uhhh right personal updates
Apr. 17th, 2019 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7I've been so caught up in updating fic that I haven't been writing about, y'know, the ostensible subject of this blog, which is me. But like. I mean.
There's not a ton to report, but I do exist. I had nearly gotten over the dregs of my last cold and now I've got some kind of... sinuses situation, that I'm not sure what's going on, or if it's in my chest or what. IDK, it's uncomfortable but not enough to actually even identify what the problem is.
Dude is still coughing, which puts him at about two solid months of coughing. His abs must be ripped, but. I mean, he's a skinny guy but for the record, and this is a revelation to me since I've been fat my whole life, even skinny people generally have a layer of fat under their skin that means the muscles mostly don't show unless they work out kind of a lot. So his abs are under there, but you can't see them.
So I bought a banjo last night-- I'd been mulling it over, and I decided that having played a couple of banjos I didn't like, I'd hate to order one online and discover that it was not something I liked. So. Gretsch Broadkaster it is, and she's very pretty, gratuitously pretty-- the one image I copied over here, that's on the back of the resonator, which rests against the player's abdomen when the instrument is in use, so it's completely gratuitous stealth bling, and I'm unreasonably delighted by it.
I didn't buy a guitar tuner; I wanted a banjo one, so I ordered that online, along with a plain strap because the ones at the store were all various flavors of Vintage Tapestry that I wasn't into, and I also ordered a guitar stand online because I forgot to buy one at the store. Ehhhh ecommerce, it's just easier.
I have now practiced more in two days than in the entire time I've been studying this, so. I still suck, too much even to take a simple fifteen-second video of myself playing for my Instagram stories, but I'm sort of resigned to that. I'm not going to be a brilliant banjo player. One thing that's funny is that Dude is much better at getting the notes right, but I'm way better at totally flubbing an entire passage and then mentally counting it out and hopping back in to the next passage on the right timing. And his picking is vastly superior to mine, but I can correctly identify what the backing chords ought to be for a song, even when we haven't been taught them, and point out when the chord changes should come-- the problem is, though, I can't teach them to him, because I'm not very good so I can't play them properly. I can identify them, though, I'll cling to that!
I've been sewing a little too-- no progress on the hexies, but I have been mending an expensive pair of work pants that Farmsister bought, suckered by the "by women for women" hype, which immediately tore because of a massive design flaw. (1: 3% elastane, that is an ENORMOUS percentage of elastane which has 0 abrasion resistance and very little strength; that's 100% there for pure fashion, and 2: a special Secure Pocket with a zipper so your phone won't fall out, which is fine, except that the pocket is fashioned of a non-stretch fabric, sewn directly to the stretchy outer fabric, with a seam ending right in the middle of a butt-cheek.) So my sister, who is a size 8 and has Flat White Girl Lack-Of-Ass, tore straight through the butt cheek of these pants the first week she wore them, just by bending over. She hadn't even been doing any bending work in them, she just tried to catch a chicken and her whole ass was out. Not Impressed, she wrote to the company, which immediately sent her a replacement pair-- which tore in exactly the same place the third time she put them on, while she was doing nothing more strenuous than putting them on!!
So I took the first pair (which they didn't want sent back), and ripped off the non-stretch panel of pocket-- which means the zipper is now just an ass-ventilator, but at least it's at the top of the ass and has a placket behind-- and then cut a hunk out of a pair of stretch jeans someone gave me with the inner thighs worn through-- because even 1% elastane or lycra means your jeans are gonna blow the fuck out in the inner thighs after like three months, that's what spandex is for-- and slapped it over the massive rent and have now spent forever backstitching it down.
It's sad, because the lack of serious work clothing intended for woman-sized-people to wear is a genuine problem, but I have to say this company doesn't seem like they've got any idea of what the fuck they're doing. 3% elastane in your "canvas" pants. And a non-stretch panel sewed behind the stretch fabric, like that's not... a violation of all common sense of tailoring?
I'm probably going to replace that with a free-floating bag pocket, if I've got the time. That would have been no problem! Non-stretch is no problem if it's not actually sewn directly to the stretch fabric, in a high-stress spot! I am nobody and I fucking know that, who the fuck is designing these and doesn't know that?
