Heartbroken

I am really, really upset.

I took some pics at Rhinebeck of knitting celebrities, and for the life of me, I can't find the camera. No pics of the haul, either. I know it made it home, because I showed Yoshi the tiny slide show in the tiny screen on the digital camera, but where is the camera now? I don't know!!

I wanted to show you the red sock I am (mostly) designing. I wanted to show the Incredible New England Fall Colors that I Don't Get to See in Season-Free Florida beret kit I got at the Morehouse Merino shop, and the accompanying scarf yarn. I wanted to show you the silk-wool blend I found for a buck a skein (!) that Swan was patient enough to help me add up the yardage for. The green handspun destined to be a cardi for Walter. Among other things.

Sad, sad, sad.

I don't want to tell my stories until I can properly illustrate them, and I fear that by the time I find the camera and then the free time to post, everyone's Rhinebeck high will be spent, if it isn't already. *sigh*

I had a great time, I just can't prove it. I embarrassed the crap out of myself to the delight of Amy Singer (Oooooh, wait! Here's a pic!) and you can't laugh along with me/at me until I find the damn camera. Swan was a great hostess, as well as her hubby, Mr. CygKnit, and they both made fun of me for being adverse to peas (they pop and squish, ew.), and Swan's cat Olive treated me to dessert fondue, and there are no pictures yet because AAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHH!

Okay. I'm going to check the cat's beds and under the couch again. Pout over.

Delayed reaction

Got home yesterday. Serious sinus issues with the air pressure changes, so posting pics tomorrow. Sadly, after reviewing said pics, there aren't many taken at the actual festival...
Off to work a fourteen hour double! Yay! I love waiting tables!

Pardon the interruption

I know no one reads this but my Swan, and I will be going to see her, so no one will really be terribly concerned if I drop off the face of the earth on this blog to go to RHINEBECK.

Back Monday, hopefully with pictures.

Gotta fly; can't keep sheep waiting.

Foot obsessed.

What does this look like to you?
If you said "It looks like Lisa is teaching Jenn to make socks", you are correct. If you said "yarn", you are still correct but not very clever.
I bought two skeins of Malabrigo at the shop near my parent's house about a month ago, in Velvet Grapes and Indigo. So, we are making the exact same pair of super-easy short-cuffed slipper socks, going through together step by step until we each have one. Then, she's on her own.
I'm so proud of her. She turned a heel, made gussets, and almost the entire foot in one evening. We just have toes and kitchener left. And of course, she's already planning her next pair of socks.

Oh, yeah, I finished Yoshi's Xmas stocking. It's a bit dark and unconventional. Like Yoshi. I love it.

It's going to be absolute torture working a four minute drive from the LYS. (Have I not mentioned this before? Gee, wonder why.) I can't stay out of there. I started a pair of red socks in Wildfoote, Ragtime colorway. It is really fiery-looking, so I am trying to display the colors to their best advantage with some mild cables. If cabling is a bug, I am bit. Pics of that when they aren't embarrassingly small.

I also had a birthday, in case anyone couldn't tell by Swan's post. I am now thirty, and a little amazed I made it this far without anyone killing me for snarkiness. Yoshi got me some wonderful books and the best thing ever: the original Star Wars Trilogy on DVD. I cried, I shit you not.

Oh, and look. A picture of a bunny. I will be petting that bunny on Thursday.

Why I love Lisa

(in a heterosexual kind of way)



1. It was love at first sight: I don't believe in that sort of silliness, but there it is. I was looking for a second job in August of 2001, and hit everywhere I could think of: bookstores, movie theaters, a cinema grill--everything. I was about to give up when I returned a call to my mom, and she suggested a little place she liked, Tijuana Flats. I'd never been in, but I was desperate for extra cash. Behind the counter of this sensory assaulting little almost-restaurant is this tiny little imp of a person, who greets me with a shocking amount of cheer. Over the next few minutes, we talk about...stuff. I don't remember what, only just the feeling of rightness. I think she felt it too. (She got me the job there, by the way.)

2. Lisa is a lot of fun to be around. The first time we hung out, it was mind-boggling in a way that makes the phrase "mind-boggling" sound very cheesy. There was talking into the night and much red wine and much, well, understanding. A mini-hurricane came through that night, whipping the trees outside my window. Even though debris was flying everywhere, we were hungry. So, of course, we decided it would be prudent to run across the eight lane road in front of my house in the middle of a hurricane to get to the 24 hour diner. And that was just the beginning of the evening.

