Today I Learned #4: Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
- Thread starter Valka D'Ur
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TIL that the only way to stay awake during a very boring coronation ceremony was to get ice cream from the freezer and share it with the cat.
TIL that ice cream makes Maddy hyper. She was nearly literally bouncing off the walls as she ran around.
Honestly... I got up at 2 am to watch Charles being crowned. It went on forever. During one especially hideous piece of music, I kept the livestream going in one window while I did FB stuff in another.
I didn't watch when the family appeared on the balcony after the ceremony. I was too tired, and just went to bed.
TIL that ice cream makes Maddy hyper. She was nearly literally bouncing off the walls as she ran around.
Honestly... I got up at 2 am to watch Charles being crowned. It went on forever. During one especially hideous piece of music, I kept the livestream going in one window while I did FB stuff in another.
I didn't watch when the family appeared on the balcony after the ceremony. I was too tired, and just went to bed.
Narz
keeping it real
Pointed shoes (which are bad for your feet) were popularized as a status symbol.
Now that high step-counts are "in" perhaps it's time to rethink them.
Pointy shoes have been around since the medieval period, at least, and yeah - wearing them was not something you did if you normally have to walk long distances, do manual labor, etc.
I don't understand the rationale behind pointy shoes for women (never mind insanely high heels). They're so easy to trip in, lose your balance, break your own ankle...
I don't understand the rationale behind pointy shoes for women (never mind insanely high heels). They're so easy to trip in, lose your balance, break your own ankle...
Fashion. People have loved dressing up to make a statement about who they are for thousands of years.
How can "people being idiots" not be more succinct?
I did my fashion-thing once. Back in the summer of 1981, the theatre group I worked with decided to enter the parade, and put on our own version of the Royal Wedding. They invited the backstage workers to take part, as we "never got to be on stage".
So for the hell of it (and my grandmother's nagging that of course I deserved this for the years I'd put in of making and looking after props, going up and down into the rafters, helping out with other things, and only ever being a name in the crew section of the program books...)... I took part in this thing. I got dressed up in a long, lacy white dress, elbow-length white gloves, not-too-funny hat, and then had to find a pair of sandals to walk a parade route in. Oh, and I wasn't playing Diana. I was just one of the (overaged) flower girls (the real wedding used young children; we opted for older people).
So... looked through my shoes, trying to figure out which pair of white sandals would work best for walking a 3-mile parade route on asphalt. The pair of 1.5" wedge-heeled ones were the best of the lot, as I had neither the money nor the time to go out and get a new pair.
Holy crap, my feet were aching well before the parade was over. Thankfully the last few blocks had no spectators, as everyone had gone to the other good viewing spots to see it earlier. We were allowed to hop on the double-decker bus that followed us (that's where we stashed our coats and purses).
Walking the next day? HA!
I won't say it wasn't a fun experience. We won first prize for our group, and someone wrote to the Queen, including the photos. We got a nice letter back from whoever did the Queen's correspondence then, thanking us and saying that our letter and photos would be added to the archives they kept of the correspondence that the Queen received from people around the Commonwealth.
So somewhere in some royal archive, there's a photo of the bunch of us posing as the Royal Family, getting a family portrait as taken by "Lord Snowden". That bit of schtick was part of the act we did that day, that every 2-3 blocks, our "Lord Snowden" (a real photographer) would gather us all to pose for a portrait. Then we'd get back in place and resume walking the parade route. We even had a real corgi for our "Queen".
How time flies. I was only 18 then, and fresh off working backstage for 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. That's the crew they mostly approached for doing this.
As for shoes... the only time I ever wore higher-height shoes after that were for organ recitals and exams (thick heels, of course, not spike). Some pieces require a finicky style of playing the foot pedals - heel and toe. If you mess that up, you can't easily get to the next pedal in time.
Other than one SF convention (an experiment quickly abandoned due to pain; the shoes themselves were lovely to look at, but not to wear), I've never worn any sort of high heel since.
