I was reading in "Daughters in my Kingdom," yesterday, and found what is probably the best Brigham Young quote I have ever read or heard of:
"I call upon my sisters to...create your own fashions, and make your clothing to please yourselves independent of outside influences."
!!!
I think this is license to dress however I want (as long as it is modest, of course). I used to wear truly outlandish things when I was in high school and college, but felt the need to tone it down after I graduated and entered the job market. I kind of miss it. Wearing weird things, I mean. I don't miss the job market.
If I had my choice, I would wear this kind of stuff all the time, including to church. May I draw your attention to the Gaza and Syrian dresses.
When I write about stuff I care about, like the Right of Return or Spinning Wheels, no one feels the need to weigh in.
And yet when I write about what is - in my opinion - something that doesn't even matter at all (cough sports cough) - my blog suddenly becomes very popular for a day or two.
By this logic, if I want my blog to become wildly popular I need to start writing about things that I think are boring or uninteresting. I created a list of possible topics for your enjoyment:
Spongebob Squarepants
Belly Button Lint
Toenail Hygiene
Baking Soda and Possible Military Applications
The Life Story of My Kitchen Table
The Color Gray
Golf
Dirt: A History
Sloth Racing
Spatulas
Split End Awareness
101 Things To Do With Cold Oatmeal
A Story About The Time I Went On A Walk And Nothing Exciting Happened At All
I think I'll start sometime next week with the Sloth Racing post. Apparently it's a real thing. Sort of. When I Googled it, I found this YouTube video:
The spinning wheel enjoys a prominent place in Western Folklore. Two of our favorite fairy tales are spinning related - Rumpelstiltskin and Sleeping Beauty. There are lots of others, too, if you care to delve into the collected works of Andrew Lang. My favorite is The Nettle Spinner. It is possible to spin nettles - it turns out kind of like flax. I would love to try it sometime.
Spinning with a spinning wheel used to be HUGE. At one time, everyone knew how to spin. It was one of "those things" that all women did, right up there with eating, breathing, and having babies. Almanzo Wilder's mom spun and wove the cloth for all the family's clothing. One of my ancestors, Cynthia Stewart Hill, spun flax and wove it into linen suits to support her family while her husband was away. In the days of the American Revolution, spinning was a form of patriotism because the British didn't want the colonists to be self-sufficient. And before the spinning wheel was invented around 1200 A.D., women spun on drop spindles. Augustus Caesar wore only cloth spun and woven by the women of his household. Women have been spinning for thousands and thousands of years, practically since the dawn of time.
It's only been about 150-ish years since the industrial revolution took textile manufacture out of the cottages and into the factories, and today those who spin are a very small minority. (Thankfully, it's a minority that has experienced something of a Renaissance since the 1970s, so people like me can get their very own wheels instead of trying to steal one from a museum. ) 150 years is not a very long time at all, when you consider how long spinning as been part of the human condition.
But 150 years is plenty of time for the general human population to completely forget how a spinning wheel is supposed to work. There are hundreds of film and television portrayals of Rumpelstiltskin and Sleeping Beauty, and I have never seen one that gets it right. It drives me absolutely bonkers! Disney's version has Sleeping Beauty prick her finger on the distaff, not the spindle.
The most recent episode of Once Upon A Time features a walking wheel, except the drive band is inaccurately placed. (10:30) Also, Rumpelstiltskin has the straw already on the spindle and the spun gold falls in tangles onto a plate on the floor. Cringe Cringe Cringe!
And a rendition of Sleeping Beauty (starring Bernadette Peters and Christopher Reeve). The spinning wheel is at 0:40. It's a walking wheel and the old lady kind of gets it (at least it is constructed correctly) but the lady is just winding and unwinding the same bit of yarn onto the spindle; she isn't actually spinning. I do like the Evil Fairy's line, "What is the world coming to? Spinning is spinning, or at least it was." And at least Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger on the actual spindle.
I have already treated the world to a rant on the horrible book "Spindle's End," where spinning wheels and spindles featured prominently, but the author did not take the trouble to figure out how they work. Well, ok, maybe the book wasn't horrible, but the inaccurate information ruined it for me.
Now, in an episode of the TV show LOST, Jacob does some spinning and he actually does it right. Sort of. I think the "roving" he's using has already been sort of spun. He has an Ashford Traditional (known as an Ashford Traddy) wheel, the same kind my mom has.
Here is another video that shows how it actually works, courtesy of Sesame Street. The clip is at the end of the video, around 51:10. The lady also uses an Ashford Traddy. Except normal people wash the fleece before they card it, and ply and set the yarn before knitting it into sweaters. Still, it's a much better representation of spinning than poor little Hello Kitty.
Here is a picture of me spinning at my wheel, taken about a year ago. That's the Squeaker in my lap.
Here's how it works: you use your feet to work the treadles, which makes the big wheel go around and around. There is a drive band that causes the flyer (the thingy on top) to also go around and around. I have a bit of fiber in my hand and slowly tease out bits to make it into yarn; the rotation of the flyer simultaneously puts spin into the fiber and winds it onto the bobbin.
