He said

Last Saturday evening I went to a contra dance. I changed into a skirt but kept the shirt I'd worn to work– a plain old unisex cotton t-shirt with an image of a cupcake on the front.¹ The cupcake has a single candle and First Night Austin written on top. During the break, a middle-aged man approached me, staring at my chest, and said "Hey, cupcake." Then "Haha, I bet you're tired of hearing that," and then an attempt to start a conversation– his name, my name, do I regularly attend BIDA dances, etc. I was minimally polite, but disengaged as quickly as I felt I could.

Rape culture says: Don't wear that shirt any more. It's too tight; it draws attention to your breasts, which are too big anyway.
Feminism says: That interaction was not okay. His inappropriate behavior was not your fault. You shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable like that, ever, and screw you rape culture anyway.

I hate the fact that, though I've been consciously, intentionally living and thinking about feminism for longer than I can remember, the voice of rape culture is still the stronger of the two in my mind, and sooner to speak.  

¹I still have to remind myself that it's because of rape culture that I even want to write that this shirt is shapeless and high-necked. Insisting that I wasn't inviting attention is just another way of saying that some women are, and "inviting attention" is just another way of saying "asking for it." No one is ever asking for it.

self-experimentation, sloppily

In theory, I'm going to be vegan for the month of February. What this is going to mean in practice is: not actually vegan. But I'm writing it down here for the record, and in an attempt to cement it in my own mind.

So, the exceptions, which I suspect will be embarrassingly legion:

I'll quote a woman paraphrased in an old NYT article that was quoted in an old Feministe/Yes Means Yes post by Jill Filipovic to suggest a reinterpretation of the NYT article's argument that aligns with something Emily of The Dirty Normal says insistently and often. (Basically, you should go read all of them instead.)

For women, “being desired is the orgasm,”... it is, in her vision, at once the thing craved and the spark of craving. 

Filipovic asserts "that when women are raised in a culture...that positions the female body as an object of desire, and that emphasizes that being desired is the height of female achievement, women will see sex as a process primarily centered on male attraction to women, and will get off more on being wanted than on wanting," which rings true to me. The achievement, and thus the focus of satisfaction, is in succeeding at the process that the thoroughly-inculcated American woman knows she's supposed to care about: making a (male) partner desirous, and then satisfying that desire. Not exactly a reassuring insight for a bicycle-eschewing fishy sort of feminist. Can't I make myself feel good autonomously, rather than relying on someone else's response?

I also think there's another, perhaps less discouraging interpretation, though: A partner's desire as "the spark of craving"? That isn't a description of narcissism. That's a description of responsive desire.


References, somewhat shoddily
"What Do Women Want?" by Daniel Bergner, published in NYT Magazine 22 Jan 2009. Quoted in "Shorter NYTimes: Girl-parts are weird, girl-brains are weirder" by Jill Filipovic, published on Yes Means Yes blog on 27 Jan 2009. First quote in my entry from second paragraph of second blockquote in Filipovic's essay; second quote from the paragraph directly following the blockquote.

spring fever

My sewing skills waver somewhere between "astonishingly poor" and "pathetic." I shouldn't be so surprised, since I've had at least sixteen years in which to absorb the causal relationship between practice and improvement. I'm a good knitter because I knit almost every day; I've become a better weaver since working in a weaving studio four days a week; I'm a poor seamstress because I sew sporadically, never for more than a couple of weeks at a stretch, and with years passing between each flirtation with my mother's sewing machine. Each single-minded jag only adds to the pile of valiant attempts at skirts and dresses in varying stages of (in)completion tucked away in a drawer in Austin, awaiting either an extended stay at home or my acquisition of a sewing machine– and apartment– of my own. (Both scenarios look, for now, equally unlikely.) Lacking access to my jumble of accumulated fabric and patterns, this year's bout of spring sewing fever sent me rummaging through the weavery's fabric closet in search of inspiration– preferably for something small, easy, and inconsequential.

Straight seams are still almost beyond my abilities, but I figure they're a good place to start practicing. So I made some napkins out of an old curtain. The fabric is a bit twee and probably not very absorbent; the seams meander over the hems, which form gently undulating waves; the mitered corners are definitively trapezoidal. I'm proud of them, and determined to keep sewing until I improve... or run out of steam.

hello, gorgeous

Thanks to the Pocket Linguist's heroic efforts, this little darling was waiting for me when I returned from NEFFA. It's a two-year-old, third-hand Kromski Sonata, bought off Ravelry from a woman in waaay upstate New York. Not pictured: the jumbo flyer, jumbo bobbin, fast flyer, three more regular bobbins, carrying bag (excellent turtle disguise), or the pound and a half of fiber Marjorie sent along with the wheel.

Verdict so far? It's amazing, and I don't regret buying it without having spun on a Sonata before. (I had tried a Minstrel and felt kind of enh about it.) It's comfortably tall so I don't hunch over, but folds up plenty small– the carrying case is needlessly large, I think, but conveniently so if you want to stuff extras in with the wheel. I do need to get some oil for it, as the bobbins got quite noisy and the treadles a bit squeaky after a while.

I spun up a bit of test yarn out of domestic wool roving (chain plying: harder than you think!), then managed ~3 oz Ashland Bay 50/50 merino/silk in Sea Mist (shown) and 4 oz Squoosh 70/30 superwash merino/alpaca in Eire before moving out. Until September, it's back to spindles, knitting needles, basket reed, and my loom... I guess I might be able to keep myself occupied.

when life gives you lemons...

...a whole whack of them (technical unit of measure), organic, for $3...



make lemon tart!

I used Dorie Greenspan's recipe in Baking: from my home to yours, which is virtually indistinguishable from the one posted by smitten kitchen here. The differences are these: Dorie calls for two egg yolks, not one, and substitutes 1/2 c heavy cream for 1/4 c of the butter. That quarter cup more liquid may have been responsible for the overflow I experienced; I had to siphon off some of the filling to use just as lemon curd (oh, the tragedy).

My father's sister has a dedication to lemons that encompasses more than their bright taste and cheering scent. She has a lemon-printed jacket and lemon-themed tote bags, lemon soap dishes and – somewhat impractically – lemon-shaped soap. Last summer I made lemon-blueberry pound cake when we visited her. And always, every time we traipse up North or she flits down South, we make Loukie Werle's lemon pasta. She generally squeezes on a bit more lemon.

separation anxiety

Will somebody tell me that this is madness? Exhibit one:

(L-R: Two skeins of Colinette Jitterbug, Dream in Color Smooshy, two skeins of Malabrigo Sock, and some handspun superwash BFL lurking at the bottom)

That is enough sock yarn for six pairs of socks, only two of which are intended to be plain old-plain old – and of those two, one pair is slated to be weirdly constructed and requiring of squinting at computer screens. I am absolutely not capable of knitting six pairs of socks in four months, people, and yet I am sorely tempted to cram all of that into my suitcase. Yes, in addition to a pair of socks in progress, two pairs of fingerless gloves in progress, a sweater that has been in progress twice so far (stupid gauge), two pairs of fingerless gloves-to-be, and a spinning project. I have classes! And more sock yarn already at school! Alack, alas, how can I choose?

(Lest you think that is the extent of my madness, allow me to assure you that my sock yarn stash is rather larger than that – remember, sock yarn doesn't count. The photo represents only that yarn which I felt most compelled to pack, least rationally.)