My Janus-Faced Wardrobe

When I first started to really develop a sense of style, I had a tendency to ransack thrift stores for anything that looked remotely like what I wanted, regardless of fit or color. This worked out better than one might think it would, but after a few years I started to put more effort into building a practical wardrobe where I only wore exactly what I like, had something to wear for every occasion, and where everything matched everything else (or at least could go into multiple outfits.)

I'm almost there now. My lust for more clothes is beginning to settle down and turn itself into creative motivation, and my laundry pile is pretty much a huge pile of black with a few white and jewel-tone garments. Which works--I like black. I don't struggle much to put together decent outfits--if I wanted, I could fairly easily toss together an okay outfit at the last second every morning (except that would take too much precious time that could be better spent sleeping or scrolling through Tumblr, so I don't o__o). This is nice.

Now that color isn't an obstacle and everything fits decently, it becomes more obvious that some of my garments simply don't work together because of style. On the one hand, I like rippy ragged things with holes and fishnet. Sometimes goth- and punk-influenced, sometimes just ragged looking. Decay is pretty. Cotton is comfortable. Put enough ragged edges together and it starts to look like some sort of gutter finery, or armor, depending on one's taste. It suits me.

But my black cords and pyramid stud belt simply don't go with my blouses. Or the oxford shirt. Which brings me to the other side--clean, elegant perfection (or as close as I can damn well get) with a pretty massive lolita streak. The decadence and childishness from that look adds up to an eccentric feel that I find quite pleasing when it doesn't look contrived or overly feminine ("is there any other kind of lolita?" you scoff--I mean the difference between black a-line skirts with ruffles and lacy pink cupcake-shaped jumperskirts, of course.) The childishness also allows me a way to play with looks that are considered especially feminine or masculine while still feeling androgynous--ouji doesn't exactly look anywhere near manly even if it is "boystyle", and if your shoulders aren't exceptionally wide you can hide all kinds of features under typical lolita silhouettes. Sure, it'll probably still get read as female by others, but it doesn't *feel* overly feminine to me.

There is of course some middle ground. For example, the short pants I use for ouji outfits also look good with mesh shirts. And I have a wonderful black turtleneck that goes with pretty much everything. What usually results from this middle ground is monochromatic preppy-casual sort of outfits, with the occasional outfit bordering on punk lolita.

Actually it all blends together fairly well. Just enough variety so I don't get bored. If I was more of a minimalist when it came to my wardrobe maybe they'd all go together. Wool trousers, black cords, black leather belt, black docs (of a laceless variety that I actually haven't managed to acquire yet), sweater vest, white oxford, tie, blazer, coat, beret, and a mess of various long- and short-sleeved black knit shirts.

... I'd get bored of looking like a classy ninja no matter how easy dressing became. Guess everything doesn't have to match everything else XD.

Must... write...

Hoo boy. Not a good pattern I'm sliding into here. This week I'm going to just do one slightly longer post since I completely missed Monday and tomorrow's Thursday. I think I'll write about blogging and writing to try and remind myself why I started this blog in the first place.

An uncannily well-timed post about how the cliché "practice makes perfect" applies to writing and pretty much everything else floated across my dashboard on Tumblr today. I know it's true, and it's part of why I started this blog. Writing is one of the few things that actually comes fairly naturally to me--when I stop and make myself write. Actually, even when I don't. When I'm too upset to talk to another human being with actual feelings, I rant at my keyboard, for example. I've also been writing fiction since I was... probably eight or so. I think I remember making attempts when I was even younger, but those were mostly drawings. So it's a skill/passion I want to take advantage of.

Not that I don't have enough writing for schoolwork to do right now. It's just for that I have to read stuff and support claims and write things based off--GASP--outside sources. And document them. [shudders] That's academia, I suppose. I should be used to that by now. It's what you do when you actually care whether people take you seriously.

JuNoWriMo is also coming up. I'm not actually going for fifty thousand words, I've got a novel/novella (we'll see what it turns into) to finish/edit. Of course, it takes place in 1970s New York, a setting I have never and will never experience personally. Even with lots of editing/researching on my part, it may still turn out shitty because of that. But since the main characters were partially inspired by that place and time, I feel like I have to at least try and get it out of my system so I can move on and find a better setting for them.

I keep worrying that I'll lose interest in Cody and Joss before I write down enough of their story. Or that they'll mutate into totally different characters before I can capture their initial essences (that's already happened with Cody, who has gone from a confident, manipulative immortal to a desperately extroverted, insecure teenager.) Oh well. We all know the solution to that potential problem.