Apparently I have deeply offended one of my cousins with my unabashed disdain of volleyball. I didn't realize it was such a sensitive subject. So I will grace the world with a treatise more eloquent than merely, "Volleyball is Stupid."
I had a number of unpleasant incidents with team sports when I was growing up. One memorable incident occurred in third grade when I hit a kick ball with my face. Volleyball was my least favorite unit in PE. I had the displeasure of studying it in four different schools in two states, so no one can say, "Oh, that's just the culture of (New York, Texas)," or "Maybe you'd like it better as a (kid, teenager, adult)," or "Maybe if you had had a better coach..."
The thing with team sports that involve balls is that they require a specific skill set, like the ability to catch and throw a ball with accuracy, for example. If you don't have the skill and are unlikely to develop it during the course of the PE unit, you're kind of sunk.
Why do they even teach volleyball? They say it's to learn sportsmanship and teamwork and whatever, but that's a load of camel droppings. I didn't learn anything of the kind. All I learned during PE is how much I hate sports. I learned that sports are only fun if you're good. I learned that if you can't serve or dribble or pass the ball, don't even try because you'll make the team lose and everyone will hate you and call you names and pick you last. Not the best message to be sending children. As a result, I grew up thinking I wasn't athletic, which isn't really true. I'm plenty athletic, just the way the PE teachers wanted me to be.
In contrast, anything I ever learned about athleticism, teamwork, and sportsmanship came from Martial Arts. Martial Arts isn't just a sport, it's a philosophy. Martial Arts is about learning about your self and your body, respecting your opponent and your environment and how you interact with it. It's about stretching yourself and reaching outside your comfort zone. I didn't get any of that from volleyball. In volleyball, if you seem hopeless, you're just given up as a lost cause. In Martial Arts, if you seem hopeless, the instructor will work with you and encourage you to do better next time. In Martial Arts, your only real opponent is yourself. Sparring matches, which account for only a small part of Martial Arts training as a whole, aren't about who wins or loses. They are opportunities to learn. Most importantly, Martial Arts has applications for real life. I don't think being able to hit a ball over the net will save you if you get attacked on the street, unless you can carry a volleyball around with you in your pocket.
If you were to ask me today to play a round of volleyball with you, I will say no. I will still be your friend, but don't expect me to play with you.
I told My Husband this story earlier today and he laughed, so I hope it will amuse others as well.
Once, I went to the Opera on a date. We saw Otello. My date fell asleep during one point of the performance, which slightly amused me. After the date, he dropped me off at my apartment and after I went inside left one of his shoes by the door, as some kind of gag. An homage to Cinderella, perhaps? For some time afterward, I saw the shoe every time I went past the door and thought, "Hmm, that's weird. Someone lost a shoe." I think it was there for about two weeks before the guy finally retrieved it.
Some months later, he asked me if I had noticed that he had left one of his shoes that night we went to the opera and I told him that I hadn't made the connection.
This kind of thing falls firmly in the realm of what I call "Cutesie Stuff," which is fine if you like that sort of thing. But I don't.
What is Cutesie Stuff? Here is a list of examples:
Cupcakes that took more than a minute each to decorate
Elaborate ways of asking someone out to a dance that involve live goldfish, cookies, and piano wire
The Disney Princesses TM
Pokemon
Lolspeak
Jack Weyland novels
Chihuahuas
Valentine's Day
Let's talk a bit about Valentine's Day for a moment. Every year, The Husband and I like to rip the whole holiday down one side and up the other. It's our little tradition. To us, it just seems unethical for society to expect men to buy their sweethearts flowers and candy just because it's "That Day," as if flowers and candy on any other day during the year count for nothing. The center aisle of our grocery store vomits forth pink and red hearts every year. It's almost an industrial version of love: "Buy our crap or you will be considered a cheapskate and social pariah!"
I know a lot of people love Valentine's Day, and I hope I don't get flamed for sharing my opinion, but there it is. It's a dumb holiday.
But this is why The Husband and I got married - we have similar opinions about this kind of thing. He has work off on President's Day, we'll probably celebrate that instead.
I really don't like Karate tests. They make me anxious beforehand and weak and feeble during, and sore and practically dead afterwards. I would have been perfectly happy to stay at, say, a green belt for ten years. Unfortunately for me, my instructor had other plans.
I had been a second degree brown belt for about a year - I took my last test in January 2011 when I was about two weeks pregnant with The Cookie. My instructor told me, "We're not going to tell you when the next one is, because you get too nervous. I'll have Dave take you on a 'date' and then drive you to the dojo and say, 'surprise!!!!'"
For the last month or so, my instructor teased me about having a "special dinner" sometime in March. Last Saturday he asked me, "So do you still want your test kept a secret from you?"
Thinking that it was going to be in March, I said, "Well, at this point I guess I wouldn't mind knowing."
