*pry-bars monkey wrench from the gears*

Well, dear readers, it’s been awhile, yes? Life conspired to keep me away from my reviews and my blog for over a month and bloody well almost succeeded, dammit. I’d like to beg the forgiveness of all my readers and such for lack of updates – it was rather inexcusably rude of me. I shall return to making the reviews by next week.

Now, if you’ve found it in your hearts to forgive me, a post on my own attempts at becoming fully Steampunk.

The process itself has been rather rocky, as one might have guessed from my dour second posting. When one is born in a family that values practicality over beauty one often finds very little support or sympathy when one has a hard time getting into a car because they’re in a corset. And as one might further guess from that sentence, a lot of my transformation lies in my wardrobe. I possess a bevy of Steampunk clothes garnered from dozens of different shops or else made by myself (to be specific I’ve made most of my corsets). I attempt to wear said clothes as often as I feasibly can, though I’m often unable to due either to physical impossibility (top hats also don’t fit in cars) or the demands of life. My return to college, however, will see an upswing in my flouncing around in lace bloomer (and sometimes only lace bloomers, *suggestive laugh*) and bustles.

An easier area of alteration is my jewelry, and I sport an enormous leather cuff bracelet on my left wrist from dawn till dusk unless something like water makes me remove it. Said cuff features a large skeleton watch and a bevy of gears cut from brass. I also have bobby pins decorated in gears, gear earrings, and so forth. These I am usually able to wear often – sometimes every day for weeks on end – due to the fact that jewelry is easier to get on than the elaborate clothes I favor. Keep this in mind, my steampunk paduans: Oftentimes it is the clothes that will prove the most problematic. It takes force of will to get up, squeeze into a corset, button the bodice of your tea dress, grab a parasol, and then manage to make breakfast and go about your day.

We move from here to the gadgets and the accessories. From top hats to walking sticks I wear and use a bevy of strange implements. Some are easy to fit into day to day life, such as calligraphy pens, which allowed me to fix my previously atrocious hand writing. Others, such as the aforementioned walking stick, get me exceedingly weird looks and are difficult to carry with any level of ease.

And finally there is the literature, movies, and music, both old and new, that I absorb nonstop. It's the fuel that fires my love of being a Steampunk and gives me the aforementioned wherewithal to dress and act the part, making that world of gears and gunmetal come to life.

Safe flying, airship pilots!