Social Justice: Why yoni jewelry bothers me

I am troubled by the yoni jewelry on Etsy.

This is not to say that I'm troubled by the concept.  The original notion of the yoni is part of tantric sex practice, as I've been writing about for one of my copywriting customers: basically, "yoni" is Sanskrit for "divine passage," and it refers to the vagina/vulva as a sacred temple.  The penis gets a similar reverence as lingam.  All well and good.  Sex is sacred and beautiful.


It's hard to post even the very lovely examples of yoni jewelry in a post like this, so here are some cowrie shell earrings from D Rae Designs.

I think the problem comes in when women (and men) who have little interest in the Tantra adopt the idea of venerating the yoni.  The thing is, once you're worshiping something in a vacuum, you automatically mentally remove it from the realm of everyday practice.  To decide that we are now going to revere the vagina as sacred rather than thinking of it as dirty turns the vagina into a concept that is beyond the woman.

If my vagina is sacred, it doesn't belong to me.  Sacredness implies worshippers, implies a social construction and concept that is larger than myself.  I don't want to think of a part of my body as filthy, as shameful.  But I also don't want to think of it as bigger and more sacred than the rest of me.

I'm all for resisting the idea of shame, but replacing it with the idea of sacredness, without understanding the yoni concept as part of a whole person, doesn't grant a woman control of, ownership of, and pride in her sexuality.  It only estranges the woman from her sexuality in the opposite direction.

So all that polymer clay yoni jewelry on Etsy (some of which, admittedly, is lovely)?  When I look at most of it, all I can see is a woman desperately resisting the idea that sex is dirty ... by putting it away from herself and her life entirely, promoting it as a passage to the sacred experience rather than a part of herself, her sexuality, her pleasure.  How is this different from the Victorian narrative?  How is this helping anyone?

A Review of Pottermore by Someone Unaffiliated with Sony

So, as longtime readers have certainly grasped by now, I have something of a love for Harry Potter.  I spoke on gendered intepretations of the broomstick as symbol in modern literature at the 2009 convention; here's some of the massive amount of Potter-inspired jewelry I've made (please excuse the older photos):





So it will surprise no one that M and I were among those who fought for a place in the beta for Pottermore, which is supposed to be an interactive companion to the books containing more information about minor characters, ghost plots, and other things that weren't told in detail within the scope of the series.

Overall, we've found it interesting but disappointing.  Most of the problem is in the advertising.  There was a massive amount of hype for this -- website countdowns, early announcements, competitions for early-admission spots -- and it was not made entirely clear whether this was a game, or a bunch of illustrations, or an interactive ebook ... or what.

It's set up like a collection of illustrations tied to a social-media game.  There are quizzes to take and House points to earn, and there are some little side games, like potion-brewing and spellcasting.  However, the actual game bits tend to be buggy and unresponsive, partly because the servers clearly weren't ready when early registration was first opened and partly because, well, it's in beta.  But ... there's nowhere to give specific feedback.  There's a generalized feedback form that asks you to give a one-to-four rating of how it works, how it looks, and "how you're liking Pottermore so far," but no way to say "When you try to make the Herbicide Potion, the worm mucus isn't clickable; you just pick up the Valerian if you try."  Which you'd think would be the important thing about doing a beta run.  It's starting to feel like all they really wanted was a demographic survey.

The ... I don't even know what to call it, because it's not a game or an ebook or anything really ... Pottermore is unquestionably beautiful.  Each chapter of the book has two or three corresponding "moments" you can access through the ... here we go again ... through Pottermore, and each "moment" has a multi-layered artwork.  Chapter thirteen, the one with Norbert the dragon in it, is absolutely breathtaking. 

And yet there's nothing to do.  You get to collect books and objects throughout the scenes (though in the really lovely chapter, there's not a damn thing to pick up ... and you still end up having to look), but there's no competitive aspect -- it doesn't really penalize you for not finding the jellybeans on the train -- and there's no reward for finding everything.  A few things, when you click on them, will unlock interesting extra information that's been written for the ... for Pottermore.  For instance, there's an entire biography of Professor McGonagall that you pick up over the course of the story, a few paragraphs for every chapter in which she appears.  This is quite worthwhile for people who enjoy the series.  There's not a lot of information -- there's a lot less than the advertising suggested there would be -- but it's worth playing through for it.

Yet the social-media aspect of the ... thing ... seems to imply that it was imagined that people would sink time and effort into Pottermore.  Would return daily to try to earn House points.  But the part that was hyped, the companion to the books, takes less than a day to "play" or "read" or "work" through per book.  And here's the rub -- the books open one at a time.