"Great. You're testing today."
"Haha, very funny Sensei."
"Are you nervous?"
"I still think you're joking."
"I'm not lying. Your Husband paid the testing fee last Thursday. Your test starts at three today at the West Jordan dojo."
So right after my Karate class, The Husband picked me up and drove me to West Jordan and I had my test! He took the boys to a nearby park, where The Squeaker has a magnificent time playing on the slides.
I really don't like Karate tests. I kind of had something that may or may not have been an asthma attack, and I had extreme difficulty breathing. The last time I experienced this sensation was, oddly enough, my previous karate test a year before. And I left my inhaler at home. Also I forgot a technique that I supposedly learned at green belt but I had no memory of it at all. I was glad they passed me anyway, although at the time I wasn't sure I had really earned it. And yet, the supervising instructor, a 6th degree black belt, spoke with me a bit just before the end of the test and told me that he could tell I had internalized the Martial Arts by the way I moved. That's good, right?
These guys aren't in the habit of pity passing their students, but I can still think of about a hundred things I did wrong, things I wish I had done better.
So I'm a first degree brown belt now. My next test will be to get my black belt. Yikes. I never thought I would get to that point!
They really should teach the martial arts in P.E. instead of volleyball. Volleyball is stupid. Martial Arts has a purpose. As much karate stuff as I have done over the years, I am not sure I would ever be able to completely throw off an attacker, but I know I would be able to do something other than stand there and let some guy bludgeon me to death. Sometimes my imagination runs away with me and I think of all the bits of my house that are vulnerable to attack, and I start wondering if I should start sleeping with my kubotan and a pair of nunchucks under my pillow.
Karate has gotten under my skin. I have taken to doing a defensive maneuver here, a kempo there, while I go about my daily routine. Empty the dishwasher and leopard's paw to the lymph nodes, break the elbow, kick out the knee and spinning hook kick. Carry the laundry downstairs and monkey block, willow palm and chicken wrist to the jaw and throw the guy to the ground with a tiger's mouth to the neck. So much cooler than volleyball.
I have spent most of my free time today knitting (I'm making another lace shawl), but I thought I would blog for a bit before turning in. Even though experience has taught me that blogging at 11 pm is a good way to add grammatical errors and general incoherence to my writing.
These days, not a week goes by when the LDS Church isn't mentioned in the news. A lot of it is kind of mean. It's giving me flashbacks of being taunted at recess in fifth grade. One would think that journalists from prominent news sources would have a greater level of maturity than your average 11-year-old.
So...I'm a Mormon. I guess you could say I fit pretty firmly in the stereotype, too: middle class, white, stay-at-home mom. Most of my ancestors crossed the plains. I even graduated from BYU. But the picture Carrie Sheffield paints of my faith in this article does not resonate with my experience at all, even though we come from the same background.
"Avoid books and marry?" That's not how I was raised. While marrying and having a family was always a goal, my parents taught me that college was not optional, and that getting a BA was more important than getting an MRS. My dad, especially, gave me a lot of encouragement to have a career in my field. Before my kids were born, my parents twisted my arm to go to grad school.
(Aside: Now that I do have children, however, I stay at home with them, but not because anyone is forcing me or because it's "a woman's place." I have strong convictions about how I want to raise my boys. I believe in the importance of my role in their lives.)
The media is quick to label believing Mormons "sheep," blindly doing what we are told without questioning. For the record, I have questioned. There are a lot of issues that can make or break your testimony - women and the priesthood, polygamy, the Church's stance on gay marriage - but after reading a lot and pondering even more, I have found a nice resolution with each of these issues. In fact, but I am even in a pretty happy place about them. I am no sheep. I am a Mormon because I want to be one, and because I genuinely believe in the doctrine and in the Church.
People still like to accuse Mormons of not being Christian. My best friends in high school came from all sorts of backgrounds, but the cruelest and most unkind person I have ever met was one of those born-again Christian types. He treated me like he treated everyone else until he found out I was Mormon. Then came the snide remarks, the accusations of human sacrifice, of all things. "You just don't know what you believe," he'd say if I protested. If he is an example of what it means to be Christian, I want nothing to do with it.
I know that boy isn't a good example of Christianity. You get all types in all religions. There are good Christians and bad Christians, good Muslims and bad Muslims. Good Mormons and bad Mormons. The trouble is, some journalist has a bad experience with Mormonism, publishes it in a prominent newspaper, and suddenly it's national news and people think all Mormons are like that.
I know I shouldn't care what other people think, but I do. Negative media attention hurts. Purposeful misrepresentation of who I am and what I believe hurts a lot. Somehow, no matter how often or for how long you have to put up with it, you never get used to it. It always feels like a slap in the face.
Married for six years. I majored in Middle Eastern Studies but now I use my college education to take care of my two boys (plural!). I write about my kooky projects. These may or may not include: knitting, spinning, cleaning peanut butter off of assorted surfaces, gardening, cloth diapering.
