Mixed-Media Bracelets?

So lately I've been thinking (and the thought won't leave my mind) -- I rarely wear bracelets anymore (except for my awesome geisha charm bracelet that I traded to a customer for some item descriptions), because I spend my day writing and typing and digging in the dirt and it's a very rare bracelet that doesn't impede my work. However, I love the look of a big, rattly, gorgeous bracelet (not a cuff, a bracelet-bracelet).

I also have a whole lot of single-strand bracelets that I've made to sell from a bowl at shows ... and have never sold a single one in person.


Lots of 5 at a great low price available here.

Since those are adjustable bracelets made with nice beads, here's my plan: I'll add one to three strands to the original (parallel, wrapped, or braided), then secure a cluster of unbreakable/break-resistant charms, buttons, and beads to the lobster clasp so that both sides (strands and clasp) can serve as a focal element.

Some methods I'd like to try:

1. Braiding some of my massive overstock of vintage pendant chain to make up a strand (this may be too stiff; we'll see).
2. Strips of cloth/lace/ribbon secured to a base cord with a wrapping of fine wire, as shown in winter's Belle Armoire Jewelry.
3. Leather cord -- which I've never done a thing with, ever, and feel a vague responsibility to try.
4. A wirework element making up one strand.
5. Interactive elements, like sliding beads and similar worry stones.
6. Handmade wire chain (another Belle Armoire project I've been itching to try).
7. A chain made of two-hole buttons (which shouldn't be too fragile if it's not especially load-bearing).

Let's try something a little different!

Okay, let's try this.  I wanted to do something picture-heavy and topical today, but I'm not in the mood to code a Treasury Wednesday (on Friday), so let's play clothing-and-jewelry pairings.  I don't get to do this much in real life, since I'm the youngest of my coworkers in a fairly conservative area, so virtual dress-up it is.

For the pretty base pieces in this post, I'm using Maxi dresses from Goddiva.  Just in the interests of disclosure.

Let's start with this little mesh-insert number, which -- yes -- is sort of daring for many people, but could easily go sci-fi (Inara cosplay, anyone?) to pull it off:



It's actually transparent, not silver; that's the mannequin.  Which leaves us with any metal option we desire.  How shall we make this fantastic?  I'm thinking with a big steampunk statement necklace like this one:


Sorry, sold to a pretty lady at Upstate Steampunk!

And maybe a jeweled belt, like this nice vintage example, which would suit either the teal or the red version of the dress and, in either case, introduces another high-contrast color that would be fantastic in a draped shawl, or as earrings:

Available here from Nana's Cottage House Antiques.

Instant sleek space-opera sci-fi -- or maybe even bustle it up over a constrast underskirt and see what happens.

Less costume and more couture, you say?  Fine.  Look at this peacock-patterned garment:



You could actually wear this under a waist-length leather jacket and calf-high boots, and have a bit more of a casual-elegant look on a spring day.  Try it with a necklace that adds more visual weight to the top half of the ensemble. For this purpose, I can't decide if I prefer the knotted linen from Grey Heart of Stone on the top or the repurposed bridle rosette from Funkyjunkmama below:



Probably the bridle rosette.  It picks up the colors attractively without blending in, and has a sturdier, heavier look that will contrast well with the dress's airiness.  Hey, both!  No?

On warmer days, this dress of course demands a light shrug and a cool big bracelet like this one:


Available here with matching earrings here.

In praise of procrastination, and Star Wars

"What should you have been taught in the LIB100 class?" queries the bulletin board.

See, I do a lot of work in Clemson University's library, down in the basement next to the Congressional reports from the 1880s and the shelves of appendices to the Iran-Contra investigation, and the entrance on the floor above is dominated by a bulletin board on which students are asked a different question each week, ranging from "Give us a midterm assignment!" to the above.  Rainbow sticky notes and markers are provided for answering.  I stop and read them every Monday; they're like one of those witty, brilliant Facebook or Twitter conversations in concrete form.

My second-favorite answer was this gem of wisdom: "That procrastination is inevitable ... grab a coffee + embrace it."  This is one of those important lessons I learned in college that it's hard to convey.  Sometimes, you just work best under pressure.  Sometimes a task needs to be completed in one marathon block.

Interestingly enough, the students who best understand this, I've found, are ex-military men.  I assist a few in the Writing Center, and generally they're not coming in an hour before the paper is due wanting to be told how to make it an A, but coming in a couple of days before with a polished product waiting for critiques.

In every tutoring position I've had, I've realized that moral support is a massive part of my function.  My entering freshmen, smart kids who'd happened to flunk the Writing Placement Exam for one reason or another, had overall much higher GPAs than freshmen who didn't have tutoring; a success for the pilot program I was working for.  They often found my editing and chatting about their topics useful.  And yet I'm tempted to suspect that a significant part of their grade increase might have been as a result of having someone to ask where they could go to get the free cough drops and stress balls, what recourse they had if they were being taught by an incompetent TA (or a competent TA and a lazy professor) -- someone whose dad was the football captain in '85 at the high school where they graduated in '10, someone who would listen as they talked about their depression over being unable to bridesmaid at their sister's wedding due to an exam -- someone to suggest a mediator for roommate disputes.  Someone, in short, to talk to.

I'm less patient these days with students who spend their half-hour appointments telling me how hard everything is ("It's college.  College is hard," I want to say.  "Did you expect this was easy?  Do you think I did it because it was a cake walk?").  Yet I understand that this is part of my job -- not as large a part as some students like to believe, but an important part, like the secretarial work and plagiarism reports that also form part of my week.

And yet -- to circle back toward one of my points -- ex-military students don't tend to need this.  The student who recently returned from his tour in Iraq and who comes in with a bleakly and elegantly phrased cause-and-effect paper about how his PTSD has affected his wife doesn't want my sympathy, he wants me to help find comma splices.  He wants a good grade, not a shoulder.  The man who served for 29 years doing First Aid training is far more interested in whether he wants "quicker" or "more quickly" than he is in telling me how difficult it is to be a returning student of non-traditional age.  I'm not saying these issues aren't hard or deserving of support, only that it's nice to be helping people by providing them with my expertise, not by functioning as a listening ear that anyone could be.