High heels hurt, narrow, pointy-toed shoes hurt, and how anyone manages them without tripping or kicking others by accident is a mystery.
Narz
keeping it real
Shows you're graceful enough to walk and not fall down despite an absurdly unstable structure. And that you're willing to put appearance above personal comfort (like girls wearing short skirts and sleeveless tops in crazy cold, windy weather or men wearing sports coats and ties in very hot weather.
Personally I'm all about comfort. Anyone can put on some clothes but maintaining a good body demonstrates fitness quite literally and undeniably. I like feminine skirts and whatnot but a woman in "manly" clothes like flannels and cargo pants is also pretty hot to me as it creates mystery and says "I don't need to show off my shape or follow trends", dressing like a boy w a pretty face creates a nice contrast.
I have no sympathy for any girl or woman freezing in winter while wearing a miniskirt and keeping her coat unzipped. There's fashion and there's being an idiot. People who don't cover up and do up their coats in -25C are idiots.
Because ‘fashion’ indicates the specific subset of people by itself.
Not all fashion is idiotic. I'm talking about the stupid stuff that serves no practical use, or is deliberately impractical or even harmful.
People are not rational.
I'm reminded of a conversation with the other people in the Shire, on the way to a Principality event - a long weekend of SCA fighting and tournaments, to see who would get to be the Prince for the next 6 months (this was in the summer of 1986).
One of the guys started mansplaining to the women in the van about shoes. "Women wear ____" and "women do that because they ______"
Whereupon every woman there (including me) immediately uttered the words, "NOT TRUE!"
I spent that weekend wearing runners under my long dress. Given this was Central Alberta in the summer, that weekend had weather ranging from fairly hot to "let's see how many people can crowd around the stove in one of the cabins while it's raining on Sunday".
One of the guys started mansplaining to the women in the van about shoes. "Women wear ____" and "women do that because they ______"
Whereupon every woman there (including me) immediately uttered the words, "NOT TRUE!"
I spent that weekend wearing runners under my long dress. Given this was Central Alberta in the summer, that weekend had weather ranging from fairly hot to "let's see how many people can crowd around the stove in one of the cabins while it's raining on Sunday".
Narz
keeping it real
If you look deep enough even the most maladaptive seeming behavior can make some sense (if you look at it from a group evolutionary perspective rather than just a modern individual one)
I try to think in cultural anthropological terms to make sense of some things in this world.
I'm about to give up when trying to fathom the epidemic of paranoia and stupidity of the cult-like followers of the United Conservative Party (which is neither united nor conservative, though they do like to party and to hell with safety rules).
A few hundred thousand villages in this world are missing their idiots and unfortunately probably don't want them back.
Lexicus
Deity
One Weird Trick! Anthropologists and Historians Hate Him!
Narz
keeping it real
Or you could not look deeply and just be like y try understand, sum humans just dum me superior...
But that just seems to lead to angry and bitterness rather than curiosity or understanding
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Narz
keeping it real
On topic, til blue balls is a real thing. I just thought it was something made up by date rapey guys to guilt women
But yeah, holding out for last two weeks before seeing my partner again for first time is six weeks and made the mistake of looking at bunch of photos of her and letting my mind go in certain directions multiple times a day for last few days without um, well without doing anything about it.
Yeah it's pretty bad like 6.5 out of 10 pain. The internet says doing exercise may help redirect blood flow so I'm doing pushups on train platform. So yeah just gotta control my thoughts and not do that again.
I wonder if monks have techniques. Probably just not let their minds go in that direction
But yeah, holding out for last two weeks before seeing my partner again for first time is six weeks and made the mistake of looking at bunch of photos of her and letting my mind go in certain directions multiple times a day for last few days without um, well without doing anything about it.
Yeah it's pretty bad like 6.5 out of 10 pain. The internet says doing exercise may help redirect blood flow so I'm doing pushups on train platform. So yeah just gotta control my thoughts and not do that again.
I wonder if monks have techniques. Probably just not let their minds go in that direction
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