Happy, happy, joy, joy!

First of all, the reaction to our news has been absolutely wonderful (so thank you!) That people are as overjoyed as we are is really touching—touching, I think, because it's something that only happens to us once in a blue moon. It's a massive contrast to when we decided to get married: because of the circumstances, not many were pleased for us on an occasion that should have also elicited great joy. There were some who thought that we shouldn't get married and were quite vocal about it. Some things were said that haunt me and hurt me to this day, and it's now 10 years on. It's hard to not let those things overshadow our marriage, but if you find me getting overly defensive or protective of our relationship, chances are, that's the reason. (That's also the reason I am overly sensitive to criticism of our marriage.)

So it's lovely that people are so happy for us! I know that some of them (especially family) privately think, “Well, it's about time!”, but that does not diminish from the overall good vibes, congratulations and prayers that we've received so far. I think it must be so sad if you were pregnant and no one was happy for you; the coming of another human into the world ought to be cause for celebration because of what it is, no matter what the circumstances.

The wonderful Elsie has even put her hand up already to organize my baby shower. (She's going to co-opt some others to help, but it will be mostly her running the show.) I can't express how much her gesture meant to me. You see, when I got married, I didn't really have a kitchen tea (I didn't understand what they were), and I didn't really have a hen's night (I kind of decided the week before the wedding that I would, so it was held the night before the wedding and I was rather shocked at the number of people who came. We ate takeaway and ice cream at my mum's house.) So it's just so nice to have a baby shower and to have someone I love and trust take care of it for me. We sat down on Monday and planned what would be involved. It's not that I'm fussy—if anything, I probably don't care enough—but there were certain things I knew I definitely did not want to do (e.g. games involving baby food, melted chocolate and nappies) and there were a few things that I definitely did want to see happen.

Physical stuff

In terms of all the physical stuff, things have been going pretty well. The morning sickness is mostly gone (though it surfaces at odd times—particularly when I'm talking about it). After the first blood and urine test the OBGYN sent me for, it was flagged that my thyroid was high so she sent me to the endocrinologist. The endocrinologist said that it might be because of the pregnancy and the levels of pregnancy hormone in my bloodstream, but it might also be because of this benign lump I've got on my neck. (Got that checked out in 2003 or 2004 and it's fine.) She just ordered more tests for the day of my next OBGYN appointment. Oh, and she also told me to take Vitamin D (yeah—sunlight; so now my dermatologist and endocrinologist are sort of contradicting each other!)

My second OBGYN appointment was very short. She checked Peanut via her little ultrasound machine, weighed me and answered a few of my questions. I was all set to go get the tests done for the endocrinologist but she said she wanted me to take the glucose test and I might as well do both at the same time.

So this Tuesday just gone, I had the glucose test. I've been told they do this with all pregnant women now, but for me, because of a possible risk of diabetes, they do an extra bit or test for something extra (sorry, I'm a bit vague on the details!) You have to book yourself in at the medical centre/pathology clinic place, they fax you a sheet of instructions and then you have to go on this special high carbohydrate diet for three days before the test. So each day, I had to eat

• three slices of bread or toast
• one serving of breakfast cereal, porridge or spaghetti (1/2 cup cooked)
• one medium potato or one serving of rice (1/2 cup cooked)
• three servings of vegetables
• three servings of fruit (fresh, cooked, canned or juice)

If there is something in the list you don't like, you swap it for something equivalent (1 slice of bread = 1 serving of fruit/fruit juice = 2 biscuits = 1 serving of cereal = 1 serving of spaghetti = 1 serving of rice = 1 medium potato). For me, this wasn't too difficult as, these days, I tend to have most of that anyway. It was just the counting and making sure I'd had enough at the end of the day. I certainly noticed I felt a lot more full! (Maybe Sarah can enlighten us as to what you do when you can't have gluten.)

Then the day before the test, I had to stop eating at 7 pm because you're supposed to fast for 12 hours. On the day of the test, I went to the medical centre at 7:30 am (got a really good park too—well, good for Newtown!) They had just opened so there was hardly anyone else there. When they got me in the chair, they took four vials of my blood (presumably two for whatever tests the endocrinologist had ordered and two for the glucose test), then they got me to drink this really sweet lemony slightly fizzy drink (about 500 ml of the stuff).

I had to sit for an hour there; I wasn't allowed to leave the centre. Fortunately they had these very comfortable chairs in the same area as where they take the blood. So the nurse set the timer and I went and sat in the chair and read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) and half-watched Sunrise's coverage of the Oscars. (Side note: it was rather amusing monitoring Twitter while the Oscars were on. As usual, Empire Magazine were my favourite commentators.)

After one hour, the timer went off and another nurse took more blood from me (from the other arm this time). (NB: Fortunately I have no problems giving blood.) Then she set the timer again and I went back to my seat, finished Alice and took up my knitting.

After another hour, the timer went off and another nurse took more blood out of me (just one vial), and then I was free to go. I know it doesn't sound particularly pleasant, but it was a rather relaxing morning.

Next week, we will have our 18-week ultrasound. The OBGYN said we'd get a DVD at that one. (Wow, technology!) So I'm looking forward to seeing Peanut again. (NB: Regarding questions about whether or not we will find out whether Peanut is a boy or a girl, please see the FAQ below.) I also need to book antenatal classes, but the dates/times (or rather lack of them) is confusing me.

What else? Yes, as I said, I'm slower and more ungainly. I'm working at the exercise thing but it's hard because sometimes I am really tired after work, or I get pain in odd places (and they say stop if you feel pain). Although I'm not getting up as much in the night to visit the bathroom (thank goodness!), I know I have to be more disciplined about my sleep otherwise I tend to feel sicker the following day. (Not a good thing at work ...) Unfortunately I'm still rather bad at the sleep thing ...

(Guys can tune out for this paragraph.) I've also bought my first maternity bras. Apparently your breasts go up a whole size when you're pregnant—both in cups and, um, whatever you call the other size. (Obviously husbands really like this part of the pregnancy!) This means you can't keep wearing the same bras you were wearing before. Not only do they become incredibly uncomfortable, they also harm breast development (as your breasts are getting ready to be feeding machines). According to the info my OBGYN gave me, it's best to go out and get a maternity bra around about 16 weeks, so I squashed my discomfort and went down to Bras N Things, where they give you good advice and check the fit. Unfortunately bras are expensive ($45 each!) so I didn't buy very many: I just got two, then later went to Target to get some cheap non-maternity ones in the same size to tide me through the rest of the pregnancy. There's no point in getting lots because your bra size may change again after the baby comes. (See: this is how the fashion industry makes so much money out of us women. Our shape keeps changing, which means we have to keep getting new things to accommodate our bodies. I guess in previous centuries, they would just do alterations, or maybe it wasn't so much of a problem because clothes weren't as close-fitting as they are now.)

I haven't started shopping for maternity clothes yet; so far, I've managed to get by with what I have. The skirts I have are fairly accommodating (particularly the wrap-arounds!) and I haven't grown out of my tops yet. When the weather gets colder, I'll definitely have to do something about getting some pants that fit, but so far, everything's okay. I think it's because I used to be on the smaller size of medium; now I just fill medium out.

Advice (solicited and unsolicited)

Of course, being pregnant, everyone talks to you about pregnancy and baby stuff. This has been both helpful and unhelpful. The helpful stuff is hearing about everyone else's experiences because no two are the same, and it gives you a picture of what it's like when it's not going so well, it's hard, when it's really really hard (and why—e.g. things like post-natal depression). It's also helped that I've heard from both husbands and wives about their experiences. I've also talked to people who have had just one child, couples who are onto their second, and parents who have raised five or six and for whom new parenthood was a good 10 years ago. The best advice I've been given is to do what works for us and not feel guilty about it (which is good for me: I'm actually not very good at the guilt thing when it comes to certain matters). Makes sense: we're individuals and our baby is an unique individual, so why follow someone's arbitrary rules if they're not going to do the trick?

The unhelpful stuff is usually prescriptive: you must do this, you must do that. Some of the advice I've received has been downright strange. (Example: “If you're getting work done in your apartment, just get out of there and go for a walk. It's because the soul of your baby hangs around you and will be disturbed by the hammering and noise.”) That might be because of cultural differences. Some of the advice is just alarmist; I'm more inclined to listen to my OBGYN.

The other unhelpful thing is the pessimism and the “You don't know what you're in for” attitude. Ben thinks other parents do it because it's fun for them to watch the “newbies” squirm. For me, I really don't need it and I really don't appreciate it, thank you very much. (I also haven't figured out how to respond to it graciously either. If you have some ideas, please share.)

Then every now and then, I hit my limits and really don't want to talk about baby/pregnancy stuff anymore. Fortunately this doesn't happen very often, but I've come close once or twice.

Reading material

There's no shortage of books on babies and parenting. Aside from What to Expect When You're Expecting (which I'm only dipping into and not reading properly), there's Kaz Cooke's Up the Duff (which Dave and Kellie very generously bought me because it helped them) and Robin Barker's Baby Love (which Haydn and Ji-Hyun gave me when we caught up for lunch last week, and which I haven't even opened yet.)

There was one that I wanted to get as soon as I found out I was pregnant: The Second Nine Months by Vicki Glembocki. I'd wanted it ever since I'd read the excerpt on Salon.com several years ago. I remember thinking, “This is exactly what I need to read” because, at the time, it seemed to me that all my friends tended to sort of “disappear” following the birth of their babies, and I wanted to understand why. Well, Glembocki certainly shed some light on the situation. The book isn't an information or reference work; it's a memoir of the first nine months or so of Glembocki's life following the birth of her first daughter Blair. She is brutally honest about how it was then—her problems with breastfeeding, Blair not putting on weight and crying all the time, her feelings towards Blair (which were often less than affectionate, to put it mildly), her intense guilt at feeling what she was feeling, her anger at parenting books and attitudes to motherhood (which made her feel like she was doing a terrible job), her envy of other mothers whose children weren't so hard, her loneliness and isolation, her desire to go back to work (an her guilt about wanting to go back to work), her relationship with her husband, and so on. Even though Glembocki is nothing like me (and it doesn't seem like she knew a lot of people who were having kids, or maybe she did and didn't hang out with them) and even though it seems to me that her expectations were wildly different to mine, I found reading her book extremely helpful. I'd even say it's the most helpful thing I've read so far—well, most helpful thing on the nature of what parenting is like during that difficult period when everything is new, you're sleep-deprived and you're trying to learn how to care for another little human other than yourself.

I also learned from Glembocki that it seems that the most difficult period is those first six months when the baby is still breastfeeding and you have to feed him/her every x hours (I forget how many hours it is). Unlike adults who can demolish their dinner in ten minutes, babies take longer to feed, so often no sooner have you finished feeding him/her than you have to start again. I imagine how tedious that can get—especially if you're having trouble, which, from the sounds of things, many women do. So it's made me start thinking about those first six months after Peanut joins us in the world and what I can do to survive. I know that having realistic expectations helps (and Glembocki is helping me have them). Friends and family who can bring meals, babysit or even keep you company for a spell when you're totally sleep-deprived or can't stand the thought of talking or even thinking about baby-related things anymore must also be helpful. I also thought I should get the Bible on audio so I can still be “reading” it—even if it's in short bursts (given that I don't know how realistic it is that I'll still be getting along to church during this period). Thoughts?

As for parenting more generally, I do have a whole stack of ideas on the subject (not surprising, hey; I'm sure parents, expectant parents and even grandparents have all sorts of ideas on the subject!) not derived from baby books (yes, one of them comes from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers). But I think I'll save those for another post.

One last thought: there doesn't seem to be much out there for fathers—preparing fathers for their impending offspring. Dave and Kel said there was a little bit in Up the Duff for partners, and Dave had a book on fatherhood generally (plus, of course, there's Tony Payne's most excellent Fatherhood: What it is and what it's for, which I highly recommend and not just because he's my boss and a good writer). I just kind of wish I had The Second Nine Months from the father's perspective because, no doubt, it was also very hard on him too.

The Official FAQ

I keep getting asked the same questions, but I'm lazy and quickly tire of repeating myself. So here are the answers.

• Have you had any strange cravings yet? Nope, not unless you count dairy. I've always loved milk (and in recent years, have started drinking it with dinner), but now I'm guzzling down a lot more of it. I have it with breakfast (on muesli), lunch (this bemuses my workmates but I don't think they mind too much because I readily volunteer to go get more when we're out) and dinner. I can easily consume up to a litre a day. I'm also getting stuck into yoghurt again (I used to eat yoghurt a lot in late high school. For breakfast, I used to freeze tubs of it, then take them to school and pick at them with a spoon. Then I stopped.) And cheese. I used to have leftovers for lunch a lot, but now I tend to have a lot of sandwiches: I buy a flat white roll from the local bakery (these are popular with my work colleagues), bring some butter from home and slice up some cheese, tomato and mushrooms to put on it.
• Have you picked names yet? Yes, but these are classified. (If we told you, we'd have to kill you. No, just kidding.) Seriously, we have a shortlist of girls' names and we can't agree on boys' names (because Ben hates all of them). In any case, Ben wants to meet Peanut before we name him/her (which makes perfect sense; somewhere, Neil Gaiman talks about holding his second child Holly in his arms just after she was born, and he was all set to call her “Madeleine” or “Maddy” just as he and his wife had planned, but when he looked into her eyes, he thought, “No, you're not a Madeleine, are you!” Unfortunately I can't find the reference so I suspect he said this in a talk, not on his blog.)
• Are you going to find out if Peanut is a boy or a girl at the 18-week ultrasound? Yes, if Peanut is being agreeable on the day. (Peanut may make it difficult for the ultrasound operator.) But the news will be confined to close family only, whom we will swear to secrecy. (Again, if we told you, we'd have to kill you—just kidding!) Actually, I'm more worried about accidentally spilling the beans; I'm rather terrible with secrets!
• Are the grandparents excited? Oh yes! They're probably the ones who privately think, “It's about time!” You must remember that we got married fairly young (Ben was 20; I was 21) and we've been married for 10 years now. We were the first of both our sets of cousins to tie the knot, but some of my cousins (who are older than me, let's not forget) have already started having children. None of my peer group at school are having kids (but most of them tied the knot much later than us), but Ben's brother and sister-in-law have a one-year-old and some of his school friends are well onto their second. I think my dad in particular is very pleased, although I heard that secondhand, not from him.
• When are you going to stop working? I'm thinking around my birthday in July. That will be about a month before Peanut's due date. (Of course, Peanut may come early!) I have to work out how much annual leave I have left. (Hmm, this means that I only have three issues of The Briefing left to edit ... curious.) Obviously, this all depends on things going well; I'm quite aware that they might not! I've heard many stories of premature deliveries and even one very sad story where the baby died in utero the day before it was due to be born. I know there are no guarantees but, as in all of life, we have to keep depending on our heavenly Father.

