Smokey the Magnificent

So like whoa, dude, I’m totally into steampunk all of a sudden.

What is steampunk, you ask, eyes agog, Starbucks dribbling from your open mouth onto your run-of-the-mill business suit? Steampunk, wee minions, is a… thing.

Basically it’s a nostalgic early-industrial fantasy, which eschews the intangibility of the wireless age in favour of retro-futuristic technology in the form of steam, dirigibles, cogs, gears, watch parts, keys and coils. It emphasises textures and romanticism, harking back to Victorian, Edwardian and even WWII elements of design. It’s a little bit goth, a little bit cosplay, a good deal Jules Verne/HG Wells/Leonardo da Vinci, a little bit Continental-chocolates-advertisement… it’s kinda hard to describe, but it’s neat. If you see an article of clothing in dark brown embellished with lace, tied with leather straps, embroidered with copper cogs and with a bunch of rusty keys and buckles artistically flung on it, chances are it’s steampunk.

Prolly easier if I show you. Here. This is a steampunked computer (incidentally, WANT!). This is a pleather Navigatrix steampunk jacket (would want, if it were real leather and I didn’t have shoulders like a football player). This here is a dieselpunk bodice (slightly more hardcore subgenre of steampunk; again, WANT!). And this is one of about six hundred steampunk necklaces I ogled last night, trying to find the perfect piece. I ended up convo-ing the seller about doing a custom piece similar to that design - ’s nearly my birthday.

Nor is steampunk a single unified subculture. Under the general umbrella there’s dieselpunk (grease, big manly cogs, some black), pirate steampunk (eyepatches with cogs on), Victorian steampunk, Time Traveller’s Daughter/Clockmaker’s Daughter (um, lots of clocks, not sure what the difference is), WWII bomber jacket steampunk, early explorer steampunk (pith helmets, khaki johdpurs and the like), steampunk/Gothic crossovers (uh, black with cogs)… the list goes on. Plus the type of steampunk which creates mechanical arms and wings to wear to conventions; I don’t know what they call that, but it’s expensive.

So now I can add to my never-ending list of sewing projects Long Chocolate Brown Pin-Striped Steampunk Skirt, Steampunk Vest and Steampunk arm corsets. Cool.

Right. Hair Care Feature Writer position: obtained. Singing group inaugural meeting: had. Landlord inspection: passed. Article: half done (am currently taking a break and eating a strawberry yoghurt).

My apologies for neglecting this blog during the week - it’s a case of having no time to blog due to having actual blog-worthy activities on. Well, blog-worthy by my standards, at least. I encountered a similar phenomenon back when I kept a diary, during which time my entries would go something like this:

Monday 4

The fingernail on the third finger of my left hand is splitting. It annoys me. I’m bored. We had macaroni and cheese for dinner last night. I didn’t like it. Tonight Dad is making baked potatoes. I hate baked potatoes, they’re boring.

[six pages later]

I’d better go brush my teeth. My toothbrush is only two weeks old. I like having a new toothbrush.

Riveting stuff. Then once in a blue moon I’d pen a short entry along these lines:

Wednesday 6

Went to Europe on short trip. Got mugged and spent night in police station waiting to give evidence. They gave us baked potatoes. I didn’t like them. I have to go now and brush my teeth.

You see the dilemma?

So, anyway, yes. *deep sigh* Choir practice went pretty well considering it was the first time. We dithered a lot finding music and listening to clips on YouTube, but made pretty good progress on “Down To The River”. I’m one of the surrogate altos, which at least definitively settles the question on whether I’m really a soprano or not now that I’m all growed up. I am.

I’m also pleased to report that the landlords are planning to fix our shower doors - horrible panelly things that leap out of their grooves and get stuck half-open, causing Helpdesk Man to swear violently in the nude.

So here’s a thought. Would you rather remain as you are, or have a two-inch-long visible but not hideous scar across your chin but never gain an ounce of excess squish (natural expansion being allowed for  pregnancies, acourse)?

This is perhaps a shallow question and unworthy of the philosophers among us, but I never claimed my blog would be uncontroversial.

Because sometimes, I think thoughts.

• The “It takes a village to raise a child” thing is difficult for Aspies. I like the idea of tribal living, multigenerational parenting, mothers happily breastfeeding each others’ babies and the menfolk teaching the kiddies to cut down trees. At least, I do in theory. But then I look at the “village” and realise that I wouldn’t trust most of them within ten feet of my daughter; and the thought of living amidst a conglomeration of inlaws and nuclear family and neighbors is enough to drive me to a hermitage. Plus of course, one cannot just march up to one’s mother and say “Mother, I think we should try multigenerational parenting”; her response would likely be along the lines of “Dude, I brought up my six children, you bring up your own”. Except that my mother doesn’t usually say “Dude”. Nevertheless, she would have a point.
• Surely the options cannot just be nuclear family (fragmented, unnatural, aforementioned daycare/rest home issues, lack of received wisdom and parenting help) or extended family/village (stuck in close proximity with people one may or may not like, conflict between different parenting styles, choosing a husband based largely on how well one likes his mother?)? I realise the latter is probably good for the soul in some ways, but it still seems like it’s asking for trouble. Or is that just because we’ve become too attached to individualism, and if we all lived together our sharp corners would soon be knocked off and we’d become cosy and huggable? I doubt it; cultures which do practice extended family living have their share of conflicts.

