Category: rant

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You're so talented

I wince whenever someone says, “You’re so talented!” to me.  I feel like a jerk a milisecond later, of course, because I’ve only heard it whenever someone was intending to give me a compliment, and to be kind.

Even so, when it is said to me, I still wince.

To me, talent means an innate ability to do something.  When I get that as a compliment for something for which I have no innate ability, I feel like it shows a kind of lazy cultural attitude.

Sewing is a great example of this. Do I sew well?  While not a professional, I can make garments for myself that live up to my own criteria for a good garment.  So yes, by any objective standard, I can do a good job of it.

Lemme tell you what, though.  I am not naturally neat-handed.  I was never one of those girls who turned in the report with the beautiful round handwriting and the decorative report cover.  My pies do not have professional-looking crusts, and when we cut out the oilcloth to make sit-upons in Girl Scouts, my squares really weren’t… Square, I mean.  And the edges were all ragged. I’ve never been able to keep my hands steady enough to decorate a cake well.

I had to overcome this to be able to sew, and it took a long time.  This is a skill, after all, that I’ve been practicing for twenty years. 

Which brings me to the lazy cultural attitude.  The reality is that no-one, and I mean no-one, gets good at something without endless practice.   The activity may be fun enough that the practice isn’t particularly tedious, but the practice still happens.  Anyone who knows me even a little would say I am talented with words.  Okay, granted.  I do love to write, but the reality is that I if I have any skill at all as a writer it is because I write, quite literally, thousands of words a day.  I went through a period in my life recently where I did not, and I can tell a significant difference.   I’m still working to get back up to speed on that!

Yet,  we have this idea that people who are good at things are naturally good at it.  Me?  I’m beginning to get the idea that we become skilled at whatever we work on constantly.  So, to me, I think it may be less about talent and a lot more about what we really love to work on.

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Cheerleaders v Lifeguards

I curl up in a little ball internally whenever I am in a group of women where some other perky woman begins her comments to us with “Ladies!” It is not that I hate being called a lady. While not really one by the standards by which I was reared, certainly I understand the compliment involved and am a product enough of my times to like it.

It’s that I consider the verbal tic indicative of the “cheerleader” type of woman. Cheerleaders are attractive, of course. They’re also competent, skilled and fun. Much of what they do can be found on many a dance floor and gymnastics mat, after all, and requires enormous amounts of skill and practice. But they’re accessories. Their attractiveness, their skills? All of that is to serve the purpose of being an accessory to someone else’s (usually male) achievements. It matters not one iota how hard one has worked, nor one’s own abilities, the cheerleader type essentially has it as a function to complete and pull together someone else’s outfit.

I relate to the lifeguard type better. Often attractive and by necessity skilled, the lifeguard is important and necessary in her own right. She’s not there to make sure someone else’s package is attractive, but is there to make things better, safer, and more fun. When something goes wrong, the lifeguard dives in and does her best to fix it.

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Books Beneath You

So there’s this guy who is embarrassed that his wife reads a lot of YA literature. “I feel mildly embarrassed that she can talk (in detail!) to my nieces about these books at holiday gatherings.”

The idea that literature written for youngsters is automatically simplistic stuff is moronic. We all know the story about A Wrinkle in Time being marketed as a YA because the ideas in it were too complex to be marketed as adult literature, yes? But YA often has more compelling storytelling than the adult stuff, so why not read it? I like compelling storytelling. There’s a reason I was a big fan of that Nickelodeon show Avatar: The Last Airbender, and why I loved the Harry Potter series.

On the other hand, why must everything you read be “Great Literature?”

Since books have been cheap enough for the masses to afford, there’s always been some peabrain who goes on about “bad literature” rotting the brain. Sometimes the peabrain is a celebrated author! Louisa May Alcott has several fine rants in Little Women, Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom about the dangers of trashy literature. Never mind that she wrote a fair share of it herself!

I do admit that I read with about the same forethought and discrimination most people apply to their television watching. That’s mostly because I rarely like television shows (yes, Avatar was an exception) and go to reading for my entertainment on the same level as someone getting into reality TV. I mean, at present, I am reading T. Tembarom by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and a more sentimental early twentieth century dime novel you’d be unlikely to find. It pulls on the emotions more or less like reality TV is meant to.

