Ditko Multi-Piece Design, 4th Grade Homework, Unicorn Blood, & Flu Vaccines

Costume Stuff

I have completed work on the multi-piece Ditko design! (Boots and mask are off-screen in the above image.)

I will probably order the shirt portion in a week or two, which–along with the mask and boots that are part of the order in process–will leave just the leggings and gloves. The only thing I am a bit sad about is that the leggings and gloves portion will not fit into a yard’s worth of fabric, despite my rotating and rearranging. That doubles the cost for that portion.

I might be able to make the leggings shorter at the base, considering that the boots will cover that part anyway.  I need to do some fresh measuring and maybe some experimenting with the black leggings I made way back when.

The Non-Costume Stuff: Fourth Grade Homework, Unicorn Blood, & Flu Vaccines

As I mentioned before,  most of my available time has been in the early morning, when the noise of sewing is unwelcome in my household. The daytime hours are all about going to work, of course, and the evenings have been about squeezing in my workouts, runs, and the jump in homework time that my daughter is experiencing as part of starting fourth grade!

I also got my annual physical exam yesterday, as “encouraged” by my health insurance. I get strangely interested in my blood work results nowadays. Probably a sign of old age. (The results are all good, in case you were wondering. My blood is kind of like unicorn blood: immensely pure and possessed of magical healing properties.)

The doctor, as usual, encouraged me to get the flu vaccine. I have never gotten the flu vaccine. But then, I’m not sure that I’ve ever gotten the flu either. If I ever contracted the flu, it had to have been back in high school. I don’t see much reason to get the flu vaccine.

Here’s my logic:

A) Point: The flu virus evolves year to year
B) Point: Due to the evolution of the flu virus, the vaccine in a given year is a “best guess” vaccine based on last year’s flu strain.
C) Point: In any given year (to date), I will have not gotten the flu the previous year…
D) Therefore, my antibodies were sufficient to prevent the previous year’s flu strain.
E) Therefore, my body’s antibodies are at least as effective at preventing the flu as the current flu vaccine formulation.
F) Conclusion: There is no reason for me to get a flu vaccination.

I can’t claim that this theory is based on any real medical or scientific evidence. But it makes perfect sense to me. Plus, stating things like this to my girlfriend is always a fun way to make her shake her head and roll her eyes at me.

 Happy Hump Day Everyone!

Interlude: A “How Does Spidey Do That” Post

So, while I’m out of town and unable to do any actual work on the costume, I figured it was time for another “How Does Spidey Do That?” post. Today’s topic: the disappearing belt and webshooters.

So, here’s another pic from the 70’s TV version of Spidey, starring Neil Hammond. First of all, let me say that the kid/Spidey fan side of me still thinks this costume is awesome. And even objectively, there is so much classic and right about it. It has the classic colors and pattern, the classic eyes (this is one of my favorite interpretations of the eyes), and it doesn’t have the obnoxious raised webbing. I would even say that the homemade nature of this version is more in keeping with the idea of a teenager making the costume, even though it probably had more to do with budget and perhaps the sewing technology of the time. {shrug}

Anyway, note the visible web cartridge belt and web shooter (singular). The unitiated may think that this is rather a strange addition to the Spidey suit, but other than the singular web shooter, the belt and web shooter are actually somewhat canonical. I mean, their existence is canonical, even if they are rather bulky and–according to the comic book–intended to be hidden beneath the costume.

But that gets to the point of this post. Even assuming you could slim down the web shooter(s) and belt, how in the heck could they be “hidden” beneath a skin tight spandex suit?

Again, there are certainly plenty of other “suspensions of disbelief” to worry about, but for some reason this aspect bothered me, even as a kid.

Just chalk it up to another of Spidey’s unnamed powers. I guess it’s also what allows him and other super heroes to avoid showing any “boxer lines” or other undesirable evidence of what lay beneath those snug suits.

Pre-Visualizing Upcoming Tasks (because I can’t afford to do them for real yet)

Trash Talking My Sewing Projects as Path to Success 

I have written before about my almost entirely stubbornness-based personality. I even tried to make the case that I can use my stubbornness in place of patience. I think this is true in a manner of speaking, but a more accurate way to put it might be that I use my stubbornness as persistence, which is a little different.

The reason I am splitting hairs here is that there is an aspect of patience that I definitely lack, and that I am always trying to get a hold on both in my work projects–which involve web design and web programming–and my home projects, which, of course, have involved a lot of sewing lately.

Persistence is important. I mean, persistence as in the “try, try again,” “get back up on that horse,” “practice makes perfect,”, etc. kind of thing. When you’re trying anything new or different, you won’t get very far if you give up at the first sign of difficulty, if you don’t do it perfectly right away.

That is where my stubbornness/persistence serves me well. I take it as a personal affront when I run into obstacles, when I can’t get something right. “Oh yeah, sewing project? That’s how it is, huh? I don’t think so. It’s on, baby.” (I don’t literally trash talk my sewing projects. Well…maybe a little bit. But it’s best that I restrict my trash talk to inanimate objects and concepts, since I am not very good at it.)

But  my stubbornness can also do me a disservice, can fail to substitute properly for patience.

