Clothes Patterns, Fabric, Neanderthals and Soul Mates

Had the most delicious swordfish for lunch – well, a portion of one anyway – I made it just like I would have made fresh tuna and let it marinate overnight, and it came out like melt-in-your mouth heaven:  marinated and then braised in wine, fruit juice, ginger, leeks, garlic and soy sauce, and the fish was so succulent it fell apart on your fork.  I have discovered I really love leeks, by the way, surprising exactly no one because I am a passionate fan of onions and garlic when I can get away with eating them and not asphyxiating anybody.  It has always seemed a shame to me that roots so heavenly and fragrant and delicious and healthy are the same roots which leak out your pores and have people backing away from you.

Back to the pattern creation:  to my surprise, I found two tops that had the back yoke like I wanted, so now I can make an attempt at reverse engineering them for my first try at a “made from scratch” clothes pattern.  Hadn’t thought of them because they (yes, both of them) had been in the “missing a button” box for so long.  Clothes are really poorly made these days:  you wear them once and buttons just fall off of them.  Found the buttons too, so may actually be able to wear them again, assuming they’re not too big for me now ... once I sew the buttons on, that is.

There was this pattern I bought many years ago – a Retro Pattern from 1952 (Butterick) – which I just loved, although I doubted I could ever wear it ... big, full skirt, that wraps around from the back and buttons in the front, lined by double-edged bias tape that makes this wonderful, slimming line down the front ... and all of a sudden, my proportions are small enough that I can make it quite easily.  The plan was to shorten it dramatically ... no way was I going to wear the full length skirt you see here; I just loved that “Y” bias tape line down the center and the contrast “overskirt” illusion.

To give you an example of how I envisioned the shortened version – here’s another dress maker who had the same idea, although I planned to use  more contrast in the bias tape, but I did love how the dress looked – whoever she is, she did a gorgeous job on it.

So, I found some fabric in my collection that I thought might work, and started to cut out the pieces, WHILE hemming the sundress WHILE sewing on lost buttons WHILE layering We Can Fly in preparation for quilting it WHILE preparing Beautiful Beige for the applique work WHILE staring in dismay at my dishwasher.  (More on that later.)

It at least helped me begin to use up my fabric collection, which I really need to use up.  And while I was sorting through the bin of clothes fabric I found this amazingly lovely rose pattern, in either chiffon or silk or SOMETHING, a very light and sexy fabric ... with what looks like a muted grey/turquoise background ... (you’ll recall I had made the decision to reverse engineer a top in turquoise designed to match the moonstone ring?) and went, “Holy (bleep).”  I’d completely forgotten I had that before I went and bought the new fabric.  Need to measure it to see how much of it I have.

Unfortunately – it seems to be a veritable static electricity magnet, and it’s not even winter when static is typically an issue.  I had said I didn’t want it to cling – I hate the sensation of things that “cling”, drives me nuts – so I’m already trying to think of alternatives – i.e., like lining it, or using it as an overlay – that will minimize any static issues.

Also discovered I’d bought about 3 yards of a gorgeous fabric – heavy hand, brown with embroidery designs on it (also in brown, or perhaps black) – thinking:  I really need to find a beautiful dress pattern for this.  Don’t want to make it boring as a suit.  So I’m still cutting the pieces for the retro wrap around dress ... discovered I don’t have quite the full floor space for it, so it’s a challenge.

I’ve never eaten fiddlehead ferns before ... found some at the grocery store, and decided to try them – will sauté some up today and let you know how they taste.

C’era una volta
I suddenly realized that I had a counterpoint to the image of a soul mate as a Neanderthal ... the image I had of the two of us, roaming the grasslands together.  I loved that image when I first saw it; we’re such arrogant, self-righteous snots these days, we cannot conceive of our former selves in prehistoric times experiencing a full range of emotions, but that image showed me that we could and did.

The counterpoint was written recently; the experience of meeting someone for the first time that you’ve known and loved before.  You may not be bound together in this life, but you realize that it doesn’t matter – they’re still who they have always been, and you’re always connected with them at the soul level.  The reason I knew I’d hit the mark was that after writing it, I sat and read it aloud ... and discovered tears were running down my face.  Not of unhappiness; joyful tears of remembrance.

