A simple sewing project for me to play with

Useful and ornamental needlework, knitting, and netting are capable of being made, not only sources of personal gratification, but of high moral benefit, and the means of developing in surpassing loveliness and grace, some of the highest and noblest feelings of the soul. -Author unknown, from The Ladies' Work Table Book, 1845

Yeah. That's why it's perfectly okay for me to sew instead of doing my homework. It's benefiting me morally and ennobling my soul.

That's an excuse I could really get behind. "Well, I'm sorry, Dr. Mitchell, but I couldn't do your long and boring reading. I was occupied with developing some of the highest and noblest feelings of my soul."

(In a perfect world, she'd say "Oh, wonderful! Then you're exempt from the rest of the readings for the semester, and I'm giving you an A."

But we don't live in a perfect world.)

Anyway.

Last weekend was a bit of a lonely time; my roommate went home; one suitemate had her boyfriend over; the other went to see her boyfriend in New York; one friend from my hall just started dating a close friend of mine not from the hall (so they spent all their time together); one hall friend went home; one had his parents, sister, and aunt and uncle over; one had her boyfriend over; and two went out Friday and Saturday, so I didn't see much of them.

I really like being alone, but there is a limit. And passing the limit makes me feel like a sad friendless loser from high school, and that makes me unhappy, because it reminds me of actually being sad and friendless in high school. Unhappy doesn't look good on me and I possess by virtue of being a female teenager a great deal of vanity. Obviously, then, I had to do something about the whole only-person-on-this-godforsaken-hall-without-a-friend/boyfriend-visiting depressed thing.

SO. Amongst vast gobs of homework, I decided to drown my sorrows out by spending some time with my Friendly Fabric Friends. (And also by drinking hot tea and eating dark chocolate, which is a process that automatically divides any and all sorry feelings by three.) This Friendly Fabric Friend thing might call for some explanation, as fabric is not precisely easy to come by on campus--it requires a trip to Hobby Lobby, which requires money, which I don't have. Plus, Hobby Lobby closes at some decentish hour like 9, and I sew during the wee hours of the morning. No actual fabric, then. But--but but but BUT--I do have old clothes. Last time I sewed, I made a doll t-shirt from an old white cami of mine that had (it didn't turn out perfectly, mainly because I had never really sewn with knits before and it was very, very thin and stretchy, but it was good practice), but this time I felt more like making something for me.

Mainly, I just wanted to try out French seaming, and I wanted to test it out on something bigger than a doll garment. On Liberty Jane's pattern site (http://www.libertyjanepatterns.com/), there's a video posted about how to make French seams that I stumbled across while browsing aimlessly through the pretty dolly clothes.

And I fortunately had just the right test subject!

(NOTE: Photo comments are below each photo.)

This is a shirt. It is a huge and ugly shirt, and it knows it. This picture makes it look even uglier, because I ran autocorrect on it in Photoshop, and something happened, and I thought it was funny so I left it like that.

See, kind of like a tent. I wear it to bed sometimes but never anywhere else, because it's a men's XXL, and I'm a women's small or medium in t-shirts. Because it's so large it hangs awkwardly, not really long enough to be considered a nightie but obviously gigantic. Cut it some slack, though--it was on sale at J. Crew for about $5 a year ago, and that stuff's high quality. And soft.

I'm going to cut it down and make it more my size. And I'm going to tell you all about how I did that, because even though none of you probably care or need instructions, I feel the need to show off. And I like pretending to be like my favorite bloggers, with their step-by-step photos. When I was taking these photos, I even narrated the entire process aloud, pretending I was a combination of the Pioneer Woman and Lucy from Attic24.

And now you can pretend I didn't just tell you that.

So, the first step is to model Mr. XXL around a shirt that actually fits me. This pink shirt is my favorite ever, and I've had it for a long time. In light of that, please forgive the sweat stains. I would like to explain it away by saying that I wore that shirt on the day I took these photos (which is true), but they're actually permanent, mainly because besides being my favorite t-shirt in general, it was especially my favorite t-shirt to wear over my leotard at dance. So here's the good shirt over the huge shirt. I'm pinning an outline around the pink, leaving an inch or so for seam allowances.

And trying it on. Look, I have gills! A little too tight, though, so I'm letting it out another inch on all sides, and then cutting off the excess fabric. It needs to be a little loose to allow for the funny Frenchy seaming I'm going to be messing with.

See, all cut out. If you could not critique my weird pose and odd nightwear combinations here, that would be great.

This is how French seams work: first, you stitch a seam on the right side of the garment. So all the raw edges are going to be on the outside, which I know sounds completely backwards, but hang on just one more step. Here I'm using about a quarter inch seam allowance. I'm also very slightly stretching the knit as I sew the seam, which helps it lay flat and makes it less likely for the thread to break when the shirt is manhandled later in life. This was a revelation in the art of knit sewing for me.

Here's a better photo for you.

Ok, this is why you have to leave extra room for this type of seams. I'm going to turn the shirt inside-out now, and sew all the seams AGAIN, overtop the first ones. But this time I'm using about a half inch seam. Get it? The second seam is enclosing the first, putting all the edges in a neat little, raveling-proof tube. There's what it looks like from the inside.