3. Lisa taught me to drink. Not beer, not wine, but real liquor. My relationship with quality whiskey will never be the same. (That is a good thing, just so you know).

4. Lisa takes no shit from anyone. For a chicken like me, this is very admirable.

5. Lisa will set your shit straight. For those moments when you need someone to tell you that yes, your ass look huge in those pants, Lisa is your girl. That not enough for you? You need to someone to tell you that the problem is that your head is pretty far up your ass and you really need to get over yourself? Oh, my Lisa is your girl. And she will make you feel good about yourself, even though you have been shredded into leetle pieces (and deservedly so).

6. Regardless of what might or might not have been said at the time, Lisa is a kick ass roommate. Really. For 18 months she drove me absolutely crazy, but was a damn fine friend the whole time. Especially when it came to the stupid men in our lives.

7. I am a better person because of Lisa. No kidding. Whenever she drives me nuts its usually because of my own damn issues. Which I try to resolve when I realize I'm being the jerk.

8. One of my biggest regrets is not having Lisa as a bridesmaid for my second wedding. It took me a long time to see that the love I have for Lisa is a Big Thing. For the longest time, I couldn't figure out why, if we drove each other nuts, we still couldn't stay away from our friendship. See #5.

9. Lisa knits. Enough said.

10. If Lisa loves you, it will be the most intense experience of your life. It might kinda be like the roller coasters that make you want to yarf your hot dog, but it will be the best damn ride ever. And it won't stop. If Lisa loves you, you're hers for life.

Lisa, two years ago you laughed at me when I said "30 is the new 20." What say you now?

Insert triumphant music here

Ta daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

Yes, I am very impressive. I received a lovely white envelope of emergency yarn from Swan at 4 PM Friday, and by 9 PM I was wearing these wrist warmers, including a nice long nap. Here I am in my work pants and undershirt modeling them for you.

I gotta get better clothes to model in.

The biggest dork I know

I have been trying to explain to the people I work with what it is I am leaving town to do in two weeks. Of course, I am talking about Rhinebeck. When I say, Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Festival, I am certain they all think I am actually talking about some oddly titled jam band rock concert festival type of thing, until I explain that I get really excited about things like yarn and pointy sticks. And they all give me the same looks.

You know the looks.

The look says "You are crossing the country northward to do what??" The look says, "how many grandchildren do you have?" (Side note: I am two weeks shy of being thirty years old [gasp!] and I look like I am not old enough to have sexual relations with an adult. Not that anyone considers Yoshi an adult, but in the laws' eyes, you know...) The look says, "You must be the biggest dork I know."

But I know this. And I am more than okay with being the biggest dork most people around me know, including myself. I celebrate my dorkiness, revel in it, embrace my dorkitude with both arms (no lame assed one-arm hugs for my personal geekdom, no sirree). As Yoshi puts it, better the biggest dork I know than the biggest drunk I know.

Dork isn't a disease. Dweebie never hurt anyone. Geeky didn't start any wars. Famine isn't a by-product of nerdiness. In fact, without the passionately dorky people of the world, we would have greater health problems, hygiene would be in the dark ages, and just think of the public sewer system; only a huge freaking honking dork whose mother dressed him funny would think about how to send our humanly wastes away (because that's where it goes, away) by using water as an efficient and purifying transit method. Dork really translates into a strong commitment and passion for anything not ridiculously cool. Which I think is ridiculously cool in itself, so truly, I am the utmost of dorky cool. (Another side note: Geek chic is not dorky cool, despite semantic ramifications. It is a crappy trend. True dork endures.)

So, I spend a lot of my weekend nights at home alone, enjoying the quiet and playing with string and sticks while watching Harry Potter movies because I can't get the Terry Pratchett book on CD that Yoshi burned for me to play in the living room. I like to get up early on Saturday morning to go to the Farmers' Market and buy produce to make jams, jellies, and a kick-ass tomato sauce. I like Star Wars, comic books, sci-fi fantasy, and would really like to meet George R. R. Martin and smack his bearded face for not coming out with the next Song of Ice and Fire book a little sooner, because I need to know what happens with the damn dragons. I watch a lot of BBC America, Sci Fi Channel, Food Network, and DIY Network on television, my only willing pursuit into mainstream entertainment being House on Fox. So-the-fuck-what. You jealous or something?