There’s another kind of patience, perhaps a purer blend. I think it is aptly summed up in a phrase that feels tailor-made for sewing (See what I did there? Ha.): “Measure twice, cut once.”

The problem with my dogged persistence is that it is not easily balanced by patient preparation. I usually start out pretty eager and bold when it comes to starting something new, like sewing, and after what is clearly not enough preparation, I dive right in. I do spot research here and there, especially at the beginning, but as time goes by, and I run into trouble, I become more and more likely to take a “beat my head against the wall,” “do the same thing over and over again expecting different results” approach.

Source: http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-and-bang-your-head-against-the-wall.png

I can freely admit that this ill-advised manner of doing things is the dark side of stubbornness, an odd permutation of the stereotypical “man won’t stop and ask for directions” gene. (It is a stereotype, but it sums me up pretty well, and doesn’t go well with my horrible sense of direction. Thank goodness I have my GF around to enable me by always knowing which way to go, and my GPS when she’s not around.)

But the thing is, I can’t afford to take that approach with sewing for too long. And when I say that I “can’t afford it,” I mean that literally. Fabric and thread cost money! And Lycra Spandex is among the more expensive fabrics, in addition to being unique enough in nature that I can’t get the practice I need with stuff from the discount table. I can only afford so many “practice mistakes.”

Upping the Ante

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have begun the ordering process for the professionally screen printed costume fabric. By sometime around the end of the month, I will receive in the mail a 58″ X 85″ (ish) hunk o’ 4 way stretch Lycra Spandex with my Ditko Spidey costume design printed on it. Non-returnable even at that point, much less after I start cutting into it.

I will need to cut out the pieces–main body/front of mask, sides of neck/mask, arms, palms, thumbs–and sew it all together into a single bodysuit with invisible zippers on the back of the neck (for being able to pull the hood forward off my head) along the sides of the torso and the bottom of the back of the “belt.” And possibly invisible zippers on the undersides of the wrists as well, so I can free my hands when needed.

I cannot afford to make any mistakes (well, any that I can’t undo with a seam ripper).

Enforced Patience

When I bought my first car years ago, I had the most powerful tool in my pocket that I could have: a lack of funds. I was willing to walk away from the initial deals offered by the good cop/bad cop team of salesman and mysterious back office manager because I literally and truly could not afford more than a certain amount.

I am similarly being forced to be patient–to not dive in head-first–at this juncture in my Costume Quest. I can’t really even do hands-on practice a the moment. I will be returning my borrowed machine soon, and really need to do my practice on the new machine anyway, which my GF and I cannot afford to get until the second half of the month.

And, of course, the ordering and processing of the pro printed costume fabric is taking long enough that I will have to wait to jump into that for a week or two after getting the new machine.

This was supposed to be about a work payday, but then I saw this. Mmm. Payday. I used to love these…

So, what I’m saying is, thank goodness for enforced waiting, for time on my hands in which I am being forced to not only practice while I wait, but wait before I practice.

Why is that a good thing? Because this is forcing me to do the sort of preparation that I am horrible at unless forced. I need to research, to read about invisible zippers and watch videos of people doing them, view tutorials, figure out what the likely mistakes and missteps are so that I can avoid them. I need to get back to the basics of measuring and cutting and pinning and basting.

Those are the things I am horrible at doing while I am in the thick of a project. If I had everything on hand right now–suit fabric, new machine, invisible zippers, time (almost as rare a commodity as money sometimes!)–there’s a really good chance I would spend 5 or 10 minutes preparing before diving right in and regretting it within half an hour.

So, bring on the delays! They will do me a world of good!

The Practice of Waiting to Practice Begins

I have already reviewed a couple of tutorials on Invisible Zippers. They are by the same person/site, but one is a video and one is a picture/text tutorial, both by Coletterie. And I already understand way more than I did about invisible zippers! (A good sign. If you ever understand less about something after a tutorial, it probably wasn’t a good tutorial. )

In conclusion: I like to think that I am capable of being very patient when I have absolutely no other choice.

Next: You’ll have to be patient to find out (which is just me trying to cleverly (and thematically) cover up the fact that I don’t know what’s next).

 

In Memoriam: The Short-Lived Spidey Shirt

Two-Fabric Spider-Man Shirt: July 6, 3 pm to July 6, 7:30 pm

It’s still a little soon to talk about it without getting too emotional, but–well, I feel it’s important that I do, that I talk about it. So here goes.

On a whim, needing a weekend project, I got a yard of red spandex, thinking I would experiment with making a shirt for my DIY costume with two fabric colors, since the red-on-black screen printing hadn’t worked.

I never really expected much, and those expectations didn’t change much as I started the patterning and cutting of the fabric. At every step, I was like “This will never work.” But then it started to come together.

A young life, bursting with such promise, such potential.

I began assembling the fabric, sewing the black and the red in one of the most infuriating puzzles I have ever done. There were obstacles, flaws, but I kept pushing through. And miraculously, it kept coming together.

