Ars Gratia Artis

So, I had rather hoped to get some major updating done this weekend,with an eye to getting caught up on reading the blogs of the people I love or admire, or have spent many years enjoying despite never meeting and visiting the goals I have for this year. I have some pretty clear goals and have been working on them a little bit–which, all ready, is more than I can say for most years by the time February rolls round– but I would like to write them down so that I have something to check against next year. I don’t even remember if I did this last year, but as last year was a wash, it turns out that list-less isn’t really an issue for 2009.

However, we find ourselves reduced to nearly internet-free this weekeend, and slowly typing this on an unreliable phone browser is a bit rough. I am still physically impaired and and restless and limited, so now being driven to thumb typing on the phone is making me crazy.

I know that no one is out there desperate for me to update this thing, but it bothers me when I don’t have the time to write in it as I would choose to. Winter is here, and while I like to rate my health as generally good, the fact of the matter is that there is a certain amount of self-deception in that belief.

Winter is here, and with it, the usual minor health problem parade.

It’s been 3 Saturdays ago I found myself in the ER with an IV in my arm, addressing some kind of mystery injury that has kept me moving slow for weeks now; it feels like forever.

I have been firmly committed to using credit unions ever since I learned about them. I’ve never had a good experience with a large bank, and I was never so grateful for my choice as when they all started falling down. Go to Move Your Money for more information.

Over to teh doctor this morning. Long bout of sequential viral illnesses topped by what felt like a strep throat go round. I woke first around 12 AM with nausea and a sore throat–it was the pain in my throat that drove me to wakefulness. Same thing again about 5:30 this morning. I got up and called the triage nurse. Several hours in the clinic later, I’m, sent off with a prescription for three days off from work to rest & recuperate and a list of OTC meds to help cope with the symptoms of this particular doozie. I worked thru the last few viral go-rounds, but this one causes throat pain so severe that the pain is all I can think about, so this time, to the medicine women for help.

The MD was kinda hilarious–not that she was a funny gal or dimwitted, but trying so hard to kindly inform me of why it is antibiotics just were not appropriate. I just went for the ride. I know why they are not, but there are a lot of people who will throw a fit if not given something more. Many an MD has handed over amoxycillian just to end the conversation. I’m not that girl, though, I understand why. Rx: Rest, fluids, and consistent symptom control to further reduce the stress on the body and allow it to heal.

The primary problem, of course, is that it’s happened in the end of the month. This is when the work gets heaviest. So I’ll have to make up the days. And what is available this week? That’s right, Christmas day. Well, it’s not the first time I worked on Christmas, and it won’t be the last. I’m mainly sorry because it will make Michael sad.

Maybe I’ll work on a project like embroidery or something while I lay on the couch and watch TV the next 2.5 days. Oy.

Blech, I don’t feel good.

… a story about me and the monkey that I want to share with you. It’s supposed to be part of the broadcast tomorrow morning, but the streaming audio segment is available now. If you are not aware of vocalo.org (and why would you be, if you are not near Chicago?), it’s a sort of experimental public radio station in association with Chicago Public Radio that is 99% user-contributed content.

Karen did a nice job of not making me look too crazy.

The segment streams from Karen’s page, here.

You might be able to go straight to the audio, here. But I wouldn’t promise it will work, the page has already shifted nodes once or twice this evening.

Sock Monkey holding a message from K, inscribed in a wax tablet.

Another Boar’s Head gone by, with an in-persona write up here: http://merouda.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-ye-eue-of-ye-day-of-saint-nicholas-i.html

That would be all there really is to say about it; I went, I enjoyed visiting with people, I left. I had st00p1d amounts of trouble putting a winter outfit together, and eventually did a servant-style late period Scots look, which did rather turn out for the best–Osma decided that the worelds most fun thing to do was drool on me and I got milk all over me when trying to feed her, and I crawled around on the floors with the boys; it was really a better day to be wearing something that allowed freedom of movement.

However, I did gain a determination to return to a former practice. I used to make each outfit complete: Each dress had its own under dress, its own headgear, its own shift, its own jewels, its own belts. I stopped doing this after a while, because in terms of space, labor, material goods, and money, it’s an all around expensive practice.

On the other hand, I never had to spend 4 hours looking for a hood and then another hour trying to assemble a secondary outfit because somehow or another, the items I need got removed from the place I always keep them and did not get returned thereto.

So I guess it’s kind of about which thing I’d rather have: too much SCA gear, or too much aggravation to really enjoy an event because the day started off so badly. One can argue that if I was more organized, these things would not happen, but what is probably not apparent in this conversation is that where my SCA stuff goes is one of the few well-organized aspects of my home. Thus, if even that fails, it’s time to go back to the last time I never had issue with the stuff: the era in which I kept all things completed and packed all the time.

Which leads to….

Projectland Calls to Me!

God, I don’t know where to begin with this.

We have been having computer problems; Bender the computer has about 6 months of useful life left, and our router is a wreck again. I may close everything down today and try again, because it has, to this pointr in time, always resurected itself after a period of significant rest. It’s been off for about a week now, so hopefully, that will do it. But, among other issues, is the fact that my desktop is pretty old, and while I love it immensely, the Windows 2000 operating system is increasingly unable to handle updates to programs, the computer has always been slow, and whatever updates that have been added to it via Microsoft through the years have slowed it to the point that one can’t really watch online videos any more. In short, it’s probably time to retire it to a special status: Player of Music and Processor of Words, and get a new computer for Surfer of Internetz.

