how to sport a shawl

Shawling

Or, the Art of Properly Sporting a Shawl

     The other day (meaning 'a while ago') on facebook, a friend of my mom had posted this really cool video on all the different ways to wear a scarf. Then, this past Tuesday, I was home alone, and I was just thinking about all the different ways I wear my shawls. And then I thought, I could do a blog post on this! And so I took my camera and my Sunday shawl (the one I keep nice and reserve for semi-formal occasions, such as church, speech, and prom) and had myself a photo shoot, and hence I shall now explicate the versatility of the shawls I regularly enjoy sporting. 

At first I tried doing the photo shoot in our living room, holding the camera in one hand and the shawl in the other and doing things selfie-style. I quickly realized, though, that this wasn't going to work, and so I headed to the basement. My shawl doesn't normally seem so translucent, but that's an effect of the lighting, I suppose. 

First, I will establish for my blog readership what my shawl looks like. Voilá! (I know the accent is going the wrong way but that's the only accent the alt button gives.)

Attempting to show the length of my shawl as compared with my height. It looks almost like I'm wearing a Sari here. I suppose, if I knew how, I could wear my shawl as a Sari, too. That might be cool to learn. I could probably find it on the internet. 

I had to fiddle a little with the lighting before I got it all figured out, but this does look kind of cool with the glowy-ness of the sun behind me.  

Here my shawl looks all translucent. It's neat how you can see me through it. 

I feel like this is the best display of what my shawl actually looks like, the size and shape of it. You can see I had to close the bathroom door a little to make the light more normal and to make myself and the shawl a little less backlit. I'm in the bathroom because I sat my camera on the sink-counter. All of these pictures, like my awesome trick photography back in digital camera, were taken using the ten-second timer on my camera, though it was easier to line myself up with the camera picture this way. Being as each of these pictures was on a ten-second timer, these aren't all of the pictures I took, and there was time in between, you can probably infer I spent some time on my photo shoot that night :) 'Twas rather fun modeling. 

The first shawl style is that of the furtive, mysterious stranger or of the elderly, wizened witch, cloaked and lurking in the dark shadows of a mystical forest. It's basically just wearing it like a cloak with it up on my head. While wearing this style, you must make every effort to be mysterious. It is not recommended, however, that you offer poison apples to people, though this is the style one would wear while doing such a thing, if one were to. 

It can be more spread out. This is probably the warmest way to wear it. 

Makes for a great traveling cloak! Also works with a red cloak. Or, in Belle's case, a lovely green-blue-gold one. (I would include such a picture but I am running short of time.)

The next style, though not much varied, is with the hood down. 

look back over your shoulder as you walk away. (The hood doesn't actually show very well here). 

Sometimes, when I really want the hood to stay in, I actually pin it here, at the neck, where my upper hand is holding it. 

Sometimes it will stay without holding it, too. 

Here is where the hood part shows best.

For the most traditional shawl style, just hold the shawl up and cast it dramatically about your shoulders. (I find myself thinking of the line from my storytelling piece, Tinúviel ... about him cast her shadowy hair. It's a similar motion.)

the picture's a bit faded out, but it shows the full shawl style well. 

I know it's not that different from the last style, but there's no hood, and you put it on different. To do the second style, you do the first style first and then put the hood down, but for this one, you just toss it on your shoulders and let it hang, flowy-like. 

You can put your arms out to, like, do things and stuff. Hehehe so specific I am. 

you can also wear it a little more tucked in.

You can open the shawl up, the equivalent of unzipping your sweater. I often wear a shawl in place of a sweater to school, when I'm in a mood for it. I do think shawls are sort of cooler and more unique than sweaters. They're an important part of my fashion-style. B)  (sunglassses smiley) Hehe I'm so fashionable. I'm suddenly thinking of that episode of Spongebob when Mr. Krabs starts hanging out with Spongebob and Patrick because he wants to be cool and youthful and Spongebob and Patrick are like "we got STYLE!" hehehe. I'm totally up on all the popular fashion trends, because I totally care. <sarcasm>. I just wear what I like, say, for example, shawls. 

the shawl closed again

open again, though with my hands together, so it's almost partly closed. 

The next style is slightly off the shoulders. It's more of a shrug-type style. To me, it feels kind of movie star. 