And now it fits. :)

This step is unnecessary, but I have a completely irrational dislike for the little threads left over at the end of a seam. I think it's because I always end up with way more than any normal person, as my sewing skills are actually not that great, although they're improving with practice. Even if they're cut, the threads sprout off like those little hairs on onions, and so they need to go away, because onion hairs are nasty. So, I thread the ends (which I leave long intentionally) onto a needle, and poke it up through the tube created by the French seam, snagging the fabric a few times and taking a stitch or two to secure the tail right in the ditch of the seam, where it can be cut short without a) coming undone or b) being visible.

Look, final product! A nice, no-raw-edges seam. Nothing to tickle my ribs, nothing to unravel. These photos are, obviously, of the inside. The outside looks perfectly normal. Nice, huh?

You probably think I’m finished now. But no, because I don't need another t-shirt. I've got plenty of those. I want a nightie, goshdarnit. And to do that, I need more fabric, because the 2-inch skirt length thing is really not my style. However, this blog freaks out if I put too many pictures in one blog post, so I'm going to upload another immediately after this one, explaining the second part of this project.

Life-Brain Disconnect

Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food.

-Austin O'Malley

Not to complain about my life or anything (although I’m very good at that; it’s a college student pastime), but I have recently been pondering a certain predicament, one that’s trapping me more and more frequently. Take a quick gander at the examples below, won’t you? Then we can talk about it.

What the text says: “Then in early 1979, after a year of paralyzing strikes and demonstrations by supporters of militant Iranian Shia Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled Tehran, opening the door to the founding of an Islamic republic. As the impact of the Iranian Revolution on world oil prices began to be felt, Carter in July 1979 unveiled a comprehensive energy plan to help America Combat its overdependence on unstable Middle Eastern oil, promoting conservation, alternative fuels and higher taxes on gasoline and gas-guzzling cars….It is widely assumed that OPEC’s continued control over prices depends on whether emerging African, Caspian, and Latin American producers reject OPEC membership and create excess global supply….Mexico has overborrowed to keep production going and has more than $30 billion in pension liabilities, leaving it with a huge longstanding debt and too little money for maintaining old oil fields or finding new ones…sudden oil windfalls have also triggered what economists call the “Dutch disease”—skyrocketing currency values that depress local manufacturers’ exports and trigger huge jumps in imports. The economic paradox got its nickname from a drastic decline in economic growth in the Netherlands after natural gas was discovered there in the 1960s.

What I will retain from that after the assignment is turned in: Everything in the world is a conflict between Islam and Christianity, and I bet that Ayatollah guy is the same one Billy Joel talks about in We Didn’t Start the Fire. You know, “Ayatollah’s in Iran/Russia’s in Afghanistan”? It’s right before the end of the song, right before “Wheel of fortune, Sally Ride/heavy metal, suicide/foreign debt, homeless vets/age, crack, Bernie Goetz/hypodermics on the shore/China’s under martial law/rock and roller cola wars/I can’t take this anymore!” And that would make sense, because I think Sally Ride and heavy metal were ‘80s things. Anyway, oil prices go up and down a lot. It’s mostly because of corrupt officials. Something vague about China and Iran and that sea that has the same name as a Narnia book. And apparently that Netherlandsy, Swedeny area has exports besides, like, furniture and cross stitch. Huh.

Or what the teacher says (rather, reads off a printout from Wikipedia): The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life. Some organisms, such as most bacteria, are unicellular. Other organisms, such as humans, are multicellular. The largest known cell is an unfertilized ostrich egg cell….In cell biology, an organelle is a specialized subunit within a cell that has a specific function, and is usually separately enclosed within its own lipid bylayer. Organelles are identified by microscopy, and can also be purified by cell fractionation. There are many types of organelles, particularly in eukaryotic cells. Prokaryotes were once thought not to have organelles, but some examples have now been identified. Eukaryotes are one of the most structurally complex cell type, and sometimes include mitochondria and chloroplasts. These organelles, which have double-membranes and their own DNA, are believed to have originated from incompletely consumed or invading prokaryotic organisms, which were adopted as a part of the invaded cell. This idea is supported in the Endosymbiotic theory.

What I remember: Cells, check, we’ve all got them. Organelles are part of cells. Organelles look like jellybeans. This class is stupid.

Or what I should know: Biscuits require the oven to be at 350 degrees. And: My phone is on my dresser. And: I need to take off next Sunday, better write that on the calendar at the bookstore. And: This application is due on the 23^th.

