Noël Lynne Figart

Fine, I Caved

I just can’t stand it.  I’m looking at the pics of myself and realizing why I hadn’t made clothes for myself using a commercial pattern since I learned pattern drafting!

I’m not entirely happy with the fit of the shell or the torso of the dresses I’m making,  Not surprising. My cup size is somewhere around an E, if I got a proper bra that actually fit right, and patterns are drafted for a B-cup.

Also, large size patterns are merely graded up from smaller size. This can cause all sorts of fit problems in the ribcage, torso and across the shoulders.  While the jacket I’m making, being a kimono style jacket, isn’t meant to be fitted, loose and gappy looks terrible in a simple sheath dress.  (The simpler a garment is, the more proper fit matters).

I’m redrafting the damn thing and making muslin of the shell before I go any further. I need different bust darts (I’m 40 and commercial patterns are designed for perky breasts which I don’t have any more), less fabric in the ribcage, and added waist darts.  The armholes are way too big and the adjustments I’m making, while okay, don’t look as good as a properly drafted torso for an individual.  They either interfere with the neckline or change the fit over the bust in ways that don’t thrill me.  I’ll use the pattern I bought for a basic neckline, as I like it well enough.  I’m also keeping the skirt, cause that works well enough.  In fact, I’ll likely use it as a template to redraft the dress.  I’ve extrapolated the formula one needs to use for the bias facing, and it’s not really hard.

I have this sinking feeling if I don’t do a muslin of the pants I’m gonna regret it.

I’d meant this to be a quick-n-dirty wardrobe, but if I feel like a slob in the outfit, I’m defeating the purpose.  I’ve already invested way the fuck too much in fabric to do that.  I like the basic garments, yes, but if I’m gonna sew ‘em, anyway, a good fit is a better idea.  A basic straight skirt with an elastic waistband is hard to go wrong with, but the torso is another matter entirely.  And dammit, I deserve a sheath dress that fits my curves right.  I like my shape, dammit, and don’t particularly wanna hide it with drapery.  Which is more or less why I learned to sew in the first place.  This is also why I tend to make my clothes rather than buy them.  I rarely find something in a store that’s even as close to as flattering as I can make myself.  This would not be true if I had not learned to draft patterns.

I have a princess seam torso I could use, sure.  But even that needs a lot of tweaking now that I’ve started lifting weights (I haven’t tweaked it in probably three or four years).  My shoulders and back are broader, I’m narrower in the ribs and waist, the broad point in my hips is in a different place and my butt  is rounder, so the curve of my back is a different shape, too.   For that level of fit, I’d wanna make a custom dress form and do a draped muslin from which to make a pattern. Any local seamstresses wanna get together and have a dress form making party?  I know a couple of methods that aren’t too expensive or time-consuming.  Just never had any sewing partners to make one with.

Don’t Lie to My Kids

Look, I don’t think driving drunk is okay.  Hell, I don’t think driving sleep deprived is okay, either.  It’s not nice to the people you might run in to.

That said, what the Oceanside, CA School District decided was okay in trying to teach this lesson is completely unacceptable.

They thought having the California Highway Patrol come in and tell some high school students their friends were dead in a drunk driving accident, letting them freak out and then saying, “Nope, everything’s okay, it was just an object lesson!” was just fine and dandy if it saved a life.

Bull.

I’m all for teachable moments.  But you have to use your brain.  The lesson that was taught there was, “You can’t trust us to tell you the truth if we have an ulterior motive.”

Fair enough.  Those kids can’t trust the cops or the school district to be honest if they have an ulterior motive.

Is that the example you want to set of how an adult should behave?

Is that the level of sensitivity you want them to show people they have power over in years to come?  Don’t fool yourself that we’re talking all that many years, by the way.  In five years, some of those kids will be teachers.  I bet some of them are camp counselors, swimming instructors or lifeguards right now.  You want them to get that Machiavellian with your children?