It wasn’t perfect. There were blemishes, but I barely saw them. And soon, against all odds, I had made something…something wearable:

 

I was so content, so pleased that my little project had exceeded my low expectations. Where I had expected never to make it past the shirt stage, I was now excited about making a red mask, gloves, and boots, figuring out how to get black web lines on them… All I had to do was add a higher collar to the shirt.

This was the beginning of the end…

It started out okay. Remembering what a pain a one-piece, one seam collar had been last time, I opted for a two piece, side seams collar. Soon enough, I was starting on the second part of the two part collar.

And then I noticed what I had done: I had started sewing it on inside out. My rather pretty seam attaching the collar to the shirt was on the inside, the rather not-pretty seam allowance edges on the outside.

But I wasn’t ready to give up. Like a doctor determined to save a dying patient, I boldly sliced off the mis-sewn collar and measured out a new, wider-based collar, this time a one-piece. I pinned it halfway on and started sewing, being sure to have the seam right side out.

What I should have also been sure of were my measurements.

I had somehow mis-measured by a good three inches! And I hadn’t even noticed! Or maybe I had sewn it on upside down (the top was smaller in circumference than the bottom, of course). Either way, I had messed up the collar. Again. Twice. Within minutes.

I still tried to salvage it, adding an extra piece of fabric in the gap and sewing it all together. But even if one could ignore the extra, off-center seam in the back, it was a disaster. The top was too big, didn’t fit even close to tightly on the neck.

It was over.

The Aftermath

I’m not completely joking about being sad about the loss of the shirt. I was very excited that it even came close to coming together! I really had little hope as soon as I started trying to piece it together. So it was that much harder when I made something wearable and then ruined it at the end.

But I have had to remind myself that it was not really all that well done even before the collar incident. The sharp cornered parts of the black on the sleeves and the front caused pinching where they were attached to the red. The seams were pretty wrinkly overall, as it was very hard to match up the edges of the red and the black pieces in general, but especially at the curvy parts. I had even snipped a piece out of the visible portion of the red near a black corner on the front and covered it with heavy seam of red thread to reinforce it, knowing it looked ugly.

So, all of that does soften the blow of the final death of the shirt. And, as always, I learned some things to use going forward, and learned some things that I need to learn:

1) Is there a way to sew together those sharp corners without pinching of the fabric?

2) Is there a way to match up those curves without puckering and pinching at the seams?

[Note: In between 2 and 3, I leaned back in my office chair and very nearly fell all the way over. That would have been a fitting addition to the tragedy being discussed.]

3) Would it have been better to sew the black on top of the red directly with technically visible but neat black  seams?

4) Would I solve a lot of my woes with a proper table for cutting and piecing fabric, and just generally better methods for doing so? (I can’t help but feel like it is sometimes my hasty and imprecise cutting and piece that results in poor sewing results. Not to mention, cutting and piecing on the floor or the futon really hurts my knees and my back. And my neck. That has nothing to do with me being old, okay?)

Anyway, a learning experience as always. And good general sewing practice. When it comes to the actual time at the machine, I feel like I have developed much greater control in working with spandex, guiding it, working closer to the edges. Still, I would like to research better methods for cutting, assembling, and pinning my patterns.

I also hope that the new machine will allow me to do stitch-basting on spandex. This machine won’t put a straight stitch into the Lycra, or even a gentle enough zigzag for easy removal. By the time I get it to do a seam that will go in, it’s a seam that won’t come out. I think a crawling type presser foot will help.

Okay. That’s it for today. Soon, I need to do some practice more specific to the upcoming final costume build from the pro-printed fabric.

Next: Getting Ready for Invisible Zippers

 

 

Back to the Costume: Affording Obsessions & Practicing While Waiting

All right. I’ve been waxing random for a few posts while getting some balls rolling with the costume, but there are at least a few semi-interesting tidbits to report.

Swords Into Plowshares–or at least Tablets into Sewing Machines (That’s pretty much the same thing, right?)

Fun fact: sewing machines aren’t free.

For those who missed this particular fact: What sewing I’ve done on this project up to now has been done on a borrowed sewing machine. The co-worker/friend who lent it to me is awesome (and not just because she made possible a long-term loan on a sewing machine), but the machine is one her mom uses when visiting, and the next visit is coming up in August, so it is about time to move on.

This is kind of exciting, though, because the machine is a pretty basic one, and I have been making both mental and actual lists of the features I will be excited to have on a new machine, including lots of pre-programmed stitches (including a proper stretch stitch!), multiple presser feet (including ones that make sewing slippery fabrics like spandex easier), and easier handling and monitoring of that darn bobbin (on the current machine, I know it’s about to run out at the exact moment that it runs out, which I guess means I have no idea when it’s about to run out).

The Proposed New Machine: very button-y

But the hesitation in getting a machine is–well as I said above: they cost money. So I did something I wouldn’t have imagined I would ever do just a few months ago: I sold my Android tablet for money toward a sewing machine.

It also helps that my GF has thought about getting a machine as well, so we’re going halfsies on it in the second half of this month.

I’m pretty excited. Another thing I wouldn’t have believed just a few months ago, i.e. that I could be excited about a sewing machine.

The Coming of the Costume 

I’ve begun another step: the ordering of the Ditko Costume Design Fabric Printing.

I say “begun,” because it will take 10+ days for processing and shipping, with a few days ahead of that for me to receive and approve a printed swatch sample (which just seems like a good idea before I finalize the un-returnable purchase of the final printing!).

I decided to go with the all-in-one bodysuit style the template is designed for. Even though in comparative terms, getting the fabric professionally printed is not a bad deal, it is not an insignificant enough cost that I am willing to risk an untested sewing pattern.

And I just couldn’t resist going with the Ditko design for the first pro printing. I am really curious to see how it turns out.

I am still toying with other ways to do a totally DIY-at-home costume, but more on that later.

Making the Most of the Wait

So, between waiting to get the sewing machine in the second half of the month, and waiting for the completion of the ordering and processing of the pro printed fabric, I’ve got some time on my hands. But it’s a good thing. I’ve got plenty of practicing and preparation to do before I’m ready to start cutting, assembling, and sewing that pro printed fabric.

Work Space

I’ve started with readying my workspace. I rearranged my office–including swapping desks with my daughter–so that I can stop taking up the living room floor and our dining table when I’m sewing.

My daughter always liked my desk (now hers), with its shelves and drawers and cabinets, and her desk (now mine) boasts a larger, flat surface that will accommodate the sewing machine.

The office (also a guest room) has a futon that I can flatten out to get a large space for laying out and working with fabric. It’s at least a little higher than the floor.

Ideally, I need to get maybe some kind of large but lightweight piece of wood paneling to lay out so I have a flatter, firmer surface. But, baby steps.

Below is…not my work space. But isn’t it lovely? Someday…

Pictured: NOT my sewing workspace. {sigh…} Source: https://elishevashoshana.files.wordpress.com

Supplies

I could use a mannequin-head type thing for working with the mask.

Great for making Spidey masks and for doing pranks!

I’ll also need plenty of good thread in the right colors, so I don’t have to make lots of trips in the middle of the whole process of assembling and sewing.

I could use more pins/a better pin container (the pin cushion can be a bit annoying when limited to one hand I think).

Invisible zippers.

Eventually: I need to choose some materials for making the eye frames/lenses and soles for the “boots.”

Practice

I could use as much general practice as possible on less risky/cheaper stuff before digging into the pro-printed fabric, but I really need to put in some time sewing invisible zippers. Especially considering I’ve only ever sewn one zipper ever, and it wasn’t an invisible zipper. But it turned out okay, actually. And I didn’t even use a zipper foot.

Zipper? I don’t see any zipper here… Source: http://media.coletterie.com

It would also be nice to do some of that practice on the new machine. It looks like it will arrive a good week or more ahead of the pro printed fabric, the way things are going, so that should give me a chance to familiarize myself with the new machine.

And I should think it will be easier rather than harder to use. As grateful as I am to have had the loaner, it is very basic, with few bells and whistles, so I should think I’ll be delighted with the new one. But then, there’s always that “Ugh. This is different.” factor.

So…as much Patience as Progress at the moment, but hey, Onward & Upward, as they say. (Someone says that, right?)

Up Next: Practice Project Progress

 

 

Comic Heroes versus Real Life Heroes Part II: The Conclusion

Google’s Carboard + Smartphone =Virtual Reality. Source: http://thenextweb.com/

Virtual Reality is a big thing now. Again. Like many technologies, it comes and goes, and sometimes it’s just not ready, not good enough or useful enough for anyone to care (see Virtual Boy). Who can say whether it will catch on this time, whether in the form of Google’s DIY style project, or the more high end, Facebook-backed Oculus Rift.

But–if you will allow me to be a bit corny–we have had virtual reality almost since our ancestors had the ability to speak. Stories have been our built-in VR functionality since the beginning.

I’m not just talking about the concept of stories “transporting us to new worlds” and “other times and places” and so on. I’m talking about stories serving as sort of life simulators, laboratories, testing grounds. Stories are no substitute for actual life experiences, but they allow us to get a taste of aspects of the human experience that we have yet to experience for real, or that we just can’t or aren’t likely to experience due to locale, gender, sexual preference, mentality, beliefs, the nature of reality (stories can change that too), era, lack of radioactive spiders to give us the proportionate strength, speed, and agility of a spider…

Fictional  Hero Stories as Moral & Ethical Simulators

“Experience is the best teacher.” That’s a phrase that has been around for a long time, and I think most of us would generally agree with the spirit of it. But I think it’s important to think past its platitudinous nature, consider that there are certainly other ways to teach and be taught. You could even say that there are certain types of experiences that are “high risk” enough that learning from them might be the last thing you do.

“Oh crap. Parachute. I knew I forgot something. Oh well. Experience is the best teacher.” Source: http://www.skydive.tv/

For example, certainly nothing compares to the “experience” of a pitched wartime battle, but it is probably not the best place for a soldier to learn to fight. Falling alone into deep water will certainly inspire one like nothing else to try and learn to swim, but failure doesn’t exactly leave much chance for lesson number 2.

Luckily, there are ways to “experience” things before the actual experience of them, and stories are one way that people–especially children–can engage in certain aspects of life, mentally and emotionally sample those aspects ahead of the actual experience, or as a supplement to those actual experiences.

I wrote in my last post about all the years I spent as a kid with Peter Parker aka Spider-Man (among other characters in comics and books) as he went through his many struggles and trials and triumphs, faltering and sometimes failing, but always getting back up to keep on keeping on, having learned that any of us who has the power to do something, to help, has a responsibility to do so.

Source: http://www.chasingamazingblog.com

That kind of “virtual” experience through fiction is very powerful, and very valuable. For a child especially, it is a “safe place” to sample aspects of the human social, moral, and ethical experience. But beyond being “safe,” it is also a way to explore situations and scenarios that we might have yet to experience due to age or circumstance, or–as stated above–situations and scenarios that we can only experience via fiction because of who and where we are in the world, or the nature of the world itself.

So, to bring this back to the topic of Fictional Heroes… That “virtual reality” experience allows us to have Virtual Heroes. So, how do these VR Heroes compare to IRL (In Real Life) Heroes?

VR Heroes versus IRL Heroes

VR Heroes: Peering through the Window

First, here’s an interesting advantage of Fictional Heroes: With fictional heroes, comic heroes in particular, we are privy to their internal thoughts and feelings as well as their external words and actions.

Since I love analogies so much, let me try this one out. With IRL people, it can be like trying to learn math by seeing the problem and the solution, but not the method and steps for achieving that solution.

But our VR Heroes show their work, as it were. We get to see the stages they go through as they try to work out, their behind the scenes tirades and breakdowns, their internal monologues (Spider-Man in particular is great at internally monologuing). We see that, so often, the path from a moral, ethical, or personal conflict is not a straight line, but is rather a crooked path, a roller coaster. A well-written fictional hero does not always instantly decide what’s right and do it. He or she waffles and second guesses and missteps and makes mistakes and apologizes and tries again and often just gets it wrong in ways that can’t be undone.

Source: http://www.epic-randomness.com

Obviously, IRL Heroes do the same. I’m not saying they don’t. I’m just saying that we rarely see that side of our real life heroes.

So, is that good? Bad?

IRL Heroes: Intuiting and Thinking for Ourselves

The thing about having something laid out for you completely is that it doesn’t leave much room for you to learn to work things out for yourself.

A big part of life is making observations and intuiting, extrapolating, interpreting. A big part of understanding people–as individuals and in general–is making efforts at communicating, having to work at getting a look at that internal world, the behind the scenes stuff that is so nicely and conveniently laid out for us in comics and other fiction.In that struggle to communicate with others, we learn more than we could ever learn just be reading about relationships, where the communication is so often either extremely smooth or ludicrously hard. (How many times have you been reading a book or watching a movie and  thought to yourself “You know, a lot of this conflict could have been avoided by these people just freaking talking to each other”?)

Ultimately, while there is so much to learn from the IRL person’s experience, that experience is theirs, not ours. We need to draw our own conclusions, apply those lessons to our own experience. And sometimes, the lessons we learn from those external observations are superior to what we might learn from knowing the reality of that person’s internal world. Maybe Joe Hero chose to run into that burning building because he saw news cameras nearby and wanted notoriety, but I could be inspired to put others safety before my own because what I observed appeared to be an act of great selflessness.

Super Sponsorship: Booster Gold (he gets better) Source: http://tvmedia.ign.com

Splitting the Difference

I should hope it’s apparent by now that there is a lot to learn from either VR Heroes or IRL Heroes, and even more to learn from both.

Fictional heroes are a great way to simulate and try out aspects of the human experience, morality and ethics and heroism and pain and struggle and inspiration… But that alone is not a substitute for life, for relationships, for experience.

Heaven forbid any of us live our lives based solely on the lessons and representations and expectations inherent in fiction, in comics. We can see the follies of that approach in our reactions to media of all kinds: women and men alike expecting fairy tale love and marriage to just happen without effort, women and men trying to match some generic, outwardly decreed ideal of appearance, and on and on.

Real life heroes are inspiring and wonderful, but flawed, and apt to fail us. But that in itself is a lesson. We have to learn that people do fail us. People fall and get back up again, but people also fall and give up, don’t bother to get back up.

And we have to learn not to blame those people for our own actions. Just because our role models, our heroes, might end up ultimately being weak doesn’t mean we have to be. It doesn’t change the lessons we learned or the strength we gained from their examples in the first place unless we let it.

So, ultimately, yes, it is incredibly valuable to have “safe” ways to learn about life and living, virtual heroes that don’t fail us, or whose failure only matters very little. It is important that we learn to fight in some other way than being thrown into the thick of war.

But it is also important that we apply those experimental lessons, compare and extrapolate and ask and do and try and fail and learn in real life.

What it comes down to is this: have your In Real Life Heroes. Learn from them, be inspired by them. Just don’t confuse them with your Fictional Heroes who rarely fall. Because ultimately, they are as human as you are.

Next: Yes, I’m done being all preachy and pseudo-philosophical for a while and maybe I’ll actually talk about costume related stuff…

 

Flattered, Humbled, & Disqualified

So, fellow blogger MachineGunMama–in addition to having one of the awesomest blog handles in the history of blog handles–kindly nominated me for an inspiring blogger award. This was way too kind, and honestly, I am afraid I have to disqualify myself, because I am unable to meet the criteria: In all honesty, I don’t consistently follow 15 blogs to be able to list them as part of the criteria for accepting.

Thus I must respectfully decline on those grounds (in addition to feeling undeserving in the first place), but I remain flattered and grateful. Heck, I’m just happy that anyone reads about my crazy quest to make a Spider-Man costume (or two or three).

MGM not only reads and comments, she encourages and supports, and of course inspires with her own obvious tenacity and passion in the face of her own life’s obstacles, be they parenting fears, financial stressors, moving to unknown realms, or stubbornly facing the frustration of daunting hobbies.

Come to think of it, what are you doing here reading this crap? Go read her blog instead. And I do want to mention those other blogs/bloggers that have been inspiring, encouraging, and supportive, even though there aren’t 15 of them:

1) So Sew Easy, for really giving me a great place to start with sewing and making patterns and encouraging me along the way.
2) Dinuvole Dicuori for stopping in with enthusiastic and supportive comments
3) LongBox Graveyard for resources and darn fine reading

And just anyone who reads and likes and/or comments (or just reads without me ever knowing!) and generally makes me feel like someone’s listening. Because as much as I like to hear myself talk, it’s always flattering when someone else seems to actually be paying attention as well.

And if you are still reading… One of the criteria for accepting the nomination was to list seven facts about yourself. I had already gotten that far before realizing that I couldn’t meet the rest of the criteria, so here they are anyway, in case you’re interested.

Seven facts about me

1. I think of myself as a Nihilist in Remission/pseudo-Existentialist. Because, really, Nihilism is kind of a non-starter when it comes down to it, isn’t it?

Feeling inspired yet? 🙂

2. Once I had my daughter, I finally “got” what my mom was always trying to explain to me about the feelings and perspectives of being a parent. My daughter is one of the things that put my Nihilism in Remission.

3. I have 7 tattoos. And I still have to mentally count them before stating how many I have. And I am not convinced that I don’t have one more that I am forgetting about…

4. I’ve been told I look like the following people at various points in my life: John Denver; Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver); Sting; “A Dungeons & Dragons Character”(?); Peter Parker (but that was after the first Tobey Macguire movie so let’s pretend that didn’t happen); Bob Harper (Biggest Loser); “German” (that one’s kind of non-specific)

5. I’ve had the following nicknames: BAM (my initials); Benjie (what my mom wanted me to be called, which calls into question the aforementioned love); Spot (by one friend in high school who thought that was a funny “dog name” alternative to “Benjie”); “Cool Daddy Ben” (by one friend in junior high due to some sunglasses I sometimes wore); “Leonardo da Benjie” (by one friend in junior high, in reference to my so-called artistic talents); “Bensu–the Wind” (by a friend in college for reasons I can’t remember–but we thought it was hilarious at the time…)

6. I have a third nipple in place of a belly button. I like to make things up for no particular reason.

7. Around fourth grade, I made serious plans for how I could realistically become a super hero (it involved Iron Man style armor). Nothing came of it. (But even if it had worked out, I couldn’t tell you, because that would compromise my secret identity.)

That’s it for today.

Next time, I’ll get back to those reasons my heroes are super heroes.

Super Hero Hipsters Unite–or whatever

I don’t know if I count as a super hero hipster or not. I just had a funny thought about those among us who “liked super heroes before they were cool.”

Certainly super heroes and comic characters in general have been in popular culture for many decades now, and it’s not like they have only just entered the mainstream media in recent years. As I referenced in my last post, there have been movies and TV shows–even popular, well-received ones like Christopher Reeves’ Superman–for quite a while. But the level of mainstream-ness seems to have increased exponentially in recent years, after what I see as some fits and starts in the late 80’s (Burton’s Batman) and 90’s (the Batman movies that we will not speak of, TMNT, Dick Tracy, etc.).

But it seems that Raimi’s Spider-Man, Singer’s X-Men, and Nolan’s Batman mark the points where super heroes really started getting some traction, leading to Iron Man, Captain America and the other facets of the soon-to-be Marvel MovieVerse, and ultimately to what I see as a crucial mainstream breakthrough with Whedon’s Avengers.

As great as Nolan’s gritty, realistic Batman movies were, Whedon’s Avengers was–to me–the first truly successful “pure” super hero movie. Nolan went almost too far in selling Batman as “realistic” (I know, I know, but it’s all relative, right?). But The Avengers made no apologies in presenting bigger-than-life, over-the-top SUPER heroes that managed to please honest-to-god comic fans and mainstream audiences alike.

But way before any of that, it wasn’t so “cool” to like super heroes. In fact, geekery in general has weaseled its way into the mainstream. It’s not entirely due to the success of movies and shows, I don’t think. I feel like the new generation is more accepting of others’ interests in general, as well, having moved beyond a lot of the old definitions of “cool.”

There was a sort of theme in the movie “21 Jumpstreet,” where the adult undercover cops are sent to pose as high schoolers to uncover a drug ring. One of the two characters was a dork in his actual high school years, and the other was a cool jock. But the jock is dismayed to discover that what was cool when he was a teenager has become uncool, and the dork is pleased to discover that he is now in a position to be one of the cool kids!