For JuNoWriMo I'm thinking I'll start actually scheduling time to write, which will be a habit I should probably hang onto. If I sit down and make myself type like I'm doing right now, I generally don't have too much trouble banging out 500-1000 words in one sitting. As long as I can write in English and I don't have to worry about sources, at least.

Another reason I started this blog was just to establish a more noticeable online presence. I find that the internet can be a much easier place to start lasting friendships with people than offline, especially considering that dancing and drinking aren't really my thing (which means I have to cosplay and get my ass to more cons and take writing classes and do other things I like in ways that throw me in contact with other people who like the same things. So not actually much of a problem. Keeps me productive. Or at least comparatively so.) Not that I think many people are reading this at the moment. In fact, I bet no one is reading this. You, the first reader, could be reading this in 2015 for all I know. Or later.

Not important. I'm not trying to please anyone but myself here (not that pleasing others isn't a nice bonus.) Just keeping the creative muscles from getting too flabby. And maybe if I keep at this long enough I'll come up with some sort of consistent subject matter to talk about instead of rambling about whatever's on my mind during any given moment.

Don't Talk, Just Do

[Apologies for the late post.]

We humans like words. They help us to think critically about factors in the world around us and our own personal traits (especially traits that people haven't always bothered to examine very much like gender and sexuality), and give us the power to explain ourselves to people who are too different from us to understand why they should tolerate us on their own.

However, they can also be a pain in the ass. For example, I've been reading a bit on postmodernism lately for my classes, and while it can be fascinating and good for clarifying and putting words to cultural mechanisms I notice but have difficulty describing or thinking of concretely, it's also kind of fucking dense because of how complicated it is as a concept (like that last sentence =D). Then there are also situations where there are a multiple definitions for a label (stuff like "goth" or "transgender"), all of which basically hold equal weight. The passage of time only makes these sorts of labels even more unwieldy--is it even possible to be a punk in the subcultural sense anymore? Is there even a point in having some universal way of describing the sex of (especially non-op/pre-op) transgender people when a bunch of them use "female-" or "male-bodied" as a way of differentiating their sex from their gender and another bunch of them find referring to their body in a way that doesn't line up with their gender painful and invalidating regardless of the hormonal/anatomical status of said body?

When is it worth it to put words to our experiences, and when does it become a potentially counterproductive waste of effort? When I look at the monstrosities known as the American government and the global economy, I start to think that question applies to government and economy as well. Why try to account for everything everywhere instead of just sticking to the people around you and figuring out everything you can by yourselves, and only working in conjunction with other groups of people when it's distinctly necessary or beneficial? Especially when, in doing so, it becomes more possible to live based on consensus rather than some sort of democratic vote where most of the participants are, at some point or another, stuck with policy that is exactly what they DON'T want? Why do that to people if it can be avoided?

Back to language. Handy as words are for getting our point across and really THINKING about our surroundings, it's still nowhere near a perfect method of communicating. We like to think of language itself as communication, I think, just because that's what we have to use to talk to people (or at least, consciously.) But really, everything we say is a translation of what we think and feel, and sometimes what we mean gets tangled up in what we say. It would seem that there are times when it's better to just keep our mouths shut and not question the differences we see in other people.

Instead of asking why some people like foods we don't or think differently or work differently, or have different capabilities, or why some people don't have the anatomy you'd expect based off their gender (or vice versa), or why some people don't see their biological sex as this thing that determines who they're attracted to and what social group we blong to, or even getting worked up about it all, why can't we just see and accept and, if we can't stop ourselves getting hung up over it right away, avoid until we've accepted it?

Granted, all this talk of not questioning things or talking about them is kind of antithetical to just about everything I do best. Not to mention kind of a weird thing to post on the internet for the sake of maybe possibly hopefully finding people who think the same way so we can talk about it even more. Oh well.

Uplifting Things #4

It's a Monday now. That means I can just write a post full of quasi-uplifting stuff. Yaaaaaaay =D.

Music video: "The Bubblemen Are Coming" by The Bubblemen (*coughLove&Rocketscoughcough*)

So, the Bubblemen are benevolent aliens from the planet Girl/Daniel Ash's brain. They want every one to have a good time and be sorted and quit being violent at each other, and are generally pretty amiable creatures. (And the video is even more amusing when you think of how that's Daniel Ash, David J, and Kevin Haskins in those costumes XD.)