At this point, the only thing I'm returning daily to do is to check whether the next book has opened up.  Sometimes I try to make a potion, but the timing on this requires you to either find 90 minutes of stuff to do in Pottermore (difficult) or set a real-world timer (I'm resisting the nerdiness).  As of the end of August, it was still only the first book.  With overall opening slated for October, I'm not sure how they're planning to beta later book-companions at this point -- there's just no time. 

The material shows a lot of promise, but Pottermore can't decide what it is.  This cripples the game because it cannot meet the expectations raised by marketing, weakens the storytelling because the different aspects seem to have been developed at the expense of one another, and distracts from the companion information because the reader is treacherously wondering, "This is all?"

Pottermore could have been a great advance either in interactive reading, or in book-related gaming, but it tried to be both and therefore is neither.  It tried to be something new so hard that it isn't anything.  It has potential as a stepping stone, and it's still worth playing/reading/social media-ing/whatever, but don't expect your mind to be blown.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

We're a little ways back into the year now -- and incidentally, this is the part I dislike, because no one has papers yet so there are almost no students, except for the panicked older students who are expected to use technology, but aren't being taught to use it.  The other day, M and I worked with a very nice gentleman.  She taught him to make capital letters on the computer.  I taught him how a printer works.  She taught him to use the mouse.

There is a lengthy diatribe on educational priorities in here somewhere, but I will limit myself: Did it ever occur to anyone to maybe require a computer-usage placement test?  It's seemed to me since high school, when I volunteered to drive some of my friends home after they missed the bus staying late in the computer lab, that the requirement of technology usage reinforces class distinctions in educational opportunity.  Clemson University requires that every student own a laptop -- and in my current still-a-bit-under-the-weather state I can't decipher whether this fixes or exacerbates the problem.

Anyway.

We've gotten started now, but before we did, M and I went to spend a couple of days in Asheville, North Carolina, where O. Henry lived for a while.  We went on the first day to Biltmore, the Vanderbilt family's estate.  After looking at the website, I came away with the impression that it was where rich people go to buy expensive branded wines and jellies and be rich together, but M's grandmother was kind enough to give us tickets and it was absolutely and completely worth the trip.

I've been to California's Hearst Castle, which is a melange of stuff imported over the Atlantic to build a fantasy Mediterranean village -- the architect called the style of that place something like "Franco-Anglo-Arabesque-Mediterranea-Japano-Rusko-screw-the-look-whatever-my-client-wants architecture."  Biltmore was a useful companion, since it is also a very Victorian-American estate -- appropriated spoils of empire and of education, combining in a large, somewhat asymmetrical cathedral-inspired house on top of a hill -- but Biltmore is much better-designed, and you can see how people would have flowed through it, both the guests and the downstairs class.  It's useful to see how the estate would harmoniously operate.

Also, some very inspiring wallpaper-decor combinations, including some beautiful examples of using rich jewel tones to make the very Victorian damask and tapestry feel masculine -- I'd give a photo, but they apparently never release them, contributing to my previous impression that it was a fancified wealth getaway -- and some wonderful 1890s-1900s clothing was on display, including a probably Worth-inspired gown and several pieces with delightful nostalgic touches that made my inner costumer dance.

Also, this fountain:


This view of the gardens (August is not a good time for gardens in the Carolinas, but these still looked pretty good):


And this carved marble pillar from the outside, which I'd love to "translate" into a jewelry design, somehow:


As for dining in town: The Jerusalem Garden Cafe is out of this world.  We ate there the first night and went back the second.  Try their curried mango shrimp -- it's delicate and warm, not spicy, and is served over perfect couscous.  It's atmospheric and lovely, especially the floor seating, and the servers are wonderfully attentive.  Asheville's more famous Tupelo Honey Cafe, however, was terrible and not worth the wait.  M's meal, the shrimp and grits, was drenched in hot sauce (not listed on the menu) and too spicy to eat; when we remarked on it, the server suggested stirring it around a bit.  Mine was a fried chicken something-or-other and was too salty to have more than a few bites.  However, if you still want to go, the peach rosemary lemonade is delicious.