Do I ever read “Great Literature?” I guess, but I don’t really think about it that way. Whenever I look at a list of 100 or so books that are listed as “classics,” it’s a pretty sure bet I’ve read at least 50 of them, sometimes more, depending on the list. But the fact that I have read them has considerably more to do with sheer volume at which I read than any real serious selection on my part. *grin* That, and the fact that you can read many classics for free by downloading them from The Gutenberg Project.

Maybe I’m a low-brow. I dunno. But one thing I am sure of, any guy who is embarrassed at his wife reading The Hunger Games is a dork.

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I Hate Stitching and Seaming

I’ve mentioned before that I knit in the round because I hate stitching and seaming sweaters. But even a sweater knit in the round will need some finishing. You have some “live” stitches at least under each arm when you attach your sweater to the body, and those stitches need to be taken care of.

There are several options. You could knit and graft a gusset. I’ve never done this, but if you needed greater range of motion than a knit fabric will usually give you (I’m presuming you’ll be doing yoga in it or something, as knitted fabrics generally don’t bind much), or if you have very very large upper arm, attaching a gusset might not be a bad idea. (I sometimes do that in the crotch of pants because I do have heavy thighs).

Otherwise, you’ll just be grafting together your knitted pieces.

 

The first picture shows the live stitches. They’re not attached to anything. The second picture shows those live stitches attached by the Kitchener stitch. I mostly hate the stich because I’m not very good at it. I actually have to knit a couple of swatches and practice before I try it on a sweater I am making. That may sound a bit retentive, but I’ve put a long time into making a sweater, so I don’t mind a little refresher to try to make a structural seam work properly.

Knitting Help has a great video on how to do the Kitchener stitch.

And yes, I have to chant to myself, “Knit, slip, purl, purl, slip, knit,” as I am doing it. Stop laughing at me. I can’t help it.

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Not a Real Knitter

I’ve been reading Knitting Rules: The Yarn Harlot’s Bag of Tricks, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not a real knitter. I have a yarn stash, yes. It’s contained in one, one bin in the bottom of my closet and is mostly made of leftover yarn from former projects. If I go to a yarn store, I know exactly what I need for my current project, and I buy exactly that. I do not fondle yarn. I’m not in love with yarn. While I do prefer 100% wool for my knitting, friends, Wool of the Andes is my go-to yarn.1 I don’t fondle the skeins and think about what the yarn “wants” to be. I think about what I want to make, then select the appropriate yarn. It’s not that I don’t love good construction materials. I live in Northern New England and there is a reason I love wool!

But apparently the real knitter has a stash that’s big enough to be embarrassing, but not so embarrassing that there isn’t a bit of brag going on. The real knitter hides how much one spends on yarn from partners. The real knitter could happily use the stash as a mattress. The real knitter is obsessed in yarn stores, fondles the different yarns and consults with it so that it is possible to discover what that yarn wants to be.

I admit it. I’m not a real knitter. I just make sweaters and socks and hats with sticks and string.

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1 It’s about as inexpensive as you can get and still be knitting in 100% wool.

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How to Know a Geek Knitter Loves You

The Yarn Harlot is knitting a Doctor scarf.

If you are not a knitter, but you are a Doctor Who fan, you might want one of the scarves of your very own. You might even think, “Hey, I wouldn’t think of asking someone to knit me the 7th Doctor vest,1 but a simple scarf? Surely (s)he wouldn’t mind!”

No, it’s not that the scarf would be hard to knit. It’s just 12 feet of garter stitch.

That’s the point. Twelve feet of garter stitch. Friends, unless you’re a knitter, you have no idea in the world how tedious that can get. I mean, you can talk about the idiot knitting of a sweater all you want to, but twelve feet of garter stitch… My word. Yes, I’ve done it, though it was years ago, and it turned me off learning any more complex knitting for about fifteen years.

What brings this to mind?

The sweater I am knitting for my son. I asked him what he wanted in a sweater. He wants a plain color –red. He doesn’t want any fancy patterning in the stitches, but a simple knitted hem and raglan sleeves. Thank goodness for sleeve and neckline shaping (I’m making a Seamless Raglan Sweater from Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears) or it would be almost as bad as that Doctor scarf.

If you have ever been knitted a Fourth Doctor scarf, never doubt that you are loved by that knitter!

