080503 1255

It�s an in-house day today. Determined to cook a chicken for my work week, which starts tonight. The cooking isn�t the hard part. It�s getting my ass out the door and into the grocery store (which for god�s sake is about four blocks away). I�m just so sleeppyyyy. It�s not like I didn�t have enough sleep. Sure, I didn�t go to sleep until about 0400, but I slept till NOON! On a day off!

And of course, the reason I overslept is Mr. Potter. Yep, I�m a little slow getting there since Mom and all three sisters kicked in a fiver and we�re sharing the book (I�m number three on the list), but now that I�ve started it, I�m well irritated. Books don�t keep me awake. I chuck down a sleeping tablet or two, read for a while, and go to sleep. Sometimes, sure, it�s hours and hours after I get in bed, but I don�t stay up to read. I stay awake because I can�t shut the brain off and I get involved in knit- or web- design ideas that I CA'T STOP THINKING ABOUT, or because I start to worry about just how hard I�d have to hit the window next to the bed to get out in case of a fire. Just how many spiders I�ve eaten, cumulatively, while sleeping, in my life. Where to buy the best honey.

Last night, though, was all Harry Potter. What IS it about her writing that makes it so quick, light, and interesting? (another question that was keeping me awake.) It�s not that she leaves us constantly on cliff-edges, plenty of authors do that. It isn�t that she�s a sublime writer, god knows I can find plenty of sleep next to that kind of writing. It�s a mix, I think, of fondness we�ve built for the characters and the rapidity with which the scenes shift. Never in one place too long, always a small but important conflict brewing (so to speak).

But it�s enough to say that hey! Hermione knits! I adore the images of her knitting for the house-elves, enchanting the needles to click away by themselves (although the description of her using a �pair of needles� to make socks.... either she was using a set of dpns (not a pair) or two circulars (doesn�t seem like a pair) or one circular in the �magic loop� method � of course, I think it was the last).

Yep. That�s what keeps me awake. AND I had to share my bed with the beast shown to the left.

080403 1320

This is as scary as knitting gets. Thanks, Rob.

1310
So I�m driving home from the City last night. Wait, let me set it up. I had only driven TO the City because I wanted to drive to the City. Well, that and there was a knitting group at K and R�s house, and I wanted to work more on another ChicKami that I�d started. But really, it was because it was getting foggy across the Bay and I wanted to put the top down and just drive, cross the bridge, watch the damp drip down over the hills.

I have to admit that I�m a HUGE idiot when it comes to getting around San Francisco. It�s finally hitting me that I�ve been in the Bay Area for six years, and I won�t ALWAYS be dating someone who will drive me around the places that I don�t know. I have to learn the streets. I have to find the secret parking areas and the side alleys that cut through and out. I love and adore Oakland, and I know most of its secrets. For six years I�ve been doing that whole �San Francisco, p�shaw� thing. What do they have that we don�t? I certainly don�t need to cross that silly ole bridge.

But I do. It�s so fine there, and I�m making, finally, my own way around. Getting myself good and freaking lost and then getting myself back to where I�m supposed to be. I have to admit another thing about myself � I�m embarrassingly rote. On my way home from work, unless there�s a rig going thirty miles an hour and I simply MUST pass or lose my mind, I stay in the same lanes. I know where the potholes are. I�ve spent time thinking about which are the most time-efficient exits and know how hit the streets with timed lights.

It�s a little compulsive, yes.

All this to say, I�m cruising down Oak Street last night and I pull over. It usually takes a lot for me to pull over. At least a flat tire or a whole lotta nudity. Or both. When I�m on my way out of the City, I have a mission. Lookin� for those green freeway signs. Yep. Now right. Now left. Over one lane. But last night I was heading downhill, right about Buchanan, and the sky lights up in front of me. I mean UP! I pull over (totally blocking a driveway) and put the top back down. There are FIREWORKS right in front of me. The big ones, the ones that show off. And I had the best seat in San Francisco. Me in my car, Dar Williams singing �It really was about driving, not fame, not wealth, Not driving away from myself, It's just my self drove away from me....� That was seriously the song that was playing. I know!

My self didn�t quite drive away without me, I got myself home in one happy piece. I have no idea why there were fireworks, maybe a Giants game, who knows? Who cares? The point was I was there.

080303 1240

I knew all that Amazon wishlisting was getting out-of-control, but now Bush has his greedy little hands on the web. Check it out HERE. Thanks, OutOut.

1145
Well, I�ve decided that planning to do nothing gives me a headache. I got off work yesterday morning and had high hopes that I would have a Bed Day. I�ve heard of these � a day or days spent doing nothing but reading in the bed (and occasionally eating, also in the bed). I have the new Harry Potter, and I planned on getting it read. I got in bed, read the first ten pages, and conked. Woke later to the phone ringing � I had asked a friend to go with me to the City to see a concert. I begged out, saying I was exhausted. Needed to stay in bed. Or she could come over and we could get a burger and a beer? Yeah, that. So I had to get out of my pyjamas. �Course, I planned on going BACK to bed but that didn�t happen until normal Bedtime Hours. At which point I only got another fifty pages under my belt and I crashed out again, the headache I got from trying to stay in bed in the first place notwithstanding.

But I woke up in the middle of the night to a spider dream like I ain�t had since I was a kid. In the dream, I�m in bed (even wearing exactly what I wore to bed) and I�m looking up and there�s a spider dropping down, spinning a huge web over my head. It�s moving fast, and I�m trying to duck under it to hit the light. I knock everything over and off, trying to dodge that horrible spider (in real life I don�t even mind them), and I get the light switched on and sit there, horribly confused. Where did it go? Why am I panting?

Ew.

Em has done the impossible: A Rock On knitting swatch. Go see. It really does rock. And on.

Stitch�n�Bitch at the bar this afternoon � and a couple of the gals are meeting me at my house first and we�ll walk to Ethiopian food first. Kewl.

080103 1700

I went to Pamie�s book signing last night. She�s the one, you know, who as well as being a great, funny writer, started the Oakland book drive, which is how I heard of her in the first place. Her new book Why Girls Are Weird just came out, and I had put off buying the book until the reading. I�ve been following her on-line for a while now, and I was so excited to see her in person!

Actually, that�s bending the truth a little. I hadn�t slept very well that day, and I was soooo tempted to just sleep a little longer instead of making my way over to the Barnes and Noble (ew) in Jack London. But I did, I dragged my tired ass over there, wore a sweater I had made a earlier this year �cause somehow it seemed appropriate. Someday I want a girl to put on a too-big sweater she made for herself and kick herself in the ass to get to MY book signing. I hate to admit that I went partially for the karma points, but there it is.

Her audience was exactly as I had pictured it would be. Twenty-five or thirty girls, most with well-streaked indie hair, wearing those little retro cat glasses, most in either short skirts or tight tee-shirts with curse words. Great shoes. There were a couple of sensitive looking fellows and one guy that looked like a stalker. When Pamie came in, she was just like I had pictured, not-to-tall and cute as heck. On the outside, she didn�t even quite look like she would be as clever as she is, but as soon as she started to read, it was evident that she was.

