And we're back!

It's been a crazy few weeks. I finished my Venetian Turkish Gown, and it's almost vaguely sorta kinda what I was going after. I call it a success! It took me every evening that week up until finishing sewing on the trim on the way there that afternoon, but it was a dress-like object that I had made.

Things are getting a bit better at work with real analysis projects, I had an absolutely lovely time traveling over the holiday with the Boyfriend and his brother, and life is looking up. I just found two dozen free cookbooks for the Kindle for cuisines all over the world, and that is an inspiration to get back in the danged kitchen and start playing again.

I currently have zero projects save making Holiday gifts, zero responsibilities or events or things to organize and be in charge of, and zero worries. We are heading up to Tahoe this weekend, Dicken's Fair the next, and then I'll be off visiting family for a week before a much-anticipated Chanukah/Solstice Feast with Boyfriend's parents. It's been a while since I didn't have two weeks off over the holidays from teaching, but I'll muddle through and make the best of it.

Project: Doublet and Venetian Britches

For weeks I have been working on a doublet and Venetian breeches for my boyfriend. I have learned a whole new set of skills from this including, but not limited to:

Drafting my own pattern from scratch (me, a pencil, and some newsprint. Oh, yeah!)
Modifying a drafted pattern on a fidgety human
Draping said fidgety human to make a more different kind of pattern
Sewing on shank buttons
Adding button loops
Picturing which seams need to be left open to allow the turning of a lined piece of clothing
Cartridge pleating (although never again. NEVER AGAIN.)

Skills I have not yet learned are:

Taking those patterns and making pants that allow said fidgety human to walk AND sit
Making button loops even
Making the collar meet flush in the front

 All in all, he is going to look even more fabulous than usual in his actual real outfit that isn't workout pants and a white or black shirt. I am very pleased.

My dress? I have the pieces of the lining folded up and glaring at me. I haven't sewn a single seam or cut a single piece from the actual fabric that will be seen. I have my work cut out for me this week.

Happiness

This topic has been done to death, but I've been thinking a lot about it lately. In my life, it seems that my happiness has always been negatively correlated with my financial stability. That sounds completely backwards, but bear with me. When I was in college I would only get worried when my bank account dropped below about $30. I was working two or three jobs through most of college, and I managed to have gas money and a little to spend on my hobbies (I tore it up at the $1 a yard fabric table), but that was it. It was plenty. I had a place to sleep, food to eat, and could take care of most of my immediate needs. Sure, I was heading deeper and deeper in student loan debt, but that was completely out of my life scope at the time. I was completely and absurdly content with my life as a student.

Upon graduation, I started a job as an analyst/consultant. It started out pretty awesome, but less than a year in to it I spiraled into depression from bad managers and the grind of a daily desk job. I was financially stable, making more money than I knew what to do with (well, "put it in savings and pay off loans" is what I did with it), and miserable out of my skull. The next three years were spent gearing up for my teaching career, which is still my passion, my calling, my heart, and my soul. I loved it, even when I came home angry and upset, I wanted to go to work every day. Working with kids, teaching kids, whether rock climbing or math or horseback riding fills up my heart like nothing else.

Unfortunately, it's really hard to survive while underemployed and going solo. By the end of my first year through a teacher credentialing program, I had hit financial rock bottom. I was out of savings and out of time. I had to leave my heart and soul behind to be able to pay bills. I dusted off my resume, said an awful lot of pretty things, and landed myself another analyst job where I can see my old building out my new window.

Being financially stable has its benefits, certainly. I was able to help out a couple friends who were hard up finding a stable and affordable place to live. My boyfriend and I could have easily lived on our own for much lower rent than we're paying now, but we decided it was worth more to us to help our friends. I've been paying off student and car loans, have paid off all the credit card debt I wracked up during my last few months working in education, and managed to work out a budget that kept us solvent even after my boyfriend was laid off in September. We are stable. Not flush, not able to be extravagant, but stable. It's a very comforting feeling, but it's also hollow.

I can do analysis. I'm even quite good at it at times. And I am very, very grateful to have a job at all and enjoy the privileges my life experiences and choices have lent me. I am also not happy any more. I have moments, of course. Moments with friends, moments with my boyfriend (every moment with my boyfriend, in fact), going to concerts, sewing and crafting, good times to enjoy and relish. The over-arching sense of how much I love my life had dwindled down to a dull glow instead of the raging inferno it had been for years. That inferno is beyond my reach right now no matter how much I appreciate the little things and focus on the good. My philosophy on life is "live for the future, but in the present". Right now the present is something I have to deal with until I can get to the future. My other life philosophy? "This, too, shall pass."

