Yarn-A-Go-Go

Here's Your Treat

Thanks to a link from Brooke, an animated vision of the end of the world as we know it. (Warning: Strong use of language. But that's what makes it so damn funny.) Go HERE.

Early to work today.... Happy Halloween!

A lot of writing today to make up for the fact I won’t have time tomorrow:

Having a hard time getting my ass in gear to write this weekend. Not this blog, not the morning pages, those I don’t struggle with. But the other writing (I hate to call it the “real” writing – let’s use “other” instead), that’s what I’m fighting with. Not even fighting. It’s more like a cold war.

If I write all my pages during my four-day work week, then I give myself the weekend off. It’s the only method that consistently works for me. I like it. But when I DON’T write all my pages I promise myself I’ll write on my weekend. Have I? No. Is this my Sunday? Yep. Back to work tomorrow.

Which means I HAVE to write today. (Well, there’s no have to about it. But I want to. I wouldbe happier if I got my work done.) Which means I have to trick some goblins.

It’s all about tricking or treating them, innit? I can trick them – can tell myself I’m going to write something, anything, and it’s going to be a shitty first draft (a la Lamott), and then I write fast and loose before they know what’s happening. Before they round up the censoring troops, I’m done with the work for the day.

Or I can treat them, but I find this less effective. I’ll tell myself, If you write, you get to go to the matinee. Then I don’t write, feel crappy about it, and cheer myself up by going to the matinee.

So really, for me, it’s all about tricking them and sending them out for smokes (and NO, I’m not bumming them when they get back). I send them out the long way and tell them to go to the store seventeen miles away ‘cause it’s the only store where they won’t get funny looks with their forehead tattoos that read CENSOR and THAT’S NO GOOD and NO ONE CARES. I tell them when they get back they can chip away at me to their hearts’ content. By the time their jalopy rolls up, thumping that goblin bass, I’m done writing and I thumb my nose. And I don’t have a light for them either.

Speaking of olallieberry jam, I bought the BEST jam after I left Duarte’s the other day at a little country produce stand call Phipps Country Store and Farm. Get this: they mail order their jam. They’re only $4 a jar (and don’t wimp out and get the Strawberry-Olallieberry mix, that’s boring – You’ll LOVE the olallieberry, I swear. It’s like raspberry but sweeter and finer tasting). I swear I’m not getting a cut of this – I just think it’s fantastic.

Went out last night with a couple of friends who actually left the City and came to see ME! Rachel and Kira are a great couple who used to live with Bethany before she went on walk-about. Beth and Rachel met while they were freshmen in college. Rachel came out in maybe her sophomore year? Junior? Can’t remember. We actually threw her a Coming Out party with rainbow streamers and Tinky Winky on top of her rainbow cake (it was during that whole Falwell nonsense). Rachel and Kira have been together now for years, and they’re an awesome couple to hang out with. For some unknown, inexplicable reason, they’ve decided to adopt me. I’ve said it before, I know that I’m their token over-30-and-still-got-it lesbian friend. That’s the only thing I can chalk it up to.

Kira’s a mad knitter. She’s the store manager of Artfibers and get this: Every two weeks she gets fifty bucks worth of yarn since she’s encouraged to make everything she wears to work. Uh huh. Life’s rough. Last night she was actually complaining that she can’t ever leave the job or she’d have too high a yarn bill. Welcome to our lives, huh?

We went to dinner at Soi 4, one of those trendy minimalist Thai places where the lighting hung from strings and the host station held burning votives and bamboo plants. We sat and ate and drank beer and talked about how insufferable anything south of Santa Maria is – how Santa Barbara is just a horrible little LA suburb, how we can’t stand the plastic-ness, the cell-phone and collagen-ness of it all. Then my cell phone vibrated in my pocket and I looked around at the people draped gracefully in their hip recycled-wood chairs. A meta-trend minute. We tried to get over ourselves. Then we finished our beer.

We were going to see Thirteen, the new Holly Hunter movie. But Kira had the brilliant idea of renting a movie so we could buy a six-pack and knit. Gotta love that. We picked up Whale Rider which neither of them had seen. I think maybe it’s been a while since I had official company. It was nice to have more than one knitter in my living room (although I think we freaked Rach out a little – Kira and I spent a lot of time discussing the use of fiber in the movie sweaters).

Here’s Kira with Adah (yes, she made her sweater).

And Rachel, after I told them both to smile.

A nice night.

Oh, since I'm TOTALLY rambling – I just have to mention one thing about the ocular migraines – I got the first one last Thursday morning while curling my eyelashes. One minute I could see what I was doing, the next I was almost blind. For a while I TOTALLY thought I had curled my lashes wrong. Really wrong.

Whoo hoo!

Sister Bethy got the job at the hostel! I tell everyone and myself that I'm not really worried about her, but it sure was with an odd sense of unexpected relief that I realize she's inside, away from the cold. Dang. Happy. Go read. She rocks.

20/20

I love it that we’re all such geeks! Special props go to Em (for faking the eye exam to get specs) and to Alison (for saying screw it, I’m just getting the glasses anyway).

Turns out my vision is still great! 20/20 in one eye, 20/25 in the other. I don’t need glasses. A part of me was very happy. But I have to admit another part was totally disappointed. There were some CUTE frames out there in the store. Thank god I hadn’t let myself try any on while I was waiting for the doctor or I totally would have pulled an Alison.

And that weird loss-of-vision thing? Ocular migraines. I had thought of that, but had rejected it in my mind since I didn’t have headaches along with the vision loss (everyone loves a self-diagnoser). The doc said I was a textbook case, from the length of time the spells lasted, to what I saw (or didn’t). She also agreed with me that they’re TERRIFYING when you don’t know what they are. You only know you can’t see. Turns out my sister Christy and my mother get them, too, also without the pain.

So it was a good doctor’s visit. Even if I’m still spectacle-less. Sigh....

After the eye exam, I saw American Splendor with my friend Nichole. You know how you have friends who don’t really go to see art movies? This was NOT a good movie to take a friend who isn’t into counter-culture. She hated it, poor dear. I didn’t like it that much, either, but I can’t figure out if that’s because I was sitting there KNOWING she hated it and feeling badly for dragging her along, or if it just wasn’t my cup of tea. But we had burgers at Barney’s after and that rocked. Big ole medium rare burger with blue cheese and bacon. Yum. I might not have to eat again for a year.

I’m officially the most boring person on the planet today. I’m signing off to read other, more interesting blogs. Peace out. (I think it’s actually Peace. Out. Two separate thoughts. But I like Peace out better.)

See?

Got a great email from Jane of the Venice-Adventure who said to my “This.... Was going to be this.....” entry from yesterday, “Why is Rachael trying to knit a baby?” And then she said various charming things about me and this blog, none true, and attached this picture which made my morning. They don’t have a dog.

As to the pattern for the baby sweater, I don’t really have one. I have the beginnings of it written down as follows (from unknown source):

Bring on the SpitUp Baby Sweater

With sport-weight yarn and size 5(US) needles, cast on 22 st. Row1: P3, place marker (PM), P2, PM, P12, PM, P2, PM, P3. Row3: Knit across, increasing on both sides of marker by knitting into front and back of st before and after each marker (8 increased stitches). Row3: Purl.

Now the Rachael part: Repeat rows 2 and 3 until you think it’s big enough (that’s the hard part for non-mom me). Separate for sleeves by knitting to them, placing them on scrap yarn holders, and connecting the body portions. Knit the cardigan body until it’s long enough. Change colors and rib the bottom about four or five rows. Bind off. Go back, pick up sleeve stitches, knit down about three or four inches, change colors and rib 3 or 4 rows. Bind off, sew sleeve seams. Using the contrast yarn, pick up stitches all around sides and neck, rib four or five rows, putting in button holes at appropriate spacings, bind off. Add buttons (always my LEAST favorite part). Voila.

Sorry it’s not more scientific. I knit loosely, so I actually use size 4(US). Sometimes I use worsted weight and start at casting on about 18 stitches and modifying.

It’s my weekend! I have Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays off – I love having midweek days off ‘cause I can run around and do things while it’s less crowded. Hate crowds. Today I’m getting checked for glasses. After a scary weird episode last week where I saw jagged lines across my vision and then couldn’t focus on anything for about thirty minutes, and after reading darling Greta’s trials and tribs with her eyes, I’m not putting it off anymore. Can I just say to the salesperson, in a very little voice, I want super-cute glasses, please?

My eyes were SO bad while I was growing up that by the time I was six I was wearing bifocals. And I HATED my glasses. Despised them. At one point, when I was perhaps eight or nine, I I lost my glasses. I remember seriously not knowing where they had gone. I was standing on the stairs that led to my attic bedroom and my mother confronted me, thrusting my muddy glasses at me. “I. Found. THESE. Buried. In. The. GARDEN.”