She read from the book (including her famous Barbie essay), lots of swearing, fabulous as we were right over the childrens� section � made it feel naughty. She was a good reader, giving sly sideways glances that made us feel like we were in on the joke. Then she gave out presents, which was silly fun. I got the tiara, since I had to go to work, and she signed my book in front of everyone, using me as the �How to Sign a Book� portion of the evening.

�See, you have to turn to this page, didja know that? The title page. And then you ask the name,�
�Rachael.�
�Then you write it here, unless it�s spelled funny,�
�Like Michael.�
�Unless they say something like that. I have no idea what she means by that.�
�AEL.�
�I don�t think it�s really spelled like that, doesn�t look right, but okay. Then you write a little something like this, �You are very pretty� and sign your name under it all. See?�

She wrote that! �You are very pretty� in my book! Whee! Minor brush with stardom. Okay, new-book star, but that�s the best kind of star, innit? I left clutching my kid-sized tiara and her book � I waved at the audience as I left, early but so happy. Someday I�ll give a girl a tiara on her way to work and tell her she�s pretty, too.

073103 1634

Okay, so now I�m interested in flash mobs. Anyone heard of these/done one? A group of people are alerted by email or phone text, told when and where to mob. Thousands of people converge on the chosen site (a bookstore, a shoe store, a random corner near a mail-box), they are told what question to ask (ask the clerk if they have the brown in size sixteen), they mill about for ten minutes, clap for fifteen seconds, and then leave quietly and peacefully, not discussing the event.

People flip out. They have no idea what to think about this inexplicable horde that does something offbeat and then is gone, like a wave rolling back out.

I�ve watched (online) flash mobs unfold in Paris, Rome, and New York, and I�m signed up for a notification list in San Francisco. With my luck, I�d go, something would turn ugly, I get arrested with the masses and lose my job because of it. But it�s such a wicked fun idea I�m still tempted. I feel a low-grade disgust when I realize it�s just a protest without a cause, but that�s also part of the attraction. Mobs, deconstructed.

There�s a nice little description here of the first flash mob that was attempted in SF. Yeah, or THAT would be the mob I attended. I�d probably know a couple of the seven people who would show, and we�d up staying at the bar (or yarn shop�yeah!), drinking (or shopping) the night away.

No knitting went on last night. I forgot my yarn. Gawd, I hate it when I do that. The long shift wasn�t that bad. I had one dizzy moment when the sleepiness hit, but it went away quickly�it always does. Only a ten hour shift tonight, a twelve tomorrow and then the weekend.

Flash this. Yup.

073003 1448

Time for a new Venice pic, I think.

Look what I made last night! It�s out of Bernat baby yarn, and it�s pretty soft, but the pattern calls for size 10.5 needles, and that�s just too large for a baby item, I think. This one is for my cousin in New Zealand�s new son, and I will send it (after I add a few yellow buttons), but I think I�m going to play around with the pattern tonight and see if I can bring down the needle size. I just love making the wee little items, thinking of their wee little arms poking through the wee little sleeves. Can it really fit a person? I can�t WAIT for the sisters to start popping those puppies out. I�ll be the best aunt EVER. And they�ll have the most incredible layette.....

Have to work a 14 hr shift tonight, so nothing more now. The only perk about a 14 is that we get meal allowance (an extra eleven dollars) so I usually splurge and eat out (which means ordering something on the phone and then whinging until one of the officers feels sorry enough for us to go pick it up, since we can�t leave the building due to lack of staff). I�m cheap enough to sign up for those 14s just to get the meal allowance.

Could I possibly be more boring? I think not. Still sleepy..... Only this: A guy called 911 to request police to come out and get his girlfriend to stop playing her flute so he could sleep.

I LOVE that.

072903 1539

Check out Kitty Planet's collars! I particularly like the Harley Hard-Core studded one and the little Cabaret frou. Digit may be looking good soon.

1355

I�m in a strange knitting place. I started a baby sweater and hated the pattern and how the colors were working up. I won�t even bother frogging it; the yarn is inexpensive and I don�t feel like working with it anymore. I�ll just put it into the trash bin. That�s so satisfying sometimes.

I want to do Bonnie Marie�s LoTech Sweat hoodie, and I�ve bought the cotton I�m going to work with, but there are, count �em, three baby sweaters I have to make, and fast. I�ve got Wendy�s toe-up socks on the needles, and while I love the way they�re working up, I have to admit that size zero needles are SMALL. Feels like I�m knitting with long toothpicks. Toothpicks might, however, be a size or two bigger. And yesterday I received some more Fortissima Colori in the mail for some more fab socks that I�ll actually keep for myself.

So while minor knitting is going on, I have nothing big on the needles, and I hate that. I like to be working an adult sweater at all times, I think. I realize this is a liability.

And I just this very moment realized that while I�ve been focussed on my own knitting, I had forgotten that this Sunday will be the first of the month, and therefore my Stitch�n�Bitch day. I have this fear that some day I�ll forget completely. I should have made it the third or fourth Sunday, rather than the first. It�s going to sneak right past me one of these months, I know, and there will be a clutch of angry women at the bar, pissed off that I haven�t brought the portable light....

A clutch of knitters. I think that�s the plural form, right?

Anyone in the Bay Area wanna come knit on Sunday? Email me!

0116

Making socks from the toe up, a la Wendy. �Bout all I�m good for right now. Oh, but I like that pattern! Short-row shaping rules!

072803 0900

I am such a jerk.

I have a friend who was recently driving down a narrow street. He watched a woman precariously pass all the cars in front of her so she could turn left into a convenience store parking lot. As he drove past the lot, he looked left to glare and mouth, �What an IDIOT!� He stared at her. And whoomp! He hit the car in front of him.

That�s the way I feel.

My friend T asked me to help her feed her cat and water her garden while she was gone for a week and a half. She has roommates, but for various reasons they�re unreliable, and I was the backup plan. I wasn�t sure if they knew I had a key or not, and I didn�t want to dissuade them from feeding Kitty, too, so I snuck in and out of the warehouse loft, feeding and petty Kitty, loading him up on love and brushing and talking. We bonded. I felt pretty good about myself. I never saw the roommates, and I was a terrific catsitter.

But I forgot ALL about the garden. It didn�t cross my mind, not even once. How is that possible? She had (emphasis on the past tense) a wonderful roof-top garden, with tomatoes she had grown herself (she had told me they were almost ready � I could have the very first ripe one) and basil and peppers and all sorts of things she was excited about. It was her first garden. And now it�s totally dead. The roommates blew it, and that�s bad enough. But I blew it, too, and I feel terrible. I had been so righteously proud of myself, thinking, �Gawd, they don�t do ANYTHING for Kitty. Good thing T has me around.�

Sheesh. Maybe not. I killed her happy garden, and she�s so sad about it. I would be, too. She tried to make me feel better about it, and that made me feel worse. Ugh. I feel like such an asshole.