People seem to have a real problem understanding why anyone would want to be a dork. Well, I will tell you; it's a lot more fun to be comfortable with yourself when you are just being who you are, than uncomfortable trying to fit into someone else's idea of who you should be. Don't get me wrong; I slip up with this all the time. I get a little embarrassed of myself; sometimes translated into a deeply unsettled shame that I can only bear by running crying from a crowded room. But part of being comfortable with myself has been learning to not get myself into that crowded room in the first place; it simply isn't where I belong. Self actualization is a bitch. I prefer my social situations small and intimate; I like my love life uncomplicated and monogamous; and I have very few friends, each and every one of whom might well take a bullet for me and knows without doubt I would do the same for them. A party in my honor might consist of less than ten people, but I know all their birthdays, middle names, and some of their secrets, and they mine.

Dork takes strength of character to live out. Dork means people look at you funny, and you just go on smiling and being very excited to be doing whatever dorky thing you are doing, and damn anyone who doesn't care to understand. Fuck 'em if the can't take a dork. And hey, if the fact that I am a knitter and obsessed with fiber is so freaking lame, why did you just ask me to make you a scarf?

I know where I belong. I know my place. It is as the Reigning Queen of Dorkdom in my immediate life.

Of course, I have to step aside and let Swan take up the mantle when I see her. Great Googly Moogly, is that girl ever dorky.

And she takes that from me as the highest compliment.

The things that I do while wasting my life

And this is what I am on about today:

1. I am avoiding taking the car in for an oil change. It is just too boring to deal with on my precious day off. I'll go in about an hour.
2. I am really cranky about a pattern in the Fall '06 Vogue Knitting. Page 85. These socks do not match. There is only one chart for the colorwork, and it's not the one I like. What's the point of buying the mag if I have to figure out the color chart from a friggin' picture? I really like the front sock, but not so much the back sock, and we can all figure it out from there.
3. I am still bitching about those socks. I don't understand the toe or heel construction, and I fear it will be one of those things I have to learn by doing it, which means many nights of squinting at the pattern as it rests in the cookbook holder (we all have our methods) and trying to figure out what line of tiny text I just read. It looks like what I imagine a short-row toe and heel must be, but having no experience in these methods, how the hell do I know? I see a visit to the yarn shop lady in my near future if I decide to make these.
4. I am really, really happy for Stephanie and Joe. Notice, I am not including the link. If you are reading this, you know exactly who I am talking about, and what. If you don't, call me and I will teach you to knit in your spare time, and you will naturally progress in Stephanie's direction.
5. I am really, really awed that she decided to pull off finishing the book, the event from #4, as well as two major knitting projects all within, like, two days of each other. Makes me feel like a slacker. Oh, wait... I am a slacker. That explains it.
6. In fact, I am such a slacker that I really really hope there is an afterlife so I can totally waste that, too.
7. I have figured out what to wear to Rhinebeck. But not what to read on the plane. I have decided not to risk having any needles taken away from me in the interest of airline security. I will just have to survive the three hour flight without knitting. If Swan can do Yom Kippur, then this heathen can certainly do non-stop from Orlando to Hartford.
8. The mitt is so close to done that I have only six inches of my own yarn left and cannot wait until I get a package from Swan with the remaining yarn. So excited to finish them. Hatred for the second mitt has completely dissipated due to everyone in my house being really supportive and impressed at the reversed cable. Little do they know, it's only a matter of holding stitches to front or back. HAAAA, HAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAH! Hey, I'll take encouragement wherever I can find it.
9. I love Swan's new socks. They are adorable.
10. I watched a really creepy and awful Japanese movie the other night called Audition. I hated it. Especially the torture scene; I couldn't find a larger meaning behind any of it (excepting perhaps the naivete of the main character, to which we are somehow meant to relate?), which is usually what makes horror movies bearable for me. But this one seemed a bit senseless. God, I hope I am missing something.
11. No, really, I cried when I saw Dawn of the Dead. Yoshi will never let me live it down. That's what I want in a horror movie; a little emotional complexity and passion. Oh, and Paris Hilton dying immediately.
12. Movie was pretty damn sexist, too.
13. The eggplant has come back into ridiculously huge full bloom. It is currently bearing somehting like 9 Ichiban eggplants. I can cut them off in about a week, provided the caterpillars don't come back.
14. Sadly, the cucumbers fell prey to the caterpillars. They now look like stringy green sticks sticking two inches out of the ground with cobwebs travelling up the trellis. So much for pickles.

And that's about it.