When the computer is Not Right, Researching Things does not happen well.

Costuming: In any event, what I have been looking at is ways to make the Burgundian dress I cut out more reasonable for the 1485 era; it’s always a little hard to know where to go with late period images. One can never be too sure if the clothing represents that which is really worn or if is a picture of what the artist thinks that person would have worn. I do like the idea of clothing worn well past it’s fashionable era: this picture by Hans Holbein the elder shows the Burgundian look in 1500 or so, about 25 years past its usual time. And there is the rub–is it really something an unfashionable Swiss woman might have worn, or is it just intended to convey the idea that the woman is of an earlier era? And were there people in the 1485-1510 era who were like many of their modern counterparts and just preferred to wear what we would consider vintage clothing, a la the women who dress as Betty Page or the men who are still teasing their hair and wearing pink shirts? I know I still have clothing items decades old that I still wear. So my sewing has been focused right now in making what I started actually work. I’m not going to waste a nice cotton damask. It was cut out from this pattern, according to view 2–the view that looks loser to the Holbein look or the classic Burgundian look, rather than the other one, which, while actually having some basis in reality (see the many examples on M. Cadieux’s pages), is not what I want to wear.

And, of course, the huge project that is going through all my dresses and packing them up to be all-in-one bundles.

Web Work: I’m still trying to figure out how to move all the OIM stuff into a content management system, and now Itasca is undergoing some changes, as well. Not bad, just has to be thought about. I did manage to get all the OIM stuff down, and am now leaning towards 2 blogs and an index page for the new site. Maybe 3 blogs, but no more than that. It’s too much.

And now I want to go do other things, so no more working on this entry. Project land won’t advance if I sit here all day, but I do want to make a decent list soon, my original intention before I distracted myself. Whee!

WHO is the light bulb that decide a tin wind-up doll was the best way to represent the message?

I am referring to the commercial for Pristiq, the most recent antidepressant to be shoved down our collective gullet.

“Take this pill, and instead of a being a sad automaton, you can be a happy automaton: hollow metal toy, walking rigidly through your life, too drugged to notice that the smile frozen on your face is a painted mask, completely controlled by the will of someone or something outside yourself. March away, puppet!”

Who is the ad man who thought this up? It’s more terrifying than the depression. Did anyone at all clue into this symbolism? Who is the guy who green lighted this?

Gods teeth.

The first actual webisode from a series:

Here is the relevant ranking: List of Best to Worst States for Healthy Living in America.

Wisconsin pulls in at #12, which is surprisingly good, based on the heavy drinking, heavy saturated fat dietary style, obesity issues that are going on here. But it’s also a place where outdoor living is encouraged, where being active despite being fat is encouraged, with decent schools and good access to care, including various state programs to make sure that no children are uninsured, et cetera. I make no secret of the fact that I like it here, despite it not being my beloved Chicago. I certainly can not say that about other places I have lived. Like Anniston, AL.

I noticed that Mississippi is at the bottom of the list. Again. It’s often at the bottom of any list that ranks the states in order for some quality of life issue. I was there for the first time in my life earlier this year, and I remember riding on a new-built road, a highway brought to us by the stimulus package, looking at all the nothing around–except for the billboard that said “Our Children Can’t Read!”

I thought that very powerful, although one wonders if the people who need to hear it understood its power. And as I sit here and think about this, I find myself wishing for the possibility of a United States that has these sorts of rankings and one looks at the bottom state and knows that it’s still a good place to be, with a good quality of life and decent healthcare and education… a place where being the bottom state on such a list does not translate to “The terrible truth is that it would be better for you if you lived in Cuba.” We prize the state of being “American” so greatly, and yet, we live in a country where some places are no better that third world poverty pockets.

So I wait for the day when being the last on the list is no longer a shame, but I fear we will never see it while our culture remains as it is.

A Veteran’s Day editorial from WI’s Veterans Dept Secretary:

Support for Veterans is Essential

It doesn’t surprise me that reintegration and mental health assistance isn’t big on the support agenda. And I have been concerned about this for years: I knew it was going to be an issue. It’s been an issue all along. There’s never been a war, cold or hot, that doesn’t leave some veterans on the side of the road, abandoned to their demons.

I will give the VA credit; they are currently screening for depression and PTSD regularly, and the VA does try to follow up with veterans who screen positive. Whether those attempts are merely tokens or inadequate or sufficient are not a conversation for this moment. The more important aspect here is that only a portion of vets are able to use the VA. Many returning vets don’t appear to understand that they do have at least 5 years of VA coverage upon discharge at this time.

I have been slightly involved with Dryhootch, and when the things that take up my time now are no longer taking up my time, I’ll be more involved. *Someone* has to help these kids, and if there is anything in the world I wish for, it’s that more people who recognize the need to help others would actually put their money where their mouths are.

You are a disgrace to soldiers, officers, men, helping professionals, and Muslims everywhere. Enjoy your new life in the DB, asshole.