072703 2000

Well, Alison has thrown down the challenge, I suppose. (Tagboard: �I know you�re not actually going to tell us.�)

Draw your own conclusions about the date: Great dinner. There was pool-playing. B and I BOTH kissed a sweet man named Billy. We closed the bar. I went to sleep around 6am, and had to get up at 730. I couldn�t find my ring. But I managed to round up everything else and cross the bridge and take a shower, pick up my mother and get her to church on time. I could have wept with exhaustion, but it was worth it. (Alison, whatcha think?)

Oh, wait, I did weep later. We saw Seabiscuit this afternoon, and when I�m sleepy I tend to move to tears quickly. I was welling up at the opening scene, just seeing Tom Smith ride the range. Please. I was pathetic. I was more impressed with the movie than I thought I would be � I thought they�d take great liberties, but instead they kept it extremely true to the book. I only noticed one difference, and it was very forgivable. �Course, I�d forgive anything today.
Know what? I�m too tired to type any more. I�m just waiting for Digit to come home from wherever he�s carousing so I can feed him and sleep.

072603 1630

I�m such a lazy ass. What happens is: On Saturday mornings, I�m done with my work week. Don�t have to go back till Tuesday night. I like to go home on Saturday morning, take a brief nap and then force myself to get up and go play so I have a half-way decent shot at falling asleep that night.

Today my nap was six hours long. (This is after I boasted to my friend Brandy, �Sure, I just sleep for a little while, then I�m fiiine, tra la la.�) I could NOT get up, not even to see my little Mama who�s only in town for a few more days. Course, she and my sister were busy, what with museum-hopping and shopping for the dee-luxe dinner they�re whipping up tonight, but I feel badly. Tomorrow, I�ll go to church with her and hang all day. Which means I must sleep tonight.

That's gonna call for a couple of Tylenol PM. Oh, yeah. (That bottle says they�re non-addictive, but I sure like �em. Huh.)

And I have a date tonight. One of those bona-fide out-to-dinner, let�s-make-nice kind of things. I�m not as good with those as I am at just hangin� in a bar. Tend to order the wrong thing and slop my wine and grin too widely. I make waiters happy and the people seated around me nervous. All those things that you know you shouldn�t say, that your friends tell you not to say, I say, clapping my hand over my mouth afterwards. And I have the most annoying habit of covering my face with my hands when I laugh. Only on dates. Why the hell do I do that? I never do that. I�m not bashful. It just happens. Oh, damn it. Haven�t had ANY nerves about it till right now. Crap.

072503 0730

It�s late (your early) and I�m sleepy and can�t wait to go to bed. In a few minutes..... But I want to quickly post the pictures of the Mindless Raglan in all its low-level glory.

The little Mama�s coming in to town this weekend (yay!), so I prob�ly won�t be posting much.

Will just leave you with this antidote to Raglan-Cheer: "The terrorists intend to strike America again," Cheney said yesterday. "One by one, in every corner of the world, we will hunt the terrorists down and destroy them."

!!!!!!

Does he listen to himself? Do statements like this haunt him in the middle of the black night? Or does he just fix himself a little sammich and then nod and trundle back off to bed?

Okay. I just can�t leave you like that. Although they didn�t make it, the picture of the 51 Chevy driving over the waters between Cuba and Florida is enough to brighten any day. Gawd, I with they�d made it. Don�t they deserve to? Isn�t it gorgeous?

072403 1720

Thinking non-stop about moving my website to a more Blog-friendly environment. You know, with comment and trackbacks and the like. (And I do mean non-stop, since I couldn�t sleep today for thinking about Movable Type�s new platform I�m beta-testing.) The only thing I can�t quite get over is that I have friends here! Would they come with me? And I�ve been here for a year now, do I want to start over? When did blogging become an emotional dilemma?

It�s ridiculous.

Will finish the Mindless Raglan tonight, probably. I can safely say this is the fastest sweater I�ve ever made, done in less than two weeks. Says something about (to?) my obsession. Then � BABY STUFF! Got some babies coming, and one little boy cousin just born in New Zealand, so I�m gonna whip up a couple of Mama Kate�s generous designs.

I went to yoga last night, for the first time in over a month. (Yes, Anna, I was safe! No bathtub tricks! Your signs help!) I forget how grounded it makes me, how much it helps with remaining in the moment, and more, with enjoying the moment. It�s a little strange, though, how anonymous it is. There were only four of us in the class, another woman and two men who didn�t come in together and never said a word to each other, but looked startlingly like the same person � tall, gangly, oversized hands, scrubby goatees. None of us made any contact with each other. With the teacher, yes, eye communication and smiles while she talked and made her soothing noises. But with each other, no. It was as if we were trying to practice in private, and the small sounds of feet being peeled from the sticky mats felt too intimate. I felt jarred when, at the end of class, I asked one of the gangly men if I could borrow his pen to write out my check. Still no eye contact, just a silent pen-passing. I�m not sure I yet understand yoga-class etiquette. I�m a yoga boor.

072303 1530

I am SURE that someone�s already working on it, but there needs to be a book on the best Googlisms. The way people hit my site accidentally is getting a little alarming.

Most recently I�ve been hit by people searching for:
*Pictures sweater short skirt (I�ve got lots of pictures of sweaters, though!)
*Got tattooed pierced yesterday (No, I didn�t, but thanks.)
*Kobe Byrant victim�s pictures (Just ew.)

We could chart the frightening course the contemporary American lifestyle, just by observing who googles what. (I know, it�s irritating, but it�s now a verb. I have to accept that.)

But I have to admit I�m very proud of something I have absolutely NO control over. If you google simply the word �Rachael� I�m the eighth hit. Eighth! My parents did me right by spelling it the old-fashioned way. And I seem to be something of an anomaly � I�m a writer, not a singer like Rachael Lampa (Christian pop), Rachael Sage (a scary cross of Ani di Franco and Kate Bush), and Rachael B. Davis (actually quite a fine folk voice, may have to pick it up). And of course, there�s Rachael Leigh Cook and she�s sixth! I�m eighth!

07223 1700

Picture of Mindless Raglan�s progress on Knitting page.

Just cleaned the apartment thoroughly for the first time in months. I�ve been spot cleaning as I go, of course, but it needed some serious scrubbing in the usual places. I had forgotten how filthy a tub can get. Is that all me? Disgusting. 409 and Scrub-Free didn�t even cut it. Only baking soda got it all shiny-squeaky-clean. Now the scum is all on me. So I need a bath. THUS MY PROBLEM.

I think my links and italics and bolds are slipping down below again. I hate it when they do that, but I�m too lazy to fix them all.