Edit: After writing this and thinking about it for a few days, I have found my inspiration, and I am feeling much better. The present is what I make of it, and the future is what opportunities I face. I have found my present to live in, gratefully and passionately.

Memories

Memory is a funny thing. I just read back over almost a year's worth of old journal entries from 2007. Four years ago I was still working at a job I hated, and reliving the descent into misery was strangely unmoving. What struck me was all the incredibly fun times I had with friends having house parties, going bowling, cooking for friends, watching the lunar eclipse, stumbling into my first adult (and ultimately abusive) relationship, and being so optimistic and so happy and so funny about everything that was going on. I had completely forgotten all the good things in favor of the depression that had enveloped me at the end of my tenure as an economic consultant.

Reading over my stories and reactions brings the good times back, and reading about my reactions to events is very heatening. I've lost touch with that part of myself, and that is not at all a good thing. I have not posted in that journal for over a year, and it is time to start recording the stuff that is going on again, even if there is no current audience, because I will be my future audience. I don't want to think about all the things that have happened and things I have done over the last eighteen months that I have completely forgotten about and have no way to go back and remember. Keeping a journal used to be important to me, and I will make it so again. These lost years have been good and bad, but now is it time to re-engage myself in recording my life.

I started this blog, not to keep track of daily occurances, but to record things to think about, to write essays like the ones explained here where I start with an idea and play with it until I figure something out. Or I don't. Either way. My old journal is actually really funny to read, and that side of me is not something I have tapped into recently other than an occasional Facebook update. I feel myself falling into floating through my life instead of experiencing it. The last few months have been very hard for a number of reasons, and I very much want to kick myself into being more thoughtful and more funny, and tell stories again. Stories mean so much to me, and the entry I recently read about how my major goal in life is to have stories to tell still resonates deeply. I haven't made many stories lately. I have been surrounded by a dearth of positive energy lately, so it's time to find that from within and remember how I only have power over myself and my actions and my reactions.

This thought has meandered into and back out of my head a couple times, but now I want to grab hold and act on it. I really do want to tell funny stories and have as much laughter in my life as I seem to have had in 2007 from hanging out with friends, working at he climbing gym, and generally finding the good things to focus on, but it is going to take some time and effort and not being funny at all before I can find that place in myself again.

Thanks for coming along!

Pictionary

I spent last night playing Pictionary with my boyfriend's parents. It seems like such a silly, innocuous game. Everyone draws badly and laughs at each other and occasionally comes up with something almost ridiculously clever. The more I think about it, the more fascinated I am by how a game manages to get people to spend hours sitting around a table all doing something they are really, really bad at.

In general, playing a game with someone can give you incredible insight into their personality. How do they handle setbacks? How do they handle setbacks caused by someone on their own team? On another team? Are they good or bad at losing? At winning? I've played games of all sorts with many kinds of people, and the correlation between "fun to play games with" and "quality human" is pretty high.

Most games played in America fall into two very broad categories. I'm talking "games found at Wal-Mart" not "games nerds play at scheduled Game Days that require comprehensive tracking of VPs and GPs". American games either work very hard to show you how stupid you are (Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Scattergories, etc) or are almost utterly pointless (Sorry, Go Fish, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Uno, Skipbo, etc). There are a very few non-nerd games that have something more than that, and Pictionary is one.

In most areas of life, it is wholly unacceptable to do a poor job. Pictionary is almost more fun the worse job you do. We laughed until our faces hurt all night long. There was his mother misreading "BLIMP" as "BUMP". There were the words like "ANGEL" and "CHRISTMAS TREE" that were entirely based on who could draw the fastest. There were completely unfathomable things to draw like "DETROIT LIONS" (I didn't even know which sport they played) and "ELECTION" (his brother was planning to draw and ear for "sounds like" and then draw a guy with an, well, you get the point). There were moments of impressive connection between the couples as teams such as when his brother drew "MUTE", his mother drew "INCREASE", and I drew "EXPLODE". Then there were times when no one had any idea what was going on, like when I tried to draw "ICE CHEST" and failed spectacularly. The penguin means it's COLD, dang it!

The game was close the whole time, each team drawing ahead and falling behind in turn. In the end, his parents team and ours were on the last spot, and it was time for the final round. This was when "BLIMP" was drawn, and his mother sure did draw an impressive bump. My boyfriend shouted out everything he could think of, including "zepplin" (NERD) before he got around to "blimp", but we ended up taking the day. I tried to call for a re-do, but it was over. We were declared the victors.