Music video: "Why Can't I Be You?" by The Cure

It's The Cure being particularly goofy with an excellent... attempt at choreographed dancing while wearing silly costumes. As with the last Cure video I posted, I think it's upliftingness is self explanatory. Normally I wouldn't stick two music videos in one post, but I'm curious as to whether you think this or The Bubblemen video is more uplifting. (Oh, also, if blackface upsets you, Lol Tolhurst is wearing it in this video, though Robert Smith attracts far more attention. Still might be a major downer to you, though, so here's your warning.)

Place: The Richmond Tea Rooms, Manchester

I would never have found this place if not for Google 'cause the entrance is on this little side street that doesn't look like it has much potential. Anyway, the inside is awesome and eccentrically Alice-inspired and they have canopies and throw pillows and flowers and GREEN WALLS. So if you're in Manchester, it's a great place to sit around and kill an hour.

EP: Broken Bride by Ludo

A tragically uplifting rock opera about a man who builds a time machine to stop his wife from dying in a car crash. Entertaining story and captivating music aside, it's also just really refreshing to hear pop music with pterodactyls and zombies in it.

Movie: Freier Fall

(Yeah, the trailer's all German, but I think the scenes shown speak well for themselves even if you don't understand what they're saying.) This movie actually hasn't been released to a broad audience yet, but I saw it at the Berlinale in February. It's about a youngish police officer called Marc who is about to marry his girlfriend Bettina (who is also pregnant with their first child) who winds up in a relationship with a man he meets while at the police academy named Kay (after some rather questionable but apparently effective efforts to seduce Marc on Kay's part >__>.) 

Anyway, the beautiful thing about this movie is how none of the three main characters are turned into antagonists. They are all sympathetic and you want the best for all of them in spite of the shitty things they do to each other (or at least, I did.) Problem is that's pretty much impossible due to their conflicting desires, but instead of spending the movie confidently rooting for your favorite, you kind of have to just sit there and watch the situation go down the toilet for everyone involved, rooted to your seat because you keep hoping it'll somehow turn out alright.

It goes to German cinemas May 23rd. I really hope this gets some sort of North American release as well so I can buy a DVD and drag my friends to go see it o__o.

Time Travel

Sometimes I imagine what would happen if I became a time traveller after hitting my forties or fifties and decided to go bug my current self or see if my friends recognized them. They'd have short, spiky, possibly blue hair and probably wear a black leather jacket. Maybe even one of the ones I own now. They may have gotten a mastectomy or gone on testosterone, and they'd probably call me weird nicknames that I wouldn't let anyone else use and ruffle my hair like I'd be tempted to do if I met my junior high self (though that one would get annoyed, so I wouldn't actually do it.)

I say forties and fifties because my thirty-something-year-old-self is a completely unimaginable enigma to me. I barely know what I'll be up to in a year--in my thirties? Ahahaha, yeah right. I guess anything after that seems so remote I can speculate about it. Not that that makes sense or anything.

I'm tempted to say something here about hanging onto my curiousity as I grow up and learn more about myself, but it seems trite so I won't. Oops, already did. Anyway, sometimes I think "oh, I'm really starting to see my likes and dislikes and limits in ways that I haven't before. I'm becoming my adult self." Then I decide that's a dumb assumption to make and I should just carry on absorbing information like I have been until I can't.

On the darker side of things, I sometimes wonder how much pain my current financial decisions will cause me in the next couple decades. I've already decided the education and the experiences are worth whatever the consequences will be--they're not a car or a house or things, so they can't be taken away from me. I will not regret it, ever, even if I spend the rest of my life without a permanent home or being able to fully support myself. And I've already done one thing that I decided I wouldn't regret regardless of whether it hurt later (which it does, sometimes), and I was right--I don't regret it. Granted, kissing someone you just met and will in all likelihood never see again isn't actually anywhere near comparable to taking out thousands of dollars in loans to pay for four years of college courses. Still, I feel the same sense of conviction.

I wonder if my forty-something-year-old self will read this. Seems likely as long as I don't lose my computer or something before then. Or as long as this blog stays around. I like to think they'll be amused, but probably not any more than I'm amused at the idea now. The possibility of them thinking I'm a complete dumbass comes to mind, but I think that's more insecurity talking than anything else.

On Discipline

I'm not even discipline is the right word here, really. I can be disciplined--when it doesn't take effort. Effort might be an even better word here. Perhaps shame or guilt would work, too.