I’d like to make this. My patterning skills make it outside my reach right now, though, although the stitches are easy. I love it exactly the way it is:

The most perfect hoodie for me would be, of course, something pink, with a ribbon-wearing skull and crossbones pattern. Yay! I saw exactly the one I want years ago, but didn’t buy it then, used as I am to just not buying what I want, but I have always longed for it. I’ll have to buy myself a pink hoodie and applique a few on for myself.

Or knit the tomten as many times as I need to to get the thing right.

****

I’ve been trying to get what is left of the On Illuminated Manuscripts site downloaded. There is a limit to how much I can get Geocities to display before it tells me I have used up my allotment of data transfer for that period of time. It’s kind of funny, a whole time capsule going away, and it makes me think about what I want to do with my creative endeavors. I’m always restless, we all know that, and never really able to commit to a direction until I have played around with about 5000 other possibilities. It takes a lot of work to make a decision. I saw all that OIM work up there, thought about the overwhelming blahness of getting it all updated and into a blog, and it would be so easy to shrug & let it all disappear, like so many other things have. But I find am loathe to let what is good about it slip into the history of remembrance, and so some choice must be made. I download what I can download, and think about choices.

It was a reminder of how much art I have kept out of sight for so many years; the brief period of time in the late nineties and early oughts when I was willing to share slipped quietly into pictures hidden in books, with brief displays that showed, yes, Leesie is still working, but she’s not sharing much anymore. One of the things that dismays me about such a flow is not that I choose to keep things private, but that it gives me permission not to finish. If one’s creative endeavors are simply for one’s private enjoyment and a gift to those who will be left behind to remember you after you have gone on, there is no incentive to complete any particular work. The internet of ‘09 is vastly different, too, and it can no longer be a place where someone who might be interested in your work might stumble on it–it’s too big, too sprawling, demands too much attention from someone who would rather go back to weaving words and looks than worry about using the right phrases to direct search engines to her site. And so the internet is no longer capable of filling the role of onlooker–it’s simply too big.

I find that I would rather walk into my bedroom and take all my scarves from my dresser. I would put them in bags and with small sachets and place them carefully back into the drawers. The sun would shine across my skin and the silence of the room would sing to me. And in my head there would be a dance of a thousand sights and possibilities that would belie the simplicity of the scented hour. When the work was done, I would fold my hands and be still, watching the west, waiting for the darkness.

Look up from all the things that are keeping you from doing everything you want to do (like blog so that your friends know you are okay) and say, “Holy frak! It’s almost been a month!”

School is going fine, although taking a math class reminds me of my struggles with dyscalculia. Because I am overall gifted, I can always strategize a way around the problem, but it takes work. My specific math LD? I can’t do mental math and I transpose symbols and numbers, so I will read a plus when what is written is a division sign or I will read 57 when what is written is 75, and all mental math has to be written down. Ask me to just tell you the quadratic equation and I will draw a blank; ask me to write it down and I will. These are things I can work with, but it does slow me down. I wouldn’t be taking college math classes for fun and cognitive exercise if I my LD was an inability to solve word problems.

So, having finally admitted publicly that I struggle with dyscalculia, it allows me the relief of admitting that this is one of the reasons I don’t do math-utilizing crafts very well, like knitting and counted cross stitch. I will knit adequately once I practice enough, but I’m not likely to spend a lot of time struggling with the counting for something complex when I could just sew it or paint it or free-form embroider it instead. There is a whole pattern of dyscalculia issues that I display, but mostly they are just annoying to me. The low latent inhibition is actually something I enjoy. However, I feel sad that some things–like chronic lateness–often appear to be a lack of consideration for other people, but I’m willing to take on the burden of being seen that way in exchange for not looking like I’m a whiny goober willing to use dyscalculia as an excuse for bad behavior. Better to be seen unfavorably for lack of consideration than for using a weakness as a crutch.

OTOH, one of the other contributors to my chronic lateness has been, for years, my lack of sleep r/t sleep apnea. I have been wearing the CPAP every night. I love that machine. It’s my new best friend. I’m still having sleep issues, and I have a fine time speculating on what might be the reasons–my primary concern right now is that I can’t stay asleep for more that 6-7 hours at this time. That will sound adequate to some people, but it’s not enough for me, particularly considering my massive sleep debt. That wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t have to work, but what’s happening is that I’m waking up at inappropriate times and taking 2-3 hours to go back to sleep for the remaining 3 or so hours I need. Unfortunately, “time to go to work” arrives just as “time to fall back to sleep” arrives, so I’m trying to figure out how to adjust for that.

Gah, I still haven’t gotten some Pennsic entries in. Time, come back here this instant! I need more of you! Particularly since you get away from me so easily.

Back to school last night, and so very happy to be in the class. I’m wildly enthused about it. I sat there in the class, working through the problems on the board, slowly, old cogs that haven’t had to turn in a very long time, rust flakes drifting to the ground and releasing the faint memories of procedures and processes long unused. A peculiar joy stole over me and I was really happy for those moments, sensing the challenge that lay ahead. I may take every mathematics class I can afford to take, just to have the pleasure of challenge in my life again.

