reminder that I’m a Christian, pro-life. God created humans male and female. God instituted marriage between one man and one woman. I am anti-porn, anti-sex outside of the marriage bed, and anti-pumping kids full of experimental hormones
Every time I’m forced by circumstance to hand-sew something, I remember a fairytale I once read. There are lead-up shenanigans as the humble protagonist helps small animals and meets the princess and all that, but in the climax, the princess rigs a contest for her hand by setting her own task: sew her a dress in a single night.
The noble suitors, who have never sewn a thing in their lives, sabotage themselves by their own ambitions: they choose difficult fabrics to work with and cut huge, elaborate patterns and select gems and pearls and beads to sew onto it, and snip such long bits of thread that they lose time detangling their stitches, and ultimately resort to pinning bits together as they run out of time, so that their offerings initially look beautiful and flashy, but when the princess tries them on they stick her with pin ends and fall apart as she moves.
The humble protagonist uses a very simple pattern without embellishments and sews using short lengths of thread (snipped off and threaded for him by little birds of course) which don’t tangle and therefore save time. His dress is plain by contrast, but holds together and the princess is able to move freely in it, and so he wins the contest and her hand.
I particularly think about the bit about threading the needle with shorter lengths of thread, needing to tie off more often but avoiding tangles and thereby saving time.
I then ignore that piece of wisdom passed down through who knows how many years and proceed to cut the longest damn length of thread I can manage because I hate tying off beginning or ending knots and I will not subject myself to more of that even if it does mean more tangles along the way.
my dad (Maori) works on a ship with all Maori/Tongan/Samoan fisherman- and one Aussie guy called Jake.
And that wasn’t done on purpose just sort of how it ended up, but Jake recently got an injury so they put him on a Different boat just for a little bit (a sit in the wheelhouse and scout type of boat, instead of the main fishing one) and he only got back to my dad’s ship today and he was apparently like Shaking. He was Traumatised.
Dad said Jake kept pulling him aside and going “They were all yelling on there, but in a MEAN way” “They didn’t clean… Like at ALL”
Jake experienced what a boat full of old school Aussie fisherman is like. That is the norm Jake. You just happened to be on the all Island boy boat on your first go out. “It was time for dinner and they had FROZEN nuggets” Jake that’s what they have on ships that are out at sea for months at a time.
On my dad’s boat they are eating fresh fish and coconut milk Ceviche. They’re grilling steaks on an open bbq on the deck that probably is not regulation. All the guys have their own special knives to prepare sashimi every couple days. Everyone is happily doing their own work so they can clock out early and set up a movie on the deck. Jake did you genuinely believe that’s what every boat was doing.
Local Australian man is fed fresh juices and smoked fish for first time- refuses to go back to beef jerky boat life
jake that first night when they served a freezer tray tv dinner and not an overflowing plate of fish that’s probably going for conservatively like $40-$80 bucks a kilo but the guys decided Eh we’ll catch more let’s just fry it up:
let’s get back to the classic catefrankie blogging we were doing before we were so rudely interrupted by my gauche airing of my personal crisis
so I think actually it’s easier to talk about this coming at it negatively, because I think what we’re circling around is lesssome inherent strength of masculinity or femininity as they were meant to be, and more some particular flaw that masculinity or femininity are prone to falling into. so I think for men it is irresponsibility - the irresponsibility of Adam standing by while Eve is tempted and threatened by the serpent, passively going along with her sin and then blaming her for it, instead of protecting her like he should have. the irresponsibility of perpetual-adolescent young men, of absent fathers, of detached husbands. but for women, what’s crystalized for me over the last couple days is I think it is cynicism: the cynicism of Eve looking at her perfect situation in Eden and thinking that it can’t be trusted and can’t be relied upon to continue, so she has to take matters into her own hands. the willingness to quickly believe the worst, even of the God who loves her and walks with her in the garden. the cynicism of disappointed spinsters, of bitter mothers, of controlling wives. so men must work against their tendency by taking up responsibility, by purposely setting down roots and sticking to their commitments, making the choice to live for something other than power and pleasure. and women have to work against their tendency by clinging to the goodness that they find and believing in it, resisting the instinct to ferret out flaws and dwell on them broodily.