It was the above-mentioned First Aid trainer who explained to me why military students don't seem to have a problem with procrastination.  "You don't get advance notice," he told me.  "You're given a project and you do it now, and if you complain you end up with more work and the same deadline."

"So you don't have the same trouble handling the stress of it?" I asked.

"None at all.  This is business as usual.  You get the work, you do the work as best you can in the time you have."

Bravo, sir!  That's a healthy attitude for all college students to adopt.  Procrastination can be treated as scheduling if a student is well-acquainted with his or her working pace and ability to cope with the stress of the fast-approaching deadline.  Now that's a real life skill -- one that I'm still developing as I learn how much copywriting I can actually do in a given period.

My favorite note on that board, however, wasn't actually the one about procrastination.  It was the green one that asserted that LIB100 should teach students how to "bullseye Whomprats with a T130."  A blue one below advised the original sticky-noter to turn off his targeting computer.

The world isn't doomed.

Making the blog a blog of merit: Let's see how far we've come

Happy October!  I've been desperately looking forward to fall ever since I moved here, and I can happily report that it is worth it.

Anyway.

Three years ago when I started this blog, it was the irregularly updated chronicle of a semi-itinerant California college student with a struggling jewelry business who did a bit of writing on the side.  Now it's the regularly-scheduled ramblings of a South Carolina copywriter who works at a college and runs a small online jewelry business on the side.  Life is weird and wonderful and it's taken me for a bit of a ride.

This blog will shortly be going back over to an irregular schedule of updates.  Blogging is starting to feel like doing for free what other people could be paying me to do -- so it's time I scale back.  I expect that this will vastly improve the merit of the content ....

... and frankly, I've been doing this for three years.  I think I have a sufficiency of Jewelry Blog Content (TM).  And to the rather small extent that this is still a marketing blog, I'd rather pitch myself as an interesting person than Another Jewelry Person Who Blogs.

Expect an oddly spaced soup of treasuries, against-the-grain business advice, shopping recommendations, press releases, item photos, shop announcements, and links to interesting stuff.  I think that you-the-readers will enjoy it more (and hey -- leave me a comment sometimes, okay?  I know you're there via Analytics, but it's quiet here).  And I think that I'll be giving you more interesting stuff to read, even if there's less of it.

And I promise not to become that blog that consists entirely of posts apologizing for not posting more.  Pinky swear.

A shopping guide

If you have a bit of back-to-school shopping left to do, or (like us) you work in education and the first paycheck after Starvation Summer is burning a hole in your pocket, check out the shops of some of my recent Etsy copywriting customers:


Is liberal guilt about brown-bag lunches setting in hard yet? Reusable bags from SeaCute Designs, whose profile page I wrote, are surprisingly affordable for the category, and appear nicely made and rhapsodically cute; the very professional shop owner donates a portion of proceeds to Feed the Children.


For playing after school, tutus from avasmommy07 are made with lots and lots of US-made tulle so they're soft and poofy like the imaginary fairy princess gown you had when you were little. That isn't the item I wrote the description for; I just love that picture, which balances posing and naturalness so well, and which has a very nice contrast of background and foreground.


This purse hanger and similar ones from talented Etsy graphic designer Topview are great; original artist design, and those things are massively useful when there are narrow aisles between desks (one particular classroom in the anthropology department at UCR, in Watkins Hall, was pretty much where we shoved all the spare furniture so they wouldn't take it away before we were able to lay claim to another room. We guarded our classrooms jealously so we could keep artifacts and posters in them. But that room was hell on earth in the summer).

Topview also does very cool Etsy banners -- and, as you can see, very crisp professional photography. She's one of my absolute favorite customers so far; I edited the content for her very useful website for international students hoping to apply to colleges and universities in the United States, which I'll link to once it goes live.

Work-Life Balance and a Schedule Change

As I may have mentioned, I've started selling copywriting on both Etsy and Elance, and ... well, it's going pretty well, actually.

The Mafia-themed social media game didn't pan out -- I don't think they liked my character-dialogue audition piece, but since I submitted it without any real idea of the mood or character type they wanted, I don't feel much sense of failure over this -- but I'm currently writing product descriptions for Keys of Paradise, a fantastic spiritual/magickal supply shop, with fantastic herbs and candles and such, run by some fantastic people. Apparently they consider my descriptions fantastic as well, because the job morphed from a fixed-rate 400-descriptions deal to a long-term by-the-piece to a continuing semi-permanent article writing and editing gig.

Unfortunately, this means I've been neglecting the Etsy shops ... but I'm working at learning how to balance the two better. M and I have been making a lot of steampunk assemblage jewelry of late, since I'll be a vendor at Upstate Steampunk in Anderson this year. And I need to contact the awesome purveyor of hair accessories DaringlyDonna, a lovely local who we keep running into at Hancock's Fabrics, about swapping custom hair flowers for teapot earrings.

So we're not dead on the jewelry front! Just slowed while I find the proper equilibrium of the two creative businesses, and I should be finally adding more steampunk like I keep saying I will.


Available here.

Speaking of slight slowing: Since I'm doing so much paid writing, and since I was glancing through the lengthy list of MWF webcomics I read and realizing how much competition those days have got, I'll be switching the blog to a Tuesday/Thursday update schedule starting next week. It's only one less post per week. Also, Treasury Wednesday is becoming a monthly feature, first Wednesdays of every month. I get some traffic and some lovely comments, presumably from Google alerts, on those posts, but they're quite time-consuming and I'd like a better balance of written content, considering, y'know, I'm a writer and all.

And a day-brightening fact (for me, anyway): As I was building the updated APA citation guide for our tech college's Writing Center, I was modeling citations for weird stuff (historic photographs of unknown subjects, letters from university archives, that sort of thing) and it occurred to me that one of the dresses from the Met's "Orientalism in Fashion" web exhibit would be a great example. This led to me finding that my June blog post "Multiculturalism in Victorian Accessories" is, as of Tuesday, the seventh Google result for the terms "Victorian clothing Orientalism." And that, my friends, is sweet.

Starting Monday with a Nastygram

I received this email in June from the business school attached to my undergrad university.


Dear Chelsea,

Our records indicate that you have either recently finished or will soon complete your undergraduate degree at UCR. I am proud of your accomplishments and certain that you will continue to be successful in the future.

