Tuesday, June 21, 2011

After a fashion

There's something about a good costume drama that sucks me in every time. I'm currently fathoms deep in love with Downton Abbey, and the love affair is showing no signs of easing. Whether it's the ability to sit and gloat as Lady Mary gets thrown at any man with a suitable fortune and/or title, safe in the knowledge that I do not have to worry about such things, or the poor footman, William, being subjected to the sort of workplace bullying and victimisation that we have laws to stop these days, or from some deeper enjoyment of watching things which recreate a by-gone age - supposedly more innocent, but really just different - I don't know.

Actually, I do have some idea what part of it is. It's the costumes. I'd love to have an excuse for wearing something like the gorgeous gowns they showcase - although perhaps not the corsets required to achieve the tiny waistlines. God knows I have enough problems at the moment without adding a tendency to faint due to lack of oxygen because I've been laced too tight. Instead, I've been trying to figure out ways of updating the look, getting some of it into my own wardrobe, at least my work wardrobe, which has become surprisingly ladylike for a girl who didn't own a skirt or dress that wasn't a uniform from the age of 15 through to 19.

I hate the expression ladylike, though. Or I should, as a believer in women's rights and equality. But somehow even though I don't want to live my life in a ladylike fashion - all staying at home and looking after the children, being subservient and second class, swooning at the drop of an embroidered handkerchief - I love the concepts associated with it. My favourite periods are almost all those where women wore "ladylike" clothes, yet still managed to show that they were up to whatever task was thrown at them. The suffragettes, the flappers, Rosie riveters, they all had awesome fashion. And dear god, what does it say about me that I've reduced some of the women who pushed the boundaries of society to the dresses they wore? Ah well, tis sad but true. We are what we eat, but we're also what we wear. And what fabulous things they were.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Life in the fast lane

Just when I thought things were looking up, I figured I was safe to go out of the house heading somewhere other than work this weekend. So I spent the better part of yesterday doing the rounds of various fabric outlets, spending far more than I should have on some beautiful materials which will someday be turned into something equally beautiful. As if lugging a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff around wasn't enough to test my back out, I decided to really push my luck and play with my niece.

She's two, but she's about the size of the average four year old, a mini giant who will one day be a seriously tall one. Imagine a slightly less coherent but far more opinionated Dora the Explorer, and you're getting pretty close to the hyperactive bundle of energy that my brother helped bring into this world. Ever the optimist, I thought I'd be able to manage some of our usual games - the catch and spin, the whizzy dizzy, the throw over the shoulder, the threaten to throw in the bin. It was only the last one that made me certain it probably wasn't one of my better ideas. But there's no easy way out when your arms are full of squirming, shrieking little girl and you're standing on concrete. Not like the moment when you first began to doubt your own wisdom and simply made it more fun by dropping her on the conveniently located bed.

Not content with that, I headed out and about today, driving to various locations around town. The true lightening bolt moment of the day came as I was driving on the Ring Road, along one of the three lane stretches. Driving down the left lane, I noticed signs telling me to merge right. Checking the mirrors, I waited for a speeding car to pass me, then moved over at about the same time as the car in front of me pulled in front of the speeder. Funny, it was kind of like it happens in the movies - slow motion, obvious what the next step would be at every stage. Rather than braking, the speeder began to shift into the right lane. They didn't check their mirrors, or look out their window, even, and didn't see the car that was already in that lane until it was almost too late. With bare millimetres between the two cars, they both suddenly became aware of what was going on. The car already in the right lane swerved a little away, but the speeder, as they had done all along, completely over reacted. Braking hard and wrenching left, the driver lost control of their car. Smoke was screaming from the locked wheels as they skidded and spun across my lane and the left lane which had not yet ended. By the time they reached the emergency lane, they were facing the wrong way and started to cross back into the left lane before coming to a stop, at last.

You can imagine what braking from 100 in a hurry did to my back. Even the adrenaline kick from being so close to potential serious danger didn't stop it hurting as I watched the speeder once again getting back up to and then beyond the speed limit. The few things that I had to get at the supermarket were almost the end of me, or that's how it felt. I've been back in the horizontal position on the couch again since I got home. The pinging sensation that I felt when I got up earlier tonight make me think I'm still going to be sore tomorrow. The cars avoided damage, but I apparently did not. The car that had sparked all the drama in the first place probably hadn't even noticed what was going on, disappearing around a bend before the speeder had even finished spinning.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Baby steps

It seems that my entrepreneurial side has taken over while my mobility has been limited. Yes, that's right, the threatened back seizure happened, and I've had a week of enforced inactivity. And during that time - particularly during the long weekend that fell in that period - I've had plenty of time to mull over various things. Funny how much the mind works when the rest of you doesn't, when you need to call for help to get out of bed without almost passing out in agony - and I wish I was exaggerating that particular detail, but my mother can confirm that slightly panicked phone call that went out last Friday morning, before the lovely pain killers kicked in, before my 2 year old niece kissed me better.