1317
So much drama, and in an AP story! Go Lance! I feel like I'm still reading Seabiscuit.

072103 2345

Worked on the Mindless Raglan last night at SnB in the City. Small group, but we had fun. I love being there, a block from the park and two from the ocean. I finished one sleeve, one to go and the then just the rest of the body.

I met up with B afterwards, and we went to the Lexington. Not her first pick of bars (actually she hates the place), it�s one of the few places I can find in San Francisco. We chose an interesting night to attend. Yesterday was the 8th Annual Drag King Contest, and apparently the Lex was the place to go for the afterparty. As we had scored a back bench spot (which was hard to hold onto, let me tell ya), we had the perfect view. Even more interesting to me than the kings were the groupies. There were girls in red sequins (were they presenters? Envelope passers?) girls who only had eyes for one boy, girls who had eyes for EVERY boy, and several who just looked shell-shocked.

One cute little gal was sitting next to me � I think I jostled her and turned to apologize. I then had to compliment her lipstick, which was divine on her otherwise scrubbed face, and we got to talking. Turns out she was just twenty years old. She touted the powers of Covergirl Colorstay (I KNOW, I was wearing the same, albeit a different shade � love that stuff), and she said it hadn�t come off after two hours of kissing that afternoon. Well, we thought. How cool. You go, girl. And then she told us it was nice to kiss and get paid for it.

I have to confess my every-once-in-while-shockingly-innocent mind jumped straight to kissing booths. I actually had an image of her being at some gay fair (wait, Pride was weeks ago) getting paid per kiss.

Nope, turns out she�s a sex-industry worker. A porn actress. She was so freaking young! What is she going to look like, feel like, at 30? I have no problem with those women who boldly turn the exploitation around, kicking mores and tradition to the side with some knowledge of what they can do, and what they can�t. This girl, could she see any of it? She seemed brand-new at her job. Not jaded yet.

She asked me how old I was and when I said forty as a joke, she didn�t blink.

No, said B, she�s thirty-one.

It didn�t make a difference to her. Old is old. Old is over twenty-four. Her lipstick was just right, and she�d kissed a pretty girl all afternoon, and she�d been paid a hundred dollars an hour for it. Why did I feel a little sad? Nothing much I could do or say, nothing I wanted to do or say. We had another beer.

Oh, but my lipstick stayed on, too. This could be a new Covergirl campaign! What do you mean, doesn't come off on him? How 'bout on her?

072003 1400

So I�m cruising Salon and I see a headline that shocks the hell out of me. Totally. Took me a while to get over it, to figure it out. To work past it. I'll get to it in just a minute.

First of all, I'm on Salon because I�m looking for more info on the body found in the woods southwest of Oxford. Of course, I could go to the real media clear-channel type of news crap, but I�m hoping for an outraged editorial or two. Salon�s sometimes good for that. You know about this, right? David Kelly, the British weapons adviser (and a former UN weapons inspector) is claimed to be the media source that set the nation buzzing over possible government hype and �sexing up� of the war. He had denied this, and then went missing last Thursday. A body matching his description has been found a mile away from his home, dead of a slashed left wrist. Possible suicide, yes. And David Kelly was depressed about the furor, so this isn�t too far out a speculation. Other, wilder rumors fly, and that's to be expected.

A couple of things have struck me: One, a reporter this week yelled at Blair, �Have you got blood on your hands, prime minister?� Well, of course he has, you moron. He�s in all this with America, and Kelly or no Kelly, he�s got quite a bit of washing up to do.

Two: My heart hurts for the Brits. When I was in Italy in March, the week the war started, I met the English everywhere. They were just about the only ones still traveling (and the Germans of course, but they�re always traveling). And as a group, they told me the same thing over and over. They thought Bush was a terrifying idiot (well, duh) and that Blair was letting them down by getting involved, but they had, to a person, something else to add. They said that Blair must know something no one else did. He WOULDN�T just jump into a war blindly. He had to have good information, substantiated and real, to place his country into a war. While Bush was distrusted by the world, Blair had at one time possessed some smarts upon which his constituents were relying. This scandal must be rocking them to the core, in a very personal small-town way. At least we weren�t surprised by Bush. Horrified, yes. But it was to be expected. The British are let down, and I think of the ones I met in person, especially Ruth on one of the vaporetti. �At least we have Tony Blair to believe in,� she said. Sorry, Ruth.

Which leads me back to the real shocker of the day. When I opened Salon, I saw the first headline: �Sex change clouds Kobe Bryant�s future.� My god! Who knew?

I read it two or three times quickly before I realized it was charge, not change. Now I�M the one let down.

071903 1427

Got this message last night, and with permission, I�m reprinting it here:
�I followed the link to your website from Christy's blog. I'm a pal of
Christy's. :) I enjoyed looking around your site. I especially liked the 100 things list and the photos of Digit (I adore tabby cats!). Mostly, though, the fact that you not only knit, but that you're TOTALLY INTO KNITTING, cracked me up. I don't know why.�

I think this fact about me cracks a lot of people up, including myself. I just loved her succinctness.

Not writing about the date last night. #1: She knows about this site (why do I DO that?) #2: Not sure what to say anyway. It was fun. Very odd, but fun. I had a GREAT tamale. Played a game of pool where Time Stood Still.

I�ve totally flaked and I�m not going out of town today. I couldn�t even get out of bed.... Tried from about 11am until 2pm, kept getting up and then giving up. And then Digit came in from outside (not a common occurrence during the day) and crawled in bed with me. How am I supposed to leave the bed when he puts his paw into my hand and falls asleep? You�re doomed at that point.

071803 1600

Good freaking lord. The number of hits I got yesterday was six times more than what I usually get. All from ChicKnits, bless Bonnie-Marie�s heart. But of course, with my luck, it was the day I mentioned toilet paper. Or the lack thereof. Goes to show you � stock up on your personal products.

I used to be one of those people who wouldn�t be caught dead without at least a hundred extra rolls of TP, seven boxes of tissues and twelve rolls of paper towels. Extra deodorant and tampons under the sink, extra toothpaste, always an extra toothbrush around for that unexpected guest. I think I had more money then. Or less debt. Or perhaps the debt I am now paying on is a direct result of stocking my Ark. Nowadays I�m lucky if I have an extra toothbrush when I drop mine in the toilet. Luckily, the other day I did have an extra. If I hadn�t, I�m scared to think what I might have attempted with boiling water.

Put some pictures of the Mindless Raglan on the Knitting page � It really is mindless knitting. I love it. Don�t care if it looks good, don�t care if I work on it a lot or a little, it�s just available to be knit upon. That�s all that matters right now. Not feeling very creative this week.

Tummy back up and running. Mostly. Have a date tonight and I�m willing the stomach problem into submission. We�ll see how it reacts after a martini or two. Yipes. Wish me luck. And this weekend, I think I�m going to go home. I�m still deciding, based on how my body acts. But the family is having a bonfire tomorrow night and I don�t want to miss that..... Happy weekend, all.

