Yarn-A-Go-Go

That's Where the Party Is

Good morning! After this evening, I'm going OFFLINE. (I know -- what lurks out there in that wasteland? I have no idea. It's been a really long time, and I'm looking forward to it.) So if you need me, send up a flare or call one of my sisters, because I'll be camping, without even so much as a single bar of cell reception. (Attention burglars: We have a fantastic petsitter who isn't scared of anything, and our pit bull Clementine doesn't like intruders. That said, the tomatoes are finally getting ripe -- please don't enter the house (as stated, Clemmy won't appreciate it), but if you take a tomato or two, no one will mind.) 

(Wait. On second thought, don't take the tomatoes. I've only had four.)

While I'm gone, I'm posting this great bit on genre vs. literary fiction. It's a battle I still fight within myself, because I'm trained in the literary tradition -- I feel like I know what it's supposed to look like, taste like. However, my tastes (and my writing style) run right to genre and plop down crosslegged, pulling out the knitting and staying a while. So when Jenny Crusie gabs with Jennifer Weiner about genre and Franzen's new book (which I don't think I'm going to read, but feel free to try to change my mind), I listen. (I LOVE Crusie's writing workshops. Oh, but had I attended something like that in grad school. Seriously. My mind would have BLOWN. She is good at craft.)

Excerpted from the excellent and much longer blog HERE:

Have you been following the controversy over the praise and attention lavished on Jonathan Franzen for his new novel, FREEDOM? Are you planning on reading the book? Do you think there’s a difference between the way women’s stories and men’s stories are perceived, and reviewed? Do you think things are getting better?

I’ve had my knife out for Franzen ever since he dissed Oprah viewers as Not His Kind, so no, I won’t be reading his book since he made it very clear he didn’t want me (“Hi, I’m from the Midwest, I’m female, and I wear a lot of knits!”). I haven’t read the reviews, but didn’t somebody call it the best book of the twenty-first century? Making the next ninety years irrelevant? That’s fanboy stuff—“BEST BOOK EVAH!”—so I’m not paying much attention, but it appears to be part and parcel of the whole Literary Group Think, something I got more than my share of doing an MFA in fiction. One of my profs said, “Jenny, you write so well. Have you ever thought about writing literature?” I said, “No,” because it was easier than explaining that literary fiction is just another genre, not God’s Library. The people who say, “I write for the canon” have forgotten or never knew that the canon doesn’t read. People read. Fiction is not beautiful writing although that’s wonderful; fiction is storytelling. It’s putting narrative on the page that moves and transforms people, and because there are many, many different kinds of people in the world, there are many, many different kinds of fiction. There’s nothing wrong with The Literary Group—they know what they like when they read it—until they start insisting that what they like is what everybody should like, and refusing to teach anything but literary fiction in creative writing programs and refusing to review anything but their definition of literary fiction in their publications. That’s a mistake: I think they’ve marginalized themselves and are becoming more and more irrelevant. Jon Stewart sells more books than a rave review in the NYT. Nora Roberts and Stephen King reach more people than Franzen ever will. There’s the real world full of a multitude of readers with a multiplicity of reading tastes, and it’s thriving and alive and interacting on the net, changing and growing and exciting because of its fluidity and passion, and then there’s the New York Times Book Review which is born ceaselessly back into the past by the literary version of the Tea Party who keep moaning that they want their America back, oblivious to the fact that their exclusive white, male America died with Gatsby. I’m much happier being part of the “All right then, I’ll go to hell” bunch. That’s where the party is.

* Rachael, back again. I agree with all of this, wholeheartedly. However, there's a subsection of writers she doesn't mention, and that's the one into which Cari Luna fits (along with others, I'm sure) -- Cari writes gorgeous literary fiction and still appreciates moderately-well-written genre fiction (into which category I hope I fit). Yep. (And then there are the readers who gobble up both literary and genre fiction -- me again -- and and and...) 

Anyway. Food for thought. Offline soon, and have a good Labor Day Weekend!

Pin-Up Jasmin

Ahem. They released the promo pictures for Off The Needles, the knitting pin-up calendar! And I was thrilled silly to see that Jasmin of the Knitmore Girls is not only my fellow month, but she's my birth month, Miss July! And since it's much easier to blog a picture of someone else, here's Jasmin, looking sexy as hell:

Look how cute she is! Ooops! Did I drop my yarn? Can you help me with that?  

