I wore a new Shirt and where it lead me thinking.

I wore a new shirt.   It is a t-shirt that a friend had printed at one of those companies that does that for artists and then the artist makes a pittance when you order their shirt to support them.  I didn't wash it.  Anyway, I wore a new shirt while I was cleaning the duplex getting it ready for new tenants. I didn't have too much to do, but it is summer here in North Florida and it is hot.  The air-conditioning was set at 80.  I worked up a little "glow" as they say down here.
  
I noticed that I was a little itchy.  I just thought it was from the "glow"; no, really sweat.  I got home at around 5:00 pm.  I was really itchy.  I don't know why I didn't take that shirt off the minute I got home.  Maybe, I thought that if I cooled down, it would get better.  No.  It didn't.  It got worse. By the time I took the shirt off I was a big red, itchy mess.  That was on the 11th.  

Here we are on the 28th and I am still itchy.  Not as bad but now I am kind of scabby in places on my back.  Okay that is TMI.  I took Benadryl.  I have used Benadryl cream.  I have used Cortisone Cream.  They have all helped to some extent.  I am still itchy.  Not so bad that it wakes me up anymore but I don't want anything rubbing on me. 

I used to get incredible debilitating allergy attacks before I did the whole shot thing.  When my histamines get going they don't want the party to end....ever. It takes drugs to finally throw them down.  I guess my arsenal of over-the-counter meds is just not enough.  I am hoping to rectify that.  Because those babies are back and are like "Hey, you haven't let us out in a long time and we want to Par T!"

Now this situation has caused me to make some modifications in my everyday undergarments.  I have replaced the giant rubber-band of a brassiere for a camisole style t-shirt. You would think that it would be considerably warmer considering there is a full shirt that you are wearing under another shirt.  On the contrary, it is pretty comfy.  

Somehow in contemplating this change of attire I began to think about how did we end up with the clothing that we have.  I mean who decided that women need to defy gravity with their breasts.  Why do they have to be rigged up to our chins in an unmoveable cup with just the right amount of jiggle on the top....for the guys.  Not only that.  I mean now they have little "daisys" in the cup to make sure that the nipple doesn't show.  

I am not saying this in a judgemental way, but some guys have a bit of breast and nipple action going on and no one cares or even thinks it is indecent.   So where has this come from?  Men? Then we have the issue in France where there was the whole Burkini up roar.  First we show too much and now we show to little. I mean who is the "decider" here?  Men are not required to cover up their breasts or their nipples.  You know they look very similar....sometimes more than not. Okay, women use them to nurse their children but people get really hinky about that too.  So it is okay to see male's useless nipples but not a woman's nipples, whether they are in use or not.  A woman can wear a teeny weeny bikini and show her whole breast but not the areola or the nipple. Somehow the whole breast is okay...just not the nipple.  Lets not forget, we can see them in  National Geographic magazine if they are aboriginal nipples.  I guess they are different.  (why do you think those boys were hiding those magazines under the bed?!)

Then I started to think way outside of the circle and I thought isn't weird that we worry about seeing the nipple through the clothes so the bra companies have devised a little shield in the bra to prevent them from "poking" out too much.  Yet, women who have gone through breast augmentation due to cancer surgery pay extra to have a nipple so they still look like breasts. I mean, I get it.  No judgement what so ever.   Then they put on bras that make the nipples invisible.  We are conditioned.  We are so weird. 

Cursive, I'm old school

My daughter-in-law just got her first teaching job.  I am thrilled for her.  It has taken a couple of years to feel confident to take this step so I am really proud of her.  She will be teaching 4th grade writing, grammar and spelling.  She could probably teach me a couple of things.

One thing she won't be teaching is cursive.  She doesn't believe in it.  Her school has many language problems with migrant children and other non-native English speakers, they don't have time.  Cursive seems like a luxury.  I hate that.

Don't get me wrong.  I didn't like penmanship.  I was okay at it but I hated being graded whether my h's went all the way up or my t's were just below.  It all seemed pretty trivial.  However, since I was born in the dark ages, before computers.  We had to write all or our papers and they all had to be cursive.  We all got pretty decent at it; well, most of us.  Even today when I go to a meeting, jot something down, write a grocery list, or certainly write a card, it is in cursive.