During that time, I was fussing and fuming about the lost sewing time I had planned for the three day weekend. And some wheels began to turn. Slowly, yes, but then again, and avalanche starts with a trickle. It picked up a little speed tonight, though. After last night's effort on eBay buying up vintage patterns to add to what is already an extensive collection, today I registered a business name and a domain name in preparation for being able to sell the products of my efforts.

Things are really kicking off around here. I'm planning not only to make, sell and - eventually - design clothes, but I'm also plotting ways of funding travel through this. Think of it - Killi's London Blitz, a tour for fans of the wartime period in London...stopping off in Paris and Amsterdam for a couple of days as well. Now I just need to get some product to sell, some research into the whole travel issue, a website up and running, and, well, any kind of clue how to turn this into something that I don't get bored with. Hmm...But the first steps have been taken, anyway. And now I'm kind of vertical again (although not right now, thanks to heading back to work before I was really ready), I can get on with the realities of what is required. Fabric shopping this weekend. I can hardly wait to watch my hard earned flow through my fingers...

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

15 minutes

It's funny the things that can get you annoyed. Sometimes it's big things - outrage at social injustice, laws that allow on the spot fines for swearing, stripping the powers from the equal opportunities commission, arguing against a carbon tax that could help slow environmental degradation. Sometimes it's pettiness - that newspapers and magazines feel compelled to devote so many column inches to people who just happen to have won the genetic lottery. Today, apparently, it's the completely insignificant that is getting my goat.

I'm on the final stretch of the assignment run. The last one is due tomorrow, and I'm within sight of the finish line. It's so close that I allowed myself a break to watch some TV - Winners and Losers an amusing little comedy/drama about the lives of four women who win the lottery. It was supposed to start at 9, an annoying enough time to start a show in a land where hourly shows start on the half hour or thereabouts, but manageable. Or it is when Channel 7 don't run so far over time that the show is 15 minutes late. And all because of Australia's Got Talent. Australia apparently has so much talent that it can't be edited to a reasonable time slot. It's not like the show is live, folks. They're quite happy to edit other programs so they can cram in more and more ads, but this one they stretch out to make sure there is enough time to repeat the bloody phone numbers for voting lines over and over again.

So here I am, sitting on the couch again (it's a common theme lately, and clearly I've been doing it too much because my back is feeling like it's about to give up again) and silently building up an impotent rage. Because what can I do about that fact that a TV network decides not to follow it's own programming guide? And then it hits me just how pointless the whole thing is anyway, given that it doesn't affect anyone in a life and death way, and I get angry at myself for being too caught up in something so insignificant, and the cycle repeats ad nauseum until my head explodes, or I find my way onto my blog to blow off steam. I think I might just be sufficiently calm to get back to writing about teaching humanities in secondary schools...Although it's on Channel 7's head if something along these lines creeps into the section on civics and citizenship, because Australia may have talent, but Channel 7's programming department is lacking severely in the clock department.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Only the Lonely

The universe is conspiring against me at the moment. My study reading has me looking into the concept of emotional intelligence, the pressures to conform to societal norms. I'm tired, I'm emotional. And I'm listening to 'Gotta be Somebody' by Nickelback and feeling the urge to hit the repeat button and get a little teary at the thought that perhaps there may not be somebody out there for me. All of this follows a conversation with a friend on the way home from my birthday drinks about what would happen if I never found 'The One'. What if I stay single? What if Nana was right when she was telling my mother - at my birthday dinner with my family, no less; now I remember why I usually spend them overseas - that the four years I spent overseas had ruined my life. I was going to be just like a woman she had known when she was younger, who had left behind a fiance to go travelling for two years on the grand tour, only to return and find her fiance had found someone else, and she would remain a spinster for the rest of her life.

I never set much store by that story. I've heard it before, and it's only ever made me angry, that Nana was so narrow minded she thought it would be better to be married to a man who was obviously not in love with her enough to wait than to have had the wonderful, amazing, enriching experiences Mabel had while she was travelling. Nana never mentions if Mabel regrets missing 'her chance'. For all I know she led a perfectly happy and fulfilling life. The only part of it that I ever hear about is that she never married and ruined her life by travelling for so long. Just like I have done. Mind you, earlier that same night, she had only just held back from insulting me to my face. "You don't eat much, do you. You shouldn't be so --" Happy birthday to me.

And to top off the emotional fiesta that is my night, I had an email from the Talker today, just wanting clarification on what I meant by saying we should 'cool things' and offering to be friends in whatever way I was up for, whether that was just hanging out, or dating or whatever. And the mood I'm in right now, I'm tempted by it. Because even Chatty McStepford seems more appealing than spending another day, week, year, eternity sitting on this bloody couch alone.