Even so, there are better ways to teach a kid not to drive drunk.  How about… talk to your kids about alcohol?   I’ve told my kids flat out the average rates at which a human processes a drink.  They’ve watched adults in their lives decide not to drive a car because they’d just had a drink. They’ve heard them say things like, “Can someone else drive?  I’ve just had a glass of wine.”

They’ve been told you can overdose on alcohol.  I even told them the story of me drinking a certain quantity of alcohol on a bet and how a friend insisted I throw up when he found out what I’d done.  I also explained that if he hadn’t done that, my son would never have been born, because I’d've died.   Growing up Southern Baptist means your alcohol education is sketchy at best.  At the time, all I had to go on were my parents quite moderate drinking habits on the one hand and the church and my school’s (considerably lighter) scare tactics on the other.  I’d internalized that as long as you don’t get behind a wheel or make a stupid decision about condom use, alcohol really couldn’t be dangerous and the school was being its idiotic, dramatic self.

My children are getting a lot more facts.  Parents, if you think your moderate drinking habits are a good example, don’t rely on that.  The schools might be using scare tactics.    The kids might blow off what they hear in school.  You make sure your kids get the accurate facts.

Will they always follow through with intelligent choices?   As badly as it scares me, probably not.  But goddammit, they know they’re getting told the damn truth.  They trust me to do that.  If an activity is mildly risky, they know bloody well I’m not going to lie and blow the risk out of proportion because I don’t want them to get hurt.

I sincerely hope the parents in Oceanside raise holy hell about this and stop that sort of nonsense!

The New Thirty

What the hell is up with the contortions about what age is what?

I got it first almost ten years ago from an OBGYN who was fitting me with an IUD and scolding me about my weight, saying that biologically I was more like my grandparents in their late teens, so I should be careful.  I never quite understood that.  Three generations isn’t enough to promote a change in aging that dramatic.  I do appear younger than my grandparents did at my age, but that’s because I am more careful about sun and don’t smoke. That’s about it.  I don’t look younger than my non-smoking mother did at my age — and that’s a time period about which I have quite clear memories, as I was already an adult.

It hit me again recently when I was looking up long hair care techniques.  I’m a swimmer, I wear my hair about waist length, and I dye my hair.  Since it’s quite chemically-abused, I was checking some stuff out.

There was the usual advice that when a woman hits forty she should cut her hair (anyone really wanna bet that in six months I’ll be sporting a short hairstyle?  REALLY???? Sort of impending chemo-therapy, and using my hair to make a wig, we’re talking SERIOUS improbability)

Then I ran across this article that explained that it’s okay for a woman past forty to wear her hair long “because forty is the new thirty.”

No, forty is still forty.  And it’s okay to wear long hair under one condition: That you want to.

I always liked Gloria Steinem’s retort to the reporter who told her she didn’t look like she was forty.

“This is what forty looks like!”

Martian Death Flu

You know how working out is supposed to boost your immune system, and make you strong and all that smack?

I have a case of the Martian Death Flu.  You know the one, where air molecules  bumping against your skin hurt like crazy and your joints are on fire and you have a hacking cough and a fever that trips up and down teasing you so that you think it’s gone away until you get the shivvering chills again and your head aches and the idea of food is appalling and you feel yourself getting weaker by the hour and…

Yeah, that one.

I don’t get sick often so this is getting on my nerves.  I want to train, but… Well, Rule One.  I’m weak enough I’m not sure I could squat with an empty bar and keep my balance.  So, I wait.

Not only that, I think it would be a bit inconsiderate to go to the gym and pass this along to other people.

But I’m feeling cranky and ill and moody and want a mood lift.

And I have work to complete for a client.  Thank God I’m disciplined about research and outlines.   But writing when your think is broken and you can’t brane?  I know there’s this famous idea of people turning to writing when they weren’t well enough for other work, but I guess I’m a crap writer.   I write best when I’m well.

Oh, and open message to all you macho assholes who go to the gym and train while dripping snot into tissues and horking lung butter into your hands:

STOPPIT!!!!