And I recall from that: A wetter biscuit makes a better biscuit…oh, drat, did we write this temperature down last time? Sigh. What’s Memama’s number, again? And: My phone? I just had it. It’s…um…well, I checked my messages when we went to lunch, and then I remember putting it in my pocket, so the bathroom, maybe? No? Bother. And: Did I remember to write that date on the calendar? Um…no. I’ll do it tomorrow, promise! And: I swear, I just looked this due date up. The 28^rd? The 26^th? No, I’m thinking 26^th because that’s Jamie’s birthday…oh, well, I’ll look it up ONE LAST TIME and remember it this time…

Yet I can remember the names, backgrounds, exact time periods, and historical contexts of 24 dolls. I can tell you the entire history of how the English language came to be, if you’re willing to sit and listen for a day or so. I know the lyrics to hundreds if not thousands of songs. I remember precise barre combinations for ballet and pointe, and the exact jazz/lyrical/hip-hop warm-up. I can tell you the intricate details of my suitemates’ love lives, going back to first crushes, and I can tell you that one suitemate’s current boyfriend’s brother is autistic and her ex-boyfriend’s childhood dream was to be a firefighter, and I can tell you that another suitemate’s cousin’s fiancée is named Megan and comes from a large Irish family and has four older brothers who are pretty big guys with red hair.

I can recite the Gettysburg Address, the preamble to the Constitution, the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, the entire section of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which begins with “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,” much of Romeo and Juliet, nearly all of “The Highwayman,” and bits and pieces of dozens of poems. I know that the Wizard of Oz can be taken as a metaphor for populism and the gold rush and US economics in the nineteenth century. I know that Lewis’s Carroll’s real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (and L. Frank Baum’s first name, by the way, was Lyman). I know that Michelle Obama’s inauguration ballgown was designed by a young man named Jason Wu. I know by heart large portions of Alice in Wonderland, Little Women, Dancing Shoes, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Phantom Tollbooth, and plenty of other books. I am familiar with the intricate household routines, wardrobes, food choices, and ideologies of families in all countries for the past few thousand years. I know a lot about 1950s McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist.

I know a lot about North Carolina history. I know a lot about literary symbolism. I can list all the astrological signs and their characteristics (and I’m not all that fascinated by astrology), and I could tell you most fairy tales, Bible stories, and Greek/Roman myths. I know that the African-American character in Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego who helped you solve the mystery where you went into that Kimono closet and had to decode the Japanese symbols on the drawers to find out which one spelled “Rat” so you could open it and find the little gross guy who was preventing Lady Murasaki from finishing up The Tale of Genji (the world’s first novel) because he had messed with her mirrors so she couldn’t see the moon and get inspired—the character who was helping you wore green and her name was Renee.

I know exactly which dolly shoes go with which dolly outfit, and I have 115 pairs of doll shoes. I am familiar with the essentials of sewing, knitting, crocheting, tatting, embroidery, weaving, beading, scrapbooking, cross-stitching, quilling, felting, origami, dancing, creative writing, hairdressing, makeup application, photography, mental math, photoshop, moviemaking, piano playing, annotating, calligraphy, et cetera.

In eleventh grade, Ian Wright had a shirt that said “I’m a Ninja.” It was black. He wore it the day we watched Secondhand Lions in AP Language. It was a female Texas governor who said that famous quote about Ginger Rogers doing everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. Fred Astaire’s nickname for Ginger was Feathers. December 16^th was the date of our winter formal senior year of high school. When we were decorating for the homecoming dance that same year, Lauren Hollowell had on a white sweatshirt and fuzzy red socks. Jamie’s favorite princess movie was always Sleeping Beauty; Dalton’s was Snow White. Their horses are named Freckles, Sir, Astro, and Sage, although I don’t know how many they own presently. My roommate’s bloodtype is A.

Ok, now I’m tired with this inexhaustive knowledge thing. There is obviously nothing wrong with my memory. Aren’t you impressed with my memory? Say yes. Please say yes. I need you to be amazed by my impressive intellect and memory capacity. You’re impressed? Oh, good. Thank you. You have a good memory too, I can tell. Good taste in blogs, too.

So you’re probably pretty well qualified to help me answer the question currently consuming my life:

WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER IF I TURNED MY ALARM CLOCK ON OR OFF, OR MY BANKING PASSWORD, OR THAT IN ORDER TO NOT PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER, I HAVE TO WRITE THE PAPER IN ADVANCE?!?!?

It really is a mystery, I know.

A brain racking, egotistical mystery.

Maybe I should go ahead and start on those puzzle books meant to sharpen elderly minds. Heh. Oh, wait, I got one of those for Christmas, didn’t I?

Now, if I could just remember where I put it…

Sexiled, Part II*

*This post was written over a year ago, but I just found it. It's a sequel to Sexiled, Part I, which you might want to look at first as a refresher. Enjoy!

Sex is God's joke on human beings. ~Bette Davis

Especially if you're the roommate, Ms. Davis. So, to let everyone know a bit about how my sexile turned out (I've been terribly busy since, and haven't had a chance to update except for my incredibly long 16 things list), I thought I'd post.