For those of you not in the know (all seven of you), Jasmin and her mother Gigi run the extremely popular podcast, the Knitmore Girls. I absolutely love this podcast, and here's why: They're real knitters and lovely, lovely women. The knitting is part of their lives, it's in their blood, and they just sit and chat. Mother and daughter together, they shoot the breeze about what's gone on with each of them recently, what has and hasn't worked in their knitting (or in their lives).

Jasmin is a fellow Mills alum, something we had immediately in common. Mills women often feel an immediate kinship with each other, and when you marry knitting with Mills? Back off, everyone else in the room. When those connections are uncovered, instant BFFs are created. She's smart as a whip, has an amazing radio/podcast voice, and I could listen to her talk about burnt toast.

And mom Gigi? I'm not sure if you know this, but she's as gorgeous as Jasmin. Amazing hair, and oh, the STRUCTURE of her cheekbones. One of my favorite features of the podcast is the segment called "Mother Knows Best." Because, you know, she does.

You know what I love most about the podcast? I love hearing two women take so much pleasure in talking to each other -- Mom and daughter obviously love each other, and more than that, respect each other. The way they talk speaks volumes about their relationship. I would adore their show even if I didn't miss my mother like I do, and I love it more because of it.

Plus, Jasmin is just plain COOL. You know? You see her coming, and you think, DAMN, she's awesome, and then she smiles at you and talks to you and you think: YAY! I try to pick up any cool points she drops when I'm around her.

She's blogging my picture over at her blog, because we should both  promote the calendar, but it's HARD to put up pics like these, for some reason. I can know that you read my book with its spicy bits, and I blog pictures of myself like there's no tomorrow, but I'm shy about this for some reason. (And if you'd like to pre-order one of the calendars, more pics are up HERE and by purchasing one HERE, you can help assure that they make their fund raising goal.)

Woo!

I have ten minutes to do the drawing! I said I'd do it on Saturday, and so I will, but I have to hurry!

Quick drumroll.... 

GALLEY WINNERS

The winner from mailing list (I'll be giving more galleys away, make sure you're on it!) is.... E.Amber! Woot!

And the winner from the comments is.... Jody Knitnthings! Yay!

I'll be emailing you (now) and thanks all, for commenting and huzzah!

Now I'm off to bed. Yep. Mwah.

Breaking News

My reading tomorrow at Rabbit Ears has been postponed! It will now be on November 7th. Sorry for any hassle that creates!

And also this, just in -- the cover of Book Two in the Cypress Hollow series in Australia, known there as Lucy's Kiss. I LOVE this cover. It goes so well with the first one, Eliza's Gift, and it's just so damn CUTE.

Isn't it funny how different it is from the American version, How to Knit a Heart Back Home? (Shown yesterday, don't forget to enter that post's comments for a chance to win a galley!) I love both covers. I'm so lucky!

Win a Galley!

So much catch up to do: I ALMOST FORGOT TO SHOW YOU THIS. (Because you know, that's how I am, getting books everyday. OMG! SO NOT THAT WAY!)  I have galleys of How to Knit a Heart Back Home! 

Isn't it gorgeous? And you know what? Those sweaters up there? They're mine. I made them, with my own two hands. The needles she's using are mine, and the swatch she's "knitting" from his sweater is one I made. That's the original Cade sweater there, on the right (now given away as a prize, must make another one), and that yellow one is my favorite yellow sweater (the pattern comes with the book). I sent the sweaters off to New York, where they played around in a photo shoot and then came home to me. I love it.

(And do you see that line under my name? I'm an "author of." That's thrilling to me.)

Also, I seem to have lost that sweater now. I have no idea where it is, which makes me too sad to think about, so if you see it, send it home?

GIVEAWAY:

And to get myself to the post office (boy, I have a lot of things to mail), I'm going to give two of these away. Yep. I'll give one to a random commenter on this post, and I'll give one to someone randomly drawn from my mailing list (subscribe here). 

YAY! Like, super big, hollered from the rooftops, YAY! 

OTHER NEWS:

I had a great reading at Llama Llama Knit in Novato, and the women there were awesome. Hi ladies!

 

And LOOK at their store dog, Maebe. I just died over this gal.