Furthermore, sickness and fatigue is making me feel tired at the prospect of having to do all these things I have to do. Some are self-imposed (so we will disregard them at present); some are out of duty. Some involve catching up with people. It's the catching up with people part I want to talk about today.

See, for years (probably ever since I started this blog) people have been telling me that I'm one of the busiest people they know. I've since worked out that that actually isn't the case; they are often just as busy as I am (or even busier), but their time is spent on different things, and the thought of doing what they do plus the things I do makes them feel like I'm the one who is so busy.

Anyway, because they think I'm so busy, often they will say, “Let's catch up. Let us know when you're free.” Which puts the onus on me because I'm the busy one.

Furthermore, I am (just quietly) freakishly good at organising events. (Not as good at conferences; that's a whole other art form. But social events, yes.) I guess when you're so busy, you have to be good at that sort of thing, otherwise you will never see the people you want to see and do the things you want to do.

This means the often the onus really falls on me. And then I get sick of it and contemplate becoming a hermit because I'm sick of organising things for other people.

I think, “Why can't they organise it themselves? If they want to see me, they should take the bull by the horns and arrange it; why is it my job?” And then it strikes me: they can't. Organising events is a skill that, I'm beginning to suspect, many people don't have.

So let me share with you how I do it. (NB: I'm sure there are lots of other ways. Ben's preferred method is, “I'm not doing anything tonight so I'm going to ring around and see if anyone else is not doing anything tonight, and then we'll do something”. But this is my way.)

1. Decide what sort of event it's going to be. Dinner at your place? Going to see a particular movie? Meeting for coffee to catch up? Your birthday party? Obviously what it is will determine venue and time of day. If it's a particular movie you're hoping to see with particular friends, you need to make sure the movie is still showing. Note that most cinema releases only stay at the box office for a couple of weeks. (Unless they do as well as Avatar; then they run for months!)
2. Who do you want to do this with? If it's one person, it's going to be easier to organise; if it's more than one, it will get more complicated. The more people that are involved, the more complicated it will be. You may have to be prepared to go ahead without certain people—even if you schedule thing six months in advance. (Yes, I speak from experience; people have busy in lives, and they get invited to multiple events. Some events will trump yours, e.g. weddings, engagement parties, family birthdays, etc.)
3. Sub-point: How many couples are involved? You'd think that couples would count as a unit but no; things with couples involve an extra layer of complication because they have to take the time to communicate and discuss their calendars. In some marriages, one person controls the diary; in others, both have their own and spend time every week comparing notes to make sure they both know what's going on. The latter system never worked for us: I used to carry a paper diary and I knew exactly when everything was; Ben also tried to carry a paper diary, but in the end he complained that he never knew what was going on. So we switched to Google Calendar, which has served us very well ever since. (Plus I can sync it with iCal and then with my phone.) Sure, we still have to talk about things, but it's a lot faster. Also, because we tend to use similar communication technologies, the discussions don't have to wait until a pertinent moment when we are actually in the same room. The point is, some couples are on the calendar ball; some need a lot of prodding. And some need repeated prodding.
4. Look at your own calendar and work out when is good for you. That should always be your starting point: when is good for you? Obviously bear in mind there will be certain restrictions depending on who you want to do this thing with; if you're a stay-at-home mum and you want to hang out with friends who work full-time, it won't do much good to schedule stuff during the day (unless they're on annual leave or something). And obviously bear in mind the restrictions that the type of event will impose on you. Let's say for the sake of an example that you're trying to get a couple of friends over for dinner. This means an evening. Your friends work in high-pressure corporate jobs; this means weeknights are usually out (unless they precede a public holiday). So that leaves you Friday and Saturday nights, the most precious commodities in the calendar year. (Some would include Sundays but you have church on Sunday evenings so that doesn't work for you.) You look at your calendar and you pick four or five dates spanning the course of a month, trying to vary the times a little to give your friends choice: Friday 19th February, Saturday 27th February, Friday 5th March, Saturday 20th March. You avoid the times when you know you'll be busy, and you try to avoid the weeks when you already have too much on. But you also note the days when you could possibly do it if need be.
5. Then you email your friends your list and see what works for them. (I like email; I realise some people would just call.) If you and your friends are web-savvy, you can use When is Good for this step. (I must insert the following caveat: I've only used it once, but for that event, I wasn't the organiser, and the event didn't end up happening.) Also, when you email your friends (and this is extremely important), give them a time limit on how long they have to respond. One week should be enough.
6. Within that week, if you don't hear from some of your friends, that's when you start calling. Or IM-ing. Calling is better: it is one of the more efficient means of communication, and it puts the person on the spot so that they have to go away and check their diaries. Sometimes they can't, however, in which case, if they don't get back to you, you may have to chase them again. (I admit that here I get a bit callous and I may just give up on the person at that point and proceed without them because they may be having personal issues, or they may not see you as being important enough to catch up with and therefore won't make you a priority, and really, you can't chase someone forever. It really depends on how important the person is to you; if you are extremely keen to have them there, you'll rearrange your life a bit more around theirs.)
7. Be prepared to compromise. If none of your suggested dates work for your friends, go to the plan B dates and try them. It may be that you end up scheduling the event at a time that is less convenient for you; I guess it depends on how important the relationship and the event is to you. Sometimes I have found myself doing too much in one week for precisely this reason, and have just weathered the consequences (or scheduled rest time afterwards).
8. When you've finally agreed on a date, make sure everyone knows and that it's completely clear when and where. I once missed a friend's dinner party because I mistakenly thought it was the other week, when in fact it wasn't! (Fortunately I wasn't the only one who thought that so I didn't look completely foolish.) If your friends are the type that need reminding, send reminders. In addition, in those reminders, remember to include the following pertinent information:
   • The time (even if you've told them before; people forget);
   • What to bring (if relevant);
   • Where the thing is (complete with Google Map links and directions, if need be);
   • Your contact info if they don't have it already (so they know how to reach you if they're running late/have an accident/get sick and can't make it after all, etc.)
   • If you know, how long you expect the thing to go for (e.g. this movie runs for 120 minutes).
   • Any other relevant information (e.g. “I'll get us tickets beforehand” or “I have to dash straight afterwards to get to church” or “I'm keen to meet for coffee beforehand if anyone else is free; let me know”.)
9. Obviously the best preparation in the world doesn't guarantee that things will go smoothly. People get lost (yes, even if you've already supplied them with directions). People get sick. You may get sick. Traffic grinds to a halt. Rain comes bucketing down. Expect that you may have to change your plans at the last minute, or even reschedule. It all comes down to good communication.

So Ben and I have always wanted to have children. We knew that perhaps we might not be able to (because some couples can't and there's always the chance that we were one of those couples). But we have always wanted to (even though [and rightly so] the prospect of raising children is both terrifying as it is glorious).

Anyway, a couple of years ago, we decided to start “trying”. But I didn't want to do charting (that's when you take your temperature at the same time every day in order to work out when during the month you're the most fertile). We just decided not to let anything stand in nature's way, and if it happened it happened. In my own head, I decided to trust God with the whole thing—that he would cause it to happen in his own good time (hopefully when he thought I was ready!) and if he didn't, well, it would be really sad, but I would accept his will on the matter.

Around Christmas last year, things were rather stressful for all sorts of reasons I won't go into. (Really, Christmas is just stressful, no matter who you are!) My cycle was late, and I thought it was just stress because that's happened in the past. But on a whim, I decided to do a home pregnancy test just to make sure. I remember the morning I did it, I woke up much earlier than Ben, and then when I got the result, I was so shocked, I went and woke Ben up straight away because it was positive.

I'm not sure about Ben, but for me, initially I felt both excited and terrified, plus it was all kind of unreal—like it wasn't really happening. We didn't tell anyone else. Instead, on the Monday (which was the Monday before Christmas), I went to see my GP. She sent me for blood and urine tests, and also reeled off a list of what I could and couldn't eat, plus activities to avoid. And then Christmas and New Year happened and another week passed.

(Another thing to mention: it was amazing how quickly the information started to overwhelm me. My brain had barely registered that I was pregnant, and here was the nurse taking my blood asking me all these things that meant nothing to me. “[Something something something something]?” she said to me. “I'm sorry,” I said. “What does that mean?” She didn't help matters by just repeating what she just said, but finally explained what she meant when I responded with more blankness. [C'mon, I've just found out I'm pregnant! I haven't thought about any of that! I don't know anything! I haven't been given any pamphlets saying, “So you're going to have a baby ...” Give me a break!] Now I can't even remember what she asked me.)

The following week, back at work, I went to visit my GP. Ben came with me. She gave me the results of my test: I was indeed pregnant. She had told me the last time who I wanted for my obstetrician gynaecologist (OBGYN) (and I had said, “No idea.”) This time, I came equipped with a name, having looked up various things on the internet. (Thank goodness for the internet! It's hard to find out info like that when you're trying not to tell anyone. And in the process of trying to find someone, I did end up telling people because, of course, they want to know why you're asking and will be suspicious anyway, even if you said, “Oh, I'm asking on behalf of a friend ...”) So my GP gave me a referral and advised me to make an appointment ASAP because OBGYNs get booked up fast (I did not know this!) She was right; my first choice was booked up, so I had to find another one. I rang another and managed to get in with that one, and then had to get my GP to change the referral.

(Incidentally [just for those who have no familiarity with this sort of world—and I must say, I certainly don't expect you to!], I also didn't know about the myriad of options available to women regarding birthing care. Some go to OBGYNs, some go to birthing centres, some see midwives, some do home births, etc. As I said, the amount of information I was presented with was somewhat overwhelming, and as I didn't know any better and, to be honest, couldn't have made an informed choice anyway, I just obeyed my GP and went to see an OBGYN.)

(Also, I was thankful that I had bought a secondhand edition of What to Expect When You're Expecting several years ago. I know it's a bit out of date, but some of the information stays the same, and it's been quite a Godsend having it as whenever I'm worried about something, I can just go look it up and be reassured.)

That night, we told immediate family. We had dinner with Ben's parents and sister, who were overjoyed. Apparently Ben's mother and sister have been praying for us to have kids for the past couple of years! (They also have been praying for a girl; I guess they want a granddaughter now that they already have a grandson from Tim and Ros.) We rang Tim and Ros, and then my mum and dad (he happened to be in the country at the time, which was convenient!)

We were just about to fly out for Hong Kong/China, but of course, my GP couldn't give me anything. She just advised me to “be careful”. I was already a little anxious about the pregnancy (which is normal: information overload + changes in my body + prospect of everything changing + morning sickness [which is such a misnomer, but I guess “all day sickness” doesn't have the same ring to it]); the prospect of travel just drove my anxiety a bit higher. The final straw came the night before we were due to fly out when I tried to complete online check-in and found that we weren't seated together on the plane. Then I had a bit of a meltdown! Poor Ben coped very well with it, and of course, it was easily sorted out the following day at the airport when we checked in properly, but because I was so anxious and stressed, that's one of the closest times I've ever come to throwing up.

(A word about all day sickness: I know it's common in the first trimester to be really tired. I didn't have that. Instead, I felt like the wind had been taken out of my sails. I didn't have the energy to do things. I spent a day or two working at home, and I just didn't get much work done. I felt nauseous a lot, and discovered that the nausea would recede if I ate things. So I'd be eating all the time, which is really weird for me because I don't normally snack. People think I'm really into food because of all the food photos but it's actually not true; I take photos of food because I like the way it looks before it gets decimated by eating. I usually like eating but I'm not a fan of cooking. And most of the time, I don't snack; I just eat when I'm hungry. I'm also rather notorious for skipping meals—especially on weekends when I get up late and go straight to lunch. So eating all the time was really weird for me. I stocked up on dried fruit, nuts and crackers, and would carry them around with me. I was lucky: I never threw up [I know other girls who have spent the whole of their pregnancy throwing up, and I'm really thankful that that hasn't happened to me. My mum said that she didn't have any morning sickness at all so I don't know if that's affected my genetics!] But the nausea made the food thing very urgent, and I had to stop procrastinating on making dinner because otherwise I would just feel worse. In addition, I found that even thinking about certain foods made me nauseous. There were certain things that I used to eat that I could not bring myself to eat anymore. It's made the whole business of eating a bit unpleasant as I never know what to expect! On the other hand, I've had no weird cravings, unless you count my dairy addiction: I've always drunk a lot of milk, but now I'm consuming cheese and yoghurt way more than I used to. Oh, and bread and butter too.)

Anyways, fast forward through our trip (which I'd like to blog about another time in brief because there are things that just don't come through with photos). I coped pretty well through most of it. As I said, I was very nauseous when we checked in, but once the seating arrangements were sorted, I calmed down, and most of the trip was fine. It was just during the last hour or two that I thought I was going to lose it, and wished I had brought crackers on board: I couldn't eat the final meal they served, which was dinner. Just looking at it made me feel nauseous! When we landed, my brother came to get us and took us by cab to his place. He asked if we wanted dinner. Ben wasn't hungry because he'd eaten his dinner, and I didn't particularly want to eat, but I knew I had to fill my stomach. So we went down to the local 7-Eleven to get supplies, and my brother bought me plain congee, which I slowly consumed in his tiny flat and started to feel better.

During the rest of the trip, I was mostly fine. I just carried crackers and nuts with me the whole time, and was careful about what I ate. It was interesting talking to my relatives about their pregnancy/birth experiences; my American cousin's wife told me that she had eaten sushi and sashimi all the way through both her pregnancies (but then she's Japanese, so maybe that makes a difference!) (I am not willing to take the risk.) My aunt on my dad's side said she had had no morning sickness. But then she also said she had no pain during labour for both my cousins, so I'm not sure how much I can believe her because perhaps she's forgotten! The times when I felt the worst usually coincided with stress—like when we caught the train to Guangzhou (the second time I've come close to throwing up), when we landed in Lijiang (because the pilot was taking the scenic route to show us the mountains and the plain; Ben said it was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen; I was feeling too ill to look out the window, and everyone else around us on the plane kept crying out as the plane banked and dipped), the first night in Lijiang (because we had communication troubles trying to get hold of my uncle and aunt who were staying in a different place to us, but we had arranged to meet for dinner. I could get hold of my dad, but not my uncle, and then we started running out of credit on our prepaid SIM card. So then I started freaking out because we were alone in a foreign city where we couldn't speak the language, plus I was hungry and still feeling sick from the plane ... anyway, we went and had some dinner and I had a cry and calmed down), and then every now and then if I pictured food I couldn't stand the thought of eating.