I didn’t remember burying them. Truly and honestly. Maybe Christy buried them for me, but I don’t think so. I think I must have hated them so much that I subconsciously took ‘em out there and stuck them in the ground, hoping that either I’d never see them again, or.... or what? We’d grow a glasses-tree and all the kids would want some and I’d finally be cool? Dunno. Don’t remember.

As I grew, though, the farsightedness got better and better and finally I had almost-perfect vision. I was warned at age nineteen that someday my eyes would get bad again. That day has come. Dammit. I want really cute glasses, okay?

I’ll keep you posted.

Knitting Content

This:

Was going to be this:

But I totally effed up, twice, and spent two days ripping. I finally figured out that I had started the garment twice using the wrong row for the right side, and those cables would never pop out. Damn it all to hell and back.

I know many people are accomplished froggers. They don’t mind pulling and rewinding and starting over. I MIND! I ain’t doing this again. It’s Mission Falls 1824 cotton, and I never knew how fab that stuff is. I’m making a ChicKami someday out of it, not that damn baby sweater.

This is more like it:

Easy, quick, cute enough, just needs some buttons and I’ll be done. I know it’s not half as impressive, but the baby’s gonna throw up all over it, so it’ll be fine. Yow!

almost my weekend almost my weekend almost my weekend almost my weekend almost my weekend almost my weekend almost my weekend almost my weekend almost my weekend......

Only ten hours off last night, and that makes it hard to get enough time to sleep, let alone write.... I hate it when I slip into using ellipses.... all the time.....

Enough. Enjoy your day!

Shawls and Italy. Why not?

First of all, let me answer a couple of people before they come a-knocking - the Noro raglan took about eight skeins. Maybe a little less, but let's call it eight and the small size is pretty darn safe. Or call it ten and make a little Booga J bag out of the leftovers.....

And oo-la-la. This one makes me want to sing. It's Sunday morning. Shawl we? I know we've seen it before, but let's see it again: It's Marcy's and it's fabulous.

I think the "draped over a chair" theme has to stick. Go check out her hair, too. Cute as a bug. That's what I want MY hair to look like.

So I've done a little housekeeping. A little Italian upkeep - to the left are my Italy emails from the last three trips. The first was when I went alone to Venice for a week and then met a couple of friends for the grand tour. The second was Mama and me, two months after September 11th. The third is the latest one (prolly the most fun to read, since I was alone for the whole trip). They're not for the faint of heart. Read only if you're 1) deeply in love with Italy or 2) want to be. They're saccharine love notes, I know. The only way to go.

What's cool about them, though, is that they're also posted on my old site. Every once in a while I get random notes from strangers asking where to stay and what to do, especially in Venice. Recently I got this question from a woman in Britain looking for cheap digs for her family. I gave her some pointers and info on my favorite hotel, Hotel Bernardi-Semenzato. I just got this fantastic note and picture from her (reprinted with her permission, of course):

Hi Rachael

.... I just wanted to say a HUMUNGOUS thank you. We have just returned
from an utterly fantastic two days in wonderful Venice and your
recommendation came up trumps. They gave us a whole suite
(two bedrooms, bathroom, hallway) in the annex with views
over the canal - must be the room they've
taken their picture from for the front of the brochure/website.

We took advantage of the ridiculously cheap 'city break' flights that
operate from our local airport. We departed Monday evening and had all
day Tuesday and all day Wednesday in Venice, leaving late Wed. evening
for flight home. We managed to see alot and do alot (Basilica,
Campanile, Acadamia, Guggenheim, water taxi, gondola, ice cream, cake,
bread, pizza, several other churches, human sculpture man and amazing
guy from Russia playing 'glasses') and actually felt like we'd been
away for at least a week. I think we broke some sort of record when all
7 of us piled into a gondola!

Have you ever been over to the glass factories on Murano? Seeing glass
being blown was something we thought would be good to do with the kids
but hadn't appreciated that it all happened on a different island and
we weren't sure whether we'd have enough time. In retrospect, had we
known exactly where we were heading and what times they were open to
the public, we could have fitted it in. Spotted at least a couple of
gorgeous yarn shops and all those beautiful beads!!!!!!!

I was going to attach a picture of us all enjoying ourselves but there
isn't one with us all on in the ones I've downloaded, so I'll have to
wait until I get film developed. Meanwhile here is an interesting shot
looking up the Campanile with some of the children's feet in the
foreground!!

Lots of love and many thanks again -
Jane

Isn't that the coolest? Makes me SOOO happy to help people with Italy questions or dreams, 'specially the city of my heart.

Happy Sunday!

Whee!

Another Wave done!

This one is by Debbie in Germany and the colors are amazing. (And I love the shot of it over the chair - isn't it romantic looking?)

And Everything in its Place

It’s hot here. It’s six-thirty in the morning and it’s blessed hot. Gonna be a scorcher today, that horrible easterly wind that we get up here. Down south on the Central Coast where I grew up, we call these the Santa Anas. Here they’re just called crappy weather. They make you feel sick and sneezy and grumpy and generally cause people to punch each other unexpectedly. They aren’t pleasant. It’ll make for a busy Saturday at work.

God, I’m so slow-witted today. I got up and did my morning pages, and while the point is to “keep the hand moving,” my hand kept resting on the page while my mind traispsed off without me. That’s not uncommon, and it’s happening now, too, but I like to at least keep it somewhere in the same room.....

One cool thing though: Yesterday I lost my calendar. Before the job I have now, I had never been a calendar person, but with this job and the amount of overtime and rep work we do, we all have to LIVE by our calendars. If I want to get something done on a workday (like this writing right now), it has to be scheduled in. My calendar holds my official overtime balance and the running balances of how much time I owe people and how much is owed me. And it wasn’t in my purse.

It’s ALWAYS in my purse. I’m anal. I never lose anything. That’s an exaggeration. I assume that I’ve lost something in the last ten years, but if I did, I can’t remember what it was. I’m one of those people that walks in the door and hangs my keys on the peg without thinking. Everything has a place. And I couldn’t find the goddamned calendar. I tried not to panic and looked in every bag I carry to work, around the places where the purse had been, under the balls of yarn next to the bookcase (because doesn’t EVERYTHING fall into the yarn basket?). Nothing. I tried to put it out of my mind, but I wrote myself a note before bed. “Where is my calendar?” Then I put a little “Thanks” after it.

I went to sleep comfortable in the knowledge that my mind would figure it out while I slept. I woke up, ready to remember. And the calendar is.... I waited. Nothing.

Terribly disappointed. My subconscious had let me down.

I did my morning pages, thinking about it (maybe that’s why I kept wandering away from them).

Then I sat down to write this, looked down at the carry bag that I had torn apart four times yesterday and thought, oh, yeah. There’s one more pocket I never checked and I know it’s in there. It was.

Don’t know if that’s a result of asking the question or just recovering from a brain fart but it just goes to prove that it’s okay to be anal. It’s okay for everything to have a place. I can’t take the stress. Lord, how do people live with other people? I understand a little more now why my mother got so upset when we would borrow her hammer and leave it in the backyard. Or the treehouse. Or at Jenny’s under the boat. “Use your father’s hammer!” Yeah, well, Dad couldn’t find any of his six hammers (because they were in the back yard, or under the car, or at Paul's on the roof), and we knew hers was always in the kitchen cabinet, hanging to the left of her gloves, above the rags, next to the box of matches and her pliers.

I swear there will be knitting pictures in the next few days. I’ve just been doing too much else and haven’t made much progress on the sweater I started. The unnamed sweater. I’m using a minty green yarn that looks kinda irritating and cloying while in the ball but has surprising flecks of yellow and blue when knit up. I already know I’ll NEVER be able to catch the color on a digital camera, so I’ve been slow to document its progress.

Slow to move, period. Must have coffee. Enjoy your weekend!
PS - Bethany's still in MN! And Alissa did her own virtual ramble along the Texas highways. How fun! Anyone else?

Quickly

All day training yesterday and today out in Antioch, a suburb just west of Hell, so no post today. Just - THANKS, y'all, for coming with me on the road trip. I loved loved loved getting your comments. Man. No wonder I used a lot of gas. There was a lot of cumulative weight in that little car.

Oh, it makes me happy......

The Virtual PCH(ighway)

Since a few of you expressed interest in my ride down the coast, I thought we’d go on a spin together, okay? It’s a virtual ride, so we save gas this way (as opposed to driving to Brooklyn and then Taipei, as was suggested).

Hop in and buckle up! (I’ve got good tires, don’t worry.)

The day starts with an attempt at modeling the finished Noro Raglan with the buttons finally attached. Digit gets in the way and the show is brought to an abrupt halt.

After several false starts (the bank, the gas station), the top goes down and we drive over the Bay Bridge. The fog is thick, but it’s not cold. Just the right weather for a three-quarter length sleeved sweater, dontcha think?