 

It was a hot night, and you can see how red I get when I'm warm:

Aileen was a doll, and also brought champagne, always a lovely thing to bring. I heart champagne. 

Speaking of heat, we've had a mini heat wave in the Bay Area, and I couldn't stay in our hot house yesterday, so I drove to the coast. I went to Duartes and worked for a long time. I was definitely the only person who was working on a computer, so I felt a wee bit funny, but I had olallieberry pie after my oysters: 

I also managed to say hello to Lynn, my favorite waitress. I didn't know if she'd remember me from when I worked there in the winter, but she did. "You. You're a writer. You sat at table nine." We'd had a lovely chat then, and I wanted to give her the book, since my ranchers come straight out of conversations I've head in the old restaurant (Duartes = Tillie's!). 

Then I went tidepooling for a long while. My phone died, and it was really nice to be completely cut off (until my car started overheating. That was a little worrisome, but it worked out). 

It was glorious. This is what came in when I was out there:

And now, the heat wave is broken, and as I sit at my desk, my toes are cold, and I'm glad.

Also: Urban Fauna alerted me that their two year anniversary is this weekend, and they're having a sale! Goodie bags! (My book will be given away at some point, too, and that's cool.)

I feel like I'm going to be playing catch up all day. I stayed up late last night, so I slept till almost eleven this morning, and as soon as I fully woke up, I started running the mental lists of everything I have to do today. Lala's been working a temp job for about a month now, and while it was really difficult financially while she was out of work, it sure was nice to have her doing all the Life Errands. I've put off everything I could possibly put off until this week, and I can't put them off anymore. The animals need food! Lala needs her bass fixed! I HAVE TO GET A SMOG CHECK (also, someone stole my month tag off my car, so it looks like I'm trying to cover up the fact that my registration is overdue. I'm not, Officer, I swear!).

Also, I have a crap-ton of writing to get done. Where does that fit today? I don't know! But it will. I'll get it all done. But it was more important to say hello to you than start on it all, so hi. Leave a comment for a chance to win! Woot! I'll draw winners on Saturday.

READING:

(Oh, I also have a reading/spinning demo at Rabbit Ears in Kensington on Saturday at 2pm (7253 Fairmount). Would love to see you!

Fantasy Monday

Reentry to the week is hard, isn't it? I have to do it a little earlier than most. Sunday night is when I have my "Monday," and by the time most of you are heading for work, I'm heading home for bed.

And we're all tired, aren't we? Yep.

What would perk us up? What about a little dream-weaving, eh? I'm not one of those people who fantasizes about what I'd do if I won the lottery. It's not something I think I shouldn't do; in fact, I think it does us all good to have a little mind-wander. I just never remember to do it.

So I'm going to let myself imagine for a minute, and you should do the same. What if we won the lottery? And let's say we hit it big, and had the money to do all the obvious things: invest wisely, pay off debt, buy houses for everyone in the family. What would we want once those things were paid for? (Think selfishly. You've already helped lots of people out. That's the game.)

1. An iPad for Lala. (That's silly, huh? But I sometimes feel guilty that I got one with book money in order to write books, and she doesn't have one yet (so this counts as selfish because I'd feel better). She should have one.)

2. A yellow Smartcar! And a red Mini! I can't choose, so how about both?  

3. A second home in Venice in the north part of Cannaregio.

4. A third home in the Avenues of San Francisco (somewhere to go when I get too hot in the Oakland heat. I'm a delicate flower, yo).

5. Um. Oooh! A maid! No more cleaning the litterbox! Boy, do I hate that job.

6. Cashmere yarn. Lots of it.

That's all I've got. Apparently I don't think about it much because I don't have much of a list (I honestly thought when I started writing things down I'd have a hundred things. Huh.)

What do YOU want to buy with your winnings?

Vapid Patter

On the plane flying home from Orlando, I sat next to the awesome Carolyn Jewel (who had been up for not one but TWO Rita's (the Oscar of romance)), and while she wrote (or didn't write) a sexy scene (I was working so hard not letting my eyes accidentally fall on her laptop screen that now I don't remember what she said she was writing), I finished going over page proofs for HOW TO KNIT A HEART BACK HOME. Page proofs are awesome in that they are the very last time you'll lay hands on your book. This is it! You're pushing the baby bird right out into traffic!