Holding my movie star shrung together

a back view of the movie star shrug. I actually really like this picture of myself. Some pictures you take, especially with the timer, surprise you when they turn out well, and you just look back and go, hey, I look good in that picture. This is one of those pictures for me.

The next style isn't all that different, but the shawl is a little more gathered. This is like the how-to step where I gather the shawl, which was a little hard to do in the narrow hall that leads in to the bathroom, but I think this shows the gist. 

It's more of an elbow-shrug style. 

you can gather it in the front. 

or have it come straight down from your elbows. 

a couple of back views of the elbow-shrug style

Me being fancy, in the way where you try and say fancy with a funky accent so it's like "fon-say"!

This next style is the belt style. It kind of starts out like when you get tired of wearing your sweater or too hot or whatever and so you tie it around your waste. Shawls are somewhat more high-maintenance for wearing than sweaters are and so this may happen more often. It can just get a little fiddly sometimes to keep your shawl draped properly in all the drapey shawls, and so sometimes you may just want to tie it around your waste. When this happens, tie it at the side, spread it a little at the other side (or don't spread it, for a different style) and you actually get a really cool, pirate-y looking belt. 

modeling the awesome pirate belt style.

and at this point I thought, you know, what's a pirate belt without a cool pirate sword? Fortunately, I just happen to have one. Actually, I wear my cool pirate sword with my cool pirate belt a lot. I obviously can't wear my plastic pirate sword to school, for one because it's a weapon, albeit a fake one, and for two because it would be a little weird, and for three because my sword is somewhat top heavy and it likes to fall out of its sheath. But here's where I decided to go get it. 

When I went upstairs, the sun was setting, and I couldn't help but take a couple of pictures of it. I love sunsets. My window is really dirty, but you can still see how pretty the sunset was, at least a little. A camera never quite gets it all. 

I like how in this one you can see all the cool stuff around my window with the sunset. I really do like my epic window décor. It frames the sunset nicely, though it makes it small. 

Now with the light on in my room, I thought I'd show you a glimpse of my somewhat disarrayed but still utterly epic closet and the toy weaponry rack therein. Why do I have a toy weaponry rack in my closet, you may ask? Because I'm just awesome like that. 

See how many things about me you can deduce from this picture. There's quite a few aspects of my personality reflected herein, from Norway to cats to my flowy church-skirts. Sorry, spoilers for your hunting. 

Me coming back and coping with the changing lighting. 

Too much light now. 

no...

There we go, though it is somewhat of an odd glow behind my head. But it's what I went with. So anyways, here's the belt (the thin one in my left hand, on the right in the picture, that I can actually fasten my sword to) and my AWESOME SWORD. I fasten the sword-belt under the epic pirate-belt of my shawl. 

Me being epic with my pirate sword and shawl-belt. Remember in that post about me not hating Hook but just not wanting him with Emma because she belongs with Neal, but when I said I had a thing for pirates? Oo, remind me to show you my spyglass some time. I should of had that in this photo shoot! Seriously, I have an epic spyglass. And I'm excited for more RUMPEL!!! WHY AM I USING CAPS LOCK? CAUSE I'M EXCITED! 'nyways.

Of course, at this point, it becomes all about the sword and its epicness and my getting all hyper-little-kid and posing with it. 

I draw my sword from the sheath...

and I am off. 

Ah, and I would be remiss if I didn't wear what is technically actually a scarf, as a scarf. So here's that. 

Before stopping, I had to take at least one classic mirror-selfie, shawl in movie-star shrug form, sword still in hand.

sword with movie star shrug, and an end to the photo shoot. 

Thus is the art of shawling, or wearing the versatile snatch of fabric that is a shawl. Beyond the violet mist, our wardrobe is unspeakably epic, and everyone is encouraged to follow their own fashion styles.

the CUTENESSSS!!!!!