Having a safe place to try things out and have nothing riding on the result is rare in our culture, so I suggest healthy and frequent doses of Pictionary and Cherades for all. If nothing else, as long as you're doing it right, the laughing is excellent exercise.

Each More Beautiful Than the Last

In college, I had the opportunity to travel in Europe for a week. I'd never been outside North America before, and really only outside the USA to border towns while very closely supervised. After taking care of business in Paris with my research team, I struck out alone for the Alps. I love mountains, and this was a chance to play in some really, really incredible mountains.

My first stop on my solo journey was Chamonix in France near the Swiss border. It was shoulder season, between winter skiing and summer whatever you do in summer in the Alps. Temperature was extremely dependent on altitude. I was freezing on the Mer de Glace, the not-quite-so-giant-any-more glacier on Mont Blanc, but very warm in the Alpine Meadows where I went hiking without enough water (I survived. It's ok).

I had never seen anywhere so beautiful.

A veiw while hiking around Chamonix.

After a few days of adventures there, I took a train into Switzerland with a very delightful and very partnered pair of gentlemen, one each from England and Spain. My destination was the Jungfrau region; my next journey began in Grindelwald.

I had never seen anywhere so beautiful.

The view of Eiger out my hostel window at sunrise.

It was exponentially more beatiful than Chamonix. I was constantly stopping and staring in awe at the landscape before me. The view out my hostel window was Eiger, and I promised myself that I would climb it one day. Still working on that one. I explored there briefly before setting out on the 6 mile hike up hill to Kleine Sheidegg.

I had seen many, many places more beauitful. Oy.

The view out my hostel window at Kleine Sheidegg.

Kleine Sheidegg was thankfully a very momentary stopover, the mid-point between Grindelwald and Lauterbrunen. Setting out that morning was awesome. I'd had a hot meal, a ridiculously expensive bed in a teeny tiny hostel room, and adventures in learning German words for the genders, but the crush of tourists and crowded feel was everything I had fled when leaving Paris. Once I was on the road, everything was glorious.

Leaving Kleine Sheidegg and very happy about it.

Except my knees. Today was the downhill day. My pack was approximately 50-55lbs, and today's trail was nine miles of walking and 4000 feet of elevation loss. Most of that loss was in the last three miles. Thost last miles were a disjointed mix of pain, breathtaking scenery, constant map-checking, and pain. I was almost dilrious with how much my knees hurt. By the time I reached the last vista before descending into Lauterbrunen, all my energy was being poured into simply walking. Now utterly uninterested in anything but the path in front of me and my mental map of how much farther I had to go, I glanced up and froze.

My first view of Lauterbrunen.

To this day I have never seen anything anywhere so beautiful. Ever.

Lauterbrunen is a spot that looks like a giant (an Eiger, perhaps?) swung a sword into a hill, cleaving it in half. He stuck his hands in the middle and nudged the halves apart until there was a valley with sheer sides and a lush, flat, green bottom. All the streams that used to run over that hill? Are now crashing waterfalls every few hundred yards along the walls of the valley. These waterfalls drain into a little river that snakes through the floor with a little town nestling in its curves. Off in the distance are even more mountains, and if you look ever so closely you can see another waterfall, too big to comprehend, coursing down and out of sight.

I had many, many adventures on my journey in Europe, but that first sight of Lauterbrunen was the keystone and the focal point of the entire trip.

Facebook Birthdays

Monday was my birthday. When I got up I already had about a dozen birthday wishes on Facebook, and they kept coming all day long. The wish-bringers were people I haven't talked to in years, my closest friends, and even people I didn't think had any interest at all in me or my doings past being +1 FB friend.

It felt very, very good. Facebook is so impersonal and makes it so easy to be casual and friendly as opposed to being any sort of real friend, but getting birthday wishes from over 70 people from all parts of my past really brightened my day. I've gotten pretty bogged down in the details of life lately, not taking near as much care of myself or my friends as I should. It doesn't take thirty seconds to type out a quick birthday wish or even, "I'm thinking about you and wish you well," just because.

There are plenty of bad things about Facebook. I don't really need to enumerate those, but I think many people (including me) are so inured to the convenience of Facebook that they forget how easy it is to take a few minutes and make someone's day with a short, personal message that they are truly cared for however distantly. It's really easy to be a passive Facebook user, browsing posts and looking at pictures of my nephews and sharing funny photographs, but I want to spend more time reaching out to old friends and truly keeping in touch meaningfully.