And you always find some typos that have made it through your own editing, that make it past your agent and your editor, past copy-edits and all the way to this last draft. Now, say that I noticed things in my copy-edits that needed to be added, and say I wrote them in by hand to be changed. Now, it is NOT the production editor's job to decipher my sloppy handwriting (which I do try to make clear, I promise). They add to the text what they are told (by me) to add, and that's that. I take the blame for the below HYSTERICAL mistake.

When I read that my heroine had a vapid heartbeat, I almost choked on my peanuts. It's true, my Vs do look like Rs. I'd never noticed that before. A vapid heartbeat! Oh, lord! I've known people with one of those!

In another spot, I'd added a sentence about the pattern she'd been making. That R and N certainly smoosh up close in my handwriting, and the text read that she was knitting from a patter. (Both vapid and patter obviously passed the spell-check test.) (I just wrote "past the spell-check test." I am at word overload. Please forgive the other inevitable typos in this post as I mock myself.)

Carolyn and I started howling about vapid patter, to the point that she said, "Watch! I'm putting it in my book! Right now!" Clickety click click, and she did.  

So today, I put it in my third novel because it happened to fit beee-yoo-tifully (and Carolyn practically dared me to). (That novel is coming along smashingly, by the way. I keep expecting the other shoe to drop, but it seems to be going well so far. Yippee!)

When I get a copy of Carolyn's book, she'll sign the page with vapid patter on it. And I'll sign that page in her copy of MY book.

And I here and now challenge all y'all book-writers to sneak the phrase in. It's now A Thing. Anyone who does it will get a shiny badge WITH GLITTER from me. Promise. (And when you read book three and hit that phrase, you'll think, "Huh? That sounds awfully familiar...")

Pass it on! Quick link to this post: http://bit.ly/a9Z5CJ

Winners

And the winners are:

Handspun: Anne (maplecorners)

Signed book: Ruth (rutababe)

Signed book: Mary McM.

I'll be emailing all of you tomorrow for addresses! Congrats, and woot! More winners soon, I'm sure. xoxo

Well...

I just wrote a very boring blog, which I've erased so that you don't have to bear reading it. You're welcome. I'm not even censoring myself or acting in a self-preserving manner--it was neither inflammatory nor racy. It was just boring.

So instead, I'll tell you this:

The Sharpie Liquid Pencil(erasable, turning to permanent in 36 hours) is not the life-changer that I thought it might be. But it IS a surprisingly satisfying implement with which to edit. I hate scribbling changes and then instantly changing my mind. Adding a sentence, and then hating half of it. This is PERFECT for that, because it's dark like a pen (I wish it came in colors) but erases cleanly. I was slightly let down by it, but then I realized that was because it is, in fact, as smooth-flowing as a pen, and I hadn't expected that. I'd expected the normal pencil scritch, which wasn't there. But I'm still pretty stoked about it.

Ha! And this isn't the boring blog I erased (erased as if it were PENCIL, people). Imagine what I saved you from!

(I haven't forgotten about the drawing -- I'll do that tonight! Leave a comment in the previous post or sign up for my email list (to the right) to enter.)

Giveaway

I'm writing. Writing, writing, writing. It's hard for me sometimes to think of anything else. Ask the long-suffering Lala or my poor sisters about that. I am officially the most boring person in the world, as when I'm away from the desk I'm either working on how to get back to it or how to stay away from it without guilt (answer to the last: big long naps, that's how, under the guise of Avoiding the Cold from Hell that's going around--must rest!).

Sister Bethany pointed out that lately I write about writing, and seldom about knitting. Good point! See above.

But I have been knitting a bit. And spinning. Oh, Lisa Souza, with your perfect, perfect batts. Really, when I'm spinning her stuff, I don't want to touch another piece of fiber that she hasn't prepared, ever. I spun a lot of this: 

It's 90% super-fine merino, with these little glints of colored tencel, red and yellow and pink, that gleam through, and it made a nice DK-weight 2-ply. I made this cowl (super-simple free Ravelry link) out of the first batt: 

I wish you could really see how pretty it is, with those little sparkles of color here and there. The camera doesn't do it justice. SO SOFT. And I still have two batts left (now spun, they just need to be washed and hung).

It's funny, this is the first yarn that I've ripped in a long time. I tried three different kinds of scarves before realizing it needed to be a cowl. And I knew it would come to me--I just had to keep trying.