I ended up sleeping on the floor, in the smaller classroom (my dorm has two classrooms connected to the lobby). I had my backpack, which contained a change of clothes. I had a towel, because I snuck in to the shower at 7am through Kate and Natalie's room and had known I would need to bring my towel. I had one blanket. No pillow. It was cold, for the record. I used the kitchen sink to wash my face and brush my teeth, put my towel on the floor, put my head on my clothes, put on all the socks I had with me, and curled under my blanket to try and sleep. Sleep is a bit of a misnomer, actually. My feet were too cold to sleep. So instead, I sat on my towel and listened to my iPod and thought dark, bitter thoughts towards Lora and Blake, who I'm sure were quite cuddly and cozy and nobody wants to know what else, and thought longing thoughts about my bed. Which has a comforter. And blankets. And a mattress. And things to eat and drink. And non-fluorescent lights. Siiiiiigh.

Anyway. I got up early--rarely have I ever been so happy to get up--snuck a shower in my own shower, called my family and--thank heavens--LEFT. So Saturday and half of Sunday I spent Whitevilling with my family and driving (pretty easy road, really) and such. But I had to come back eventually, and I was NOT going to spend another night on the floor, so I sent Lora a message from the hotel letting her know that I would be back Sunday night, and she messaged back saying that was fine, and I went back and intruded.

Now, I love Lora, and I like Blake pretty well. I mean, they're engaged, so I might want to at least try to like my roommate's husband-to-be, right? He's a nice guy. Shorter than me, which is a bit awkward, but then, I'm taller than two of the guys on my hall and also my boyfriend's father, so I guess it's a common occurrence. Anyway. Well, it's a little awkward to be the third party even if you like the first two parties, especially if they're having a ticklefest on Lora's bed and I'm sitting over by my desk with my headphones in, humming and staring at the wall. The room was a disaster when I got back in. Like, disaster as in there were wrappers and water bottles and rumpled stuff all over MY side of the room...I walked in and calmly started to set things to rights. They're a disaster, the pair of them. If they ever breed, they'll have the sloppiest children ever. But I digress.

The main thing that got me was that Blake didn't go anywhere on Monday. No. He stayed Sunday night. And he stayed Monday night, too. In fact, I left for Thanksgiving break before he and Lora went home. And I really didn’t appreciate that, because you can’t clean and feel as if you’re thoroughly prepared for a vacation when your roommate’s boyfriend is snoring on her bed wearing nothing but orange boxers and making you feel generally uncomfortable because your roommate is in class all the time and it’s mostly just you and The Awkward Snoring Heap. But, you know, I could deal with that, really. It’s irritating to be trying to work on your Global project while The Gooey Lovebirds talk baby talk to each other and sit all over each other. Kind of breaks your concentration, you know? But it wasn’t that big of a deal.

The shirt thing, though, that irritated me. That REALLY irritated me. Oh, you’d like an explanation of what “the shirt thing” was? I’d be more than happy to oblige.

I got back from Whiteville Sunday evening, brought my stuff in, dealt with a little awkwardness, did homework, showered, slept, awkwardly did my thing in the morning while Blake slept, went to my religious studies class, stayed for ethics, went to Elon 101, lived through the rest of the night, woke up at 7am, went to my 8am International Studies class, came back, ate breakfast, ran down the hall to Global, came back feeling intellectually stimulated as usual, walked into my darkened room, and saw a men’s collared shirt messily folded over my laptop. This confused me. Not being a man, I do not generally wear men’s clothing. However, I attributed it to the messiness of my roommate and my temporary roommate, draped the shirt over the back of my chair and, turning back to open my computer, came face-to-face with a small sculpture composed of a white button sitting atop a nickel on the corner of my desk. This confused me more. I spent several minutes pondering whether or not I had left this arrangement for myself the previous night, and after a quick survey, concluded that no, I had nothing that buttoned with a button of that size and color, and thus the button was most assuredly not mine. Granted, I like buttons as a general rule, and upon finding one lying about would probably pick it up, but, having no recollection of finding a button for quite some time, much less balancing it upon a nickel and putting it on my desk, I rejected the idea that I caused this scenario entirely.

However, I was hungry, and eventually going to Octagon for lunch seemed much more important than pondering the mystery button. I left it there, and went and got a BLT.

When I came back, Blake and Lora were sitting on her bed in the semi-darkness (Lora and Blake are big fans of keeping the blinds closed. I am a big fan of keeping them open. When Blake’s around, I usually lose.)

“Hello,” I say.

“Oh, hi!” Lora says.

Silence.

I sit down at my desk and again encounter the coin-button formation on my desk.

Blake clears his throat. “Lora told me you could sew.”

“Yes, I can.”

“So I was hoping you’d sew that button back on for me.”

Lora, with a disgusting, adoring, babying look at Blake: “I told him it didn’t matter, it’s the one at the very top. You know, the one you don’t button anyway? But he’s all fastidious and stuff, and just insisted. Soooo…I told him you probably wouldn’t mind.”

Are. You. Serious. WAIT. Seriously? Really? They make my week really awkward and then tell me to sew the stupid button back on the stupid shirt? AND PAY ME A NICKEL????

“Um, no, I don’t mind. Just, um, a minute.”