So, obviously, I’m working on that again, too ... I finally got the appointment with the neuro-muscular specialist, so I’m keeping myself busy until then.

Dishwasher:  I've had it installed for about a year and already both of the screws bolting it to the underside of the kitchen counter have fallen out - within a day of each other.  Just stared at the dislodged screws in amazement.  Now for the fun of trying to screw them both back in, thoroughly irritated that I need to do it.

Last:  Il Volo is now in competition for Eurovision 2015, representing Italy.  Their song?  Grande Amore, of course.  Today’s the big day.  And here they are, rehearsing – someone could probably fix their microphones before the finale – although the small imperfections in the rehearsal are why they have full dress rehearsals.  Can’t wait to see the final performance!

Hair Disasters Part II, Killing Boredom and Bob Cowsill Makes Me Think Deep Thoughts

You know your hair is a disaster when you take a photo of the disastrous results and your friend – who has been cheerfully hopeful through your description of the horror – now suggests you look into a wig or extensions.  When SHE gave up on improving the style – which is to say, there wasn’t a “style” anywhere in sight - I knew there was no hope for it.

I have never worn a wig, never expected to ever wear a wig or an extension ... my hair was beautiful just the way it was, if a little straggly at the ends ... and now I was considering it, that’s how big a disaster my hair was.  I can’t imagine that one stupid salon could completely trash someone’s hair, but this one did.  This salon cut aged me 20 years, I looked so bad.  (And no, I will not post the photo here.)

If – a few years down the line – I post something stupid, like:  “I’m thinking of getting my hair styled”, I hope someone will jump online immediately and scream, “DON’T DO IT!”  Trust me, I’ll be forever grateful.

So, I bought my wig, which matched my original hair as much as we could, and I look actually unchanged and okay in it, if I can figure out how to pin it properly. How odd that I had to buy fake hair to look exactly like I did before the hair cut.  It turns out I’m allergic to the hair “cap” that holds it in place – as soon as she put that on me, my scalp started itching so badly, she had to take it off and use pins.  It is not dramatically different than my hair was before the disastrous hair “cut”, other than there are a few more highlights than I had.  I can live with that.  I know I won’t have to wear it for a very long time; once my hair grows back out again, I won’t need it.

They also said (and by “they” I mean the very nice wig lady, her daughter, and a random customer who happened to be sitting in the daughter’s hair cutting chair):  “Don’t ever take any pictures of yourself!” – they unanimously agreed I look nothing in a photo like I look in person – I’m just one of those people who take bad photos – who look good in person and look horrible in photos, I mean.

THANK YOU!!!  I already knew that, but people who thought they were being nice kept saying, “Noooo, you look fine!” while looking at photos of me.  No, I don’t.  I knew I didn’t.  Thank goodness three other people completely agree with me, and were honest enough to say, “Yeah, you look like shit in that photo!”  I felt so relieved to hear that, you have no idea.  For the longest time, I really thought I looked as bad in person as I did in photos, and if that doesn’t mess with your self-confidence, nothing will.

Rule #1 of True Friendship:  if someone looks a lot worse in a photo than they do in reality, don’t lie and say they look just the same.  All you will accomplish by doing that is messing with their self-image.  I could never figure out why I looked one way in a mirror, and like someone entirely different in a photo – in a way that had nothing to do with the face being reversed.  I just take really bad photos.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to those three people who never met me before and had nothing to lose by lying – she’d already sold me the wig, so it wasn’t like they’d lose a customer by lying.

Not only that, they all said that before they knew how I felt about the photo/selfie – their first reaction after the comment was, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” in the fear they’d offended me; I was the one who grinned from ear to ear and said, “THANK YOU!!”  And meant it from the heart, it was so nice to have people tell me the truth at last.  They were right, I take crappy photos.  After I said “Thank you!”, they all felt free to elaborate, “You don’t anything like that photo!”, and “You look at least 10 years older in this photo than you do in real life” ... it was such a relief to finally be vindicated!

