"It's not for Women"

 Dr. Pepper has just rolled out a new ad campaign aimed to get men drinking their new diet soda.  The tag line?  "It's not for women."  The ad opens with a mock scene from an action movie, a high-speed chase through jungle.  The male lead turns to the camera and says "Enjoying the movie ladies?  Of course not, cause this is for men."

Now, I understand that this is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but something in my gut clenched tight when the man on the screen to a big swig of Dr. Pepper and then claimed "Keep your romantic comedies and your dainty soda."  I'm a woman, and yes, I drink diet soda and I watch romantic comedies.  I also watch action flicks and I have been known to claim that the 'goodness' of a movie is directly proportional to the number of explosions and high-speed chases it displays (whether or not these are directly relevant to the plot).   So what would that man have done if my answer to his question had been "yes, actually, I LOVE this movie."  Does this make me manly?  Are women only allowed to live in pink houses, watch romantic comedies, and drink diet soda?  I thought we were past this.

Is this a sexist campaign?  Yes, definitely.  Should we, the feminists of the world "Get the Joke" and shut up, as the Vice President of marketing suggests in this article?  (forgive the mediocre writing, this was literally the only article with any substance to it that I could find)   I'm not sure if I should be disparagingly amused, or grab my torch and pitchfork.

Closet Makeover

It's that time in the semester when the academic work starts piling up.   Add to that a high school theatre conference and an inconvenient car accident, and I am suddenly buried under mountains of work.  What does this mean?

Organization Tiem!

See, I joined this site called pinterest and there are tons of crafty people on there with interesting ideas for organizing spaces.  I ended up making a list of things to do and re-do around the apartment, and the closet happened to be the first thing on the list.

So before we get too much further, the before pictures.  Witness the horrifying horribleness of my closet!  (and this is cleanish)

 

EEEEEEWWW

This is a shelf which started as t-shirt storage and became "what can I throw here" storage

And in my defense, Gus (my cat(  has this weird facination with shoes.  He likes to sleep on them, hence the nest-o-shoes.








So, a few things had to be done.  The T-shirts needed to be contained in something.  I have a bunch of scarves that were mushed up in my Ikea hangy bag that needed a space of their own, and the shoes needed a method of containment (although it was very important that there still be a few available for Gus to sleep on)

So a trip to target, a little driving of screws, and some re-organizing, and here is the finished product:

Target was having a sale on plastic hangars, so I spent all of $2 to buy a whole bunch, and I replaced all the wire hangars in my closet.  It felt it bit fussy, but it makes the whole thing look so much cleaner.  And now hopefully my clothes will stop falling off their hangars.

Here's the solution to the T-shirt problem:  A basket!  And instead of shoving all the scarves into a bag, they're now hanging very prettily on their own little plastic hooks.  The best part about this is it will leave absolutely no damage on the walls (hopefully)

I'm especially proud of my shoe solution.  A teeny shelf!  It actually took less time to build this than it did to re-hang all the clothes in my closet.  Now I know exactly where everything is, I can see it, and The most commonly worn shoes are on the floor (where Gus can sleep on them)


So that's the great closet makeover.  All in all it took maybe an hour, tops (not counting the target run, which always takes longer than it should).  Next I'm tackling the couch and general "living room" area, which will involve a little more diy-ing.