While conversing on the cell phone (I’m sorry, I know it’s rude while you’re in the car, not to mention dangerous), we miss the exit. Whoops. Now we’re lost. Note my "I'm LOST!" face.

Okay, we figured it out. Feeling proud of ourselves, we cut through Golden Gate Park, heading west toward Ocean Beach on Fell St.

We turn left when the street hits the edge of the continent and pull over to take a couple of snaps. It’s a gorgeous day, and our bird-like friends know it.

It’s a good thing you’re here to take pictures of me! Goodness knows I hate doing it for myself.....

Okay, now we’re a little scared. Well, we don’t admit until later over lunch, but we’re terrified. We have a hard time keeping the rear end of the car in front of us in view in this soup. The headlights aren’t working the way we’d like them to – they just reflect the glare of the fog back at us. Devil’s Slide is horrifyingly scary, but in that gonna-get-through-it kind of way. Good thing my tires are so great or I'd turn around right now. This was the best of it:

Coming down into Montara, the sun breaks through for just a minute. Isn’t this wonderful?

Put your sunglasses on – the glare is something else.

In Half Moon Bay, damn it all, we fall right into Fengari, a fiber paradise. I hate it when that happens.

A wall of Noro.....

And a wall of fog, just waiting for us, clinging to the water’s edge.

But while the fog is to our right as we drive south, this is to our left.

We pull over here, and it looks like we’re the only ones!

Ain't it gorjess?

Take off your shoes – let’s walk down to the water. You can’t come to the beach and not put at least your fingertips in. It’s a strict rule.

It’s just a leetle too rough to swim. Of course, if you weren’t here, I’d probably barrel in and swim a couple of miles. Yeah, ‘cause that’s what I ALWAYS do in frigid rough water. I don’t want to embarrass you, though. Uh huh.

The fog is still clinging down here.

Oh, stop it already! Don’t you know I’m shy?

All right, pile back in, and I’ll drive us to the real reason we’ve come so far. Duarte’s, in Pescadero. But to really seem dialed in, do pronounce it correctly: DOO-erts. No lie.

You get whatever you want, I know I’m getting the crab sandwich and a pint of Newcastle. We watch the British trio in the corner fight with their mussels.

But when they start discussing what to have for dessert, I can’t help it. I get up, go over, and say, “I hate to intrude, but you have to have the olallieberry pie.”
Gent One says, “What a laleelaleebrie?”
“Genetically, it’s a blackberry crossed with a.... raspberry? Boysenberry? I can’t remember.”
Gent Two is horrified, “A poisonberry??”
“Boysen, boysen.... Don’t worry about it, just get it.”
“Cheers, then. We will.”

Here’s my piece. Don’t worry, I’ll share.

We hated it, I gather. (So did the Brits, by the look of their demolished plates.)

We take the long way inland. This is what the road looks like.

And this is what I look like, after a beer, some crab, a coffee and a piece of the best pie in entire universe (and I don’t even care for pie):

You can’t miss gawking at the Pink Flamingo house above the river.

I know. It’s horrible, isn’t it? We have to rejoin society. But at least it’s a crystal-clear day inland, and out here from the San Mateo mid-span, we can see the City, Oakland, some of Berkeley, and south past the Dumbarton. A jet flies so low over the convertible that we duck and pretend that we didn’t.

Back in Oakland, headed under the Maze. Seven levels, we’ll be right at the bottom of the stack. Pray there’s no earthquake.

Traffic. Sigh.

Wait! I know we’re back at my house now, but I forgot to return a video. Wanna take a walk? [I find myself wondering if I’ve lost my mind and tell myself that someone somewhere besides myself might enjoy this, so I’ll keep going with it.]

Bet you didn’t know this is what Oakland can look like, huh?

This one’s for Em.

See? We have fall colors here, too!

My local theater. The video store’s just around the corner.

That’s done. Almost home now. One more thing to do – let’s peek in someone’s house:

You're a dear and a darling for coming with me. We had so much fun! See you this weekend! Mwah!

Big Plans

Happy Writing Thought for the Day:

“The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world.” Natalie Goldberg

Psst! Don’t tell anyone, though.

I’ve tried so hard, at various times in my life to be the dressed-in-black angst-ridden writer, and no one’s ever bought it. I would form my face into a mask of bleak despair and then laugh on accident. The only thing I got right was the smoking, oh lordy, was I good at that, but no one ever bought that either. I can’t count the number of times people said, “You just don’t look like a smoker.” I wanted to stamp my feet and yell, “Oh, yes, I do!” but I didn’t really know what they meant.

I suppose I don’t look like a writer, either, not the kind Hollywood (and Dave Eggers) promotes, but maybe Natalie Goldberg would recognize me?

Today I’m going to be a world-loving writer. Yep. Big plans for the day.

Backstory: My car has had a shimmy for a while. Maybe a year or so. A bad shimmy at certain speeds, and it recently got MUCH worse, making it really difficult to drive between the speeds of 55 and 65. This blew, because Bay Area traffic usually traps you right in the 60mph range. I got used to the cheek-shaking judder and apologized to shocked friends and family. “Yep, I need to get the alignment checked.” But I never felt like I had the extra money. I wanted to get it done last week, but Mom was coming in to town, and I knew we’d be driving a hell of a lot. I didn’t want to take the chance of getting my car caught in a mechanic’s shop. I put it off until Monday, when I took it to the tire place.

“I need an alignment.”
“Okay. When was the last time you bought tires?”
“Those are the ones that came with the car, but the tread looks okay.”
“You get them rotated?”
Silence.
“Let’s go look.”
We walk.
“See? The tread’s just fine.”
“Uh-huh.” He kneels, looks, turns the wheel so I can see the inside tread.

There is none. At all. I’ve been running on two-inch wide strips of the metal fibers that lace under the tread – NO TREAD AT ALL – on the inside of ALL four tires.

Holy crap. My knees got a little wobbly as I realized how lucky I had been – my mind flashed on driving up the mountains to Yosemite last month, driving my sisters to the City, driving my mother to Stanford last week!

So, after I recovered, I bought four new tires and an alignment, and my car drives like the sports car she is now. Lord.

To celebrate, I’m driving down the coast today with the destination of Duarte’s, the home of the best olallieberry pie in the universe. Bethany took me there last year, and I want to recreate the drive today. I’m taking the laptop, and I plan to do some writing over some coffee. I might even hit the yarn shop in Half-Moon Bay. It’s overcast today, but sometimes that’s the best way to drive with the top down. In Greta’s honor, I’ll wear sunglasses (I’ll have to find a pair, first).

Here’s a photo of me and Bethy on her birthday earlier this year, Christy took it. I love this picture. We were on our way to the Mystery Spot and we were soooo goofy all day. That’s what life’s about, huh? Enjoy your day and be a little goofy. But rotate your tires, okay?

Breakin' it Down

You know what’s nice about working days? I’ll tell ya. Most of you just probably take this for granted, but it’s AMAZING.

Let me run it down for you:
*When you lie down at night, you’re tired. I don’t know why this is so, but I spent four years working midnights running on adrenaline and coffee. I always had to trick my body into sleeping. I never felt tired, not even after being up for thirty hours. Stupid and slow, yes; tired, no.
*When you wake up, even on a day off (like today), it’s still relatively early. It’s morning, in other words. This is revolutionary.
*No more TylenolPM! I kept those folks in business. I’ve read they’re actually firing the CEO because of the lost revenue now that Rachael isn’t medicating.
*Kitties cuddle with you more.
*Best of all, I have seven nights a week to play with. This means at least three or four can be spent AT HOME, my favorite place to be. But I can call my sister Christy and say, “Hey, wanna get a beer after work?” Before, this led to snorts and guffaws, although it’s amazing how many people will actually get a beer with you at seven in the morning. Okay. One did. But that’s kind of amazing, innit?

So Christy and I grabbed a beer (actually two, but neither of us finished the second) and sat at a groovy bar down the street from both my work and her house. We talked and laughed and it was AWESOME. I felt like a grownup, but a cool grownup. I’m thirty-one, it’s time that I feel that way occasionally, I guess. We were pestered by a very drunk man who acted as the Reason You Don’t Ever Want to Make Drinking Too Habitual. The poster-boy for embarrassment. Poor thing. But he was REALLY annoying. If he had yelled, “Woo-woo, ladies, overrrr herrrre” one more time I would have.... Well, I don’t know what I would have. But I would have found out.

