A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

I did absolutely nothing productive, at least in a measurable sense! I walked to the library (I always feel excessively good about myself when I walk anywhere, as I am the laziest piece of crap you'll ever meet), picked up my book and a couple movies (YES I am an old person NO I do not have Netflix), and read all of The Handmaid's Tale in three hours. Partly because I really didn't want to put it down, partly because it's my day off, dammit, and I CAN. Really good, and somehow I hadn't realized it's as old as it is (ha, yeah I know 1985 isn't old), because its themes are so disturbingly current. I do love me a good dystopian novel.

Went to the chip shop near me for lunch and actually got the haddock and chips this time...delightful. And mushy peas...I don't know what's in them (besides the obvious) but they taste fantastic. This trip was occasioned by me telling all my friends YOU NEED TO GO TO THIS PLACE. So we did, and now I feel like a fat kid. Ouf. Very full.

I got quite the haul in the mail today...and it was all very welcome (except for the mail about my loans, ew): got my wool from fabric.com, my copy of The Song Remains the Same on DVD, and my costume pr0n books from Amazon. Which are 17th and 18th Century Fashion in Detail, 19th Century Fashion in Detail, and Fashioning Fashion (which is amazing, all costumers go buy it now. There is a chapter called Bling, how can it not be good?).

( Poe dress natterings... )

Thanksgiving dinner at our house can be considered a success, I believe. Nothing exploded in the oven, and none of my cousins tried to strangle each other. I didn't do any of the cooking, but I did all the dishes. Twelve people, a lot of dishes. And no, we don't have a dishwasher. Correction: we do. It's the same one that was there when we moved into this house fifteen years ago, and it didn't work then. Doesn't work now, either! My family's pretty much all batshit crazy...but now you know where it comes from! *grin*

Highlights:
~ Cousin S put his elbow in his coffee and managed to get it on half the table and himself.
~ No alcohol, because Aunt S-H is sort of trying to stop being an alcoholic. (I had a gin & tonic after they left.)
~ There was an argument between my stepfather and mother as to whether she had put out too much cream with the coffee, and whether it mattered that we had a sugar bowl that matched the set or not.
~ Cousin M sat on me half the night. (These cousins are all younger than I am, by the way...)
~ Grandma's kind of going deaf, so she kept passing people the wrong dishes. Example: Lil Sis: Pass the gravy? Grandma: Here you go. *hands over the green bean casserole*
~ Our cat bit Cousin A. But he probably deserved it.
~ The word of the night between Mom and Aunt S was "glutenous," because somebody made fun of Aunt S's mashed potatoes and called them glutenous...so every once in a while, one of them would say, "Glutenous!" and make meaningful gestures in the general direction of the potatoes, and both of them would dissolve in giggles.
~ Grandma's apparently not the only one going deaf...as after dinner, they put on The Game (whatever football game was on. I neither knew nor cared) and I SWEAR the neighbors could hear a play-by-play.
~ Grandma kept saying that my boy-cousins need haircuts. It made me giggle. A commercial for the Beatles on iTunes came on, and she said, "I remember when they first came over here...I thought, Well, they need haircuts!" That really made me giggle!

In sewing news, I've finished sewing the cording in the petticoat. Twenty-four rows. Now I just need to put a waistband on...I'd like to finish it by the first of December, but I've only one day off work between now and then, and I'm going spend most of it recovering from a night out with two of my best friends. So...we'll see about that. I'm sure tomorrow, after working eight and a half hours on Black Friday, I'll totally feel like sewing. Or...not.

And That Book padawansguide has recommended to me (more than once, because I'm a slacker)...bought it. And a couple other ones too. I Like Books. And, um, it's, like, almost Black Friday so they could have been on sale! (They weren't.)

The Book was waiting for me when I got home from work, sitting on my bed. I got home around 7.30, saw The Book, told myself I was not going to even open it. Opened the package, and told myself I was not going to start reading it. Went and made dinner.

And went and got The Book and read it while munching on egg rolls.

It's all gone to hell now, can't put it down.

Sleep? WHO NEEDS SLEEP??