And I got out scissors and thread and a needle, and sewed it back on—at some point, they left the room—and neatly folded the shirt, slipped the nickel inside the breast pocket, and placed it on Lora’s bed. Then went to fume. It wasn’t the fact that they asked me to fix the button, that’s fine. A bit irritating that they expected it, but fine, really. But the paying me a nickel to sew on a button? A dollar, sure. I’d even take fifty cents. Actually, I wouldn’t, because there are some things you do because you’re a nice person, and you don’t require payment for those things. But a nickel? That’s like, one-fifth of a gumball. It’s far more of an insult to expect somebody to do something for a nickel than to expect them to do it out of the goodness of their heart, because it cheapens their labor significantly.

It was like the Watergate of our relationship. Buttongate. I mean, we get along now, but not exactly fantastically. She drives me nuts, frankly. And I’m still kind of resentful about that nickel.

So, the moral of this story: Do not sexile your roommate. And if you do, do not expect her to happily sew a button back on your boyfriend’s shirt. And never, never allow nickels to enter the equation.

It's Been Awhile

There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.

-Harry Crews

This post has been a long time coming. I wrote an extremely long post back in October, but never posted it. If anybody ever wants to read it, they can, but you'll have to ask me about it; I’ve decided not to post it here.

Confession: I creeped on my ex’s Facebook profile last night. I really don’t creep very often at all. Once every few months, I guess; it used to be when I was feeling down, and now it’s mostly when I’m feeling curious. Granted, he’s recently changed his privacy settings, so I legitimately had to creep this time (by signing on as my brother, who’s fb friends with him—hey, you have to have a spy somewhere, it’s a rule of feminism or something), whereas usually I just have to do a quick search for his name. New profile picture, but mostly same old, same old. He’s had a new girlfriend for some time now. It’s interesting: She looks quite similar to me. About the same height, about the same build, hair about the same length and parted in much the same way I used to part mine. Maybe that’s an egotistical observation, but it’s also true, and I’m not the only one who noticed it. My friend Kristen wanted to know what “your ex-jerk” (as opposed to hers—we all seem to have one) looked like, so I found his pics for her (that’s not creeping. That’s being cooperative for a friend. It’s different), and the first thing she said was, “She looks like you. Was he seriously that pathetic?”

I love Kristen. She has a knack for pointing these things out. (She’s also a little bit bitter about boys in general, and likes to say things like “Katherine, hon, don’t you just love to look at them [her ex and my ex] now, and look at us now? We are hot and smart and talented, and they are ugly and probably dating really pathetic people. We just win, that’s all there is to it!” Kristen is a very competitive person. But sometimes I really like her mindset.)

Back to topic. I mean, I’m certainly not saying that he did start dating what’s-her-name because she looked vaguely like me. That would be petty. I will say that he transferred his “undying” affections pretty darn quickly, and I’ll admit that that really ticked me off, and was one of the things that kept me mad for perhaps longer than I should’ve cared. But you know, really, I hope they’re very happy together. They can talk about social status and insult people and toss around racial epithets and generally act like pretentious snobs together. Maybe she likes being treated like a second-class being for being female! I sure didn’t, but, you know, to each her own. (And I refuse to believe that he’d cut out any of the above behavior. As Carrie Underwood put it in one of the best songs ever: Now you only have yourself to blame/For playing all those stupid games/You’re always going to be the same/Oh, no, you’ll never change. Seriously, listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waVCBdMI5Fg. It’s awesome.) I do apologize; that sounded a little hateful. If it wasn’t completely true, I might feel a bit ashamed of myself.

As it is, I haven’t liked Connor for a very, very long time now. It’s been…let’s see…a little over eight months since we broke up, and I stopped liking him somewhere around the two month mark (which was when I unfriended him on Facebook and shortly before he started dating the new girl). I started hating him, instead. And frankly, there was a lot to hate, even if it took me a while to see it. He was mean to me. He always, always put himself first. He flirted with other girls in front of me. He blamed me for things that weren’t my fault. He insulted my family, my college, my friends, things I cared about like dolls and dance and traditions. He was sarcastic, and while that was initially funny, sometimes it really burned. He repeatedly implied that he was smarter than I was, that his family and friends and school and lifestyle were better than mine, that he was somehow dating down. If he wasn’t getting his way, he called me names and told me I didn’t love him; if I was winning an argument, he pouted like a toddler and would throw a minor tantrum. I was less of a good North Carolinian because I thought it was great that restaurants and bars were going smoke-free, and I was somehow less of a southerner than him because I don’t have a noticeable drawl—which yes, was an insult.