So: Working days is nice. Appreciate your night sleep. There are plenty of people who aren’t getting any of it – working nights so you can be safe (okay, also so they get the paycheck. But still). I used to hate getting the whiny calls from people who moaned, “That dog is barking so loudly, I just can’t sleeeepppp. And I have to work in the morning...... People just don’t understand.... This is so hard on me..... I need my sleep at night..... Please make it stop.....” I had no problem sending an officer out to assist with the problem – barking dogs while you’re sleeping are certainly annoying. But don’t whinge to the person whose eyes have been bloodshot for what feels like years. She’d like to sleep, too, but has to wait until daylight hours while the gardeners are leaf-blowing, while CalTrans is resealing the road in front, and while the kids next door thump bass from their cars. She can’t call anyone to shut them up.

Whomp! I step off a sudden (and very low) soapbox that I didn’t mean to get on. I bow. Back to your regularly scheduled writing.

My sister has borrowed my camera for photos of creeks (she’s working on an environmental planning Masters at Berkeley), so no photos of the devastation that is Sam, the Mission Falls baby sweater. I’ll get a snap later, before I rip it out for the second damn time. And I’m not starting it again, either. (BUT – I love that yarn so much that I’m gonna make me (yet another) ChicKami with it when I get a minute. Maybe after the holidays.)

Instead, I’ve started an interesting sweater that I’ll document as it goes along. Interesting psuedo-cable techniques – those twisted stitches that make teeny-tiny leetle cables. Very fun.

Oh, and check the Squib’s new very cool Interweave Blog out! (and my knit-along’s listed on it, so I feel VERY special).

And there are rumors of finished Wave-Alongs - here's a snap of Sara's green one (how do I love thee, Cascade Indulgence, let me count all the frikken ways) which is done, just not photographed. She said it's a leetle too long, though, at about six feet. That ROCKS!

Marcia's done, too - go bug her for a photo. She's also an Indulgent gal. Yum.

Problems Of Strangers

Writing the morning pages have been a slog lately. It’s all a state of mind, I know. Every time I do them I discover something, a little nugget of truth that I didn’t know before. Sometimes it’s a pretty big nugget. But I still whine about it. I haven’t yet arrived at the place where I do it without thinking, like breathing – make the tea and pick up the pen before the brain switches on. I’m sooo glad that I have a virtual family of people doing it with me, some probably at the very same minute or I just wouldn’t do it. There’s a lot to be said for accountability.

Reading The Vine of Desire, by Chitra Divakaruni. It’s the second of two books about two cousins raised as sisters, and I adore being inside her pages. I’ve seen her read several times, and she reads as she writes, beautifully paced, with full feeling. In the novel, Anju is thinking about being a writer. Last night I read this:

One day she sits by herself at the edge of the quad, watching. A boy in a punk haircut with a razor blade hanging from his earlobe, whizzing past on a skateboard, a young woman in slacks and a brown veil that covers her hair, an older man who carries a cat under his arm and speaks urgently and continuously to himself, an Asian couple, hands waving as they argue with energy in their own language. Watching them she sometimes forgets to breathe. That’s how much she wants to glean their interiors—what they do when alone, where they are afraid to go in their sleep. She is convinced their lives are more interesting than her own. But perhaps all who hope to be writers must believe this? She holds them in her mind like Rubik’s Cubes, turning them over to see how they are put together. She imagines their problems in jewel colors, nothing like her own fatiguing banal troubles. In a notebook that is filling up fast, she writes to her father, “I love the problems of strangers because I am not responsible for solving them.” (p.124)

Isn’t that marvelous? That’s what I LOVE about my walks in my neighborhood. I walk in the early evening, or now, in the early morning, and lights are on inside the houses, lives spilling out along with voices and children’s toys. I am so drawn to stare – to be a voyeur in not a creepy sense (well, it might be a little creepy, I guess), but in a vastly interested sense. I have to know what they do, what they think, what they’re going to do next. If I had Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility I would stand in front of houses for hours on end. Totally. As it is, I’m trying to look like a normal person, not like a crazy writer (and there’s SUCH a fine line, isn’t there?), so I glance, walk, look up at the trees, and steal one more glance. On to the next house. This is the perfect time of year, too. People take more pride during the holiday months in the interior of their homes – they like to keep the curtains open to show off lights and trees. In February everyone’s grumpy and sealed up tight.

And like Anju, I DO feel like their lives are much more interesting. They have dinner with stunning people from all over the world – they have wine cellars – they travel to places like Afghanistan – they wear only virgin cotton – they can do the Sunday NY Times crossword puzzle with ease – they make their own bagels – they can paint using their toes. And their problems ARE interesting because I’m only peripheral to them. Just passin’ by.

Okay, now I can’t wait for my walk. Walking and writing longhand again. Who knew? And here's a little Monday fun - my good friend Winter gazing raptly at me. Or maybe he's just perplexed. Who IS that strange woman with the camera?

Fiber versus Clay

I was able to take yesterday off, giving myself a lovely four day weekend. Pretty soon, a coworker will be going on maternity making this impossible, so I grabbed at the chance. And it was SO nice. I couldn’t really think of how Mom and I should spend the time right before her train left, so I thought we’d have a picnic. We grabbed some sandwiches, and I drove us over to a walking trail on Bayfarm Island. I thought it would be nice, but windy and cold like it always is.

It wasn’t. Where we sat at a picnic table we had the perfect view of San Francisco, Alameda, and the South Bay. I’m talking postcard, bridges and sailboats and all. And it was almost too sunny and warm – we had to shed our sweaters. We walked after lunch and watched the squirrels and egrets and pelicans (and the really rich people in their glass houses – I like my glass house better). We walked so far I got a little worried on the walk back that we wouldn’t make it to the train on time.

Then again, that would have been okay. It was SUCH a nice visit.

So today, back to work. I would say back to the real world, but I just realized I don’t feel that way. My real world is right here, where I’m sitting right now. Adah on her chair, Digit out roaming, the secret project lying on the couch so close to being finished that I can put it aside and start work on the not-secret baby project for the friend of a friend. Can’t wait to get my mitts in that Mission Falls cotton – it’s been all wool all the time, and I need a break. A little, tiny, cabled break, yowza!

You gotta love a Pioneer

Melissa said something the other day that just rocked my world in a big way. For at least seven years, I’ve struggled to think of writing as getting the clay on the wheel. Once that clay is on there, once you’ve glopped it, and centered it, and pushed and pulled it, only THEN can you start spinning, start making it into something. It’s a good writing analogy. It’s fine.

But I’ve also thought: heck, I wasn’t very good at throwing pots. Whenever I did, the clay would tip and slant and slide right into a whumping lumpen blob that wasn’t even ashtray-salvageable. So in the back of my mind, I’d always had a problem with the clay idea.

Now she’s made it evident to me the analogy I’ve been looking for. In her October 8th post (and I just looked it up, and hell, I’M mentioned in the same paragraph), she writes “It's not about lining up goblins to act as quality control managers at the gate and only permitting the best stuff to come through, it's about letting it flow. The refining comes later. At this point we're just shearing the sheep and gathering the fleece.”

Shearing the sheep and gathering the fleece. That’s IT! That’s what I’ve been doing for the last year with this book-project. Ain’t no clay about it – fiber is what I understand. Only after I get all that fleece carded and spun will I be able to knit it into something. I’ve been blocked lately, terrified of approaching the page because I have a Goblin Extraordinaire whispering that I don’t know where the hell the book is going, or even WHY it’s going, and I might as well eat chocolate instead. Well, screw him. I’m going to write today, even though I don’t know where the hell the book is going. That’ll come, once I’ve got those sheep good and naked.

Enjoy your weekend, write, be happy, knit a little if you like, and love someone up.

Moms

One more quick note, this is what my mom is like:

We went to see a gay comedy (Mambo Italiano), and she laughed in all the right places.
Then, driving to sis's house, I told her about the tattoo I want. She said, "That sounds great!"

She's from NZ, where they're rather British in their ways and emotions. It's probably taken a lot for her to get to this point where she can react like this. But she's the coolest little mama ever. And I told her so.

Bring on the Singin'

Had a wonderful time with the little mama yesterday, doctor’s appointment notwithstanding. We arrived (really) early in Palo Alto – neither of us had (accurate) directions to Stanford, and we wanted to be sure we’d make it on time. It ain’t like we’d never been there before, but neither of us are outrageously terrific with following our noses, so we gave ourselves a big head-start. A BIG one. So we had about two hours for lunch. We sat at a sidewalk table at a little Mediterranean place in the heart of downtown, ate our wraps, and watched the people go by. I hadn’t seen that many twin-sets in one place, ever. Or Manolo Blahniks, for that matter. And everyone was talking on their hanging-cord hands-free cell phones (I have to admit a great passion for those – I don’t have one, but I believe they’ve brought back singing in the car. I used to be regularly paced by other cars who were watching me and laughing while I sung my heart out to whatever was in my stereo. Now they see my lips moving and both hands on the wheel and assume I’m just on my hands-free device. Unless, of course, I’ve got my head whipping around and my hands beating on the steering wheel. Oh, well. It could be a really good conversation).