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1 Reality check: This would be a pleasantly challenging but not too insane knit, especially if you could figure out way to do it in the round.

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The Name Game

Google+, a new social networking site that’s in theory still in beta, is having a serious issues amongst its users.

You see, Google+ wants to insist that people use their legal names on their social networking site. If you’re using a name that appears “fake” by various criteria, you stand to have the account axed.

Okay, does this affect me? Personally, not so much. I use my “real” name online and have for creeping up on two decades.

Oh, wait… No, I didn’t for a long time. For the first decade and a bit, I used my maiden name – not my legal name. When I got married, I actually took my husband’s last name. I used it to apply for jobs and sign checks. Socially? I tended to introduce myself with my maiden name. When I went online, I used my NoelFigart as my handle, typically. It wasn’t particularly a conscious decision. It’s my name. It’s unique, and I like my name a lot, so hey…

Notice how I phrased that “it’s my name”. It most certainly was not my legal name. It was the name I most identified with. It was my mental default that I used. I had to think about it a little when I was signing checks or in formal situations where I was addressed as Mrs. <HusbandName>. Oh sure like many a traditionally-reared girl who is engaged, I did practice the “Married name signature” and played with it. I’m just saying that in my case, it didn’t stick much.

I changed it back to my maiden name about six years ago. There were a lot of driving reasons, but the most serious one for me was that my son, if asked what his mother’s name was, would say Noël Figart. The last time I heard him do it when before I changed my name back to my maiden name, this scene from the Bring on the Night movie floated through my mind:

Reporter: Well, Gordon…

Sting: My children call me Sting, my mother calls me Sting. Who is this Gordon1 character?

I figured that when even my son used Figart instead of my married name, it was time to embrace it and have my legal name be the name I actually use.

If I had not changed my name, would Google+ have decided to kick me out if they’d discovered I wasn’t using my legal name? Or is a maiden name “legitimate” because there’s social precedent for a woman using her maiden name either professionally or socially.

However, what about pen names? I have one. One of my blogs is written under a sobriquet. I would (and do) answer to it as readily as Noël. I consider it one of my names. When we’re talking marketing and brand, it’s most certainly identified with me, even if many people who know it know my “real” name as well. In my case, it’s no big secret. It’s also a name that is so obviously “fake” that it would get me kicked off Google+ pretty quickly – never mind that it’s a legitimate identity that I am really, no kidding, known by. And in fact, my Google+ circles are more likely to contain people who know me in that context than as Noël.

I consider myself probably one of the simpler examples of the fluidity of name. So, I think that Google needs to think more carefully about the whole legal, Western-based “Firstname” “Lastname” requirement for its social circles. I get that it is trying to create a culture of transparency in the hopes that it will promote a friendlier environment and better behavior amongst its denizen.

I just think that they’re using a ball-peen hammer for a situation that might call for a scapel. Just sayin’.

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1 Sting was born Gordon Matthew Sumner.

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Mom is not an insult

I’ve had it with “Mom” being used as a prefix or descriptive for something backward, unattractive, technophobic or unfashionable. I wanna know since when was being a mother something shameful and backward?

The roots of this, I think are even worse than it looks on the surface. Mom, in general, also means “older woman”. And we all know older women are valueless, right? Women are worthwhile and tolerable when you wanna bang ’em, but otherwise? Feh! Don’t clutter up the landscape!

While I’m enough of a child of my generation that I don’t think being a mother is the be-all and end-all of female accomplishment, it is a part of what I do and how I spend my days. All the moms reading this know it’s a tough job, and frankly, I’d like a little credit and respect for it. We may not be spending our lives trying to be all hot and hip, but part of that is because we’re trying against almost impossible societal odds to bring up the next generation of decent human beings. Sorry if that’s not cool enough for you, but I assure you that you would not want to live in a world where the difficult job of mother isn’t taken seriously by at least some of us.

Do I do other things? Yep. In fact everything I do requires me to learn and study new things on a very regular basis. So you can drop dead with that backward crap.

As far as being technologically hip? That’s my job, thanks, so that whole backward thing when it comes to being a mom doesn’t wash at my business. In fact, a good 80% of my students are middle-aged women (moms) and this cultural view of older women being technophobic –that it’s expected for them to be so, isn’t something I let ’em get away with. You know what? After a few weeks with me, most of them walk away just as eager to learn and discover on their own as any hip twenty-something.