Honestly, a lot of that is extremely illogical. Let’s go through some of them. Connor and I tied for the same spot in the top ten of our graduating high school class, both spoke at graduation, both were active in community programs, and both got scholarships. Throughout high school, he only received one department award, for AP Chem. In comparison, I received eight: Honors World History, Speech and Debate, Honors Civics, Honors English 10, Creative Writing II, AP Government, AP Literature, and French IV. He was on academic probation by the end of our freshman year of college, and I had a 4.0. Obviously, then, there’s no basis for him thinking he was smarter. And my family is a well-respected, long-time part of the Outer Banks community, whereas his had only moved there shortly before his birth, and frankly, is more corrosive to others than mine. So who really belongs? Only his father’s family is from North Carolina (and I’m related to that side, to boot), while both sides of my family have been in NC for well over a hundred years—I’ve done the research. So who’s more North Carolinian? His mother’s from Ohio. So, who’s more authentically Southern, really? Whose friends are out drinking tonight, not giving a thought for the future, and whose friends are having plenty of (legal) fun while still making legitimate plans for law school, med school, and grad school? (Hint: My friends are in the second category.) My college completely outranks his in just about every scholarly comparison you can find. His parents divorced while I was dating him, and the housing market crash was hard on them—both of which are horrible things, and I’m not glad they happened—but seriously, how am I in a lower class when my family is better off financially, emotionally, etc.? And lastly, I did love him, and he knew it.

But when you hear those sorts of things a lot, you almost believe them. That’s not a nice feeling. And when you’re constantly being put down, and shut down every time you disagree with your boyfriend…well, that’s not healthy. Yet somehow I managed to cover up for all of that, because he loved me, and, frankly, that was very attractive. That was new. I liked it. And he could be sweet as pie. But it’s like my Mama and my friend Kate both said: “Katherine, ALL boys can be really, really sweet when they want to be.” I’m not saying he played me, because he did care about me. But he was definitely manipulative and unkind. And I really, really didn’t want to see that, no matter how much my parents wanted to point it out to me. He made me mad—furious—but I could justify it. All couples irritate each other sometimes. They say love’s a lot of work, right? Right. I sat in my car and cried after we finally broke up, and I don’t cry much. Then I missed him for quite a while after that. He had sobbed all over the place about how we had to stay in contact, had to stay friends, he loved me so much…blah, blah, blah. And I tried to stay friends. I tried really hard. I had never done this before. He had, but he didn’t try. He called me only to cry on my shoulder about this, that, and the other. I was sympathetic, I was sweet.

Took a while before I realized that I was being used like a Kleenex.

Took a while longer before I realized I always had been, and had just been making excuses for it all along.

Yeah, I was mad. I was spitting, clawing, irrationally angry, because it seemed an awful lot like I’d been hurt and I had suffered, and it was his fault, and he came out unscathed. I was pissed. (Excuse the language, but it's true.) It’s fun to have something to be angry about, to be honest. I like angry music and making angry videos and sharing unflattering gossip about Connor. It renders your life more interesting by default. And it allowed me to get away from the fact that I was also really, really upset with myself for PUTTING UP with the put downs and the condescension and the manipulation for a year and a half, for allowing him to come between me and my family, for allowing him to get me in trouble, for allowing him that much space in my mind. That was my fault. I did that. And I’m still a bit dismayed that I let that happen. I’m smarter than that.

It’s taken until now to get over that. It was not okay. It really wasn’t. It was dumb and naïve. But we were very young. I was just seventeen when we started dating…I’ll be twenty this year, and somehow it feels as though much more than three years has passed. He was stupid. I was positively retarded. We hurt each other. But you know what? That was a long time ago, and it’s time to forgive him for being a jerk and forgive myself for being stubborn, and get over the whole thing.

And so I was happy when it came to this: I creeped on his Facebook, and I honestly didn’t feel upset. I’m not mad. I’m not really bitter. I really just don’t care. And in all honesty, I feel kind of sorry for him. Because I know better than just about anyone what an insecure, unhappy person he is, and I know that that is probably never going to change. Content, confident people don’t have to bring other people down. They don’t have to make you feel small so they can feel big. I doubt Connor will ever be a content, confident person.

But I will be, even if I’m not quite there yet.

Now, I don’t know if he ever thinks about or misses me, and I don’t really care. But I don’t miss him, or even think about him very often. I don’t care if he’s dating another girl. Seriously, whatever. Granted, if somebody brings the subject of Connor up, I think it is very enjoyable to bash him a bit. It’s recreational. But it doesn’t happen very often, and it shouldn’t happen very often. Out of sight, out of mind; it’s been a long time. But I don’t think that I should keep ignoring the fact that, honestly, we did have some good times together. I loved senior year, and it was partly because of Connor. Times change, and people change, and we both did, and that’s just the way it is. We’ll never be friends, and I don’t want to be. But I’m through being upset about the whole thing. It just takes up time and energy that could be used for better purposes. Let’s let the whole thing assume its natural place and patina as a bit of personal history.

I don’t wish him well, but I don’t wish him ill, either.

And next time, I’ll do better. Then maybe it won’t end up with this sort of post. And that would be good.

*By the way, the title of this post is the name of a Staind song; in proper English, it should be "It's Been A While," but that's not the song. I just thought it was appropriate, since a) I haven't posted in forever, and b) it's pretty much the topic of this entry. However, you don't need to listen to it, because you won't like it. And by "you," I mean Mama.

Complimentary Bits and Bobs

"There is no effect more disproportionate to its cause than the happiness bestowed by a small compliment." -Robert Brault

"The soul is healed by being with children." -Fyodor Dostoevsky

Today was a wonderful day. It's not been particularly productive academically, but I've had a lot of fun and I'm feeling very happy. And when I'm happy, I want everybody to be happy!