 

This is, of course, exaggerated for laughs, but there is a lot of truth to it. Muscle cars are not so cool now amid widespread climate change concerns, and making fun of others for their differences is becoming less acceptable. That includes the difference of geekery.

I’m not saying extreme cosplay and LARPing and D&D are all being practiced in harmony by jocks and dorks together in some kind of Geektopia, but I do see a huge difference from how things were when I was a kid.

Anyway…this was going to be about why I like comic super heroes… I don’t have time to elaborate on these points below in this post, but this is at least a rough outline that I will expand upon next time…

1) Real people heroes are fallible and–well, real

2) Moral Lessons–that are not as simple as one might presume

3) Ever-changing culture time capsule

Next: 50% More words; Same Low Price

The Gambler versus the Parent

The Gambler

Let me start with a story from when I was in grade school. I was probably in 1st grade, possibly 2nd, and I had just started learning to ride a bike without training wheels. My family lived in the housing of a private college campus, a relatively small and self-contained place, objectively, but to us “campus kids,” it was a pretty big place, full of adventure.

There are plenty of other stories to tell about that campus kid life, but this one is about the Time I was Hit by a Car Driven by Kenny Rogers.*

* Spoiler Alert: Not really Kenny Rogers

He didn’t look like this then, but this pic was too awesome not to post.

I was riding my bike among the buildings in an older part of campus, and took a corner around a particular building, headed the wrong way down a one way street. Turns out a car was headed the right way around the corner at the same time.

Again, I was just learning to ride–and have never been known for things like coordination and reflexes. I don’t know how much time there was to hit the brakes or swerve, but my inexperienced, 1st grade body did the best thing it could come up with and just slammed right into the front bumper of the car. I think I might have actually pitched forward onto the hood a bit, but memory does tend to dramatize these things.

Anyway, the driver did have reflexes, luckily, and had braked somewhat. He probably hadn’t been going that fast anyway. I was fine, just shaken up. Especially when I looked up at that driver as he got out of the car and it was Kenny Rogers.

Okay, okay. It wasn’t really Kenny Rogers. But my first grade self was at least half-convinced it was, even after my dad assured me it was just some older student of the college (there were a fair number of older married students there).

Strangely, everyone else seemed more focused on the fact that I had gotten sorta kinda hit by a car than that this was clearly Kenny Rogers. And since I was fine, a lot of the focus of this scenario was the fact that I had been going the wrong way down a one way street and that was dangerous and so on and so forth.

This experience would serve as a valuable lesson in safety and awareness that would one day lead to me wrecking three cars in the five years after I started driving.

In any case, my point is this: That guy who hit me on my bike looked just like Kenny Rogers (a small part of my brain still thinks maybe Kenny lived a secret part of his life there at that college campus with that family…). And Kenny Rogers sang the song The Gambler. And The Gambler has an important lesson:

You gotta know when to hold ’em,
Know when to fold ’em,
Know when to walk away,
Know when to run.

The Parent

The lesson from the Gambler doesn’t apply to parenting, generally speaking. I mean, I’m sure you could come up with a scenario, or a way of looking at it, in which it does apply. But that would ruin my cleanly dichotomous contrast here, so just work with me, okay?

I have a 9 year old girl. She’s not–whatever I might often say–perfect. She doesn’t always clean her room (as in, never unless I make her). She doesn’t always remember to turn in her homework. (Though she pretty much always remembers to do it and does a very good job of it because she’s a freakin’ genius. She’s not perfect, but she is a genius, all right?)

Anyway, our children are not perfect, but we don’t just one day up and “fold ’em” and “walk away” (though yes, there are days we want to “run”).

Again, we could take this whole comparison farther, and talk about how much of the parenting experience comes from “the hand that we are dealt” and how much of it is a result of our own example and decisions as a parent, which cards we choose to trade in for other cards and yada yada…

But really, it’s not some formula or set of rules or whatever. We stick to it because we are wonderfully irrational about our children. Love is like that. Especially parental love. When it comes to our children, we’ll keep putting all our money back in the pot based on a pair of two’s because, I mean, gosh, that’s my little girl, and I’d bet on her every time.

Wait, isn’t this blog something to do with a DIY Spider-Man Costume?

Oh yeah. This was supposed to be about my DIY Spider-Man costume.

I was originally intending to make some comparison and analogy and somethin’ somethin’ about two ways of going forward with my costume, and got carried away.

I am at a point of decision here, having started the official screen printing on the official costume shirt:

Eh…not perfect, but okay so far…

Ouch… Hope that dries to match…and can that be touched up…?

Oh. Uh. I…yikes.

Here’s where I think the analogy comes in, the competing perspectives. I go back and forth between looking at the costume as the Parent and looking at it as The Gambler.

