Since starting my new job, I have begun saying a number of new phrases. But don't be confused, these phrases aren't *because* of the new job, the timing just eerily lines up. I am literally the only person I know saying these things so it's not like I picked them up from new coworkers.

1. All inanimate objects are now addressed as "friend". Printer not working? Come friend. Computer loading slowly? Oh friend. Added bonus for a deep sigh of disappointment followed by "...friend..." as I pet whichever piece of technology is currently acting up.

2. So that I don't yell swear words at work, I now say "curses" but with the same energy as if I were actually swearing. Just. Literally that. Smash my finger? "Curses." Drop a stack of paper? "Curses." Tbf this one has more direct correlation because I work directly with children, but this happened completely unintentionally. Like. This was not a switch I attempted to make. It just kind of happened one day and hasn't stopped.

3. Apparently I say "bruh" now. I... I don't know where this came from. But this is now how I express my disappointment to the shit drivers of my city who either are going much too slowly in front of me on my way to work, are going much too quickly past me on my way to work, or who blow through? very red lights?? next to me on my way to work. Like. Bruh. Come on.

Bonus: while leaving work today, I encountered in quick succession: a car indicating a left turn at an intersection where there... was no road to the left? Where ya goin bud? And a truck just APPEARING behind me in the moments between watching traffic ahead of me and checking my mirrors. Where did you come from?? To which my brain provided: are we encountering Cotton Eyed Joe? (Because apparently I am a walking talking shitpost machine)

Work was closed today because of an ice storm, so I took the unexpected day off to finally finish the pleated wrap skirt I've been working on since early November! I got really rambly about the whole thing so here's a picture of the finished product and I'll drop the rest below the cut.

This project came about because I've been watching The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty with some friends and I DESIRE a swooshy skirt. While I didn't follow any patterns and wasn't setting out to make the same exact style of skirt, it was definitely influential. (This skirt brought to you by numerous tutorial videos, including one on Chinese mamianqun's and one on Korean hanbok's, and an absolute refusal to actually follow anyone's instructions. No pattern, we die like men)

It's been almost 10 years since I've done any sewing, so I decided to buy sheets from the thrift store so that I wouldn't cry as hard if things went horribly or I had to trash the project. (Don't get me wrong, I still cried. Because Oh Golly did things go wrong. But it wasn't as tragic as if I'd used full price fabric from Joann's, ya feel?) So from there the idea grew from "pleated wrap skirt" (my rationale: I don't have to be precise in my measurements, straight hem, but still lots of swoosh) to "make this skirt out of a queen size top sheet with as little waste as possible" because who doesn't love a challenge?

....and oh what a challenge it ended up. I plotted things out in my notebook, planned how I would cut everything, and oh let me tell you: rationally I knew how big the sheet was. But laying it out to cut it? So huge. So much fabric. It covered my entire bedroom floor. All of this going into a single skirt oh god what have I gotten myself into? But this part actually went the smoothest of the whole process! Because...

I wasn't doing normal pleats. Since I was trying to make the swooshiest dress with as much of the fabric as I had, I did "deep pleats" which is. A normal pleat but if you shove more fabric inside the pleat. No one wanted to explain to me exactly how to do this. The one person I found who did gave me MATH about it. And boy am I bad at math. Used a pillowcase to practice and wrap my head around how the math worked (the intangible makes no sense to me, I must hold it in my hands), sorted the math, started pleating for real! Measured my pinned pleats and it came up way shorter than anticipated. Have I mentioned it's been a hot minute since I've sewn? Also this was my first attempt ever at pleats. SO! I unpinned everything, made my deep pleats slightly less deep, pinned them all up again, and then blessedly listened to my Grammy's advice to baste the pleats first. Because horror of horrors, my measurements were right the first time and now my fabric was too long for the waistband I'd already put Quite A Lot Of Effort Into. Like, it's a wrap skirt. I would've just made do. But no. It wouldn't even fit.

Within this process, I sewed together my three skirt panels, put in a pocket (oh the choices I made. This pocket did not survive to the completion of the skirt because it was BAD. I was terrified that the fabric wouldn't hold up to the weight of me dripping my phone into it and covered the ENTIRE pocket in interfacing. This would be fine if I'd wanted it to fuck up the way the skirt lay, but this was not in fact what I wanted. I am however very proud of the placement I worked out for it, it sits inside one of the pleats so it isn't visible), hemmed the WHOLE FUCKING THING (look. Again. I knew it was a lot of fabric. But it did not occur to me that I would be hemming fucking 240" across the bottom, plus 30" up either side. I used ALL of my pins to accomplish this), and made a very lovely waistband and ties.