(I did catch in the marketing copy that their founder is their fit model and wears a size 4, so like clearly they've got no idea what a normal-sized human's body is going to do, but I daresay that a flat-assed size 8 is not that far off from their fit model, and Lord only knows how a woman or other curvy-shaped person with an actual booty would fare.) (Lest you think I'm skinny-shaming my sister or something, I also have a Flat White Girl Ass, it is perfectly possible to have those even well up into plus sizes. I have a lot going on back there, it's just flat as hell. And that's fine. i'm not, like, upset. I just get super weirded out when pants expect me to have even less. There's already not a whole lot happening there! What the fuck is your fit model doing?)
Just fucking sell leggings and be done with it.
They've sent her another pair, this time in the Premium Denim With Kevlar In It... which also has 1% elastane, and Sister confirms, also has the non-stretch pocket layer sewn down with a hemline straight across the stress point of the asscheek.
I give them two weeks; these might last long enough to get washed once.
(For comparison, Farmsister has gotten over ten years apiece out of two different pairs of men's Carhartts, and one of them went down to getting actually cut with an implement rather than wearing through. She generally tends to go through the knees and front thigh areas of her pants first, then the areas around the back pockets; her butt's not that high-stress a point.)
Anyhoo. Have not really surfaced yet from Goblin Emperor fic but I have a whole bunch of Solarpunk Mammoths ideas that are roiling around in there and I'm actually pretty psyched at how well this avoidance-by-writing-a-different-novel technique seems to have worked. So we'll see long-term how I feel about it, but. That's me.
There's not a ton to report, but I do exist. I had nearly gotten over the dregs of my last cold and now I've got some kind of... sinuses situation, that I'm not sure what's going on, or if it's in my chest or what. IDK, it's uncomfortable but not enough to actually even identify what the problem is.
Dude is still coughing, which puts him at about two solid months of coughing. His abs must be ripped, but. I mean, he's a skinny guy but for the record, and this is a revelation to me since I've been fat my whole life, even skinny people generally have a layer of fat under their skin that means the muscles mostly don't show unless they work out kind of a lot. So his abs are under there, but you can't see them.
So I bought a banjo last night-- I'd been mulling it over, and I decided that having played a couple of banjos I didn't like, I'd hate to order one online and discover that it was not something I liked. So. Gretsch Broadkaster it is, and she's very pretty, gratuitously pretty-- the one image I copied over here, that's on the back of the resonator, which rests against the player's abdomen when the instrument is in use, so it's completely gratuitous stealth bling, and I'm unreasonably delighted by it.
I didn't buy a guitar tuner; I wanted a banjo one, so I ordered that online, along with a plain strap because the ones at the store were all various flavors of Vintage Tapestry that I wasn't into, and I also ordered a guitar stand online because I forgot to buy one at the store. Ehhhh ecommerce, it's just easier.
I have now practiced more in two days than in the entire time I've been studying this, so. I still suck, too much even to take a simple fifteen-second video of myself playing for my Instagram stories, but I'm sort of resigned to that. I'm not going to be a brilliant banjo player. One thing that's funny is that Dude is much better at getting the notes right, but I'm way better at totally flubbing an entire passage and then mentally counting it out and hopping back in to the next passage on the right timing. And his picking is vastly superior to mine, but I can correctly identify what the backing chords ought to be for a song, even when we haven't been taught them, and point out when the chord changes should come-- the problem is, though, I can't teach them to him, because I'm not very good so I can't play them properly. I can identify them, though, I'll cling to that!
I've been sewing a little too-- no progress on the hexies, but I have been mending an expensive pair of work pants that Farmsister bought, suckered by the "by women for women" hype, which immediately tore because of a massive design flaw. (1: 3% elastane, that is an ENORMOUS percentage of elastane which has 0 abrasion resistance and very little strength; that's 100% there for pure fashion, and 2: a special Secure Pocket with a zipper so your phone won't fall out, which is fine, except that the pocket is fashioned of a non-stretch fabric, sewn directly to the stretchy outer fabric, with a seam ending right in the middle of a butt-cheek.) So my sister, who is a size 8 and has Flat White Girl Lack-Of-Ass, tore straight through the butt cheek of these pants the first week she wore them, just by bending over. She hadn't even been doing any bending work in them, she just tried to catch a chicken and her whole ass was out. Not Impressed, she wrote to the company, which immediately sent her a replacement pair-- which tore in exactly the same place the third time she put them on, while she was doing nothing more strenuous than putting them on!!
