Of course, this isn’t going to stop me from playing with makeup. I started doing it because it’s fun, and that’s why I’ll continue! Not on a daily basis, but I like to be the kind of person who does things in moderation. Extremes make me cranky, but indulging in beauty products every once in a while makes me happy. Doing things that make me happy is not a bad thing.

I think I’m back to rationality by now, but I have a dilemma with Google+ that I didn’t have with Facebook. Let me tell you a story.

When I began blogging and interacting on the Internet way back in the Stone Age, the rule of thumb was that you only gave out your real name if you were an adult in a tech geek message board. Children such as I used aliases, and email addresses were a vehicle to explore your creativity: what kind of words could you put together that were unique and cool? A few years ago I got rid of the aliases, because as much as I dislike my first name, I can’t figure out anything better. However, I won’t put my last name on the Internet, unless it’s in a “safe” space such as an email.

This worked out pretty well, and I’ve had my current Gmail address for 6 or 7 years, without attaching my last name to it. During college, I just used my college email address for all correspondence that required my last name. Now, however, I don’t have that email address anymore, so I had to get another Gmail account that I am willing to attach my last name to. (I also got the feeling that “real” adults out there weren’t going to be happy to have to email someone labelling themselves crowned.girl.) And so I’m faced with a Google+ dilemma.

My parents and one or two school friends have used my same Gmail address that I share with online friends for the last however many years, so it’s not like I’m hiding my “online identity” from them, so before I got a second address I gave some friends my old email address rather than the new. But I still want to keep the names separate, so here’s my Google+ dilemma: do I keep two separate accounts, one with my full name on it and one without? Do I just have one, like my Facebook account? Does that exclude people I would normally be friends with online?

Another thing to consider is the accounts. On my “online” Google+ account I have listed Sunbeam Soapbox and other links that I wouldn’t share in a so-called “professional” context. My hobbies are my business, and it seems like the most common excuse to search for someone’s name is when you’re thinking about hiring that person. See: being an unemployed recent grad.

The other thing to consider about sharing everything (see: Google’s mission in life) is what are we going to do with this information? Since Google+ is still in beta, still quite a bit like Facebook, there’s still a lot to be built. Part of the building is building how people are going to use it. If we see it as a second Facebook, that’s exactly how we’ll use it. Can’t it be better? Can it be a larger version of Twitter? Can we have discussions about growth? Can we actually talk to one another? (Facebook users, can I make a complaint?) What are we doing with this new site?

I’m still grappling with how to separate my email addresses, so you got me. I hope someone can figure something out someday.

Yesterday cauchy09 asked, can we talk about stuff again? The question seems to me not that big of a deal, but the discussion in the comments really flew from there. It was like everyone had been holding something in and all of a sudden were given a chance to air out their opinion on something that is a little more personal than whether you should use short-row heels or not. To start off the discussion she wrote, This morning I seem to be more annoyed than usual about the use of the terms scrapbusting and stashbusting.

I had never before thought about these terms, but this post and the discussion made me realize suddenly that I subconsciously avoid them. Jargon of the knitting world such as “stash” and “UFO”, with the exception of WIP and FO, never sat right with me. The assumptions of who a knitter is never sat well with me. Just because I knit, doesn’t mean I have a deep need to amass stash. (I can and have walked into and out of a yarn store without yarn. Used bookstores are another matter…) Just because I knit, doesn’t mean I have UFOs. Just because I knit doesn’t make me a process knitter or a product knitter. Just because I knit, doesn’t make me this type of person or that, and just because I knit doesn’t make me obsessed with knitting. Especially with the development of Ravelry, knitters on the Internet seemed to have said, “I found my people!” and promptly assigned certain characteristics that apply to every knitter, just because that’s “what this kind of people are like”.

So this discussion on “stash” and “stashbushing” prompted me to rethink how I think about knitting in general and knitters in specific. A few comments helped me put to words what I had been subconsciously feeling:

1. fridica responded with her dislike of “slog-alongs”, saying terming it “busting” or “slogging” makes it sound like you didn’t choose those yarns – like they were forced on you and now you have to get rid of them somehow.
2. Jane’s assertion that I also hate this idea that having a stash is a crime of some kind.
3. strikkelise’s amazing point that these words also make up “guilt talk”. Especially, especially her point about it being “a gender thing”: Women feel guilty buying things for themselves. This is true for so many things, and I can’t believe I never thought about applying it to knitting.
4. Finally, Diane LoDico’s comment yet again brought up the most important issue: other artists (such as painters and illustrators) do not speak with guilt about their supplies and materials. Is there something different about knitters and quilters and sewers that we have to feel guilty about our materials, or does it go back to the gender thing, that women feel guilty buying things?

What I originally wrote in response:

How provocative of you! I have always felt uncomfortable with term yarn “stash” and haven’t talked about stash much/ever on my own blog. I also don’t “stashbust” or hold off on knitting or fabric purchases because of some set amount I’m supposed to have. Granted, my budget keeps my purchases fairly small and infrequent, and it irritates me that people assume that if you’re a knitter, you have a stash. (See: practically mandatory stash section on Ravelry. If you have it filled out, it better be complete and accurate, and not because you want to link that yarn to a project or something… It’s like the stash section is up for grabs.) A lot of commenters have really insightful comments, such as Diane LoDico’s about painters and artists calling their supplies “stash”, and strikkelise’s about gender guilt. I’m certain to come back and see what else people come and write – more fuel for thought! :)

I’ve been thinking about it more and more since then, because all of a sudden I know why I avoid these terms. There is no need for guilt over my craft, and all of these words and ideas are strongly associated with guilt. Just because I have fabric I won’t use in the near future doesn’t mean I don’t love it or need it. Just because I have plans to buy new yarn before using the old doesn’t mean the old yarn doesn’t have value. It’s the same with “decluttering”: in my opinion, there should not be a guilt trip to declutter every couple of months. If you love the things you own, you have room for the things you own, you haven’t gone into debt for the things you own, what’s the problem? On the other hand, if stuff is stressing you out, feel free to get rid of it.