DRAWING - FREE STUFF

Hey, in apology for not being all knittified like I used to be, I feel like giving things away! I'm going to draw one random winner from my mailing list (not on it? I never spam; join up there to the right) and I'll send the winner an autographed copy of HOW TO KNIT A LOVE SONG. If you have it already, you can either have me make it out to a friend of yours, or have me make it out to you and pass your copy on to someone else!

Ooh, hang on a sec, it seems I'm feeling REALLY generous. Again, from the mailing list, I'll randomly draw a name, and that person will win enough of the Lisa Souza yarn that I made to make a cowl, just like that one up there. 

And just for fun, I'll randomly draw a winner from the comments of this post and send an autographed book out that way, too. Just tell me what's keeping you from YOUR knitting right now. 

Yeehaw! Fun! I'll draw on Wednesday.

Happy to Work

I think I've mentioned here before that once a week, when I switch my sleep schedule and stay up all night working, I take a sleeping pill when I get home at 7am, just to jolt myself into sleeping days for the week. Seems to work well, and because I don't take them very often, they're always strong, and always work.

This morning, after I'd drifted off into sleep, I got the hiccups. I know this because I remember hiccuping and startling awake, wondering what the hell had just happened, and then falling back asleep. Then I'd wake up for the next hiccup, only to fall immediately back into deep sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. It was pretty funny for someone like me who can be woken up by a whisper in another room sometimes and normally has problems falling back asleep. I have to say, it felt good.

As does sitting here in Peet's, having written for a few hours, and when I'm done with this post, I'll go to work for the night. I do love what Gloria Steinem said about loving having written. After-writing is always the best part of the day, even if it's only the short drive to work where my day starts over. That drive is happy, even if the words themselves actually sucked.

RWA National was amazing, terrific, awesome. I didn't get enough sleep (surprise!) and ended up with a migraine the night of the RITAs, but at least I made it through the ceremony and got to see my chapter-mate Elisa Beatty win the Golden Heart! We were so very proud!

I spent plenty of time in meetings and attending parties where we got to wear our best clothes and our highest heels (if we wanted to, of course -- but I did). I hung out with five of the PensFatales (oh, we missed the ones who couldn't make it). I spent time with my agent, who is SO AWESOME. I had a massage in a spa and pretended I did it all the time. I met many, many people. I decided Orlando in July is too hot to support life, and I'm not sure how they fake it, and I sat next to a hairy drunk guy on the plane and thought terrible things in his sleeping direction until he woke up and talked about being Etta James's keyboard player for twenty-five years. Just goes to show -- when I judge people, I am usually completely wrong. I should know this by now.

A wonderful, writing-filled time. And it feels so great to be back to the writing, too! I didn't work while I was gone, a conscious decision, and I feel refreshed just for being gone from the page those five or six days.

Yes. Happy. Working hard. I think those might be related.

A Picture is Worth....

Please don't anyone admit that they saw Digit doing this:

What Clementine looks like when she's waiting for Lala to get home.

 

An alternate look: OH SO SAD.

Where Miss Idaho and Clementine wait.

Close up of Miss Idaho while she waits. Her tongue doesn't fit in her mouth.

Our new candelabra (it used to be my mother's -- it makes us feel like we're in the Haunted Mansion):

You see? Spooky:

And now, my darling chickens, I'm off to Orlando! Tuesday I fly to the Romance Writers of America National Convention, and I'm going to have so much FUN. For the first time, I'm only taking the iPad. I'll let you know how that goes. I'm not planning on having much time for writing, and built that into my schedule, and I can check email on my phone, so even if I'm a bit cut-off, that will be all right. I'll take photos! You know I LOVE this convention, so I'll share what I learned when I get home...

An Early Morning Thought

This is a small thought, but it feels important. Over the years, I've been lucky enough to meet readers of this blog, and there's a common refrain: "I feel like I know you, but that must be weird. I know I don't..." I usually ask if they leave comments, and if so, what their email is(because I have a strange brain in that I forget names but remember email addresses, so that can jolt me into recognition). I always want to reassure them, and I'm never sure quite how to do it.

Thought: We *do* know the people we read online, exactly as well as we know other people in our lives. Online, I choose the stories I tell you, yes. But in real life, I do the same thing. My family, of course, knows me better than this, because they know how I act when I'm acting badly (hopefully that's not often). But everyone else? Friends, coworkers (happy to have some nice overlap there), they know the me I present to them. It's the same for you.

And just because you know me from the internet doesn't mean it doesn't count. In fact, I tell stories here that I don't tell anywhere else. You listen. You remember. And I remember that you're doing that, and I'm grateful.

Tonight, I started missing my friend Grace. She lives in Canada, and she doesn't have a blog, but she's been commenting for years and YEARS, and I know her, or at least I know what she tells me. And that's enough for me. I love her. She's my friend. I realized I hadn't heard from her in a while, not a proper email, so I just nagged her a few minutes ago, and now I'm blogging about her, so I'm sure she'll pop up soon. (I think she should start a blog. She, like many others, probably thinks I should check FB more often. Which I just did when I realized I could, and I spied on her a bit, and now I feel better.)

But this is real. Remember years ago, when we'd talk about our online circle and people thought we were nutso, talking about invisible friends? We weren't nuts then, and at least people understand it a little better now.

I love this circle, and I'm glad you're a part of it. (Insert Mr. Rodger's theme song here.)

Mwah.

Floating

Man, I put the internets away, went and washed my face and brushed my teeth, and then came back and got them out again, because you should hear what I did today. Well, I got my hair colored and cut

an I-just-woke-up pic -- see the many layers of colors? Platinum silver on top so I can grow into my gray hair, which was the point, red underneath, brown under that

and went and saw the Mighty Slim Pickins, who were great.

But I also did something completely new:

Sensory deprivation. I went and floated for an hour inside a flotation tank.

Bethany talked me into it -- she'd been floating in Oakland a number of times, but this was her first time to Float Matrix, and it was my first time ever.

Let's start here: It's freaky.

I loved the ambiance of the place -- it was beautifully outfitted, just like a nice spa. The very nice man who owns it, Kane (HELLO ROMANCE NAME), was very knowledgeable and comforting at the same time. I think he saw the wild look at the back of my eye, like a horse getting ready to bolt (except that the only thing I know about horses was the old horse my dad boarded when I was a kid, 20-year old Darby, who wouldn't do more than walk sedately--that's not what I looked like today. Maybe more like a cat caught in a thunderstorm. Enough with the similes!). He ushered us into a nice changing room where we showered and scrubbed and changed into robes and flip-flops, both thoughtfully provided for us.

Kane asked me just before he pulled back the curtain, "Did your sister tell you what these look like?" She hadn't. I shook my head. He pulled back the white sheet to reveal a COFFIN-LIKE metal tank. We all laughed, but my laughter was hysteria. They chose to overlook that. 

It's a flesh-colored swim suit. I know what you thought.

This is where I nearly melted down, although I was SO COOL in person. Really. Ask Bethany. 

Inside that tank is water, heated to body temperature. The air above that is body temperature or a little warmer. And dissolved in the water is one thousand pounds (really) of epsom salts. So  you put in your earplugs, get in, turn around, and shut that door behind you (there's a dim light inside, yes). Then you lean back and float. You really, really float. It's hard to push your limbs down, but you don't need to. Just float. (Nekkid. Naturally.) 

Now, you reach to your right and click off that dim blue light. Now it's completely pitch dark, not a speck of light, and those walls that just surrounded you fly away, and you're suspended in an enormous realm, somewhere completely unknown. And SUDDENLY YOU ARE IN THE TOMB. Wait, I mean WOMB. Whatever. I had a sketchy couple of seconds at the beginning where I was all like, get-me-out-of-here-right-now-are-you-fucking-kidding-me-with-this. But Kane had warned me about this -- the brain is programmed to receive lots of stuff, and we constantly have noise and images and smells around us, and suddenly we're plunged into this deprivation -- it's anxiety producing. He said to focus on my breath. I can do that. I did.

And it got okay. More than okay. It felt amazing. It felt like a massage, only you know how sometimes massages hurt? This didn't. Everything felt great. It was like lying on a bed, only without any pressure anywhere -- just perfect support. Warm. Calm. Dark. SCARY OH GOD SCARY and then I'd breathe again and it was great.

Also, Kane mentioned that epsom salt is magnesium sulfate, and I've been trying to work more magnesium into my diet for the migraines -- this was a great way to take it in, through the skin. And I've been fighting a migraine for a couple of days now, and guess what? The low-grade threatening pain is gone.