Other things I’d liuke to get around to doing:

Mentioning DragonCon and the fact that MS and AK are now off my “feet in every state” list.

Finishing the Pennsic Planner

Remembering going to the Ren Faire this year.

And the air show.

And the State Fair.

And talking some more about just the everyday stuff I do, because I do more when I talk about it than when I don’t. When I don’t talk, I tend to drift off into activities that are restful but non-productive. I don’t mind producing at slow slow rates, but I do mind when my project work slows down to no work at all.

I have been paper journalling a lot, but it’s not the same. That’s private, mostly, although I may resort to pictures of pages I’ve written in the near future. We’ll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I need to consider my scheduled time, as it’s going to need to be precise. And maybe having less time to waste will mean more things to share.

However, something else I suspect will help is this: I’m getting my healthcare from the VA right now. At last. And the first thing they did was decide that someone needs to at least try to do something about the sleep apneaq I have been living with all these years. I have an appointment to get fitted with a CPAP on 17 September. I hope with all my heart that this will help. I would give nearly anything not to be tired all the time. I would love to sleep. And the sleep study at the VA was fun, too. Tell you about it later.

I ordered a copy of Ethan’s book from Amazon.com; it arrived today. Coincidentally, I followed a link on the facebook page for Ethan’s book to an interview: http://grindingtovalhalla.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/reading-the-text-ethan-gilsdorf/

I’m the Queen of the Geeks. LOL. At least, for that one day. I always knew the SCA would make me a Queen. LMAO.

Meanwhile, Ethan’s book is quite enjoyable so far. Having cheated and read the end out of sequence, I can say that I expect to enjoy it all the way through.

Part one of this year’s Post Pennsic Planner.

So, for the past couple of years, I have been working on refashioning some linen under dresses as my primary costume project. This is a wrap up entry that discusses what I have learned from the experience and what I plan to do going forward.

First, let me talk about…

Carmine Refashionista Dress: DETW!

DETW being the acronym for my famous slack ass “complete” category: Done Enough To Wear.

Here’s a reminder of what I started with:

A very loose linen hooded jacket and skirt set and a pink linen shirt. I had originally planned to make the skirt length appropriate by adding material in the same fashion as was done with the Green Refashionista Dress, but doing so with the pink shirt required too much work. Really. The immense amount of disassembly and reassembly that would have been needed to get a solid band across the upper calf here would have been ridiculously time consuming and would still have needed most of the brown skirt to make the final stripe. So, instead, I did alternating color blocks across the bottom:

Because it’s hanging on a dummy nowhere nearly as endowed as me, it might be a little hard to notice the serious amount of refitting the jacket had to undergo to make a reasonable kirtle shape. The removal of the hood, change to neckline, center front seam instead of a center front opening, and shortening to waist from the hip length of the original would be obvious changes, but what is not obvious is that the shoulder had to be moved up and the sides and sleeves had to be taken in an inch and a half on each side. OMG. I had to play with that jacket for quite a while to get something that would look okay and still allow for movement.

The skirt had to be disassembled, about 8 inches cut from the length axis and added to the width axis in order to get a fuller skirt. I used the dye fade from the elastic waist as a decorative element, but I’m not sure I love that. However, when the dress is properly accessorized, the apron covers the band, so I don’t actually have to commit to liking or disliking the ultimate effect.

Overall, it’s a loose fitting underdress appropriate for Pennsic or working in the kitchen at an event as an outer clothing piece. It will also be appropriate under a tighter fitting outer dress, and I’m thinking of making a loose gown … but that discussion is for a later section.

What I learned from this 3-year project.

The first piece of linen I refashioned would eventually become The Linen Kirtle From Hell, eventually considered DETW here.

It remains my favorite refashionista under dress. In all, I have created:

1. The linen kirtle from hell.
2. The Under dress for the Green Gothic Fitted/Early Tudor Dress.
3. Black linen choli with black linen coif (coif is now lost, and I am teh sade about that)
4. White linen choli
5. Green Refahionista Dress
6. Carmine Refashionisa Dress
7. Natural linen apron to go with CRD
8. 2 pairs of linen “Saracen” underwear.
9. A linen headscarf or shoulder scarf.
10. A linen shift.

And, still in progress, a linen partlet, made with the portions of brown skirt that did not have to be sacrificed to the CRD.

I do still have more linen garments that can be used for refashioning, but I do not really plan to make entire large garments from refashioned items (a la the GRD or the CRD) again. I think my major phase here is done. And this is what I learned:

*This is a very different style of thinking about creating garments, with a process distinct from using whole cloth. I never slip into what might be called a persona mindset while sewing from whole cloth, but have done so while refashioning. It’s a very period thing to do, remake old clothing into new clothing. That said, it’s also far more time consuming than I can afford. If I’d stuck with whole cloth, I could have replaced my Pennsic wardrobe in a year. It took three and maybe more. Refashioning is going to have to be relegated to smaller garments henceforth. I just can’t afford that much time for these projects.

*The more severely changed refashioned garments can not stand up to machine washing. Even with the seams double sewn and the edges given a zigzag stitch finish to prevent raveling, there is still a certain amount of repair that has to be done every time. They need to be washed by hand and line dried. So. heh, that’ll be a new period experience for me–spot cleaning and brushing and the occasional scour* instead of just a toss in a washer.