None of my family, my roommates, or my friends have ever heard the word “stash” uttered from me, nor will they. Nor do I have a chocolate “stash”. I unabashedly keep chocolate on hand and eat a piece or two a day, and I enjoy it. I have yarn and I have fabric on-hand, and that’s because I’m enchanted by textiles and there’s nothing wrong with that, nor will there ever be.

I managed to pick up even MORE letter writing paper while in Munich.

A friend of mine told me that she’s thinking about getting a stack of elegant letter paper before we leave. (I know! I can’t say the word “stationery” anymore. Too unused to it. Sorry.) I think she’s right. As well as a fountain pen, but she’s planning on asking for that when she graduates. I would rather get it here, while I can still play with the pens before I purchase.

Because where can you get fountain pens in a brick-and-mortar store in the United States? Haven’t seen many of them. I am going to really miss this corner of the world when I go back.

I need more people to correspond with, as my stacks of paper to write on get larger and larger. Problem: It takes something around two weeks for my letters to get places. Not exactly inspiring confidence. I’m a little worried about my plan to ship things home now, in fact. Maybe I need to take a quick trip to Germany in June to ship a box of stuff home.

I had a card waiting for me when I got back from Munich, too.

The one on the left is the one I received Friday, the one on the right I received a few weeks ago. I love how good they look sitting next to each other. How much they match. These two people are some of my most faithful correspondents, and I hardly send either of them anything. I really should be sending them more things. The one on the right? From my mom, sitting on top of a bunch of newspaper and magazine clippings she sent with the card. The left? From her best friend.

I am surrounded by love.

This means that I am over protective of my little brother, and that my least favorite game as a child was Monkey in the Middle. Too often my brother ended up the monkey, laughing delightedly at being included while the others laughed at him for not being able to catch the ball. That game made me so mad.

When I started making plans to go as far away as possible for college, my brother was the most against it. I thought he just didn’t understand that I am at the age where it’s time to leave the nest, so to speak. What I didn’t understand was that he still needs me. When I left, he was one of the most outspoken about how he was going to sit in my room and read, so long as I don’t mind. He’s probably the only one who has done that.

I don’t keep in contact with him as much as, say, my parents, but he knows I’m an e-mail or Gmail chat away. Last Friday as I checked my e-mail coming back from Munich, I was surprised to find an e-mail from him. He had sent me a “hey, what’s up” e-mail the week before, so I didn’t expect to hear much from him so soon afterward. The subject of this e-mail was the name of a friend of ours, leading me to worry that something had happened to him.

Something had happened to him all right, but it was something that shook my brother badly as well. He started off the e-mail saying, “I don’t know why you need to know this, but…” I almost laughed at that, because it’s exactly as self-effacing a beginning as I myself might have written. He went on to tell me what had happened: someone had vandalized our friend’s home. Not only TPing, but the words “F%$^ Jews” and swastikas were drawn on the lawn.

My brother, almost 14 years old, I learned later hasn’t been talking about this at home. Instead he came to me, overprotective elder sister, while I was on vacation, telling me that he was really scared that this is still happening, that hate crimes like this could be committed in our little town. Why am I not as much surprised?

I feel terrible, being so far away when my family needs me to be nearby. I just want to give my brother a hug. To give our friend a hug. I’m excited again that this friend is coming to Europe in June with my old German teacher, and I’m going to try my best to meet them here. I talked to my mom recently and apparently he, too, is scared. Scared that he might get beat up at school. The high school I went to. The high school my brother will go to in the fall.

That’s the part that stuns me. That at this high school, a dear friend of mine is worried about getting beat up because of how he was born. He isn’t even 100% Jewish, nor is he particularly religious (I don’t think). Neither are we, but to someone who doesn’t understand? We probably seem really Jewish. My dad is the only one in my family who’s “truly” Jewish, and we make up our own traditions out of Jewish and Christian holidays. We don’t go to a church or synagogue. But to people who simply hate Jewish people, does that matter?

You don’t think that that kind of hate still exists. I was shocked, at least. I thought the haters had moved on to LGBTQ people, not Jews. I thought we were over hating Jews. And yet I look back on my own behavior in very Catholic Austria: I am always very cautious as to whom I allow to know that I am not Catholic, or even Christian, and that I celebrate Jewish holidays. I am always wary about whether or not what I say will be judged, and that I will be stoned for my sins. (Or just hit on the head by a newspaper by a stranger, which we heard has happened.) So here, I can understand this kind of thing happening. I’ve just heard so many bad things about Austria. But in the little town at home?

I wish I could be there to give my family and friends some strength. I wish there were something I could do.

Rebee had a super idea yesterday: what if we put together a small group of people who like to write and create a web site for them to share their writings, just among this small group? It’ll be like a support group, but for creative writing. All right! I said. And since then she’s written about it on her blog and LJ and snatched two more people who are interested; we’ve spent much of today starting to get the web site set up. Now I have to make sure and ask here: Is there anyone who reads my blog who would be interested in joining us?

It’s a very low-key venture, just a group of people who like to write commenting on each others’ works. However, the point of the matter is that because we have this net of people to share with, we actually have to write. So if anyone likes to write but needs accountability to keep writing, let me know and I’ll hook you up!