I always felt that when I wrote my notes in class I remembered them clearly.  I could almost visualize them on the page.  Do you do that if you don't look at the keys as you are typing?  I don't know.  Studies show that college students that hand wrote their notes vs. typing retained the information more.  You could print your notes and that would still work.  However, cursive is faster.  Most people create a sort of personal hybrid of the two.  That is also because most people that are now adults did have cursive.  What if you never did?  

I forget that maybe my niece and nephews can't read that.  They will have to hand the card to Mom or Dad and have them read it.  Should I stop or just keep doing that and then they will at least learn to read it.  

I have a cookbook of handwritten recipe cards by my Nana.  I treasure that. I treasure that she took the time to handwrite each card out for me.  I know copying them from her own favorite family recipes.  That took time.  I will have her handwriting there forever.  I immediately know it is her writing, just as I know my Mom's or my Dad's.  I know my husbands.  It makes it special because it is unique to them.  I suppose their printing would be as well....but maybe not.  

So yes, I am old school.  I think we should teach our children cursive.  I don't want knuckles rapped with rulers or grades attached to formation. It just seems so sad to lose it 

Shopping, I like it but what size!

The other day I went shopping with my Mom and we found a few T-shirts that we liked.  I bought two because they were really on sale.  They were very soft and a simple stripe that I can wear everyday.  I don't know if I was momentarily hypnotized in the store or just stupid.  Now that I have washed them several times I have found that they seem tighter and the once soft fabric is pilling significantly. They are Polyester Rayon and Spandex. They are both the same size, medium.  Of course one feels slightly more snug than the other.  They are a bit snug in the arms.  It doesn't bother me too much but I don't have really big arms.  I admit they are bigger than when I was 20.  For purposes of perspective, I am 5'8 and no more than 155 lbs.  I consider myself pretty average.   So much for a good deal.

I am sitting here typing in a shirt I bought at Target the other day.  It is an extra large.  I originally bought it to sleep in but then decided it was fine to wear out.  I don't usually shop at Target but their t-shirts run pretty small or is tight the norm?
What is the deal with spandex and t-shirts, or just about everything these days?   Good lord, I don't know how we kept our clothes from stretching out to ridiculous sizes until spandex came along.  My favorite old jeans that have formed to my body are pre-spandex.  Now, we can't have jeans without it. Why is that?

I went shopping with a good friend in Chattanooga and she took me to my all time favorite store, JJill.  Why do I like it?  I like it because all the clothes look like they are fresh and clean.  They don't look like they took them out of an overpacked shipping container from China with all the beautiful creases and wrinkles...and off smell that comes from traveling over the ocean salt air and all.  (Which they did when we later went to Kohls where I couldn't buy a thing for that reason)  I am digressing.  What I wanted to say is that I found a cute shirt on the sale rack.  It was a size SP.  You know what that means, small petite! As I said earlier....5'8" 155.  Nope not small or petite.  They do cut their clothes large (vanity sizing).

A couple of weeks ago I was going to a beer tasting and I wanted to wear my logo shirt from the brewery.  I had purchased and XL.  You heard me.  These woman's cuts are so small.  You know, I am of the age, 60, where our middles are not as svelte as they once were.  Why the heck would I want my clothes to be so tight as to show the complete outline of my bra and the top of my pants!  This is a problem with every woman's logo style shirt I have tried.  I have a Bonnie Raitt shirt...won't wear it out, another micro brew shirt, same deal.  I could buy the men's or unisex shirt... I hate them.  The crew neck is too small, the sleeves are huge boxes that look ridiculous and the body has no shape.  They are made for men so they go straight up and down...  that works out for many women but they are tighter on top and on the bottom and huge in the middle.  They are not made for us!

For that matter...I don't know who clothing manufacturers are making clothes for anymore!  I was explaining sizes to my husband.  I explained that there is the Misses dept and the Woman's dept.  He was like...Whatttt????? "Okay so that means sizes 0-16 (18) is in Misses and anything above that is Woman's."  Then there is Juniors which sort of works the same way but they are odd numbers 0-11, or sometimes they do a double number such as 7/8 or 9/10.

ARRRRAGH!  Now you know why we have to try everything on, often in multiple sizes!

I have been struggling with glass for almost 8 years.  What I mean by that is that I have been having trouble finding my voice with it.  Glass is hard.  It doesn't want to easily be sculptural when you are working with it as a kiln casting material and not blowing. There is carving the castable piece, making a duplicate model of it, and then making a plaster mold.  Each of these steps is arduous and fraught with failure.  