It’s really inconsiderate.  Just sayin’.  Use a mask if you’ve just gotta train, please? (You wanna hurt your own body, go for it.  It’s spreading your illness around to other people that’s my concern).  I’m right up the road from a fancy, schmancy research hospital that’d be delighted to give you a mask if you ask for one.  Really.  But you can buy ‘em cheap in drug stores, too.  I know they’re dorky lookin’.  But I’d respect it.  Honest.

Why I Am in Favor of Testicles for Trucks

Apparently there’s a new fad out there — hanging rubber or chrome testicles from a truck’s trailer hitch.

And because it’s (OMGWTFBBQ!) a physcial representation of a body part having something to do with <gasp!> sex, some peabrain in the Commonwealth of Virginia wants to ban them.

I think balls for trucks are great! They’re awesome. They’re a big ole danglin’ sign that there’s someone in that truck that is too tacky for me to associate with.

I mean, really… Without those swingin’ nuts, I might actually have to waste the valuable, limited seconds of my life listening to them talk to discover they’re too idiotic to be worth my time.

So if you feel the need to give your truck balls, why go for it, my dear.

And thank you from the bottom of my heart for your philanthropic service.

Moronic Legislation

A Mississippi bill to prohibit food establishments from serving food to obese people.

Am I the only person who looks at that and thinks of the “Physical Jerks” scene from 1984?I mean, Sweet Zombie Jesus, it’s not like I don’t believe in healthy eating and exercise.    My ass was in the pool today and I swam a whole mile.  You can’t say I don’t work out.   I believe that eating right and exercise is good for you.

It’s just that it’s not the State’s goddamned job to force it.

People as Things

“There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats. “And what do they think? Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax. “It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”

“Nope.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.

“It’s a lot more complicated than that –”

“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes –”

“But they starts with thinking about people as things …”

— Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

 

I love this passage. Actually read Carpe Jugulum. There are several Weatherwax passages that have me grinning triumphantly and crying at the same time.

New Hampshire Primaries

I live in New Hampshire.

It’s a Presidential election year.

I can tell you that none of the candidates have found a friend in Noël Figart. I get knocks on my door, I get phone calls.  I get phone calls from people. I get phone calls from machines with carefully-worded recordings that make it impossible to give my real views on a given subject.  I get junk mail.

One phone call?  Okay, fine.  You gotta get your message out to the poor saps who don’t watch the news.  (I don’t.  I’m an avid blogger and reader of blogs.  Something interesting comes by, someone’ll link to it).

But calling me three times in one day is excessive, after having someone knock on my door the day before.  If I didn’t already dislike the politics of the Junior Sentator from New York, I’d be guarendamnteed to vote against Clinton after today.

I have one question to any candidate:  Did you vote against the war in Iraq?  No?

Ya don’t have my vote.  Abstentions don’t count.  If you voted for a war, please have the courtesy not to claim to be peace-loving and all tender hearted about the people.  KTHXBYE.

An Interesting Thought

How often do we hear an apology accompanied by:

“but I was PMSing.”
“but I’d been drinking.”
“but I’ve had a rough day.”
“but I was distracted.”

I was thinking of it because of course, I’m vain enough to do that — to make excuses for myself and why a behavior I didn’t like in myself wasn’t “really so bad”.

What would things look like, I wonder, if we developed the courage to face our choices in behavior to the point where we can say, “Yes, I did X thing. I don’t like it that I did it, and I’m sorry I did it. I’ll try in the future to correct that behavior and not do it again.”? (If we’re really sorry about our behavior, of course!)

In doing that though, I don’t mean saying, “I’m an awful person and I did X”. I mean facing it without self recrimination, but simple acknowledgment, accompanied by any apology you feel necessary and a sincere desire to correct it.

Serenely accepting imperfection and still trying without slacking, I think, can be hard.

On Procrastination

If you can order your life in such a way as to *not* find it necessary to write 5,000 words (~20 doublespaced pages) of fiction in a day to stick to a goal, this is probably a good course for your life to take.

Think broken, can’t brane.

However, got a wonderful idea for That Damned Book, and it’s beautiful and subtle and makes a great metaphor and I love it.