Us and Ella Mason

It was a typical day in the life of two young bitties: we fed our stray cat, poured glasses of wine, and began to read aloud some poetry. A little poetry reading, if you will. It was an evening for Sylvia Plath. Now one can not truly call Sylvia a "spinster;" she was married with two children. But her poetry gave away the isolation she felt and perhaps that isolated life she longed for. It was too coincidental that I stumbled upon this poem: 

Spinster

by Sylvia Plath

Now this particular girl
During a ceremonious april walk
With her latest suitor
Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck
By the birds' irregular babel
And the leaves' litter.

By this tumult afflicted, she
Observed her lover's gestures unbalance the air,
His gait stray uneven
Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower;
She judged petals in disarray,
The whole season, sloven.

How she longed for winter then! --
Scrupulously austere in its order
Of white and black
Ice and rock; each sentiment within border,
And heart's frosty discipline
Exact as a snowflake.

But here -- a burgeoning
Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits
Into vulgar motley --
A treason not to be borne; let idiots
Reel giddy in bedlam spring:
She withdrew neatly.

And round her house she set
Such a barricade of barb and check
Against mutinous weather
As no mere insurgent man could hope to break
With curse, fist, threat
Or love, either.

This poem exemplified, yet again, the choice of indulging in solitude. It also was relatable  in its sense of youth, as the poet's diction implies this by "this particular girl"  and "during a ceremonious april walk"--april representing spring therefore signifying the beginning (or the youth) of a new season, a new year. The idea of isolation (spinsterhood) as a choice is conveyed through lines such as  "How she longed for winter then! -- Scrupulously austere in its order." Where the poem hits this old heart heart the hardest, though, is the last stanza. Although it evokes a sense of bitterness, it truly unites all the spinsters of the world, and so this blog goes out to all the bitties, young and old. It seems silly, but there should be a community within the barriers of spinsterhood. How else will we cope? If we do not have another fellow bitty to gripe with and at. So my spinster-mate and I continued to read the cold and daunting lines of Plath and nearly fell off the couch when we stumbled upon a poem called Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats. Please, if time allows, give it a read. It really touches on the life of spinsterhood, quite comically. 

I was thinking of ways in how to reach out to my fellow lonely ladies and it hearkened back to a time when I sent an anonymous letter to an anonymous woman. I randomly thumbed through the yellow pages looking for a single woman--older, preferably. At first it was a game of closing my eyes and pointing to a place on the rumpled, yellowed page. After countless attempts, I landed on a woman who I will give the name Beatrice. It was apparent she lived alone, so I scrawled down her address, and began to write her a letter. I wrote to her about all the small mundane lovelies that crowded my heart. I wrote to her about the poppies blooming in my apartment complex, how that small patch of dirt in an overwhelming concrete jungle just didn't serve them justice. It was all jabber, but I wrote away and ignored every sentimental sentence couched in broken syntax and marked by dashes or scribbled out words. I folded the letter, sealed it, stamped it, and slid it through the mail slot, with no return address. I sometimes wonder how she received that letter. Perhaps it was a good thing to put no return address--she may have sent me a letter back telling me to shove off. But regardless, this made me feel a little more connected to my side of humanity: the side us independent, lonely ladies pull to. So if you're a young bitty, and you're reading this, reach out to your fellow spinster! If you happen to be a solitary man reading this, you're considered a bachelor, and I don't feel as sorry for you. 

P.S. This is what I would imagine Ella Mason, who has eleven cats, to look like:

or maybe this:

Hipster Spinster

Today's blog is purposed for the modern day spinster, or, rather, spinhipster. Often--almost always--I have been accused of being said hipster. I pause and am baffled by the labels under which i fall; seemingly i fall under two different extremities, spinster (which I have provided many descriptions in my previous blogs, but if you forgot, click here), and, as of late, hipster, which is a subculture of men and women who are not only hip, but are appreciative of art, culture, witty banter, and all the finer artsy fartsy aspects of life. For a more detailed explanation click here. So what do you do when faced with such slander? You embrace it. 

Hello, my name is Jessica and I am a hipster.

When embracing both of these said concepts (hipster and spinster) a sort of merging occurs. There are some canny parallels--not in lifestyle per se, but in appearance and attitude. Perhaps a new culture has emerged, or perhaps hipster (emphasis on female hipsters of the world) are the new spinsters. So here are some tips on:

A check list is needed in order to fulfill this new emerging trend. If you look carefully at the photo of me giving a hesitant wave, you'll notice the sweet heirloom around my neck. That came from my great-grandmother, who (although widowed at a young age) carried on in a manner of spinsterhood--self dependency. The necklace captures a sense of that crazy, gaudy lady that lives bitterly within all of us young bitties. It also meets the trend that hipsters oh so desperately try to achieve: vintage. So, 

heirloom. 