China also made me a bit anxious because I wasn't sleeping well (because of the hard beds; mattresses in Hong Kong and China are much harder than here!), because they don't have laws regarding smoking in public places so sometimes we were in restaurants where there would be someone smoking at the next table and there was nothing we could do about it, and because of the toilets: most of them are squat toilets, and you learn very quickly to always carry tissues with you because there is no guarantee of toilet paper or even soap to wash your hands afterwards. (Yeah, pregnancy means you have to empty your bladder a little more frequently. I think getting up throughout the night prepares you for having a newborn!)

But anyway, we survived the trip. We didn't end up going to Beijing because it was -20° Celsius and there were snow storms, so that was a bit of a relief because I had been very nervous about that leg of the trip. And then, the day we arrived home in Sydney, I had to go give a blood sample because the nuchal translucency test was being done that Friday and they needed a blood test to go along with it. I wasn't sure if I could manage getting out to the eastern suburbs given my fatigue and jet lag (I only slept for a couple of hours on the plane and of course it was very uncomfortable), but after a nap, I drove out there without incident. Of course, Prince of Wales is a rabbit warren and I got lost! Reception couldn't help so I had to call the place. And of course, had I not wasted time doing that, I would have been there in time before the endocrine lab closed (it closed at 3), which meant I had to go to such-and-such pathology to get the blood taken, and, as I said, Prince of Wales is a rabbit warren! But, hurrah, I found the place and they saw me pretty much straight away and only took one vial, so I was able to get out of there, do a bit of shopping at Metro green grocer and go home and collapse.

I was fortunate to have had a bit of leave up my sleeve to take that day off; I'm not sure if I could have done any work! The following day was Australia Day (which I used to rest instead of doing work, although I had had vague intentions of doing work; deadlines, you see!) Then on the Wednesday I had my first appointment with my OBGYN. I didn't realize that Ben was needed, and he had a work appointment, which he then had to move. But I was glad that he came because one of the things the OBGYN did was an ultrasound with her small machine, so we got to see the baby for the first time! I have to confess that, up to that point, I had been wondering if my body was just making it all up—that it was like Glee where Terri had a hysterical pregnancy because she wanted so much to get pregnancy. I worried that soon all would be revealed and we would have to tell everyone I wasn't really pregnant. (Yeah, the strange thoughts that go through your head when you're expecting ... blame it on “baby brain”?) The point is, it was just lovely and amazing and grounding to see the baby for the first time. (Hereafter, I shall refer to him/her as “Peanut”.) It was even more amazing to see Peanut wave his/her arms! I thought, “Oh my goodness! Peanut is real! Peanut is alive! That is so cool! Praise be to God!” etc.

After that, Ben had to go off to his meeting and the OBGYN sent me for more blood and urine tests.

On the Friday, which just happened to be our tenth wedding anniversary, Ben came with me to do the nuchal translucency test. That's the one where they assess the risk of your baby having Downs Syndrome and other genetic diseases. They can't rule them out completely, but the nuchal translucency plus the blood test can tell you the likelihood of those things. I've learned that whenever you go to anything medical—doctor's, dentist's, OBGYN's, etc.—always bring something with you to do because they are invariably running late and you are rarely seen at the time you're booked. So Ben read and I knitted, and couples came and went around us.

We had a very friendly ultrasound lady. The equipment there was way more sophisticated than my OBGYN's (of course!) And because the ultrasound lady was trying to get shots of various things, we got to look at Peanut for a lot longer—me on the chair with my belly being poked and Ben sitting next to me in this dark room with a rather large screen up on the wall opposite. Peanut was quite stubborn this time: Peanut was down the bottom of my uterus in a corner all curled up. No amount of prodding could get Peanut to move. Furthermore, Peanut was rather active that day and kept moving arms and legs. The ultrasound lady said that Peanut certainly had character!

Anyway, at that session, we were given our photos. So I am very pleased to present in utero our beloved Peanut:

Peanut is due in August (God-willing), which means I shall finish up work in July. I do hope to keep blogging about pregnancy things (mainly keep a record), but I will try to keep it from being ridiculous or boring. (Unfortunately what fascinates me may not fascinate you, so feel free to skim-read.)

Ben and I are looking forward to becoming three.

Last year, Morris and Sons had one of their yarn sales (yes, I broke my new year's resolution), and I picked up a batch of old Tapestry Craft yarn because I liked the colour. It's 12 ply yarn and I got 10 x 50g balls for $25, which is pretty excellent for 100% wool. Unfortunately the label didn't state the yardage, so I tried to guess.

I wanted to do something special with it, and after much fashion debate (with helpful input from many of you!), I settled on making Véronik Avery's Oblique cardigan. Véronik Avery also designed the Lace Ribbon Scarf that I made for Bec and also turned into various shawls.

The pattern was rated “piquant”, which in Knitty language means “A little something for the seasoned knitter”, “Daring but not exhausting” and “Probably not tv knitting”. They weren't kidding! Not long after I started, I had to pull out a significant bit of it because I stuffed up. Of course, like all the rest of the boo boos I made with this pattern, it was all my fault; I should have written out the charts properly instead of doing them in bits and thinking, “Yeah, I'll be fine!” If you look at the back of that cardigan, it has five sections to it: the first and fifth are in moss stitch, the second and fourth are in diagonal leaning lace in an eight-row repeat pattern, and the third is in textured lace in a four-row repeat pattern. That's confusing enough for anyone!

But I persevered. Then I ran out of yarn. Of course, not knowing the yardage on the balls I was using didn't really help; I bought two more balls and, guess what? That wasn't enough. In the end, I bought 10 more balls on top of that because I was so determined not to run out of yarn again:

Unfortunately those 10 balls ended up costing me probably another $60, which makes this the most expensive cardigan I've ever knitted. The moral of the story? Decide what you're going to knit first and then by the yarn for it, and make sure you buy enough! (NB Out of the 22 balls I ended up buying, I used 18 of them. This means the cardigan weighs around 900g—almost one kilo! I'm not sure what to do with the rest of the yarn; maybe make a Jacques Cousteau hat for someone. It's not a very guy sort of colour though ...)

But despite this not being TV-knitting, I persevered. By October, I'd managed to knit most of the pieces (even including pulling out the entirety of the left front because I'd knitted the diagonal leaning lace the wrong way). Here's the back:

Both fronts:

One sleeve:

The other sleeve (half-finished):

Then it had to be put on hiatus because of Christmas knitting, which, most fortuitously, I completed in good time (unlike the year I tried to make my dad a Henry scarf, only to realise three days before Christmas that, since I was knitting it lengthwise on 3.5 mm needles and since every row took at least half an hour to do, and since the 24-row pattern required seven repeats, if I knitted non-stop from then until Christmas, I still wouldn't finish it). I picked it up again when the Christmas knitting was done, knitted the front bands and started sewing it together. The last bit of knitting was the collar.

I had already bought some buttons from Lincraft, but of course, being the idiot I am, I hadn't measured them, and this was before I knitted the buttonhole band. The black ones were too big (which was a shame because I really liked them). Then I lost the interior one somewhere in our couch. So yesterday after work, I drove to Lincraft, Alexandria, and got some more with the gift card my Secret Santa had given me. The range was not great, but in the end, I settled on three gold decorative buttons and one wooden one that didn't quite match the yarn (yes, I brought the finished garment with me to check), but as it was the interior button, no one was going to know.

Here is the finished Oblique cardigan:

Now for the next knitting project ...

But anyway, I take consolation in the fact that blog posts are not articles; they're allowed to read like unfinished drafts or notes towards some greater literary incarnation. (Read between the lines: I'm not going to write a proper introduction to this post the way I would if I were writing for, say, WebSalt.)

But I suppose it might be worth recapping a few things about my previous post to hammer my points home. It seems to me that I've been arguing that the whole business of clothing oneself has arisen because of sin—that, in order to protect us in our vulnerable and sinful state from one another, God dressed humankind. The dressing was firstly with garments made of fabric (animal skins, and then eventually, as technology allowed it, linen, cotton, wool, etc.) But of course, like all earthly things, his created provision is not permanent (and arguably was never intended to be as such); instead, God's great provision for us is to clothe our shameful nakedness with Christ—with Christ's righteousness, with the immortality Jesus won on the cross, with Christlikeness in godliness and good works. This sort of covering or atonement deals with our sin once and for all.

The big question now is how to dress like a Christian. Yes, that will mean clothing oneself in godliness, righteousness and good works, as my last post demonstrated. But what does it mean for our physical wardrobes? When we wake up in the morning and prepare ourselves for the day, what should we wear? After all, human sinfulness and social standards mean that we must all go around clothed; so how should we be clothed? We are not ascetics who shun or mortify the flesh; we are not like the Corinthians who foolishly thought that the body counted for nothing because it is only the spirit that matters; and we are not like some extreme Muslims who seek to obliterate the female form by making women wear burqas. (Interesting side point: the word “hijab” is Arabic for “cover”, “veil” or “shelter”.)

Furthermore, we have a lot of freedom in what we can wear—especially in the West and especially compared to earlier generations. Women do not have to wear corsets and hoop skirts. Men do not have to wear waistcoats and cravats. We can if we want to (and obviously there are those who do—like Matt Preston, goths and modern dandies who love Victorian three-piece suits), but we don't have to. And we certainly don't have to dress like each other; most of us aren't in school any more, and though uniforms are a great leveller (in that clothing should not separate the poor and rich as they get educated together in the classroom) and uniforms are helpful in certain contexts (e.g. the military or the police), it's lovely that we are at liberty to express our individuality in the way we dress.

So what should we wear? And what shouldn't we wear? Can the Bible give us fashion tips, or are we to defer to the wisdom of the world on these matters? Do we need to heed the command in Deuteronomy 22:11 and not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together? (Actually, I don't think I can answer that last question.) Allow me to explore the topic and what I think the Bible says about it under the following headings:

Assets

As I mentioned in my last post in reference to passages like Exodus 22:25-27 and Judges 14, clothing was an asset. The same can be true today for certain kinds of clothes—in particular, luxury brand names. The resale value of, say, something by Chanel is incredible—especially when you consider that we're talking about secondhand clothes here. It brings to mind the bit at the end of The Devil Wears Prada (the book, not the movie) when, after Andrea Sachs quits her job, she resells all the clothes and merchandise she gained from her time as Miranda Priestly's assistant to a resale shop and walks away with close to a year's salary for her trouble.

Now, I'm sure most of us don't think of fashion in those terms—that is, in terms of investment and resale value. (Well, I certainly don't; I expect to wear just about everything I own until I either wear it out or it doesn't fit me any more. [And I don't mean “wear it out” in the Jerry Seinfeld “men wear their underwear until it absolutely disintegrates” sense!]) I'm also sure that most of us don't worry about clothes the way that ancient near eastern people in Jesus' day did: with resources scarce and poverty rampant, perhaps they wondered how they would replace that fraying garment or that moth-eaten cloak. I think this is why Jesus says to them,

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matt 6:25-33; cf. Luke 12)

This applies equally to us, but also slightly differently in that we do not experience the sort of deprivation they did; most of us own more than one shirt and seemingly do not rely on God in the same sort of way that they did. No, our problem is a little different. Because we are richer than they ever were, and because we have more choice than we ever did, the temptations for us vary slightly. Our “worries” about clothes are usually not to do with having nothing to wear in the literal sense; our “worries” are more about thinking we have “nothing to wear” when our wardrobes are packed full of all manner of garments. We worry about what we wear because

• we are vain and we care too much about the way we look
• we care about what others think about the way we look
• we want to look good so that others will pay attention to us and we will be admired (the way Andrea Sachs was in The Devil Wears Prada the movie when she steps out of the town car in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the photographers come to snap her picture, even though they have no idea who she is)
• we want to attract worthy suitors
• we want to flaunt our wealth and/or status
• we want to influence others in the way they dress
• we want to make money (because we are movie stars, models, job applicants or, dare I say it, prostitutes).

Note that these are all things that the “Gentiles” (who, in the context of Matthew, are the people who are not God's people) seek after. All these concerns can be answered by the Bible:

• There is a place for appropriate care of the body (as Paul says, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it”—Eph 5:29). But there is a point where we cross the line into vanity, elevating the body to the status of an idol. If we put our looks before our God, soon or later that false deity is going to topple.

• Those who care too much about the opinion of others (and who dress to attract attention, lure suitors or influence others) would do well to heed Jesus' words in Matthew 6:25-33 for, again, it's idolatry that's on view here—only this time the idol is the favour and goodwill of others. It's not unlike the scribes and the Pharisees who “do all their deeds to be seen by others”, which is why they made “their phylacteries broad and their fringes long” (Matt 23:5). Perhaps Jesus' words of warning are applicable here: “[D]o not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matt 10:28).

  An interesting side point: most people don't notice what you wear. In a “one-woman show against fashion”, Alex Martin decided to wear the same brown dress (which she made herself) every day for an entire year (often in combination with other pieces of clothing—especially during the colder months when the brown dress was not enough). She was nervous about it—especially because of what she thought others might say. But she was surprised to find that

  Most people in my professional circle didn't even notice that I was always wearing the same dress day after day—my take on that is that we're all too busy with our *own* appearance, family, work, etc. to keep a tally on everyone else's wardrobe rotations!

• This side of Jesus' return, beauty is fleeting because of death:

  A voice says, “Cry!”
      And I said, “What shall I cry?”
  All flesh is grass,
      and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
  The grass withers, the flower fades
      when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
  surely the people are grass.
  The grass withers, the flower fades,
      but the word of our God will stand forever.

  
  

  (Isa 40:6-8)

  The book of Ecclesiastes is sobering reading because it hammers home this point home: death renders everything “vanity”—futile, useless, pointless. Even the most well-constructed Chanel dress made from the finest materials will one day end up on the scrap heap. It is a sad fact of our existence that “the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner” (Isa 51:6). The creation is in “bondage to corruption” (Rom 8:21), and that's all because of the Fall. This means that it's ludicrous to worship fashion and to obsess about it more than eternal things—the things of God. Fashion will wear out and fade away, but “the word of our God will stand forever” (Isa 40:8). This is why we must resist the world's notions of beauty/fashion for status, power, money, and so on.

• The flipside of what the world would have us do is to practise contentment and aim for godliness:

  Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. (1 Tim 6:6-9; italics mine)

  As Jesus says in Matthew 6, the body is more than clothing. We must trust God to provide the clothing we need and be content with that. Instead of chasing after the perfect wardrobe, let us first seek God's kingdom and his righteousness.

It seems to me, then, that clothing should be seen not as an asset or investment, but a tool: something to cover one's body and protect it from the elements.