Along with that trip up, a family tragedy squashed my mojo. 

Now there is a crazy level of environmental concern for the manufacture of glass.  It has effected both the manufacturer that I use, Bullseye Glass but also others such as Uroboros. Spectrum glass in Washington state, announced they were giving up the ghost.  Bullseye is soldiering on and doing everything in their power to abide by the demands of all the governmental entities.  This has cost them money and thus they must increase the cost of their glass by 12.5%.  All the while, most customers have no idea.
Living on the East coast, we are at a disadvantage as the cost of shipping the material to us is over 10%.  Living in a small town with very little sales outlets we must ship our work to galleries, again another 10% hit.  This for a material that is already one of the most expensive mediums out there.  
Maybe this is a bit of sour grapes but all of this together has led me to question my desire to continue with glass.
Then the gallery calls and wants more...what is a person to do.  ARRRRGH!
Left in a quandary. 

Themes

Artists League 30th anniversary Show will be about Nudes.

I don't like themed art shows.  It's not that I can't think of something to do.  I think it has more to do with doing something that is out of my stream of consciousness.  I know, I know, I am supposed to stretch myself.  Yet, we are told to build a body of work, to have a cohesive body of work.  So I work on that and believe me, I have enough trouble doing that.  So now you want me to make something to fit your parameters. 

Nude animals, nude hands legs feet, partial nudity, abstract nudity, or nudity of spirit. (I don't know what nudity of spirit is I just threw that in there); these are all possibilities.  Really however, you are talking about nudes.  I know that nudity doesn't have to be lascivious or erotic. I know the human body is beautiful. Maybe I am prudish.  I don't really think so.  Well, maybe.  

I know I could adjust some of my "people" with their colors and patterns and fit them into your definition of "Nudity" but that is not the way I want them seen, it is not my intention.  I think it is important that one's work be seen within it's intention.  

Well, so there it is.  I am a bit prudish, inflexible with my intention, and a little bit contrary.  

Hippifying my Blue Jeans

I have this pair of GAP jeans.  I think they are about 20 years old.  They have molded to my body and weirdly they still fit.  But they have been really showing their age the the thighs are going.  One side more than the other.  I had saved some old jeans that I didn't like for patches and today was the day.  I haven't embroidered on jeans in quite a while .

This was a little t-shirt I embroidered.  I was a senior in High School.

Running as Fast as I can

I feel like I am chasing technology.  What with phones, computers and even TVs.  

My Mom has sort of been wanting a smart phone.  She has an older style phone.  She gets envious that I can text, take pictures, surf the web, etc and she can't do that.  HOWEVER, I asked her who she would do that with other than me.  She is 81.  She didn't know because many of her friends use their cell phones as she does, emergency.  She never has it on.  She has had the phone for 7 or 8 years and still doesn't know how to retrieve messages.  We have showed her numerous times.  How the heck is she going to learn an IPhone?  Of course you realize I would have to teach her.  I have had IPhone's for a long time and I like them but I don't use it to its full advantage.  I don't know all the special things it does.  I set it up to do Apple Pay but I have yet to use it.  Running to keep up there.

I had to get a new laptop a year ago, That forced me into Windows 8 and then Windows 10. The first time I turned on Windows 8, I cried.  I admit it, tears actually rolled down my cheeks.  I thought, I will never figure this out.  Thank goodness I bought a laptop with a touch screen or I really would have been in trouble.  The "hovering" thing to get the start screen to start up was absolutely horrible.  I learned it, I got it, I figured it out....then....My Mom's computer died.  I had to teach her.  That was a struggle and trust me, there were lots of tears.  Thank goodness for Windows 10, it solved some of that crazy stuff.  Mom learned it, I learned it and we are back on an even keel...pretty much.  Although sometimes, "I swear I didn't push anything" she says and the screen has somehow done something really weird.  

My husband wanted to get a new receiver as ours decided that it was no longer going to do surround sound.  He ordered a new one and installed it over the holidays, our present to each other.  I am so glad he understands all that because I would be bald from pulling my hair out.  This is the back of the unit.
 seriously, if that isn't gobbledygook I don't know what is.  After searching the internet and a couple of days, we finally have all the components talking to each other and the sound working for all of them but trust me it wasn't easy.

So don't ask me how to do anything because truly I am going as fast as I can to keep up.