What is Phaedra up to? Like most people, I have had verrrrrry little energy past mere existence. That said, I have been working on a few things here and there. I’ve made a few Greek chitons. It’s actually really soothing to sit and hand-sew straight hems in linen while watching/half-ignoring something on tv. I just need to decide how to embellish them, since the printing blocks I ordered back in March are apparently never going to get here (ugh. No way am I going to get a refund at this point).
I’m currently mid-way through repairs to my rapier armor doublet. The collar and cuffs were getting GROSS and so I’ve torn them off and am replacing them with linen pieces that I can more easily pull off and wash/replace. The collar is done, now I just need to do the cuffs.
There are at least two mischief projects in the works. Or there were when I originally wrote up this post on FB, at least. At this point, I’ve completely forgotten what I was doing. Hopefully I wrote it down somewhere.
Additionally, I’m going through my giant mass of academic sources and trying to narrow down to 3-4 topics of reasonable scope to actually start writing or making presentations about. Current probabilities are:
- Chinese courtesans (though that needs a lot of narrowing down–there’s a lot to a topic that broad!)
- history of tea and serving tea in China
- drinking games
- connections/trade between China and Europe
- the structure of Chinese households based on rank (the Imperial Household, a noble’s household, wives vs concubines vs maids vs household entertainers and how many of each you were allowed to have, etc.)
The Imperial Household may end up being its own topic because there’s a LOT, even just going through the various ranks of concubines–how many different ranks, how many per rank, what each rank did, how to move between ranks, the many roles of the eunichs, etc. As usual, I have more ideas than I have actual energy for. I’m trying to post here more often, but I get writer’s block so bad! Also, the “updated” WordPress user interface is shit and it’s super difficult to use. How the hell do I fix indents?!
Sartorial Dominance Displays 