*Of the various dresses, my favorite one remains the Linen Kirtle from Hell–this is also the one that had been made from a skirt I’d previously made and hated. The advantage of that was that I was just able to structure the bodice directly to my shape rather than trying to make something that had already been constructed for someone else work for me.

*And a few other things that I’ll edit in later, because I’m big with the wanting to move on to the next portion of this thing.

So, anyway, I’ve at least 3 large yardages of 100% linen to make three more gowns. For those, I have a few expectations: french or flat felled or other closed seams; lining assembled as part of outer layer rather than as a shell; and no further machine washing. That should take care of the primary problems.

And the next phase of never ending costuming is:

Court garb replacement.

I love court garb. I stopped seriously making it when the hypothyroidism got so bad that I no longer maintained a consistent body shape over the course of a year. I slowed down to making 1 a year, then I slowed down to making one every 2 years, and now I haven’t made anything new since 2005.

Okay. I’m looking at that. I haven’t made something that I actually feel pretty in since 2005. And worse, I don’t feel particularly pretty in that 2005 dress. The linen underdresses are great, but they are not meant to flatter, they’re meant to be cool at Pennsic and appropriate under better clothing. In pursuing this persona project, I’ve taken from myself one of the things I liked the most about costuming: the opportunity to make something I feel lovely wearing.

I found a couple of dresses I’d planned out more than 5 years ago, maybe more. One is a nice cotton upholstery overdress already cut out and ready for assembly, BUT, that is, I now know too late, not patterned right for the style of clothing (Burgundian). I should be able to recover the dress enough to hide the pattern flaws under the appropriate accessories. I also found a bag filled with an Italian Ren pattern, a swatch of cotton upholstery, garnets, and enough of an unknown spinach-green fabric to finish the dress. I’m guessing that the amount of fabric that is there means it’s probably some kind of cotton blend, because at that time, I wasn’t able to buy that much fabric and that many gems, and so, IIRC, I chose to invest in the gems as I wasn’t sure about the fit of the pattern. I might have also bought it with the idea that the voluminous skirt could eventually be replaced with better fabric if I constructed the bodice with enough strength to last for years. In any event, I did NOT cut that one out previously and so can at least make sure it gets into the early end of my favorite era–1485-1558.

I suppose I should start with those dresses, as they are already started, and then, as I work on them, plan for what I next will make. I know I’d like to make a loose gown; I’d like to find examples of the same, should they exist, from about 1530. If not, I guess I’ll make an Elizabethan one. And thus will I eventually replace some of the court gowns I don’t ever wear anymore (4 Italian Rens and three stretch velvet kirtles that were my first solution to the up-and-down weight issue) and supplement those I have that I do wear. Yay.
—
*scouring a dress for cleaning versus handwashing: the idea is to spot clean the dress and then put the dress through a cold water soak, a warm water+ detergent/soap soak, repeat as needed, and then a rinse soak, repeat as needed, based on the process of scouring wool. This is supposed to be less rough on the fibers than any other type of hand washing.

I’m almost home. I’m in Bensenville. I should be resting but can not sleep. While that may be an odd thing to write at 9 AM, I will point out that I got to bed around 1 AM and have been up since 6. I have been dealing with a lot of insomnia these days.

Pennsic was odd this year; I, and all my campmates, were struggling with some level of lassitude, each of us with a different cause, but all of us clearly without motivation to pursue our usual level of activity. The weather was less than optimal and better than terrible, which might be a good way to describe the entire event. I could have spent a thousand dollars on art pottery, but limited myself to a couple of Eadric pieces. I also bought a coronet, a box for same (from Tancred’s Tangled Wood, apparently without web site), a lot of Auntie Arwen spices, and some gifts. I suppose I could have forgone the spices/coronet/blah blah blah and just bought pottery, but I need many things, and have already added 3 pieces to my collection without removing any crap from the cabinet yet. The only thing I might have exchanged was the coronet; but, frankly, it, too, is a piece of practical art and I have wanted one for years.

Of course, I am now working on a list of things I will do for next year. For now, I think I will stop and go lay back down for a bit, in the hope that I can get a little more rest before the household wakes.

I believe I have already spent all the time I could. But we are here, I am tired, and hungry, and have been thinking heavily about how I want to approach Pennsic in the future.

… are visual hallucinations caused by my migraine.

I don’t have them often and thank ghod, because the sensation of having my eyeballs stabbed out is super not fun.

Meanwhile, I am beginning to wonder if the ghods put asshole caps on sale, as I seem to be enduring an era of universal asshattery.

Furthermore, Pennsic departure looms. Any desiring a Pennsic Postcard should contact me now, via comment or email.

Happy birthday to me. A Certain Age gets nearer with each anniversaire, but, fortunately, as the Baby Boom advances before me, A Certain Age, if it is an actual number, gets a smidge older with passing time. I’m not going to get there quite as fast as I might if this was, say, 1969. I’m catching up, no doubt, but at least the line keeps moving back, and, frankly, I have the truly elderly people on my caseload to smack me right back into line when I start bitching about my ever-receding salad days.