Asheville can be described like this:  If you took a mellower version of the free-spiritedness and general artsy insanity of San Francisco and fused it with the prissy exclusivity of San Diego, their hipster love child would be Asheville (two silent E's.  And it went to North Carolina.  You've probably never heard of it).  The shopping is delightful -- don't miss the Spice and Tea Exchange, where they sell ras el hanout with black pepper and hibiscus flowers, and also onion-infused sugar and powdered extract of burgundy wine.  Malaprop's Bookstore is also a must-do -- we shopped a while and then sat drinking their amazing ginger lattes for hours.  And Woolworth Walk is not to be missed -- yes, there are all kinds of little art studios down by the river, but they were like an IRL Etsy, so you might as well visit through a screen -- and also overpriced and of questionable quality.  Woolworth Walk is right in town and features some truly amazing art -- pottery, installments, and traditional.  We purchased, or rather my parents purchased us through the magic of plastic and our birthdays coming up, a piece by Brenda Marks.  It's a three-dimensional giclee over wood rendition of her photo collage "Serenity."  Here's a picture of it on our wall, but visit her site because our lighting does it no justice:


Doesn't the dark luminous aqua balance the red so very eye-catchingly?  Stunning.

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

Treasury Wednesday: Sugar and spice? Also, my "rules" for making these

When I make a treasury, I select items with this sort of "decision tree." This isn't anything I've codified, mind you, these are just the priorities that have evolved naturally as I became dedicated to the idea of letting these be my community presence.

First of all, I won't feature anything that I strongly suspect to be a reseller item. I'm certain that some slip through my grasp, but I'm pretty careful. Also, blatantly incorrect tagging and glaring spelling errors drop things very low down the list of things I want to feature.

After those basics, my first priority is photo quality. I try to emphasize both good photography and well-made items -- decoupaged clothespins go in way after hand-drawn sketches. Good crisp lighting, however, trumps it; if the clothespins were photographed well and the sketch poorly, in they go and out goes the sketch.

I select to match both a color family and a theme, but color comes first.

If I have the option of a well-known, oft-featured shop and a newer one, all other factors being equal, I go with the newer one. I try to overemphasize shops with fewer than 100 instances of feedback.

Last and least important is avoiding competing with myself or M. I won't feature fairy doors or plush squid, and I do attempt to limit jewelry, though mostly that's because I try to have a wide range of item types.

This treasury is a great example because I managed to get a good number of newer shops, to emphasize some really excellent photography, and to make every single item fit a theme/story. It's a little naughty, which I always expect people to remark on more than they do -- you'll notice some bondage-themed items, never mind the corsetry -- but has an appealingly innocent look covering the wickedness, with a light blue and dark blood red combination that's unconventional enough to intrigue but could easily be a standard slightly-vintage Fourth of July scheme.

'One Way or the Other' by balletllama

Light blue and bright red in a variety of beautiful vintage-inspired designs. And once you see the story, just a bit scandalous.

Giclee illustration... choumie7 $15.00	SALE SALE 1970s lig... Threefeathersv... $20.00	Royal Blood - Chain... rabbitdance $70.00	pretty blue ribbon ... labellefairy $299.00
SALE. Group of thre... HouseOfCeramic... $54.00	dog waltz - fine ar... olivedear $30.00	Personalized Pet Bo... patspottery $26.00	Red Leather Rose Fl... Wycked $199.00
Hilarious, Mean Any... goatcards $3.50	Caught in a Net of... FruttiTuttiBea... $33.00	Red satin cupped lo... MorganaFemmeCo... $995.00	Classic Cameo Heart... lovesoapapilla $8.00
Untitled 12x8 Fine ... alicelily $35.00	Burlesque Gloves wi... DelilahBurlesq... $25.00	Baby blue linen cus... copperpod $30.00	Hand painted Doggie... jakeybb $399.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

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.

This is how to make the next kudzu!

Running Bug Farm tipped me off to this from the beginning of the year:

The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto: What Now?

I read it with gentle skepticism for a while, because while I won't buy seedless watermelon if there's a seeded version available (it involves using chemicals to spawn haploid and quadruploid chromosomal watermelons, then crossing them to create the tetraploid fruit which is too genetically crippled to reproduce, hence no seeds in the little white jackets -- it scares me), I'm also open-minded on genetically engineered (GE) plants.  Yes, it can be bad, it can go wrong, it can pervert the entire drive of evolution like seedless watermelons, but -- I tend to think of genetic engineering as a super-speedy version of breeding and crossing strains to see what happens, which is a time-honored manner of adapting our environment to ourselves and ourselves to our environment.

Then I read on and saw what they're actually having approved: Herbicide-resistant alfalfa.

