( Singleton )

Did you know One Night in Bangkok is about a chess match? I'd like to learn chess one day. I'd probably stink at it, but I'd like to try.

The Pastel Monster afghan, 5 years in the making.

I've said in the past that there are only a handful of blogs I read other than people on my f-list. Nearly all of them deal with sewing, cooking, or knitting, or all three.

The author of one of the blogs I just started reading (Yarnstorm) just had a book called The Gentle Art of Domesticity published. It's only available in the UK at the moment, so I can't take a look at it. I understand it is bascially a picture book of homey-crafty things.

This book has not been well received by journalists in the UK. Many feel it is a blow to feminism, and sets a standard that the rest of us women will never achieve (here's a print article in The Telegraph, and here's a podcast from the BBC). Some have expressed the concern that books like this are making fewer and fewer women want to be involved in careers, and working.

Why is this even an issue anymore? I thought one of the points of feminism was so that women had a choice in whether we worked or not. Granted, the way economics is lately, most women don't have the choice; instead of being chained to the stove, we've become chained to our jobs.

Why do people think that being a strong, independent woman has to be mutually exclusive from the domestic arts? I joke about being a 50s housewife because I enjoy baking, and sewing, but I never would actually want to be one. I like my freedom to choose to do these things, and to work, especially in science. I am thankful quite frequently that I didn't have to marry the boy next door, pop out a bunch of kids, clean the house everyday, then make dinner every night just to eventually hang myself in the basement with the cord to the vaccuum cleaner (I didn't make that bit about the vaccuum cord up, it's from The Feminine Mystique, which if you haven't read, I recommend you do, even if it's repetitive in places).

I enjoy the domestic arts because I find them calming (with the exception of cleaning- I hate cleaning with a white hot passion). The world seems to get increasingly hectic all the time. These things are my refuge from not only the world, but from the stress of my graduate work.

Thoughts?

I got a letter in the mail on Saturday, stating that the 10 year-anniversary (is that what to call it?) of my high school graduation is this year.

If they end up having anything, I'm not sure if I would go. I'm not embarrassed about my situtation in life, but at the same time, I seemed to have missed many of the milestones that count. Married? Nope. Kids? Please. College degree? Yeah, got that. Fancy job? Nope.

What exactly do I have to show for the past 10 years of my life? Nothing tangible. Hell, I don't even look all that different. I have years of personal growth and development, increased self-confidence, a few more hobbies and a couple of interesting stories. But those aren't things you put in the school newsletter. "Kathryn, Class of 1997, she took up belly dancing and sewing, doesn't take crap from anyone, and there was this one time where she walked across her college campus wearing only her bathrobe and carrying her razor. Oh, yeah, she's also a scientist, and writes smut in her spare time."

I don't know if I want to go because high school didn't mean much to me. It was 4 years of awkwardness, where I didn't fit in, and I knew it, and everything seemed so stupid and petty. It was get through this to get to college, where people might understand you, and someone might ask you out on a date. Why bother going back to a period of time that I just didn't really care about? Which in fact was the theme of the speech I gave at graduation.

We shall see. I may feel differently in 6 months' time. But I highly doubt it.

New Year's in my favorite time of year. It's a time of beginnings, and starting over, and not having screwed anything up yet. Clean slate as it were. Time to get ahead, and make some changes.

Alas, because of falling prey to the Creeping Death Plague (tm), I am already behind. The year is barely a week old, and I'm behind. I haven't written anything, I haven't sewn anything, hell I haven't managed to get my #@$% Westerns to work (which should have been gravy, I tell you, GRAVY, but I won't bore you with the details).

Plus I'm pretty sure I fought with evan712 just as the year turned. Why am I such a bitch? Wait, don't answer that. He gave me a bottle of really good gin, though, so I guess he forgives me.

*sigh*

At least tonight I may be able to keep one resolution, and take a bath. And drink some gin, although "Imbibing more gin" was not on my list of resolutions.