While finishing college is an exciting time in the life of any graduate, you may be feeling discouraged in your search for a suitable job. As the Dean of the Anderson Graduate School of Management (AGSM) at UCR, I am keenly aware of the impact of the economic downturn on professional careers available to recent graduates. It is indeed frustrating and disheartening to attempt to enter the job market in the current financial climate.

The good news, however, is that this is an excellent time to consider starting your graduate studies. Our records indicate that we have been in touch with you about our graduate programs in the past. Therefore you may already know that a Master of Business Administration (MBA) is, by far, the most sought after and competitive graduate degree. At AGSM we offer an MBA program that is accredited by AACSB and is focused on developing leaders ...

[further platitudes ensue]

***

Dear Dr. [redacted] (or manager of this inbox),

Thanks for your interest in having me apply to the Anderson School of Business Management.  While I have moved across the country and my degree from UCR was in fact in the social sciences, not in business, I am now a freelance copywriter having reasonable independent success despite your concerns about my employability.

Consequently, I have a counter-offer for you.  For the relatively competitive price of $25, I will ghost-write the email that you send to candidates like me in such a way that it removes the paternalistic and condescending tone which, sadly, reeks from the first two paragraphs of the email I received from your program dated 16 June, 2011.

If you intended for the air of condescension to be so apparent, then I apologize for the assumption on my part.  Thanks in advance for your consideration and I wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,
Chelsea Clarey
Copywriter
 scribblegoat@gmail.com
elance.com/s/scribblegoat/10180/
scribblegoat.etsy.com

Anomie and Etsy: A sociological approach

Student quote of the day:  "Dr. Mazhan Khan discussed the felt and pitfall when my grandmother is an emergency room."

Yeah, that has no relationship to anything, I just had to share.  Anyway.

The Slate.com article from Friday's post and my recent rumination on the site's weird pricing competitions make me think of anomie, a concept in the theory of criminality I was recently explaining to a student.   Basically, the idea is that deviant behavior results from a disconnect between a.) that which society teaches as worthy goals and b.) that which society offers as methods to achieve them.  Much of the time, b. doesn't accomplish a.  At this point, the individual can either continue to strain themself psychologically by continuing to accept both a. and b. (conformism), refuse to accept a. or b. or both (ritualism, innovation, or retreatism), or replace both a. and b. with more suitable alternatives (rebellion).  In other words, when you are told what to want and how to get it but the "how" doesn't give you the "what," you have a couple of choices as to how to cope with that.

On Etsy, the teaching of the weird little internet subculture is a.) to live on the profits of an Etsy shop is a worthy goal and one we should all strive for; and b.) the way to achieve this is through creating unique, high-quality products and selling them with diligent work.

The problem is that these aren't as cause-and-effect as the Etsy Success newsletters would like us to believe.

Consequently, we have a number of options:

1. Conformism: We blame ourselves for our inability to reach the goal, and keep at it like the little Skinner-boxed hamsters we are.  (For an interpretation of the Skinner box, see here for the history, here for the interesting applications).
2. Ritualism: We reject a.), saying in effect, "I can't quit my day job.  Whatever," and continue going through the motions of listing and relisting.
3. Retreatism: We reject both a.) and b.).  We close our shops.  We give up.
4. Innovation: This is the insidious one and the one that causes both brilliant and deviant Etsy behavior.  We keep a.) but reject b.), saying, "I'm quitting my day job, damn it -- and I'm doing it my way."  This can range from finding a totally wild product (dog butt covers, anyone?) to assembling products poorly and relying on volume to cover the poor result to selling mass-produced Chinese wedding dresses and pretending they're handmade in your little studio.
5. Rebellion: We say "To hell with all of this."  We reject a.) and b.) and replace them with new ends and means of our own  We go start doing IRL craft shows again or, alternately, move to Artfire.

Hopefully this will help my fellow crafters: Next time you find someone on Etsy who makes you want to solder yourself to the wall and end the misery, think pityingly, "I see you're rejecting society's legitimate methods in pursuit of its prescribed goal -- but in an unintelligent manner.  Poor silly thing," and feel the urge to kill drain from your body, leaving you light and free and sociologically educated.

Feminism and Etsy

I've always liked Slate's practical, tough-minded approach to feminist concerns, so I was immediately interested when I saw this op-ed piece on Etsy's appeal to women:

Etsy.com peddles a false feminist fantasy, by Sara Mosle.

Quote: "I’m not immune to the siren call that brings many women to the site. After decades of being encouraged to forego the unpaid “women’s work” of our mothers and grandmothers, we are tired of being divorced from our hands and from the genuine pleasures such work can afford. This is the female version of Shop Class as Soulcraft, the recent book by Matthew Crawford, the philosopher-turned-mechanic. Women, too, hunger for concrete, manual labor that has an element of individual agency and pleasure beyond the abstract, purely cerebral work found in the cubicle or corner office. It’s become satisfying again to sew, cook, and garden. But unlike our mothers and grandmothers, who were content to knit booties for relatives, younger women want to be recognized and compensated for their talents."

It's an interesting take on the nature of traditionally feminine craft in the 21st century, the problems of "going global," those condescending "Quit Your Day Job" features, and why Etsy's demographics fall out the way they do.  I highly recommend a read.

This led me to apply the sociological concept of anomie to Etsy, about which more (in plain English, I promise) in Monday's post.

In the meantime, I'll be teaching myself how to write game flavor text by lurking in Magic the Gathering forums until I absorb the knowledge by osmosis.  I love being a freelance copywriter.

Until then, have an unrelated globe necklace.

Available here.

Academically awesome

I think I just fell in love with an NYU professor I've never met.

Why? Because a helpful, respectful, gracefully worded putdown of rude behavior should brighten anyone's day.

For anyone who hasn't seen it since it went viral, for educators everywhere who like some satisfying student humor, for anyone who has ever dealt with an entitled snot of a student at any level:

Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2010 7:15:11 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Brand Strategy Feedback

Prof. Galloway,

I would like to discuss a matter with you that bothered me. Yesterday evening I entered your 6pm Brand Strategy class approximately 1 hour late. As I entered the room, you quickly dismissed me, saying that I would need to leave and come back to the next class. After speaking with several students who are taking your class, they explained that you have a policy stating that students who arrive more than 15 minutes late will not be admitted to class.

As of yesterday evening, I was interested in three different Monday night classes that all occurred simultaneously. In order to decide which class to select, my plan for the evening was to sample all three and see which one I like most. Since I had never taken your class, I was unaware of your class policy. I was disappointed that you dismissed me from class considering (1) there is no way I could have been aware of your policy and (2) considering that it was the first day of evening classes and I arrived 1 hour late (not a few minutes), it was more probable that my tardiness was due to my desire to sample different classes rather than sheer complacency.

I have already registered for another class but I just wanted to be open and provide my opinion on the matter.

Regards,
xxxx

—
xxxx
MBA 2010 Candidate
NYU Stern School of Business
xxxx.nyu.edu
xxx-xxx-xxxx

The Reply:

—— Forwarded Message ——-
From: scott@stern.nyu.edu
To: "xxxx"
Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:34:02 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: Brand Strategy Feedback

xxxx:

Thanks for the feedback. I, too, would like to offer some feedback.

Just so I've got this straight...you started in one class, left 15-20 minutes into it (stood up, walked out mid-lecture), went to another class (walked in 20 minutes late), left that class (again, presumably, in the middle of the lecture), and then came to my class. At that point (walking in an hour late) I asked you to come to the next class which "bothered" you.

Correct?

You state that, having not taken my class, it would be impossible to know our policy of not allowing people to walk in an hour late. Most risk analysis offers that in the face of substantial uncertainty, you opt for the more conservative path or hedge your bet (e.g., do not show up an hour late until you know the professor has an explicit policy for tolerating disrespectful behavior, check with the TA before class, etc.). I hope the lottery winner that is your recently crowned Monday evening Professor is teaching Judgement and Decision Making or Critical Thinking.

In addition, your logic effectively means you cannot be held accountable for any code of conduct before taking a class. For the record, we also have no stated policy against bursting into show tunes in the middle of class, urinating on desks or taking that revolutionary hair removal system for a spin. However, xxxx, there is a baseline level of decorum (i.e., manners) that we expect of grown men and women who the admissions department have deemed tomorrow's business leaders.

xxxx, let me be more serious for a moment. I do not know you, will not know you and have no real affinity or animosity for you. You are an anonymous student who is now regretting the send button on his laptop. It's with this context I hope you register pause...REAL pause xxxx and take to heart what I am about to tell you:

xxxx, get your shit together.

Getting a good job, working long hours, keeping your skills relevant, navigating the politics of an organization, finding a live/work balance...these are all really hard, xxxx. In contrast, respecting institutions, having manners, demonstrating a level of humility...these are all (relatively) easy. Get the easy stuff right xxxx. In and of themselves they will not make you successful. However, not possessing them will hold you back and you will not achieve your potential which, by virtue of you being admitted to Stern, you must have in spades. It's not too late xxxx...

Again, thanks for the feedback.

Professor Galloway

There's a bit more context here, but the writer presenting it refers to Professor Galloway as "kind of a dick," and consequently is clearly not an academic who appreciates what a moment of Robin Hood justice this is.

Disappointments and Blessings

I ventured back into the Etsy Forums the other day.

This was a mistake.

See, I had this flash of inspiration: Since the entire function of the Etsy Forums is to self-promote to other sellers (which I have always found to be a losing game, but others disagree), I would go along to the "Critiques" section and, using my Scribblegoat account but not rudely or blatantly advertising, offer free, helpful professional advice to the legions of people asking the community to critique their shops/descriptions.  This would, with professional propriety and helpfulness, put the name of my business before those who were already seeking similar services.  I hasten to assure my sighing readers: From my experience of the forums, this seemed a genuinely excellent plan.

Problem number one was immediately apparent: Recently (to judge from the complaint threads still fresh and full of vim), the Critiques and Promotions sections were phased out.

However, people were still posting the questions, just under "Site Help."  I proceeded with my plan.  Then I realized that a significant number of the threads were starting with "Five Ways to Make Sales," "Ten Ways to Improve Photographs," "How My Dog's Shop Made 18 Sales in Its First Month," etc.  Cool!  I made one linking to my word-choice series.

Half an hour later, I checked back.  14 comments!  I was thrilled.

And then I read them.

A couple of polite thanks, made me feel great.  Then these:

"I noticed you're really new here, do you have another shop somewhere where you've sold a lot of things based on your descriptions? Otherwise, I'm not sure how useful I would consider this information."
 "Honestly I don't think people totally read the descriptions. It has been my experience that I'm answering questions that were answered in my descriptions."
 "Please don't start threads made to bring attention to your blog. Offering suggestions on how to help make one's business successful is awesome, but please share most of that content here when you're doing so to prevent us from viewing the thread as a promotional one."

These don't seem as bad on the second read, but at the time, they were a slap in the face.  The first made me angry.  The articles themselves and every single element in my Scribblegoat shop -- including the descriptions themselves -- make it very obvious that I'm both a qualified writer and an experienced seller under the TangoPig account; this person didn't actually look at anything.  They apparently took the barest of glances solely so they could tell me my hours of work were useless information, and I didn't know what I was doing.  (Also?  Comma splice.  Yes, I'm petty.)  The second one is more dismissive than I would be willing to be, but actually makes me laugh, since it is proved by the one above it.

And the last one is from an Etsy moderator and locked the thread.

I acknowledge that Etsy has a right to keep content primarily on the site itself; I'm good with this.  But this does require, for the sake of the most basic standards of professionalism, that they either A.) have a posted rule about it in the FAQs, or B.) follow the damn links to see where they actually go -- because it's blindingly obvious from a click that that's not my blog.

It's not a big deal, and I know this, but it depressed me for the rest of the day.  And yet -- that's also how I feel pretty much every time I visit the forums.  It's this great groaning chorus of "Etsy sucks because of this," "And also because of this," "My customers are awful," "I'm ahead of the rat race, let me condescend to the fellow rats," "I'm the only honest seller here," "The rules were formulated to make life hard for me," and on and on and on and on ...

Yet -- even though the Etsy venture isn't going where I hoped, even though people have been cruel and dismissive about my extensive qualifications and generally made me feel like shit -- I do this for a living.  I work in a great writing center where there's tons of support, I make pretty good money and learn interesting things.  Even if I'm not freelancing it yet, I get to do this as a job.  And the job isn't just editing other people's work, it's also doing my own -- I spend a couple of hours writing descriptions and blog posts every week, and my Etsy shop pays for itself now, though I know I'm still years from making back the startup supply costs.

Furthermore, I say "not freelancing yet" -- but I'm not sure what criteria I'm giving myself, because as of now?  I've had three commissions, totalling a pretty respectable wage for a weekend off.

So I have much for which to be grateful, and with that in mind -- the slap in the face from trying to engage with the Etsy community?  Small fry.

Work jewelry, and one more reason to love curves

I've now been a Writing Center Consultant (read: tutor) at the main campus of our local technical college for some months. I love it here.  I love the atmosphere.  Everything that could possibly come up has been thought of.

And it makes me so, so happy to be fat.

Readers will have realized that I am Remarkably Curvy.  I get a lot of male attention since I've moved, I notice -- whether because I'm dressing up for work or because the South likes their girls plump and breeding-hip'd, I can't say.  Other advantages have lately been becoming clear.

The next-youngest WCC got her master's the same time I got my bachelor's, and works with me on Fridays.  She tends to dress a little younger than I do, and observes Casual Friday with relish.

This will shortly become significant.

T'other day, a student we see a great deal of (older male, generally quite pleasant to me at any rate, makes several appointments per paper and yet never seems to believe us when,for example, we point out that plot summary and literary analysis are not the same thing) just walked in and scratched out his appointment and told us he was going to only make grammar appointments in the future. He "only" got an 85% on the last paper (horrors!) and the professor was pointing out things we never said.  Therefore, he feels that there was some inconsistency and and he and his instructor agree that a grammar-readings-only pattern will be more beneficial to him. He was most pleasant about it, but the content was essentially that he didn't think our seven (7) appointments with four (4) different tutors had been helpful in achieving that 85%.

We can't decide whether to be offended, send the instructor a nice thank-you gift, or both.  See, many of the tutors despise this student, because he flatly refuses to make the changes they suggest.  At first I thought they meant someone else, because he generally accepts it from me; I think perhaps he finds me and my confident work persona intimidating!

Half an hour later, a generally lovely single-mom student, who I've worked with a time or three before, asked me if I was still in classes here. She explained that I didn't quite look young enough, but since the other tutor on duty looked like she must be a work-study student, she wondered if I was too.

When I told her no, I just finished my degree in December -- but [other tutor] taught classes -- she looked stunned for a moment, then graciously changed the subject.

The student following her was writing a paper reminiscing about receiving a Holly Hobbie doll. "Do you remember those?" she asked me. I told her I did. "Oh no -- showing our age, aren't we?" she laughed. I laughed with her, not having the heart to say it was Mom's.

A couple of hours later, along came another student, who is here to check her email when I open the writing center every morning and who I've always taken to be in her early-to-mid thirties.  In her appointment, I asked her when her recalled event happened.  As she tried to work this out, she said, "Well, my daughter was born in '79 ..."  I would have liked to compliment her, but I couldn't work out how to approach "Wow, I'd never have guessed you could have a daughter ten years older than I am."

Everyone takes me for older than I am, and everyone takes my tutoring counterpart for younger.  Why?  Actually, if you will forgive professional bias, I think a big part of it is jewelry!  Wearing "fine jewelry," or fashion jewelry that imitates its look, with casual clothing is a sign of youth.  Delicate crystalline pendants, fine chains, names or initials especially, those read as either precious jewelry for Occasions or young girl's treasured gift pieces.  The exceptions are those annoying let's-invent-a-holiday pendants like the Journey Diamond ones and the "open arms" one with the irritating sexist commercials.  Unusual art jewelry, however, suggests more mature and quirky taste.

She's also slender, with blonde highlights.  And there, I think, is the rub.  Being heavier and the top-heavy hourglass shape (I'm actually rounder at the hips, being a true-to-type Sicilian, but I dress drapily so it doesn't look like it) gives me a measure of gravitas.

I'm not the only one to have noticed this; in her column "How to Dress for Battle," Jen Dziura mentions a study where women in a suit jacket were taken by office professionals as higher-ranked -- but women who were over forty, conservatively dressed, or larger seemed to already have a boost in that perception, so the jacket helped less than it did for petite, slender, or young women.

Conclusion: being fat and well-dressed is a really good thing career-wise.

Outdated links from the blogosphere

I hate the word "blogosphere."  (Ooh, end-of-sentence scare quotes.  And in my head, my own voice saying something I say every day: In American English, periods and commas always go inside quotation marks unless there's a parenthetical in the way.  You will occasionally see this done differently; that generally means the source is British, because the international rule is different.  It's weird spending your day teaching rules you regard as a little dumb.  At some point I must post the list of grammar rules I would be happy to help kill).  I'm hereby inventing the word "bloggerverse."

Anyway.  The links, covering recentish opinions in technology, academics, :

Ian Bogost's post "The Turtlenecked Hairshirt", being a discussion of the ivory-tower nature of academia which amused me highly and lit a fire under my rounded tail as to seriously thinking about a paper on gender and sexuality in Echo Bazaar.  I'm not sure I'd go so far as to unreservedly agree with his stated premise, though I believe him to be deliberately exaggerating, but his apocalyptic language reminds me of one of my deeply-held beliefs: The humanities spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel because each sub-discipline invents its separate, insular jargon.  For someone with training in Comparative Literature to attempt to approach anthropological ethnography, for someone with a sociologist's education to attempt to analyze the obscure greats of Renaissance drama, results in a lot of headache, heartache and "bridge theory" that is roundly denigrated by an endless legion of theoretical purists.

Lindy West's pleasingly well-reasoned anger after a rather thoughtless but not ill-intentioned moment from estimable sex columnist Dan Savage.  The whole debate is well worth The Stranger's nauseatingly ridiculous load times, because they both make great cases.  I am personally of the opinion that the U.S. uses food as a way to displace and/or extend our oddly Puritanical relationship with sex.  Think about the phrase "guilty pleasure."  Porn?  Or cheesecake?  Slut shaming and shock at teen sexting and obsession with celebrity affairs seems to me to go hand in hand with condescending diet ads and horror of minors who fail to be delicate-waiflike-and-breastless and our fascination with eating disorders.  Consider the fact that walking into a primarily-female workplace (like, sadly, my writing center) will eventually involve listening to one of our peculiarly American social rituals: The expression of efforts to avoid the fat-and-lazy taboo, commisseration over how hard it is to feel that we are indeed avoiding the taboo, the offering of advice to use various forms of asceticism in order to avoid a taboo which each feels is threatening her every day.  Think about this.

For the record, I wear a 20, 22 or 24 depending on brand.  M is less of an extreme hourglass and is generally a 20.  She's the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on.  I thought so when I met her in person the very first time: "She's much bigger than I expected," I thought, and also, "She's stunning."  I've found two brands of jeans that fit me very well.  I occasionally wish that my size were distributed differently (which varies from "God, I wish my belly would just go away" to "What the hell is with my long torso and short limbs?" to "God, I wish I didn't have such a disproportionately small waist; no one makes trousers with this much waist tailoring" -- yes, seriously).  I enjoy growing my own food, I enjoy preparing it, I enjoy serving it, I enjoy eating it, and I consider this a far greater pleasure than being able to buy pants in multiple brands.  I will worry about my size when I can no longer bend double to mulch my snow pea vines, or walk around the apartment complex or the nearby woods on a nice afternoon as M and I often do.  Furthermore, if I dropped ten pounds I wouldn't cry.  If I dropped ten sizes?  I'd cry.  Because I would no longer find myself attractive.  I like big women.  I like big men.  I dislike people who dress inappropriately or with poor fit.  And if others have the right to say they think my ass is unsightly, then I also get to say this:  I find drawn faces masklike and unattractive.  I find visible ribs repulsive.  And would I say this to people who exhibit these features?  No, because I have a level of gentility and sensitivity and their unsightly thinness has no effect on me.

Also, go read the introduction to The Omnivore's Dilemma for a lot of interesting information, including this jewel: The French food culture is heavily, heavily based on cheeses.  Cheeses.  Now talk to me about the French obesity epidemic and how much worse than the U.S. it is.  I'm waiting.

And now that you're either suitably depressed, suitably enraged, or suitably disgusted (hey, it's up to you!), one more, cheerier link:

An interview selection from my latest Mother Earth News email newsletter featuring the proprietors of Green Heron Tools, which makes ergonomic agricultural tools for women.  It's an interesting discussion of the necessity of acknowledging physical difference as a necessary step to full gender equality -- though I'd love to see some throwaway lines (one day, somewhere) about the role that society plays in "biological" difference between genders, I'm very impressed with the interviewees and their social consciousness.

This is how I felt the entirety of last fall

It's funny because it's true, people.  It's funny because it's true.

Reflecting on evangelism

Today, someone tried to either pick me up or save my soul, and I'm not entirely sure which.  M votes "both."

After I finish work, if I'm not in the mood to truck into Clemson, I walk behind the writing center of the technical college where I tutor and read.  Friday, I had forgotten after I showered and didn't have my ring on.  This will become significant.

I was sitting alone on a brick wall over a little amphitheatre, rereading The Return of the King (the first authorized American edition, which I sadly can't find a photo of, but it has this incredibly surreal stoneresque cover art that Papa Tolkien haaated) and looking out into the forest behind the school, when a cute curly-haired boy about my age (21) walked over and struck up a conversation which started out as an idle chitchat ("How are you doing?  I'm hearing we're supposed to get another snowstorm.  Do they have music down there ever?"), and then turned into clear disappointment when I mentioned that I worked there (because it was easier than "please stop hitting on me, I'm sort of engaged -- to a girl"), then we talked about the writing center and he made as if to leave and then remember something --

-- and dug out a flier for the Campus Crusade for Christ.

I have an ethical objection to evangelism.  I think it speaks of overweening pride, which last I checked was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, so logically if you believe in sin you really shouldn't be loud about it.  However, I realize that everyday missionary efforts (we called it "witnessing" when I was a churchy type) are hard and thankless work; they take a lot of courage and a lot of social navigation; and regardless of how I regard the idea of pressing your beliefs on others because you are so utterly convinced you're right, they are often (not always) undertaken with a view to the betterment of mankind.

Consequently, throughout my undergraduate, I had a personal rule that if I didn't have anywhere to be in a hurry, I'd stop and talk to the political and religious folk who hailed me.  I made some friends this way -- our Hare Krishna monk, Avidar, was a really nice guy -- and I learned a little -- I now refuse to eat pate -- and on two occasions I told people very coldly what I thought of them and their cruel, pessimistic form of Christianity and kept going, but much of the time, people were kind and smiling and, most importantly, seemed cheered by having had someone talk to them in a polite, friendly and open manner, or smile and thank them for whatever they were passing out.  This made me feel better about myself and often put a better spin on a long day.

Due to this policy, when I moved, I had a shelf containing two Books of Mormon, a Bhagavad-Gita, two PETA pamphlets, a handbook of Buddhist principles, several copies of The Watchtower, and four different colors of the little Psalms-Proverbs-New-Testaments that the Gideon Society hands out.  I confess that I paired them up oddly in the hopes they'd get into fights.

So what to make of this encounter?  I'm not sure why it troubles me so much, except of course for the little voice in the back of my head that always says You are vain and self-deluded for thinking that he could really have actually been interested, a voice which I struggle against daily and which I am mostly overcoming ... mostly.  But then, this is a topic that often bothers me a little too much; I remember being one of those shallow evangelical types who was taught to be supercilious about rejecting everything that did not perfectly align with the worldview of my (less-than-highly-educated and, in some cases, questionably-interested-in-working-with-teens) adult mentors, and, like the former cult member I sort of am, that type of person frightens and disturbs me greatly.

This boy wasn't like that, though, or not that I could see, and it's possible that he genuinely did just come over to talk and then remember he was supposed to pass around fliers.  And I wish I could get over this mistrust and just be flattered that this shyish-seeming person considered me worth making a clear effort to come and talk to.

And also, I possibly need to not forget my engagement ring anymore so I'm not sent into an unhealthy level of self-reflection.  So it is resolved!

History, costuming, and houses, oh my!

Before I arrived in SC, M got involved in the Pendleton Historic Foundation, which runs two antebellum farmhouses (not plantation houses; plantations were single cash-crop places) in the area, Woodburn and Ashtabula.  It seems Woodburn functions as more of a museum and Ashtabula as the reenactment headquarters.



They're big, graceful white Federal-style wooden manors (Woodburn at left, Ashtabula at right), and the collections are pretty incredible.  Woodburn has a ghost, it seems; the local police would check on the place at night and kept reporting seeing a woman or boy looking out the attic windows, but a couple of years ago a photographer for the National Register of Historic Places accidentally snapped a photo.  I can't find a copy online, but it's a striking one; there's a copy framed in the original entryway (there are two entryways.  The house's second owner turned the house back-to-front.  We are mystified as to why).

The other day we went in to do the tour training at Woodburn.  It's a remarkable place; in 1966, it was redone with 1830s reproduction wallpaper throughout.  Lovely stuff, nice touches of the Orientalism of the 1850s-and-on in one of the bedrooms, and we have much of the Adger and Pinckney families' original furniture, including a desk with tariffs and taxes still glued to the inside of the cabinets and the Adgers' exquisite Wedgwood china.  Upstairs is a wardrobe which is entirely filled with French-imported ladies' gowns.  We're not fully aware of the era yet; M is intended to be going through the clothing collection in the next few months.

Entertainingly, no one can agree on anything about the place.  Every historical society or local volunteer group I've ever worked with (there have been at least three) have "a person" for various things.  "We don't know about the clothing or quilts," says E, the president (I think), "but with Megan here we now have a clothing and textiles person," or, "Our genealogy person couldn't come today, but he thinks this."  No one is entirely sure of some things: They debate whether a room off one of the bedrooms was a closet or not, they debate whether the wall through the ballroom/drawing room-parlor in the Pinckney back/Adger front was original to the house or added, and they're pretty sure all the Oriental-style rugs are American-made and old-but-not-antique, but "we don't really have a rug person."  The major problem?  Everyone who originally worked on the home restoration in the 1960s is now dead.  These kinds of societies don't tend to draw the young.

I was quite pleased to hear that they've got all kinds of uses for my weird skill set.  There's an herb garden at Woodburn which I'm to be working in, and possibly a trail tour I might assist with and talk about native plants and ecosystem restoration.  They were quite excited to hear about my jewelry skills; I'm supposed to help Megan do a lecture on clothing at Woodburn, and there are also Mourning Tours at Ashtabula that could use someone to talk about jet and hair jewelry.  There's a Native American Heritage Day in March that could use a trained cultural anthropologist, and an African American Heritage Day which I will not be remotely an expert in but which I want to pick up on before I start guiding tours.  But mostly I'd like to be the "jewelry person."

Woodburn is literally across the street from the technical college (where I now officially work; hooray!), so I expect to spend a lot of time there.

M and I are happily talking about making me an 1840s-era dress in dusty rose (this would make my mom laugh; I refused to wear pink for years, and only now that I am a damn queer living with a woman have I reluctantly acknowledged that I look really good in it).  We're talking about the possibility of doing one full skirt and two bodices, one a sleeved day dress and one an evening gown with a deep off-the-shoulder decolletage.  This allows a lot of different types of jewelry display, always important to me, and since the houses tend to be in the mid-20s in the winter, I'll have something warm and daytime-appropriate for giving tours in.  The interesting part is the decolletage; we're planning to try making it snap-in/tie-in/velcro-in/something so that I'll wind up with 1.) a fairly standard 1840s evening gown, 2.) a steampunk 1840s dress by adding jewelry, a mini top hat, a slightly more daring decolletage, and a pocketed bustle belt similar to these, and 3.) a heavily lace-trimmed decolletage that, with accessories, could become a Fat Lady costume for our next Harry Potter conference or a "Porcelain Doll from Hell" sort of thing for Halloween.

So yeah!

So I've been saying I'd do this for a while

Happy December!  Remember how I said I was going to write a series for Home Jewelry Business Success Tips?  That's going on now.

I thought someone with professional experience in writing should really do some articles about writing descriptions for handmade products sold online.  Then I thought, "Dude -- I have professional experience in writing.  I should do some articles about writing product descriptions for online selling."

So then, out of nowhere, I did some articles about copywriting for online jewelry and handmade-product sellers.

It's sort of like the one I wrote several months ago about tribal jewelry and how to describe it, but more technically focused.  Basically I take the really common phrases and take them apart to identify why they're so common and find better alternatives.  It's like tutoring but slightly more fun and I can do it alone with my laptop.

The ones published thus far:
"Authentic"
"Inspired by Nature"
"Elegant"

Singing the tutoring blues

Let me preface this by saying that I actually really adore my students this year.  Many of them are incredibly clever; when I asked them what their favorite books were, for instance, most of them had smart, erudite answers as to what they enjoyed and why.

That said.

There are many ways to bother an English tutor.  My personal least favorite is the ones who show up, say "Oh, I'm fifteen minutes early."  And then walk in and sit down like they own the place.

Excuse me, Princess.  This is my lunch.  I get three lunches in a five-day week.  I guard them jealously.

When shooed away, they hover -- and look in four times in the ten minutes before I break down and let them in to ask "Are you done yet?"

And then spend the entire tutoring session none-too-subtly hinting, every time I try to compliment them on their grasp of the material, "So we can speed through this?"  I mean, I generally let them fly and be free if they've gotten through my planned material.  I plan for twenty minutes and questions.  But if they push for it ...

You probably guessed that all the dialogue came from one specific student.  On the same day back in Week 2 -- I wrote it down at the time because I found it so egregious.  But yeah.  It's a generalized problem.

So I'm amusing myself now, as I have been doing since Wednesday of Week 2, by composing a worksheet of vindictive busy work.  So I can hand it to the ones who really push me to be done early.

Some elements I should probably remove are the passive-aggressive ones:
"Write a complete thesis explaining why tutors should be treated with respect."

