Theme
4:39pm July 30, 2015

Necklaces:  Redwoods, and my dad’s beard in a floating locket.

12:12am January 7, 2015
In case you missed the jewelry being referred to in an ask I got, this is what it is.  My friend got me what looks like a silver and copper (or at least those colors) mix, Ankh symbol combined with the Djed Pillar symbol.  You can read about these symbols and their symbolism here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djed I was already familiar with the symbolism, and it was exactly what I needed:  a sense of stability and strength and a reminder of life and eternity while my father was dying, and a reminder of eternal life.  That’s a grossly oversimplified way of putting it, but I don’t feel like I’m worthy of even trying to explain the details that make it all work so perfectly.

In case you missed the jewelry being referred to in an ask I got, this is what it is.  My friend got me what looks like a silver and copper (or at least those colors) mix, Ankh symbol combined with the Djed Pillar symbol.  You can read about these symbols and their symbolism here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djed

I was already familiar with the symbolism, and it was exactly what I needed:  a sense of stability and strength and a reminder of life and eternity while my father was dying, and a reminder of eternal life.  That’s a grossly oversimplified way of putting it, but I don’t feel like I’m worthy of even trying to explain the details that make it all work so perfectly.

9:56pm January 3, 2015

Beard Locket (RIP Ronald Baggs, 1941-2014)

I will wear your beard
in clear locket round my neck
till my own sunset
     your beard was once part of you
     now it is a part of me

clear locket with grey beard hairs inside

8:28pm December 27, 2014
This was my holiday gift to my mother this year.  It seemed absolutely  perfect for what she’s going through.  It’s a heart-shaped necklace with a memorial tear and a flower, that says “Love Never Ends”.  She’s very happy with it. I thought it was perfect because she seems to be the same sort of memoralist/seeker combination that I am (possibly with other elements I’m not aware of, because I’m not in as much contact with her as I’d like, I’ve been doing my own grief reaction which is to become somewhat of a hermit and want to curl up and hibernate and not deal with stuff for awhile… not like in a depressed way, more like in a “I need time to process this information” way.)

This was my holiday gift to my mother this year.  It seemed absolutely  perfect for what she’s going through.  It’s a heart-shaped necklace with a memorial tear and a flower, that says “Love Never Ends”.  She’s very happy with it.

I thought it was perfect because she seems to be the same sort of memoralist/seeker combination that I am (possibly with other elements I’m not aware of, because I’m not in as much contact with her as I’d like, I’ve been doing my own grief reaction which is to become somewhat of a hermit and want to curl up and hibernate and not deal with stuff for awhile… not like in a depressed way, more like in a “I need time to process this information” way.)

11:56pm December 20, 2014
Sometimes I give myself a holiday present.  This year’s is a floating locket. I don’t know why they’re called that.  It’s stainless steel, so my skin shouldn’t be able to corrode it.  And it contains hairs from my father’s beard, that he sent me, or had my mother send me after he died.  I wanted a way to keep the beard hairs with me at all times, and this beautiful locket did the trick. By the way his beard turned grey very young.  It was grey when I was born even though his head hair was still jet black. And he was about 40 then. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the rest of the beard hairs, but I’ll figure out something.  Maybe I could find something similar to this locket only bigger and more like a display case.  I’d love to find something where I could touch it regularly, but that lends itself to the hairs getting lost.

Sometimes I give myself a holiday present.  This year’s is a floating locket. I don’t know why they’re called that.  It’s stainless steel, so my skin shouldn’t be able to corrode it.  And it contains hairs from my father’s beard, that he sent me, or had my mother send me after he died.  I wanted a way to keep the beard hairs with me at all times, and this beautiful locket did the trick.

By the way his beard turned grey very young.  It was grey when I was born even though his head hair was still jet black. And he was about 40 then.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the rest of the beard hairs, but I’ll figure out something.  Maybe I could find something similar to this locket only bigger and more like a display case.  I’d love to find something where I could touch it regularly, but that lends itself to the hairs getting lost.