071703 1640

Holy CRAP! I got the well-wishes about being on Bonnie-Marie's excellent site, but I thought she had just put my picture on her completed gallery page. Not on her Post Of The Day! I feel like a rock star. Or a little knitter being noticed by a rock-star, just as good. I can't bear it. Go to ChicKnits to see what I'm going on about.

1609
Absolutely exhausted. I realized that the sum total time I was out of my apartment yesterday was for the fifteen paces it took for me to get to my mail. Don Perata sent me a potholder (which I actually thought was kinda cool). I�ve slept all day today, too, but I promised I�d go in to work tonight, so I�ll be there. I�m feeling much better, but rather like I�ve been kicked in and around my midsection by a large horse (reading Seabiscuit, thinking a lot about horses crashing on the racetrack).

And it�s imperative that I get my ass out of the house and over to the grocery store because I�m out of {ahem} toilet paper (that tells you way too much about where I�ve spent most of my recent time). There are many things in life I can do without for long periods of time because I�m too lazy to go to the store. That ain�t one of �em.

Don�t want to do anything. Did I already say that?

Working on a new sweater, a mindless raglan that I�ve already knit down to the chest and divided for sleeves. I�m too out of it to post pictures, but maybe tomorrow.

Seabiscuit: I�m three-quarters done, and it�s riveting, just like everyone says. I had put it off for that very reason, but my reading pile finally opened and let it through (everything�s an echo of the book�s racing terms), and I�m loving it. I think the latest New Yorker (I�m only two weeks behind right now) has an article on the author and the chronic fatigue syndrome that she battled while she wrote. I�m a weenie. I�m battling NOTHING like that and it still takes, well, wild horses (!) to get me to the page some days.

Listen: She calls Tijuana in the 20s an �exuberant, swaybacked little town.� She described a three-legged cat who lived in a stable that the stable-hands fitted out with a wooden leg. It blackjacked its little victims to death. She makes me laugh out loud while I�m reading, and I�m caught wondering why that is. I have a sneaking suspicion that it�s been too long since I read non-fiction. Sure, this is creatively written non-fiction, but it�s still based strongly on fact. Is that why I�m surprised into out-loud-laughter? Have I become too accustomed to fiction, so accustomed, in fact, that it takes a boy in a life raft with a Bengal tiger to wake me up and catch my interest? Well, that�s an overstatement. I still love and enjoy fiction but I�m so seldom surprised by it. It�s as if the authors can�t jolt me anymore. I expect them to cross over the border of the fantastic, the unbelievable. That�s their job. It�s nice to read something that crosses that border that really happened. It�s novel. So to speak.

071603 1719

Feel like crap. Ate something I shouldn't have (that Indian food last night out of squeeze-pack heat'n'eat box?) or I'm fighting a stomach thing, but I'm out of it. And in pain. Called in sick to work so I feel even worse.

No fun here. The fun's over at my sister Christy's new site: HERE. Go visit and read her bus-survey answers which are hysterical and FREAK her out by leaving a comment (how did all these people find me? OMG, this blog things is GREAT!).

071503 1430
You must view the Kid in Market Video at OutOutBlogSpot (071503). Work safe, and should be required viewing for some. Hee!

And the Billboard Liberation Front struck in San Francisco at Hiway 101 and Cesar Chavez: see Banana Republic's new Sappho Collection. (courtesy of BoingBoing).

1307
Check it out: my sister Bethany made me a SWEATER for my birthday! Now, really. Can you believe it? Prior to this attempt, she had made several scarves, some beer cozies, and two hats which were too big to fit on a human head but just right for gathering apples. Then she sits down, less than a month ago, decides to start a sweater and then GIVES IT TO ME! It was the knittiest birthday ever, my fabulous Jordana Paige purse, a gift cert to my LYS from Mom, and my sweater.

How cool is my family? I ask ya.

Pop culture question: Did anyone notice Carrie's stockings on Sex and the City? For two, perhaps three, seconds, as she�s walking into her apartment, she�s shown in a short skirt and stockings. Nothing special there. But the stockings are pale, almost white (the red flag lifts) and on her knees are two large black circles (red flags everywhere!). Are we being inoculated? Seriously. First they show us a little shocking something, we get used to it, they show us more. Since there�s been NOTHING shocking on the show for a while, is this it? The ugliest stockings in the whole wide world? They were shown so briefly they were like a small hallucination. Can't quite believe I saw them.

Finished Life of Pi this weekend for knitting bloggers� reading group. Can�t wait to start discussing. I had no idea what it was about when I started reading, hadn�t even looked at the back of the book. **Spoiler** (unless you�re READ the back of the book, then the next comment doesn�t matter, you already know) � It�s about a 16 year old boy living in a life raft for seven months with a Bengal tiger. As this doesn�t happen for almost half the book, I was under the impression that it was just a nice religious Indian emigration story. Then he�s in the raft, on the water, and I can�t EVER look at that Finding Nemo billboard without having violent thoughts about that turtle again.

071403 1300

Blogging becomes a way of thinking after a while. I�ll lie in bed and I�ll notice that I�m thinking how I�ll describe something. Last night it was how I would describe Being Unable to Sleep for Two Days.

Nothing like tossing and turning and repeating as needed for four hours. Or five. Or six. My back hurt, I moved around so much. I canNOT sleep at night during full moons. Haven�t been able to for years. During the day, that�s fine. But I can�t seem to fall asleep until that ole sun is up and I�ve fed the cats and let Digit out for his daily ramble. That would seem to raise all sorts of vampirish conclusions�I like to blame it rather on the fact that I�m just sensitive to the moon�s light. This is no consolation at five in the morning when I�m standing in the kitchen (again) making valerian-enhanced Sleepy-Time tea and eating a banana. I walked around my apartment all night, muttering to myself about how when I�m at work and people call at four a.m. to complain about abandoned vehicles, my one comment is: �If I were at home, I�d be ASLEEP, not concerned with AVs.� Apparently this is not true. Maybe they work midnights, too, and they�re as upset by the moon as I am. Never know. I have to have more patience with people.

It�s just initial-onset insomnia. Once I fell asleep this morning, around six or so, I was up and down for the next six hours, waking to let the cat in and out, checking on the tree trimmers who were banging on my window, but I went back to sleep every time, easily. Once I get there, I can go back. It�s just the getting there the first time that is SO frustrating. This was after two sleeping pills taken at midnight. Aargh. I made myself get up at noon so I�ll still have some kind of shot at sleeping tonight.

Lots of knitting-thinking time, though. Now that I�ve finished the ChicKami, I�ve started a new raglan sweater, using the Incredible Raglan Generator, and I�m zipping along. I�m using that inexpensive blue denim acrylic stuff�I�ve been broke lately and I�m not succumbing to high-art-fiber lust. Any kind of fiber keeps my hands happy. I�m a snob, but not so much of a snob that my innate thriftiness doesn�t take over sometimes.