So we watched the uber-yuppies and ate ice-cream and book-shopped and finally made it to her appointment. In the waiting room, I worked on my secret project, which the reception staff noticed. I was then forced (FORCED, I tell you) to do a mini-fashion show, showing off my LoTech sweat and my Regia socks while they brought more staff out of the back offices to see. We bonded, waving happily goodbye when they gave me the little moms back to take home. Then Mom and Christy and I went to sushi, more book-shopping, followed by a movie (Mambo Italiano, delightful). Wait. I think WE’RE the uber-yuppies.....

Oh, I CAN tell you this about my knitting – this is what I’m starting soon, for a friend-of-a-friend’s baby.

Isn’t it wonderful? Mission Falls Wee Knits, the one called Sam. One of the reasons I’m so excited about doing it is because I can’t really tell what it looks like. Actually, it’s hard to tell what ANY of their sweaters really look like, since the babies they choose seem to be in that stage where they have no backbone yet and their fat tummies are scrunched all around the sweaters.

More fun with Mom today. Happy Friday!

Sheep!

So this is what I’m thinking about the tattoo:

[aside – have you noticed I start most blog entries as if I’m in the middle of the conversation already? I do that when I answer the phone, too. God bless caller ID. It kind of freaks people out when I answer, “Where did you end up parking the other night?” But what am I gonna do? Pretend (“Hello??”) like I don’t know who it is, when everyone knows I have caller ID? Come on. End long aside.]

Anyway. Tattoo: I want an armband. A traditional-looking Celtic one, though it won’t be traditional – I want an aran knit cable, but I want the suggestion of sheep worked in. Leaping blue sheep, worked right into the twists. It’s going to take some kind of amazing artist – anyone know a Bay Area tattoo artist they’d recommend?

Sheep! Did you know Rachael means ewe in Hebrew? And that I’m half Kiwi, and my mother was raised on a sheep farm in New Zealand? My granddad died when my mother was a teenager, and my favorite story about him is how soft his right hand was. He’d stand by the stile and touch each lamb as he guided them into the pen, and that one constantly-lanolined hand stayed silken. Isn’t that a nice memory for my mother to have?

So I think sheep are appropriate (and also just very, very nice).

Speaking of little mamas, mine is in town. Picked her up from the train station yesterday in downtown Oakland, Jack London. I love how the trains have always dominated the face of the Square, and I got there a little early. Trapped by two slow moving trains, I parked on the wrong side of the station and took the aerial stairway over the top. I’d never climbed it before – it’s about four flights up to a steel walkway that goes right over the tracks and back down on the other side. After making sure the little mama hadn’t arrived early, I stood up there and watched the trains pushing under my feet. I could see to the Bay and back the other way to the hills. A gorgeous afternoon, warm and clear. When Mom’s train came in, I grabbed her and we went to lunch with Christy (who works in the Square) sitting outside at Jack's (of course), watching the pitch of the boats in the channel between Alameda and Oakland. There’s an aircraft carrier docked for repainting, and the wonderful Heraclitus, a coral-reef monitoring junk that’s been to the Amazon and Antarctica, was being guarded by two punk rockers and a man in a scarlet scarf.

Then we just.... hung out. We have doctor’s appointments today down at Stanford, but yesterday was for hanging. We watched a little taped Six Feet Under. I knitted. She napped. Dinner (outside again) with a friend. A little more TV. Oh! Here’s a picture, my little mama having been claimed by Adah.

It’s so NICE to have her here. I wish she could stay longer, but she has four cats herself, none younger than nine, and she wants to go home on Friday to relieve Dad of the Cat Watching Pressure.

But doctor’s appointments aside, we expect to have a grand time today. Hope you do as well!

Insta-Friend

Okay. I did my morning pages. I DID! All of them, all three long-hand. I’m not actually going to do the whole Artist’s Way program with the Pioneer – I’ve done it recently enough, thank you. Kicked my creative ass, but in a nice way. It’s sooo worth doing. But I’m using the group's generated creative-wind-power to get me writing the real ones again. Jeez, for over a year I’ve considered my blog a version of morning pages. Know what? It ain’t. I KNOW people read it, and while I try to toss that knowledge out and just write, I can’t do it. I’m writing for an audience. My morning pages barely have ME as an audience. I don’t ever even go back to re-read – I would yawn myself right off the chair.

But I've already had a small Big Thought, even today, the first day back to 'em. Good to be back.

Thanks for all the fun comments yesterday – I love oddball names. Wendy – Porn-wise, I’d be SweetPea Sunshine. Hee! Alison – I LOVE Motorcycle. That’s hot.

And now, for the thoughts I had yesterday afternoon, full of chocolate and happy.

I walked down to my local theatre for a matinee of Capturing the Friedmans. It was a gorgeous afternoon, just a little too warm for my LoTech Sweat (but I wore it anyway – there, that’s my knitting content), and I did it the right way – hit the 7-11 in order to smuggle in an Orangina and some chocolate, arrived early, bought the popcorn and kicked up my feet and read the atrocious Bay Times. My local place is one of those older theatres, a second-run art house where the screening rooms have been subdivided into little thirty-seat rooms, cozy and small. Like being at home, but with popcorn and a really big-ass screen.

For a while, during the previews, I thought I would watch the whole thing alone (why does that inspire guilt? As if I’m not worthy, somehow, of someone running the projector for lil ole me....) Then another woman came in, and sat right in front of me. I never get that. Totally empty, and that one person will always sit too close. I was slightly irritated that I’d have to be considerate with my candy-opening noise, but I got over it.

The movie was intense. I hadn’t realized how fully the family had self-documented itself, from film of Arnie’s sister who had died fifty years before in childhood, right down to hours before conviction, filming Jesse fooling around on the court-house steps. What I loved about it was its shading. There was NO black and white. You leave the theatre knowing that something happened, but even within the immediate family, there was a sense that no one really knew the truth. I was ridiculously moved by the compassion the filmmakers took with the family and I cried when the credits rolled (one of the best parts of watching a movie by yourself).

I had blocked out, completely, the woman sitting in front of me. I took my time picking up my trash and depositing it in the can, but when I went out the front, she was waiting, holding the door for me. We spent the next three blocks talking. She had spent thirty years in prosecution, so had a very unique viewpoint. I’ve spent some time on the other side – the law enforcement side, the side that takes the very first call – that of the hysterical and enraged parent or the bewildered aunt or babysitter. But the movie placed us both right into the middle of ambiguity. And isn’t that the point?

It was lovely walking in the fast-dropping night with an insta-friend. Much eye-holding, much nodding, a wave goodnight of greatest warmth. It was one of those moments that are rare and shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t LET them be rare. It was so easily grasped and so needed after an emotional experience like that.

On a totally different, frivolous note, I have to admit a deep dark secret. Reno 911! is a freaking hysterical TV show.

Don’t tell anyone.

You deserve a glamour shot now. This is Christy’s nineteen year old cat, Sebastian. This is him playing.

Happy Birthday, Al!

It’s Alison’s birthday! Yowza! You go with your brainy-lady excellent just gettin’ better every rawkin-gawking year self! We love you. (I'm in the middle of 31, by the way, and it's awesome - a good year.)

I’ve been doing a bunch of knitting and should be done with something fun this week, but can’t show it, ‘cause it’s a secret. Oh! Maybe I’ll send a completed photo to one of y’all so you can host it, hey? Wow, that’s just me living for the compliments. That’s kinda lame. But true. I hate working on it knowing no one knows what I’m doing.... The flip side of blog-land....

Wendy (winner of the KniTattoo contest) was talking today about the other evil side of blog-land: Spam. And I have to say, the only good thing I’ve found about spam is this: Their names, when they hit your email, are great. I write them down and save them to use in my fiction somewhere down the line. They look like names, but are totally unexpected – Norris Herplunk. Myra Mantle. All right, both of those have Harry Potter echoes, too. Cool.

I love collecting names, the really out-there, crazy ones. My friend has two students with the names HerMajesty and HisRoyalHighness. At work we see a lot of good ones, including two brothers named Lemonjello and Orangejello. (The emphasis on these names is on the second syllable. When said, they don't sound like the food at all.) I won’t tell you where I heard this name, but I can swear on Digit’s wee nose that this is a true name, one she deals with on a daily basis and married into. Are you ready?

Fonda Cox.

Can you IMAGINE? Introducing herself at a party. “Hi, I’m Fonda Cox.”

Kills me. Just slays me. Truly Boring (also verifiable and married into) used to be my favorite, but nothing beats a woman Fonda Cox.

Oh, now I'm REALLY in for some spam.

Decisions

I worked thirteen hours today, and spent the last two hours of my shift thinking about the bath I was going to take. I was gonna get home, run the bath, make some tea, grab the New Yorker, and hit it. Then sleep. Nothing else. I was TOO excited.