Favouritism

This will be a shorter point than the last one. It touches a bit on what I've talked about earlier, and that is people judging you by your clothing. It's unfortunate that we live in a world where this happens—where you are scrutinised from head to toe by the shop assistants when you walk into a clothing store as they assess the likelihood of you spending money in their establishment and therefore whether it's worth their time serving you. I guess there's not much you can do about that but expect that that's going to happen and recognise it for what it is.

But on the flipside, we must be careful not to let the attitudes of the world colour our behaviour. If we follow suit (pardon the pun) and start judging others on the basis of their dress, we are as guilty as the Christians James wrote to in James 2:

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (Jas 2:1-4)

Avoiding this sort of error can be more difficult than you'd think. I suspect it's because dress these days is far more an expression of individuality and personality than it used to be in, say, the 19th century. It means that some people do dress to alienate (e.g. by pulling their baseball caps down low so they shield their eyes; by sporting chains, ripped jeans, tattoos and piercings, and so on). When you go out to talk to people about Jesus, it's very tempting to avoid those sorts of people because they look scary or angry, and their clothes scream “GO AWAY!”. But we must not exercise favouritism—especially when the news we share is so good and the imperative of the gospel is so urgent. (Of course, we must exercise wisdom, but don't let those sorts of caveats distract you from the thrust of what I'm saying ...)

Social justice

This is also a small clothes-related point stemming from Matthew 6 and the idea of clothing being an asset. Giving clothes away is a way of loving our neighbours and serving our communities. It makes me think of Matthew 25:35-36 where Jesus talks about the Son of Man blessing the righteous:

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

Clothing the naked removes their shame and humiliation, as well as protecting them from the elements. It strikes me that this act reflects God's act of clothing us in the atoning work of Christ.

Environmentalism and good stewardship

This may seem a bit left-field, but when thinking about the topic of fashion, it's good to think about the environment and good stewardship of our world. The creation mandate to humans in Genesis 1-2 (“[L]et [mankind] have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”—Gen 1:26 and “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it”—Gen 2:15) implies that God gave humans the world to look after and rule over (cf. Ps 8). I don't intend to launch into a detailed explanation and exploration of the Bible and environmentalism (if you're interested in reading that sort of thing, check out Lionel Windsor's WebSalt article and some of the other WebSalt material on that topic). But I just wanted to make a few comments on how the environment relates to what we wear.

(Mind you, I probably wouldn't even be thinking about this were it not for this exhibition I saw at UTS called Fashioning Now that drew my attention to these sorts of issues. It featured this great documentary by a Masters student looking at fashion and sustainability. But unfortunately I can't remember the name of the documentary or the name of the student, and the exhibition website isn't being very helpful. But anyway, let us continue ...)

Firstly, there's the environmental impact of washing our clothes in the amount of water we use. Most of us do laundry every week. Some households do laundry every day! Laundering is necessary for removing stains, sweat and smells. Oh yes, and dirt. (I wonder when humans first decided to wash their clothes; did the book of Leviticus have anything to do with it? [Unclean Israelites had to wash their clothes and remain unclean until evening.]) Now, much as I hate doing laundry, I'm not against it. But I wonder sometimes if we over-launder. Provided it's not offense to the human senses, it's usually okay to wear something several times before you wash it. That documentary at the Fashioning Now exhibition also talked about alternative methods of laundering—for example, using steam (by hanging your clothes up in the bathroom while you have a shower and letting the steam get rid of the smells), or freezing your clothes. (It will be interesting to see whether these methodologies influence the future of washing machines.)

Secondly, there's the environmental impact of waste. According to Environmental Health Perspectives (an academic journal devoted to the impact of the environment on human health), “Americans throw away more than 68 pounds of clothing and textiles per person per year, and clothing and other textiles represent about 4% of the municipal solid waste” (source). That's approximately 31 kilos, which is pretty insane! (I'm not sure what the stats are for Australians; cursory Googling hasn't revealed the answer.) Some of that might be recycled, but a significant proportion would end up in landfill, which is pretty sad. Returning to the concept of fashion as asset, another aspect of idolising and serving fashion is the tendency to completely change your wardrobe every season—buying what's in style and disposing of what's no longer in vogue. The less fashion-conscious among us will rightly question whether this is really necessary (because how many clothes does one person need?) Since environmentalism has almost become the new religion, it makes me wonder whether this, more than anything else, will check the rampant consumerism and slavery to taste that characterises western society.

The Fashioning Now exhibition had various answers to the environmental problem of fashion; I'll talk a bit more about those later.

Modesty

I bet you're wondering why I haven't talked about this earlier! I was getting to it. No doubt a significant factor in determining what to wear has to do with modesty—particularly for us here in the West where often modesty is the last thing the trendsetters are thinking about. Modesty is important for the Christian not just because the Bible commands it (see 1 Tim 2:9-10 and 1 Pet 3:1-5, which are directed primarily at women, but I think corollaries can be drawn for men), but because, as I said in my last post, exposing one's nakedness (outside of marriage) and shame should never be viewed as a good thing because of God's judgement and holiness (see also Lev 18 where the Israelites were given instructions regarding sexual relations between family members). The world doesn't see things this way because the world does not love the things of God; according to John 3:19, “people [love] the darkness rather than the light because their works [are] evil”. So the world glories in nakedness—in sin—and encourages us to do likewise (e.g. by featuring lots of shirtless men in the trailer to the New Moon movie). It does not see the sadness of sin.

Modesty is also important because it embodies other-person-centredness. As a disciple of Christ, you'd want to dress in such a way that doesn't lead other people astray into sin. Like I said in my pseudo-introduction, we wouldn't want to go as far as some extreme Muslims would who insist that all women should go around covered up in burqas. But at the same time, we recognise that sexual temptation is real and that some people struggle with it. The world says more flesh is best because it's better to be sexy. But for the Christian, less flesh is best. Dressing modestly is a loving act towards our Christian (and non-Christian) neighbours. Who wants to be the stumbling block that capitulates the person with the weak conscience into the prison of sexual addiction and lust? All right, I exaggerate; one low-cut dress won't do it. But it's all part of a continuum—the thrust of the world being to see the human body as just that: a body—an object, not a person. Do we want to encourage that sort of thinking? I hope not.

This principle of other-person-centredness should, I think, ought to govern our wardrobe decisions. I don't just mean in the area of modesty, but also the area of relations. What we wear sends a message. It may be an unintentional message, but it's a message all the same: pay attention to me, stay away from me, don't mess with me, and so on. In certain contexts, the way you dress may not be an issue (e.g. when you're hanging out with your friends and you know each other well enough not to be put off by alienating fashion messages). But in other contexts, it may not be appropriate because it becomes a barrier to relationship. For example, it may put people off if you wear a suit in a casual setting. (It might not, but it's more likely to if you're mixing with strangers.) Or it may scare people off from talking to you in church if you're a minister and you wear robes. (Then again it might not; again, context is important here.)

The important thing here is the principle: let your outward adorning be a reflection of your inward beauty—the beauty of the righteousness of Christ (1 Pet 3:3-4). Love others in what you wear.

Creation and beauty

Here's one final area to explore as I meander around this topic of fashion: clothes are part of the creation. As created things, we can admire their beauty (if they are indeed beautiful; I won't go into whether there's a standard for beauty). We can admire the thought, design and craftsmanship that has gone into making a wool crepe suit or a pair of heels, and we can thank and praise God for those things. Like I said earlier, we're not ascetics; we don't shun the created world in favour of the austere. There's nothing wrong with wearing a purple skirt or a shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons or a hat with felted flowers. Paul reminds us that God “richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Tim 6:17), and as long as we enjoy it with thankfulness, viewing it in its proper context (i.e. not as an idol), we're unlikely to be led astray by, say, a pair of Tiffany earrings.

However, as I pointed out earlier, part of the createdness of fashion is its bondage to decay and corruption (Rom 8:21). It's sad, but our favourite clothes will wear out, no longer fit, develop holes or get eaten by mould. (See how the Old Testament priests treated mouldy garments in Lev 13:47-59.) As long as we are alive, we will have to buy new clothes. (This fact of life disappoints me as I loathe clothes shopping.) It's a reminder that sin (and therefore death) touches every portion of our existence, no matter how insignificant.

Oh dear

Right, I seem to have blathered on a lot and yet only moved a little bit closer to answering the crucial question, “What should we wear?” I'll pick it up again in my next post—this time looking at things from a more practical point of view (stemming from the material in this post), as well as some of the wisdom I've gleaned in how I dress myself.

I just find it interesting that although fashion is something that affects us all (because we all have to wear clothes; it's not exactly decent or sensible to walk around in the nude!), we don't really think about it beyond the practicalities of figuring out what to wear (and what to buy, and therefore what we can afford), what looks good and, perhaps, how what we see on the runway translates to the every day. (We don't all get taught fashion at school the way we're taught maths, science and English!) I may be wrong, but it seems to me that very little has been written about the whole business of clothing oneself and how we ought to think about it from the perspective of the Bible.

Now, I don't claim to have all the answers. Instead, in this post, I want to explore the topic and share a few thoughts that I've had. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Fabric

When you delve into the Bible, it's curious to see where the whole concept of clothing comes from. In Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve sin in disobeying God's command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, this interesting little verse pops up:

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Gen 3:7)

The creation of fashion (which, for the purposes of this post, I am defining as what you wear) takes place in the context of sin, with God's creatures, who were meant to be the pinnacle of his creation, using creation (the creation that was meant to glorify God) to hide their shame.

But of course, when it comes to the true and living God, fig leaves are not enough. Indeed, nothing is enough: the man and woman try to hide, but God seeks them out. The consequences of their sin are his judgement, cursing and exile from the Garden of Eden. But before they leave, as a sign of his grace, God replaces their pathetic little fig leaf loin cloths with something a little more durable:

And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. (Gen 3:21)

It doesn't say what sort of skins, and my Hebrew is pretty much non-existent, so everything I say after this should be taken with a grain of salt. But it's probably safe to say that the skin mentioned here is not human skin (i.e. God gave them an epidermis; they probably already had that). I'd say it's highly likely they were animal skins, which makes me wonder if, even back here in these early chapters of the Bible, some sort of atonement—that is, some sort of covering (which is partly what the word “atonement” means)—was made. Was blood shed for the first man and the first woman on account of their sin? And was the blood of these animals a precursor to the ritual sacrifices of the book of Leviticus—only here, God provided the offering the way he did in Genesis 22 for Abraham and Isaac?

Another thought: all this makes me wonder if sin and atonement should form the backdrop to all our dressing—if, every time we put on our clothes—our underwear, shirts, shorts, pants, skirts, dresses, and so on—we should remember what sinful wretches we are (and why it is we can no longer exist in nakedness the way Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden) and how God has atoned for our wrongdoings in Christ Jesus (more about that later).

Pattern

Now, I did not do an extensive study of clothing, garments and vestments in the Old Testament and the New Testament. (I've been struggling for a month and a half to even commit these thoughts to pixels amidst the hustle and bustle of life, so apologies for the rather half-baked nature of this survey.) But here are some fashion-related thoughts arising from parts of the Bible:

• Tearing your clothes is a sign of deep and intense grief—for example, Jacob's sons in the story of Joseph in Genesis 37:29, 44:13.
• In the Levitical priestly system, the high priest had to wear special clothes to carry out his duties: breastpiece, ephod, robe, coat, turban and sash (Exod 28; cf. Exod 39 where these pieces are actually made). It's interesting that many of these are made from the same fabric and colours as the rest of the tabernacle—from gold; from blue, purple and scarlet yarn; and from fine twisted linen. The ephod and the breastpiece have jewels and stones, which are supposed to represent the 12 tribes of Israel so that Aaron can “bear the names of the sons of Israel” on his body as he goes into the Most Holy Place to minister on their behalf and make atonement for their sin (Exod 28:29-30). The robe he wears underneath has a hem made up of alternating pomegranates and bells for when he goes in there “so that he does not die” (Exod 28:35). Similarly, the attire for Aaron's sons consists of coats, sashes and caps, and linen undergarments to cover their naked flesh: “They shall reach from the hips to the thighs; and they shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they go into the tent of meeting or when they come near the altar to minister in the Holy Place, lest they bear guilt and die” (Exod 28:42-43). The clothes are protective: if the priests do not wear them, the Lord will strike them down.
• Notice also that the priests' clothing was to be “for glory and beauty” (Exod 28:40). Continuing that thought, the tabernacle was, no doubt, an extremely beautiful place. The curtains that walled the Holy Place in were made of fine twisted linen (again, blue, purple and scarlet) and cherubim were embroidered onto them (Exod 26). Their stands were made of silver, gold and bronze. (Another thought: I wonder if the colours are supposed to be reminiscent of God's bow from Genesis 9:8-17—the bow he sets in the cloud as a reminder of his promise that he will never destroy the world again by flood and his covenant with all creation. I suppose the connection is tenuous—not like Ezekiel 1 where the connection is explicitly drawn.) The veil to the Most Holy Place was also made of this fabric. (Fast forward several thousand years to Jesus' crucifixion when the temple curtain is torn in two ...) Furthermore, the vessels and objects in the tabernacle need to be handled by the Levites using cloths made of similar material—cloths of blue and scarlet and goatskin (Num 4). The sons of Kohath, who were in charge of moving these objects, were not to touch them, “lest they die” (Num 4:15). Am I right in thinking that this sort of covering protects the sinner from his holy God?
• Clothes in the ancient world were an asset. Consider Exodus 22:25-27: “If ever you take your neighbor's cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep?” A cloak could be used as a surety—perhaps, again, because of its protective function in fending off the elements from the human body (which cannot lie down in peace and tranquility as in Eden). Consider also Samson in Judges 14 who makes a wager with his in-laws and the rest of the Philistines for 30 changes of clothes. It's strange to us that they would bet with garments (because we wouldn't do that—not even in strip poker!) but they obviously didn't have the same qualms as we do about wearing other people's secondhand clothes. Then of course, once Jesus had been nailed to that cross, the Roman soldiers cast lots for his clothing (Matt 27:35; cf. John 19:24 and Psa 22:18).
• To be rendered naked and exposed is a severe judgement of God. Consider what the Lord says he will do the daughters of Zion in Isaiah 3:16-4:1 who walk around haughtily and wantonly with no regard for him: he will strip them of their finery—their jewellery, their accessories, their fashions—and “lay bare their secret parts” (Isa 3:17). Metaphorically, the Lord also promises the same sort of punishment to the nation of Israel, which prostituted itself with other gods (Ezek 16:35-39): “I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure ... I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness”. This is a marked contrast to earlier in the chapter where he clothes Israel and makes her his in verses 8-14. Notice how the chapter ends:

  I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God. (Ezek 16:62-63; italics mine)

• Let's jump to the New Testament now—specifically, to the events surrounding the crucifixion. It's interesting that the soldiers clothe Jesus to mock him:

  Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. (Matt 27:27-30)

  Will all the imagery from Aaron the High Priest and the tabernacle in the wilderness swirling around my head, it makes me wonder if those elements of sin, atonement and intercession are all present here symbolically in the scarlet robe (it's a purple cloak in Mark 15)—that here is the High Priest and King of all the earth, about to enter into the Most Holy Place of heaven itself to make intercession for all flesh through the shedding of his own blood (Heb 9). Perhaps a long bow to draw, however.
• Here's a related point, however: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21): clothed in our sin, the Son of God became sin on our behalf (taking on our sinful flesh—our sinful humanity) so that we in turn might become clothed by him as per Ezekiel 16. What sort of clothes does Jesus wear? At the transfiguration, “his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach” (Mark 9:3; cf. Matt 17:2). The imagery is picked up in Revelation where the people of God are clothed in white linen (Rev 3:4-5, 18, 4:4, 6:11, 7:9, 14). Revelation 7:14 is particularly interesting: “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”. It's interesting because, once again, clothing here is symbolic of a spiritual reality—the death and resurrection of Christ cleansing us from all our iniquity. (“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool”—Isa 1:18.) This is the work of Christ—giving himself up for the church so that he might present herself to him as holy, without spot or blemish (Eph 5:25-27).
• Being clothed by Jesus also has to do with immortality—with the physical redemption of our corrupted flesh so that we are truly made alive:

  For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

  “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
  “O death, where is your victory?
      O death, where is your sting?”