So, as far as being a “Mom”? Fine, try and brush me aside as middle-aged and not worth too much.

Just don’t get in my goddamned way, because I have shit to do and I will run you over in the process.

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Cultural Expectation Hilarity

I taught a class today through a company that serves lunch as part of the class day. We go to a local place that serves pizza, sandwiches and salads.

There were four of us who went – me and three men.

Now when I go I always order a BLT because I love BLTs and this is my chance to have one. I don’t know why particularly that I don’t make them at home, but I don’t.

Now, the company I teach through puts in the order before we get there to give us more time to enjoy our meal. It’s rather nice, and the restaurant knows us by now. So, we just come in and sit down, then have our meals served.

Today the order included three sandwiches and a salad. Remember the demographic of the group? Three men and a woman?

The waitress, without asking who ordered it, put the salad in front of me.

I think it was more about the fact I am female than being not slender, but I did roll my eyes internally at ingrained cultural ideas.

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But How Will You Improve, Part Two

Last week, I talked about exercise, improvement and whether or not to have goals.

A) My swimming time is definitely improving without extraordinary effort.  I swam 1050 today in half an hour while pushing enough to be a pleasant muscular effort.  I wasn’t feeling all gung-ho, but was just enjoying my swim.  A month ago, I swam 900 yards in half an hour.

B)  I do have an exercise goal.  My goal is to show up!

I still question the “Get better and better and better!” thing for working out.  Friends, I’m 42.  Not a teenager any more.  While yes, I do agree that we need to move our bodies to keep them healthy, we don’t have to be athletes.

When we talk about fitness, I really think “Fit for what?” becomes a genuine question to ask.  The Crossfit people have their own ideas about this.  I won’t argue too hard against them, but I will point out Crossfit was created as a training program for rescue workers.  If you want to be able to perform at that physical level, I think that’s cool.  Go for it.  But accept that if you’re not a rescue worker, it’s more of a hobby than a reflection on how you live your life on a day to day basis.  (And goodness knows I can think of worse hobbies!)  I wouldn’t call it a moral imperative, even if fitness websites do often have testimonials about some emergency and how glad they are they did <foo> sort of training because it helped them.

I do think, however, that looking at the life you live and deciding what you want to be able to do physically is a good idea.

For myself, this is my physical baseline.  I want to be able to:

  • Swim a mile comfortably
  • Walk two miles without feeling tired afterwards
  • Lift a standard copier paper box of books comfortably
  • Wrangle a snow-blower after a two foot snowfall (I live in Northern New England)
  • Be able to stack a couple of cords of wood in a day (see previous)
  • Be able to help push a car out of a ditch (again, see previous)
  • Be active enough that I think driving to a grocery store is a silly waste of gas.  This means being able to carry a heavy back pack full of groceries about a half a mile.
  • Be able to lift a suitcase over my head into the overhead compartment on a train or airplane
  • Be able to run from one end of an airport to another to catch a flight on too close of a connection.
  • Be able to give a four to six hour lecture on my feet being physically active and animated the whole time.  (I teach computer applications as well as rant about physical fitness.  If you’re not active and animated, you lose your audience quick).
  • Be able to change a 5 gallon water jug in a water cooler without spilling water all over the floor or throwing out my back.

Notice none of the goals are particularly exciting or dramatic.  I don’t have survivalist goals.  I live a heavily technologically-based life and I’m cool with that.  I grew up during the tail end of the Cold War fifty miles from Washington DC, a state capital, and about a dozen military bases.  I’m used to living on the slopes of Vesuvius, thanks.  If I sweated it, I’d be more of a basket case than I already am.  I can pretty much do all of the things listed above already, but it’s my baseline.   Every one of them can be achieved or maintained by working out a half an hour every weekday.

Do your desired physical abilities levels look different?  I bet they do.  Know why? You live a different life.  I do think it is a good idea, though, to sit down and give what you want to be able to do physically some logical thought.  What can you do now?  What do you want to be able to do?  Do you have any physical limitations that are a factor?  I do.  There’s a reason I’m an enthusiastic swimmer above and beyond my love of water, ya know!

I’m curious to know what other people’s goals look like, if you want to share.  I’m curious to know how they reflect real-world daily life v. numbers measuring athletic performance.