So I get in my car, switch on my phone, and promptly get talked into going to San Francisco. I mean, come on. Have I NO willpower at all?

Nah.

Besides, friend in crisis. How can I say no? Must counsel. Of course, if said counseling comes with a beer in the back garden and the opportunity for watching pool on a gorgeous warm fall night, it’s just something I have to deal with, no?

Didn’t so much counsel my friend as just listened and asked her to take her time. My little mama has drilled this one piece of advice into my head: You don’t have decide anything right now. And that’s usually the truth, isn’t it? If you HAVE to make a decision, it’s usually not the right time. Once the right time rolls around, you’ve already made the decision in your heart and mind and it’s not hard. It might suck, yeah. But it’s not hard to make.

(I realize, though, that I have NO problem with decisions. I have a gazillion other issues, but that ain’t one of ‘em. I think I’ve internalized Mom’s advice and I Just Don’t Think About It until I have to think about it, and by then it’s a done deal. )

Try it. It’s not so bad.

God, I feel like I have so many things I was thinking about writing and they’re all gone. Piffle. All right. It’s weird, I think, that my spell-check doesn’t highlight the word piffle (or Baryshnikov or Schwarzenegger, for that matter) but flags aargh and bleah.

Non-sequiturs abound. Off to bed it is, then. I’m home before midnight and I’ll still get eight hours of sleep. I agree with Marcia when she commented that she feels like she’s getting gypped when she has to go to bed on time – I want to stay up late and still be able to get enough sleep, screw the mathematics involved. When I was leaving the bar tonight, I kept saying regretfully to people, “I’m SO sorry, but I have to get up early tomorrow. I have to work, you know.” They just stared and nodded. Yeah, dumb-ass. So do we. This whole day-shift working thing has me thrown. It feels so WEIRD to have to be at work in the morning.

Hope your morning, whatever you’re doing, is not so very weird, and that you don’t have to make any decision more difficult than which pair of your favorite socks you’ll pick to wear today. (oh - and alison - yep, Digit's home safely, thank god. Greta suggested he might very well come home with a grand fortune from the roulette table, enough to send me back to Venice, but he just dragged in minus a collar and some scraps of pride. He's sound asleep now, snoring and pretending I'm not typing about him..... Poor baby.....)

National Coming Out Day

Almost missed it! Shoot. Good thing I didn't have to come out this year.....

Silence hurts. Support heals.

A couple of places to visit today:

Come out for civil marriage and show support for equal rights for all families here.

Find out more about today.

Wave a rainbow flag today. I already know you support gay rights, 'cause you support ME! You're already the best. Mwah!

Whinge

I have some adjusting to do, I think. Staying up late having a good time doing whatever it is you’re doing, but still having to get up damn early to make it to work – that ain’t right. Last night it was just drinking a beer on the couch with a favorite person, the night before it was a birthday party in the City (at a belly-dancing Moroccan restaurant where we sat on the floor next to the fabric walls, eating lamb and rabbit with our fingers), tonight it’s SUPPOSED to be watching a friend play in a punk band at a girl club in San Francisco (and that’s hard to resist, no?) but I’m TIRED.

Whine. Silly whinings. Suck it up either play or sleep, but don’t whine about it. That’s what big me tells little me, but little me still wants to complain.

Digit didn’t come home last night, now I’m worried. He does tend to stay out on full moon nights. More light to read the cards. Full house! Aces high.....

And I slept so poorly, too. Full moons affect me in a visceral way – dreams of small animals and bluegrass music and deserted rooms in antique stores. Oh! I dreamed of cashmere. Tactile dreams.

Now, racing off to work again – will I go out tonight? Prolly. Remind me to tell you about the tattoo I want now. Enjoy your weekend (and SLEEP!) And go see Bethany, new pics up!

Whoo hoooo

Quickly, 'cause I went out late last night and now I'm at work, but I'm so excited about the KniTattoo response! Got some good ones that I'll post tonight (and I have some ideas about a new one for me, thanks very much, I didn't plan on that.......)

And Wendy won! Didja see that? I think it's pretty darn cool that the contest-giver wins one. She deserves it.

Yow! Happy Friday!

And now,

for something a little different. Courtesy of Cari's and Amy's blogs, I got to thinking about tattoos and the fact that it seems like we got a lot of 'em out here in blog-land. Cari mentioned something about a gallery. I think she was kidding. But hey! Here you go. I feel like I'm at a party and I'm the first one to get naked in the hot-tub, not sure if anyone will follow. But, hey, I always liked hot-tubs.

The KniTattoo Gallery.

(ps - first one to send me a photo of their knit-related tattoo wins a prize. Not sure what kind of prize, and I can't guarantee its cool-ness (don't get a knit tattoo just for the prize), but you'll get a little crackerjack kind o'prize.)

Overboard

Whee! Thanks for the compliments! All kudos are due Stef, anyway. Her pattern, her genius. I just do the knitting.

Okay. So the reason I don’t buy crap to eat is this: I bought a four-pack of Dove bars yesterday on a whim and ATE THREE. And I know the last one will be gone today.

It ain’t like I’m on a diet. I like the way I look and I’m happy with my weight. I’ve always been a little soft around the edges, and I accept it (mostly)happily. But come on, that’s just ridiculous. Three Dove bars? You ever had one of those? You can feel your arteries hardening and your hips widening as soon as you throw the stick out, that stick that you’ve licked until the splinters form, hoping for a bit more of that chocolate.

Ridiculous, I tell you. That’s why I go either Grocery Shopping or Other Stuff Buying. Yesterday I just ran into the grocery store for leaf bags and ended up with a box of Dove as well. If I’m legitimately grocery shopping (which only happens about once a month), I’m very good, buying myself healthy whole-grain stuff, low-fat versions of good-for-you products. Or I’ll buy a small box of okay-for-you cookies with a little chocolate and I can dole those kinds of things out for a long time. A bag of Trader Joe’s corn chips will last me two weeks. But something REALLY bad, forget it.

(But it was fun, and I don’t regret it. Just kind of surprised at my capacity, that’s all. I could have eaten that last one, I know I could have.)

I used the leaf bags to clean out my closet, the one that I haven’t been able to open for WEEKS. I’ve been wearing the same clothes over and over again, washed and left in the basket, just because I couldn’t get near the clothes rack. I got rid of six bags of clothes. Six! Well, not rid of, not just yet, since I just bundled them up and filled my car with the bags. Must donate today, as soon as I get off my ass.

I’m seeing a pattern here, no? I like excess? Even when it comes to thrift store clothing, I go a little overboard.

You should see my book piles.

Adah says sleep in the sun if you can!

I Love a Trotting Horse

What do people without blogs do when they need cheering up? Y’all helped me so much and gave me some giggles which were wildly needed. I couldn’t even watch the debacle on TV last night, preferring to catch the headline on internet news at one in the morning. I think it just hurts so much because I adore California. I love it here, I really do, and I just feel so let down. If EVERYONE had gone to the polls, and I just happened to be in the minority who didn’t want the recall to occur, then well and good. I’d accept that. What I can’t accept is the apathy, and the subsequent grumblings from said apathetics. I know that's not a word. But it should be, goddammit.

In Canada it seems like people think a little more. Is that true? I’m gonna pull an Amy, fall in love with some fabulous Canadian girl and open a little yarn store while writing stunning novels from a tiny carriage house.

Whatcha think?

Well, all right then. Whatcha think of the Noro? Let me tell you first how I screwed it up. Not unbearably, but there’s definitely a Design Detail or two.

First of all, when Stef says kitchener the sleeves to the body, she means it. Don’t get all clever and happy with your dang self and think that means a three-needle bind off just because you happen to LURVE doing three-needle bind offs. When you do that: You end up with a raglan join on a slant AND a seam on the straightaway.

Dur. Why didn’t I think of that? I held it up, ready to be oh-so-proud of myself, then let out a banshee scream and met a friend for two beers and big steak fries. I couldn’t bear it.

Went home grudgingly, kitchenered the other sleeve and realized, hell, it’s Noro yarn. Ain’t nothing as forgiving as that. And if it won’t be noticed from a trotting horse, I can usually live with it, so it stays. No one (but you) will ever know.

I went with three-quarter sleeves, because I’m fussy about that (and impatient). Here she is all in one piece.

I did crocheted steeks! Great thanks are due the fabulous Lisa and Schoolhouse Press for making it comprehensible. I adore crocheted steeks – they’re elegant and neat and they mean I don’t have to haul out the Sewing Machine From Hell. They’re cute, too! Look:

Before cutting

During cutting

And here she is, cut apart with button bands (will buy buttons today – I never buy them ahead of time – I have to meet the sweater first).

What next? Dunno. Knitted political banners? Oh, yeah, that’s what this blog is! Cheers, all.

