From Elen Woderose of the Industrious Barony of Thescorre, come greetings unto all who enter here. [switching hats] Hi, I’m Mari, and I’ll be your blogger this evening. What can I start you off with?
so just pull the trigger?
Seventeen, last half of 11th grade. Dead Poets Society playing during English. I am newly medicated against anxiety and a very deep depression. (Yes, I am also seeing a therapist.) Nobody tells me that the film culminates in the suicide of a prominent character, one with which I identify, being the unabashed odd girl out. Watching him kill himself twists something inside me and I’m crying for both of us, so hard I run from the room.
It would have been nice to know about that suicide.
But I also didn’t tell my teacher what I was going through. But I didn’t know it would be relevant. But. But. There are all kinds of buts. So my teacher finds out in a way that, in hindsight, is more embarrassing than oh-my-god awful. After all, the meds are working. (As long as I don’t have any more major stressors to contend with… like unexpected family deaths. August will suck so hard, past-self.)
Only once more do I have a small problem, and I do mean small: I appreciate that Alien is a significant science fiction film, but my stomach is turning too much to get through it, so I take the fail for that unit.
I am never again too traumatized to cope with my workload. I throw a spoiled child tantrum at the thought of group work without anyone I know; that doesn’t count. With everything that hurts, I learn more about myself. Whatever else I face, I become equipped to face from a distance. I dive deeper into the things that should horrify me. I trigger myself when it’s safe, and by the time I have to really deal with one of the big nasties again, I can do that. I can even get some healing from it.
Maybe my present self is fussed about trigger warnings because I didn’t get them and I learned how not to need them.
I think that’s what it boils down to.
I’m not resentful so much as arrogant. I did it. What’s wrong with people nowadays? One of my most valuable life lessons was “Own your shit”. Another one was “Leave the room quietly if leave you must” (variant: “Put down the book and back away”). So I do those things. I do them very well. Because I can do them, I have this weird expectation that other people can do them, too. I am convinced that what I do requires such a low bar to be set that pretty much anyone can do it. I definitely don’t believe in making trigger warnings into a basic human right, which is kind of the impression I get from a lot of sources. There are battles to fight well before we get to the point of demanding that we be sheltered from… come to think of it, those very battles and how they’re fought. And who fought them, and why.
That said, I am not without empathy. I did it the hard way. It was rough. If it’s for the sake of something as inconsequential as a day or two of class, I’m not going to put someone through hell.
If I were teaching, and I had a student who was going to be triggered by a topic, the best thing I could advise at the beginning of a semester would be to come talk to me when that’s a problem. A trigger is not a reason to exclude a topic from a curriculum, but a student could be accommodated because mental health disabilities are still disabilities. Send that person to do some independent work on the subject, for instance. Set a slightly different assignment. Don’t make a giant deal out of it for two reasons:
1. If the person is indeed attention-seeking, the last thing you want is to feed the behavior, and
2. If the person is just THAT uncomfortable and needs an out, you can do that in a quiet way while leaving it to the person to decide how s/he handles that need.
I can’t say I’m happy, looking back, that I ever needed to leave a room. I would rather have made arrangements in advance. You think it’s fun being the girl who bursts into tears at inopportune moments? You think panic attacks are a walk in the park? Please. Come experience my neurochemistry for a few days. Spoiler alert: it whomps.
Oh, and that’s one more thing I do now. I spoil myself shamelessly if I think I’m going to need to prepare for a plot twist. Knowing is at least half the battle for me — so I make it my business to know.
if they tell you you can’t . . .
Let’s talk about my local one-stop disability help shop. How its initials spell out access but really it’s fill out this form and that, and we’ll perform our hocus-pocus and outsource your needs to another agency. Which, naturally, for you (meaning me) will be forty minutes from your actual domicile, because disabled people don’t live in the ‘burbs, don’t be stupid.
Let’s talk about how inaccessible that makes resources, really. Because if I want a job, this is another hoop through which I have to jump and I’m so tired of jumping. This is another system I have to navigate when I’d be most comfortable just… walking into an office and negotiating. “Here’s what I have to give. Here’s how I can give it. This is why you need me. This is what I need from you, and I can back that up with letters from my care team.”