Cute Things,

and in particular cats :)

        Sometimes, one just needs to look at some cute pictures. I have a quite a few folders on the desktop of my laptop, and within them are a great deal more folders. Most likely my fullest folder is the one I have entitled "screensavers", as originally it contained only pictures that I was using for my screensavers, but anyways, it also contains a folder called "bonus", and in that folder is a variety of sub-folders where I keep all my pictures, probably 90 percent of which are random things I've found on the internet. One of the folders therein is entitled "KITTIES!! and other cute things", and it's where I keep my cute pictures, and a while ago today I was just looking at it and I went, hey, this could be the third blog post I need. So, this post is pretty much going to be me spamming my own blog with a plethora of mostly-cat cute pictures. Enjoy :)

Sometimes cuteness and humor go quite well together :) Both can make you smile.

I think this was from that article on cats in the shape of hearts that was my "kitty cat of the month" thing for February.

I've spent quite some time looking at breeders' sites for Norwegian forest cats, and so quite a few of these pics are of adorable baby wegies from such sites, including this beautiful little calico. 

By the way, I found all these pictures on the internet and none of them are mine. I don't know who made this, but it's an amazing piece of artwork, and I actually have it in my art folder as well. I just think it's so beautiful, and it is just a lovely picture of a kitty :)

also from the cats with hearts article I had up for Valentine's day

another pretty calico wegie

That awkward moment when your cat realizes it's not a bird. 

A few of these actually came from my search for my first "kitty cat of the month" once this became my Creative Writing blog, thus all the writing-themed kitties.

Another from that heart-kitty article

A couple more writing kitties

This is actually something I found on the blog of someone else in our creative writing class, and I liked it a lottle too much not to have it in my cuteness folder, and thence in this post.

This is a Pallas cat. They're not a domestic cat, but they're small like them. I first came across Pallas cats in my "Encyclopedia of Cats" I got one Christmas (which actually I still haven't found since we moved). It was mostly about domestic cats and information on them and breeds and things, but it also contained a section on wild cats, including the Pallas cat. I just saw the pictures and thought they were sooo cute :) and so now there are a bunch of pictures of them in my folder, too. I think this joke is referring to the fact that their legs are rather short. Or perhaps the kitty is asking for more chicken legs to eat. I can't say for certain... 

Makes me laugh and think of Composition every time. Hehehe kitties know best :)

more adorable Pallas kitties :) Their big eyes always make them look so surprised. And so cute!!

I'm not even sure I get what a plot bunny is, but this kitty is one of my writer buddies :)

Such a pretty calico wegie :)

This was from another article in my blog's monthlies on "reasons cats are taking over the world". Its caption said something about how elusive they are. It's another adorable gif kitty 

I would love to read this book

These are my current kitties of the month, as it so happens

Somehow this makes me think of Gollum from Lord of the Rings. You could just see this kitty cradling the ring...

Not everyday can one combine a cat and a Chuck Norris joke.

BABY WEGIES!!

like a burrito. Om nom. (another non-domestic cat, in this case a lynx)

Also from the heart  article

This one's a munchkin kitty hehe :)

Sooo little!

also some adorableness from my classmate's blog. I just can't stop giddily giggling when I see it. 

Wow, this post got long! And that's not even the whole folder. But here beyond the violet mist, we love to share the cute, and thus the smiles.

driving me mad

Driving

and why I hate it

        We were discussing in our literature class one day how driving is traditionally seen as a symbol of teenagehood and freedom and all that good stuff, because we were reading a poem some person had written about how their car was their sanctuary and how it was universally this place for all teenagers, how it made them feel free and powerful and at peace. 

        And I just don't get it. I rather hate driving. I mean, I fully understand that the ability to drive a car is an essential skill in today's world (unless you live in, like, NYC or something, which I don't), and so I know I must learn it in order to be able to function and go places and things, but I dread it like normal people dread an essay test. (I would gladly take a good essay test over driving most any day.) I know I have to drive, but I really just don't particularly want to. It stresses me out to no end; I get so tense when I'm driving. As soon as I've pulled in and parked and turned off the car I just let out this huge breath of relief and think something to the lines of Thank goodness, I'm done driving now. 

        It's just, when I'm driving, I have to be so painfully focused. I am not a naturally focused person. My mind dances around from topic to topic as naturally as I walk. I daydream and zone out and find myself lost in my own thoughts many times a day, and it's fine. I can still pay attention in class, still do well on tests (though, granted, I frequently take longer than most people), still carry on conversations with people, still walk places without running into things, and do very well at a great variety of school-related things, and all the while it's alright if my thoughts and my focus are drifting a little here and there. 
        Perhaps some psychiatrist or someone would say I'm, like, ADD or something like that, but I've never really cared for psychiatrists. I mean, I'm sure they're good people and trying to help and everything, and in lots of cases I suppose they do, but it seems to me that things like ADD are overdiagnosed these days, and that children are given too much medicine for things. For instance, there was a girl I knew in Virginia who had ADD or something like that, and she was always on medication. She sat with my friends and I at lunch, and oftentimes she seemed very sad and quiet. Then, one day, she came to school having forgotten to take her medication, and she was so amazingly happy. I had never seen her so jubilant. She was much more talkative and she laughed and she was just beaming all through lunch. I felt like it was the first time I'd ever really met her, and that she was finally allowed to be herself. Yes, she was a little noisy and she had a habit of cutting other people off in conversations, and she was perhaps a smidge (quite a large smidge, actually) hyper. But she was so incredibly happy, like I'd never seen her before. The next day, though, she was back on her medication, and she was slow, quiet, and sad-seeming once more. I'd like to think that she could learn to control things like being hyper and talking over people on her own and that she could be so much happier all the time if she wasn't on medication like that, but it's not really for me to say or interfere with in her life, but still, it made me feel so bad for her, how that day just made me realize, who she really is is being trapped down inside of her all the time. It struck me as quite tragic.
        But, anyways, I digress. Hahaha look, I'm digressing about attention deficit disorder. Oh, there's some definite irony there. I really do digress a lot, though. I suppose it is something of a reflection of how my mind is working. I just love to think of lots of things, and it's so hard to not keep thinking of a bunch of different things all the time.

        When I'm driving a car, I really have to suppress my natural thought process. Behind the wheel of a car, my very life suddenly hinges on my ability to be conscious and aware of so many things that it puts an incredible strain on my brain and my emotions. I must monitor my speed without staring constantly at the speedometer (without even glancing for more than a scarce moment, as the road requires such instant responses), I must precisely guide the wheel of the car so that the vehicle remains on the proper right side of the road, especially when going up hills or on divided roads (we live on gravel, so sometimes it's okay to drive down the middle a little, though it still sort of makes me uneasy), and yet I must not go too far to the right, especially this time of year when the muddy thaw is making the sides of the road soft and my mom warns me that they could easily pull us into the ditch, and I must be aware of the other cars around me and more often than not passing me (I drive quite slowly--after all, if you drive faster, it's just that much harder to control and that much faster you have to process every single thing that's happening, the faster you have to think and act and react--and so basically I drive as slowly as my mom will allow me to), and I must slow down to turn and use my blinker at the proper time, and eventually I'm going to have to learn to use my mirrors though I often ignore those because there's already so much going on to which my attention must singularly be given, and I have to turn at the proper angles and degrees to stay on the correct part of the road, and I have to slow down and stop at the right times, and I have to just generally keep the car so very under control and do the right thing and react the right way at a moment's notice if, say, something leaps out into the road or something, and I have to do all these things and more and be so very in control of the car, and I have to consciously remember that I'm driving, and I have to think about that and focus on that and remember that I'm driving, and I have to hold myself in and lock myself onto that. It's more stressful than calculus. Literally, I feel more stressed when I am driving a car than I do when I am taking a calculus test. Honest to goodness.

        I can't wander off into thought about the intricate relationships of characters on Once Upon a Time, or about my future (which it feels like is in the process of being decided presently), or about the stories I'm writing and where I'm going with them, or about how gorgeous the clear spring day is, or guys I've had crushes on, or about how I'm looking forward to being able to take my bunnies out walking when the ground is clear and firm again, or about Rumbelle, or about the Divergent movie we're going to go see tonight (now that we saw Friday), or what I'd like to be eating right then, or about the complicated concept of 'home', or about the random pimple on my nose, or what I'll do for my blogs this week, or the fun song that's on the radio (I can't even very easily listen to the radio while driving yet, because I'm too tempted to think about the songs), or why we find one color more visually appealing than the others, or any of the plethora of random things I'd love to be wandering off into thought about. The whole of my being must be constantly centered on the concept of driving, and not only the general concept of driving, which I'm thinking about right now, but the precise moment I'm in, and every factor and every thing that is happening around me. It's so hard to stay in that moment and to realize presently I am driving, not I have been driving or will be driving, and I have to deal with it all so instantaneously. I can't forget for a split moment that I am presently driving, which is incredibly tough. It's very hard to be completely in the moment and aware like that. 
        Also, there's just so little time to process things. I like to process things thoroughly, I really do. I can spend quite a bit of time thinking about a relatively simple thing, and even more time on a more complex thing, and I love when I have the time to slow down and think about things. That's one of the things I really like about these blog posts; they afford me the time to slow down and think about things I've been meaning to think about. I mean, for example, I knew going into this post the gist of why I hate driving, but exploring it in this way has helped even me understand it somewhat better. But, see, I can't think like I'm thinking now while I am driving, even if I am now hurrying to finish. I just love deep and best of all thorough  and complete thought, the deep mental examination of various topics.
        I think the longest drive I've ever done was about a 12-mile round trip, from our house to a small town called Harmony and back (which, by the way, I think is quite a lovely name for a cute little town. It's very Amity, in keeping with my next blog post. At least, I think the post on Divergent will be done right after this one. I guess we'll see. Actually, now I've decided that post is coming out next week.), and it was so... exhausting to be so concentrated on driving for, like, 2o minutes solid. I know, a lot of people drive longer than that, but it's just so hard for me. I hate the mental exertion of pinning my mind down so very hard. Also, whenever I go around a curve I feel like I have to slow down so much so I don't go off the road, and I especially hate meeting a semi because they're so huge and it always feels like they're going to hurtle straight into you.  
        Perhaps another part of my problem is that I'm always too aware of some things, namely the fact that there are any number of ways to make a mistake and suddenly bring about the death of myself and my mother in the passenger seat beside me, and the fact that driving is one of the most deadly activities in which people regularly participate, and everything feels so fragile when I'm driving, so precariously hinged on my not making one little mistake and so prone to change in a moment if my thoughts are allowed to wander naturally. My dad asked whether there was any specific incident that had traumatized me to make me afraid of driving, but I don't think there is; I think I'm simply far too aware of everything. They say teenagers feel immortal and invincible, but I don't, not in a paranoid, terrified-of-everything kind of way, but in a realistic, understanding-the-ever-present-dangers kind of way. And so I have to constantly focus, because I know it can immediately change, and this stresses me out. 
       In general, I just really don't like driving, and I can't help it. Here beyond the violet mist, cars are not a requirement to travel about our realm; instead, one may simply walk or fly. 

follow-up: insanely good music

Songs about Insanity

continued

        Just last week, I did a blog post on some of the best songs about insanity I know, and just now, in the shower, I thought of a song, and I went, oh, I should've had that one in my post! Of course, I'm sure I'll still think of plenty more as time goes on, but I just decided to throw this one on here. I suppose I could just edit my original post and throw this one onto it, but this way it can also be another post (in the now-classic tradition of late-at-night-Saturday-blogging) and I know this will be quicker than the post on Divergent I've started, so I'll finish that one next week and use this one for this week. 

        So, what is this song I thought of while in the shower? It's "No Rain" by Blind Melon. 

from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL6tB_0ZJtw

The first line of this song that always comes into my head is that bit, as displayed in above screenshot, where it goes, "it's not sa-ane, it's not saaa-aaa-ane", and so obviously that's about insanity, or, well, not being sane. It's very catchy, too--the line is catchy, and the song as a whole is. This song does have a light, airy, happily insane feel to it, too. It's definitely about insanity much more than it's about the lack of rain. There's another video of it, too, the one that's the actual music video of it, and it further conveys the themes of insanity in this song. I decided to take my screenshot of the lyrics, but here's the link to the music video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qVPNONdF58. This kind of insanity is perhaps more related to the kind I explored in my literary program, which is basically like a different-from-societal-norms type of insanity. Really, there's all kinds of insanity, and the songs from my original blog post cover quite a few of them. I should do another blog post on the varieties of insanity, actually. But yeah, this is a very good song about insanity. 

Upon occasion, there are tap-dancing bumblebees beyond the violet mist (which is either a reference to the music video for this song or evidence of insanity, or perhaps both.)