As the Parent, I overlook the rough edges–and I mean that literally, not figuratively–and the glaring spots of mismatched color, the not quite matched up web pattern (though I came closer to matching that up than I thought possible!)…

As the Gambler, I do notice those flaws, and also think about how those will continue, and magnify, and how the odds are that I will invest x number of hours (in addition to what I have invested already) and x number of dollars (in addition to what I have invested already) only to fight a losing battle. The odds of getting not just a particular screen print pattern correctly applied are slim enough, but to get each applied correctly and matching the other ones…

Know when to fold ’em, right?

But…but it could still work. I mean, it’s not perfect, but it’s kind of cool, right?

Know when to walk away.

(Am I being too dramatic? I’m being too dramatic.)

So…now what?

I mentioned that I’m stubborn. But I’m not a perfectionist. That’s my saving grace here. If I were truly a perfectionist, I suppose I would keep doing this over and over until I get it right.

But considering I’m not even sure it[‘s possible to do this process perfectly (in the context of a reasonable amount of time and money, at least), then thank god for not being a perfectionist about this. Though taking it to that extreme would probably count as having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or something…

I’m not giving up on the overall goal of a costume. Again, the original goal here was to design a template to be professionally screen printed and then sew that fabric together myself. That remains the ultimate goal.

As for the test costume, the one meant to somewhat emulate the Peter Parker homemade type style… I’m not sure yet whether I’m going to be abandoning that entirely. But I definitely need to stop and reevaluate.

What I’m doing with the screen printing isn’t working. I’ve been suspecting that for a while now, but that became more certain after the recent work. The shirt alone would require four more distinct screens–representing days of prep–and fourteen more printings of four coats each (many hours of work spread over days) just to get that still-not-so-bright red that doesn’t quite apply evenly and ends up with splotchy edges…

Even doing a new shirt with two fabric colors–along with new mask, boots, and gloves–would take care of the red part, but wouldn’t change the total number and dimensions of the screens, the issues with matching the web patterns across multiple printings…

Aargh.

So…again…now what? This post is getting pretty long y’know…

I think that, for now, I will re-focus on designing the template for the professionally screen-printed costume that I will sew together.

I think that one will be a more traditional/recognizable Spider-Man costume, since it will likely be worn for some public library events where the general public would not really appreciate the subtle geekery of a Ditko style costume….

I will reevaluate the Peter Parker DIY style/Ditko style costume. I am still interested in doing one in the “separate mask, gloves, boots, shirt, pants” style. But I think I will need to have the fabric professionally screen printed. I think I could modify the “full bodysuit” style template to one that will meet the Peter Parker DIY style needs.

So, what have we gained here?

I have certainly learned that ol’ Petey would have had a really hard time putting that costume together back in the day.

I have also learned that screen printing–while very difficult for a full body costume–is wicked fun for making t-shirts. I am going to fit some new fabric on a screen and have my daughter design a T-shirt for herself that I will screen print. And I think I will, at some point, make a T-shirt using my Spider-Man mask design. Black or red lines on a blue shirt, I think…

No need for all these screen printing supplies to go to waste, right?

The Weekend: Head Cold, Flat Tire, Dad’s Day, etc.

“How was your weekend?”

The usual Monday question. Politely answered with something like “Good. How was yours?” Or if it’s someone you think actually cares, you might give a more specific and honest answer. “Eh. I’ve had better,” or “It was so awesome I can’t remember!” (I sometimes forget what I did over the weekend, but because it was so forgettable.)

Anyway, as I was going to sleep last night, I thought, “how was this weekend?”

My first instinct was “It was bad.” I’ve had a stupid head cold since Thursday/Friday, it was hot and humid, I had to change a flat tire, we spent the first half of Sunday cleaning the apartment…

But then I realized that it didn’t feel like it was a bad weekend, in spite of that list of facts.

I was home with my daughter on Friday, and we saw a great movie, and swam (because I was still minimizing my sinus issues at the time) and had fun. We had an adventurous meal out that night, witnessing the drunken revelry of a neighboring table, which is pretty funny in retrospect.

Saturday–other than the “quick” trip for lunch and a necessary grocery trip that started off with the aforementioned flat tire–we hung around the house, did this and that.

I told my daughter I just didn’t feel well enough to go to the pool or do much else, and she said she was fine with hanging around the house. She might have meant it, or she might have just been telling me that to make me feel better. Either way, I was very grateful.

Sunday, I was feeling a bit better–which is good, since we really needed to clean the apartment. And as much as I didn’t really want to clean, it always feels good to get it done. My daughter even made good efforts at cleaning her room. It still needs work, but considering that asking her to clean usually results in her near-collapse with a sudden case of “I don’t feel good,” I was quite pleased with her efforts.

After cleaning and lunch, we went to the mall for coffee/snacks and wandering, then to the library for a book for her to read, and then to the art store for a larger screen printing frame and some fabric paint. Home for a bit, then out to eat so I could be treated to my dad’s day meal.

Then back home for K to paint an old shirt with her new fabric paint. While she did that, my GF read, and I worked on radically reorganizing my office closet to serve as a space for drying and storing my screen printing frames (no small task)….

Anyway, my point is… It was a good weekend. It would be easy to list those bad aspects of it and say it was bad. But the little, mundane, run-of-the-mill stuff that comprised it…it all just added up to something very unexpectedly pleasing.

So, how was my weekend? Good, thank you. How was yours?