So I took the first pair (which they didn't want sent back), and ripped off the non-stretch panel of pocket-- which means the zipper is now just an ass-ventilator, but at least it's at the top of the ass and has a placket behind-- and then cut a hunk out of a pair of stretch jeans someone gave me with the inner thighs worn through-- because even 1% elastane or lycra means your jeans are gonna blow the fuck out in the inner thighs after like three months, that's what spandex is for-- and slapped it over the massive rent and have now spent forever backstitching it down.
It's sad, because the lack of serious work clothing intended for woman-sized-people to wear is a genuine problem, but I have to say this company doesn't seem like they've got any idea of what the fuck they're doing. 3% elastane in your "canvas" pants. And a non-stretch panel sewed behind the stretch fabric, like that's not... a violation of all common sense of tailoring?
I'm probably going to replace that with a free-floating bag pocket, if I've got the time. That would have been no problem! Non-stretch is no problem if it's not actually sewn directly to the stretch fabric, in a high-stress spot! I am nobody and I fucking know that, who the fuck is designing these and doesn't know that?
(I did catch in the marketing copy that their founder is their fit model and wears a size 4, so like clearly they've got no idea what a normal-sized human's body is going to do, but I daresay that a flat-assed size 8 is not that far off from their fit model, and Lord only knows how a woman or other curvy-shaped person with an actual booty would fare.) (Lest you think I'm skinny-shaming my sister or something, I also have a Flat White Girl Ass, it is perfectly possible to have those even well up into plus sizes. I have a lot going on back there, it's just flat as hell. And that's fine. i'm not, like, upset. I just get super weirded out when pants expect me to have even less. There's already not a whole lot happening there! What the fuck is your fit model doing?)
Just fucking sell leggings and be done with it.
They've sent her another pair, this time in the Premium Denim With Kevlar In It... which also has 1% elastane, and Sister confirms, also has the non-stretch pocket layer sewn down with a hemline straight across the stress point of the asscheek.
I give them two weeks; these might last long enough to get washed once.
(For comparison, Farmsister has gotten over ten years apiece out of two different pairs of men's Carhartts, and one of them went down to getting actually cut with an implement rather than wearing through. She generally tends to go through the knees and front thigh areas of her pants first, then the areas around the back pockets; her butt's not that high-stress a point.)
Anyhoo. Have not really surfaced yet from Goblin Emperor fic but I have a whole bunch of Solarpunk Mammoths ideas that are roiling around in there and I'm actually pretty psyched at how well this avoidance-by-writing-a-different-novel technique seems to have worked. So we'll see long-term how I feel about it, but. That's me.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-18 11:27 am (UTC)But they're durable as hell and I haven't managed to split them by wearing them despite the fact that they are too small. I just unbutton them and the zipper stays zipped which is some kind of sorcery I've never seen before. They are like, straight up thick canvas, I feel like I'm wearing a canvas tarp or something. My only complaint is that they are kind of difficult to pull down to go to the bathroom. I might mention it next time I wander over to the farm.
Yay banjo!
no subject
Date: 2019-04-18 11:53 am (UTC)Oh I have like. A button-extender thing somewhere, I should find it. It's literally just a button that has a loop to one side of it, so you put the actual pants button through the loop and then the button goes where the pants button was supposed to, and it keeps your slightly-too-small pants from unzipping. My size issue was too extreme to be fixed by it, though, so I've never used it.
(Annie has a major case of being two different sizes depending on proximity to winter; her late-summer figure is much smaller. It's kind of funny.)
Oh I got my bare root plants and stuff, I've got black cohosh and wild ginger in the fridge to take to the farm with me now! I'm excited, but the new deer fence means a lot of the area I was going to plant around the yurt might be fencey stuff now instead, so I have to re-evaluate where I can put my plant babies.
I also got not-bare-root madder, so in two to three years I'll be All Set to do natural dyes, lol.
I'm going to the farm next week, after Easter, and I hope I can get the yurt set up and the flax planted, though I'm not sure where they're at with that. I saw you broadcasted yours; I wanted to try to do rows so I could manage the weeding a little better and it would fit in better with the flower garden I think it's going next to, but I'm not sure. I have no experience in planting a lot of something, like that, but fortunately, I've got the A team, LOL.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-19 03:46 pm (UTC)