12:09am November 8, 2014
Hair jewelry. That’s the only word I have for this. I got it when I was maybe 16. Wore it everywhere, claimed it was a satellite dish that let me communicate with people from the stars who had left me on earth to observe humans. Did not get many sanity points for that part of my fantasy world… but it was always just a fantasy world for me, and people who think that having been a confused and heavily abused sixteen-year-old, and acting like one, makes me a crappy person can shove it where the sun don’t shine. Anyway, I haven’t worn it in years, and I took it out and it’s rather beautiful. I can’t see wearing it in many contexts these days, especially since I’m trying just a little bit to blend in. But I can still wear it in private and think it looks cool. For those using screenreaders, I’ll try to describe this thing: There’s a heavy chainmail band that goes around my head. It has thinner necklace-chain stuff coming off of that in different patterns. On my forehead are three silver necklace-chains with red beads on them. And going to the top of my head, and down the back of my hair (it doesn’t come close to reaching the bottom of my hair at this point) is an elaborate pattern of necklace-chains and dark red beads. The dark red beads all have shiny parts that shine in different colors. And this is all against the backdrop of pale skin and long hair that’s somewhere between very dark brown and black depending on the lighting. The picture itself shows me from both the back and the front, due to being taken in front of a mirror.

Hair jewelry. That’s the only word I have for this. I got it when I was maybe 16. Wore it everywhere, claimed it was a satellite dish that let me communicate with people from the stars who had left me on earth to observe humans. Did not get many sanity points for that part of my fantasy world… but it was always just a fantasy world for me, and people who think that having been a confused and heavily abused sixteen-year-old, and acting like one, makes me a crappy person can shove it where the sun don’t shine.

Anyway, I haven’t worn it in years, and I took it out and it’s rather beautiful. I can’t see wearing it in many contexts these days, especially since I’m trying just a little bit to blend in. But I can still wear it in private and think it looks cool.

For those using screenreaders, I’ll try to describe this thing: There’s a heavy chainmail band that goes around my head. It has thinner necklace-chain stuff coming off of that in different patterns. On my forehead are three silver necklace-chains with red beads on them. And going to the top of my head, and down the back of my hair (it doesn’t come close to reaching the bottom of my hair at this point) is an elaborate pattern of necklace-chains and dark red beads. The dark red beads all have shiny parts that shine in different colors. And this is all against the backdrop of pale skin and long hair that’s somewhere between very dark brown and black depending on the lighting.

The picture itself shows me from both the back and the front, due to being taken in front of a mirror.

4:47am October 22, 2014

Fire agate. With sometimes rings: amber, green agate.

4:43am October 22, 2014
Tiger eye ball. With amber ring and agate ring.

Tiger eye ball. With amber ring and agate ring.

4:40am October 22, 2014

Schorl/black tourmaline, fire agate, tiger eye, lapis lazuli. With sometimes amber ring and agate ring.

4:35am October 22, 2014

Fire agate and amethyst. With occasional appearances by an amber ring and a green agate ring.

4:28am September 27, 2014

clatterbane:

It’s probably just as well that I have never been particularly femme anyway, but I do sometimes miss having the energy to do things with makeup at all. Or to get out enough that it even matters that much. (That great lip color I reblogged a while ago got me thinking again, yeah.)

Ditto for not having to dress primarily for comfort all the time, and not having so much trouble going out shopping. I actually used to have some style that wasn’t just “nerdy slob” all the time. I guess there’s nothing inherently wrong with that one, but it’s nice to have more workable options.

This stuff bothers me worse sometimes than I usually want to admit. I end up feeling kind of shallow, but it still bothers me.

It’s not shallow.

Most people in most cultures everywhere find clothing and personal appearance to be an important part of their lives.  And when you can’t engage in that kind of thing, it does cause problems.

That’s why so many instructions for chronically ill people say that if you’re at all able, simply changing clothes every day can make a huge difference to your sense of well-being, even if you can’t get out of bed.  Or painting your fingernails or toenails, or putting on makeup, if those are things you like to do.  

I never understood all this until I started developing aesthetics in the last few years that really, really fit who I am as a person.  And it doesn’t feel just like wearing clothes, it feels like the clothes are an important part of who I am.  Same with how I do my hair.  Having it long feels more like “me” than my old buzzcuts, even though my old buzzcuts were nice in their own way too.

(Would you believe that I went to visit my grandma with a flat-top, and her immediate response was “I want to do my hair like that!”  Then I visited my great-uncle and we were wearing the same hair, same shirt type, same pants, same suspenders, we got a picture together and it was great.)

