How to Talk to Girls

Today, as I surreptitiously searched the internet for pictures of what the Obama women were wearing, I felt a little uncomfortable. I was at work, and couldn't watch the inauguration, so I was listening to it on NPR and I was just DYING to see Michelle's new bangs. Michelle Obama is so much more than the gown she wore to the inauguration (Jason Wu!) and yet that's one of the first things I wanted to see.

I rarely give a damn about what the men are wearing, and it's not just because I prefer women. Men's clothing hasn't changed much in the last 50 or so years. Sure, the lapels get wider, the ties get skinnier, and sometimes there's a different color shirt, but really - who cares?  Once in a while you'll see something outrageous on the runway - a MAN wearing a DRESS (SHOCKER) for example. But that rarely has a trickle-down effect.

Women's clothing is infinitely variable, and driven, I would wager, almost entirely by the garment industry. (Here I'm drawing almost entirely on the Costume History class that I took almost 20 years ago and didn't exactly ace) But fashion used to be driven primarily by function - so, especially in peasant or servant classes, the clothing changed very little over hundreds of years.

But despite my own interest in fashion - and it's that of a witness, certainly not as a participant - I'm really not comfortable with how quickly and easily it reduces women to how they look. And where I find this especially disturbing is in the effect it has on little girls.


I happened upon this interesting article on HuffPost today - it was written almost two years ago - and it neatly sums up that challenge.

I find myself doing this - talking to little girls about how they look. She's right, it's the standard icebreaker. Little girls, for the most part, think a lot about what they are wearing. I've seen this manifest in absolutely awesome ways - one of my nieces went out wearing jeans, a tutu, a t-shirt, sparkly shoes, and a mismatched cardigan a few years ago. I was jealous! She so clearly put on what she felt like wearing, and I found myself wishing I could do the same. But at some point, that unself-conscious dressing for oneself becomes dressing for other people.

And that's where it all breaks down for me. I know I'm about to sound like a RAVING liberal (hide your children! You don't want them thinking!) but when we reduce conversations with women and girls to what they are wearing, not only do we diminish them, we also miss out on the opportunity to talk to them about what they're thinking.

I'm thinking about this even more because I have nieces who are nearing those dangerous ages - ages when they become all-consumed with their bodies and their looks. I have one niece especially who is really struggling right now - whether she realizes it or not. She's dangerously consumed with appearing sexy. And I can't help but wonder how things could have been different for her. Are the messages of the media so pervasive that no amount of parenting can prevent a child from this kind of self-hate?

I got a review the other day from a woman who was very upset that the writing on something she ordered was hot pink instead of red, as she thought it would be. She said she wouldn't give it to her sons because it had pink writing on it. I've read other reviews from people upset that a heart-shaped charm on a new baby ornament was PINK on a BOY ornament. It made me wonder - do boys really naturally not like pink? Do girls really naturally like pink? Or, when a girl sees pink and wants pink, do we ooh and ahh and encourage her with pink feathers and tiaras and tutus and bedspreads and socks and sequins? And when a boy sees pink and wants pink, do we tell him "pink is for girls" and hand him a red and yellow truck?

I could get really off-topic here, and start talking about the psychology of color, but I'll save that for another post. For now, I'll continue to wonder if my obsession with Project Runway enables a society in which women will continue to be judged on their looks, and men will continue to be judged on their ideas.

Holiday Dressing

I still don't know what to wear to the holiday party on Saturday. I always think I am going to come up with something bold and fabulous and jaw-dropping and then ... I don't. I also always think that I am going to lose weight, and get highlights, and whiten my teeth, and get a pedicure. Then I get really anxious about the fact that I don't weigh 120 pounds and I don't have white teeth and, on one toe, I still have the remnants of toenail polish from my last pedicure in July. 

I'll probably panic the entire week about it, spend all day Saturday throwing clothes and fabric and jewelry around, then break down crying about an hour before we are supposed to leave and decide not to go. Jules will get fed up, pull something out of the closet, and tell me to put it on. I'll argue with her about not having the right underwear, shoes, or eyeshadow until she tells me that she's leaving in an hour with or without me. 

I'll spend the next hour working on my makeup and hair, change clothes, shoes, and jewelry three more times, and try to cram every jewelry item I own, four lipsticks, a spare pair of shoes, and a bottle of wine into my purse. Jules will point out that they will have booze at the party, that I don't need a spare pair of shoes, and that I have a perfectly lovely wristlet that I bought for the express purpose of "going out" - a phrase she will have to explain to me - and that it has room for some cash, one lipstick, and my ID. Since I have never been in a situation where I think I can get by with  some cash, one lipstick, and my ID, said wristlet still has the tags on it.

(I once read something that said you should be wary of girls who carry big purses. Girls with a big purses think they always need to be prepared for everything because they are completely incapable of knowing in the morning what they might do or where they might go that day, and why would you want to be involved with that kind of chaos? I tried not to take it personally and cleaned out my purse the next day... but really, if a purse isn't big enough to carry a knitting project or two, what's the point?)  