My mother finished reading Twilight tonight. (Back story: My thirteen-year-old sister is not much of a reader at all, and my mom bought Twilight for her to read this summer, since apparently all the cool middle school girls in our area are reading it now. Bit behind the times, aren't they? Of course, after hearing my stories about the ridiculousness that is Twilight, she finally decided she wanted to read it, if only to see exactly what my sister would be reading.)

So basically, I've been playing an ongoing game of Horrify the Twilight n00b for the past few days, and it's been awesome. A few of my favorite reactions:

Mom: [before she's even gotten halfway through the book] So...there are how many books in this series?
Me: Three more after this one.
Mom: But...what the hell else could happen?! It's so long but nothing happens!
Me: [mentally] Just wait til the second half of Breaking Dawn...

Mom: Their relationship isn't going to go anywhere! He won't screw her, because he'll break her or something...?
Me: *chokes*

Mom: This woman has a degree in English literature?
Me: Yup.
Mom: Are we sure about that? She could be lying.

Mom: And now I want to see the movie, and I don't even know why.
Me: You see? You see?! It sucks you in!

Hee.

...but I blame the library. Went this afternoon, and got out a few nice books, including Northanger Abbey. I do love me some Jane Austen...that's all I did tonight; read (...and finish) Northanger Abbey and drink tea with milk in it, which is something I feel I need to do whenever I read Austen. Plus it's been chilly today, so a mug of hot tea was actually warranted.

(It also makes me want to play Regency dress-up...but we're not even going to go there.)

And now I'm finished Breaking Dawn. To sum it up: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Slightly more specific reactions, most yelled by me at various points throughout the reading of this book:
HAHAHA OH GOD can we PLEASE stop talking about things relating to vampire sex, IT'S KILLING ME HERE.
wat? Bella, since when did you decide you WANTED BABIES SO MUCH YOU'D DIE TO HAVE ONE?
LOL at all the chapter titles in Jacob's POV.
Jacob just hit Rosalie in the back of the head with his doggy bowl. AWESOME. Jacob, I think I like you a lot better now.
WHY DOES EVERY CHARACTER IN THIS DAMN BOOK WANT BABIES?! WHAT, IS A WOMAN INCOMPLETE WITHOUT HAVING BABIES? oh, well, at least Leah has some sense...NO LEAH NOT YOU TOO! THIS THEME MAKES ME WANT TO KILL YOU ALL.
ew. Serious ew. Blood, breaking bones, etc. Ew.
HOSHIT JACOB JUST IMPRINTED ON BELLA'S BABY!? that is so WRONG! AHAHAHAHA
waaaay too many pages of fragments of sentences.
oh look,Bella-sparkepire. About time.
Bella kicks everyone's ass at being a sparklepire.
...WHY IS THIS BOOK NOT OVER?
zzzzzzz.
J. Jenks, your plotline bores me and is totally pointless anyway.
zzzzzzzz.
where's the Epic Sparklepire Battle already?
zzzzzzzz.
oh, look, here come the Volturi! Yaaay, Epic Sparklepire Battle that they've all been training for a month for and SPENT 200 PAGES PREPARING FOR will finally happen...
...no, just kidding. No battle?! WHAT IS THIS?
oh, look, everybody's happy, except for Irina, presumably, and her family. Happy ending. Yay.
...is this book over? yes? I can get on with my life. GOOD.

Add in a lot more random laughter and you've pretty much got it.

Williamsburg was good times. Saturday morning, getting up at 4.30 in the morning to leave was slightly less enjoyable times. :P And the traffic on 95, once we actually got to VA, was wicked. When we got there (eight hours later), finally, we went to Busch Gardens. For some reason, I don't actually recall much of anything we did there, outside of buying an overpriced pretzel and waiting in line for a really long time in line for a certain ride, only for them to shut it down, literally, two people ahead of us. Grr.  When we finally got to our hotel, in the parking lot, the creepiest guy knocked on the driver's side window, scaring the crap out of my friend Kat, who was driving. Speaking very slowly, he said, " Your left headlight is out. Do...you...understand...? Your...left...headlight...is...out." Um, hi, Mr. Creepy Dude, we...all...understand...English...perfectly... Dinner that night was a bit late (10.30? Is that late?), and our waiter at Uno's was a guy with a French accent, who we all liked enormously, and consequently tipped well. (For the broke college students we all are, I must admit, that is a rare enough occurrence.) Pumping gas for ourselves was pretty funny; happily, one person in our van actually knew how to do it. We all stood round and oohed and aahed at the marvel that was pumping one's own gas.