  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor 15:53-57)

  2 Corinthians 5:4 also echoes this sentiment: “For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (italics mine).
• Of course, being clothed in the New Testament is not just about our outer vestments and frail flesh; it's also a matter of the heart. When Paul says “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” in Romans 13:14, he's not talking about literally taking Jesus' skin and pulling it over our own, but about putting on the character of Christ. In Colossians 3, we are to put to death our earthly natures and instead, put on “compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience ... [and] love” (Col 3:12, 14). In 1 Peter 5:5, we are to “Clothe yourselves ... with humility toward one another”. This sort of thinking lies behind both Paul and Peter's words to women and wives (and, let's face it, women are more likely to be lured by the temptations of fashion): “[W]omen should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works” (1 Tim 2:9-10) and

  Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands ... (1 Pet 3:1-5)

  Silver, gold, fine fabrics and the latest fashions are all very well, but it is better that one clothe oneself with Christ—with godliness and good works.

All right, I dare say that's enough for one day. I'll pick it up again my next post (which, hopefully, will not take me as long to write).

Worn as a bolero (I never thought of doing that!):

I feel I'm getting ahead of myself, so let me deal with one thing at a time.

Choice

I've often thought that a person's choice of communication tool is an outward manifestation of their means of relating. Certain communication tools suit certain personalities more than others. For example, for myself, I like hanging out with people in person, but if I can't do that (because of time or distance), I prefer the written mediums—letters, email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and so on. It pleases me greatly that so many of our tools are text-based because I absolutely loathe the phone. (To quote H.L. Mencken, sometimes I wish “heartily that Alexander Graham Bell had been run over by an ice wagon at the age of 4.”. I know I'm not alone in this sentiment.)

This is also why it irks me when people say to other people, “Oh, you must join Facebook!” or “You must start a blog!” or “You must join Twitter!” Usually they haven't even thought about why they're saying that; they just want you to jump on the bandwagon (become one of us!) without considering the consequences. Or they're saying it because they enjoy writing blogs/using Facebook/Tweeting, and they reckon you will because they will. But they fail to take into account this principle—that certain communication technologies suit certain people, and certain ones don't—that all are different and are suited to different things.

Another example: MMORPGs (Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games; think Second Life, World of Warcraft, etc.) I'm not into them, but I know other people are, and I appreciate the value they add to their lives. But from what I know about MMORPGs, it's not the sort of thing I'd be into; I'm generally not into games (even when they're as innocuous as The Sims or Farmville).

The amount of choice we have in the way we communicate presents several problems. Firstly, if you're into more than one communication tool, it can be difficult to keep up with everything. (I'll talk a bit more about how I deal with that later.) Secondly, if you prefer certain technologies (the way I do), it usually means you let others slide (e.g. the telephone. This New York Times article about answering machines, voicemail and the generation gap makes an interesting point: answering machines cater to the older generation, and now that we have other forms of technology, they will gradually and, perhaps, gracefully die out. (I see the evidence of this in our lives; my mother-in-law is pretty much the only one who uses our answering machine. In fact, I sometimes think the only reason we have it is because of her, and I wonder what would happen if we decided to get rid of it.) Thirdly, because you let other technologies slide, it means that if other people don't use the same communication technologies as you do, it means it's harder to keep up with them because you have to go to more effort.

For example, I have friends who are phone people. I know they are phone people. I am not a phone person, but I will try to make an extra effort to call my phone friends if need be because I know they are phone people, and if I want to maintain a relationship with them when we are apart, that's what it's going to take. (Often, however, I use the phone as a means to an end—organising a time for me to catch up with them face to face so I don't have to be on the phone with them. And that's better for both of us.)

That said, if you subscribe to the maxim that “the medium is the message” (Marshall McLuhan), you will appreciate each communication technology's benefits. When you and three other friends are trying to find a common date to go see a movie together, it's more efficient to call them or talk to them in person than to correspond by SMS. When you need to find out something quickly, sometimes it's faster to check if they're on IM and ask them quickly then than to send an email. And obviously, for some things, it is much much better to talk to a human than to a machine when you're doing things like trying to sort out the intricacies of your tax return. So even though I hate the phone, I will use it, and am relatively comfortable using it (in comparison to others I know who can't stand using it at all).

So there you go: a certain level of ability with the most commonly used pieces of communication technology can be helpful.

You and you and you and you

Another side effect of the ease, immediacy and intimacy of modern communication technology is the increase in the number of working relationships an individual has at any point in time. In the past (I imagine), your sphere of relationship was restricted to your immediate family, your extended family, your friends (who usually lived near you), your fellow students/work colleagues/business acquaintances, your church (if you went to church) and the neighbourhood (or maybe small town) where you lived. And as you grew up and people moved away, were born or died, those relationships would change. But the sphere would normally stay rather small because time and distance would just make it harder for you to keep in touch.

I had a number of friends from living in Canada—school friends, the children of my parents' friends, etc.—but when I moved here, although initially I kept up with a few of them via letters, after that I only really kept up with Josephine because she was a letter writer and I was a letter writer. (I learned then that not all of us are letter writers. See my previous point about our choice of technology reflecting our patterns of and preferences in relating.) We only correspond a couple of times a year, but that and a few face-to-face visits over the years has been enough to maintain the friendship.

The internet—and, in particular, Facebook—has changed all that. Facebook makes it so easy—mainly because there's only one thing you need to use (the Facebook portal), you don't need to download or install anything, and you don't need to remember addresses or phone numbers in order to contact your Facebook friends; all you need to do to send them a message or to write something on their wall is type their name into the search box. In addition, it's very easy to find people because the social networking aspect of the site allows you to scan lists of who knows who, who you might know and who might know you.

As a result, we are now in this unparalleled position where it is likely that the generation growing up now will be forever digitally connected to the people they went to preschool/primary school/high school/University with. Relationships will not peter off naturally because of time and distance; they can be continually maintained.

This has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are, obviously, it is now easier to keep up with certain people that you have always wanted to keep up with, but couldn't for various reasons. Josephine is a good example: neither of us have time to pen those 20-page handwritten letters any more. But I can keep my finger on the pulse of what she's doing through Facebook. The internet brings us closer even as time and distance threaten to separate us.

The disadvantage is there now too many people to keep up with. I have 452 Facebook friends—most of whom I know in real life—or know of. The number of Facebook friends I have represent only a portion of the number of people I know in real life—relationships I have forged through family (all three branches of it), school, university, the various churches I've been a member of, the various Christian groups I've been involved with, work, and so on. The nature of my relationship with each Facebook friends varies; some are closer than others, of course. I certainly don't treat all my Facebook friends the same. How could I? There are only 168 hours in a week, and even if I devoted half an hour to each Facebook friend, there wouldn't be enough time to go around (let alone enough time to sleep).

Shift

All of this means that I've changed the way I use communication technology. I know the nature of relationships means that you can't bundle people into neat categories and treat the people in each bundle accordingly. But that said, you can concentrate on broad areas and do your best to be faithful in those relationships you are particularly committed to.

I am in a very fortunate position because so many of my closest friends use the same communication technologies that I do. It's sort of changed over time: it used to be blogs, it sort of transitioned to Facebook but quickly skipped over to Twitter. This is why I tend to concentrate most of my energies on Twitter: most of them are on it, and it's a lot less cluttered and distracting than Facebook. I still use the other technologies, but to a lesser degree, and when I do, I try to do so in a targetted fashion.

Let me explain:

Twitter

I think I've ended up spending most of my time on Twitter because it fulfils a number of different needs and functions that other things used to. For example, newspapers: I used to read The Sydney Morning Herald, The New York Times and Salon.com by getting the headlines emailed to my inbox. I find these days I barely look at them; instead, I get my New York Times news on Twitter. Very recently I've been getting the SMH and The Australian too. All I really need to do is read the headlines; if I'm interested, I'll click further, but usually the headlines is all you need to stay in touch. (Unfortunately Salon.com is not on Twitter at the moment.)

In addition (and I can't remember if I've mentioned this already on this blog, so apologies if I have), Twitter has taken over the story of my life, “Blinks” , photoblog (well, to a certain extent) and even the “Current” blog sections of my site.

Like I said, however, many of my closest friends are on Twitter, and the microblogging/email/IM aspects of the technology make it easy to stay in touch with them. They're almost always there—in that ambient awareness thing that Clive Thompson talks about. It's not because I feel a compulsive Gen Y need to stay in touch; the advantage is that knowing what's going on in their lives helps me to pray for them, support them, care for them, encourage them, etc.

However, I try not to be compulsive about Twitter. It can get to a point where it's more annoying and intrusive than helpful. So in TweetDeck (the program I use most to post to and access Twitter), I've set the API refresh to around 10 minutes so that I'm not continually being pinged by updates.

(The recent update to TweetDeck is much more Facebook-friendly—to the point that my replies to other people are being posted there, and I now have the ability to comment on other people's status updates through Tweetdeck. This means I'm going to have to shift the way I use Tweetdeck a little ...)

Facebook

Facebook would be the communication technology I use the most after Twitter (though it possibly rivals email ... I'll get to email in a sec). But unlike some people, I only use Facebook in a certain way. I don't play games on it. I don't use it much for IM (and when I do, I use Adium, which plugs into Facebook very nicely), and I rarely read my entire news feed. Really I just check it to see if someone's sent me a message, to respond to friend and events requests, to see who has commented on something I said (or something someone else said), to post links on other people's walls (and occasionally messages, but usually I prefer not to communicate with people on their walls because they're so public), and so on. Most of the time, I get in and then get out.

But one thing I've done on Facebook that I haven't really done on Twitter (well, I tried to create a group in Tweetdeck, but I don't use it much) is group my Facebook friends into Friends lists. I don't group everyone; I just group particular people—for example, family, work colleagues, church folk, school friends, the people I regard as my closest friends, etc. Friends lists are really useful because, firstly, they help you stay in touch with people through the ambient awareness thing I mentioned earlier (hopefully not in a cyberstalking sort of way!); secondly, they help you make sense of the chaos of your news feed by filtering it so you only see certain people; thirdly, you can filter who can see if you're online for IM purposes. With some of my lists, I even subscribe to the RSS feed in Bloglines so I don't miss what's happening in their lives.

Blogs

Like I said above, the way that I use blogs has changed. I find I tend to only use my blog for longer pieces of writing, and I save all the shorter tidbits of things for Twitter. (I keep wondering whether I should change my blog design to incorporate more of Twitter but still haven't made up my mind.)

With my blogroll, things have also changed. I'm intentional about certain blogs (certainly the ones under “Friends”), but I also skim-read a lot. I try to comment, but I find these days that relating through blogs doesn't happen much anymore; commenting has moved more to Twitter and Facebook. Of course, I am continually behind, but I don't feel the need to keep up any more. I seem to be looking at blogs more for information or inspiration. I also tend to be using Bloglines less and Twitter more for blogs (as Luke pondered might happen).

This is interesting because my blogroll provided the initial list for my prayer cards (i.e. I group people into six categories— family and school friends, friends and blogroll, churches, universities, Bible college and Matthias Media, and missionaries—and theoretically pray through one card per day. I don't get to it every day, but I do for most days.) I've found that I still pray for the same people; I just keep in touch with what's happening in their lives in different ways—not just on blogs, but through other communication technologies.

Email

As I've increased my activities in other communication technologies, email has suffered. This is sort of odd because email was where it started. But it's now becoming a less efficient means of communication. I tend to use emails more for work stuff (where, paradoxically, it is a more efficient means of communication—probably because when I'm in the office, it's set to download every three minutes and I deal with it as part of my job) and for newsletters (usually more newsletters I can skim and then delete, as opposed to people's prayer newsletters, which require more time and attention).

Farhad Manjoo's article on managing your email is probably the best thing I've read online on the subject. My system is similar, but my current problem is that I have a laptop for work and a desktop PC for home, but the laptop is more convenient and easier, so I end up using that way more than the PC. The problem is all my email, photos and files are on the PC, and I know I need to do something about them to back them up and transfer at least some of that content onto my PC, but finding a spare weekend to do that ... *sigh*.

Anyway, this is why I have become increasingly worse at replying to email. The system for home isn't working because of the dual computer thing, but the system for work is just awesome.

An inner ring?

All this talk of being more intentional and targetted is, I'm sure, making my strategies for coping sound a lot like what C.S. Lewis was talking about in “The Inner Ring”—a two-tiered (or even three-tiered) system where some people are regarded as better than others. (Andrew Cameron's lecture on that essay is well worth a read, by the way.) I don't want it to be that way. And I'm mindful of James 2:1-7: “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory ...” I would argue that I'm talking about something slightly different: I'm making certain people a priority because they're family, church people or close friends, and I'm doing it out of necessity because you simply cannot have the same level of relationship with every single person that you know. It's impractical, plus you will burn yourself out doing it. (And if you don't, you'll get resentful and sin in your anger.) It's not about thinking certain people are better or more deserving; it's about making a commitment to particular relationships.

The one thing I haven't solved is what to do about new people. I remember Sandra King talking about Christians and relationships in Briefing #321—

I once heard it said that people are like Lego blocks. Each block has bumps on it and these bumps are used to join that block with other blocks. Not all blocks have the same number of bumps. The smallest blocks have just one bump; the largest ones can have forty or more.