After cramming two lipsticks, a lipliner, a compact, eye drops, my ID, my phone, some cash, ibuprofen, gum, and an instant coffee packet into the wristlet, I will try to convince Jules that we need to stop at Macy’s on the way so I can buy a different wristlet. She will, rightly, object. I will change clothes three more times while scheming how to get my knitting bag, a spare pair of shoes, and my Kindle into the car without Jules noticing.

Five minutes before we leave, Jules will dampen and comb her hair, brush her teeth, and throw on a sweater.
She will be hit on five times before we even get to the party.

Maybe I should just start drinking now. 

The Bathroom Post

Remember when, oh, a year ago, I said I was going to reno the bathroom?

Remember how I kept promising pictures of the finished product?

Remember The Saga of the Arch? You don't? OH. That's because I never blogged about it.


The Saga of the Arch
I hate medicine cabinets. I think they are incredibly ugly and just barely functional. I heard a rumor once about a functional and attractive medicine cabinet, but I don't believe it. So I ripped ours out, and decided to build a niche in its place. An ARCHED niche.

Hole left by medicine cabinet

using enormous knitting needles
to hold the arch shape

Framing out the shelves

It's so much harder than you think, unless you've done it, and also have more than the rudimentary carpentry skills that I have taught myself by trial and error (mostly error).

Also, and I don't know if you knew this, but - almost nothing in a house is ever really square.

using drywall tape

LOTS of drywall tape

to fill in the gaps

And if you're me, and are using a handsaw and a mitre box to cut your pieces, they're never, ever, ever going to fit into the not-square hole left by the medicine cabinet. So you just keep adding drywall tape and joint compound and drywall and little scraps of paint stirrers to fill in all the gaps and holes. and you just keep covering it with more drywall tape and joint compound.














And it's not square,
and it's not level,
and it's not flush with the plane of the wall. But at some point, you are tired of sanding, and plastering, and cursing, and you decide that you are DONE. DONE, I tell you!



And after you've decided that you are done, you STILL have to texture it, prime it, and paint it.




And after three or four months, you decide that it's kind of okay that the curve of the arch isn't exactly what you wish it was, and that the texture really does kind of match the texture on the rest of the walls, and that you might not notice so much that the shelves aren't perfect, and you might put some sweet little painted terra cotta birds in the tiny shelf that you realized afterwards wasn't really the right size for ANYTHING, and then really, really love the niche.



And then you realize that you have no storage in the bathroom.






So you buy two slightly damaged narrow kitchen cabinets in the clearance aisle at Lowe's, paint them black, connect them with some scraps of MDF and lots of screws and glue, and then realize that they are not going to screw into the studs on the wall. Ever.


So you go back to Lowe's, buy some 1x4, cut three pieces to span the studs, mitre the ends to make it look somewhat intentional or architecturally interesting or ANYTHING other than what it is, paint it back, screw it into the studs, and then screw the cabinets into the 1x4.





Don't look too closely, you will see EVERYTHING I did wrong, and also, everything else I did wrong.
But!

Cabinet!

With doors! 

Here's a wider shot with the light I hung. I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of installing that vanity light!!! I only almost electrocuted myself once.

(OH. You want to know about the "almost electrocuting"? Okay. FINE.)


You know how you're supposed to turn off the electricity before you do anything with lights? Well, so do I, but Jules was working from home that day and was right in the middle of something, so I had to wait. No problem. I'd ripped out the old, ugly light bar weeks earlier, and pulled off the mounting bracket. I wanted to see where I needed to hang the new mounting bracket and light and make sure it was centered and level. I figured I didn't need to disconnect the power for this step.

Unfortunately, I forgot that the outlet box STILL HAS ELECTRICITY RUNNING THROUGH IT and that there was a thick copper grounding wire hanging from the new light fixture. When I lifted the fixture to the wall, the copper wire scraped against the outlet box, shooting sparks everywhere and killing the circuit.

The smell was awful and, once I realized that I hadn't electrocuted myself, I shakily climbed down -- yeah, I forgot to mention that I was balancing precariously on the granite countertop -- and flipped the circuit back before Jules noticed that the power was out. Good thing she's wireless.


(Oh. Crap. But she also reads this blog. Sorry, babe. But look! No electrocution here, no sirree!)

So, that's the bathroom. It's not finished. I had planned to put up crown moulding and install a nice brushed nickel curtain rod with a nice shower curtain, and I was going to put a glass shelf under the arch, and I was going to paint the sink cabinet black and change the faucet, and do some kind of fancy thing to the switchplates with silver leaf and texture paint .

But I probably won't do any of that, because we're talking seriously about moving. So I figured I needed to post and brag (???!!!) while it was still slightly relevant.