have for metre upon metre of pink satin (presumably the same thought process of the person who threw it out!). Then I decided to make a pig-puppet a la Neil Gaiman and see... the benefits of hoarding everything and throwing out nothing?!


here is another photo... isn't he cute?



and while on the subject on stuff I made out of stuff I had lying around I made myself a dead belly dancer's costume. Why? For once I had a reason. Our flat had a haunted house party. And can I just say that there is no house that is more apt to be haunted than ours? There we no lights and the music was spooky and there were lots of dead people hanging around. I went as the dancer who haunts me!



The bottom layer is silver satin with dark grey and skin coloured lace strips. The next layer is an asymetrical stretchy thing and the top is the lace again.

So that made me happy and now I shall go get some food. Another thing that makes me happy.