Let’s be blunt American capitalists for a minute and admit that the only reason I have to navigate systems that make the process opaque is the bigotry of those who have not yet realized what a damn good employee I would be — with help. Which I will specify, and which my docs will back up. Because I know my needs better than any agency. Because I still deserve a voice and so do you, no matter what assistive tech you use to speak.
In case you missed the memo, “Harrison Bergeron” is dystopian fiction. The assumption that because one set of disabled workers needs All The Help, so do the rest, there’s money in that problem. There’s money being spent on that problem when for very much cheaper, lists of resources could be distributed to those who desired them. Then the money could be shuffled back into the lives of those who need it. SSDI alone is not why disabled people cost money. It’s the extras being heaped on all of our heads when really many of us can list “employer bias” as a disability along with the actual medical issue at hand.
We’re innovators, we gimps. We’re thinkers and doers just like you are. We like to be part of the process. (Most of us that I’ve known, anyhow.) You see people opting out of the workplace, ask them what their job hunting looks like. Ask if they’ve been treated like people, or just like paper in manila folders. Ask what they would do if their accommodations were considered investments in good, solid workers.
And if you need help seeing how this could work for your company? Hire me. I’d be fabulous for your HR team. Been there, done that, got the run-around. So done with middlemen. Ready to rejoin the taxpaying millions. Longing, in fact.
I just want to be people. Just like you.
it’s quiet uptown
It started as a cough, I swear. I thought it was a cough, like the one she caught that time from Addy and we would be okay if we could only clear her lungs. I thought it was infectious and I watched them both.
Addy never got sick and Trixie kept getting sicker. Her cough turned into this ugly heaving wheezing. I just didn’t know how to get her to the vet. Trixie shrank further into herself, into my room. She didn’t start hiding until after College of Three Ravens. Then I had to coax her out and on some level it sank in then. I started praying. Let her pass next to me, if this is it. Let her die quiet in the night. But on another level I needed to believe it was something we could fix with a shot in the rear.
Which was what possessed me to take that 11:30 appointment down the vet’s this morning.
It says a lot that I was able to wrestle her into the cage from off the bed. (Oh, Lord, steal that memory from her little soul. That’s the part I can’t forgive myself.) She behaved in the office, even let them take an X-ray without too much trouble. But they had to take the X-ray because there was a chance she’d gone into heart failure.
There was so much fluid around her lungs they couldn’t even see her heart. She was almost fourteen; the other case they had right now was a cat of six, maybe seven. The rest of the diagnostics were hideously expensive, and if it turned out to be cancer, there would’ve been nothing we could do. And I told the doc how much I hated myself for not being Pittsford-rich, or even Mendon-rich. How much I wished I could afford it all. I asked her what to do next. I asked her for permission to do something I still am seeing as horribly efficient. But the doctor said it would be okay. That she wouldn’t make her own cat suffer, with the kind of fluid accumulation she was seeing.
With my boy it was so damned obvious. I hate when it’s not obvious.
If we were going to go home without a cat, we were not going to let her suffer. I wanted for Trixie to know some peace and some relief from her anxiety, severe as it had always been. I asked that they give her even a light sedative, if they weren’t okay with a strong one. She deserved those ten minutes bundled up in a blanket, calm breaths, surrounded by love. She deserved not to be scared of anything for once in her life. I gave her that much. When they came in with the blue stuff, I told them to shave a bit of her leg to get a clean look. Nobody’s going to fumble for my baby’s veins. Nobody’s going to hurt her by missing.
I kept my hands over her ribs. Halfway through the push I said, “She’s gone.” I felt her last breath leave her body.
I held her like I never could while she was alive. I cradled her all sausaged up like that, I kissed her pretty little head, and I gave her a hug. I handed her off as careful as if she were a child — which to me she had been, my sweet babeling. And still is.
I don’t know if her sister’s going to sleep in my bed. I don’t expect her to. So now I’ve lost my lapcat and my bedcat in the space of just about nine months. Addy might realize I need her. Or she might still be Rygel the Umpteenth. No way of knowing. The thing is I think Addy knew. I had to leave the carrier at the head of the stairs long enough to grab something. I don’t recall what. And I came back and Addy and Trixie were touching noses through the slats.