Which, granted, is on the difficult/impossible side. But at the very least I can resolve to give compliments more generously. Brault's right in the quote above; a small compliment does so much to improve a bad day, to put a golden note on a good day, and to give a little boost through life--mainly because an unexpected compliment doesn't only say "hey, nice shirt," or "pretty hair!" or "you're so reliable, I love that about you!" It says that the person giving the compliment bothered to notice something about you, spent a second or so thinking about specifically you, and deemed you worthy to receive their opinion, or was trying to make you feel good. That's important; it makes you feel special and included.

For example, this morning after my 8-9:40, my friend Mary Kate complimented me not on my sweater, which I'd haphazardly thrown on because I was getting dressed in the dark, and knew it to be simple and warm (necessary, since it was 45 degrees this morning), but on the color of my sweater, which I had never particularly thought about before (it's a bright royal blue). It's a little thing, but that she would notice and comment on such a thing made me smile and ratcheted my mood up a notch.

Then, about half an hour later, after a trip to Target (which wins points for quality and ease of shopping experience, but positively FAILS at actually having exactly what you want, like a phone charger that fits your phone or any fruits/vegetables at all) and a significant amount of time spent singing Taylor Swift with all the windows down, I walked into Walmart, my hair messy from the wind, and the first things I saw were two little girls. Sisters or friends, I'm not sure, but about five or six, holding hands and people-watching while their mom/whoever checked out. I happen to love little girls, still being one at heart, and so I grinned at them as I walked by. Didn't matter to me if they noticed me smiling at them or not. However, they did, and as I passed, the taller of the two tugged the other one's hand, pointed at me, and said "Look, a pretty girl!"

They can talk about how a new haircut or well-cut pair of jeans makes you feel like a million dollars all they want; personally, I don't think a better way has ever been invented to make a person feel amazing. Especially since young children tend to be brutally honest. Doesn't that sort of thing just pick you up?

So, I've decided to make an effort to drop more complimentary bits and bobs every day. (Caveat: only when I mean them, of course.) I think tomorrow I'll tell Lora how pretty her hair is, because it's something I always notice and never say anything about.

Anyway, that's about it...just me spouting off nonsense again!

On Passing Down Our Indiscretions

"Your children tell you casually years later what it would have killed you with worry to know at the time."

~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

First off, isn't that a good title? I am rather proud of it; it sounds far more academic than I have any right to sound today.

Anyway, to the point. I can’t be sure, but I strongly suspect that the quote above is very true. And I have no reason to harp on it, but Kate and Natalie and I were discussing it last night, because we do have to think about these things, eventually. We came to this conundrum: are you supposed to tell your teenage child about your indiscretions as a learning experience and then say “but you ever try it, young lady, and we WILL find out, and you’ll wish you had never been born!” or do you just ignore the whole thing and pretend you were a model of perfect behavior in your youth, or do you twist the facts slightly, with “I tried that when I was your age, and I got CAUGHT! And so will you.”?

That wouldn’t be lying on my part; every single time I do something I’m not supposed to, I DO get caught. Either I’m a horrible liar or my mother has radar; probably both. But Natalie managed to fly to and from Florida to spend a weekend with her then-boyfriend (a boy she dated for 18 months without her parents’ knowledge, by the way) without ever rousing parental suspicion. And Kate and I were her accomplices—Kate bought the plane tickets, I took her to the airport and picked her up. Speaking of Kate, she told her parents like, just last month that her boyfriend was here during exams last semester (I made the airport run that time, too). All through high school and every break, she also gets away with coming home at four or five AM and sneaking into her bedroom, which is strictly against the rules in her house. I never got away with that, either. Not ONCE. Geez. I can’t remember ever getting away with anything beyond what I just thought I was getting away with when I was little—like the time my friends and I made candles, poured hot wax on our hands, and made a “friendship oath circle,” then tried to float candles homemade of acorns, tinfoil, embroidery floss and wax in the pool. Then held Molly by her ankles while she scraped them off the pool liner. Thought we got away with it; later realized that a) the pool is right outside my parents’ window, b) we were quite loud, and c) it was oh, about ten pm, so nobody in the area was possibly asleep. We were real rebels at the age of 13, let me tell you. No way my parents didn’t figure us out—and probably had a hearty laugh about our oh-so-secret-and-arcane “ritual.” They might even have pictures. The question still stands, though: when older, should I let any younglings know that I came home past three in the morning thrice in a row despite being specifically forbidden to do so, shamelessly nicked quarters off my father’s dresser until I was 16 or so and started feeling guilty about it, and used to pin my brother to the floor, brutally yank his hair, tell him I wished he’d never been born, and then blackmail him into not telling our mother? (This is before we got older and decided to be BFFs. I’m sorry, David. I was a terrible person and I deserve for you to be higher in class rank than I was, although I am petty and despite being proud of you will probably never forgive you for it). Ok, so maybe none of that is all that scandalous. But should Natalie one day tell her kids that she totally lied to her parents about her whereabouts for several days and got away with it—after all, she’s pretty proud of the fact—or not? Oh, the dilemma! I would like to mention that I no longer contribute to such dilemmas, because I am perfect and also because these days when I stay out with a boy until four in the morning it's usually with five other girls and boys, and we're studying or singing Disney songs.

