And with this money I DID buy designer clothes

and the march goes on.

after two hard days of thinking and thinking only, and a little research i finally FINALLY broke out of my mold of problem solving and actually solved my pattern problem.

it was a sad two days but deciding on a pattern maker - a pro - got me out of my slump and back to my original design, rather than stealing someone else's. that really wouldn't go over so well with my intent to not be a copy of a copy of a copy.

the pattern-maker has requested i bring a dress that fits me perfectly in the shoulders and the bust, "and we can go from there." wow. pros. love them. she thinks this can be done in an hour. i see her today.

lesson 1: always go with a pro even if you're used to making everything yourself - especially if those things require math and you don't use math.

rule 1: quality over quantity always.
this is a rule i have always lived by.

as a kid i started working early as a babysitter, about age 12. since i'm 5'11" now - reached 5'9" by age 13 - i got jobs early. moms perceived me as more mature because i was taller than them in their 4" heels. and with this money i did buy designer clothes. and i did not have a lot of them, but they were awesome. they were quality, they were NOT a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy that you found at Mervyn's. i couldn't bear Mervyn's. it made my skin crawl. everything the same and none of it new. copies. so unorginal. so sad.

the first pair of designer pants i bought were Calvin Klein. they were classic five-pocket straight-legged khaki-colored cotton. in the store in my tiny hometown of st. helena, california, this was the only store to carry Calvin in a 100 mile radius. my mom was with me. we stepped up to the counter and she proclaimed proudly to a saleswoman - who also attended our church - "this is Beth's first pair of designer pants!"

oh my god. i shrunk. it was so embarrassing. it is not cool to be caught being cool.

from there i went on to purchase only Calvin, Esprit and Ralph Lauren who made my first pair of knickers. they were beautiful. quality. three buttons on each knee, not one, not two, THREE. each one perfectly, evenly spaced between the next. the denim was soft and maleable, the stiching just as fine.

then Guess came along. oy, Guess. they were much cooler in the 80s than they are now. somehow they slid into slutty in the 90s with the discovery of claudia schiffer and anna nicole smith. but in the 80s they were cool. pegged legs with zippers at the bottom, plain five-pockets and my favorite - a pair i still have in my clothes archives - with deep slash-pockets on the sides that showed a light gray denim in contrast and the same angled light gray denim at the knees. i worked three whole days babysitting to buy the $60? $70? jeans. that was insane in 1983. INSANE. funny how they are almost the same price now, 26 years later. weird. i don't get that. were the 80s really that cranked up? i thought the late 90s were cranked. oh, and here we are already in the late first decade of the 21st century. that's right.

hasn't the late first decade of the 21st century pretty much sucked from the get-go? financially i feel like i barely recovered from the dot.com crash of 2001-2003 before the new recession hit, when, 2 years ago? money. whatever. psftttt. i realize that people who did not live in the silicon valley/SF bay area might not know about the dot.com crash, but here it killed us. the boom was exciting! a whole new world where young people ruled. creative people ruled, but they were given too much money for their internet start-ups and they spent it foolishly - being young and idealistic - and the whole shebang bottomed out and suddenly, san francisco was full of unemployed artists with high rents to pay. criminy, there were no full-time jobs to be had for two whole years. i got a two-day a week job copyediting and photoediting for the SF Examiner, hoping every day to be given more hours. the pay was the same as my unemployment check, but i took the job instead and i worked it, praying against all rationality to be given a full-time position. never happened. in fact, i never even got laid off. someone just took my desk one day and i had nowhere to sit and no one to report to. i walked out. i guess no one noticed. it was awesome. realllllly good for the confidence. excellent. thank you.

two weeks later on the cover of the competing SF Chronicle were pictures of my superiors carrying all of their shit in boxes out of their offices with grimaces on their faces. everyone was laid off save a few a editors and writers.

the dot.com crash. what a bitch. and most of the country didn't even know about it.

but we're in a new era and there is hope for the creatives of the world. branch out. make stuff if you're meant to. one thing i have learned FINALLY is the world will not give you what you need just because you work hard. that is the old model. that is no longer enough. the new model is working hard for yourself. it's the only way you'll ever get ahead or ever feel even slightly in control of your life. and not live in fear of closed-door meetings.

entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs, gear up your motors. figure it out! it's time to go solo!