Bethany was in a tank near mine, and she said when he knocked on hers and turned on her light, it felt like she'd been in for twenty minutes. She might have fallen asleep. Me, the sixty minutes felt like two hours. Time elongated. Also common, apparently.

I'll do it again, if only for the post-massage high feeling. I have a goal, also, of trying to meditate a little more next time. But an hour is a long time to focus on one's breathing. I focused on a couple of To Do lists, because I'm incapable of not doing that. And I think the second time, I'd know what to expect, and that would make it easier. But I love trying new things, and this was completely new, and terribly awesome. You should go and tell me what you think. 

Squee!

I have GOT to tell you about this.

I've been asked to be Miss September in a knitting pinup calendar.

(I just sat here and looked at that sentence for a while. I never thought I'd write anything that awesome.)

It's being being produced by Steph Whiteside (you might know her as QuirkyKnitGirl's Ivy) & The Gray Lady Artists Collective, and they're fundraising for backing right now over at Kickstarter. Here's how it works: If you pledge $20 to help them reach their $3000 goal, then you get a copy of the calendar when it comes out (you're not charged until they reach their goal, when everyone is on board). $25 gets you a signed calendar, $30 gets you a copy of the calendar and a 5X7 of the pinup of your choice (more at the site).

From the site, "We're a group of knitters who decided to show the world that knitting can be sexy! We're all real knitters and real people in all shapes and sizes." I love that! Yay knitters!

I got the chance to ask Ivy a couple of questions and thought you might like to hear the answers.

1. What inspired this idea? 

I was inspired by this because I realized one day that, you know, I spend a lot of time in a world and culture that tells me that people who knit and craft and do otherwise domestic things are really boring and unsexy. Now, I also spend a lot of time with some pretty amazingly talented and hot knitters and crafters, so I know that's not true--but it seems a shame to have that stay a secret. I mentioned the idea to a few people, and they all loved it, so I sort of tossed it around for a while. Then I met Erin, who is the photographer and owner of the Gray Lady Artists Collective, which is a new artists collective based in Oakland, and she thought it was a great idea as well, so things just took off from there. I'm super excited to get going on this, and bring the sexy side of knitting to the public.

2. What makes knitting sexy?

For me, knitting and crafting is a very sensual experience. Not necessarily in the way that people automatically think of the word, but in the true sense--when I'm knitting, it's all about the color of the yarn, the feel of the fiber and needles. It's very much grounded in feeling and being with your senses, that kind of experience.

Plus, I mean come on. We take sticks and string and then we make CLOTHES. How cool is that?

Me, I'm just sitting around trying to decide what sweater I should wear. Miss September! It is ridiculous that I'm so excited about this.

Drive-By

I'm talking about zeitgeist over here, and I've put up a GREAT link. You'll love it. I'll see you there!

(Boy, I'm sleepy.)

Lala Shows Heroism

in the face of terror. From an email:

I was attacked by a bee and am injured. I was sitting on the swing and a bee came along - just a regular bee, not a wasp but not a bumblebee. And Miss Idaho spotted it and I was afraid she was going to bite it, which would have been bad. So I was trying to get the bee away from her, and it flew right in front of my face. So I got up to go inside in a rapid fashion, and tripped on the torn fabric from the swing, and tripped and landed on my knee, which hurts a lot. It's gonna be one of those big bruises that stays for months. Ow.

She does not like bees. (And while this is very sad AND HEROIC DON'T FORGET THE HEROISM, it is also very funny.)

For Fear the Hearts of Men are Failing

Hey! Remember two posts ago, when I told you about the show that made me feel old (but was so fun anyway)? Here's video proof! You can watch those kids start to dance! (Plus Lala's great on the bass.) I'm knitting somewhere, invisible to the camera.

 

Re: Migraines and such

For those of you bored by talk of migraines, I give you my almost-annual reminder that Salt and Vinegar potato salad is AMAZING. Enjoy. Now for the other six of you still reading:

A reader pointed out to me that I owed you all an update on how the migraine diet was going.

Uh. It's not. I made it about two weeks of eating AIR, and gave it up. I found it almost impossible to avoid everything that particular diet wanted me to.