People.  We don't make herbicide-resistant plants.  I mean, I don't like herbicides.  But they need to work when we have no better option, for whatever reason, to get rid of a plant that's ecologically damaging a bunch of other plants.  That's why we have them.

This is why we can't have nice things.

More on the use of "tribal"

... and this time it's from Fire Mountain Gems, and it's cringeworthy!

The text of a specials email I received from the company at the end of February, combined into prose paragraphs, but otherwise left intact and uncut:

"Wild Animal Prints in Drops, Links and Focals Plus a Selection of Hot-Selling Beads.  Tribal Tribulations: 'High-contrast ethnic prints offer graphic appeal.'  --Accessories magazine, November 2010 Issue in reference to Spring 2011.  Dear Jewelry Designer, Take a walk on the wild side with animal print beads, drops, links and focal components!  Exotic NEW prints and customer favorites add bold patterns to jewelry and home decor pieces.  Shop the variety of colors and patterns and embark on your own expedition of safari-influenced designs."

The problems with this copy are twofold.

First of all, it has that regrettable and exceedingly colonial emphasis on "discovery," "embarkation," "expedition," "exploration."  This is a relic of the imperial drive -- our cultural mythos in the West, particularly the English-speaking West, is that those who travel, who discover, who conquer are the world's heroes.  Africans don't generally go on safari.  Rich middle-aged white men who dress like every other country is a camping trip do.

Shockingly enough, Disney's Pocahontas actually constitutes a lovely little meditation on the motivations for the colonial spirit: the musical number which is a duet between John Smith and the commander dude whose name escapes me at the moment is a little more subversive than it seems, because while it initially looks like there's a contrast of "good" and "bad" motivations, there's more going on than that, as the idea of "discovering" and "taming" a wilderness is illustrated to be just as faulty as raping the land for raw materials.  Props, Disney; didn't expect it of you.

The second problem is both more subtle and, in my not-so-humble opinion, more hideous.

Check out that header of "Tribal Tribulations."  Why are animal prints "tribal"?

Given that "tribulations" is, definition-wise, a quite ludicrous choice in this context, I'll happily grant that this is just hasty work, and by no means deliberately attempting to draw the parallels I'm about to highlight.  However. 

The deeper problem with this text is that it conflates tribal people with animals.  No, really, bear with me.

At the Living Desert Zoo in Palm Desert, CA, private event sponsors can rent the residence of the British district commissioner of the Kenyan village replicated in the zoo's African exhibit.  Though constructed in the same manner, the commissioner's residence is referred to in all copy as a "house," the other buildings as "huts."  And in the British-style dining room, a plate-glass wall looks into the leopard enclosure.  Unlike any other animal in the zoo, permanent signage advertises how dangerous the exotic leopard is and explains the usages of the local people for leopard claws and skins, with images where the leopard parts hide the faces and bodies of the wearers.  The leopards in this case take the place of the native people: Kept excluded from the refined area within the British-style house, lovely to look at but not to be gotten close to, the dangers of the African night subdued and brought under the British gaze in a way that is all about the pleasures of power.

This was the topic of my paper "Conservation and the Narrative of Stewardship," and I find the mentality even more painfully obvious in this copy.

Animal prints labeled "exotic" is one thing, though the problem with "exotic" is similar to that of "Oriental" in that it assumes that everyone who matters is in the same place.  But animal prints labeled "tribal"? 

Animals don't form tribes.  People do.  And this copy encourages its readers to consider that "tribal" is a synonym for "wild" and "animal."  Tribal people become wild animals in this construction of the world beyond the audience of the copy.

Whether it's the fault of the magazine quoted or the copy editor who pulled this together, and even though it was certainly done without intent of harm -- there's no excuse for that "tribal tribulations" header.  This is exactly what's wrong with using the word "tribal" insensitively.

Steampunk Skills

In my heart, I still really prefer a steampunk that is a lot more "punk" than "steam."


Available here.

I don't think that things need to be dripping in gears (or octopi) to be steampunk.  The "purist" view is that it's not steampunk unless it's functional; I'm not sure I ascribe to that either.  I like the William Morris standpoint on the technology vs. aesthetic thing: "Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or feel to be beautiful."  To me, it naturally follows that either is good but both is best.

Nor is steampunk just a "look" to me, though there's definitely some level of know-it-when-I-see-it going on here with the clothing and accessories.  As an iteration of punk, it's a mindset and an aesthetic.