Emigration

I need to write, pay off debts (or at least get closer to doing so), buy less yarn and beer, and emigrate to Canada. Schwarzenegger won and I have to move. I'm actually not kidding. It may take a few years, but it'll happen. I'll split my time between Vancouver and Venice.

As of now, one-thirty a.m. on Wednesday, the recall was opposed by 46.5% of voters. If three point five percent more voters had just SHOWN UP and opposed this travesty, well..... It almost ain't worth thinking about. Too painful. It proves (again) how every tiny little vote really does count (hello, Florida). I'm terribly disappointed in my home state. And it only cost us $66 million dollars! I've been asked to help with salary negotiations at work - how can I do that? The state tells us over and over it has no money to give to cities and their police departments. Or schools. Or the environment. Of course, I forgot. It has other, important things to do. Like recall an admittedly struggling governor and replace him with a misogynist/actor. That'll help.

I'm bitter.

GodDAMN. I'm never bitter. I don't like this feeling.

Aargh. I finished the Noro cardigan, just have to add buttons. It'll help keep me warm up north.
Bleah.

Routine

Good morning!

If you live in California, FOR GOD’S SAKE, YOU MUST VOTE TODAY. If you don’t vote, Arnold will be governor, and it will be YOUR fault. If you’re my friend and don’t vote, I will hold you personally responsible for this. You don’t want to make me sad, do you? Get out there and vote, I ain’t kidding. Check out brooke’s findings on what Arnold’s thugs have been doing to protesters. It’s frightening.

VOTE!

Okay. That said, here’s Christy’s hat that sister Bethany made! Can you stand it? Her first colorwork, her first design, I love it. More pics on her site.

Wowee! to those comments yesterday! I loved ‘em all. I love the idea of Noro defeating the uniform (hee!) and the different ideas on writing and music (gonna try it, but for Fun, not For Real) and the obvious love we share of Tricks of the Trade. My favorite was Missa’s friend who writes novels BACKWARDS, in mirror writing.

Can you imagine?

I think it’s a great idea (although until I can type backwards, I ain’t gonna try it), for a couple of reasons. One, you can write on the airplane without the chump next to you reading over your shoulder (although why you’re not knitting on the plane, I just don't understand). Two, it really does shake things up in your brain, much like writing with the left hand. I can’t write left-handed, although I’ve tried, but I CAN write backwards in script. And I don’t even have to try, it’s like flipping a switch, it just works. It’s a great party trick. And it stirs up thoughts in a slightly different way. Try it. (Ooh! And Missa’s mom offered Bethy a driveway, big shout out to her!)

And Anne wrote a couple of her own personal tricks and I remembered (again) how much I love reading about others writing, so here’s my routine, for you. If you care. If you don’t, go see Beth’s hat. It rocks.

I have an old rocking chair, kind of an upholstered chair on a big huge spring that moves in alarming and unexpected directions. Wait, this is it. It's also Digit's favorite chair.

I get up, flip the laptop on, make coffee (in an Italian caffetierra) and toast with peanut-butter and honey. Every day. This doesn’t vary. I sit cross-legged and slouched in the chair, pull the computer into my lap and check email while eating. After breakfast, I open a morning pages document (the private one, the sloppy, no-brainer one where I just ramble and wake up) and write about a page. Then I open this page and write a blog entry. Hi! Then I get up and make a cup of green tea and wash my dishes. I’ve already opened the novel and it’s open on the desktop so when I sit down again it’s ready and waiting for little ole me to show up. Then I write, without thinking or groaning about my plight in life. If the phone rings, I answer it. If the cat throws up, I clean. If the awful neighbors take out the trash, however, I don’t help. They’re so terrible, they can take the trash out every once in a while by themselves. I write for five hundred words, and I don’t care how good or bad they are. Just so they are. (Then later at work on my break, I go to a quiet spot, have another cuppa and write the other five hundred – that seems to come easier, usually, perhaps because I’ve been so linear for hours that it’s a relief to play on the page). That's my routine, or at least what I like it to be, on the mornings when it works.

I used to write my morning pages with a gift from a Great Love, an antique Waterman 1927 Lady Patrician fountain pen (pic here) that I dipped in purple Pelican ink, while reclining on my divan. I don’t anymore, and I owe that to Brenda Ueland, who said she could type almost as fast as she thought, so she felt more natural on a typewriter. I agree with a lot that Julia Cameron says about the benefits of writing long-hand – it’s the difference between walking and driving to the store: even though it takes longer, you notice a lot more on the walk. But I love to type. So there. I do miss the excuse to use the fountain pens (and I have a little collection, a Mont Blanc and a Namiki, to name-drop a couple), so I make up reasons. I make my grocery lists sometimes with a two inch fountain pen I bought in Venice in March....

Enough. What’s your routine?

The Magic Key

Writing about writing – what is it with us writers? There’s nothing so absorbing as reading about the way another person writes. It’s as if we’re waiting for the solution. I actually get excited when I realize someone is going to reveal in the next few sentences how she writes – where it happens, what time she writes, what method she uses, where she sits, what music she listens to (or doesn’t). It’s like I’m waiting for the magic key. If asked, I could tell you there is no magic key. I know that. I know that books are made of sentences, and sentences are written a moment at a time. That’s all writing is – stringing together sentences one after another. It isn’t magic. (Well, that could be argued, but it ain’t Cinderella garden-variety magic. It’s more like soul magic, if anything.)

But when I read that a successful novel was written long-hand on yellow legal pads with a number two pencil, I give it a thought. Hmmm. I picture myself on my couch, pencil in hand (do I even OWN a number two right now?), I envision the pile of yellow legal pads. And I know that I HATE to write long-hand nowadays, and I should let the dream go. But for a brief moment I think, huh. Maybe that’s the way a real writer writes.

Have been thinking about emotion and how to drop down into it. God forbid I push my little characters into emotions that aren’t real, appropriate for the situation, or honestly felt, but I’ve got them sitting in the kitchen TRYING to feel. I’m trying to feel for them, and it’s not working. My characters usually do their own thing, or most of them do. When I have to push them it’s because they don’t want to move. I should heed that. I think that music could be a key for me (yellow legal pad?) but I’m going to wait until the rewrite(s) to try that out. Logistics play into this: I write early in the morning and I live in an apartment where I can hear every word the girl next door says. If I played music at six a.m., she’d shoot me. And I write on my break at work – also not feasible to listen to music, even on a walkman (I have to listen for the page in case it gets busy and I have to respond back).

Geez, I sound like I’m justifying. Maybe I am, a little. Okay, a lot. I’m TERRIFIED to write to music, lest I cliff-dive without calling the paramedics first and having them stand by. But when I finish, and start ripping the book apart (I almost feel like I’ll be really starting to write then), I’ll try music. I swear.

This week I’m re-reading The Right to Write by Julia Cameron. She’s pretty touchy-feely and just a touch new-agey, but it works for me. I’m thinking a lot about quantity. If I take care of the quantity, the universe will take care of the quality. It sounds odd and a little out there, but I’ve found it to be true time and time again. If I show up and write, it works out that it doesn’t suck that much. In fact, it’s usually pretty all right.

Me in the torso of my Noro raglan:

'Scuse the uniform underneath.
I think I’m going to do ¾ sleeves and cardiganize it, using Lisa’s crochet method. I’ve never tried it so I’m a little nervous about it, but crochet steek, here I come! Happy Monday, all.

Go cheer up Bethany!

Be Unafraid

Cari wrote about her character’s soundtrack – her favorite songs and albums, which have less to do with Cari’s taste than her character’s. I’m digging that, hard. I’m terrified to write to music, lest the sound and mood of an individual song prompt one of my characters into a swan dive of an emotion I won’t be able to drag her out of.

But isn’t that the point?

I think my biggest weakness in writing has always been an element of fear that I just can’t seem to get over, around, under. I KNOW my writing is tight – that I’m not addressing the deepest, rawest emotional level that my characters can have. It’s surfacey. And when I dive below that surface, I pop up quickly, gasping for breath. Never quite sure I’m authorized to write about the scary stuff. Not sure I have the security clearance for it, and even if I did, I’d need it in writing, a little badge – “Cleared for reality,” with all the relevant signatures attached. I can’t even SEE the scary stuff sometimes for all the fluff I keep bobbing around on top.

Now I have an image of a really dirty, foamy sea, and that’s not the metaphor I was aiming for. Well, I wasn’t aiming for one, but this is what I got. I’m going to leave it alone and do my writing and just let myself feel it. That’s all I really need to do. And be unafraid. (It’s hard, isn’t it?)

For your weekend, I give you Adah playing with her favorite toy under Her Chair:

And this, which captured a rare daytime snuggle with the Boy:

How happy am I? Reading blogs to the right, Digit on my lap, my Noro knitting to my left, and you can see I’m wearing my ducky p.j.s again, as well as my LoTech Sweat. Happy day.