Fare thee well, my baby. I will see you again. You just stick with your brother until I do, okay?
the things that i will do
The kicker is that I don’t want it all the way I was told to want it all.
Let’s be clear. I never want to birth a tiny human. Not enough desire to feel that, especially not, I suspect, in trade for my sanity. Also, with my luck, it’d wreak even more havoc on my joints, so no. No pregnant and barefoot. But if I can’t make my own non-profit pregnant girls’ home, where they will have all the choices without judgment, then there is no reason why I shouldn’t aspire to foster one needy young woman at a time. That, to me, is children enough, and I can do it past menopause if I like.
Until the job market and our rampant education inflation problem both calm the heck down, I don’t see myself being able to find work. Going back to school at this point feels like throwing good money after bad, and for what? As much as we pay for four-year degrees in the United States, they ought to be worth more than $10-$15 an hour. Also, the longer you’ve spent trying to get that degree, the more you bring to the table in terms of life experience. Don’t tell me I’m worth as little as some callow youth of twenty-two. That eight years between us (March 9 is coming) represents years I spent doing and learning amazing and diverse skills outside the classroom.
No, if for all that, I’m not going to make a living wage, I’d rather be a housewife and let the abled member of the marriage bring home the bacon. I insist my mother live with us, that’s all. She has spent years looking after me. She doesn’t consume much. She’ll use her pension to buy what she likes. Besides, there might be money if we end up selling the ancestral pile.
I want to make a difference in the world, but my health means I have to choose: either I work for a living or I live. That’s the only idealism I have left, that as a human being I can have a life more meaningful than the wage I can earn.
What a radical notion, that.
So here’s to you, Amy Westervelt, for actually daring to say it. I may be a little envious that you’re saying it from a place of massive privilege, but you’re bothering to say it at all, which is pretty nice. We really can’t have it all. We’re not even remotely there yet. Long past time we admitted it.
do you know what it’s like on the outside?
I live in a town that is about thirty minutes from all my health care, except for one doctor: my psychiatrist. It is little coincidence that my psychiatrist is the only one unable to take Medicaid. He is effectively a one-man practice. Nobody out here seems to be willing or able to take Medicaid, so I schlep into the city.
Lately this schlep has gotten more difficult. The winter has been hard on my body; I experience motion sickness at a lower threshold than before. I wonder sometimes when I will be totally unable to access what little is available to me. I am already going to need to look for a dentist nearer-by than Strong. For all I enjoy Eastman Dental, with all the medication in my system after dental work, it’s all I can do to stumble to the car, let alone endure the ride home. I have a small chip that wants repairing and all I can do right now is hope it doesn’t lead to worse damage until I can find a closer dentist.
I take the regulation 25mg of meclizine (that’s Bonine over the counter). There are still times when my guard is so down and I am so weak that very little will bolster me until I’m home. It’s isolating, to say the least.
I contemplate the various health care options suggested by various politicians. I ask myself: which of these is going to bring my care home to me? We can’t sell. We’re not the zombie house (nope, that’s the one next door where the guy died alone) but we’re close, even with a good roof. The best we could do for a buyer is a flipper, and they’ll push us to sell at a loss, which you’d think we would have done years ago if we could. So no. We can’t move to the health care. It has to come back to us. And if doctors are allowed to refuse Medicaid patients, or force us to pay out of pocket, then we will all be funnelled into the same overloaded, low-quality, one-size-fits-all model of care.
So my first instinct is to remove that refusal. Install quotas. This percentage Medicaid. This percentage Medicare. But I think about why my doctor might not be taking Medicaid patients. He already runs his practice out of his house: it’s not for office upkeep. I think his wife works, but I can’t be sure. I know he has children; I’ve met the children, they’re a delight. I pay him for the privilege of local care because he is the most vital element. Everything else I can skimp on. This? No. I need someone I can trust to be in my corner. If that trust comes dear, consider what I was like before I had consistent, quality psychiatric care. Some of you might recall those ugly days.
If I insisted he take Medicaid, and he found himself unable to feed his family, he might pack up and buy into a practice farther from home, where the cost is more evenly spread among practitioners. I suspect that’s why the city practices can afford to take Medicaid and Medicare.
Fine. Reimbursement. How do we arrange for doctors to survive and still look after those who need help from the government? Perhaps it’s time those who can afford it are made to pick up the tab. If they won’t be taxed, then give them two options: take the same health insurance options as I have, or they can pay out of pocket — as I do in the one case that matters the most.
Perhaps it’s time Medicaid and Medicare became viable options for people who live where the buses don’t run, for people without cars. Don’t just throw us medical transport services. That does nothing to reduce the time factor, and if I think my thirty minutes is grim, I could have it exponentially worse. Ever seen Remote Area Medical? Yeah, no amount of medical transport solves that problem.
I suspect there’s a pervasive attitude in the United States that poverty exists chiefly in the cities, and that’s where one ought to concentrate efforts to help. Well, it doesn’t. The working poor, the underinsured, the uninsured, these live everywhere, even in and among the rich in bedroom communities. Surely I am not the only Medicaid recipient in the whole of Mendon. Surely I am not the only one too sick to work at the moment. (All right, I know I’m not, but he lives downstairs and is considered retired. And yes, he has to schlep a ways for his care, too.)
Put the onus on us to drag ourselves to and from your few offerings? I turn it back onto you. Live like this, medically speaking. Simultaneously loathe and appreciate that your family stayed together through the tough times, because at least you’re not at the mercy of some random driver who might be on time to take you to your appointment. Or might be early, so that’s two hours stuck in a waiting room. Or might be late, and you’re out of pocket and banned from the practice. Learn how to choose what is too complicated and what is doable when before you considered it all essential. You broke a tooth? ER’s in the city, two lines, all the waiting! Or you can grit the other teeth and go on until Monday, when the emergency dentist for your level of health insurance opens. Then you can hope the emergency dentist on call can numb you down enough to perform whatever procedure he chooses. That’s in the city, too, and it’s run like an ER, but just for teeth! And they won’t just take a look at you and send you home with morphine! They’ll treat the problem!
Budget for your own sanity. Your ability to function outside your house. Any hope of employment. Any hope of a meaningful life.
I envy the 1%. I wish I were the 1%. And if I were the 1% there’d be a fund for this sort of thing, out of my pocket, as I owe my fellow man.
the proverbs 31 feminist?
I could be a Proverbs 31 feminist.
I couldn’t do so from the perspective of most who invoke that chapter, only as one who takes what principles apply to someone best described as “spiritual” and leaving certain others where they lie. I do not, after all, believe in Biblical inerrancy; to me it’s a cobbling-together of histories and cultural laws down the ages. What a person thought was right in antiquity may not necessarily be a good notion today.
But some ideas do carry forth.
“The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.” There is no reason a feminist cannot be a trustworthy spouse who manages the household properly. She can do that and work at the same time, if she has the energy (I point to my mother in this).
“She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.” If a woman loves her husband, surely this is to be expected. Nowhere does it say he will not reciprocate.
“She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.” Call that a sign of good judgment, whether literal (ooh, this wool/linen is great! Let’s make something of it!) or figurative (Nicely made garment, definitely worth the price). Besides, in any household, there is work for the hands, unless you are so spoiled that your servants do it all.
“She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar.” I do not consider grocery runs unfeminist.
“She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.” See, once upon a time, food prep needed to begin pretty darn early. No need now, but consider that it may indeed be a virtue to put on the coffee for your spouse, especially if it means you get the first cup.😉 As to portions for maidens, frankly, if you keep help, you should feed help. Or you should pay it sufficiently that it can eat.
“She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.” What’s that? Women can be prosperous business owners? The roles I’m seeing assigned to women are way more diverse than fundamentalists seem to consider…
“She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.” In its most literal interpretation, going to the gym is a virtue. I’m going to say this is a verse praising a woman who practices self-care, which many consider a feminist act anyhow.
“She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.” A Proverbs 31 feminist has a fabulous work ethic, to include honest trade.
“She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.” This harkens back again to the days when certain things needed to be done for survival. Again, I’m not suggesting you need to be a great spinner. In modern contexts, this verse speaks to a woman’s will to do what she needs in order for herself and her family to make it.
“She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.” So the Proverbs 31 feminist has an interest in social justice!
“She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.” See, she even keeps her family warmly dressed.
“She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.” Hear that? You don’t have to drab yourself or your home down in order to be virtuous. In fact, a little glam is a good thing. Tapestry, silk, and purple were all pretty fine.
“Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.” In other words, she picked a good man she doesn’t have to raise with their children.
“She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.” More metaphors. This virtuous woman is productive. Last I checked, feminism was all about making women part of the workforce.
“Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.” I consider strength and honor plenty feminist. Strength is something different in all of us, too. Sometimes strength is the courage to take another step. And another. And to breathe another breath. And if today isn’t amazing, that’s no reason tomorrow can’t be another day.
“She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.” A lot of us could learn from this. Especially on social media. I’m still learning.
“She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.” What have I been saying all along? This verse sums it all up.
“Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.” Her family likes her and says so. She isn’t taken for granted.
“Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.” To the people she loves, she is valuable beyond value. This echoes the initial “price is far above rubies”.
“Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.” If you’re not Christian — like I said, I’m not — then consider this verse a call to value what is inside of you, your character, your morality, your ethics, over what the world decides you should value. It makes sense considering that a virtuous woman is supposed to be strong, honorable, wise, and kind.
“Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.” That’s right. A woman’s reputation is hers, earned by her valor, her deeds.
Sure, this is a liberal interpretation of a conservative document. I don’t expect you to agree with me. I kind of like it, though. I think I’ll try it. You can try it too, if you’re bored.
even the dogs get facelifts
I have an idea for the Medley Centre. I present: Malltown, USA!
The derelict building should become public property, in which human beings can live and work just as they do everywhere else. It’s just that this part of town is enclosed and climate-controlled. Indoor parking is reserved for residents — you could convert one of the more central large parcels into a parking garage. Normal mall traffic parks outside as usual.
And there could be regular mall traffic, oh yes, as long as rent is controlled and you’re not going too upscale for the community (either indoors or out). Which local businesses might make a good fit? Consider zoning certain corridors such that one level is residential and the other is commercial; offer combination packages with discreet staircases between the floors. Or do it by wing: you live in this wing, you work in that one, you’re either wearing out shoe leather or the tires of your wheelchair/scooter. Winter weather a problem? No problem if you’re providing something the community doesn’t have to leave the mall to obtain. Small grocers would be ideal, as would bakeries and butcher shops. Have a ground-floor café, it’s nothing like Paris but it’s better than nothing.
It would be really radical if we had room specifically for the housing and rehabilitation of the homeless. This is a capitalist society, so it’s unlikely to happen, but consider that families might easily be housed in small apartments and the responsible adult or adults found employment within Malltown. Since it’s easier to get a job when you have a job, make it a program, a trampoline into even better work and being able to afford better digs — at which point the family or individual is followed by the agency for a set amount of time, and can come back to said agency if need be.
This place did it. I’m sure we can do better, can’t we?
Let’s go, Malltown!
helpless (satisfied)
I was rereading my old copy of Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship and, well, the nitty-gritty didn’t resonate. You shouldn’t be surprised. It never really did resonate, not even when I bought the darn thing. There are ideas I might bring up in a later blog post that do work for me, yes.
This afternoon, I am reminded that I am as far from Harris as I am from hooking up — somewhere in the middle, as usual.
You see, according to Harris, I shouldn’t be listening to very good music. No, not at all. No, since the brush of a lover’s fingertips across your cheek can lead you tumbling into sin, stay away from anything that gives you that thrill and…
…I’d have to wear earplugs all the time.
Because look around, look around: or rather listen! Don’t you feel the story in every song? Don’t you turn on the radio and there’s a piece of boring safe classical and suddenly wham? A measure, a melody, a counterpoint, a harmony, all of this is my ruin as thoroughly as kissing is another girl’s. If his voice is wrong I can’t love him. If his voice is right, I may sigh after him without ever seeing his face. (Eleven years old. Savage Garden breaks into the US Top 40.)
Do you know the power in a well-played duet? Have you ever placed yourself so in tune with another person, literally or figuratively? Two people, for a few minutes, must operate as one. It’s a beautiful intimacy, one that doesn’t ask you to open your body, one to be praised instead of judged.
