I may not have slept until noon yesterday, but I might as well have, for all the "productive" work I got done. It was weekend without papers to grade, and I reveled in doing nothing. I have three more classes left this quarter, and one more stack of papers to read (which I will collect today), and then we're done. Here's to the last sprint toward the finish line and a lap around the infield!
Part of the doing nothing included watching The Patriot, the Mel Gibson vehicle about the American Revolution from a few years back. The characterizations were pretty flat and the acting pedestrian, and the art direction reminded me too much of a Disney version of Johnny Tremaine, and yet the movie was trying to grapple with some important and interesting themes: the pull of duty versus the responsibilities of family, the conflicting impulses of justice and mercy and vengeance, the possibility of honor and the brutal reality of war, the hope of redemption. Much of the investigation of these themes was undercut by cliched plot points and character development, but it' was there under the the surface. I was left with the feeling that this might have been a much better movie than it was.
I got my first Utilikilt, a khaki neotraditional, right at the beginning of this millennium; I wore it that first weekend that I picked it up, to the Folklife festival and to a party. Even then, it didn't get too much notice or too many remarks here in Seattle.I was living in Vancouver, Washington at the time, and I didn't wear it much down there. I did wear it to my graduation from a community leadership program in June of '02, and as part of my dress uniform in my last days as head of college security the following September. I picked up another neotrad before I moved to Spokane for grad school, but didn't wear them at all over there.
When I returned to live in Seattle in 2003, I didn't wear the kilts at work, either at the writing center or then teaching, but I often wore them at home or when going out. I remember in particular New Year's Eve '03 -'04, when it was pretty darn cold wandering around Cap Hill.
In the summer of '05, I decided to start wearing a kilt to work while teaching at Cascadia, because it was hot summer and they were comfortable. I continued the practice into the fall, at all the schools I taught at, and all of a sudden all I was wearing was kilts all the time. It became my trademark, in a way. Students knew me as "the teacher who wears a kilt"; I met people and made friends who wound up never seen me in anything else. I never had a really bad experience in Seattle or Portland wearing the kilt, and the many positive remarks and compliments overshadowed the few nasty remarks that I ran into. (Most women loved the kilt.)
It got to the point that I didn't even think about it much anymore; I still liked the gender-bending response it could evoke, particularly in children, and the signal hipness it carried in certain circles, but mostly it became just what I wore, like my Chuck Taylors or hooded sweatshirts. I knew it was still unusual and atypical, but really didn't think about it much. I picked up a heavier "workman" kilt for winter and a nylon "Spartan" sport kilt for summer, as well as more formal gray twill. I wore kilts grocery shopping and at weddings, playing badminton and hosting parties - pretty much all the time.
Now this year, I have picked up some three-quarter length pants - knickers, if you will. One thing that kilts aren't quite suited for is bike-riding, and since I want to do a lot of riding to school from here on in, and because I don't like teaching in shorts, I thought that knickers would be a nice alternative. But here's the funny thing: people seem disappointed that I am not wearing a kilt. I have gotten more remarks lately about my lack of a kilt than I think I got when I first started wearing one, from friends, casual acquaintances, students, and colleagues.
It's a bit odd. If my wearing a kilt was a statement of anything, it was that clothing choices should not be as restrictive as we (as a culture) have made them, but actually I wasn't really trying to make any statement at all - I just like kilts. Switching to knickers doesn't really matter, does it? I don't mind being associated with a trademark article of clothing - heck, the blog is named for three - but at the same time, I certainly hope it's not the only thing that defines me.
6 comments:
Must have picker of knickers before can respond intelligently. Of course, signally possible that the latter may never actually be feasible ever again at this rate. Intelligence, that is. Or something.
A number of years back I decided people identified me too much with my hair, as did I. Over the course of a month I gradually had it cut shorter and shorter, until it was just shy of a shaved head.
As I went through the process it was pretty exciting, thinking about and talking about where my exterior identity ended and my interior began, how much were they connected, other people's influence on my sense of self, so on and so forth.
Once the neighbor finished shorning me of the last inches of my former identifier, I looked in the mirror and freaked! I decided at that moment that far from wanting to be free of the big head o' hair that so marked me, far from feeling open to the world and a new me...... I wanted my hair back!!!!!
Ok, back from the self-involved world of Mel.....I like that you break the mold, and then break the mold that you broke the first mold with...which wasn't meant to be a mold at all.....yet I still like the kilts as well. Eventually I'll get used to you having a butt connected to legs, yet it will take a while.
Clothing choice can be a statement to be sure, but I doubt that you will ever be defined by what you wear. You did a lot to further the acceptance of kilts in Seattle by wearing yours so diligently, esp. in front of classrooms of students. You just continue to wear what is practical and works at the time, be it a kilt or knickers, shorts or Speed-O's, and that message will win out: whatever works, works and it is all good.
But me, I love a man in a skirt, and I will always compliment you on that.
Diane
No to Speedos!!!!!
Actually that should have read "anti man-bikini babe". The anti part being against men in speedos and not men in general.
Well... knickers are for sissies. So you'll have an uphill battle in front of you. I backed you on the kilt, always telling people to back off when they whispered rude things to me behind your back. In fact, I probably saved your life like thirty times in the last few years. But knickers!? You're on your own bud.
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