Christy�s coming over and we�re walking to Barneys for some killer burgers. It�s a gorgeous, warm summer day. Can�t wait. But man. NOW I�m sleepy. Shoot.

071303 0010

Felt completely anti-social today - and I had cramps, so I cancelled out of one party and only went to the second evening one, just around the corner. It was very nice, and I got to watch an ex-g/f dance to MC Hammer. That shouldn't be missed, ever. Drove round the local bar on the way home while blasting the Hives, but I couldn't go in. Too scared to park my car and walk. Not scared of entering the bar alone. Scared of leaving it alone. You know? There were frightening people about, and I've known two people beaten up just outside the White Horse doors. I was tired, don't even know why I felt like going in the first place - something about the music made me feel social again. Good to remember.

But the only big news is:

I finished the ChicKami! What do you think?

071103 1730

I�ve had good sleep all week, surprisingly enough. But today when my alarm went off (at 5pm, how odd does that still feel, after four years?), I was in the middle of a dream where I was trying to kiss an unknown person, but the person only wanted to suck on my teeth. And yes, it was as disturbing as it sounds. I wonder what the hell I was sucking on in my sleep to kick-start that dream.

Ugh.

My front teeth still feel funny. Kinda mushy.

On my way to work yesterday I saw a great piece of political graffiti on a wall near my house. It had originally been a poster for the Charlie�s Angels movie, and it was a picture of Drew Barrymore popping a wheelie on a motorbike. All the ad copy had been torn off and �Lick Bush� was written in large black letters. Just so funny to see it next to her on the bike. I hope to grab a picture of it, but I�m not counting on it being there for long. I think that really should be Howard Dean�s campaign slogan. I�d vote for him.

Tonight�s my Friday and I�m hoping to finish off my ChicKami so I can wear it to the two parties in two counties I have tomorrow. Busy little weekend coming up. I should have a busy little tank to wear, eh? Went a little crazy on the striping of it. You�ll see.

071003 1705

Added a photo to the ChicKami WIP, it�s zooming along. I�m trying to incorporate some stripes, not sure where they�re going to fall on the bust line exactly. Should be interesting. I hate cotton yarn, though, that much is sure. It just doesn�t look as neat, does it? Wool is so much more forgiving.

On writing: My goal used to be a thousand words a day of real writing, four days a week. That was an excellent goal, and I wound up with about sixteen pages a week. (That�s a whopping 832 pages a year. There has to be a book in there somewhere, doesn�t there?) But I wasn�t keeping up with it, and I was feeling guilty a lot of the time. I refuse to feel guilty over my writing; it�s something I can feel proud of, or worried about, but I make myself do the work, and I won�t feel guilty. So my new goal, which has been working out just fine, is to do five hundred words a day, five times a weeks. A goal of 2500 words a week. And that�s 520 pp a year, more than enough, don�t you think? There has to be a book in there somewhere.

Actually, there�s a book on my computer. I�m up to 378 pages, and still not sure exactly where it�s heading. I know that crisis point is coming, but I don�t know that my character can handle it. Or is that me?

I�m also feeling like I�m going to be editing out a LOT of pages when I�m done. Perhaps I�m writing too much about things that don�t matter. I�ve been reading The Life of Pi with the knitbloggers� reading group, and I�m stunned by his use of language. Economical, yet fluidly beautiful. My book ain�t like that. My book is more like I talk�a lot of words that can be pared down to simple, childlike ideas. One of my professors once said I was scared of the real, messy, scary emotions. Hell right. I still am. And so are my characters. And I don�t want to FORCE the emotion on them�that won�t ring true. I just want my character to move from alone to not so alone.

Wait, that last sentence. I think that�s what I�m writing about.

Holy shit, I know it means nothing to anyone else, but I just got the theme of my novel. Shit. Almost done, and it comes to me.

I feel like having a party. This is what I started this blog for! To assist in my creative process, and hot damn, it just did. Hey! Thanks!

070903 1515

I had such an unexpectedly great afternoon yesterday, and it was all about moments of Regular Joy. It started out with me going to Rasputin Records on Telegraph in Berkeley. Normally I avoid that area like the plague�there�s no parking, someone always yells at you in a language you don�t understand or a fit of rage that you didn�t mean to spark. It�s crowded with tattooed pierced locals that are trying to blend in and tattooed pierced tourists that are also trying to blend in. I�m tattooed and pierced, too, but in the regular, sedate places, so I just don�t fit.

I�ve decided that one of my reasons that I got so hung up on T so quickly was that I was vastly intrigued by her innate punk-ness. Now that were Friends, I realize I�ve neglected my own punk self, and that�s a side I like! (I don�t think punks would say that, would they? No Mr. Rogers crap. Okay.) So I drove my happy self down to Rasputin and picked up the Hives Veni Vidi Vicious, which is the best album I�ve heard in forever, and the Vibrators Pure Mania. I love that I walked to the shelves and picked up the only two albums I went in for and bought them at the (locally owned) counter. No hassles, no problems with surly underpaid staff (hey, if you work at Rasputin, you�re a serious music geek and you live for your job), and no one grabbed my ass like the last time I went in there.

Then, get this, I cranked the Hives and drove over to:

The Car Wash.

I had no idea. Really. Why didn�t anyone tell me about this?

I�m thirty-one years old, and I had never paid anyone to wash my car, citing either independence or lack of funds, depending on who was listening. But seeing as I�ve been holding onto a PACE rainbow sticker since I got back from Italy, promising myself I�d put it on my bumper as soon as I washed it, and seeing as I got back in APRIL, and it hadn�t been washed for months BEFORE the trip, and seeing as it was in perpetual danger of being called in by a neighbor as a black abandoned vehicle (and it�s a white Nissan), I figured I�d just pay someone real quick to do it for me.

Did you know? Oh. My. God. They not only washed the outside and the underbelly and the tires (a team of about six men moving at once), but then they shot me through a spray wax tunnel and I came out on the other side where a group of women (gotta wonder about that separation) rubbed me down (stop it!) and asked me to get out so they could vacuum the interior. That would have been enough to send me over the moon, but get this: They dusted in the interior of the car. I hadn�t been able to read my speedometer in months (just as well). They lifted the mats and vacuumed UNDER them (I�ve never done that, I�m pretty damn sure). And wonder of wonders, I saw one of them shaking my garbage bag out over a trash can and reinstalling it.

Can you believe this?

All for $19 plus a whopping tip that I felt the entire crew deserved. In less than ten minutes, I had a brand new car, and I wasn�t sweaty. I HATE washing my car, always have. Why didn�t anyone ever tell me? (In case no one told you, either, you should also know that you should hang on to your receipt, because the scrupulous workers won�t let you drive away without showing them said receipt. Even though you�re the one with the keys. You�re just gonna have to go back and beg the clerk to write you out another one, �cause somewhere between staring in awestruck wonder you managed to lose it. Just a heads up.)

