Politics is doing my head in lately. I think some of that's because I'm spending more time on Twitter - I'm going to integrate myself into Fashion History Twitter if it kills me, and it will because it just reinforces that a) most of the other women who study this stuff are Drs and b) the professional fashion history scene in America is extremely twentieth-century-centric and that's why I'll never get hired in a costume collection - but also because it's accelerating as we head toward the primaries. We're going to have a FULL YEAR of a primary season that promises to be exactly as hellish as 2016, if not more so. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Finally cut out the sleeves and skirt for my bib-front gown. I added no width to the sleeve because the upper arm was the right size, and the lower arm is quite a close fit, which is how I assume it's supposed to be. I also didn't realize it's got that slightly-too-long-scrunched-up-above-the-wrist thing going on, because it's so slight. Very interesting! So the top of the gown is based on the trained bib-front pattern in RWD, and for the skirt I used the other, because it's straight panels and I don't have enough fabric to cut out gores. (Edit: Realized after going to bed that I do have the fabric to cut out gores, silly me.) Hopefully it all comes together. I don't know why it shouldn't but I'm always concerned. ktlovely, when is the event again? I don't know why I can't manage to remember. I thought it was April but I think I got it confused with the MANY conference that was partly held there last April - it's the 1812 weekend in June, right?

Will need to make a bonnet. Can't find any of my Lynn McMasters patterns (although since the failed CW spoon bonnet that had a very wrong brim shape I'm a little wary of the brand now), but I think I would need to draft something new for this period anyway. Maybe a casque? (NB: I've made two entire bonnets in my life and this will be a mess.)

I'm becoming more and more of a Hillary Clinton supporter, to be honest. Yes, she's more of a politician than an "authentic" person running solely to fix America, but it's killing me that nobody seems to realize that "authentic" is or can be a political rather than simply genuine move. It's just all so hyperbolic and personality-based while pretending not to be ... Hillary says things that aren't 100% true. So does Bernie. They are both career politicians. Bernie Saunders is not Mr. Smith going to Washington.

Was it awesome to hear Bernie say that nobody wants to hear about Hillary's emails? Yeah, but it's just as likely to be a calculated move as anything she does. He came out of it looking like he cares more about sense than politicking, and he didn't actually lose anything by it because Democrats don't care about her emails anyway. Having to continue to defend herself over her stupid emails makes her look good.

While Biden's showing in the debate did make me happy, the idea some have that the US needs to be basically the UN exhausts and depresses me. I am eagerly awaiting the moment the US stops being ~the superpower~ and falls like Rome and hoping that the moment is now because it would at least be interesting to live through it.

I started being interested in politics when I was about seventeen and basically it has taught me so far that there's no point to anything, you can hope as much as you want but even when the good things happen something will (want to) tear them down, so everything is bleak. Also I have a year left on my dad's health insurance and if we don't have proper socialized medicine then I don't know what I'll do.

I don't wish I were an actual Baby Boomer because I would not want to live through the 1970s and 1980s, but fuck I wish I could come of age in a time when I thought people could make the world better. Be a part of the two generations that saw people frequently be more successful than their parents, which made then decide it was OBVIOUSLY meant to be a constant in America and everyone should count on it.

(It must be mentioned that this has cheered me up enormously, though.)

Part of me wants to go read HP for some emotional comfort, part of me wants to read HP fic where everything is still terrible after DH and it takes them nineteen years to get to the point where all is well, damn it, for catharsis. Instead I'm reading a fic that's technically well written and centers on Teddy (yay) but has a bad tendency to epithet "the other man"/"the man" CONSTANTLY, as well as "the Gryffindor"/"the Slytherin".

ERIN. COMFORT ME.