Primarily, the mindset is characterized by the oft-calligraphied Japanese phrase "onkochishin": "Honor the past to create the new."  It's a looking backwards to solve the evils of now and recreate the present; it's looking at the world and saying, "You know?  We don't have to break this to remake it.  We can have science and responsibility and wonder.  They can become the same thing again.  We can save the world by changing our ways, not by eschewing them."

(Please allow me a moment to be a Lord of the Rings fanatic: "He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of reason," Gandalf advised us.  And while Papa Tolkien is no doubt revolving in his grave to have me say it:  That applies to the technological lifestyle too.  We don't have to destroy either the ways of the past or the ways of now to understand them, nor to improve them.)

The steampunk culture looks to the past and incorporates it in order to celebrate it  -- which is almost universal; the only reason it's settled on neo-Victorian is because that's where/when our society's cultural memory says, "This is when science and beauty and romance and heroism and practicality could all be realistic concepts at the same time."  It's really not about a particular time period.  It's about recreating the useful and the beautiful in one another's image to create a world that both looks and works well.

This isn't to say there isn't harsh, gritty steampunk alongside the elegant gleam.  The wisdom of the culture lies not in its settings but in its meanings -- in what it takes as its heroes.

Consequently, while I can't mod my technology and I don't drive a steam-powered hovercraft, these are the things I consider my "steampunk skills":

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.

Five errors to avoid in your descriptions

This belongs in the word-choice-for-sellers series, I guess, or at least in the vicinity.  Why can't it go there?  Because I'm about to be spiteful and negative and not pull punches and Rena is lovely and sweet and generally a national treasure.

If you are trying to maintain a Positive Day, I happily invite you to scroll down and look through my tag list, there in the right column under my contact links, to look for something that looks interesting to read.  I'm not usually this nasty.  But I'm getting it out of my system today.

Still with me?  Okay.

Read on for a list of things never to do in an item description.

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.

I am starting a new blog tradition.

Blogadition? Blogition? Webdition?

From now on, barring acts of God, general outcry, or boredom, I think I shall establish a little thing called Treasury Wednesday.  I've found a great tool for treasury posting, and I love sharing these things, and I spend way way too much time making them, so why not?


This one is all about spring ephemerals.

'Spring Ephemerals' by tangopig

Spring ephemerals -- like dwarf vernal irises, liverleaf hepatica, trillium, some anemones and others, depending on your area -- are the first food source for bees in the spring, but are often threatened by invasive non-native plant species. Planting them in gardens may be a key to saving our honeybee population. Flowers and early insects in shades of delicate pink, purple and blue!

SilkOrigamiButterfl... SewSmashing $18.00	Spring Flower Trio ... serena29 $9.00	Orchid Mist-Nuno Fe... amysfunkyfiber... $79.00	Springtime Cafetier... IronStitchWard... $8.00
Purple Blackberries... ShebboDesign $40.00	Flowers, Stripes an... rabbitwhiskers $185.00	SPRING SALE Lady Si... SamanthaSultan... $55.00	30% OFF SALE - Larg... AmeliaKayPhoto... $37.80
Butterfly embellish... firefly1505 $2.75	Hebrew Scrabble til... poemweave $8.95	Hollywood romantic ... NoMoreTwistHan... $60.00	Eco friendly spring... KajaDesign $250.00
full bloom v05 wate... fromyou2me $10.00	PURPLE Organza Flow... MissGlory $14.00	Beginning of Time, ... artcanbefun $45.00	girly bumble, a sug... ORphotography $19.00

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com.

It seemed like a good one to start the tradition with this treasury, since this is about when the ephemerals should be starting to bloom (though I made it in January ... and mine still aren't showing much, which according to the packaging may be the case until year 2 ... but more on the garden later).

The color scheme is all bi pride colors with a dash of green. Because, y'know, why not? Bisexuality is, sadly, often attacked by both the gay and straight communities; like transpeople, bisexuals are thought by one side to be promiscuous and confused and by the other to be promiscuous, confused and mucking up the "True Gay Cause." Next time you're on a cruise ship or at a conference which has a "friends of Dorothy" meetup listed someplace -- "friends of Dorothy" is code for "queers gather here" -- look to see if there's a "friends of friends of Dorothy" listing somewhere nearby. If so, that's where all the transgendered, genderqueer, bisexual, asexual and pansexual people will be hanging out -- and sometimes, talking about how sad and frustrating it is that outside-the-box gender-sexualities are so "boxed."

This concludes your PSA social justice lesson for the month. Enjoy the pretty flowers!

Oh, and on a happier note, there's more about spring ephemerals here.