• If you were in a lift, right, and it was plummeting sixteen stories towards the ground, couldn’t you jump at the last minute and thus save yourself from messy death? Helpdesk Man roared with laughter and insulted my eddication when I suggested it, but was unable to coherently explain why it wouldn’t work - some guff about the laws of physics. Anyway, unless anyone can give me some solid evidence to the contrary I’m totally going to jump next time I’m in a plummeting lift, because at the very least it would give ne some feeling of empowerment and control over the situation. And that is not nothing.

• Could you use chicken stock instead of water when making bread? Would it be vile? I use veggie stock sometimes, but the thought of chickeny-flavoured bread is kind of intriguing.

• If you could choose, and assuming you would be good at whatever choice you picked, would you rather be a travel writer, an astronaut or a professional figure skater? (Travel writer for me, although the figure skating thing is very tempting.)
• What’s more annoying: people spelling “a lot” “alot”, or people saying “Old English” when they mean Shakespearean/Victorian/anything in between English? Does it make you want to kill? I have the perfect murder planned, you know. One takes two highly magnetic long needles, like knitting needles, inserts them into the victim’s ears (employing some light pretext, like “Hold on, this is for little Johnny’s science fair project”), and then lets go.One then removes the needles and goes on one’s merry way, no-one the wiser. Of course, it might just lobotomise the victim, in which case they’d be docilely receptive to your explanations of the finer points of English usage. This is a Good Thing.

Further thoughts cut short by the beeping of the oven timer.

As many of you know, I keep myself off hard drugs by writing for Suite101 (”Classier Than the Average Content Mill”). I am what is known as a Contributing Writer; that is, I write about any and every topic as the whim strikes me. For about a year now I’ve been wanting to be upgraded to Feature Writer, which means being put in charge of a small section/topic and having to write one blog post and one article a week in that topic. It can be a bit of a commitment, depending on how easy the topic is to write about; but it pays better, and you can still submit articles about other topics as well. So.

Unfortunately when I started Suite the topic I really wanted, Hair Care, was taken. So I ummed and aahed over a variety of not-quite-right topics and decided to apply for Wedding Style (figuring I could mostly make it about hair in any case, with a bit of cake decorating thrown in). Unfortunately Wedding Style was one of the few “layperson” topics left open, and given the number of CWs who wanted promotions but didn’t feel up to manning East European Politics or Screenwriting, the topic proved popular. So instead of picking a FW within the week, the editor spent over a year getting the topic divided into two sections - Wedding Style and Wedding Planning. (Why this took over a year, I cannot tell you. Coding weasels?) Then all we panting fervent wannabes had to submit a resume detailing our qualifications for one of these acclaimed positions.

I didn’t get it. And fair enough too - the girls who did had previously owned wedding-related businesses, if you don’t mind. What I did get were two rather enigmatic emails from the editor, sent during the night. The first said:

If you had a chance to become the Hair FW right away, would you prefer that to Weddings? Please answer ASAP because the position has just opened up.

The next, sent two hours later, said:

Catherine, I would like to thank you so much for your application to become a Wedding FW for Suite 101. I have been stunned at the number and calibre of the applicants.

You are not one of the two chosen, whose names will be announced in due course in the Home & Style section of the Writers Forums. However, I would like to offer you the position as FW for Hair if you are still willing to take it on.

Please let me know as soon as possible.

The only slight cloud on the horizon? My name isn’t Catherine.

Never being one to let trifling details like that stop me, I replied, accepting the position with great enthusiasm. Now I’m waiting to hear back… it’ll either be “Welcome to the team” or “Oops, sorry, you missed your chance, wrong email, hahaha, here’s a biscuit for your troubles”.

Any bets?

Drat. Forgot to update my blog and now my titles are all kerflooey. Anyhoo.

At a bleary 3AM on Sunday I put the final touches in my patchwork skirt. I had one of those enthusiastic “Let’s see if I can get it done by tonight” evenings which gradually turned to dogged bloody-mindedness as the hours wore on… gathering  metres and metres of fabric strips and triple-stitching them to their fellows is no doddle. But it’s done, and photos and details of the construction shall arrive later.

I was so inspired by having it done that I spent most of today working on another sewing project - an activity mat for my sister-in-law’s incipient babe. It’s a patchwork farmy theme I designed myself, and today being a public holiday I managed to make heavy inroads on five of the blocks while the snortlepig chilled out with Helpdesk Man by the fire. We then went out for dinner for a treat and the pig behaved impeccably, so I am feeling kindly disposed towards her: she may live another night.

This week’s Challenge is, ah, inspired by our landlord’s inspection on Friday morning. The challenge is simply to fake a cheery, sanitary and kempt domesticity that will peak at 9:30AM on Friday and can go to blazes thereafter. I also have our first singing practice to prepare for, an article to write, my roots to henna, Bible study homework to do and the activity mat to work on - plus, tomorrow night I’m going out with the girls to see a movie. Which makes me feel like I’m betraying my Aspie tendencies. Not to worry; I might offend someone.

Still watching The X Files. It’s starting to grow on me; the last episode had actual banter, as well as the guy who played Badger in Firefly. Does he ever play reputable characters? I wonder what it does to an actor’s psyche, playing the same typecast all the time. Does Christopher Lee catch sight of himself in the mirror and flinch?