If you want to be up with the fashion sense of said hipster, your pants need to be over sized and ladies, shirts tucked in. What more screams old lady whiskers? Yet it is the new latest fashion. Looking at my picture, it seems that i can cross out

over sized pants with shirt tucked in. 

You can't forget the tights--but they must be patterned or colored,

colored tights. 

One last thing. You can't forget your ginormous 

infinity scarf. 

The hipster wreaks artsy fartsy in that self photo, and some of those elements weave into the web of spinsterhood, the only thing lacking is a good glass of wine, and a down trodden face like that of my lady-in-black placed above. 

When googling this new idea of spinhipster, I was disappointed to find that no one else seemed to have made the connection. But i did find this really neat website called Hipster Spinster, which is filled with art and designs that satisfy all of your hip and vintage needs--it's where "vintage charm meets contemporary cool." 

I am not sure this young bitty quite qualifies as "vintage charm meets contemporary cool" but the recognition of a style I associate with "spinster" in a new trending style that is prevalent today was humorous and in a way, endearing. So the next time you see me hobbling down the street, and you feel the urge to call me hipster or spinster, why not just trying to mash the two together?

PS I know you all were expecting a cat photo. So I won't disappoint: 

cat's in the bag--or toilet paper roll. 

Hobbies For the Old Woman Trapped Inside Me

Before I delve into my spinster witticisms, I must give a snippet of the two young bittie’s continuing catscapades. While walking to Tower District for a cup of coffee, we stumbled upon a handsome tabby—we couldn’t resist ourselves.

Although we could not lure him back to our small bungalow, our spirits were not completely broken, due to the cat infestation taken place at the empty house next store. We find ourselves frequently peeping through the blinds and watching them squander the vacant lot and our wee little spinster hearts; As of late, we’ve been a bit lonely and distraught over the absence of the youngest member of our family: Eliot.

If you have seen him, please call this number 867-5309

No need to fret, though. A brilliant idea came to me while I was grocery shopping today. My roommate and I have been wanting to create a garden in the back of our yard. While picking out various vegetables and herbs, I found this little gem: 

Soon our yard will be filled with cats, hopefully Eliot amongst them. We're not crazy cat ladies , we just love animals. Not truly. 

As of late, I have been looking into acquiring some new hobbies--something that will keep this old soul preoccupied after I graduate this coming May. Gardening definitely appealed to me (and soon, with the help of catnip, I'll be preoccupied with litters upon litters of cats), it's been something i've been wanting to begin for quite some time, but I could not think of many new hobbies that attracted me. Then, I  picked up a needle and thread. 

Sewing would be the perfect hobby for an old bitty like me. I was anxious to begin right away. I had several patches I have been meaning to sew onto an old ratty tat tat backpack of mine so I thought I'd begin there; one problem: I had no sewing utensils! Luckily, I only spent a few minutes fretting. Thanks to my bitty in crime, there were already needle and thread in the house, stowed safely away in her craft box. I began immediately. It took me a while the get the thread through the eye of the needle--shaky hands (how convenient for the blog)--but eventually it went through and I began threading some patchwork. I was rather impressed at how natural it felt. While threading away, I began to muse on the idea of a young adult sewing. The act seems a rarity among my generation and among society in general. It occurred to me that this new found hobby was another attribute in conveying the idea that an old, lonely woman lives inside these young bones. Although I am not spinning, per se, I am utilizing the thread made by my fellow spinsters, which, humorously, is another definition of spinster is a person whose occupation is spinning:

Here is where creativity lies, behind the wheel.

Before the wheel, these ladies (and perhaps a few gents) spun by hand, thread twisted between the palm and the thigh. This method was replaced by the wheel during the Industrial Revolution. To learn more about the evolution of spinning, click here. So thanks to my spinning ladies, I now have lots of thread to sew with! I must say, I have quite the knack for it. I also found it to be quite therapeutic (after about the fourth prick of the finger and slip of the tongue). Gardening or sewing or any "aged" hobby you would find your great aunt Barbara, doing are actually lovely mundanes that should be brought back to the younger generations. I should not be called an old woman, or a spinster, because what I do is considered old and atypical of a young adult female. Activities like this should not be excluded to the elderly and should not be discarded. One cannot point their finger and say that I am a crazy old bitty who lives alone (besides the other crazy old bitty that occupies the house) with her garden of catnip and  her band of felines and her growing patchwork. This should be considered a normality of being twenty-something, right? 

One last thing:

My first (but not last) piece of patchwork.