For my second installment of Words You Use But Don’t Know, i’d like to introduce you to the word throe.
It sounds just like throw when you say it, so i’ve seen a handful of people write about hearing their phone’s death throws or even remark on the sounds of their neighbors in the throws of passion. What they’re actually saying though is throes, which means violent convulsions or struggle. It’s mostly used as a hyperbole these days, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to know which word we’re using, right? Right. 
Sufjan Stevens is one of those indie guys who’s been on the scene for years and really ought to have a larger following than he does because he’s just that good. We secretly love it when people like this fail to gain a lot of popularity, because it’s like a wonderful secret that only a select few people are in on.
I feel bad that i don’t have a lot more to say than than he’s very talented and prolific and i really enjoyed his album Greetings from Michigan, but sadly that’s the only other album i own. His brand new release Age of Adz is quite a lot different from that album, which was largely acoustic and folksy. This one is electronic and experimental, and i don’t think it’s for everyone but i’ve certainly found it to be intriguing. I failed to find any sort of video to go along with it, but i have found something better: you can listen to the entire album right here! If you only have time for a song or two, the first track and the one called Vesuvius are my faves so far.
More proof that i am in fact a designer: Grand View University’s new web site went up earlier this week, and the original design was done by none other than yours truly.
On this project i was temporarily filling in for the other designer here at Spindustry, Jeff, and so once i completed a home page design it was handed off to him and he’s the one who built the site and fleshed out the design. So, to be fair, here are both screenshots:
The original design, as it looked when it left my hands
Go check it out! 
Today i’m beginning a short series that i like to call: Words That You Use But Don’t Know. You say a phrase you’ve heard before and it sounds right, but when you spell it out it becomes evident to people like me that you don’t actually know what word you’re using. Luckily, i’m here to help.
I’m going to kick it off with “pique,” because i’ve seen that one everywhere lately.
I received some email last week promising that a new promotion would “peak my interest.” I saw another person on twitter whose interest was “peaked” by something which, sadly, i don’t recall because i was fixated on his or her usage of the wrong word. Pique is a derivation of the French word that literally means prick, but is used to mean arouse excitement or interest. So, what these lovely people meant to say was that interest was piqued, not peaked.
As usual, for the more succinct explanation, see this link. Thank you!
My dear friend Kelly gave me a copy of Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Gilman for my birthday, and earlier this week i finally finished it. The subtitle of the book is Tales of Growing Up Groovy and Clueless; it’s a series of stories that span Gilman’s life from her earliest memories to her early adulthood in the ’90s. She’s a feminist Jew who grew up in New York, went to college to become a writer, suffered the divorce of her parents as an adult and wound up in D.C. after a stint working for a Congresswoman on Capitol Hill. I found all of the stories to be entertaining, but the one that gives the book its title was – of course – the most interesting one in my mind.
What it refers to, perhaps obviously, is a wedding dress. When Gilman and her fiancé become engaged, they decide to buck tradition and do things their own way. By and by they find that even if all you want is a DJ and a few guests you still have to have a place to put them and something to feed them, and in spite of themselves they become absorbed in the process of planning the whole affair. But the one thing Susan absolutely won’t have is the traditional wedding dress. As a feminist, she protested Fashion Week in college and wore clothes of a unique punk/vintage style, avoiding conformity to gender roles and societal expectations. Why dress up like some sort of storybook fantasy character to begin a life with a man who has to love you for who you are at your least glamorous? Marriage is a very real, quotidian thing and shouldn’t be treated as though it were some fairy tale. “Let’s face it. I’m neither royalty nor a virgin,” Gilman writes. “In a traditional wedding gown, I’d just be a hypocrite in a pouffy white dress.”
But at her friends’ urging, Gilman goes to a bridal shop and tries on a few dresses just in case. What she finds is a dress that makes her feel gorgeous and a whole new perspective on fashion’s role in feminism. She writes:
Every woman should have this experience – and not only if or when she gets married. Every woman should see herself looking uniquely breathtaking in something tailored to celebrate her body, so that she is better able to appreciate her own beauty and better equipped to withstand the ideals of our narrow-waisted, narrow-minded culture.
At the beginning of the chapter i felt like a bad feminist for not sharing her total aversion to all things traditional in the realm of marriage, but by this paragraph i felt vindicated.
I noticed that Gilman had the same sort of attitude toward marriage that Elizabeth Gilbert expressed in Committed, which is this general feeling of disgust with the idea of becoming legally married despite her devotion to her partner. Both women are feminists and feel that marriage is in many ways not good for a woman, partly because she has to sacrifice her ambitions in order to play the role of “wife.”
I’m not really sure what to think of this. My first reaction was to think that these women, along with a lot of other young people i’ve heard express this same view lately, are perhaps just making excuses to cover up the fact that they really aren’t willing to commit 100%. The way i see it, if you’ve already pledged loyalty to your partner, then you stand to lose nothing and gain a few pretty important benefits by getting married. So why do these women feel the need to reason with themselves that marriage is really some sort of rebellion in order to make peace with walking down the aisle? Are they really just that concerned about filling trite, stereotypical gender roles that they let their lives be governed by that fear? Or is a writing career truly hindered somehow by the duties of being a wife? Personally, i think it’s raising children that’s the huge sacrifice, not getting married.
Your thoughts? I’ve re-written the latter half of this post several times now, and i’ve decided to just end it here with a couple of questions and one unsupported statement rather than try to explain myself. The topic is just too vast; i could do a lot of research and write a very large paper on the topic of Whether Marriage is Good For Women. I suppose i shouldn’t criticize anyone for stepping back and really asking themselves if getting married is the right thing for them to do. But i think when the time is right, the answer has to be a very clear and confident YES. Single ladies: do your deliberating now.