The clothes that were altered look great too; I finally look OK, and I may have the courage to face my childhood crush now ... who apparently was into hiding out in tents when he was younger; don’t ask me to explain that photo, I have no idea what he was doing hiding out in a tent, or why he was suggestively inviting drooling and oh so willing readers of a teen magazine to come into it with him.  I just remember sighing dreamily over the photo scotch-taped to my wall when I was 12 and wishing he was within tent-invitational distance.

I am not betting on a surge of courage when I actually come face to face with the man, but the chances are greater that I’ll somehow find the courage to say more than “Bluh bluh bluh ergle duh ...” than I was before I fixed the hair disaster, anyway. 

But hopefully he’s used to people – who under most circumstances are outgoing, outspoken and confident - turning into blithering fools in front of him ...?  I mean, think about it:  I can face an entire class of students without blinking an eye, yet I completely fall apart at the seams at the prospect of facing Bob Cowsill?  Yes, it seems I possibly could.  Let’s face it, he’s not just anybody ... he’s (wait for the capital letters now) BOB COWSILL.  The same one I created a bewildering shrine for on my bedroom wall when I was 12.

But I was thinking last night – “Why him, of all people?” – and maybe it’s because of who I thought he was at the time when I was still 12, naïve and inexperienced:  at the time, I thought he was handsome, yes (and how!), but also intelligent, funny, thoughtful, poetic, gifted ... if you’d listened to me for all those years, since he and The Cowsills disappeared from public view, trying to answer the question, “What are you looking for in a soul mate?” – the same question you all had to sit through when I started this blog and didn’t even know he was still performing –  that’s what I had been looking for and never found - or at least not yet.  Not Bob Cowsill himself, obviously, but someone who was also handsome, intelligent, funny, thoughtful, poetic and gifted. The guys I got crushes on never lasted because they were none of those things, they were other things.  Maybe just one of those things, not all of them.  The guys who liked me unrequitedly had NONE of those things, which is why I ignored them for the most part.  Bob, in my young and inexperienced eyes at any rate, had it all.

So here was the question:  did the preference already exist before I caught sight of him for the first time, and he just seemed like he fit the bill - or is he the one whose imaginary image created the preference because he was my first crush?  Did every other guy since then have to live up to who I thought Bob Cowsill was, when I was much younger?  I say, “thought” because I never met him, talked to him, interacted with him ... maybe he was actually dumb, unfunny, incapable of deep thought, unable to rhyme two sentences sequentially without aid and not as talented as ... well, no, I can’t say he’s not musically gifted, he is.  And no, I really don’t believe he’s dumb, unfunny, etc., or any of those other things, or someone would have made mention of it by now.  Instead, everyone who has met him has said just the opposite.  He’s funny, he’s bright, he’s charming, he’s witty ... so maybe I had it right, back then.

But maybe he’s also a serious pain in the ass or something.  Maybe he is a “curmudgeon” as his sister Susan said once – although I can’t remember why she said it.  Oh yes, because he put Louise Palanker off for so long about doing the documentary, and was so unwilling to do it at first.  (And thank goodness he changed his mind about that, or I never would have rediscovered them!)  But, in all the successive years, was I looking for guys to live up to a standard of perfection that never existed in reality?

Something for me to think about, anyway.  I’m not at all sure it would change anything.  I would still search for someone who had the same qualities.  Or, if not all, at least a majority of them.

So I am now back to looking forward to the trip to New York.  I love going home ... I am always more energized when I’m home.  The city gives me energy; I feel more alive and more present when I’m there.

I’ve been practicing with a cane and took a major header into the kitchen counter.  Yeah, this is going well.  I’ve been drinking my dandelion tea with lemon and unsweetened cranberry juice ... and have no idea what it is supposed to do; I’m just stubbornly drinking it.  Purge me of toxins or something?  Increases my metabolism?  Makes me grow cranberries out of my ears?  Something useful anyway.  Well, when I find out, I’ll let you know.

And MEANWHILE ... I went back to sewing clothes again.  It took a while for me to unpack all of the fabric, patterns and sewing supplies and put them where they belonged ... but I finally started doing that again as well, while working on “Beautiful Beige” ... which is actually looking quite attractive at the moment.  At least sewing gives me something creative and productive to do ... while reading Paradise Lost and letting it percolate ... while preparing for a trip to New York ... while dealing with doctors, physical therapists and everything else.  Well, at least I’m not bored.