I have my favorite set of sock monkey pajamas on, and I’ve no intention of getting out of them today. It’s my birthday.

project Land, such as it has been

*I have finished yet another bag of holding, #8. I learned a new way to close the end of the bag–a double loop cast off, I think it was called.

*I have done lots of cooking, and have been writing it up at the specialty cooking blog that is temporarily located at Blogger–North Coast Cookery. I may retitle it again as Third Coast Cookery. It’s been kind of an interesting experience, deliberatley pulling the cookery writing out of this blog, because it kind of forces me to concentrate on other writing here. I think I will continue with that for a while. I want to break out of the slack habits I’ve had here, and that’s one way to do it. I have been careful not to show pictures of fish. And I still have more cookery notes I want to put in there.

*I’ve been making progress on redecorating my room towards a more period ambiance, but I have to face the fact that I am simply going to have to buy more bookshelves, because the ones I have now are collapsing under the weight of my library. I have a really wonderful silk bedspread, a chocolate brown, that is very like a period quilt–one large piece of cloth with a pattern sewn into it. The pattern is a repeat of 4 fleur de lys, so it works very well. It’s not quite the heraldic bedspread I intended to make, but it’s not the end of the world. Anyway, enough about the stuff in my bedroom. Suffice to say I have made progress.

Other things I have not mentioned

*We went to South Dakota in mid May, for Quest for Camelot. I really enjoyed it, but it was s filthy long time in the car.

You know, I don’t feel like writing anymore. I’m sitting in the yard, with the wind blowing through my hair, in my comfy jammies and having some moments of peace–a respite in passage of time that is really quite dreadful. I’m holding together okay, but it doesn’t make it less hard. I keep wanting to have time time to at least write personal letters about it to friends, but I am afraid that when I have a moment of peace to write, that moment is so precious that I can’t spend it upsetting myself again.

So happy birthday to me; may the wind that blows through my hair blow away all the troubles of this time. And may the sun that shines on my skin speak of warmth and kindness to come.

Happy birthday, mom, wherever you are in the universe now. Today would have been your 72nd birthday.

Welcome to another Solstice.

I put my first public entry on the web, my first open journal, 10 years ago today, and I started it in much the same way: Today, were she still alive, my mother would be 62 years old. I’ve just finished re-reading the entry. It made me a little sad to think that many of the issues I had on that day still walk right beside me now. There are things to be glad about: my health is not significantly worse, which it would have been had I not decided ten years ago to do the best I can to fight my genetic fate. Some years have been better “fight the good fight” years than others, but on the whole, it’s averaged out in such a way that I’m no worse off than I was then, and probably doing a little bit better. It’s just getting harder to maintain that stability. It would be absolutely correct to say that aging is not for sissies.

So, happy 10th blogging anniversary to me, and here is to the hope that I will have a 20th, and a 30th, and a 40th. Maybe even a 50th and a 60th. Here is to the hope that my last entry will be just days before I die at a very old age with my facilities and abilities all still mine–as best as they can be preserved against the ravages of aging and the injustices of time and fate.

Blogging helps, of course–presuming that one is writing something that uses the intellect. The adage “use it or lose it” applies powerfully to cognition, and there is plenty of research showing that the effect of choosing to retire in front of the TV is devastating to all one’s physical and mental capacities. That seems common sense, doesn’t it? But you would be surprised by how many people refute it, and choose to slowly commit a passive suicide in front of the box.

Finding peace helps: as I reflected on repeatedly in that first journal, my mother’s anger helped kill her. It would be inaccurate to say that there are not old things still bothering me, but the years go by and they have less power, and some of the things most people would most expect me to hang on to–not just continue to hurt over but to actively nurse anger and discontent about–are things that I am indifferent to, these days. Forgive or not forgive doesn’t matter, because it’s simply not worth the energy to actually care one way or the other. I’m not over everything I need to be over, but the arrows sticking out of my body these days are the things that most people wouldn’t expect. And that’s good.

So, it all could be worse. Much, much worse. But it would be better if my mother had made similar choices, and was sitting here with me now. She spent all her life waiting to be rescued, and never noticed that she had the power to rescue herself.

to ride my bike to work. But the days I can do it have inevitably been like today… thunderstormy. Just, frak.

In fact, that’s pretty much how I feel about this whole passage of time. Just …

First, a story of Michael’s youthful escapades: A LOVE story you won’t take for granite

It was a shock to find that in the newspaper.

But a bigger shock today:

Zorro’s Fighting Legion

An old serial, from 1939. I found it, poking around teh internetz. My grandfather appears at about the 14 minute mark, playing Martinez. This is the first time I have seen this movie–but it is also the first time I’ve seen my grandfather full face, first time I’ve heard his voice. I had letters from him, a single picture of him posing for a cowboy action shot, indistinct and at 3/4 profile, but never a phone call that I remember, never anything else. I can not describe the eeriness of seeing something like this for the first time, can not express the strangeness of seeing the 70 years gone traces of one’s own face on the screen and knowing that your grandfather has been more real to the millions of people who saw this than he ever was to you.

I’ve seen Kat for the last time.

