Dakao v. 2.0 - The Crooked Cut

Armor and anxiety

Ξ April 23rd, 2004 | → Comments Off | ∇ Metalworking |

Spent something like 10 hours in the shop tonight. I wasn’t sanding, but my hands still got plenty grimy. I always rub my face with my hands. I just looked in the mirror, and it looks like I’m sporting a huge shiner. Welcome to Fight Club, baby.

…Which may well be the case, if I can get my ducks all in a row — the armor’s all there, and the gauntlets and masks are coming along. I should have two matched sets of gear ready before we get the boot from Grant’s house. Now I just have to have the time to practice.

This Sunday marks another chapter in my friends’ quest to salvage my moribund social life. But who knows what lurks in the minds of women? Or anyone other than oneself. Or even one’s own mind, for that matter. Every time I think of hanging out with people socially, I get hit with nerves and reluctance — a combination of performance anxiety and a yearning for my hammers and steel.

Since January, I’ve been more or less delighted with everything I’ve made. My leg harness fits well and is quite mobile, though the articulation is artificially set with restraining straps down the center of the poleyns. My vambraces were pretty good, I thought — especially the strap-end covers. But the breastplate (a copy of one from Marek and Jizba) with the fluted M was my first really awesome piece (completed about two weeks ago). I quickly followed it up with a buckler (from Talhoffer’s 1467 fechtbuch) tonight, and I half-completed a proper 15th-century Italian pauldron.

I can’t wait for Sunday’s practice session. I’m a show-off, I know.

The harmony of steel

Ξ April 1st, 2004 | → Comments Off | ∇ Fitness / HEMA, Metalworking, Philosophy |

You know, the first girl you like is very different from the 51st girl you like. The intervening girls have all increased and altered the difficulty of judging who you like. And that 51st girl has to live up to a lot more than the first one, because you’ve met a thousand and a thousand girls in the interim — some of whom were probably very cool.

I’m honestly happy when I craft armor, when I fence. I forget about time, about my fears and concerns. 5, 6, or even 13 hours (one time) might pass without my notice. The act of creation is heady stuff. Maybe that’s why God got into that gig.

But I think I could honestly see myself without any relationships, just armoring away. I’ve felt it and thought it through the past couple months, and I wonder if I might not be finally reconciled with the prospect of never being attached or married. Before, I always held out a niggling doubt. Now, I feel more at peace with that statement than I ever have. For what it’s worth in these 26 years of mine. Maybe I’ve achieved the Tao of Steve.

But that’s not to say I’d chase off a girl if she fell from the heavens into my lap… On the continuum from need to want, I’m definitely drifting towards the latter.Young grasshopper have much to learn yet, though.