Mom’s 95 years birthday – thoughts on celebrations/party, breathing and overalls – contradiction or possible to bring together ?

Today my mother turned 95 and I and my 2 brothers went down to her residence for dementia people, and it was really nice to make a party for her ! and I was of course wearing overalls and my so called red butterfly ! and while this happened, Ms. Moon, another overalls addict, wrote about how awful it is to put restrictions on your capacity of breathing when you go to parties like Weddings etc. by wearing bras or in my case belts etc. instead of wearing overalls and t-shirt and no narrow shoes or like ! why is it supposed to be proper to limit your capacity for being relaxed and breathe all the way down, when you are making some kind of festivities or celebrations ! perhaps the International overalls day will be the start of a revolution against restrictive dressing up ! Let’s make relaxing parties with overalls and similar breathing clothes , to the default dress code !!

once more on roles of gender and the 70′ties and wondering if overalls can make a difference

yesterday one of my overalls friends, Mayaand I began to think of the 70′ties and here I am on the Red Square in January 76 in Moscow with my fur coat made by my mother out of 4 lambs. 7 years before in 69, I was on the first summer camp made by a hippie organization where the principle was completely anarchy ! every one had the right to do what she/he thought was best, well it turned quite traditional out into men sitting with their pipes and women running around making food and taking care of kids and I felt it quite bizarre and not that cozy even if you were supposed to enjoy it ! and when it started to rain, well, it didn’t make it better and Maya, we did not have Hendrix etc. to make it better, so I left the camp quite frustrated on what to do; later in 74, I worked together with feminists, but sometimes in a strange way, since they were very tough in debates and running a hard core theory agenda and then sitting at home in their studio, they were not in a very good shape, in some cases stomach ulcer !, at that time I didn’t understand and neither now ! As I said in my previous post some of the feminists of the 70′ties have now returned to a very traditional position with very traditional division of labor between men and women ! and when you make posts like I did a few days ago about this, I got this comment in Norwegian from one of my students, living in the Norwegian countryside with the heading saying: I have it fixed it:
” Now in the summer, we can see countless men in work clothes, with plaster on
fingers, and attempts at hernia and lumbago, busy with the
diverse challenges in the home front.

Household’s feminine representatives often keeps a safe distance to drill
and over the green line, which gives a certain safety margin, and a
humorous successful distance to the scenes which necessarily must be express.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/80712667/”

well, ha, ha, I am of course supposed to laugh and see how funny and crazy men are doing things ! I might severely be lacking sense of humor, but to be honest I don’t think my student got my point around roles of gender ! and this leads to my very big surprise of finding so much positive response and accept from Susan, Maya, Laury, Ms. Moon etc. Until I met you overalls sisters, if I may call you that, my wife and dear life partner since 76 !, has been the only one who really understands me, perhaps since she is also somehow in-between traditional roles and happens to wear 95 % of the time what you could call half-overalls, carpenter-jeans, and before Susan contacted me, I still thought of being more or less alone, but now I know that there are people around the world, funny enough especially in the Southern States, who are living and thinking the same way, so there are still hope and when we have human minded politicians like Obama, yes, there are still hope for making good life, right here, with overalls, a good cup of coffee, have a nice weekend, and again thanks a lot to you overalls sisters for being friends, hope to see you all some time some place ! but blogs are a very good beginning for sure !

overalls and talk beyond gender and age ! an old man’s thoughts on good life!

