Right now I'm working on a stockinette square for a baby blanket:

and last night I just started a red scarf, also in stockinette. It's pretty narrow, and I'm going to use the whole skein of yarn to knit it--in other words, it's going to be very, VERY long. I want it to be as long as my charcoal gray ankle-length coat, this long, bright red train behind me and ahead of me, like I'm at the Oscars, heh. Okay, now everyone's thinking that's so narcissistic, but hey! I don't care. It's going to be an awesome scarf.

Actually on Friday this time:

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?

It's naturally straight, and...let me see...about shoulder-length.

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?

I've never experimented with color, but my hair has been all kinds of lengths and styles. In the late 1980s, I had the standard BIG hair--tons of Aqua Net hair spray, very high bangs. I used a curling iron and all that. Then in high school, my hair was pretty calm for the most part--almost the way it is now, just bangs on the forehead and shoulder length (my forehead is too high not to have bangs). Then, in college, I went through kind of an anti-glam phase. I wore clothes that were inspired by that Green Day work clothes/coveralls look, and my hair was like Mia Farrow's pixie cut in Rosemary's Baby. Observe:

and

I had my hair really short like that for years, but I don't think I'm thin enough to look good with that haircut anymore. The pixie cut looks best on very slender people, I think.

3. How do your normally wear your hair?

Parted on the right side, hanging straight down. I hardly ever use any ponytail holders or barrettes.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?

It would be the way it is now, but THICK. My hair is baby fine and there's not a whole lot of it.

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?

Nah, it's just hair, it'll grow back.

**Edited because Mia Farrow's site doesn't like remote hosting.

I've felt strongly about this case for some time. Read all about it:

Cindy, in her June 15 post, muses about the pleasures of summer reading, which makes me want to post about a book that I'm devouring right now: From Housewife to Heretic by Sonia Johnson. It's Johnson's autobiography--she went from a devout Mormon wife and mother of four to a radical feminist lesbian separatist. She was excommunicated from the Mormon church for supporting the Equal Rights Amendment. Johnson became a lesbian separatist after the 1981 publication of From Housewife to Heretic, but I'm still getting to read her compelling story of feminist awakening. I highly recommend it.

As for my summer reading in general, mine isn't as well planned out as Cindy's. I don't have Dickens summers or Faulkner summers; instead, I go through the books on my shelves that I bought with the intention to read one of these days (don't we all have those? :-). I read the first page or two of these books until I find one that grabs me, then I just go with it.

Hey, everyone! My site was down for a couple of days because of an issue with the server, but is back for good now. :-) Not being able to blog was a little frustrating for me; I didn't realize how much I rely on blogging as an outlet. At any rate, I'm back, and now must finish preparing for class!

I got the heads-up for this new blog from the AARST listserv. It's maintained by McClain Watson, a Ph.D. candidate in Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. He also has a site about his dissertation called Dis My Diss, heehee. Worth a look!

Edited to correct the name of McClain's university! :-o

In case you wanted to see. I'm finally finished tweaking it...for now, heh.

Erica Gilbert-Levin critiques the tendency of a contingent of Third Wave feminists to advocate reclaiming such "girlie" things as the color pink, lipstick, lingerie, and Barbie as feminist. In other words, liking these things doesn't compromise one's feminism in any way. Girlie culture is called "feminism lite" by some. Gilbert-Levin's critique is full of profound statements, such as this:

By suggesting to young women that it is a feminist act simply to don a "Girls Rule!" baby T or to wear high heels and thereby to "own" one's sexuality (as if wearing high heels or lipstick allows one to own one's sexuality!), Girlies encourage women to substitute commercial "fun" for serious, political feminist engagement.

Indeed, Gilbert-Levin is right to point out that girlie culture is consumerist to a large extent. And she ends with this rockin' clincher:

With so much at stake -- with an antichoice, antifeminist Republican in the White House, with a political establishment that moves to the right at every sneeze, with the gap between the rich and poor growing daily, with a war against women all around the world -- from gender apartheid in Afghanistan to daily honor killings in Muslim countries to genital mutilation in Africa to a sky-high rate of rape and domestic violence in the United States -- Third Wave feminism cannot afford to be defined by the Girlie movement. We have too much to do.

Oh, I should add that I hung out with Erica in Chicago one night in March 2002. She is awesome.