I never loved my job at BLHS, but I often loved the work. Kat had 47 years on this planet, and she shared 10 of them with me. Year in, year out, I went to her, spent a work day, week, month, decade caring for her when she was sick, teaching her when she was well. Here is your work, Kat. Here’s how to do it. Look, I’ll help you. Let me take your hand so you can feel how to move. Here is your lunch. You did a good job, here is some coffee. Can you turn on the radio? Here is the button. Push it. Try again, you can do it. Here is a pen. This is how you hold it. This is how you make the letter “K.”

It took us 10 years to get to “t,” and I cried with joy on the day she made a t on her own. K-A-T. Kat. You wrote your name. I knew you could.

Her fingers were so delicate, so beautiful, and her hair was dark and wavy. She was funny as could be when she was happy, and sullen and hurtful when she was angry. She could hold a conversation, and loved to play and to sing. But her body was weak, and bent, and half useless, and she could barely wheel her chair, it was so heavy for all the modifications needed to help her sit straight and safe. She wanted as normal a life as she could have, though, and she would patiently work and work at things so many people take for granted, just for the pleasure of singing while doing something that would be like the sort of life so many other people take for granted or, divine help them, curse. And so she would push her wheel and pull herself along with her one good arm and one good leg, making the trip over and over, every day, taking one item at a time. Can you put your dishes in the sink, Kat? Her glass. Her plate. Her spoon. One at a time. Back and forth, table to kitchen, just so that she could do it for herself. These small independences were all she was capable of having, and I spent 10 years making sure she had them. And it made a difference to her. She was so depressed when we met, and so changed when I left.

In her coffin, her clothing covered her, and you could not see its twists and pains. Her mother spoke with me, told me that she’d directed the funeral staff not to put her braces on her. She doesn’t need them now, her mother said. They’d helped her to lay straighter than she had in years. Her beautiful hands were on her chest, still, but the trick of my expectations lent the illusion of breath as I looked at her laying there. She went suddenly, unexpectedly: no one had recognized that she was so sick. She could have been sleeping.

I left. I won’t see Kat again in this life.

I drove away, up the street, the sun beating through the window, and I longed for a cool and refreshing drink, a quiet retreat, a comfortable seat in a room filled with late afternoon shadows and an elegance reminiscent of a more gracious time. But life goes on, and we go forth, and I am expected in other places.

I had to come home, to change. I’m late. I must leave.

But as I stand in the evening sun, my thoughts will be elsewhere. I will be in my mind, in the place that is both my memory and my future, wearing my strongest body and loveliest white dress. My bare feet will curl in the cool grass and in my hand will be the refreshing drink I desire, beads of moisture slipping down its side to slide across my fingers. And as I stand there, on the edge of my forest, I will look down the hill, to the sunny valley below, and smile. Kat will be dancing there, singing to herself. Her dark hair will glint in the sun and her light and delicate fingers will emphasize all the moves she makes. She has joy now, does Kat, and I will smile to behold her doing all the things she never could do in life. At last.

Woods National Cemetery, Milwaukee, WI

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

I’m sunburnt again. Goddamit. I so hate that.

And so the pain awoke me, and dragged me from my bed, and danced with me through dark hours. It’s an awful place, awful moments, when you look at what has been done, and what must be done, and everything that ever was and ever will be haunts you like the ghosts of the lost.

Moody. Staring out the darkened window. The same song plays over and over.

Do you want to feel how it feels?

Which is worse, what hurts my body, or what pierces my soul? I can’t swear to which woke me, but both of these lovers are here tonight, and we hold hands, spinning and spinning, and Kate sings as we sway.

So, it did not take me long to figure out that managing the site content with a blog for every subject might turn into a serious nightmare. I’m going to have to plan it out a little bit more. I KNOW I want to do the cookery bits as a blog, and I don’t have issue with continuing with a blog for projects, but I’m going to have to be careful about how I set up the content. Scrolling articles for things I consider to be finished is not where I want to go. And given the amount of traffic that has been generated since I wrote the Piscetarian page and the consequent and damn near immediate increase in comment spam that came thereafter, I’m not really likely to leave all those blogs open for comment. So I guess I am going to have to try the drupal install again, and if that fails, try another CMS. The blog-per-subject thing can work, I just have to plan it. As we are talking about websites that have organically grown since 1997, with some patches out of control and some patches dead and gone, we are talking a fairly amazing amount of work to get it weeded, streamlined, and categorized for a blog.

And all done in my immense amount of spare time, to boot.

On the other hand, it won’t hurt to get some of it revamped. I’m actually thinking about making a bunch of the articles PDF’s rather than trying …. nah. That’s just a sign of how tempting the almost-easiest way out is.

Speaking of Foodways

I mean to write me a cookbook. I do not expect to publish me a cookbook, but I mean to write me one. And given the usefulness of a blog for recording what the hell you did, I guess I will be opening one of the only piscetarian food blogs. I think I will call my blog “Blast Furnace Cooking” after my propensity to cook with the heat ENTIRELY too high. I won’t have to worry about pictures of fish upsetting people here. The base blog is already installed at the test site, but I may begin a Blogger version–just so the thing can be started. Or I might just keep talking too much about food here. Or I might put a link to the temp site for refere… nah. I don’t want the test site to accidentally get indexed if I can’t get this all done in a month. Anyway:

Recent experiments include:

Clockwise: avocado chunks, sauteed veggies, red rice, and mock brats.

