Twenty-somethings

As a person in my mid-twenties, I identify strongly with the group described in this New York Times article. I feel like I'm not a child anymore, nor even an adolescent, but I'm a long way from feeling like an adult. I'm in between. And I feel tremendous pressure to stop equivocating and grow up already, though nobody seems to want to tell me what that entails or how to do it.

I am reminded of Hobbits, who come of age at 33, and consider the decade or so before rather an awkward time. It seems we're all more hobbity than we knew.

New Coat

I received a coat for Christmas. There is some assembly required. All right, I admit it: my gift is five yards of coat-weight wool and eight of lining fabric. But it's exactly what I hoped I'd get. Now I just need to decide what kind of coat to make, and make it. Well, I do need interfacing and buttons and thread and things, but all that is less important and easier to come by than the beautiful fabric my aunts gave me.

To that end, I've been scouring the internet for inspiration and came across this blog: Making My Tennant Coat. It's the blog of a guy who's made a reproduction of the coat worn by David Tennant as Doctor Who. He seems to have gotten everything exactly right, every detail the same as the original, even the fabric is (probably) the same fabric used for the costume. Perhaps the coolest thing about him is that he's using a sewing machine made in 1903. 1903! He's using an antique!

He also has other blogs in the same vein, about his progress on other Doctor Who costumes. They are linked in his sidebar. Mostly those are less interesting to me, but the Tennant Suit blog is probably going to inspire me to make a suit (which I've been half intending to do for a while), and to learn how to draft my own patterns. It's daunting, but if a guy with a 106-year-old sewing machine can do it, by golly, so can I.

I doubt I'll replicate any specific coat with this level of accuracy for my coat, but rather draw inspiration from various disparate sources, only one of which will be the Tenth Doctor. This guy's dedication just kind of blew me away, so I thought I'd share.

Alternate album cover day picture

Pocketing the Difference

It's been a year since I wrote anything in this, mostly because I felt it had become a place where I bragged or complained without offering anything else that anyone might want to read, even if they were aware of the existence of this blog. Most people, in fact, are unaware of its existence, because I don't think it's that good a blog (hardly riveting material, nor is it frequently updated).

But now I have something to write about. Sort of. I found something on the internet that I'd been made to read in college, but was interested in regardless. It's an article by Barbara Burman about pockets. It's called "Pocketing the Difference: Gender and Pockets in Nineteenth-Century Britain". I've always been interested in pockets, but this article does so much to make them fascinating that I really want to share a link to it. If I have done this linking business properly, you can find the article here. It's a single chapter of a larger book about dress and textiles in relation to gender studies. The book explains what clothing and cloth can tell us about gender.

I now feel justified, not only in having a blog (I've actually posted about something other than myself), but in my fascination with pockets. Well, call it an interest. I'm not fascinated by them like I am with hats. So, my loyal readership, you now have something to occupy you while you wait with bated breath for my next post. Which may be sometime in the next couple of years.

Awesome is the new stupid

What is so amazing about a guy having moustache-shaped patches
of hair on his face or head somewhere other than his upper lip? I find this not that funny, not cool, and actually kind of stupid. Where does it say that the point of Moustache May is to look like an idiot? Am I alone in thinking that most guys on the site look better with a moustache than without? Am I the only one who is doing this to prove that the moustache is a legitimate facial hair style that looks good if done properly? Is there no one else who believes that a moustache can only be the hair between one's mouth and nose, i.e., on the upper lip? If I trim my moustache so it's the same shape as my eyebrow, does that make it an eyebrow? No. No it doesn't.

I declare here and now that I resent the very existence of team "awesome" and object to this or this being called a moustache. That second one isn't even facial hair.

It really ought to be called Team Stupid.

Oh, that's right. I have a blog.

I clearly don't care about keeping up with this. May is nearly over, so it seems silly to post about Moustache May. My finals are looming. In a week, I will have graduated. My nose is running like a faucet. I have mixed feelings about everything. Except the runny nose. For that I harbor feelings of nothing but pure hatred. Excuse me. I must go try to clean out my nose without getting snot in my moustache.

Whiskerino

Whiskerino has begun. It's like Moustache May, but better. Four months of intensive beard growth, daily self-portraits and sarcastic/satirical/whatever commentary on others' pictures of themselves, and bearded camaraderie. The worst part--the clean shave and accompanying pain in the chin at the beginning--is over. Now I just have to worry about keeping up my creativity.