And the aggressive-aggressive ones:
"Write a complete thesis taking a position on the statement, 'I, the completer of this sheet, am an aggressive, irritating little sleazeball with no understanding of respect, personal space, or basic sociable behavior.'"

Yeah, that probably has to go.

Um ... don't write about your job on your blogs under any identifiable name, kids.

A Last Quarter List

1. Dear God, I haven't had my jewelry stuff out in weeks.  It's a darn good thing I have such a backlog of photos to post.  It's just ... see, I have this issue where when I'm staring at things to do, I get incredibly overwhelmed very very quickly.  So pulling all the stuff on the shelves and then having to put it all back to get it off my mother's table does not currently feel like an option.  I'm told this can be a sign of Tourette's or ADHD.  Ya don't say.
2. Assuming I don't manage to do it again in the next month-and-change, the total number of times in my undergraduate career I have locked my keys in my car is 2.  I'm pretending this is an excellent final score.
3. I've developed a weird habit.  Rather than have a key dish like a normal person, when I get home and tear my clothes off to change into representatives from my growing collection of Threadless tees and gypsy skirts with pockets, all the stuff from my pockets -- the Pilot G2-07 ink pens I insist on, five-dollar bills, loose change, two kinds of chapstick and my cell phone -- are filed carefully in a shoe.  I actually now have a shoe I don't wear but reserve solely for this purpose.  It's a left Croc knock-off with fleece lining.  It goes on the floor under the window.
4. If I don't make 50 sales by the end of the year I am going to drown myself.  Please don't consider this a guilt thing, O Gentle Reader.  I've just been sitting at 49 since spring.  Mind you, I'm getting more attention than I used to, treasuries and blog-offers and such, and once the front page, so I assume this is just the summer-fall sales slow-down.  I'm writing this way ahead of time, mind (almost all of my list posts take a few weeks to slowly compose), so I might hit that goal by the time I post this thing.
5. On a vaguely related note, my favorite line from a Shakespeare play remains Roderigo's "I shall incontinently drown myself" from Act I in Othello, just because in modern parlance that's a great freakin' metal image.
6.  One of my shirttail cousins, Roland's girlfriend D, loaned me a book called The Girls Who Went Away which is several case studies of adoptions after the first Great War but before Roe v. Wade.  It's brilliant and heartbreaking and reads as smoothly as fiction.  I was desperately in need of a book to relax with, having read my way through Discworld again, and this fits the bill beautifully.
7. Why, why in my final quarter at UCR have I finally started making undergrad friends?  Surely these cool people have always been here.  Where were they?  Where were all the other socially awkward/steampunk-loving/lunch-packing/vintage-shopping/sexually-liberated/too-loud/Twilight-hating/anime-watching/any-or-all-of-the-above Anthro majors for the last three years?  Have I just been missing them?  Actually, this is horrible but I think what happened is half have graduated and the other half have moved a few places down their people-to-talk-to list to me.
8. I think I might start posting links to more of the treasuries I make.  Treasury used to be a nightmare, but now it's wonderful.  Easy to do and easy to get a spot and wonderful relaxing fun.  Great for a nice positive way to connect with other Etsians too.  As I believe I've said before, the forums depress me, so this is nice. 
9. For the first time in years, I didn't dress as anything recognizable for Halloween yesterday.  I was all set to wear my LOLcat costume from two years ago, but I forgot that I was working at the time and I designed the costume to go under my apron.  It doesn't work without the apron.  And all the other costumes -- my RAF uniform, my Gibson Girl dress, my Ren Faire stuff, all the ones from the Azkatraz con last year -- went with M to South Carolina in my cedar chest.   Now, mind you, I RP, so it's often recognizable to M which of the various characters I play were allowed to pick my clothes on a given day -- black and red and poet shirts and a short chain necklace is one person, skirts and heels and a lot of green is another, brown boots and a brown leather collar is yet another -- but this isn't detectable to anyone else.  Hence, I threw on the hand M and I made and my combat boots and called it a costume.
10. I like to refer to this day as All Saints' Day.  It makes me feel educated.  I generally manage to resist spelling Halloween as Hallowe'en.
11. I shall now resist the conventional list-of-ten format by making this very statement.  Aha!

Both busy, and abruptly at loose ends

I clearly need to do the "series" of posts more often.  It gives me such an apparent, obvious topic to work with.  I've been doing so well following my three-days-a-week resolution, but I'm a little worried that now I've run out of the house posts and the bridal-jewelry posts I'm going to do exactly what I did last time I was apart from M: totally lose all gumption and stop listing stuff.

I can always do what M does and save up amusing student malapropisms, I suppose.  I still find those hysterically funny.

Maybe I'll drop to a Tuesday-Thursday posting schedule instead of Monday-Wednesday-Friday?  Then I can write them in one of my less completely intriguing classes.  Except that my students never all show up on any given day.  Also, I generally manage to write posts about two days before I, y'know, post them.

So what to do now?  Amusing dog stories?  More recipes or relative memoirs or discussions of artistic movements?  Judging from other jewelry blogs I read this seems to be de rigeur ... except that I follow those in Blogger and never read them.  I'm not good at work-in-progress photos and I don't really have time to make things right now anyway, I'm mostly just going through the backlog of stuff I've made but never listed -- and dreaming of December, when I'll be able to get my beads out again, and of January, when I'll return home to M and South Carolina and our dedicated crafting room.

I have thought of writing more of my ideas about steampunk ... or maybe some tutorials?  Are my techniques cool enough/repeatable-even-by-me enough to be tutorialable?

I do rather like linking to other shops, though.  Was the strawberry-themed link post interesting?  Does there have to be a photo for things to be awesome?

And of course, I don't think I've mentioned yet, but I'm doing an article series for Rena Klingenberg on avoiding overused, trite words and phrases in jewelry descriptions, which looks at this point like lasting 4-6 months, so that's lovely.  They're great fun to write; I'll preview one at some point.

Anyway, I'll manage.  I always seem to.  And I do need to get back to a semi-regular special offer schedule.

And now it is time to continue to instruct the next generation in the ways of the previous generation's formal writing style.  So, O readers, who lurk about -- I know you're out there, Google Analytics says so -- do introduce yourselves and tell me what you're actually interested in reading!  Come on, don't be shy ...