I�m so excited. The Hives sound even better with the top down and a sparkling hood. I put my PACE sticker on the bumper, too. Aaaaahhhhh! (punk scream, can you tell?)

P.S. � I�ll never make a good punk, I�m way to straight (so to speak). And just too old. And I knit WAY too much (seven inches up on the ChicKami). But I like trying.

070803 1130

I put that Advantage on the cats yesterday (actually my sister Bethy-the-vet-tech did it for me, I�m such a lame-ass), and I am amazed. As I always am. I have this (wrong) idea in my head that while I know you�re supposed to treat them once a month, I think that my cats can go more like two months. Or six. Without any treatment at all. Oh, please don�t mind that they scratch and that Digit smells funny (ew!) and that you feel little nips while sleeping, I�m sure it isn�t fleas doing that. Must be the weather.

Nope, it was fleas. In just one day, I have new cats. They�re content and Digit doesn�t yell as much (although he�s still hollering every once in a while), both are trying to wash the stuff off so they�re clean and I�m a Very Bad Mother. I just hate putting that stuff on them, and I hate not touching them for a day. With some cats, not touching them for a while would go over well. Not with these guys, especially needy drooly Adah. She thought she was being punished for something yesterday�she lives to be touched There�s nothing else in life for her, except food.

Advantage. Once a month. I promise. (and that stuff is expensive! said the obsessive yarn purchaser, righteously.)

I�m adding a picture of the ChicKami in progress to the Knitting page. I�m disappointed with my Denise needles for the first time. In order to get gauge, I was using the smallest size (5) and pulling more tightly than usual, which led to the needles separating when I scooched the stitches around the rather sticky plastic cable. They must have separated six or seven times, dropping at least ten stitches every time. I finally put it onto a regular ole circular needle. I have irregularities in the knitting, and I HATE that (but not enough to frog back, I rarely hate anything that much. I�m way too lazy). I�m making it (first) in Lion�s Brand Cotton-Ease Really Red (that�s not the name but that�s what the color looks like) with a stripe of Really Yellow and one of Really Orange. Whoo hoo! Love a tank. After this one I might attempt it in that expensive alpaca/angora blend I bought but I�m glad I didn�t this time. Ooh, I�d be PISSED 'cause then I would HAVE to frog.

070703 1300

Time for new pics. I am crazy about old ladies in Venice, especially their legs, so here you go. Also more under Recent Fun.

I know I shouldn�t consume as much as I do. I should restrict my spending. God knows I�m always broke. But when I found the devil duck with hot-rod flames this morning, I couldn�t walk away. (It was only four dollars at Dark Carnival.)

I have nothing to do today. Or rather, I have a million things I SHOULD be doing, like getting an alignment and my oil changed and doing laundry and paying bills. But I have such good books next to my bed, and I got the Jordana knitting purse for my birthday from Christy and it�s filled with my ChicKami project. I want to kick around and surf the web and knit and read and watch last night�s Sex and the City. And avoid both my newly-Advantage-d cats who are slimy with flea poison.

Saw the new Charlie�s Angels yesterday after my Stitch�n�Bitch (which was surprisingly well-attended, nine or ten people showed up and we stayed three hours!). The movie was everything I expected, fun action with achingly poor dialogue. If I had to watch the three of them bond one more time, I was going to chuck Mike�n�Ikes at the screen. But the clothes were hot, and I loved the young-punk Drew Barrymore.

Maybe this: I will clean my house. I will start some laundry. And I will call it good. No writing today. Back to writing tomorrow. This is my weekend.
Where do I get this must-work-ethic? How do I heave it off a cliff?

070603 1130

My birthday was great. I�m so relieved. Nothing worse than getting your hopes up about the day and having them dashed. That only happened to me once, years ago, but I ended up closing a bar down with my sisters who then had to pour me into bed. Not a healthy way to spend your day.

Do I talk about drinking too much? Perhaps, if I talk about it so much, do I do it too much?

Let me think.

Nah.

Anyway, we went to Buca di Beppo, which was awesome food, too much of it, just the way I like. It was an odd bunch of eight, some work, some family, some not related at all, and my next door neighbor, but it seemed to work well. And we DID roll down to the beach after that and have a little bonfire, something I wasn�t convinced was actually going to happen.

Bonfires ROCK! I think I�m going to make it an annual RachaelTradition. That smell of creosote and burning Peeps.... Oh, yes, you must barbeque Easter Peeps in the summer.... The way they melt and slide down the stick and drip into the fire if you don�t pull them out�they don�t burn, which is rather alarming, but they morph into strange liquid-y aliens that are totally fun to play with (and taste great, if you dare). We saw the sunset. Bethany made the four-hour drive and met us there, and more people that I had invited (and some I hadn�t) cruised up yelling �Rachael�s party? Rachael�s party?� (There were a LOT of bonfires.)

I have had enough of being Shapely (tank) on the first page. I�ll leave my boobsey self on the knitting page, though. New picture is of my rad Beach Princess necklace that T made for me. Hooray for birthdays!

Today is my Stitch�n�Bitch at the White Horse (see Craigslist for more) and then more knitting tonight. And I get my sisters.... and and and...... It�s a good day.

070503 0915

Quickly, because it's my BIRTHDAY and all, I just have to write about one gift. I got the sweetest gifts (okay, I keep typing girls instead of gifts.... hmmmmm) from my friends: a CD I wanted, a cat book that looks wonderful (along with a bag of incredible goodies that I can't even describe, 'cause you'd be too jealous). Oh, I'm spoiled and blessed. I don't deserve ANY of it.

But this one: A friend got me a pair of duckie pants. The bottoms (yes, only the bottoms) of a pair of pyjamas. Months ago I was talking about a little something I'd won - it's here. Then I wrote about horrifying things, like leaking black battery-acid water. Take my word for it. That shit ain't waterproof. I've got my ducks on now, and these don't require batteries, and I'm off to take a nap. Then up again to celebrate my day. Whee me!

ps: No matter what anyone says, birthdays are very special days.

070403 1730

Great sleep today, just OUT, but right before I woke I had a TERRIBLE nightmare. I dreamed it was pouring and they were going to cancel the fireworks.

Oh, NO!

I love fireworks. I LOVE fireworks. When I was little, we had a 4th of July tradition: I�d invite all my little grade-school cronies over for a birthday party, and we�d light fireworks (the tame ones, but they seemed SO cool) and make vanilla ice-cream in the old salt�n�crank machine. Every year I�d get excited about making the ice-cream to go with my cake, and every year I�d be just about done with the whole ordeal after two or three difficult turns of the handle. Oh, I was such a whiner. I always tried to make Christy do it, or whitewash my friends into it (�this is SO much fun, I don�t want ANYONE else to turn this crank, ever! All mine!�). After what seemed like (and probably was) hours, we�d have that extra sweet, sloppy white ice-cream that melted the second it hit the plate (NEXT to the cake, don�t let the two touch, I was a finicky child), but it tasted so good.