Happy Sunday, these two photos have nothing to do with gender, but they show the moon the other night viewed from our farm house and the other one show how trees are being formed by the yearlong western direction of the blow of the wind ! and then to my thoughts of roles of gender. For years I have been struggling with being a man, an ordinary man ! When my kids were small, I was often in kindergarden and school as parent and attending the parents group etc. and liked to make cakes and to make festivals for the kids, but I also experienced that most of the things were done by women, the mothers, and not by the fathers. Taking care of baking, cooking and clothing, garden, house design, laundry etc. were sort of the women area and even in the liberated 70′ties you were a strange male if you were interested in all this. You was supposed to like fishing, hunting, to build carports etc. etc. I tried several times to discuss this issue with my female academic colleagues involved in developing gender research as a new field, but it did not suit into their agenda ! and when I meet them today, they have in many cases returned to their pre-revolutionary female style and have turned into very traditional women with very traditional husbands as well, thats hopefully fine for them, but still unsatisfactory for men like me who wants to be all right making house things. Last night I talked with my wife last night about all this and about when I as 14 year old boy, in 63, moved from Copenhagen out in the countryside on a farm, which my father bought in order to realize his dream of being a farmer. In the beginning my parents didn’t live their, but they had a guy as farm manager taking care of the farm. So I lived alone in our house at the farm, while I went over to the farm managers house to eat and have some social life, when I came home from school! They were a very down to earth family and I really enjoyed their company. I could relax and and in fact enjoy to work in the field, driving tractor etc. and then after getting completely dirty and tired, eat as many strawberries as you can and watch a funny movie ! At the same time, I was almost scared to death to visit some of the farms of my own family, why ? because they sort of expected the tough boy of me ! well, I might have been wrong and misunderstood my folks , but that’s what I remember ! but what about overalls ? how do they play a role in this ! well, the wife to the farm manager, the mother to two boys, she wore overalls, and one of the first things I remember was when she asked my mother whether she could wear some clean overalls when she went up to our neighbors ! and I also remember that she patched her overalls and rolled them up, just like I am doing now ! she also convinced me to wear jeans in school back in the 60′ties and it was not only the overalls, but also the fact that she listened to me, although I stuttered a lot, and she talked a lot and I listened as well ! even if I was just a young kid! well, I don’t know If I can make a consistent conclusion from this, but anyway, it makes me feel okey in doing the house things, making food etc. and wearing overalls, when I think of her and I like people like her, also today. Overalls and good talk are taking you beyond gender and does not make you less woman or man, but enables you to create your own way of living ! I don’t know if that makes sense to anybody apart from myself and my wife, but it really doesn’t matter !

butterflies, lavender and black currants – from my Danish garden

one of the fantastic things with overalls is that they suit so perfect for gardening as well as for cooking etc. so almost nothing is better than wearing overalls while you watch butterflies in the lavender and you pick beautiful and not least tasteful and healthy black currants to make you fresh to resist flues etc. etc. so it is such a privilege to one day pick cloud berries in Norway and the other day black currants in Denmark ! doing the garden and the food ready for visit of my grandson next week, so you bet, there are also more than overalls which count for me, but in any case, it is so wonderful to enjoy all the other things and easy to do all kind of things, when you wear overalls !

revisiting who am I,really? what about an overall ethnicity ? apropos July 4th

Well, today people in U.S.A. celebrate the independence day and this takes me back to the whole start of this blog 2 years ago, when I wrote about an “overall ethnicity” and I am wondering if that is what unites me with people like Susan, Maya, Tigon, Laury, etc. etc. no matter where you are in the world making us one overalls nation, not in an exclusive sense, but just a nation of free choice of people wanting to wear something which makes you happy and easy going and more and more beautiful as your overalls are worn, good life in a simple way, and the photo is from my Silver wedding in 2005 in SF, really a nice place for overalls people, so today I am happy and thankful today for having a US with so many nice and creative overalls people and I want to congratulate you all.

genetic reason for simple clothes design ?

Well, I love overalls and I have decided not to leave them behind in order to obtain some power or money for my other professional projects ! just like the brother to my 4th great-grand father, Jens Harpoth, a merchant, who lived in a small Danish town around 1800, had his very own frugal style even if he was very wealthy !, and one story about him goes like this: one day he went out to a country inn; wearing his old well worn clothes since he thought clothes should be worn to its limits and patches were not a bad thing! but anyway, the inn keeper was another kind of man and he thought that his new guest without looking close, didn’t look “properly” so he throw him out of the door. Then some of the other guests shouted: you just kicked out one of the richest men around here ! and then the inn keeper tried to get Jens back, but that was too late ! in other words, simple living has a long history ! lets celebrate it every day, and especially on November 20 of course !

Be ready for 1st International Overalls Day November 20th !

Now Susan, notquitejunecleaver,com, and I are ready for the big day, November 20th, celebrating overalls, so be ready to wear your overalls, get a pair if you don’t have them already or find them in your closet !