[ask meme] answers

[hermionesviolin]

Only 2 people asked me questions -- but then again, it took me a month to finish writing up answers, so.

lunabee34 asked: How's life fashion-wise?

We have solidly settled into sweater weather, and I was bummed to realize that many of my sweaters are shapeless/oversize -- which is probably equal parts my fault for purchasing a larger than appropriate size (in my defense: boobs) and the fault of the manufacturers.

I like sweaters, but I dislike clothes shopping, so I'm at a bit of a stalemate.

Also, my hair has finally grown out sufficient to give me the look I was going for with my undercut (some of you may recall my transition from a pixie cut to an undercut), and it has also stopped combing out well (even with only shampooing it every other day), and some of my sweaters aggressively mat my hair :(

With the cold weather, I've also shifted from long skirts and varyingly colored tights (#StillNotAFemme but #ColorCoordinationIsImportant) to dress pants, and I really need to buy more pants (which clothes shopping is way worse than shopping for shirts) since I literally have one pair of dress pants I'm willing to wear (and non-work-wise, basically one pair of jeans, which has a rip in one knee from when I tripped and fell a few years ago, making it not ideal for winter). Though the upside of wearing pants instead of dresses/skirts+tights is I can wear the boots I commute in without it looking weird (they're vegan knockoff Doc Martens, so they don't look super-professional against tights).

I generally feel satisfied with the clothes I have (I did a purge 2 summers ago, including doing that thing where you put all the hangers in one direction and once you take something out to wear you flip the hanger, so that you can literally see what stuff you haven't worn -- would recommend this trick), but yeah, could use some improvement on the margin.

escritoireazul offered 2 potential questions:

What's one thing you always assume people know about you and are surprised when you realize they don't?

What scripture would you recommend to me (in this moment, I know things like that change)?

What's one thing you always assume people know about you and are surprised when you realize they don't?

I feel like I must have an answer to this (hence not posting until I could come up with one) and yet I have failed to come up with anything, so I am granting myself amnesty since you only offered it as a "potential" question.

If anyone wants to comment with things they were surprised to learn about me, I would be into that. (Not exactly escritoireazul's question, but.)

What scripture would you recommend to me (in this moment, I know things like that change)?

This is such a good question!

I've been thinking about the book of Job recently (though I would definitely not pressure anyone to read all 42 chapters -- I'm not confident that I have read all 42 chapters).

One of my friends is in div school and was part of a "celebration of student preaching" (aka, sermon competition) recently, and one of the other students preached on an excerpt from Job 38 (God's response to Job from the whirlwind) and I wanted a pew Bible to reread the end of Job. I disagreed with the preacher's read that Job's entire shift was from anger to awe, and I also wished I had internalized more of the "After Trauma: A Drama of Language in the Book of Job" paper I've read (I missed it at SBL/AAR last year to attend a different Job session, but the author sent me a copy at my request) since it talks a lot about the animal language God uses in responding to Job (the publication title is, I think, "'I Have Become a Brother of Jackals': Evolutionary Psychology and Suicide in the Book of Job," though it's still not showing up as published in Biblical Interpretation ... oh, academic publishing). *pulls up my copy of the paper* The abstract is:

Job compares himself time and again to defeated and trapped animals in the poetic core of the Book of Job. God, in responding to Job, describes in loving detail, as would a proud parent her children, the animals that populate creation. This paper argues that the Joban Poet uses animal imagery to allow Job to express an evolving sense of his traumatized self and the world and God to affirm the beauty and vitality of creation and, indirectly, also of Job who has come to think of himself as a trapped and hunted animal.

Also, one of my formative texts on Job is "God loves monsters," which seems potentially relevant to your interests particularly.

Also also, I go to a monthly queer Jewish text study, and last month we did Job (well, representative excerpts thereof) and the facilitator talked about how the frame story is much older than the poetry that makes up the bulk of the book, and we speculated about whether the poet was reacting to the frame story or was just using it to get people to read his thing. When I told this to wisdomeagle, ze said: Huh, this has just made me think that if it is a response, it's like contemporary retellings of folktales, or superlong spitefic. (The theology in the original Job story is so bad I wrote FORTY CHAPTERS OF POETRY ABOUT IT" #relatable)

Comments

[serenadestrong]

I don't know your experience with sewing, but if you're interested in trying to tailor your sweaters I might have supplies (BYO matching yarn though).

I like your friend's response to Job, made me laugh!

[lunabee34]

I hear ya. Shopping is less fraught for me than it used to be, but it's still a PITA. Pants are particularly annoying and difficult for me to find.

I wish you luck in your clothes quest should you choose the adventure. LOL