Unfortunately I can’t just instantly go from a flat-top to long hair and back, not and have it be my hair, so I have chosen the long hair in the end.  For now, anyway.

But I’ve discovered that how I look has meaning.  And it’s not trivial meaning.  And it’s not vanity to care about it.  And it’s not vanity to be upset when I’m too sick to look how I want to look.  It’s normal to care how you look, to have a personal style (even in cultures where everyone more or less dresses the same, that’s still a style and people still care about it a great deal), and to be upset when you can’t dress how you want to dress.  Within reason of course, but nothing you’ve said is anywhere near unreasonable.

I’ve found the discovery of my personal aesthetics to be incredibly liberating, and at the same time really scary.  Scary because some of my personal aesthetics are considered feminine by most people, others are considered masculine, and others are considered androgynous.  And to me, they’re just different aesthetics independent of gender.  But to other people… switching between [other people’s conception of] “masculine” “feminine” and “androgynous” all the time has consequences.  And doing so when you have both breasts and visible facial hair has even more consequences.  (Even if my bra is compressing my breasts, I still get read as gender-variant or misgendered.  Since any gender given to me is a misgendering, it’s really damn easy to misgender me.)

Anyway, especially if you were just discovering you had a personal style, it can be devastating to suddenly not be able to engage in it.  I feel so much more comfortable in my own skin now that I have my basic combination of clothing aesthetics that mean so much to me:  Brown with blue or yellow in mostly skirts and shirts (often but not always read as feminine).  Dad-shirts with suspenders and either pants or shirts (usually read as masculine or androgynous).  And the one I can’t afford to wear – tailored Victorian menswear in specific colors I like, various shades of brown and tan and yellow.  I’ll probably never be able to actually wear that, but I’d love to have one nice suit for special occasions, tailored to my specifications both physicallly and color-wise (possibly read as masculine, possibly as androgynous, depending on how frilly the suit got).  Also steampunk things that are equally out of my price range (and can be read as masculine, feminine, or androgynous depending).  But at any rate, I do have aesthetics that I feel suit me, regardless of what gender other people assign to those aesthetics.   

And having those aesthetics makes me feel more like myself.  And there’s no shame in that.  It’s not vanity.  It’s normal for people to want to look a certain way.  Whether that way is heavily determined by their culture, or heavily individualistic, or some of both.  The important part is them feeling comfortable in their own skin.

And when you can’t do that, due to pain or illness, it does take a toll on you, because you want to be able to do it.  And there’s nothing wrong with being upset, with mourning that loss, or with trying to find little ways that you can hang onto your aesthetic despite low spoons.  (Like doing just one piece of clothing, or hair, or jewelry, or nail polish, or makeup, or whatever.  I do a lot with jewelry.  Even changing clothes once a day can make a huge difference, or even once a week if you can’t manage once a day.  And that goes even if the clothes aren’t in your personal aesthetic, just the act of changing makes you feel a little better.)

12:11pm September 15, 2014
Thank you N. for the necklace.  (It’s a Discworld necklace that says “I Aten’t Dead”.)  It’s perfect!  Especially given my medical situation half the time, it’s a good reminder to people.  (And actually I’ve been mistaken for dead before by paramedics during autistic-catatonia-induced motor freezes, so… yeah.)

Thank you N. for the necklace.  (It’s a Discworld necklace that says “I Aten’t Dead”.)  It’s perfect!  Especially given my medical situation half the time, it’s a good reminder to people.  (And actually I’ve been mistaken for dead before by paramedics during autistic-catatonia-induced motor freezes, so… yeah.)

8:42am September 4, 2014

Necklaces by RubyRobinBoutique.

7:36am September 4, 2014
spinningcastle: Not crediting the original designer/artist drives me nuts… This beautiful piece of jewelry was created by Jill Lawrence of Twisted Sister Arts. I know this because I’ve bought several pieces from her and they are all stunning! Please give her shop a look…

spinningcastle:

Not crediting the original designer/artist drives me nuts…
This beautiful piece of jewelry was created by Jill Lawrence of Twisted Sister Arts.
I know this because I’ve bought several pieces from her and they are all stunning! Please give her shop a look…