weekend

[anotheranon]

Whats does your personality rate from 1-10? by morning_prayer
Your first full name
Your personality rates a	10
your best quality is	you have all your teeth =D
your worst quality is	you start conflicts alot
this is because	lifes a bitch
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Had a teeth-grinding day, for no real reason I can put my finger on - more on that later. Started out auspicously enough:

The draped clothing exhibit: nothing I'm writing home about (most of the draped clothing was exhibited flat - great for showing textile detail, lousy for showing how it's actually worn). I was, interestingly, a lot more impressed by the modern tapestries exhibit! Somehow it's more impressive to me that something this ornate is hand made in this day and age, when there are so many automated means of creating things, than equally labor-intensive fabrics from earlier times, because they had no choice.

Note to self for future reference: The T.M. library is open to the public Monday-Saturday, no appointments necessary. Never know when I might need a (relatively) accessible textile library at my fingertips (well, arm's length, but even so).

The museum is on a street which is primarly embassies (in other words, stately town homes with well-kept gardens), so this combined with the cool-ish weather made for a pleasant walk from Metro to museum. I met some of the local ICG folks and we chatted a bit. The rest of the museum was packed because of a special "hands on" type of event they were hosting, and I think it was this that just rubbed me the wrong way.

For all my con attendance and former life as a raver, one would think that by now I'd be used to dealing with many people in a small space. Most of the time I can handle the noise and crowding, but I like to be prepared for it, and I didn't know that the museum was hosting something special today. Also, because I was meeting people I couldn't just hide in a corner to "decompress" for a second. Ultimately I politely begged off a bit early so as to avoid coming off as an antisocial bitch.

I wish that cramped quarters didn't get to me so; maybe it's symptom of my mild claustrophobia but I need my space. With advance warning, I can create a kind of mental "shell" around myself, but without preparation that "sardines in a can" feeling triggers anxiety or at least extreme grumpiness.

Tonight I threaded the sewing machines for my new project, and got no further than that. I swear, I don't think I've had such a hard time threading in my life! My fingers felt fat and clumsy and even up close I couldn't seem to get quite the right angle to see if the thread was going through the eye. Best to lay off for the evening; I've been in this mood before and sewing can go disastrously because of it :(

Like Scarlett says, "tomorrow is another day", and I sincerely hope it's less nerve-wracking than this one! :/

Comments

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Shame about the draped clothing exhibit; I can understand them wanted to display the pieces flat so that as much of them as possible was visible, but there should at least have been photos of the "wear" positions (dummies with plain cloth in the drape would have been the best idea). Poor planning on somebody's part.

You have my 110% sympathies on the people thing ... I get "crowd claustrophobia" too. The longer I have to endure it, the tenser and crankier I get. Must be part of the personality package ***grin***

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Re: The draped clothing - there were pictures and one or two draped mannequins, but I wish they'd had the latter for all - in particular there was this odd Mayan rectangular "capelet" type of thing that I had no clue how it "worked"!

Re: crowd claustrophobia - for me it's more "unplanned crowd" claustrophobia, because I cope with concerts/raves just fine - because I expect them to be cramped! I think what we're both suffering from here is what my sister calls "mall mood", that irritated feeling you get when you're trying to shop at the mall and end up rubbing shoulders with far more people than you would have liked to! :/

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

"Mall mood" sounds like a good description ... although I can get it at family gatherings as well, if there's too many people in too small a space. It's likely that, in my case, part of the problem is hearing-related; I suffer from intermittent tinnitus and one of the triggers is prolonged exposure to steady background noise ... high noise levels (usually occurring in crowded conditions) often render me able to hear the rhythms of voices or music, but unable to comprehend words or melodies. A most unsettling condition. :-(