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I've semi-started pulling this fashion zine thing together. It will be my winter project, but in order for me to have this winter project, I need to collect things now.

I started something on nervousness.org to open up the idea to an audience slightly broader than people I know. I suppose I should also send out the request to the zine's membership.

One key point: this isn't a chick-only project. I mean, I'm not sure there are any two non-anatomical words besides "fashion" and "feminist" that more obviously shout You're not invited to men. And I'm just saying, here and now. Not true.

You're all totally invited.

I've started a new project as part/an extension of We Have Brains. Basically, it's a biography-writing project. Each person who participates will be matched with someone else, and they'll be charged with writing the short story of each others' lives.

Since not all of you who read this are members of the collab, but most of you have some feminist leanings, I thought I'd open it up a little. The project is intended for women and/or feminists, so if you identify with either or both of those (or you don't, but you'd like to start your own), stop by the collab and find out more about the biography project.

Allison did something interesting with her wishlists awhile ago that made me rethink the notion of the wishlist on bloggers' sites. I don't think it's so much a "buy me this" phenomenon as a "learn all about me" one.

I don't want you to know all about me, but I did notice today that one of the wishlists I've kept pretty much epitomizes my taste in clothing. So here it is: my sense of style epitomized in one page (minus accessories).

I love that store.

I apologize for using the Friday Five on you guys, but I thought this one was interesting.

1. What is your current occupation? Is this what you chose to be doing at this point in your life? Why or why not?

I'm a project manager, though my role is more like a project management helpdesk. Yes, of course this is what I chose to be doing. Other than being forcibly unemployed, how could it not be? I can't say enough that even an unappetizing choice is still a choice you made. Dur. I suspect the meaning of the question is more - is this what you want most to be doing? Still yes; I like the variety of work and the sense of ordered control.

2. If time/talent/money were no object, what would your dream occupation be?

I'd like to run a feminist foundation. Give people grants and such. Organize opportunities for people to engage in discussion.

3. What did/do your parents do for a living? Has this had any influence on your career choices?

My father is enlisted Navy. My mother is a human services manager/consultant/whatever she is now. And while their personalities and things they taught me certainly influenced my career path, their own careers didn't really.

4. Have you ever had to choose between having a career and having a family?

I have a family. I've never wanted to have children, so that's not much of an issue for me. I may eventually have to choose between continuing on my current career path and following the boy when he goes to school - in which case (this is assuming I have no upward/lateral new job options whereever he goes) I'd choose my career. Of course, it's more complicated than that: we're planning to end up on the east coast anyhow, and he would like to come back here over summers. So there are positives to either approach.

5. In your opinion, what is the easiest job in the world? What is the hardest? Why?

I would find any involvement in television news difficult. I'd just have a problem dealing with the alarmist nature of that medium on a regular basis. And the easiest? Maybe the people who drive around in the little golf carts cleaning up country clubs. I don't know; there are perks and challenges to nearly any job I can think of.

I read something on eris' site, the way she does links, that made me think, gah, i must have that. So I went back to my collection of daily-read journals and found words in them. Now I have it, too.

Now when I go to read journals, I remember instantly the texture of each person, which makes their sites that much more irresistible.

You should read everyone I read. I think that's the message of the blogroll (not that I have a blogroll, but I do use MT to update my exits section now). And also, these are the other people who define me. These are the kin of my spirit.

I suppose they are. In a way.

Quite awhile ago, I submitted the collab site to The Weblog Review. I was hoping to attract a little attention to the site (at the time, it had just started) and maybe to get some feedback that could make it more appealing.

It didn't really drive a lot of new writers to the collab, but the review was amazingly nice (he called my writing "dazzling" - I'm touched), and I feel like a schmo for never giving any credit or thanks. In my defense, the review came out right in the midst of our real-life move, and I forgot to get back to it, read it, etc.

In any case, thanks (belatedly) to the very kind lt torasso and to TWR in general.

Finally reading the review after all this time reminded me that it's made huge progress - gone from bimonthly to weekly, added my kick-ass staff with their great ideas, and developed a "following" of regular contributors. It's exactly what I wanted it to be.

Microsoft is evil.

I know this because, every time I approach MS Access thinking hey, I'll be bored, but surely I'll at least get that feeling of accomplishment this time, it bores me into that limp-eyed stare. You know the one. The one you wear around the office until you finally step outside or trip and fall into the collective toilet. That one.

This is a bad day for this. Maybe a bad week for this. There is nothing quite so likely to suck out your soul as arriving back from a vacation in which you read a load of progressive propaganda to spend some quality time with Access.

I'm regretting Michael Moore's book like a warm shrimp salad sandwich. Really. Nothing like being told by an alarmist, funny-in-a-way-he-thinks-is-revolutionary [and also in a way that sometimes I think is sexist] guy telling you you've sold out and hate your job to put you in a mood for an occasionally dull work day. This should in no way be taken to mean that I dislike either Michael Moore or my job, by the way.

No. It's all Microsoft's fault.

I read in some fat-acceptance book that women tended to define themselves as their sizes. Meaning. Men will say "I take" or "I wear" a whatever size, but women will often say "I am" a whatever size.

I thought okay, sure, fine. But I've been reading a lot of profiles on different people's sites, and you do see a number of women's profiles featuring their height, weight, or dress size. Men may tell you their hair and eye color and occasionally if they're big, but rarely much else.

Interesting.

Of course, men's site seem significantly less likely to include a "profile" or "about the author" page at all. So it may not be that women are defined by size and men by something else, but that women are more inclined to have collected a set of things that define them, while men don't put their definitions into words - or at least, don't share them with site visitors.

I'm returned from vacation. Slightly browner but not too worn.

I changed the splash page on the site (here) to make it easier to skip to the stuff you want. Better? Worse? Did you notice?

Roni's question for We Have Brains this week was this: How much of your feminism flies in the face of your family? Do you find yourself at Thanksgiving dinner muffling your voice in favor of a 'nice' gathering?

Even defining family for the purpose of this question was a minor challenge: my family is essentially myself and my parents. Since we agree most of the time, I thought a little more about who my family includes - as there are certainly people with whom I disagree who are still close to me in some way or other.