Oops! Apparently I've accidentally deleted all of my images. I'll see about fixing that soon.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Late Night Hodgepodge

Well, I couldn't sleep, so I updated my other blog (specifically the list of Gluten Free restaurants in the area) in case anyone attending GenCon needs to find it). But it's 2:30 am and I'm still awake, so now I'm here.

I keep a few odds and ends lying around my blog folder that are things I'd love to talk about but don't have enough of to make an entire post. (or if I did it would be long and boring and ranty...)  So I thought I'd just throw some of them out here tonight (this morning?) in a sort of catch-all post. 

one of my grandmother's aprons

There was a really interesting discussion lately on a topic that has long intrigued me: the dualistic quality of home sewing and staying fashion forward but maintaining respect for old ways/traditions/techniques.  I'm really not as eloquent a writer as Gretchen Hirsch even when I'm not sleep-deprived, so maybe pop over to her post herecalled "It's Not Your Grandma's Crafting (Or Is it?)" and take in some food for thought.



I've been baking a lot of bread lately. As you may or may not know I have to eat gluten-free to not be horribly ill, in pain, and really muddle-headed.  For a long while that meant giving up a lot of foods, including bread.  Most ready-made gf breads are 4-6 times the cost of a normal loaf of bread, half the size, and horrible in both texture and taste.  The ingredients to make it from scratch are pretty pricey, too, so I've just been doing without.  But the store I usually shop at has had gf bread mix on sale that is pretty decent tasting so we've been enjoying both sandwiches and cinnamon bread the past few weeks.


The Olympics is about to begin, and I've been following one of the strongest people in the world: Sarah Robles. I enjoyed lifting weights when I was in college and often miss having those sorts of facilities at my disposal. I'm not a big sports-watcher and I'm not usually a big weightlifting fan, but I like her style, her personality, the way she puts things, the way she champions strength=beauty. I'll be rooting for her all the way.



I got an email from my mother-in-law tonight (last night? whatever, i give up...) with the link to this site that sells vintage dresses.  I love having new avenues for inspiration and this website sure has a lot of pretties to look at.

short skirt, long jacket?

I don't want to get into all of my social and feminist beliefs here, because it's not really what I want my blog to be about, but these are things I think about a lot. I'm nearly done with my outfit for GenCon, but I find myself continuing to fret over the length of the skirt.  It's not terribly short, just much shorter than what I usually wear. And I'm happy with the tall socks that I bought to go with them, so it's not like I'm going to have a bunch of skin hanging out everywhere or anything. It's more a matter of the larger topics involved.  

There is still a lot of sexism in the nerd/ geek/ gaming world and the world in general and I really don't want to be part of the problem of the continuing objectification of women. I also don't think women should have to limit their clothing choices out of fear. And I chose my skirt length for two important reasons: style and temperature control. I admit, the temperature issue is the most important one in this instance.  There are going to be tens of thousands of gamers all crammed together during a record-breaking hot summer, and the costume already has a sweater and a jacket.  

Do I worry about inappropriate comments? Yes. Do I worry about worse than that? Yes. Do I think my outfit is *actually* inappropriate/ over-sexy? Absolutely not. 

one bad apple or do I have to worry about them all?

Most of the gamers I know are really nice, respectful people but certainly not all of them.  And even among the nicest of them there is still an underlying feeling that it's ok to treat women like objects.  Most of the gaming miniatures that are female are scantily-clad with huge boobs and no room for kidneys. The artwork for movies and games alike show women, even superheroes, in contorted oversexed positions while their male counterparts take strong, natural stances.


So it's not surprising that the underlying current of sexism amongst gamers is there. And it won't be surprising to me to find the percentage of women at GenCon to be similar to that of my college freshman engineering classes. But I don't have to like it and I certainly don't have to make it worse.

i'd love to credit the author but idk who it is

So I have backup outfits planned in case I chicken out or in case something happens to make me feel uncomfortable. But mostly, I think it's a topic that deserves coverage, even by the humble likes of me.  If we pretend it's not a problem it's not going to just magically disappear.


And now it's nearly 5:30am and I haven't slept and the alarm will be going off soon. It's an odd post to start the week with and I'm already starting to feel self-conscious for putting so much of myself out there with this even before I click "Publish." 

Hope your week starts off nicely

1 comment:

  1. I agree with you all the way. I have tried to bring my children up with the idea that anything is possible for them, (but only if they work for it,) This September all three will be in college. My youngest daugther will be studing game development and Greek myths, she wants to write video games, the myths study will help her with story development on large scale. My son physics and mathes, he changes from physicst to astrominy, to science teacher. And my eldest daughter will start ancient Greek languange ready to study ancient Greek civilisation later. I think alot of this has to do with the role models, They were brought up on a hugh amount of sci-fi and me home studying for my degree in classic and ancient cilivisations ( no I am saying i am a role model, just that being over 40 and still studying shows learning does not stop after school.) Not one soap opera ever. Girls and lads need to see more possitve female role models.

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