Mind The Gap

Had a lovely night last night, one of those unexpectedly graceful unplanned nights. Spent the afternoon and early evening in the City with my friend Rachel (no A) who had her appendix out on Monday. We watched a movie and I knitted while she tried to keep the cat (named Eleanor Roosevelt but goes by Cat) off her stomach. She has to sleep with an overturned laundry basket over her midsection to keep Cat off. Ooof. Rachel and her girlfriend Kira live at the end of the Avenues, a couple of blocks from Ocean Beach. Bethany used to live with them, and at night you can smell the bonfires. I love the fog there.

I left there without a real plan, having cancelled plans I thought I wouldn’t make in time. I was just driving through the Avenues, thinking I might wander the San Francisco streets for fun (I need to learn more), when Brooke called me back. She talked me through a gorgeous drive to her house, up Seventh, around Laguna Honda hospital which in the gathering fog looked like a gothic insane asylum, down into Noe Valley..... Oh, here I am, dropping down (it’s steeper than it looks in the picture)

I adore the feeling of being in San Francisco, so much so that yesterday I had one insane moment of thinking: Should I move here? Oh, help! It’s a thought I never believed I’d have. I’m an Oakland girl, stubbornly so. I love my side of the Bay, and it’s just unnerving to actually HAVE feelings about the City. Most don’t make the cross – there’s a wide divide among people and the bridge is the wedge that keeps us apart, mentally and physically. Bethany was one of the few who made the cross; she was equally comfortable on either side even though she preferred to live in San Francisco. I’d like, someday, to feel as comfortable there as she did cruising the East Bay, thrift-store shopping with me.

Anyway, met Brooke for an awesome dinner at a tres-chic un-trendy trendy place called The Blue Plate. The cooks wore trucker ball caps. Our waitress had hot-rod flames on her black sweater and eyes that never met ours. But the food, steak and spinach, was great, and they served dollar Olympia beers in a can. With a glass.

Then out to the Wild Side West for more beer and some pity-poor pool playing, then did the spontaneous thing: Hey, there’s a club and they’re having *blank* tonight, wanna go? The blank is something that sounds like Robo-Girl but isn’t. But I heard Robo-Girl and that stuck. Oh, maybe Rebel-Girl. But that’s lame. Anyway.

So we went with two very fun gals to Not-Robo-Girl which, when we arrived, we agreed might be lesbian purgatory. We sat in the back and made catty comments which were completely awful and juvenile and very satisfying to make. The only girl who really talked to us at all was twenty-one and there with her lech of an older-guy-with-big-eyebrows boyfriend. He was annoying with his “let’s take one home” attitude. She was going to be cute.

Then home and a good sleep. Who could ask for more? I have a day off today, back to work tomorrow, and my laundry is done, so I think I’ll just hang out and knit. Watch TV. Read a little. Oh, here’s how the Noro raglan is shaping up:

Innit a great color? It's in Kureyon #91.

Hope your Friday is mellow.

PS - Brooke has a new typepad website, here, and this shirt she's selling is hysterical. Christmas presents?

Truth & Passion

For all that I’m working dayshift now, I’ve worked three nights this week. Hmmm. This is an AWFUL picture of me, but my friend Nichole took this of me last night, at work, trying on my top-down Noro raglan a la Glampyre.

You put all the stitches on yarn holders and see if the underarms meet. If they do, cool. If they’re close to meeting, and do meet with a little yank, you shrug and say, “eh, close enough,” like I did. It might be a SMALL cardigan, but it’ll be cute. Hell....

I’ve been doing my writing re-reading lately. This week I re-read Ueland’s If You Want to Write. I love this book, I really do. Ueland was a free, elemental writer, one who just didn’t give a crap about what the world thought in a time when a great deal of the western world was re-discovering criticism. She didn’t care. She just wrote, freely, quickly, with love and honesty. Truth and passion. And think about it, aren’t these the two things we strive for most in our lives and in our writing? Or if they aren’t, shouldn’t they be?

At the end of the book she talks about the writing of her book. Someone asked her what kind of planning she was putting into it. She had a moment of panic, and then she said to him,

“No, I haven’t planed it. I wouldn’t think of planning it.”
For when you begin to plan such a huge edifice of words, your heart fails you. It is too hard. It will never get done, it is too complex and frightful. No, write what comes to you now. More will come later.....
You write and plan it afterwards. You write it first because every word must come out with freedom, and with meaning because you think it is so and want to tell it. If this is done, the book will be alive. I don’t mean that it will be successful. It my be alive to only ten people. But to those then at least it will be alive. It will speak to them. It will help to free them. (p.168)

No, write what comes to you now. More will come later. And isn’t that the most exciting thing to hold in your heart? So many times I’ve had a wonderful idea and written a brief line about it, meaning to get back to it later, to work it in in the eighth chapter or somewhere else down the line, and I lose it entirely. Even if I remember what I meant, the instant of passion isn’t there anymore. Even in blogging this happens. I’m walking home from the grocery store, and a little girl rolls a ball to me on the sidewalk under the trees just getting their fall color, and I roll it back to her, smelling the lavender bush I’m standing beside, thinking this is a moment I want to write about. I get home and if I don’t write it (as I didn’t two days ago), it’s mostly gone. I can grapple with the skeleton of it, but the passion and truth of it has escaped.

Pioneer Melissa has been thinking about it lately, too. I like knowing there are many like me, with scraps of paper around the house Just In Case, others who are busy reminding themselves to “Write what comes to you now.” Don’t forget, more will come later. We are inexhaustible. It’s magic.

Whew. Didn’t know I even HAD a soapbox around here. Off to get my hair cut. Write! Knit! Do a little dance!

Gotta Watch

This is the best Save The World commercial I've seen in a LONG time. Hysterically funny, it's worth the download and/or the jerkiness of reception. It's a Greenpeace UK ad, and it's awesome (features Jim Broadbent and Eddie Izzard, too!) Thanks, OutOut!

Sucka

Wanna hear my two complaints? They’re good ones.

I stayed up too late reading my new copy of The Purl Stitch. A wonderful, generous, and extremely sweet little pixie who shall remain nameless (but some might know as Pioneer Melissa’s doppelganger) saw fit to gift me with her extra copy and I’m so LUCKY! Up ‘til two in the morning reading. And I mean gazing at every picture and explanation until my eyes swam. Lovely.

And then I had to rise early (whine, whinge) so I could order me up some Indigo Girls tickets. Ow! November 13th at the Fillmore, baybee. I’ll be SO there.

So not much sleep. But SUCH good reasons, no?

I have a feeling that on this new shift I’ll be way more pop-culture-fied. Thank god. I’ve been so out of it for so long. Well, since I was six, actually. Last night I developed a serious case of startitis and started not only a Booga J bag, but a top-down raglan a la Glampyre (love me some Noro). And I watched TV! Brand new Queer Eye, which was pretty damn funny – the dude just didn’t seem to get it, that it’s okay to spend money on some things. Like a bed. Or a shirt that doesn’t suck. Or a gift for his girlfriend. Even when he got it, he didn’t get it. You don’t need to use your sweat rag to wipe the canape tray (that was so blatantly horrifying that I think he must have done it just to be funny). And did anyone else notice that he was seen briefly as a waiter in The Restaurant, the Bravo show that followed Queer Eye? Is that where they found him?

And have you seen The Restaurant? I’m a sucker for any Bravo reality show, and this one is AWFUL and great in its awfulness. I’ve only seen last night’s episode, but it follows the opening of a restaurant conceived by a Celebrity Chef named Rocco. This doesn’t mean anything to me, but more interesting to me than Rocco is the wait staff. The filming seems totally on, very accurate (the only thing they don’t show is the drug use that is part and parcel of restaurant work).

I work 911, which can be stressful. I have to be able to make snap decisions about safety and life-saving priorities, deciding which lines to place on hold, which call to dispatch to the officers first, yadda yadda. But it ain’t anywhere NEAR as stressful as waitressing. Oh, god, I’ll never get over the three years I spent on my feet at the Oakland Grill. I still have nightmares about the tables that have been sitting for ten minutes with no drinks, about running out of wine (which apparently happened last week on the show), about losing entire tickets, about ticket walk-outs.... Nightmares about shots fired? Nah. About marrying ketchup bottles? Oh, yeah. I sat on the couch and worked on the Noro raglan and my stomach was in knots, just watching their faces as they realized that their customers HATED the food, that they were tired of waiting, that their orders were just plain wrong..... Awful, awful, awful. I’ll totally watch next week.

I’m such a sucker! But I’m a sucker that’s going to hear IG in a month, one with a fancy new book. Hope your day is going as well!

Digit reminds us to keep our extra toes clean: