hard drinking housewife

Once upon a time in university I met a girl who played an operative role in bringing about something of a metamorphosis in my young life.  I was starting to feel seriously sick of whingey music and mosh pits and she came along and opened the doors to Heaven.  And Return to the Source and Club UK.  Liberation!  After years of hiding behind my pout and dressing like a 90's version of an emo I cut my hair and covered my face with glitter.  So one day this influential figure said something to me that really startled my 20 year old brain.  It went kind of like this:

'You know, I think women were stupid to have wanted emancipation.  We could be spending the day painting our nails and having cocktails from noon.  And also, you could go to the doctor and pretend to be depressed and get free valium prescriptions!  What were they thinking wanting to go to work?  Women really screwed things up for themselves.'

This coming from a dynamic, outspoken PhD student.  No.  Really?  Was she at all serious?  I thought housewives were always vacuuming and wishing they could 'break free'.  Could a housewife be rock and roll?  Could being a housewife actually be an option that anyone would ever choose?

So here I am, teaching so few yoga lessons that I essentially qualify as a housewife.  Although now it seems more acceptable to say 'stay at home mom' I quite like the ring of 'housewife' just because it carries so much baggage.  Including stitched baggage!  I love how stitchery by people like Julie Jackson and Carla Hansen takes a style that is traditionally associated with domesticity and housewifery and messes with expectations.  One of my favourite artists, Joetta Maue, makes some valuable points on the tension between feminism and the 'domestic role' in this excellent interview.  Anyway, I felt it was time to follow in the footsteps of the subversive stitchers.

Hard drinking?  Yeah I'm too much of a yoga nerd.  But when I first started this blog I was all about making cocktails.   I quickly found myself with a Mexican Mule obsession that had us consuming so much Don Julio that we began to worry about our money and our health.  Its from diffords guide and I'm including the recipe here because its the best cocktail in the world. I recommend you make it at the first opportunity.

Mexican Mule
1 2/2 shots tequila
3/4 freshly squeezed lime juice
1/4 shot sugar syrup
 shake it all up and put it in a tall ice filled glass.  Fill up to the top with ginger beer.  Yum.

We are hard drinking housewives
Eels in the sink
Rats of unusual size
We're not cocks on weed
We are chicks on speed*

*These are lyrics from the Chicks on Speed song 'worst band in the world' from the album Cutting the Edge.