What price ego?

Once upon a time I was a competition costumer. I made it up to Craftsman status, which is as high as you can go in local competition, and I wanted my Master Costumer rank as badly as (some years, more than) my Masters degree.

But that was about 75 pounds and *cough* years ago. Last time I was at a Costume Con, I had just been accepted into grad school, and wandered vaguely around feeling like I was in a glass box watching everyone. I didn't even have any costumes that weekend - a time and place when changing 5 times a day is considered normal.

Toward the end of grad school, I joined the International Wenches' Guild. It was a whole new world of sewing - one where you didn't worry about people stealing your ideas or depend on the random kindness of judges for feedback or need to make backup tapes for your presentation or all that other hassle. You sewed, you wore, period. Furthermore, hefty women were considered just fine. Whee! My view of the IWG and its spinoff Team Wench as a halcyon haven of dramalessness after the years of competition costuming lasted about 18 naive months, but even now, I'm proud to be a member. Even at the heights of drama, y'all just got nothing on the crap that can fly through competition costuming.

More importantly for this post, I'm just as happy to think that I'll only ever design wench and pirate costumes for personal wear. It was stinging to realize that I probably won't make Master Costumer without riding someone's coattails, but it was liberating to realize that I wasn't planning on ever again spending 12 months and hundreds of dollars for something to be run once in the hopes of getting a title. It's not like I'll ever miss the general drama of competition, not as long as I run the Shore Leave masq, which has drama and effort enough of its own!

Thing is... with my life the way it's been, I haven't been sewing anything, much less full rennie costumes. Oh, one or two (which I've decided need work and may just donate to Prepare for Fair) but when I get the opportunity to buy something I want, I just up and buy it. For example, Chivalry Sports is having a sale right now, and I'm terribly tempted to pick up a rainbow of Irish dresses. Why not? They fit, they flatter, the colors suit my wardrobe, they should embroider up nicely, they're washable (mandatory at MDRF) and the price is right enough.

So why do I feel guilty? Why do I feel that because I used to compete I am somehow obligated to sew my entire rennie wardrobe from scratch? It's not like I'll never sew again. It's not like I'm not even planning on sewing again. So why can't I shut up the little voice that says I have to prove my past by vowing only to sew my own - even my own knockoffs - rather than just buy what I want when I see it and sew what I want when I don't?

Politics ahead - Rage and sorrow

Nothing like a little news to make the problems of your life look so utterly trivial.

First up, we have the winner for Oy Vey of the Day in the anti-Roe/Wade counterprotest - Focus on the Family's Post-Abortion Grandparents Kit. If there's one thing that the childfree groups I'm on harp on constantly (actually, there are about three things, but this is one of 'em) it's the vile notion that daughters were born for the express purpose of pumping out grandkids regardless of whether said daughters WANT to have children. So here's a little more guilt and manipulation, under the helpful guise of letting meddling granny "overcome post-abortion syndrome in your daughter."

On the same page is a book that complains that abortion is a "hidden grief" and promises to make a world where women don't have to "hide their pain." Except I haven't seen anything hidden, considering that the anti-choice people trot out the women who regret their abortions like trained ponies at every opportunity, simultaneously punishing them by making them confess again AND whoring out their pain for the edutainment of the crowded masses. Would you like a little bread with your circuses, Mr. Dobson?

( And then there's the news from Iraq )

(no subject)

Two more reviews up at http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com - Murder She Wrote, a Vote for Murder, and Heart Full of Lies.