my first-ever blog fashion show

Check it out!

and

yes, it is me kicking mass-produced corporate ass with my one of a kind hand knit socks. And because Penny is also very socially conscientious and wanted to get in on the don't-buy-what-you-can-make-yourself movement, I made her a little something as well (she couldn't quite do it herself, do to a lack of opposable thumbs - an important aspect of knitting). Everywhere we go, the other dogs stop and stare, and I know they're thinking, "Maybe I should stand up for something, too."

I am pretty happy with both projects...this was the first pair of socks I've ever made and they turned out well. They didn't take very long to make, either, which is always a big bonus (sitting on a Disney movie set for three days really helped in the "time to knit" department, but that's a story for another moment). I am, however, particularly pleased with the collar because it's the first knitting project I designed myself. It turned out awesome. Penny and I both feel that it brings out her natural flair for style. It also kicks off something I've really wanted to do for a long time: design and create my own clothes and accessories, for myself and others, people and animals alike.

My friends, we have entered a new era.

in the good old days...

Is it possible to feel sentimental for a time you were never a part of? I have been contemplating that question since this past summer when I went to a "dinner and entertainment" night at the arts school. It was wonderful. The entertainment was musician David Archibald and he was performing songs from the summer of 1967. There were a number of people in the audience who were obviously around for the summer of 1967 and were up dancing and singing along with all the songs. I, too, was already familiar with most of the songs, but seeing them performed, and seeing the audience, and feeling the energy and atmosphere and passion created by those particular songs made me wish it was 1967 again, except this time around I would be there too.

I don't know where I'm going with this, exactly...it's just something I've been thinking about lately. It leaves me feeling like I missed out on something, like somehow there were more people willing to stand for something or wanting to make a difference then than there are now. I feel like music and art came together as a voice where they now are too often products of a money-hungry industry. I feel like young people wanted to be a revolution, where they are now too often worried about just getting a half-decent job. And then I wonder if my perception isn't just a little skewed because people often look back on their youth with rose-coloured glasses, and that's how I have learned about the 60's and 70's - through the eyes of parents and others who "were there," and I pick up on their sentimentalism. That might be true, and yet there aren't legions of people proclaiming that all they need is love, anymore, and I guess that's where I start getting bummed out, because I wish there still were or, more than that, I wish there was again. Perhaps I am confusing sentimentalism with a desire for things to be different, and 1967's Summer of Love is the closest thing history offers as an example of how I wish things were now. I don't know, I don't know. I do know that there are a lot of things about society and politics and mainstream culture and lifestyles that could really benefit from a revolution right now. I'm 22. It's my generation that could make a difference right now, that could create another voice to add to the echoes of the hippies and the beats and all the dreamers and questioners of the past, so at the very least our children will hear our music and say, "We need to keep making this difference."

After all, the world doesn't belong to a single generation, it belongs to all of us. And wouldn't that be so much better than being 50 and looking back on this decade of my youth and sighing sentimentally, "Those were the days - we really stuck to the textbook and lived exactly the way society wanted us to."

BLEH!!!

a quarter-life crisis

I feel myself getting discouraged. Again. Worse, perhaps, is that I feel discouraged about being discouraged because Joel and I just moved into our own place again, which I've been looking forward to for months. I was seeing this as my opportunity to start some new things, to create a lifestyle that allows for the time to write and do my own thing and work on my own projects and essentially follow my dreams. We've been here for a week and I haven't done anything yet. I have sat down multiple times to start writing a new story or drawing a new picture and my whole being freezes up and nothing happens. It's frustrating, but not new. I have had this problem before. I have also only been here a week, so I admit that it's a little premature to jump the gun and say I am incapable of accomplishing anything. So while all this is annoying, it is not in fact the problem.

The reason I am really discouraged is because I just got a job promotion. This is discouraging because I never actually wanted a job to begin with. I want to be a starving artist. I used to be a preschool teacher and I quit that job so I could be a starving artist. Then one month Joel and I were desperately strapped for money (which, granted, is what happens to starving artists). Joel already works full time. So I said, "Well, maybe I could work one day a week somewhere." I very quickly got a job as a childcare provider at a parent/child program, one day a week. Good. Some extra money, and I still had four weekdays to myself. Hurray.

Well, then my employer asked if I could provide childcare at another program on Fridays. "Okay," I said, because it's only for a few hours and the Friday group is much different than the other group, so the job is genuinely fun. Life went on, until a couple weeks ago when my employer promoted me to child programming coordinator and gave me another day of work. Now I work three days a week and my job actually has more responsibilities than simply showing up each day. I am so frustrated. This is not what I wanted, and yet I ended up here why? Because as much as I don't like it, it's easier to do this than trust myself with something else? Because I can't say "no" to people? Because for some reason I decided to take Early Childhood Education in college, so now everyone in the country knows me as an Early Childhood Educator and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to send out the message: "No, I don't want to do this work anymore, I want to be a writer," which, incidentally is what I have ALWAYS wanted to do, since I was seven years old, even while I was in college learning how to be an Early Childhood Educator. This is so frustrating. Taking Early Childhood Education in college was the worst decision I ever made, because now it follows me around everywhere I go, getting in the way of other, more interesting opportunities. No one thinks I'm a writer. People are suprised when they find out I enjoy art, let alone create it. Instead, everyone looks at me and thinks, "Look, there's an Early Childhood Educator. I should ask her to look after my kids." I don't want people to think that anymore. I don't want people to see me that way anymore. And yet, because people do know I'm an ECE, I only encounter ECE opportunities. And, because I do need to make some money, I feel forced into taking those ECE opportunities because nothing ever happens in any other way. And because I start working so much as an ECE, I have less time to pursue other things, and then I become more and more of an ECE and less and less of a writer. This is like cracking an addiction to cocaine. It's discouraging.

So, instead of starting my new life at my new apartment by writing a novel, I have become a child programming coordinator.

Good thing I still have Mondays and Tuesdays off to complain about it on my blog.

i'm back

After one week short of a year, I am back. This is exciting. The month of September always makes me want to start something new, or in this case renew something I unfortunately gave up after too short a time. Here's to another beginning!