Friday, November 4, 2011

Odds and ends

I haven't felt the desire to write a blog post in awhile. I needed some time to think about things, like my level of consumption and how it related to the purpose the blog served for me. I felt uncomfortable. Blogs are by their nature just one facet of a person, but I wasn't sure if serving up this one-sided version of me felt authentic. I liked the breezy, upbeat frivolity of keeping a fashion blog; what I didn't like was when this persona started to feel at times ill fitting.

Anyway, I haven't really come to any big conclusions or meta-analysis about my blogging. Just wanted to explain a bit and provide some awkward prelude to the following list of random thoughts.

1. I'm obsessed with the thought of warmth. I'm consumed with dread about the upcoming winter and feel the need to prepare. I think long johns will be key, since I don't want to wear the same sloppy wool sweater every day, as I did last year in a desperate but futile attempt at warmth.

2. I'm enamored with the uniform of vintage plaid button downs and old jeans. I'm slowly amassing a small collection of plaid button downs.

3. My most quintessential Seattle moment was standing in the packed basement of someone's rental as three local bands played short sets for the birthday boy, amidst a sea of beards and buffalo plaid flannel. I counted something like 7 guys outfitted thusly, just in my general vicinity. The fall weather makes me remember and miss Seattle.

4. I'm not sure when the moment turned, but at some point high-end luxury became thought of as accessible for ordinary, small-income people. Lately, I've rethought my feeling about this and have decided that I rather liked it when expensive items were thought of as inaccessible. Lusting after designer items provokes a kind of meaningless anxiety in me.

5. I've subscribed to a few "frugal living" blogs. It's a good balance to the fashion blogs I read. It keeps things in check, resets the range of normal. And the natural parenting forum I visit does the same for the purse forum and the fashion spot. On the mothering forum, I am likely to read about recipes for consuming one's own placenta (the boyfriend refused to be in charge of the placenta smoothie when I half seriously floated the idea by him) while on TPF or TFS I'll find somewhat porny reveals of some extravagant handbag purchase.

6. With that last thought, how to mention the most profound moment of my life on this, a blog meant for harboring my least profound worries? I guess I'll just say that my baby arrived a little more than a month ago. At first, it felt both unreal and ordinary at the same time. Now I'm beginning to realize just what a sea change it is, and how it has affected everything in my life. Including my thoughts on clothes, but I'll get to that maybe in a future post.

8 comments:

  1. Congratulations on the new born! I wonder sometimes if it's just age and the state of the world that's making us rethink our consumption habits. I often wonder if I were in my 20s in the 90s when the economic situation was much better and the world less fraught, if I would be as concerned.

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  2. Congratulations! I would love to hear more about how pregnancy has affected your life and thoughts on clothes. And good to see that you're "alive"!

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  3. Congratulations! Did you have a boy or a girl? I can't wait to hear more.

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  4. Wonderful news, congratulations!
    Interesting thoughts also. I wonder if any type of blogging, if we keep it within a certain niche, will present only this one-sided version of us....I often felt this about my art blog, how little I included about my real, everyday life, beliefs, feelings. But I do feel that it is only the splitting off of this one segment of ourselves that creates the anxiety - it does not necessarily render it less valid, if that makes sense? I originally created a separate fashion/style blog for this very reason, to enable me to fully indulge in the subject without having to excuse or explain it. I always hoe that readers would simply take this for granted, that the blog is only a tiny fragment of the whole person behind it.
    And yet sometimes I think it may be possible to become too immersed within this split off persona, perhaps, and this is probably where the feelings of apprehension arise. I'm not sure. But like your current interest in frugal living blogs, an attempt to create some sort of balance is likely the ideal solution.

    Anyway, I can't wait to hear more about your new arrival! Best wishes x

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  5. Congratulations!!! Hope you are feeling well and definitely share about your precious little one.

    I've enjoyed your blog very much and being a new mommy will only enhance your already thoughtful posts. Don't worry about being unbalanced right now,it comes with the new territory you have entered.

    It's okay to rethink Everything. I have four children and changed (and grew) with each one. One constant was my love for dress and how it affects each one of us. Thanks for all your contributions! Looking forward to your evolving thoughts:) Karen

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  6. On the less hefty fashion-blog-front, for what it's worth, I've been reading yours for a while exactly for that discomfit. You reflect both a craving for fashion and down-to-earth sensibilities, a tension I recognize in myself, and I have to thank you for bringing that out. That tension between wanting and reality provokes your best writing on here so I hope you never get too comfortable in one camp.

    Nothing else to say really but CONGRATULATIONS!

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  7. oh, I was just thinking about you, congratulations on the new baby! There really is nothing more "ordinary" that can change your life and perspective so dramatically as becoming a mother. Looking forward to your evolving thoughts!

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  8. Thanks all for the nice thoughts! I'm not sure how much personal stuff to include in my fashion blog, but I figure I have to give a follow-up to my post of many months ago.

    Amanda--I'm old enough to have lived through the mini-recession of the 90s. I suppose there was some ripple effect through the culture--that was the time of Generation X apathy, the movie Slackers, and grunge--but I don't think the anxiety level was as high as it is now.

    Fleurette--I've been percolating that idea and will write a post on it sometime. Is that too non-committal? haha

    Moya--A girl!!

    LapinedeLune--I'm not sure where this anxiety comes from, but it's probably symptomatic of this online age we live in, which encourages a splitting off into obscure specialties, and a creating of (false?) personae.

    itsmidnight--Thanks for your perspective. I love hearing what experiences moms have to say. It's such strange territory.

    leilani.e--Thanks so much for your kind thoughts! The irony is that my most viewed posts are the ones about celebrities like Nicole Richie!

    S--Someone asked me today if I was a stay-at-home mom and I was so startled, I complete fumbled around before I figured out the answer. Me? SAHM? Never pictured myself as a mom, much less the picture of domesticity that the word SAHM evokes.

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