Experiment time!

So some of you might be aware that there's been a fair bit of drama going around about me spending my welfare money on lolita. So instead of continuing to argue over it I've made a plan which I hope will be both responsible and fun! Until I get a job (which hopefully will be very soon but who knows?), I won't be buying any clothes or unnecessary items. This includes also going out for meals, buying records, et cetera. Instead I am going to focus on really enjoying what I already have and working out new ways to coordinate things. On top of that, I'll start a dream dress list that I will hopefully be able to start accumulating when I have an income.

Anyway, so that's my plan. It got me thinking about expenses though and where other girls prioritise lolita in their lives. So: do you...

• Spend all your savings on lolita
• Save up and only buy things occasionally
• Never buy lolita but love the fashion
• Balance out your spending on lolita and your other hobbies
• Something else I haven't thought of

?

I'm curious, hope those questions made sense, I'm a little scattered at the moment. Too much coffee perhaps!

Love to you all,

-Nekolalia.

Apologies!

I just wanted to apologise to all the bloggers I'm following and haven't been commenting on. This week has been really stressful and I'm hoping to get back on top of things as soon as possible. Love to you all!

Should a lifestyle lolita be a kind person?

I'm feeling pretty sad today. It's not new to me, but I've started to become painfully aware that I'm living in a world where wanting people to want to love and understand one another is considered naive and childish. People say to me, "this is the real world, get over it" and "too much tolerance is a bad thing", and I'm left feeling like maybe I'm not being realistic - maybe the world is full of horrible, stupid, rude people and I'm just being God's advocate (*for nerds), maybe I need to toughen up and accept a little cynicism into my life. But I don't want to! I'm sick of feeling like I'm a freak or a hippie for suggesting that we should do all we can to be kind to each other, even if they're not the nicest people in the world to us. Maybe it's the church community I grew up in who really lived by the 'turn the other cheek' mentality. I'm not claiming to always live that way, but is it so immature of me to consider that an worthy ideal? I'd like to hope that as I grow as a person I learn to react to everything in a way that's constructive, not just reactive.

I see anger everywhere around me, and it goes against everything I feel I am. Part of wearing lolita goes with a desire to remind the world what it is to be sweet and kind and polite. Does anyone else feel this way? I know for a lot of girls lolita is just clothes, but to me (and I assume this is the case for a lot of lifestyle lolis), it represents something in society that we're missing. It's a rare thing these days that we meet a person who goes out of their way to be kind to a stranger, and I want to see more of it. I can't make others do it, so I feel great wish to be that person who 'sets an example', as egotistical as that sounds. I become very angry at myself when I act unkindly, which happens so much often it shames me. I love lolita because it reminds me to be sweet to people. Am I naive?

How do you feel about lolita and the way you treat other people? Does being dressed in this sweet manner encourage you to try to be sweeter to others? Or does it have no influence on your interactions with others?I've very curious how others see this. If it was up to me, I'd respond to every horrible act over a big sweet smile and a batting of lashes and a cup of tea, with sensitive words and an olive branch.

During the canonization process of the Roman Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith (Latin: promotor fidei), popularly known as the Devil's advocate (Latin: advocatus diaboli), was a canon lawyer appointed by Church authorities to argue against the canonization of the candidate. It was their job to take a skeptical view of the candidate's character, to look for holes in the evidence, to argue that any miracles attributed to the candidate were fraudulent, etc. The Devil's advocate opposed God's advocate (Latin: advocatus Dei; also known as the Promoter of the Cause), whose task is to make the argument in favor of canonization. This task is now performed by the Promoter of Justice (promotor iustitiae), who is in charge of examining how accurate is the inquiry on the saintliness of the candidate.

Frills and trills (and an awful play on words)

Under pressure!

So, short post today as I have to get to bed reasonably early - first thing tomorrow I have my eighth grade recorder exam so I need to be fresh and relaxed! Wish me luck, I chose a grade which was much too hard for me! Still, I'm looking forward to it a lot, and it's got me thinking about how much music and lolita go together for me, though the music has always been a part of my life and lolita is relatively new to me.

I'm hoping to start a small ensemble to play baroque and classical music for weddings and other functions - I think it would be cute to wear classic lolita and Victorian style garb and make a real show of it! Unfortunately, it's hard to find people my own age who have a love of baroque music like me, especially someone with a harpsichord or clavichord! I'll probably have to settle for someone who knows how to play harpsichord but has an electric keyboard with a harpsichord sound on it. It doesn't look so good though! :( Ideally I'd like to find a violin, oboe, cello and harpsichord. The sound would be beautiful and we could play trio sonatas and things.

Wow, what a rambling bit of prose that was. Apologies!

Does anyone else feel that classical music is a perfect lolita hobby? The two seem to go hand in hand for me. Let me know if you play an instrument! What came first for you, lolita or playing music? How about lolita and bands? I know a lot of girls love to go to see their favourite bands in lolita - do you do this, or do you leave behind your petticoats and wear sneakers and such for comfort and dancing? If you do go out in lolita to concerts, do you worry about your clothing getting ruined? Do you have 'dirt-friendly' lolita clothing you don't mind getting a bit grubby?

I also love art, and I got chalk pastels all over one of my favourite dresses recently. Luckily it brushed off and you can't tell anymore. It probably helped that the print was dark. Any sad tales of your hobbies getting your lolita ruined?


What are some other hobbies that you consider a nice accompaniment to lolita? Do you embroider, do you paint? Any country lolis who love their veggie patch? As always, I'd love to hear from you!