Not all Christians have the same number of bumps. Some are good at making friends and maintaining relationships with lots of people. But others have different personalities and gifts. Some of us are timid, some of us are limited linguistically ...

and after reading that, I thought, “What if all your bumps are full? What if you just can't handle one more friendship—one more person?” You can't then go jettison some people (can you?) Well, from what I mentioned above, you can't; communication technology means we can never fall out of touch. I guess the degree to which you relate to people can change though ...

But really, all of this makes me look forward to heaven all the more. I keep thinking of John 17:3 and the Bible's definition of eternal life (which is not, by the way, primarily about living forever: “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” The triune God's capacity for unlimited relationship is somewhat enviable; could it be that in the new creation, we will have the capacity for the same?

I just knitted something simple—based on the same principle as the Booga bag pattern: you knit the base in garter stitch, pick up stitches around the edge and then knit in the round for as long as you want. This was the result:

It's pretty boring, but I was hoping it would felt up into something nice.

Now, when you're felting something with the washing machine, it's best to have something a bit bigger than that, otherwise you're wasting all that water for not very much. I thought I should really do something about that bag, but obviously the one I initially made wasn't very good. My Booga bag worked excellently, though, and I've been using it as a handbag ever since I made it. It's just a little too large, though, and I'm not too fond of carrying it over the shoulder. I just missed the black one I had. So I thought I would knit something similar, only smaller and in black. The principle is really the same: garter stitch for the bottom, pick up stitches around the edge, knit in the round for as long as you want. The result:

(Both of those were made with Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8 ply 100% wool.)

Then you make the handles out of a long piece of i-cord. I wanted long straps so I made 240 cm worth.

By Saturday night, I had finished these things but still wasn't ready to return to Oblique. I had this vague notion that it might be nice to make a felted flower to go with the felted bag (and felted phone sock). I found some of the yarn I used to use for plastic canvas stuff and it was in an attractive colour, so I made four of the petals using the fourth pattern in Plethora of petals. I only had enough yarn for four. Then I stitched them together:

Then all the pieces went into a wash bag, and then into the washing machine with hot water and a pair of jeans:

I put them through the agitation cycle four times. When I pulled them out, I was quite disappointed: the phone sock, the bag and the i-cord didn't felt at all. I should have checked that I could do felting with that particular yarn! Post-felting, they looked like this:

The flower turned out great though!

Feeling rather disappointed on Saturday night, I went to bed wondering what I could do with what I got. The phone sock was all right; sure, it didn't turn out how I wanted, but it would still do the job of protecting my phone. It was the bag that was the problem.

I woke up this morning and thought that perhaps the bag was salvageable—that I could still make it the same as the Booga Bag, even though it wasn't felted. So I folded up the bag at the sides and punched holes through it for the i-cord:

Using the bigger needle was more helpful for this:

I also chopped the i-cord in half (even though it would probably unravel; I figured that if it did, I could always unpick it a bit and cast off properly) and threaded it through.

Then I got some of that fabric I bought from Reverse Garbage last year, cut out the pieces and dusted off the sewing machine to sew them together. They didn't quite match (which shows how hopeless I am at sewing!) but, hey, it's the lining; no one's going to see it!

Then I sewed the lining into the bag:

I wanted to put the flower on the front as decoration, but it really needed a centre. Then I found the blue glass button I bought from the Sydney Vintage Clothing, Jewellery and Textiles Show:

I sewed that on the flower, and then sewed the flower onto the bag. That's a lot of sewing for someone like me who hates sewing!

The finished bag looked like this:

Here it is with all my stuff in it (wallet, A6 journal, pens, lip balm, mobile phone, keys):

I'm quite happy with how it turned out:

And I have my black bag back!

I haven't always been into comics. Or rather, I haven't always been into a certain type of comics. As a child, I enjoyed Snake, Asterix and the pullout in the Sunday paper, but it wasn't until I met the dynamic duo—Haoran and Guan—that I plunged headlong into this rabbithole.

However, I dare say Neil Gaiman played the role of the White Rabbit: I had read a whole bunch of his short stories while doing the background reading for my honours thesis, and then I picked up Coraline for $4 at the Salvos (the way that Mrs Whittaker found the Holy Grail in “Chivalry”, dare I say!). Coraline still remains my most favourite thing Neil Gaiman has written (with The Graveyard Book and Mirrormask running a close second). Then along came Haoran—or maybe it was Guan (I forget who it was)—who said to me, “Hey, did you know he writes comics too?” and then proceeded to lend me the entire Sandman series. (Strangely enough, my Current blog tells me the first one I read was The Dream Hunters.)

But that's not all; H and G, ever generous with their libraries, also placed all manner of interesting comics material into my hot little hands—Craig Thompson (Blankets), Alan Moore (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Watchmen, V for Vendetta), Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Pride of Baghdad, Ex Machina), Kurt Busiek (Astro City), Art Spiegelman (Maus), Frank Miller (300, Batman: Year One), Brian Wood (Demo), and so on. I owe them a lot.

(I should also credit Fish for introducing me to much of the superhero comics—Ultimates, Captain America, Galactus, and so on—but here I should stop; this post is starting to ramble too much!)

(However, I should mention at this point the slight oddity of being a girl and liking comics. Sure, the face of fandom is slowly changing to incorporate more female readers, but the fact of the matter is that most comics readers are guys.)

Yes, I love the comics medium. But it's only occurred to me recently why I love it so much (which is sort of odd, since I've been reading Scott McCloud for a while). It's because it is the perfect marriage of words and pictures—writing and visual art. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you already know how much I love books and writing, and if you've been reading this blog for a while, you've probably gathered my attraction to the visual—not as a practitioner (aside from taking copious photographs), but as an observer. (I confess I studied Visual Arts in high school more for the history.)

Phono-what?

(All images reproduced with kind permission from Jamie McKelvie.)

Enter Phonogram. I keep mentioning it on Twitter, but of course most people have no idea what I'm talking about, and therefore couldn't care less. So please let this fangirl explain.

Phonogram is a comic by Kieron Gillen (writing => lyrics) and Jamie McKelvie (art => music). It is based on the premise that music is magic, and that certain people—phonomancers—can harness this magic to do certain things (like get their name on the list at the club, or persuade someone to come home with them). It's one of my most favourite things at the moment—and, again, it's only recently that I've worked out why.

I mentioned above that comics are the perfect marriage of words and pictures. What makes Phonogram special is that it combines three of my most favourite things—writing, visual art and music—into one. It's this alchemy that's doing strange things to my brain—causing the world to explode with light and colour and sound—and endless possibilities.

Fish is responsible for getting me onto it. He happened to pick up 1.3 in Kings Comics sometime in 2006:

(Oasis fans will recognise the reference to the album art of Definitely Maybe.) It's odd that in January 2007, I wrote that it “intrigued” and “repelled” me. Obviously intrigue won out, because I kept linking to it on this blog (and even quoted Kieron Gillen), and I eventually bought Volume 1: Rue Britannia for Fish for his birthday (and borrowed it off him soon after).

Then earlier this year, I discovered that Gillen and McKelvie were well into series 2, so I did something rather unheard of: I went down to Kings Comics and started buying single issues.

Unfortunately this has led to some interesting culture problems. Did I mention I'm a girl and I'm relatively new to comics? (Cue Tripod's “Hot girl in the comic shop” ... umm ... not because I think I'm hot; it's just a funny song.) Going into Kings Comics is a bit friendlier (and occasionally there is a girl behind the counter), but certainly Comic Kingdom creeps me out, featuring one entire wall bay devoted to Playboy. (That said, other guys have told me that the place creeps them out too.) But even when you are inside a comics store, it's not like being in a bookstore; you need to know publishers, otherwise you have little hope of finding anything on your own, and even then, you need to familiarise yourself with the positioning of single issues vs. trades vs. manga. Even armed with the knowledge that Image publishes Phonogram, in this country, you're still faced with the problem of limited quantities. I do sympathise; I realise comic shops don't want to be stuck with stock they can't sell. Nevertheless, it irks me that I could not obtain issues 2.1 and 2.4 from Kings, but instead had to order them from overseas (such a devoted fangirl I am). (And I keep wondering why I can't subscribe to a title the way I would to a magaazine. Perhaps Longbox will change all that ...)

Rue Britannia and The Singles Club

Sorry, rambling and getting off-topic again! Let us return to talking about Phonogram. I won't try to do a review; much smarter and more articulate people than me have done that already. But I will try to express what I love about it. Here follow some rather boring summaries ...

Rue Britannia (well, you could really just read the first issue online [but note it does contain swearing and sex]. But who has time to do that? Anyway)—Rue Britannia introduces David Kohl, phonomancer and class act jerk. He goes to a club with the aim of meeting a fellow Phonomancer (and to get laid), but instead, is lured into a trap by the goddess who is seeking vengeance for betraying her (details in the first issue! Go read!) But instead of punishing him outright, she sends him on a task: one of her aspects—Britannia, the goddess of Britpop—is being interfered with; Kohl has to find out what's wrong, otherwise he's forever cursed. The rest of the story follows Kohl on his quest—returning to dirty clubs, visiting an old flame and diving into a memory kingdom—and somewhere along the way, you find Gillen saying something rather profound about music, our relationship with music and the way it changes us. I shan't be more explicit; it will only ruin it for you.

(That said, I lent Rue Britannia to Elsie, who is not a comics reader but who is the biggest Britpop fan I've ever met [she got all the cover references—most upon first glance—not to mention the allusions to the Manic Street Preachers]. She read the whole thing, but at the end handed it back to me and said she didn't get it.)

(This appears on the back of every issue of series 2: The Singles Club. Click on the image to get a bigger view.)

The Singles Club is a different beast to Rue Britannia. (For one thing, it's printed in beautiful colour.) Set over the course of one night in a club, the series follows nine different characters (including some from Rue Britannia) and explores different facets of music as magic, and what sort of magic that is. (In my humble opinion, series 2 is a bit more overtly successful at it than series 1, but I do appreciate the nuances of series 1; to me, the conclusion was most satisfactory.)

Issue 2.1 derives its title from the song by The Pipettes (UK pop girl band with feminist lyrics and a pre-Beatles sound. Erin tells me that they wear polkadots and synchronise their movements when they perform. We missed them at The Factory in 2007 because it clashed with the Big Read, but apparently the gig was terrible. Ah well). “Pull shapes” is actually my favourite track on We are the Pipettes, and I think it pretty much sums up what the issue is about: Phonomancer Penny loves to dance and knew from fairly early on that music is magic, so when she and her friend Laura show up at the club, it doesn't take long before the dancefloor calls (“I just want to move, I don't care what this song's about ...”). She gets knocked around a bit during the course of the issue (“Dance with me pretty boy tonight ...”), but it doesn't get her down; by the end, she's back pulling shapes.

I love this issue because it's so joyous. It captures something about the magic of music—how certain songs make you want to dance, even if you don't know how to dance and probably wouldn't want to get up in front of other people to do so. (For me, that magic is there in Ladyhawke, Metric and, yes, The Pipettes.)

2.2 switches tack and is much more introspective. Gillen and McKelvie say that for those who don't get Phonogram, 2.2 is the one that explains it best. (Here's a five-page preview.) “Wine and bed and more and again” introduces us to Marc, the “pretty boy” of Penny's affection. (Reading 2.2 puts a different spin on some of the final pages of 2.1.) It also introduces us to the concept of “curse songs”—the kind of music that brings you to your knees because it was the soundtrack to your life from another era—an era you don't want to remember. For Marc, it's about a girl and a breakup. Really, that's all you need to know.

Of course, we all know what it feels like. We probably have our own back catalogue of curse songs. Gillen says that knowing your curse songs gives someone else power over you, but I think the power you'd gain from mine would be rather paltry. Mine involve being seriously depressed in late high school and my relationship with my ex, and that is why I can barely listen to Crowded House anymore.

2.3 draws its title from The Knife. (I only mention this because I've been listening to Fever Ray as I type this. [Fever Ray is one half of The Knife.] Yes, I am a sad little fangirl; I started compiling a playlist of Phonogram-related music. More about that later.) 2.3 is about Emily Aster, whom we meet in Rue Britannia. (I just realised the opening pages of this issue mirror the opening pages of Rue Britannia.) She's a bit pissed that David Kohl has dragged her to an indie night—an indie night where one of her exes (Seth Bingo) is spinning records. The night steadily gets worse as she is confronted with a version of Emily from her past, who she is continually trying to suppress. Here, the magic of music is a little more sinister: even though you've created the person you want to be from the ashes of the old person you thought you'd burned, music can bring it out of you again. It's not quite Beth of Rue Britannia (it's more about self-loathing), but it's brilliantly done.

2.4 is the most recent issue out at the moment. (I had to order it from America because Kings sold out within a week of its release *grumble* *grumble*.) Most of the issue focuses on Seth and Silent Girl in the DJ booth. (Silent Girl is my favourite character at the moment.) Most of the issue is laid out the same: six-panel 3 x 2 pages with the same perspective on the booth. Meanwhile, Seth rants and Silent Girl listens (mostly), while occasionally engaging in subversive DJ-ing against Seth's wishes. She's also the one that gives him a big reality check and reminds him what it's ultimately all about.

2.4 marks the halfway point of the series, and in a sense, it's not really fair to make comments now as we're only seeing part of the whole. But what I love about The Singles Club is the way the stories intersect and intertwine, and, as a result, they roll around your head for days afterwards, like the very best pop songs. You know the series is incomplete, but your brain keeps trying to fit the pieces together—even though there are pieces still missing (why Lloyd goes off at Penny; why Laura hides from Penny; what Emily says to Laura in the bathroom; why David Kohl hugs Silent Girl; who Kid-With-Knife goes home with). There's something about the narrative—the way the story is told—that is a lot like Pulp Fiction, and it keeps you circling—dipping in—coming back—trying to fit the pieces together again.

(An interesting aside: McKelvie cut up several issues and put them up on his wall to keep the chronology of the evening straight in his head as he works on the rest of the issues.)

I love this quote:

As Phonogram rolls on, it becomes increasingly clear (even when its cast aren't saying it explicitly) that when it talks of “magic”, it's a far more ethereal and symbolic concept than you'd expect from the Constantineisms that first brought us into the book's world. But more than that, the word “magical” doesn't just refer to the purported antics of Kohl and Aster and Lloyd and Indie and the rest—but the very series itself. It's an experience for the reader, triggering the same emotions and memories and experiences that the characters in its pages feel when they hear the Pipettes, or CSS, or Kenickie.

Are you getting it yet?

Liner notes

Now, the thing that everyone takes pains to note is that Phonogram is music reference-heavy. Certainly when Kohl and Aster, and even Seth Bingo, take centre stage, it can be hard to know what on earth they're talking about. To help the Philistines, Gillen and McKelvie include glossaries in the back—not only to explain what they're talking about and introduce you to music you haven't heard before (that is how I discovered the Afghan Whigs, which seems a bit dumb, considering how much I love The Twilight Singers), but also to crack jokes. (It surprises me that they've heard of things I wouldn't think anyone outside of Australia have heard of—for example, “Just a song about ping pong” by Operator Please.) However, you don't need to know what sort of music they're talking about to enjoy the comic; the music just gives the comic an extra dimension (see the alchemy I was talking about earlier).

The other lovely thing about the single issues (and the reason why I have been buying them instead of just waiting for the trade to come out) is the B-sides—the short comics of two or three pages that appear at the end of each issue. They are illustrated by other artists, and they capture other aspects of music best suited to a shorter format. (I do enjoy them, though it particularly annoyed me that reading “Roses” let to me waking up with OutKast lodged firmly in my head [you have to read the comic to understand why that is funny].)

And then there are Kieron's essays (which are always fascinating) and the articles/interviews displaying the best of music journalism—about music related to the comic.

But that's not all.

There is the lovely T-shirt that McKelvie designed for this year's San Diego Comic-Con. I bought Ben one. I would have bought myself one, but I can't really wear those sorts of T-shirts (it's a Trinny and Susannah thing). Anyway, the best thing about buying the T-shirt for Ben is that I can look at it when he wears it.

Gillen and McKelvie were calling for T-shirt photos not long ago, so the day I brought it home for Ben, I made him change and set up a little Phonogram photo shoot. Here are the highlights: Guitar Hero:

Audiophile:

Pulling shapes:

I hope Gillen and McKelvie were amused.

Then there is Phonogram vs. the Fans—the Phonogram fanzine, curated by Matt Sheret. (Elsie was quick to grasp that the cover is another Manic Street Preachers reference.) There was a call for open submissions back in April and I regret not writing something then (but life was crazy ... no time ... blah blah). Contributers had to answer the question, “When did you know music was magic?”, and their responses could take the form of anything that could be reproduced in black and white.

The fanzine was sold at Comic-Con, but fortunately there were some copies left afterwards that were sold on Etsy. I recklessly ordered three—one for me, one for Guan (who, in a lovely reversal, is borrowing the single issues off me) and one for Fish (who, most unfortunately, cannot obtain Phonogram because Brisbane is truly hicksville). I finished reading it the other night, and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I especially loved the piece from the guy wanting to feel something of what Penny encapsulates in 2.1:

Alcohol was a factor, but it was mostly about The Song and me wanting to maybe feel a bit like how Pull Shapes suggests dancing can make you feel but mostly I think it's about The Song, about sacrificing myself to it because if ever a song deserved blood, flesh and my dignity, it's this one. (Miles Bradley, ‘Bringouttherealfunturnontherealdrums’)

The fanzine also includes a short interview with Gillen and a Phonogram script that was never used. (I'm starting to like reading scripts—finding out how comic writers convey their vision in just text. You can find a whole bunch of them at The Comic Book Script Archive.)

Now, I've been talking so much about the writing and Gillen, I feel at this point, I should mention something about how much I love McKelvie's art. Comics being the perfect marriage of writing and art means that the art plays a huge factor in whether or not I like the comic (duh). I love Sandman, but there are places where the artwork isn't particularly nice to look at (which is the point at places, but anyway ...) McKelvie's art is always lovely to look at. (I won't go on about his linework because I don't know what I'm talking about, but I do like that his work has a very “clean” feel). He makes everyone look—if not attractive, certainly appealing. He's terribly good at capturing both facial expressions and body language. (He wins my admiration in being able to convey the joy of dance purely through images in 2.1.) Series 2 seems like quite a step up from series 1, and not just because of the colour; sometimes the characters in series 1 seemed a little wooden, but in series 2, there's something more fluid and organic about them—you can imagine them moving as though they were alive.

Because of Phonogram, on impulse one time in Kings, I picked up Suburban Glamour (written and drawn by McKelvie). (You can see some pages from it in McKelvie's photostream. You can also read the entire first issue at Image.) I was pleasantly surprised by it because it didn't go where I expected it to go. Instead, it reminded me of The Labyrinth, the very best fairy tales, growing up and coming to terms with yourself. I highly recommend it.

One final thing: I wonder perhaps if I wouldn't be so into Phonogram if I weren't also following both Gillen and McKelvie on Twitter. (How did that happen? I can't remember.) As a result, they and Phonogram-related miscellania pop up on my radar every day. (Also, they make me laugh.) Then (hopefully not in a creepy cyberstalky sort of way!) I found them both on Last FM, which informed me that my musical compatibility with them was “VERY HIGH”. (That little piece of information also gives me delusions that I have good taste, but I'm sure Guan will squash those pretentions in five seconds flat with reminders about Lindsay Lohan ... [I like her cover of Fleetwood Mac's “Edge of Seventeen” ...]) I find that our music tastes, while they do not exactly overlap, sometimes dovetail with mine. (In each issue, Gillen prints a list of what he was listening to as he wrote.) Hence the Phonogram-related playlist: it's not that I have all the songs that are played on the night of The Singles Club, but it's more (in the way that music draws in associations) certain music now reminds me of Phonogram, Gillen and McKelvie in a way I can't quite explain. It's not only The Pipettes and Fever Ray; it's also Metric, School of Seven Bells and Ladytron (not that I listen to Ladytron much at all ...) I hope I don't exaggerate when I say that, at the moment, this comic has become something of the soundtrack to my life ...

Composition

One final thing before I run out of steam (and, yes, I realise that this blog post is absurdly long, but then, my dear long-time readers, isn't that the way it goes? I don't blog for a month, but when I do, I give you pretty much the equivalent of a month's worth of blog posts?) I should mention two more things that reading Phonogram has taught me.

Firstly, it's made more explicit something I'd absorbed more implicitly from things like Nick Hornby's 31 Songs and High Fidelity (movie more than the book)—that it's possible to capture something of what music does—the “magic”, if you will—and translate it into another medium (words ... pictures ...) I love music—I play music (on my laptop, on the iPod)—I sing and even make music on the piano (keeping all my insecurities at bay). But I've almost always regarded music and writing as two separate endeavours that only meet in songwriting. Now I see that there are other ways of thinking and writing about music. Comics taught me about the marriage of words and pictures; Phonogram teaches me about the marriage of words and music.

Subpoint: returning to 2.1 and Penny, the desire for participation—for entering into the physicality of music—fascinates me. Sometimes, like Shall we dansu?, I long to be able to move my body in such a way that it incarnates the emotion and the music I feel. But dance is a language I cannot speak. (An aside: great quote from Ken Robinson's TED talk:

Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. At the top, are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts. And in pretty much every system too, there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance every day to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not?

Listen to the rest of it; it's brilliant.) The release of The Beatles: Rock Band this week brought that notion of participation/physicality to the fore:

Not only was the game serving to reintroduce this music, but by leading the players through a schematic version of actually creating the songs, it was also doing so in a much more engaging way than merely listening to a recording. It is an imperfect analogy, but listening to a finished song is perhaps like being served a finished recipe: you know it tastes great even if you have no sense of how it was created. By contrast, playing a music game like Rock Band is a bit closer to following a recipe yourself or watching a cooking show on television. Sure, the result won't be of professional caliber (after all, you didn't go to cooking school, the equivalent of music lessons), but you may have a greater appreciation for the genius who created the dish than the restaurantgoer, because you have attempted it yourself. (Source)

Then, of course, there's karaoke, and the idea of how singing the song yourself—entering your vocals into the instrumentals—is an “earnest expression of music fandom”:

It's the best form of music appreciation. I hear a song on the radio that I like, and I cannot wait to sing it in karaoke. I will go through every other ritual of a song—I'll sing it in the shower, in the car. It is not until I go to a karaoke bar and sing it myself that I really feel like I own it. When I was in my 20s, I used to go to four or five concerts a night. Now I go, and so often I think, eh, I'd rather be singing these songs.

That's not how I think of karaoke (or Rock Band or Guitar Hero), but I appreciate the viewpoint.

I also quite like this quote by Neil Finn: (I'm only including it because I read it today.)

“Live music, I doubt it's ever been away ... I think people have been focused in on new technologies and digital mediums and the internet and, you know, they do offer quite an amazing way of reaching people.

“But live music, the experience of sitting in a room and hearing somebody play, is always going to be valuable—and it doesn't matter what technology there is—because it's part of the human condition, there's a need for it. It's a strong, deep experience for people. And it's the way it should be, isn't it really? ... I think if you're a musician—a real musician—and you can actually carry a song with minimal instruments and without a big production, that's a very real and wholesome thing to have. People will always respond to it.” (Source)

Secondly, although I'm on Twitter and I'm following a number of people who work in the comics industry (including C.B. Cebulski, Ron Perazza, Stephen Christy, and so on) who occasionally tweet about making comics, it was really Gillen who showed me the door:

I did all my future-shock stuff in writing 5 page comics for people to draw. I did a load of them, because 5 pages was about as much as I could talk an artist into doing (Or rather, finishing). No matter how rubbish each was - and a lot were pretty rubbish—it was me seeing what worked and what didn't. That sort of experience is vital.

Yes, I am thick; despite having collaborated with Fish in the past—despite being urged by Dean to submit things for Pulp Crucifiction—despite having a number of friends and acquaintances who like to draw (including Kathleen, Bron, Jess, Matt and Paul—it still takes the equivalent of Thor's hammer to smash an idea through my thick skull: GO FORTH AND MAKE COMICS.

Do some comics for the sake of doing comics first. The point is doing comics.

Yes indeed it is.

It's weird: I really hate sewing, but if something's for someone else, I'll get right on it; if it's for me, I'll procrastinate like hell. All right, admittedly in between when the Yvonne jumper was being blocked, I did knit another Ishbel beret for a special someone's birthday (which is not for months, but hey, these things tend to creep up on you so it's good to be prepared!) But after I finished that, I got stuck into the tedious sewing (and tried to do it around other people so it wouldn't be as tedious). However, yesterday I enforced on myself a mental health lockdown because I was so peopled out (we didn't go outside all day, although I did open the blinds and the screen door because, you know, 28 degrees Celsius in the middle of winter should be taken advantage of), and Ben and I spent the afternoon on the couch while he played Farmville and I sewed and sewed and sewed until it was all done.

And now the final result looks like this (although it probably wouldn't be worn over what I am wearing in these photos; I just needed something that would show off the pattern. And Yvonne will make it look so much cooler; I'll have to ask her for some pics that I can put online):

So there you go: my first design now fully knitted! I think it turned out all right, although I'm worried it will be too big on Yvonne (she did want it oversized though). It's actually quite warm to wear; I remember Bron telling me once that lots of holes in mohair was good because it trapped the air and that's what made it warm. I'm not sure how you'd fare if it were windy, but it's certainly a lot warmer than it looks!

So after an insanely busy week and an almost equally as insanely busy weekend, here I am, enjoying the first proper day of my holidays. I finished knitting the final sleeve of Yvonne last night. Here's a photo:

Keeping with the spirit of the modifications I'm making on Sprout, the sleeves were knitted in the shape of parallelograms as follows:

• Cast on 23 stitches using 10 mm needles (using the knitting on method).
• Knit 5 rows in random lace pattern.
• On the next row, increase one stitch at either end of the row, and then knit another 4 rows in random lace pattern.
• Repeat this last step until you have 45 stitches. Knit another four rows in random lace pattern.
• Knit another five rows in random lace pattern.
• Cast off loosely.

With sleeves, obviously one end has to be shorter than the other end (the shoulder end) because your arms increase in width to your shoulders.

Of course, I had to change yarn in the middle of knitting a sleeve:

I decided to put off sewing in the ends until I'd blocked everything.

Here's all the pieces unblocked and balled up on my desk:

Notice how it looks like a messy heap black stuff. Time for blocking!

Here's the front all wet and unblocked:

The bits of other coloured yarn is yarn I weaves through the edges of each side. I was trying to use Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee's method for straight edge blocking but it didn't quite have the desired effect because the mohair was slippery. But I found on the first one that having the different coloured yarn there made it easier on the edges: it was like giving the mohair a bit of extra backbone. So I did it for the others too.

The results: the front (or what I'm calling the front):

The back:

The sleeves:

Detail on the random lace:

I think it's going to come up looking very nice. I'm just not 100 per cent sure it will come together well; I'm worried it will be too long on the real Yvonne! But we'll see.

Now to wait for it to dry. Once dry, I'll sew the bits together, weave in all the ends and it will be done!

(I've tried documenting this one a little bit more so you can see the development of the thing).

Scouring Knitty, we found this really simple (but rather ugly, in our opinions!) jumper pattern called Sprout. It's a jumper I would never ever make in real life, but the instructions are quite simple for a jumper pattern: you knit the front and the back pieces exactly the same, you make two sleeves, and then you sew everything together. So I set about adapting it for my purposes, using the Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Mohair I had used for Travelling Vines:

The first thing I did was knit a tension square using the needle size recommended on the pattern (5.5 mm needles, 16 stitches/20 rows = 10 x 10 cm or 4 x 4 inches):

It had a nice texture, but it was too dense for what Yvonne wanted:

The lace work wouldn't have ended up like Rodarte. So I doubled (almost) the needle size and knitted another tension square (10 mm needles, 10 stitches/14 rows = 10 x 10 cm or 4 x 4 inches):

The 10 mm needles seemed to work better for the kind of lacework I was contemplating:

So now that I had my tension square and needle size, I estimated the number of stitches I needed to obtain the same size for each piece (48 stitches for the front/back; 23 stitches increasing to 45 stitches for the sleeves).

I cast on using the knitting on method because I wanted more elasticity on the edge (I normally favour the cable cast on method):

I also used the lovely beaded stitch markers Tim and Ros had bought me from my birthday from The Wool Shack:

(Stitch markers are extremely useful because they count off stitches. Here I placed them every stitches along. As I knitted, I knew I was going okay if I maintained the same number of stitches between the markers. For those who always complain that they can't knit because they always stuff it up—they end up with more stitches or less stitches than when they started—I always recommend using stitch markers because it helps you see almost immediately if you've done something wrong.)

I knitted the first row. But from there, I pretty much made it up, inserting random k2tog, ssk, p2tog, p2tbl, k3, sl1 k2tog psso, yarn overs, etc. all through it. I even occasionally used double yarn overs from the Knitty Lace Ribbon scarf pattern for bigger holes. It did mostly have a right side and a wrong side (knits on the right side; purls on the wrong side, as per stocking stitch), but, yes, lots of holes. Unblocked, it looks like this:

Blocked, the pattern (or lack of pattern) will be much clearer.