(Don't you want to live on the honors floor, too? :D We're cool like that.)

It’s all of purely academic interest, of course—I refuse to consider getting married until I’m 25, as does Kate, and Natalie should probably not marry or reproduce until she is WELL past that. But it is of interest, isn’t it? After all, we can discuss the ramifications of indoctrinating our siblings, right? It’s too late for David; he knows basically everything I’ve done in my entire life and basically everything I’ve gotten in trouble for. But when Daniel’s in upper high school or college and has a girlfriend and gives the first sign that he thinks that, since our parents will be getting older by then, he can get away with staying out till all hours of the night, will somebody say “Oh, your sister tried that, and she got in soooooo much trouble for it and also had a completely obnoxious midnight curfew that got her into even more trouble, so don’t even start with it—” or will they not want to put the idea in his head at all, since, after all, I’m perfect, and if I tested the limits on something he might get the idea that he can test them ten times worse. Actually, neither, probably. Because I’m the eldest and thus get the hardest sentence on everything, Daniel will probably be given a curfew of, oh, two o’clock. Or maybe Mama will be a sounder sleeper by then and Daddy won’t care so much since he’s a boy, and he’ll perfect the sneaking-into-the-house-even-though-the-sliding-door-makes-SO-much-noise routine and get away with it.

And then what will he tell HIS children?! The circle continues!

Feel free to ignore me; I’m in the library pretending to do homework and was remembering having this conversation with Kate and Natalie, and this is more fun than homework. And all the parts where I say I'm perfect--I'm joking, people. If I were perfect, I'd be doing my research and not blogging about such pointlessness. :)

Would you like to see an image or three about how I'm feeling towards my work right now? Oh, I knew you would! You are all such delightful people!

Have a great day; I'll be back soon!

Current Thoughts

Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

~Winnie the Pooh

• I think that ettiquette is still important, and I don't think it's at all old-fashioned or out-of-date.
• I think I haven't blogged in a really long time.
• I think that most internet message boards get way too harsh way too frequently, and it annoys me that more isn't done to restore basic civility. Why do so many people think trumpeting their freedom of speech should take precedence over basic human kindness?
• I think an open pen on an open notebook is one of the most pleasant sights in the world.
• I think Martha Stewart--or at least, her team--has some very good ideas.
• I think peole in general are far too cruel to telemarketers. Just because they're an annoyance does not mean it's okay to be unkind to them. It's their job, and they probably need that paycheck. I seriously doubt that most telemarketers get up every morning and rub their hands together at the gleeful prospect of irritating 300 families that day. Just say "No, thank you," or "Sorry, but we're not interested." Is that so hard?
• I think that everyone--everyone--should read Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Anne of Green Gables, Mary Poppins, Little Women, Roald Dahl books, and all the rest of the novels I so often find tucked into quaint displays of "unreadable," "out-of-touch" children's classics. Classics, yes. Goood reading for children, true, but also good reading for adults. And watching the movies isn't sufficient.
• I think it a terrible shame that North Carolina is cutting five days from the school calendar. At the same time, I think going to year-round schooling is ridiculous and takes academics way too far (and as a strongly academic person, I'm not saying that because I hate school or anything). Similarly, gender-segregated schooling is utterly foolish.
• I wish more guys realized that their attempts to look cool or sophisticated or funny leave them looking like major jerks.
• I think there should be a site like www.artofmanliness.com for women, and I think it tragic that such a site would suffer constant attacks from the type of feminists and "empowered" women who do not need to be ladylike or mannerly, apparently.
• I have no problem with gossip as long as it isn't malicious.
• I think that people who use their lives to comment sarcasticdally on other people's lives should a) grow up, and b) get over themselves.
• I think that one can learn a great deal from anything, provided they want to learn from it.
• I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with Barbie. Lay off.
• I think I need to make more friends now because I think I want to be the type of person who has houseguests fairly regularly when I grow up.
• I think that doll collecting and knitting should be perfectly acceptable hobbies for my age group if reading anime and blowing up computer-animated figures on a TV screen are. I really think those are far more ridiculous.
• I think teachers are horribly underpaid.
• I think adverbs and adjectives are fun, whether or not I should actually use them.
• I think dancing is more challenging than many sports.
• I think teen chick-lit should be abolished. Also MTV and all those really stupid Disney Channel shows.
• However, I think that High School Musical and Hannah Montana actually have their place in society, and I personally am very excited for the following popular things: whatever Pixar releases next, Disney's The Princess and the Frog, the sixth Harry Potter, the Lightning Thief movie, and my trip to American Girl Natick (which doesn't really fit in this list, but I'm still excited about it).
• I think many more things than this, of course, but I think I'm done for now.