Now it is at this point that I went out of town for thanksgiving, remembered I had other Christmas crafting plans, started a new job working more hours, and left this skirt to languish until a few weeks ago when I finally had the heart to rip out all of those pleats, remembered I wanted to redo the pocket while I was here (and let me tell you, I needn't have worried about the strength of the pocket. I had that fucker in there GOOD. I think it took longer picking out that single pocket than it took taking out all of the pleats), and then set about redoing everything.

Now something you may not know about me is I exist in somewhat of a state of chaos. I try to write things down to negate this, but uh. Guess who didn't write down where she left off, and couldn't decipher the mad scientist notes that made sense in the heat of the moment, but not several months later? That would be me. Thankfully I was able to sort things out, get the pocket put back in, got the pleats pinned in record time, and praise whatever deity you may recognize, it was the right length this time! So this afternoon, I attached it to the waistband, did a very lovely "stitch in the ditch" (that I had to take out because something got fucked up in the back and it wouldn't lay right. I never regretted how closely I matched the thread to the fabric more than I did in that moment), REDID all that stitching, and now I have a skirt!

Ultimately, I don't actually know if I'll wear it. I no longer own many tops that lay well with a skirt without making me hate my body, and I don't know that I like the length. Maybe a shopping trip and cutting off several inches (...oh god I'll have to re-hem it...) will make me like it on myself better, but even if I don't and I never wear it, this has been a really fun and fulfilling project! I'm satisfied just with having completed it and I've learned a lot in the process! And hey, for going into this refusing to follow a pattern, with a goal of "use the entire sheet in the skirt" I think it came out pretty nicely. Plus, if nothing else, I can pleat like an absolute pro now.

sorry that I keep spam booping the same like. 5 people. its because my app literally keeps crashing because I'm overloading it with boops and y'all are the ones online or who have booped me most recently lol

Spouse is finally getting me to watch Andor. We're only 3 episodes in and like, Cassian is fine and all, I got no real problems with him as a character, but I am in love with Bix. I would die for Bix. I would kill for Bix. I'm sad that I won't get as much Bix as my heart desires, due to the show being called "Andor" and not "Bix" but somehow I shall cope.

Things that have me pissed off tonight: calling yourself a queer group, but then saying "but not if you're a man." Because it's not like queer is an umbrella term that includes, you know, non-heterosexual and non-cis men. Look, if you're going to use the inclusive term, you can't say "but not you. You aren't the right kind of queer. We don't want you here." There's enough of that shit coming from everyone else, don't bring that in here.

i am hereby banned from the comments section. which one?, you might ask. the answer is: all of them. because i see the bad takes and instead of backing myself out of the page when i get upset, i decide to see just how many more bad takes there are and start doom scrolling. you know, just to make myself even more upset. for fun. because that's totally normal.

Thanks for reblogging the hamlet comic. You sent me down a long and fascinating rabbit trail. I am in your debt.

Hell yeah! What kind of rabbit trail? Hamlet related, or D&D related? One of my favorite Hamlet posts is the one talking about a (potential? actual? I can't remember which) staging where the show ends with... Horatio? upset at the audience for watching it all play out as silent spectators and not stopping it from happening. Love me some cool interpretations of stage plays and the way we get to play around in theater

When you see this, post 5 songs you actually listen to and tag 10 awesome people!

Well. I got tagged by both @vyther15 and @marijayne-writing so I figured I'd finally do this one lol

My most frequently played playlists these days are my choir practice tracks and cdrama/kdrama soundtracks so we're gonna choose from my songs-in-English-that-I-like playlist instead lol. In no particular order:

1) Goodbye (from Arcane) - Ramsey

2) lovely - Billie Eilish w/ Khalid

3) Icarus - Emma Blackery

4) Sunlight - Hozier

5) Ship in a Bottle - fin

If you want, @blxckisthecolor @cynical-mystic @elvencantation @brain-emptie @yougetsomekisses @citrinecanary @amnestyaubrey @rvbyvida @spires-to-heaven @pizzaandcoffeeintherain or consider yourself tagged if this sounds fun!

gotta love that midnight urge to come out as openly queer on social media sites with humans who actually know me offline

of course it's the first time i watch Everything Everywhere All At Once when my mom responds to a Snapchat about "closest I've been to [landmark near where I grew up]" with "sorry I'm a terrible mom" like. why.

I have finally reached 1000 boops!

boops you! boops you! boops you!

Hehehe nice

did so much booping and getting booped all in a row that tumblr mobile literally froze up, crashed, and restarted the app lol

apparently i am back in my sads about a friend who suddenly cut me off two years ago with no explanation. had a dream where they started talking to me again and now i'm stuck here past midnight sad that it isn't real instead of falling asleep.

just had the absolutely wild experience of seeing a tweet from one of my college professors shared on a tumblr post. i don't even know what emotion i'm feeling but that was BIZARRE