Here's the completed front (or back; they're the same, remember):

For the armholes, I cast off five stitches on each side. And then for the neckline, I knitted nine stitches, cast off 20 stitches and knitted nine stitches. The nine stitches on either side of the neckline were continued for another three rows before casting off.

I've now completed both front and back, and am working on the sleeves.

Further photos of the sleeves, blocking it and putting it all together to come ...

Update: Scroll to the bottom of the post for the finished product.

I've just finished knitting Ishbel, designed by Ysolda. I made the Ishbel beret first because I lost another wool felt beret (*sigh*; I lose one every year) and figured it was probably worth me trying to learn how to make berets so I can replace the ones I lose. I had some 4 ply Bendigo Woollen Mills black Classic yarn that I'd been meaning to use for something else (but then decided not to), so I made it with that. But I forgot to take pictures while I was doing it, so here are some pics of the next one I made (using Morris and Sons 4ply Empire. I was worried I would run out of yarn because one ball is 175m and the pattern for the medium size requires 180m, but it turns out I had plenty of yarn left over. This was also the first pattern where I did some blocking on a plate:

Anyway, next came Ishbel, a shawlette (follow that link to see what a shawlette is; it's basically a mini shawl that you wear like as scarf). I knitted it using the same yarn (as well as the pretty stitch markers that Tim and Ros had bought me from The Woolshack for my birthday this year. [Sorry, no photos of those; I always forget to take photos when I'm actually knitting the thing, and part of me always thinks you wouldn't be interested in them anyway.])

So, Dave, this is the difference blocking makes. Here's the shawlette as it was when it just came off my needles:

It doesn't look like much, does it! Here's a picture with flash (I hate the flash on my camera) so you can see the pattern a bit better:

Then I wetted it and squeezed out most of the water so that it became a bit of a soggy mess like this:

(You probably can't tell; it looks too much like the first picture!) Then I got out my new blocking pins (they're actually quilt pins, and these were purchased at the recent Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair for $2. The good thing about them is that they're longer and sturdier than my normal blocking pins; the bad thing is that there's not enough of them):

So the next step was to stretch out the knitted thing and hold it in place with the pins:

Why do we do this? Because it brings out the lace pattern in the shawlette:

Now, you can't do this with all yarns, but you can with most of the natural yarns—cotton, wool, mohair, silk too (I think, though I've never been game to buy silk because it's so expensive and therefore, if you stuff up while using it, it's more of a waste.) Natural yarns have better memory for when they've been blocked, so they'll hold the shape once the yarn dries.

The next step is to wait 'til it dries (and in this weather, that will probably take a couple of days) and then weave in the ends. And then it will be ready to wear!

Update

Here's me wearing the finished product:

The dream

For me, the dream was to become a writer—not in the sense of that's my identity (for, as de Botton points out, it's rather odd that our identities are so wrapped up in what we do), but in the sense of this-is-what-I'd-like-to-be-doing-with-my-time. I starting having those ambitions fairly young; I started trying to write books when I was in Year 3 or 4 (I still have them somewhere; they're terrible). I remember daydreaming in the pool after school when I was in Year 8 or 9, thinking about the plot of my latest project. I remember getting to page 64 of a very lengthy MS Word document and losing the lot, then having hysterics on the couch while my mother (who didn't know what to do with me) tried to retrieve something of what I'd done. (I ended up rewriting it, and it was better, though that's not saying much for a 13-year-old.) I wasn't one of those kids who just kept starting things either; I finished at least four of what I shall indulgently call my “novels”. One was even printed out and bound because I had written it for a friend.

The dream was never crushed; it was sort of pushed to the backburner. I never had anyone tell me my stuff was no good. In fact, I was fortunate to have supportive adults around me who told me I had talent and sent me off to various programs and mentor schemes. (Libby Hathorn was my mentor in Year 9.) But I also had people who told me that there was no money in writing and publishing. My adult self recognises that they were trying to help me to be realistic, but my childhood self resented the fact that they were so blunt about it. After all, there are a lot of people who end up getting published; scan any bookstore and you'll find piles and piles of complete rubbish that isn't even worth the paper it's printed on (sorry to be rude ...) I think what I needed was more to be shown the path and to be told the cost, rather than to be told that the way was hopeless and I'd better not even try.

So my secondary dream was to become an editor. I did work experience at McGraw Hill in Year 10 (I had wanted to go work at Random House but work experience week coincided with one of their senior editors leaving, so they couldn't take me on. My friend Erin did her work experience at HarperCollins, and I envied her.) Work experience taught me a bit about the publishing business—the good and the bad. And then I went off to Uni still with a view to going into writing (I majored in Creative Writing after all) but also with the backup plan of editing.

In God's kindness, I've realized the second dream (perhaps not in the way I initially thought!), but not the first. And now I wonder what I should do about the first (if anything).

The problem

I'm a lot older now and a lot less idealistic. I know a lot more about publishing, writing, editing and agents. Reading both Neil Gaiman's blog and Robin McKinley's blog has been really eye-opening in terms of grasping what a writer's life is like (deadlines, signing tours, maintaining your fanbase, all the while trying to squeeze some writing in when you can, which is why you initially got into the business, right?) The path is clearer, though no less hard (and its boundaries shift as the publishing landscape changes with the rise of e-books, Kindle and cheap self-publishing [see Lulu and Blurb]).

But I have changed too—especially spiritually. My priorities are different. I know that I wouldn't get into the game for the fame or the money, that it would be a living, that it would be hard, but hopefully, at times, even fun. The point would be serving God in this particular capacity—seeking the fulfilment of his plans in Ephesians 1 (i.e. the glorification of Christ and the uniting of all things in submission under his feet), Romans 8:29 (i.e. the conforming of his people to the image of Christ in all holiness and godliness) and Habakkuk 2:14 (“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea”).

It's just that ... (well, perhaps this is something I have to think myself through—as if I have to convince myself. I suspect the rest of this post is going to get rather tedious as I argue myself in circles). It's just that there are very few models for the sort of thing I want to do. This can be a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is I break new ground myself; there are no rules, and I can make my own way. (This is also extremely scary.) The bad thing is that other people (Christians and non-Christians) won't really get it and therefore won't be supportive (so what else is new ...)

See, the Christian community often views creative endeavours with a bit of suspicion—much like the Greeks viewed the first Thespians. (The Greeks thought you couldn't trust someone who spends their time pretending to be someone else because they were essential liars.) Many Christians think there is no value in fiction—particularly fantasy and science fiction (also known as speculative fiction). One Christian guy I spoke to told me he only read non-fiction because “Why waste my time on something that's not real?” (Why? Andrew Lansdown devoted a whole talk to the place of fantasy in the Christian imagination at the 2006 C.S. Lewis Today conference. I'm not going to visit that debate here; go listen to Andrew's talk.) There's a line between artifice and reality, and everything that's not real isn't worth bothering with.

There's also the temptation to worldliness. Things involving the arts and entertainment tend to be things of this world rather than things of God. There are Christians who think that if you watch too many violent films, you will become violent yourself; if you listen to death metal, you will become a devil worshipper; if you hang around people who swear all the time, you'll start swearing yourself. There's an element of truth in that: what you consume does influence you, to some degree (take pornography), and some of us are more vulnerable in this regard than others. In particular, those with weaker consciences should stay away from certain things, while those with stronger consciences need to keep assessing how they are going with their diet and whether anything is having a negative effect on them.

Certainly it seems to be harder to be a Christian in the more artsy and creative industries. I don't know that many Christians who work as writers, actors, musicians (actually, I know a few more musicians ...), painters, etc. Or perhaps they just aren't as visible.

The job

Still, thinking theologically, writing is just another job. It's much like any other profession: you produce something and you get paid for it. It's another way to put food on the table, clothes on your back and a roof over your head (think 2 Thessalonians 3:6-12). But it's also different from other professions—different in the nature of the work (you're creating things, not working on things that have already been created) and in the nature of the work (you can't turn the creative juices on and off; there are no regular hours; you still ‘work’ while you're doing other things—cooking, showering, sleeping, even going to the loo ...) Writing is a ‘legitimate’ way of making a living in a way that prostitution is not.

And, like any job, it is subject to the effects of the Fall. Every job is frustrating; why should writing be an exception? Every writer faces the dismaying disparity between what's in their heads and what comes out on the page; something always gets lost in translation, and the expression of the vision is never as good as the vision itself. No matter how much a writer does, it always comes back to the writer versus the blank page, with battle lines drawn. (The war is never won; the victories are never permanent ...)

Furthermore, because of the nature of the job, you need a bit of talent to start with—and certainly in order to keep going. No one knows where that comes from. Sometimes it seems like you either have it or you don't (because can you really develop something like that simply from reading more books, spewing out more words and workshopping your stuff 'til the cows come home?)

(Still, thinking back to those articles on genius, there are two types: people who sparkle while young and then fizz out early, and people who start out slow and then build up to it. There are also those who think that it's just a matter of practice—that, unless you put in the time, you'll never get better. It's like the 20-year-old violinists: good ones averaged 10,000 hours of practice over the course of their lives. Neil Gaiman is always saying you'll produce 100,000 words of crap before you unearth the good stuff (I forget where, but I'm sure he did). So you need to start. You need to practise. It's like exercise; you do it every day, or else you get out of shape. Paul Auster says, “I have to do it every day in order to keep the rhythm, to keep myself focused on what I’m doing. Even Sunday, if possible.”)

It's easy to give in to the nagging doubts that you're just deluded—you really are devoid of talent; you're better off spending your time doing something else instead of banging your head against a brick wall every day. As writers, we want others to validate our talent. However, the converse may apply: we may not be talented if we do not practise ...

In addition, writing is a solitary profession. You can't do it with other people the way you would paint a wall or even shoot a movie. There is no one you can turn to to fix things when things go wrong. There's no supervisors to tell you what to do. There's no one else who understands the nature of what you're trying to do as well as you do. No one else may actually care. The buck stops with you, and being alone can be terrifying ...

On the other hand, sometimes it can be exhilarating. Sometimes you want to shut out the world because the world is distracting and annoying and doesn't understand (cue ‘Finishing a hat’ from Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George), and until you've produced what you want to produce and said what you want to say, there's no point in even showing them.

And then on the third hand, there is the danger of loving creativity too much—because of the high that goes with it—the power that runs through your fingers when you're creating something—playing God. When you're up late at night, working and thinking—when it's all going right—it's like ambrosia is leaking from your pen or (your fingers through the keyboard), and you have all the power of God's creation at your disposal. It's like drugs—it's like getting high (I assume). It can be a dangerous way to be. It can border on idolatry. And once you've replaced the Creator with the created, you've gone too far.

The why

But why? Why would a Christian spend the majority of her days on earth writing and publishing fantasy and science fiction (among other things)?

It's not like the profession has no value. What's immediately obvious is the entertainment value—helping people to enjoy their leisure time—the rest that God has given them. That is legitimate, no?

There is also the role of the bard—the storyteller—the transporter—to reflect life, tell truths, tell people how to live their lives, how to behave, how to defeat the dragon (a.k.a. G.K. Chesterton)—how to grow up and take your place in the world.

Writers also fill the role of instructors and persuaders—to, through the medium of fiction, bring you around to their way of thinking—their way of seeing the world. When reading something, you automatically get a sense of their worldview—maybe not in its entirety, but glimmers and pieces that, put together, help you to understand what they think about life, the universe and everything. The twin tasks of all Christians (evangelism and edification) fit here. Certainly I know well that you can serve God through your writing; I've written about this subject before: “Writing Evangelism” and “Church Service”.

And writing for non-Christians has just as much value as non-Christians. We're told that people don't read anymore (that their attention spans have shrunk), but that's not strictly true; people do read, but they don't read everything. They read what they want to read—what hooks them and drags them in and immerses them. Look at Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, the fat tomes taking up too much space in the fantasy section. Why shouldn't someone like me have a go at tackling that market?

The (somewhat circular) argument

But my question is whether this is the best use of my days on earth. I know God is far more concerned with my godliness than what I actually do. I know that eternity with him and his people awaits, and perhaps that eternity can be filled with things like the making of many books (both in writing and in binding). I guess, given the part of the world where I live, I feel the push to ministry rather keenly. I think about the hours I could be devoting to serving my church or the Christians around me—in meeting people and reading the Bible with them to encourage them in the faith; in going out doing walk-up evangelism (which I dislike, but can do); in doing some of the endless admin that churches always seem to have; in editing Briefing articles; and so on. There are a thousand and one ways to serve God and build his kingdom; what makes writing/publishing any more deserving of my time? Is it because I'm a bit better at it than the rest of the Christian population? (Still, how is that an argument? “You have talent; don't let it go to waste.”)

The other thing that is often drummed into us in this part of the world is that only gospel ministry has any eternal significance (and therefore the unspoken corollary is that it is the only worthwhile thing to do). Created things won't survive the fire on that last day when God destroys the current heaven and earth and ushers in his new creation (Rev 21:1-5). It's a stark contrast to what Neil Gaiman says:

I think there are only two things that any writers are allowed to be obsessed by, and they are love and death. And I think that's a huge, great big clunking cliché, and like all big clunking cliches, it's true—that's what we write about. And we make are for fear for death. It's the joy of being some kind of creator is what you leave behind you, in Sondheim's words, is children and art. And you are essentially doing a little bit of graffiti on the wall of time that says, “I was here and this is my drawing and this is my story.” (Neil Gaiman, Arts and Ideas podcast, BBC Radio 3.)

So why is it worth my time? Can I say, like Nicky Chiswell, that “Only I could do it”? (Now that requires a fair chunk of arrogance!)

And if it isn't worth my time, why do I want it to be? Why do I want to do it so badly? Sometimes I look at my graphic novel (or rather, the current state of it: bits and pieces on computer, in journals and scribbled on scraps of paper) and think, “This is so self-indulgent.” The number of steps it needs to take from there to a finished product I'd be proud of is so immense, I feel like giving up. (Mind you, I know exactly what is required and how to get there, and that just makes it all the more daunting.) But should I expend all this time and energy on something that, in the grand scheme of things (and certainly in the grand scheme of publishing) is not that significant?

Nevertheless, in the face of the universe and its odds, I can't stop writing this story. It's not the muse; I don't believe in muses. I don't even believe that the Holy Spirit is making me do it (well, perhaps only to the extent that I believe in God's sovereignty). It's just something I enjoy writing about. I feel like something compels me the way that it compels Rachel Powers in The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood. I can't make it stop. But more importantly, I don't want to make it stop. And every now and then (like lately) I think wistfully it might be nice if I could do it all the time ...