Return to Search for Soul Mate?

A certain harmony is possible in this world,
where man and woman, strength and weakness, unite with each other.
In the Temple Space (Aeon), the form of union is different,
although we employ the same name for it;
but there exist forms of union higher than any that can be spoken,
stronger than the greatest forces,
with the power that is their destiny.
Those who live like this are no longer separated.
They are one, beyond bodily distinction.

The Gospel of Philip, 103-104, Jean-Yves Leloup, trans.

I was glancing through previous posts and thinking that perhaps it was about time I went back to the search for a soul mate. I almost feel as though I need to start over, given how much time has passed, and given how much emotional flotsam has been kicked up in the interim. I’m not even certain the emotional flotsam has settled, but I’m trying to think positively for this coming Thursday. Which reminds me: I should try to hunt down my tape recorder.

As far The Gospel of Philip goes, I’ve enjoyed reading it. Some of it I have difficulty understanding, and I don’t fully buy into gnosticism either, but some of it I do understand, and find it beautiful. The hysteria in response to the publication of this gnostic gospel was pretty funny. You’da thunk they were afraid people might actually find it meaningful! One of my favorite objections came from a website called "the Christian alert", purporting to alert christians to the wrongness of this gospel by offering their contradictory "truths". In this case their "truth" made me burst out laughing:

"When do liberals claim it was written? 180-250 AD.

When was it really written? Biblical scholar Ben Witherington III dates it to the third century."

Needless to say, all of those silly and well-educated "liberals" who happened to stumble across this website probably spluttered coffee all over their computer screens. Anyone want to ‘alert’ these christians that 250 A.D. actually IS in the "third century"?
http://www.thechristianalert.org/index.php/Bibliography/the_gospel_of_philip

I don’t mean to imply that I bought into the whole Gospel of Philip (I didn’t), but I did love the book’s take on the union of man and woman, which was so completely the opposite of most christian philosophy it was refreshing (and opposite christian philosophers as well, if there is such a thing; I usually think of them as apologists, or squirrely men who are so terrified of women it’s pitiful.)

" ... with the power that is their destiny ..."

Loved it.

Before I can get myself mentally situated, I figured I’d return to getting the space ready again. I’d gone to some effort to prepare the bedroom all the way back in 2011, but after getting injured, and after multiple hospital stays, it had slid backwards a little bit in terms of orderliness and attractiveness. Example: while your spine is healing, you’re not all that eager to pull heavy furniture away from the wall and vacume the carpet underneath. I had venetian blinds in the windows – now, I thought it was about time to take things one step further and ordered curtains. Burgundy – to support the color scheme (if you’ll recall, I’d gone with reds/burgundys and steered clear of pinks, quite a while back).

So today I pulled the entire television cabinet away from the corner, steam-cleaned the carpet, re-situated all of the the cords, pushed it back ... all well and good, except for the monstrous leg cramps that hit me while I was down on the floor, cleaning out the inside of the cabinet.

So, here’s my thought.   Ladies would do a better job identifying with this – I’m guessing that guys for the most part have no issues with women lying under them not moving all that much – but women, if they’re engaged in what they’re doing in the bedroom, would have a real problem if, every time they used a leg muscle, it cramped up rather violently.

The medication they put me on sometimes helps eliminate the middle-of-the-night leg cramps that woke me up screaming in pain – not always, but most of the time – they do not alleviate leg cramps that happen during exercise or strenuous activity. In this instance, all I was doing was getting down on the floor, and getting back up again – it wasn’t as though I were running a marathon.

As far as sex was concerned, unless I planned to lay there like a disinterested trophy wife doing her nails in the midst of, as Sheldon Cooper would say, "coitus" (what a creepy word!) – getting past those awful leg cramps was going to be something of a problem. Was I absolutely certain I was ready to pick up the Search for a Soul Mate where I left off? More importantly, could my soul mate handle an occasional episode of me cursing like a sailor just as he’s laboring up the slopes of Mount Vesuvius?

(I can just hear some doofus muttering, "*Duh*, why duz she wanna marry a vulcanologist?" Wait. A doofus wouldn’t know a vulcanologist from a euphemism, would he? Never mind.)