Anyway. Part of why I started this blog was to make myself get into a habit of writing something that I wouldn't be embarassed to post in public at least once a week (twice, when convenient--if not convenient and also not Thursday, then time for another round of uplifting things). Before that I'd been writing fiction in spurts that didn't come often enough (or at least, not without the motivation of definite outsider feedback via creative writing classes) and occasionally ranting into my keyboard to make myself feel better. Most of the latter is either horrendously confusing for anyone else to read, or embarassingly private, or both, but every once in awhile I'd feel like I'd figured something out that I could turn into a decent piece for others to read.

That's kind of boring, though. Let's try again. Discipline. Or effort. I'll start there. I've very rarely needed to put much effort into anything. And even when I should have, that doesn't mean I necessarily did (*coughpianocoughcough*). When it comes to classes, I simply have to make myself do things. The things themselves aren't usually that hard, just time consuming and intimidating enough to make me procrastinate a lot. I almost always get them done, though. I guess that's discipline. Discipline can be pretty easy for me, especially when it comes to school work on subjects I like.

Effort, however, is a pretty big weak spot for me. As I write this, I realize posting here regularly is in fact discipline. Even if I had to go with a rather weasely topic since I'm a mere forty minutes away from my first potentially late post, once I started and I had something to write about, the words just started coming out. A bit disjointedly, but still.

Shame is probably the biggest motivator for me to put effort into things (that, and looking cool. Don't worry, I am my own definition of cool, but that doesn't mean it doesn't take effort to live up to it.) The shame of letting people down by not being able to play a part right or not putting in the same amount of effort as they are at something that benefits me. The embarassment from misunderstanding what someone says. The guilt that comes from letting myself down by not doing something I told myself (or someone else) I would do.

Anyway. Unlike fiction excerpts, this is one get-out-of-jail-free card I intend to never use again. Unless I have some sort of amazing epiphany and come up with something absolutely dazzling on the subject. But I kind of doubt that. Until Thursday?

Yuri

 I didn't see Yuri at first. Desi told me to look for someone with frizzy hair and massive shoes, but there was probably a grand total of, like, two people in the cafe she told me to meet him at, and I still couldn't find him. So he had to get up and introduce himself. 

 

The first thing I noticed were his--well, actually, no, I noticed his height first. His eyes were about at the level of my nose. That's not so unusual, I'm pretty tall--but in reality he was probably only an inch or three taller than Desi (who's super short, by the way. Not like I mind, but... she is. Like, compared to most people, not just me. Probably five-two or three). Anyway, so he was wearing these huge platform heels. Snakeskin-looking boots with wood-looking heels that probably added about five inches to his height (knowing what I know of him now, they were wood. But I wasn't sure at the time). 

 

"Cassidy?" he said. Like, it was a question, but he sounded pretty damn sure it was me. His voice startled me a little and I jumped--it was deeper than I expected, but not really that deep. Resonant, I guess. Actually, he looked kinda girly. Tight jeans (not really jeans, I'm just used to seeing jeans with that cut... cigarette pants?), blouse, neck tie... bow... thing... (it wasn't a scarf, but it was too big to be a bow tie--I mean the proportions weren't right, it's not like it was obnoxiously huge), and his hair was kind of long but just barely touched his shoulders--I guess I expected him to have sort of a husky-but-still-feminine sounding voice, and maybe a bit of a New Yorker accent. I mean, I shouldn't think that way just based off a person's looks, but... I still did?

His tone was more brusque than I expected, too. I guess I expected him to sound a little more hesitant. Since we'd never met before. I wondered if Desi had shown him a picture of me or something.

He sat down first, so I got a better look at his shoes under the table during the second or so I was still standing. If you actually looked at the curve where the outer material met the sole, there wasn't much heel to it. Maybe an inch or an inch and a half. They were pretty solid shoes, so they didn't really make him sway much when he walked like normal heels would. 

Something about him made me even more nervous than I'd been coming in. Maybe it was his confidence--confidence isn't a good enough word, it was more than that--standoffishness. Or his clothes. It was obvious from the start he was really meticulous about his looks. I thought I was dressing up wearing eyeliner and a button-down shirt with a tank top instead of a t-shirt, but I got the impression that his outfit was his idea of casual wear. 

 

He had really clear skin, too, but I couldn't tell if he was wearing foundation or just took really good care of his face. I think he was wearing lip stain and eyeliner, too, but it was really hard to tell. He just looked and acted incredibly put together. Completely unshakeable. It was kind of intimidating for awhile.

The look on his face after I sat down didn't help at all. He looked utterly revolted by something, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what.