Of all those dishes, the only one that really needs a recipe is the mock brats. I had been desperate to try them sincefinding the recipe at Joanna Vaught’s site. She spoke so glowingly of how uber delicious they were and blah blah blah that I just could not wait until I could try them.

You know where this is going already, don’t you?

Well, no, they are not terrible. They just don’t taste anything remotely like a bratwurst. Even with the beer and all the spices, to me, it still tasted like seitan. That’s okay, I like seitan, and, in fact, prefer home made to store boughten. But.

I live in the land of bratwurst and cheese. If you tell me something is supposed to taste like a bratwurst, I kind of expect that it’s going to taste like something that seems an adequate substitute for a bratwurst. What I got was something with the basic mouth feel of meat and a compatibility with any sauce dumped upon it.

There were positive things, though. I do like the idea a lot. And the “roll the seitan into sausage shapes, wrap in foil or cheesecloth, and steam to done” made making the mock brats in appropriate shapes and portions very, very easy, without the problems I have had to this point in time with overcooking the seitan. I would have no problem with making them again, but I will definitely pursue different spice mixtures. I have a number of ideas about how this technique might apply to the SCA kitchen and I think I can make myself very happy by beginning with this base.

Speaking of things that are nowhere near adequate hole fillers, I am also a little sad at the Vegveeta recipe as it has been finally revealed. As you may know, I have managed to develop 3 vaguely cheese -sauce-like recipes for my own use, 2 are completely vegan, and one is piscetarian and made from ingredients typical in Roman cookery–so, in that way, period-like. The woman who runs this particular site was very vague about her ingredients, because she is using the blog as a sort of come-on for the books she writes. But she was happily pointing out No Nutritional Yeast! No Soy! and so I was really hoping for something that was going to be really different. A new approach.

So when I looked at the recipe and saw that it’s similar to many other not-cheese sauces and that the big change is that she’s going soyless by using almond milk, I was very disappointed. Because guess who uses almond milk all the time?

::bangs head::

I guess it’s innovative for cooks who can only follow recipes. I remain amazed at how many of them there are in this world. I sound awfully critical, and I don’t mean to be. Text can fool you that way. Just… really disappointed. I’ll keep refining my own not-cheese sauces (and they are not-cheese sauces, so what I am refining them to is soy-free and as period as I can make them and still have that cheese-like sauce experience) and then try a couple of different angles that do not involve making cheese-like jello (Look! It Slices! It dices! It’s julienne fries!). Blech. I’m still scarred from that rice cheese from hell.

My cookery emphasis this week? More cheese, and homemade veggie burgers. I’m kind of going through a period of vegan friendly subs for period meat sauces. The seitan up there will do nicely and has the added benefit of being something that can be made with all old world ingredients because it was made in the old (Asian) world in period. Yay, Buddhists! I’d also like to come up with some mild bean patties that can be used as the substrate for medieval meat sauces. MMmm, fava bean loaf.

Again? — sez you.

Nothin’ up my sleeve! — sez me

PRESTO!!!

AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!

So, here’s the thing. I have been trying to move the whole site to a content management system, and was going to play with Drupal 6.10 and Wordpress 2.7.1. My lovely server admin, the charming and popular Belmikey, set me up a site where I can play around with these CMS’s to my heart’s content and convienently start moving this site off of one machine and on to another. Win situation for both of us.

Never mind the aggrevation I always put myself through because I will assume that if something isn’t working the way I expect it to, it must be because I am lacking some key information or I’m just not proccessing the instructions properly. I’ll skip those kvetches.

I’m now to the point where I can put in as many separate installations of Wordpress (that would be the CMS I’m using on this blog) on the new site as I want. But I can’t get the fucking Drupal. Now, something aggravating here would be, of course, the fact that OTHER people using Itasca have drupal running, so it’s obviously do-able. I’ll try a new directory of 6.10, and I’ll try 5.x if I can’t get the 6.10, but I am also kind of at the “Frak it, I’ll just do wordpress and have 10 blogs on my site.”

Why?

Because there is suddenly, to me, a feeling of time pressure. I recently blew a weekend downloading everything I had stored on Yahoo! Briefcase because it was being closed down only to discover that Geocities is next on the chopping block.

Let’s see, I’ve already lost years of poetry and journalling when various services crashed. Photos from fabulous moments when MSN photos ended abruptly. Never mind all the gone from hard drive crashes or magnetic media degradation. Geocities is going down, Lycos Europe closed last year, and so I think I will be doing myself a favor if I get my stuff into databases and back ‘em up, start making paper copies of things I really love having. And I just don’t have the requisite free time to do this level of restructuring all in a day.

OTOH, I don’t really want to run a seperate install for every.fraking.subsite. I thought the drupal would cover that, but who the frak knows if I am right.

So wordpress ad infinitum for now, with changes to my photo gallery and a slowed down push for a one size fits all CMS. That’s still my goal, but I am aggroed to the point of just wanting to make the aggravation stop and make the movement start.