To extend the idea — do you ever dream you’re back in the middle of the camaraderie of an ensemble? Do you ever recall the apostolic nature of the role: here is my shepherd. I am his lamb. He must lead us down the same path be it broad and smooth or narrow and rough. We must trust him and in turn he must do right by us.
Give all my sins to the Cross? But when I remember guilt, I remember being unable to give my all to the music. I came crying to my director that day I broke down in high school. I needed his absolution in order to go on.
All my life, God has been in music and music in God. I don’t know all the prayers off by heart. I don’t take Communion anywhere. I only lift up my voice. I lift it up to Creation and give thanks for this much left to me after all that I have lost. This much is enough to sustain me. Even if I went deaf there would be something. I would go on singing long after I could hear myself. I could not stop the song if I tried. The song and the story weave through me, as fundamental to life as breath. I sing and I write like I’m running out of time.
It’ll take someone special to bring me down from the sacred heights. I want a husband who will be as a duet partner. I want to feel alive and unashamed when I am with him and I am not throwing away my shot at that just to live up to current dating standards.
me i’m a creator
(sparked by the incomparable G.D.M.)
Without makers, we are naked.
Everything you wear is made. Everything on your body was conceived in a holy union between Art and Creator. Every style that catches your eye is someone’s baby.
Someone went to sleep at night with an idea, and as she drifted off, she thought: how am I going to make it work? Start with the body and consider its needs… And she closed her eyes, and what she saw was an image of an ideal. So she turned it over in her head-hands, cinching this, strapping that. She thought, I’m borrowing from history, but I don’t want it to be a costume. Just a nod to the past. So there’s this hint here, that hint there, maybe cross genders in one outfit…
And she drifted into good dreams.
. . .
Right now, I’m not employable in the traditional sense. Don’t challenge me on that. This isn’t a debate.
What I can do is create.
Quite a lot of my creation is with words, and if I could get a paid blogging gig, I’d love that. Of course, as I’m not willing to peddle anyone’s particular philosophy but my own, I doubt the gig exists. So I blog here. I also write poetry and fiction, very little of which you see because it’s poor form to publish your work ahead of whoever might publish it in the future. I have a short story I might send out under a name that will never connect said story with its author, because while I think it’s publishable-standard, I also think it’s not something with which I would like to be associated in the long run. I don’t want to have to live up to that story or live that story down.
I am happy with a needle in my hand. No, not an IV needle. I’ve remade my own garments, because I’m right there to try it on and tweak. It’s easier to work with a client who is willing to be a human mannequin just long enough to chalk and pin the garment for alteration, but I’ll do minor work with good instructions attached, provided the rest of my life hasn’t got in the way. Since nothing is ever perfect off the rack, I will buy things I can alter if need be. This drives my mother up a tree; she thinks if I’ve paid for it, I ought not to have to work on it. She also has no idea what the stuff I buy would cost if I actually paid someone to custom-draft it. Cost of materials alone must account for scrap (no, you can’t just buy as much thread as you’ll need, you have to take the whole spool, and fabric still comes in fixed widths of yardage). Cost of labor for quality goods is much higher than your average T-shirt reflects, I’ll put it thus.
Other jobs pay, yes. Other jobs are jobs. None of this amounts to a Proper Job. It’s the only work I can do right now and I need to value it as work, not just as play. Proper Job or not, it’s effort put toward a product and if someone else thinks the product has value, I have just contributed to the economy. Astounding notion, hm?
. . .
I fell asleep thinking of Henry VIII’s court the other night, and how to translate the lines and cut of the era into something modern. The Little Black Kirtle: Rigid bodice, no need for a bra, just straps. It shoves the tits into place by itself. Skirt takes its shape from an attached bumroll and naturally stiff fabric. Cut it off at the knee. Make a matching coat, same length with enormous velvet-edged sleeves; button it over the bodice, let it fall open over the skirt. Doublet-and-jerkin day dresses, gathered or gored, never pleated. Maybe a fitted shirt with a slightly poofy sleeve, no collar, begins about three fingers below the hollow of the neck. Overcoats with fur or deep fleece lining and good drape. Wool. Shoulders? Hmm. Some women would enjoy shoulder emphasis, some not. Better offer a couple of options…
what you do it for
I fired the Nice Lady Therapist today. It wasn’t me, it was her. Continue reading
