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A. had school — a 6 hour day.
I had an early meeting, so R. brought her to school. The meeting went well, altho when I connected to it, I was a minute or two early, and the person who let me in was the only person there at the time and he asked if those were swords on my wall. I then unrolled my usual spiel, as other people arrived in the meeting, altho I did not get around to mentioning the names (Wit and Wisdom) or the other related items in the space that were not visible (A.’s lightsaber build and the cane from Museum Replicas), and how I very briefly took some fencing lessons to help with martial arts footwork but gave it up because it was so lane oriented and I didn’t want that kind of sport leakage and so forth. Also, cloaks.
Anyway. This is another story I probably should capture here in the blog at some point, but mostly, I just told the story and then we did the meeting, and after I was musing over the response to the story and I realized that in a nerd context, it’s a deeply hilarious story that clearly communicates a bunch of stuff about me that in nerd culture is basically fine. But in normie culture, and honestly, especially coming out the mouth of a middle-aged woman, it’s pretty weird. I may give some thought to how I tell that story.
We went to Beverly. We had extremely good beer at Indo. They have amazing taps, and also, they were crowded. Then we had overpriced Four Roses — we were aiming for manhattans but they didn’t have vermouth — at the Cabot Streetside bar, and then we sat down and listened to the Jayhawks. I love that venue (the seats are comfy). The band was fine. It rained the whole time we were headed in, but lightened up so we didn’t get soaked going from the car to Indo and then the Cabot. It was mostly done raining by the time the show was over.
I have a rapier with a pretty basket (“Wit”), and a matching, much simpler looking main gauche (“Wisdom” — because wisdom is hard fought or hard won or hard something anyway). I got them some time in the late 1990s/early oughts. For a long time, they hung on my dining area wall in the condo, and then they were in storage as I moved a few times and had very small children. I bought them from Museum Replicas, back when they had a paper catalog. Museum Replicas appears to still exist. I used to wear them to costume parties, along with a black cape that I no longer own (and boy am I glad I got rid of them — I had a grey one, too — , because the person who made them became really TERF-y). I also had a flat topped medium flat brimmed (“zorro style”) hat. I wore it as a “Zorra” (see what I did there) costume. One year, I wore it to work at the Zon, and SK took a look at it as we were sitting on the floor in a meeting (yeah, I don’t really remember why either) and asked if the swords were real (this is a question people ask). My answer then — and always — is that they do not have a sharpened edge. But otherwise, yeah, they’re real, and if you stuck it into someone, sharpened or not, it’d be real bad for them.
The idea of a rapier with a main gauche is that one strategy for dealing with the range of a long blade such as a rapier is to get in so close that the advantage is nullified. The main gauche — and this is part of how I tell this story — is to make it so that get-close strategy is a terrible idea. Otherwise, you’re stuck with an awkward hilt strike towards yourself and that just is hard to pull off. The main gauche lets you deal with someone who got close to you with poise and grace. Or something.
I also tell the story of briefly taking fencing lessons. I had finally started martial arts, and at that point I still had major proprioceptive issues (my instructor was clever enough to realize what was going on and guide my training in a direction that permanently fixed that problem which I will be grateful to him for my entire life). But I wasn’t worked, and I had time, so I found some kind of extension class that was inexpensive fencing lessons at a salle in Seattle (I think it was Salle Auriol, and they seem to still exist). Places like that will often sell blocks of introductory group lessons through extension and similar catalogs as part of recruitment. Anyway, it was fun, and the footwork, as anticipated, was very similar to what I was trying to learn. However, it was so lane oriented that I was concerned about sport leakage there and did not continue.
So, what is sport leakage? Well, if you are training in some sort of combat or fighting style, there are things that will be Against the Rules because they are really likely to maim somebody or whatever. There will also be other rules that arise for a bunch of sport specific reasons. Since my goal with martial arts training was not at all to ever compete, but rather something extremely different (“I’d like to be able to walk around Seattle in the middle of the night, and hang out with strangers in up-close-and-personal ways, and throw large parties with a lot of people I don’t know well, but also be able to protect myself, my friends, my stuff without having to go straight to shooting someone.” Because at the time, I already had a concealed pistol license.). Whatever you train for is what you are going to do when unexpected developments happen which require a prompt response, so I was very careful to make sure my training was appropriate to my intentions for that training. Which was not competition.
What else? Oh, there’s a light saber on the other wall of my office; A. did the light saber build activity but didn’t really care that much about the lightsaber so it hangs in my office, along with the picture of her and Chewie from when we were waiting to go in. Super cool memories. On the wall between, there’s a picture of A. with Doc McStuffins. At the time, A. was carrying a stuffie around with her, and Doc gave the stuffie a checkup and I got a picture. Soooooo amazing. Being a Disney parent is the best.
A _different_ SK than the one above (the one above was CTO at the Zon; this SK also was at the Zon when I was there, and a decade and a half earlier, he was my next door neighbor and I used to stand on the fence between our houses and watch him do cartwheels up and down the driveway. I’m still very close to his younger sister) used to throw just massive parties and I went to a few. At one of them, I was wearing Wit and Wisdom, and it was a crush and Wit, in its sheath, was encountered by a young woman who felt it and grabbed it and wouldn’t let go. She yelled something about how I touched her, and I just kept repeating “Let go of my sword” until she did. It took a while; I wasn’t in a hurry. I don’t tell that story very often, and when I do, it’s to make the point that if you are dealing with someone who is stupid, altered and super confused about reality, you have to tell them in simple words exactly what you want them to do and repeat it unchanged until they comply. Works almost every time. The rest of the time is why you have other options from things like martial arts or whatever.
But it is, and has always been, an absolutely hilarious moment in my life.
I’ll probably add to this later.
Oh, I told the rest of the folks in the financial meeting that I had enough cloaks in the closet to supply one to everyone and have some spares, that got a laugh. Also, R. in the meeting said there’s a salle in Easthampton; perhaps I’ll look into that some day.
I had an early meeting, so R. brought her to school. The meeting went well, altho when I connected to it, I was a minute or two early, and the person who let me in was the only person there at the time and he asked if those were swords on my wall. I then unrolled my usual spiel, as other people arrived in the meeting, altho I did not get around to mentioning the names (Wit and Wisdom) or the other related items in the space that were not visible (A.’s lightsaber build and the cane from Museum Replicas), and how I very briefly took some fencing lessons to help with martial arts footwork but gave it up because it was so lane oriented and I didn’t want that kind of sport leakage and so forth. Also, cloaks.
Anyway. This is another story I probably should capture here in the blog at some point, but mostly, I just told the story and then we did the meeting, and after I was musing over the response to the story and I realized that in a nerd context, it’s a deeply hilarious story that clearly communicates a bunch of stuff about me that in nerd culture is basically fine. But in normie culture, and honestly, especially coming out the mouth of a middle-aged woman, it’s pretty weird. I may give some thought to how I tell that story.
We went to Beverly. We had extremely good beer at Indo. They have amazing taps, and also, they were crowded. Then we had overpriced Four Roses — we were aiming for manhattans but they didn’t have vermouth — at the Cabot Streetside bar, and then we sat down and listened to the Jayhawks. I love that venue (the seats are comfy). The band was fine. It rained the whole time we were headed in, but lightened up so we didn’t get soaked going from the car to Indo and then the Cabot. It was mostly done raining by the time the show was over.
I have a rapier with a pretty basket (“Wit”), and a matching, much simpler looking main gauche (“Wisdom” — because wisdom is hard fought or hard won or hard something anyway). I got them some time in the late 1990s/early oughts. For a long time, they hung on my dining area wall in the condo, and then they were in storage as I moved a few times and had very small children. I bought them from Museum Replicas, back when they had a paper catalog. Museum Replicas appears to still exist. I used to wear them to costume parties, along with a black cape that I no longer own (and boy am I glad I got rid of them — I had a grey one, too — , because the person who made them became really TERF-y). I also had a flat topped medium flat brimmed (“zorro style”) hat. I wore it as a “Zorra” (see what I did there) costume. One year, I wore it to work at the Zon, and SK took a look at it as we were sitting on the floor in a meeting (yeah, I don’t really remember why either) and asked if the swords were real (this is a question people ask). My answer then — and always — is that they do not have a sharpened edge. But otherwise, yeah, they’re real, and if you stuck it into someone, sharpened or not, it’d be real bad for them.
The idea of a rapier with a main gauche is that one strategy for dealing with the range of a long blade such as a rapier is to get in so close that the advantage is nullified. The main gauche — and this is part of how I tell this story — is to make it so that get-close strategy is a terrible idea. Otherwise, you’re stuck with an awkward hilt strike towards yourself and that just is hard to pull off. The main gauche lets you deal with someone who got close to you with poise and grace. Or something.
I also tell the story of briefly taking fencing lessons. I had finally started martial arts, and at that point I still had major proprioceptive issues (my instructor was clever enough to realize what was going on and guide my training in a direction that permanently fixed that problem which I will be grateful to him for my entire life). But I wasn’t worked, and I had time, so I found some kind of extension class that was inexpensive fencing lessons at a salle in Seattle (I think it was Salle Auriol, and they seem to still exist). Places like that will often sell blocks of introductory group lessons through extension and similar catalogs as part of recruitment. Anyway, it was fun, and the footwork, as anticipated, was very similar to what I was trying to learn. However, it was so lane oriented that I was concerned about sport leakage there and did not continue.
So, what is sport leakage? Well, if you are training in some sort of combat or fighting style, there are things that will be Against the Rules because they are really likely to maim somebody or whatever. There will also be other rules that arise for a bunch of sport specific reasons. Since my goal with martial arts training was not at all to ever compete, but rather something extremely different (“I’d like to be able to walk around Seattle in the middle of the night, and hang out with strangers in up-close-and-personal ways, and throw large parties with a lot of people I don’t know well, but also be able to protect myself, my friends, my stuff without having to go straight to shooting someone.” Because at the time, I already had a concealed pistol license.). Whatever you train for is what you are going to do when unexpected developments happen which require a prompt response, so I was very careful to make sure my training was appropriate to my intentions for that training. Which was not competition.
What else? Oh, there’s a light saber on the other wall of my office; A. did the light saber build activity but didn’t really care that much about the lightsaber so it hangs in my office, along with the picture of her and Chewie from when we were waiting to go in. Super cool memories. On the wall between, there’s a picture of A. with Doc McStuffins. At the time, A. was carrying a stuffie around with her, and Doc gave the stuffie a checkup and I got a picture. Soooooo amazing. Being a Disney parent is the best.
A _different_ SK than the one above (the one above was CTO at the Zon; this SK also was at the Zon when I was there, and a decade and a half earlier, he was my next door neighbor and I used to stand on the fence between our houses and watch him do cartwheels up and down the driveway. I’m still very close to his younger sister) used to throw just massive parties and I went to a few. At one of them, I was wearing Wit and Wisdom, and it was a crush and Wit, in its sheath, was encountered by a young woman who felt it and grabbed it and wouldn’t let go. She yelled something about how I touched her, and I just kept repeating “Let go of my sword” until she did. It took a while; I wasn’t in a hurry. I don’t tell that story very often, and when I do, it’s to make the point that if you are dealing with someone who is stupid, altered and super confused about reality, you have to tell them in simple words exactly what you want them to do and repeat it unchanged until they comply. Works almost every time. The rest of the time is why you have other options from things like martial arts or whatever.
But it is, and has always been, an absolutely hilarious moment in my life.
I’ll probably add to this later.
Oh, I told the rest of the folks in the financial meeting that I had enough cloaks in the closet to supply one to everyone and have some spares, that got a laugh. Also, R. in the meeting said there’s a salle in Easthampton; perhaps I’ll look into that some day.