Ethics and a lolita challenge

It occurred to me last night how being into lolita feels a bit uncomfortable for me. I've always been a person who deeply loves the world we live in - its people, plants, animals and environments, and I can't help but feel that my lolita habit is having a less-than-desirable effect on these things. The clothes - synthetic fibres (plastics) which don't break down, shipped all over the world and wasting fossil fuels, plastic bags, and worst of all, materials sewn in cramped factories where the workers are paid so little they can basically never afford to buy new clothes. Does this feel cruel to anyone else? Here I am in my $300 dress, not to mention petticoat, bag, shoes, blouse, feeling like a princess... while some poor woman tears up her hands and injures her back and doesn't get the rest or even the food she needs to make me these clothes. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Here's one of the few videos I could find which shows how things are in clothing factories and cotton picking fields (yes, people still pick cotton!). Skip to around 2minutes, but I warn you, it's sickening and heart-breaking:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8cj6d_clothing-made-in-india-slave-and-ch_news

But I love lolita. So so much. I'm thinking about learning to sew (have been saying this for a long time!) and if I get any good at it, starting a clothing line that makes ethical lolita clothing - organic cottons, sewn by me, printed with vegetable dyes, and so on. I want to create something that says: you can be beautiful AND good to the world. Recycled fabrics would also feature largely in my designs.

If I learn to sew and come up with some nice designs, would you be interested? The clothing would probably cost a little more than standard handmade clothing, but less than brand, and you could wear it feeling good that you're doing something for the environment and not exploiting poor workers in impoverished countries!

I couldn't find footage of any lolita factories (no surprise there) but I doubt the conditions at places like Bodyline are better - and I wouldn't put money on big brands like AP having better working conditions either.

Now on a lighter note (I need cheering up after all that), unusual_alice at My Princess Garden has left us bloggers with a challenge - to make some new lolita friends! Online, penpal, in person, whatever! She writes:

To anyone reading this post! I have a challenge for you! Whether or not you accept it is up to you, but lets give it our best shot to help all of those lonely lolita's out there feel at home! Whether you are lonley or not, I would love to ask of everyone to find someone on Livejournal, msn, facebook, whatever you like, and try and make friends! You can message each other, send gifts, and one day, you may have realized that you have found a best friend :)



So, if you'd like to be my pen-pal, leave a comment or email me at bandanna@gmail.com and I'd love to make friends with you! ^__^


Thanks for reading, if you're not following already please do, I post most days!

Ramble ramble!

Looks like it's that time again!

"What time?" you ask? Surely none other than the time for you favourite...

Today, in lieu of having anything truly meaningful to write about, I'm going to tell you all about things that you will no doubt have no interest in whatsoever. I must also apologise profusely in advance for both typographical errors and needlessly verbose language. 

So today some new wrist-cuffs I bought arrived (second-hand like pretty much everything else I buy). Here's a picture of them: 

They are Angelic Pretty. They're also a little bit too big for my wrists, but I suppose that's a good thing because then they can fit over long sleeves too. Exciting stuff. I also ordered a Milky Berry one-piece in mint, and a deliciously colourful petticoat. Enough of the purchasing talk though.

Some of you might be wondering who this girl is who writes these blogs. What does she do? Where does she live? Why isn't she doing something more important than writing drunken rambling blogs on a Monday night? Valid questions indeed! I will make a most valiant attempt to answer them all, but please, if you're still curious (god knows why you would be though) after reading all this, leave me some questions in the comments and I'll (probably) answer them.

Firstly, a warning: I am one of those irritating artsy people who have a multitude of hobbies but not a lot to show for it. I'm unemployed and on the dole. A lot of people find this infuriating because they work hard all week so they can afford the things they want, and lucky me, I get paid every fortnight by the government to socialise and buy beautiful clothes. I say this with more than a little sarcasm. Among other things, I'm looking for work as an artist and musician, and struggling with mental illness. I am incredibly grateful to be living in a country where I can survive (albeit with my mum) on the money I'm given. My anxiety is crippling and I don't see myself ever holding down a serious job involving any amount of stress unless something BIG changes. I'm optimistic though, hopefully one day I'll be able to sell my art and make music and make a living from it. If you're curious, here's a picture of one of my paintings in progress:

work in progress.

I have an exhibition coming up at the end of the month and am inexpressibly excited about it. Hopefully this one will be finished by then, along with a few others that I can sell.

As well as that, I put a lot of time and energy into music - I play the recorder (laugh all you like, and then listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu9WzoxEKaM&feature=related). I have an exam on Thursday that I'm stressing about enormously. I'm also hoping to start a small chamber ensemble to play for weddings and the like. I think it would be fun!

I also do some cleaning part-time. I can't wear lolita doing that (imagine bleach all over those beautiful prints! *sadface!*), so I wear it as much as I possibly can when I'm not doing that sort of stuff. When I'm not doing any of the aforementioned activities, I love to read and write and learn things. I am an enormous nerd and learning new things about biology and physics and linguistics makes me extremely happy. If you like music and mathematics, and even astronomy, check this out, it will blow your mind: http://wheelof.com/stars/ -read the info for more ingeniousness!

Finally, before I bore you all to death - a picture of the love of my life:

He is ironically named Ninja - he has broken more bones than he actually has in his body. Somehow. From jumping off things mostly.

Hope you all tolerated my drunken ramblings (courtesy of Amarula and milk, my new favourite drink, it reminds me of danishes), and you're having a lovely day or evening or whatever time it might be in your vicinity. And please comment letting me know if there's anything you'd like me to write about! If you're not following, I recommend it, I am, in fact, the best blogger out there. *cough*

Thank you!

Too tired to post tonight - just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who's been following my blog. The positive feedback makes me feel like it's really worthwhile writing what I do. Please keep reading and offering the amazing comments you give!

Tanuki-kun and I say thanks!