Sunday was Water Country, USA. Being the very white person I am (I got teased for carrying the sunscreen everywhere by everybody...but then they used it as well), unlike most of the people I was on the trip with, I applied sunscreen fairly religiously and only got a teensy bit burned on the tops of my shoulders. Was kinda amazed by that, as we were there from 11.30 to 7, when it closed.I hadn't been to a water park in quite a while, I forgot how much fun they are! Foregoing any food that has any nutritional value whatsoever for money conservation, we ate at Taco Bell that night.

Then we went back to the hotel, hung out, watched television, and generally misbehaved in the way college kids in another state on vacation are wont to do. (I'm quite sure that my and Kat's extensive conversation about towels will be remembered for a while..."Dude, that towel's really bright orange." "Wow, dude, it so is. Seriously." "It's...it's just so bright." "I know...wait, do you mean the second or third towel?" "Oh, wow, I didn't even notice that first towel...cos it's white, you know, it's like it doesn't even count. Exist, even." "Yeah, well, exactly, cos if you were talking about your towel, not my towel...well, not my towel, it's actually my sister's towel, I just borrowed it..." "Yeah, but by nature of your having it here, it's more your towel than my towel is your towel." "Yeah...dude, we understand each other's mindset. This is fantastic...")

Sunday was Colonial Williamsburg, and dragging our butts out of bed in time to go get our hotel-provided breakfast (no motivation like free food), and check-out at 11. Of course, we had the misfortune to pick the hottest day of our vacation to go there. So all we really did was walk round a bit, buy lots of cold drinks, start whining about how hot it was, watching a show or two, then deciding that we'd leave around 4. I, though, insisted upon going to a store to buy hatpins. Well...didn't come out with hatpins, but a considerably-more-expensive-than-hatpins book; What Clothes Reveal by Linda Baumgarten. I was eyeballing those black felt hat blanks...then my eye fell upon That Book. And, well, I had to have it. It was fearfully expensive (well, it is  a very nice hardcover, and I just checked Amazon, and I only paid $2 more in Williamsburg than I would have on Amazon...and that would cost more with shipping, so HAH, I win!), but adding to one's costume book library is never a bad thing! 'Specially when it's the 18th century... :)

Then we drove home, and it was less than eight hours, because all the traffic was still on the other side of 95. And I came home, unpacked while listening to Beatles music (I've been deprived of Truly Good Music for three days; my friends in control of the radio and ipod have a tendency to listen to what another of my friends [not me, I swear!] called Whiny Black People Music), slept for almost twelve hours, and have lazed about all day. Tomorrow I'll get back to sewing, for the few days I have left, but today is Recovery Day!

And I've decided to waffle some more about the 17th century gown. I wouldn't be able to start it until the New Year anyway, so I'll just postpone a real decision until then! (And until I start seeing all the gorgeous 17th century gowns on my f-list and get really jealous!)

Well, maybe. I hope, anyway. And besides, it wasn't really being lazy the past few days; the tips of my fingers were starting to get sore from continually shoving a needle through layers of thick fabric on those stays for the binding and eyelets, so I decided to take a break. Rather a longer break than I planned on, but I wasn't just being lazy! I was reading, which is my other all-consuming habit that competes with my sewing time. And I read before I sewed, anyhow. I re-read my lovely hardcover copy of the Chronicles of Narnia (much love!), and then yesterday my mom and I found this random, cheap little bookstore that sells hardcovers for $5.99 and less. Not such a spectacular selection of fiction (boo- I want a set of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising), but they had a very nice selection of history and biography. Among other things, I got a book about Anne Boleyn, which I read yesterday until I finally started feeling guilty about my lack of eyelet-sewing. Around 11.30 at night, typically.

So I put on a DVD and sewed eyelets until about 3 am, at which point I had sewn the last 20 eyelets on the stays; now I just have to wait for Ali to come over on Tuesday (hopefully we shall be having a sewing night) so I can try them on and ensure the straps are the right length, finish the binding, and they'll be done. Yay! Then I actually will have finished something over winter break.

Okay, enough LJ; now I think I'll go find other unfinished projects to work on; unfortunately there are lots of them around!