My first blog
I feel a little dorky, but I'm blogging anyway...
October 20th walking down Comm Ave to Kenmore was surreal in more ways than one, but the glow of the city of Boston was awesome. Hi-fiving complete strangers who were walking, driving, biking, streaking, you name it. Sure a couple knuckleheads from BU and Northeastern broke some shit, and the cops killed some girl, but it was not really violent. The Pink Sox really did something this year, and the Yankees really, REALLY choked. The curse of A-Rod?
Yeah, I'm a Red Sox fan...
Yes, I still had fun; tough not to, with 6 college buddies. Yet overall I give the place a "D", and I was thinking about the "F", but I played roulette for a solid hour and had some fun, and my friend Josh Sobeck (who came to the infamous FS 500) was the shooter on the craps table for over an hour. He rolled like 80 rolls w/o a 7 nor a 11, and the pit boss came over, watched him throw a couple times, and then checked Josh's hands. Pretty cool. It's also fun to be surrounded by 80% Asians (Chinese mostly); that doesn't even happen in Chinatown anymore. My friend Dylan actually asked a desk clerk if there was a Asian convention in town. He's from Texas; it was a bit embarassing.
Interesting discussion on the drive back about "ring tones" for cell phones. I was not aware of this, but a ringtone is not in MP3 format, and infact its own thing. People will appearantly gladly pay $2.50 for a ringtone of their favorite song, yet are becoming more and more reluctant to pay 99 cents for a non ring tone song. I guess in Europe, particularily in Skandinavia, people have dozens of rings for different incoming numbers. Josh Walker was telling me that when he was consulting for Sony Music, he was told this year they will spend more money on developing ring tones, than scouting talent and advertizing MP3s and Itunes combined.
Since I do not have a cell phone, all of this is foreign to me, but seemed like a giant step backwards.
Thoughts...?
Can't find any Instruction ringtones, tho.
The 'pocket' option is often not an option for the ladies, and vibrate doesn't work in the bag.
I have been trying to get into the 20th century by downloading a new ringtone because mine isn't loud enough, and I don't like the louder ones that come with my phone.
AND I'M NOT APOLOGZING!
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Is that G with a stereotype? Wow....
I wish that you had caught me perpetuating a stereotype, Dawn, instead of relaying the sad, sad reality of American Society.
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I don't know if you know that it's been my lifelong dream to have a "work costume"/uniform that I could wear to work multiple days per week and still manage to be socially acceptable, leaving my creative clothes purchasing for my free time wear.
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In fact, I think that my favorite work costume was from the time that I worked making tea for the BBC in Plymouth England. Every day they gave me a fresh baggy brown with light blue pinstripe housedress (just below the knee) and an similarly-colored apron to wear. The thing was UGLY, but I <i>LOVED</i> it. I could roll into work after an hour of sleep, look like hell, but still have an acceptable, clean, fresh outfit to wear that I didn't have to decide on. My love for this outfit was so great that I 'acquired' one when I left that job.
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The truth is that the American Women's pants and skirts are not as uniform as mens' pants. Men's pants (almost) always have a pocket in which to put one's phone or wallet. Women's clothes are frequently not made that way. Either they are too tight-fitting, the pockets are too small, or they are completely pocket-less. Women can't rely on having a specific spot to put their wallet, keys, or cell-phone every day.
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Hence the purse.
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Hence the annoying cellphone ring.
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Hence the sad, sorry state of gender roles in the United States-- it's all due to the pants.
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Don't I wish you could be right, Dawn.
(x-posted in my blog)
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-A Midi "C.R.E.A.M"
-Miles Davis's 'So What'
-A Midi "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" .....
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...just a thought
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I think there is an entire section in "backlash" dedicated to the fashion industry and their continued insistence on making clothing that women don't want, demonstrating their failure to change even given declining profits, and I think that since then (late 80's/early 90's), women's clothing retailers/designers profits continue to shrink.
1. Good cloth can be expensive (yes, I have spent time in cloth stores)
2. Patterns are either frumpy or expensive (I know this for a fact)
3. Tailoring is very expensive (even if you have a friend do it) because wages are high in the US.
4. Knitting clothing takes forever (I even knit)
5. This is exactly the reason why clothes are made in sweatshops.
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This is something that I've spent a lot of time thinking about. I actually (even though you would never know it) am very picky about clothes, and view clothes shopping as a very political activity, both in terms of gender and economics as well as human rights issues.
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Yes, this makes me a REALLY boring person to shop with-- wanna go with me?
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Here's my solution to the whole deal-- the best solution that I could come up with, to have the least impact, look relatively socially acceptable going to work in a female-dominated environment, and not hate looking in the mirror.
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I get the bulk of my clothes either thrift or at Mimi's ladies' clothing swap. The rest (mostly things that can't be bought thrift, such as black shirts and underwear-- a girl has to have <i>some</i> standards!) come from the discount rack at discount stores such as filene's basement. It is unlikely that the company isn't making any profit off me, and furthermore, I try (most of the time) to see where they are made-- avoiding the worst offending countries.
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All of my clothes that I buy new (except for interview suits) are machine washable, and relatively loose-fitting, and as comfortable and basic as possible, so that I don't have to keep going back to the store week after week as styles change, or spend 8 million dollars on dry cleaning.
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"How, Glib", (you ask), "do you manage to look professional with all of these restrictions?"
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I wear a lot of loud thrift scarves that have a overpower the fact that I'm wearing a skirt made out of sweatshirt material, or a thrift-store shirt obviously from the 1970s. I wear nice necklaces that my grandmother gave me when she died. I buy expensive European shoes that last a while. I get expensive haircuts.
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And most importantly-- I live with P.Chippy! This in itself makes all of my clothing sin null and void. I had to coerce him into buying his first pair of non-hiking boot shoes since 1985-- in 1998.
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Good idea! I'll just get a job at the Carhartt(tm) archives!
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I must admit, I did sweat a little while constructing it.
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