Beautiful

That is actually, literally, the only word that came to mind when I got a chance to behold this scrap of a shawlette in its fully blocked glory.  Why sully it with hyperbole like "gorgeous," "glorious," "magnificent," etc., when it is in fact nothing more than a pure little item with a single (admittedly decorative) purpose?  And oh, it does that well.  So well I had to rouse myself from a mid-afternoon call day snooze/stupor to post pictures.

 I think even Raiden approves of the softness, as she wouldn't stop rubbing against it during this "photo shoot."  Then again, maybe she just likes pretty things.  I know she likes foul things.  In her case, like gravitates to like.

 My one gripe with this shawlette (capelet?) is that it doesn't really lend itself to a drape-and-forget-about-it philosophy.  This will come open in the front, especially if you actually possess endowments.  Or, you know, want to use your hands.  Whatever for, we may ask?

On the other hand, I have a sudden yearning for one of those old-fashioned shawl pins they sell at the yarn shop.  Do I really have the funds to burn?  I'm moving to New York (yeah, as in Manhattan) in 2 months, so the answer is clearly no.  But...beautiful...

 Speaking of beauty or its opposite, this was the other thing I accomplished yesterday.  Lemon meringue pie, attempt #1.  A bit gooey and too evenly browned (egg whites and I had a little tussle over peak formation--they won), but quite tasty.  I will make a man fat one day.  Maybe.  Because if not ornamental, I am very...useful?

And because I wax poetical/philosophical over desserts (always have, always will?), and having baked this while waiting for wet-blocked shawl to dry in its pins, I started musing over the concept of beauty.  I mean, it's what we're attracted to, right?  And, like smutty movies, we know it when we see it?  But as my mother has a tendency to point out in conversation, homelier women than I have gotten married at younger ages.  Not exactly an ego boost for a 30-year-old spinster with a Jane Eyre complex, but it gets me thinking.


So because I got to questioning the age-old "truth" of beauty, and because I think in quotes (blame my English major background?), and because I'm a die-hard Whovian, I sort of leave you with one of Matt Smith's non-Doctor quotes that gets bounced around the internet a lot: "I'm not handsome enough to be called handsome."  Psssht!  I'm not pretty enough to be called pretty, but then I'm not the frakkin' Doctor.  I think, though, that it does point out how narrow society's definition of beauty really is, 'cos come on, really?  My instant response to that is "Darling, you are beautiful inside and out, and that's all that matters."  Because humans are not shawlettes, and beautiful is what we make of ourselves.  And you shouldn't give a rat's ass about anyone else's definition of what that should be.  But that's enough soap-boxing for one day, especially since I'm sure Upworthy has more inspirational crap to say on the subject.

I leave you, for realsies, with a much more famous and frustrating quote (Keats, naturally!): "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."  Discuss if you dare.  Seriously, I'm a poetry nerd, so I dare you.