BUT: I switched daily meds (to Nortriptyline) and I've started eating 1oz of dark chocolate every day. I know. Rather than treating it as a trigger, I'm using it as medicine. This makes MUCH more sense, no? This is on advice from my friend Theresa, for whom the practice has really worked -- perhaps she will chime in in the comments with a little bit about what she told me? Basically, you eat it on an empty stomach when you first wake up. Nothing to eat for the next hour. The dark chocolate has to be very simple, and include four ingredients: cocoa, cocoa powder, vanilla, and sugar. Absolutely no milk or protein of any kind (no nuts, etc.); the protein leaches away the . . . (help me out here, Theresa) the good stuff, the phytochemicals. I know you're BLOWN AWAY with how much I know. Oh, stop.

I buy the 100 calorie packs of dark chocolate from TJ's -- one and a half bars is about 1oz, but most days I just have one bar.

The chocolate, I swear to God, seems to be helping. In the last three months, I've had only one migraine, and it was mild and easily treatable by medicine (and it was totally my fault, because I felt it threatening and had a glass of red wine anyway. Dummy).

And get this: The other night I felt one coming on, and I realized it had been a few hours since I ate, so I had a relatively empty stomach. I ate an ounce of dark chocolate. Within 45 minutes, I was fine. People. Whoa. I don't usually GET fine. I usually circle the drain.

Oh, I also gave up caffeine (except for what I get in chocolate). No coffee, no green or black tea. Let's not talk about it. Wah! But honestly, giving it up wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, not at all. Not sure why. Maybe it's just what my body wanted.

Also, THIS IS BIG: I gave up all the meds I was used to taking for headaches. For two and a half months, I restricted myself to Tylenol and Advil -- no rebound drugs (see this NYT article-- includes anything with caffeine, like Exedrin,and my prescription meds like Fioricet). If you take pills for headaches more than twice a week, you might be at risk for rebound headaches. Right after I wrote here about my migraines, I decided to try this. I was popping Exedrin Migraine easily three or four times a week to push back headaches that waxed and waned. As soon as I stopped taking them, I had a 48 hour migraine that was so bad I was halfway convinced I would die. No joke. Every thing I'd read said you have to NOT take your meds for at least two or three months so your body gets over the rebound effect that keeps headaches going. However, going through that migraine was pretty awful. I felt like a junkie: all I could think about was how close my meds were to me -- I could just take one...

But I didn't. And I didn't die. Now, theoretically, my medicine should be useful to me if I take it only when needed (less than once a month, hopefully). And when I did pop a pill for that last migraine, it worked that way. The pain lasted for less than six hours, and it was relatively mild.

To sum up: YEEHAW!

*obviously, I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. Consult with your doctor before doing anything different or weird.

Oh, My Creaky Bones

Well, howdy! We just got home from a punk show at Nabolom bakery where Lala played music that the kids freaked out and danced to. And when I say kids, I mean the 20 year-olds who comprised the audience and many of the other bands. My friends were all sitting in a row, and one young gal looked at them and said (audibly) to her friend, "It's interesting to see how we'll turn out." She was lucky she said it in a nice, actually interested voice, or Kris might have had WORDS to say about POLITENESS, YOUNG LADY.

And Lala wore one of her favorite shirts which says, "I guess I was punk once." The shirt was a hyooge hit, to the point where at the end, one young queer punk came up to her and said with a voice of utter admiration, "I think I'm going to be like you in twenty years." I started laughing behind her, but she was very nice and said, "Well, I guess I was like you, twenty years ago."

I'm thirty-seven, people! (Oh! Thirty-eight on Monday.) Lala isn't much older! (See, how tactful I am? Kids, take a lesson! And get offa my lawn!) All my friends lament about how young the kids are today, but I'd never felt it until tonight. Good lord. The ENERGY. And the cuteness! The earnestness! (Okay, I'm still pretty earnest. But I can't dance like that. Maybe I never could.)

It was when Lala was in her car searching for sunscreen to give to the circus punks who played accordion and washboard that I mentioned that she was in danger of becoming the band mom. "Too late!" she cried. "Did you see how burned they were?"

But the very nice thing about playing a show in a co-op bakery? Free challah and other pastries. Also, no one was a drunk jackass.

And now, completely unrelated, a very short video of my nephew Isaac, who is learning baby sign -- he knows please, and thank you, and I love you. That last is signed by crossing your arms over your chest, and he does a modified version, seen here: