Month: July 2017

Thursday Poem

Karen

After I posted  this poem by Elsa Chavez, I found this one too. It’s not my life now–Doc is my woke rock against the tide of sexist microaggressions–but this is for every shitty dude in my past, every man on the street who thinks he gets my attention. Rawr.

That Awkward Moment When He Says, “You’re So Sweet,” And All I Can Think Is: “Nah, Man. I’m a Velociraptor.”

Velociraptors and I have faces for the movies.
We have learned how to open doors: We scrape talons
across the knob, sneak out middle of the night
leave fading indent in the bed. He calls asking where I am.
I’m in your blind spot.
I’m watching heat radiate off you
as you stumble through the woods. I am attracted
to movement, meaning I only chase something when it runs.
Like a velociraptor, I will not text you back.

He kisses me like he doesn’t even know I have teeth,
like I don’t mouth his neck carotid and catastrophe.
He still thinks the parts of him I’ve swallowed are pieces
he’ll get to keep. When he looks into my eyes, I try to seem
like a warm-blooded girl, but I am a fucking velociraptor;
I trace my lineage back to birds.
He doesn’t understand how I can be so lizard-distant,
why I don’t want to kiss him outside the restaurant;
chalk it up to Cretaceous differences.

Squishy mammal boy, I don’t hunt in packs;
I have hooks for hands and very limited patience for bouquets.
If you wander into my woods, don’t be shocked when you call
and I don’t answer. Check your periph; don’t ignore that rustling.
You might have time for one last “clever girl” before you die.

Magic Realism Bot

Karen

Most of the time I think Twitter should fall on its sword for its crimes against American politics, but then I see this: a robot programmed to tweet scenarios of magical realism. In other words, AI Mad Libs. I love them. Think of the story ideas:

Maybe someday, when I’m not working on HOA paperwork in all my spare time (yes that is still going on) I could use these for quick 100-word story prompts.

Tuesday Pattern Showdown: Blaire vs Kalle

Karen

I’ve now made both the StyleArc Blaire Shirt and the Closet Case Patterns Kalle Shirt, and I have some pros and cons for each. I wish I’d seen a post like this when I was deciding which one to make, so I hope it’s helpful to someone out there.

The Blaire shirt from StyleArc


Pros:

  • Really stylish details (tiny collar and button bands, well shaped cuffs)
  • Well drafted (easiset collar stand I’ve ever set)
  • Good sleeve length
  • Fashionable square shape
  • I feel cool wearing it

Cons:

  • No back yoke
  • Hard [impossible] to hem as drafted
  • Had to re-draft the front pieces to eliminate the bottom panel/underlay action for a classic shirt look
  • “Instructions” are not for the inexperienced

Fit notes:

  • I made a straight size 10 (compared the finished garment measurements to a Madewell square shirt I have instead of really going by body measurements) and it may be a hair too big
  • Forgot to make a sway back adjustment

 

The Kalle shirt/tunic/dress from Closet Case Patterns

Pros:

  • Lots of variations and good instructions
  • Sewalong on the blog for extra hand-holding
  • Good suggestion to use bias tape on the roller coaster hem to make it easier to hem
  • Has a back yoke

Cons:

  • Collar stand is giant (a good half inch bigger than the Blaire shirt) and extremely high-set on the neck
  • Bias tape hem adds a weird weight/movement, which also makes it look a little “Becky Home Ec-y” (to be fair, I used purchased bias tape vs cutting my own–might have made a difference)
  • Sleeves are too short for my taste; sleeve bands were more of a struggle to attach than they needed to be
  • More of an oversized, shaped shirt instead of a true “square” shirt, so less of the modern Madewell vibe I was going for
  • Because of that giant high Dickensian collar, I feel less cool wearing it than one should in a shirt made of UNICORNS

Fit notes:

  • It ended up a size too small in the shoulders (I cut the 6, which was a size above my bust measurement because I wanted boxy, but I guess I have Hulk shoulders? then graded to an 8 in the waist and a 10 at the hips so I maintained the recommended ease above my body measurements)
  • Cut somewhere between view A and view B; tried to even out the side curves of the hem a little
  • Remembered to make a sway back adjustment

 

So who’s the winner? The Blaire shirt. I really wanted to love the Kalle, since I find the Closet Case blog and tutorials so useful, but something about that collar is so off. It could be that’s because the pattern uses the same piece for a band collar as it does for the collar stand, or it very well may be that I need to make a square or sloping or forward shoulder adjustment. But that’s beyond my skill set (and desire), so I’ll stick with the Blaire.

Look For The Flowers

Karen

The upper part of Millcreek Canyon is finally open so we went there for our Sunday hike…along with every Tom, Dick, and Harry (emphasis on dick: people were parking illegally, blocking traffic, not picking up after their dogs, you name it).

But look at this Zen moment I found going through photos this morning: wild rose and columbine. There’s good stuff everywhere if you look for it.

Behind me: A family with five kids and three dogs having a picnic on the only footbridge to the trail.

 

Friday Links

Karen

1. Can I interest you in Calmy Leon, a customizable relaxing music generator with a name I can’t stop saying?

2. I want what this writer is selling–a treadmill desk–because THIS IS ME and I’m only 37:

“…when a doctor says to you, “Well, your body is changing,” what she really means is that you have to eat nothing but green stuff and drink tons of water and move every second of the day, not because it will make you hot, but because it literally KEEPS YOU FROM FEELING LIKE YOU’RE DYING ALL THE TIME. Basically, if you’re oldish and you don’t want to be depressed and bloated and in serious pain around the clock, you have to pay constant attention to your daily nutritional and exercise requirements.
[…]And if you’re a writer, Jesus. I got to the point where not only did I have neck pain and headaches and achey hips IN SPITE OF regular running and yoga and strength workouts, but I couldn’t think anymore! I’d sit down to write and promptly fall asleep.”
and the results!
 “I mean, I don’t look incredible or anything, I just look like someone who doesn’t spend most of the day lying around in an extreme slouch mumbling things like, “I HATE EVERYTHING. I DON’T FEEL LIKE DOING ANYTHING, EVER.” And on bad writing days, I am soothed by the fact that, even though I didn’t manage to write a single word, I did, at the very least, move a lot. Best of all, I don’t feel like I’m dying all the time.”

Take my money, treadmill desk!!

 

July Hike

Karen1 Comment

Doc got lucky and got the 4th of July off, so we headed out of the triple-digit heat to the Uinta range about 60 miles away. Above 10,000 feet it’s only 75 degrees, with big patches of snow and the most perfect mountain lakes you can imagine.

I already want to go back–with a pool float and a chair and a day’s worth of snacks. We did a four-mile loop but it’s only about a mile through a magical forest wonderland (last pic) to get to the first lake where we can set up for the day. Who wants to join me?

“To love America is to love all Americans.”

Karen

I thought I had posted this in the long and awful lead up to the election last year, but a quick search doesn’t turn up anything. I know it’s a hard right from yesterday’s mob violence poem, but sometimes I remember WWTDLD (What Would the Dalai Lama Do?).

Happy Fourth. Enjoy my favorite take on patriotism:

Monday Poem

Karen

I’m off for the long weekend and thinking about America. I was going to post “I Hear America Singing” and make a bitter joke about “I hear America Tweeting [we are doomed]” but I remembered this instead. Sometimes you have to do the math: there’s a handful of shitty leaders for 321 million people. We the people. I the people.

I Am the People, the Mob

BY CARL SANDBURG

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.