Today, on the 4th, I gotta work. But Brandy is working the early hours for me (yay!) so I can watch the Oakland Jack London fireworks from the old Navy base across the water. I can�t wait.

It had better not rain. That was an awful dream.

Knitting: Finished another hot-water bottle cozy, this time in blue, so it's easier to see on the computer. Oh, and I joined the ChicKami knit-along. I had already bought the pattern and the yarn. My problem is that the yarn I bought is incredibly expensive soft angora, and I�m scared to start it. I never work with such fine yarn. Makes me very nervous. I�ll actually have to swatch, goddamnit. I SO don�t believe in swatching.....

My birthday is tomorrow!

070303 1715

I am a total product of Mr. Rogers. I mean it.

There was a thread back in April on whether or not it was okay to leave lots of �Me, too! That color looks great!�s in comment boxes on blogs. I say, Oh, yes. It is. It�s very okay. I LOVE to have people say hello in my tagboard or that they like what I made.... It makes me feel proud of myself. Yes, I just said that. I'm a GEEK!

I often think that I was incredibly blessed (others might not agree) to have had parents who agreed with the Mr. Rogers Childrearing Program. Everything I did, from my mudpie in the backyard to putting my toys away without hitting Christy even once, garnered an �I�m proud of you. Aren�t you proud of yourself, too?� I was actively encouraged to say it out loud. �Yes, Mom. I�m PROUD of my dyed macaroni necklace that�s leaving green and purple bruise-like marks around my throat.�

This carries on to today. I�m sure people HATE that about me. Didja see my new tank top I knitted? I washed my car, isn�t it shiny? I made this get-well card out of dryer lint and felted hemp, how cool is that? I remembered to cut my toenails, aren�t you proud of me?

But it�s nice that we recognize when we�re all right. And I like recognizing that in other people and leaving them little �me too� messages. (and gosh darn it, people like me!)

All this to say I appreciate the comments, wonderful people. (And to say that I know I�m such a geek, I really understand that about myself. I do.)

And I�m proud of YOU! Or as He says, �It's such a good feeling, a very good feeling. The feeling you know that we're friends.�

Oh, and your toy for the day:
Go to Google and type in (but don�t hit enter): Weapons of Mass Destruction. Hit the �I�m Feeling Lucky� button instead of the normal �Google Search� one. Read the message.

070203 1700

Three days till my birthday! Just so�s you know.

Man, I hate the system of archiving that I use. I might move to that new beta blog-thing Moveable Type's coming out with, when they do. I'd love to be able to have trackback features. Right now, I just have long monthly entries, almost unsearchable. Well, I suppose that could be a good thing.

I have yet another idea for Squib�s book o�patterns. Also silly, also off-kilter, but I think I�ll try to make one up and write a little pattern. If she doesn�t like it, you might!

I�ve reloaded my NO YOGA ZONE signs from Anna. And I�ve printed them out in full color and have hung them in my bath, just to remind me. She is the COOLEST, ever! But I have to admit, it hasn�t taught me yet about yoga in odd places.

I�m one of the few people at work who regularly take their break. For me, it�s a great way to get away from the chaos. I slip off to a quiet dark corridor space where there�s nothing but an empty desk and a chair, and I do some real writing with no noise and no distractions. It�s better writing space than I have at home, since here there�s always a cat whining or a neighbor needing sugar or antibacterial soap (I don�t ask). Every once in a while, the writing just happens, I reach my quota quickly, and I have time to kill. So I do yoga. (Not supposed to do this on the job, might hurt myself. Please! You can�t hurt yourself with yoga. Unless you�re in the tub, ahem.)

So I�m in the dark last night, doing some stretches and breathing, thinking to myself how handy it is that no one ever walks along this corridor so late at night, even though I�m near the elevator, and I hear footsteps. I have only time to swing myself up and lean against the table rim before one of the new trainees walks to the elevator. I grab my coffee cup and nod. Nonchalant. She keeps her face expressionless. I will the blood to drain away from my face. Yep. I KNOW she saw me swing up from downward dog. She�s too new to really say anything. I was horrified.

I have to go to a real yoga class soon. I think I need a spotter. Or some common sense.

I WILL write today, I will. It�s been difficult lately. I�m at a spot in the book where I�m actually seeing (perhaps only feeling) that the end is somewhere within reach. First time in a year that I�ve felt this. It�s beginning to take a definite shape, instead of just being this ever-expanding circle of characters and happenings that I felt I had no control over. It�s starting to make sense, I guess. And therefore it scares the shit outta me. I know the real hard work of editing is still coming, and I dread it. But I�ll keep writing. Oh, I�m terrified. Good-scared. I love being good-scared.

070103 1215

Happy July! Be advised, my birthday is 4 days away!

Knitting news:

I finished the Shapely Tank! Click to go have a look.

And the next project is courtesy of ChicKnits, I wanna do the ChicKami. Got the pattern yesterday and I'm off for the yarn this afternoon. I love my LYS, Article Pract on Telegraph in Oakland. Also, I want to make another Hot Water Bottle Cozy this week. Hee!

Otherwise, quite grumpy that the weekend is over and I have to write today. But that's the deal. If I don't write on the weekend, I'm duty-bound to write the other four days. Sigh. No motivation. Just have to get to the page. That's all. Why is it so hard? Whine, whinge. I'd rather be knitting. Or napping. Or frikken cleaning the tub, whatever.

070103 0000

Just a quick note - the lovely Anna gave me these images to the right. My own little public service annoucements to hang above my bathtub.

What would I do without people like this? I'm dying over here.

PS: Finished the Shapely Tank. Check later for pics. Going to bed. After a SAFE tub experience. NO yoga, repeat after me, It's a No Yoga Zone....

063003 1130
Pride Weekend�s over, and I�m done, anyway. Over the whole gay thing, at least for a while. Too much pride, does that make sense? I�ll be happy to see the rainbow flag in maybe a week or so, but right now I�ve had enough. I had long, rambling dreams about naked men dancing all around me and bad, bad music playing. Oh, wait. Oh, yeah, that wasn�t a dream!

It was great, though, to be in the parade. And I saw everyone that I wanted to see, which I didn�t think would happen in that sea of people. It�s overwhelming�they say a million people converge on the City that day, and it felt like they were all there along the route, cheering and yelling. Or, oddly, some were just standing and watching without smiling, which is hard for me to fathom. That�s like not smiling at fireworks! Such a display of colorful energy!

The Aids Emergency Fund float had Val Diamond singing �San Francisco� in the front of Beach Blanket Babylon set. In between her repeating the song over and over, our KISS 98.1 FM truck that was towing the float was playing old school, which at least you can dance to as you walk. I�ve never seen a more bored guy driving an SUV, though. As a wheel monitor, I just had one job: Walk next to the wheel. I handled that pretty well. Every once in a while, I�d see J leaping up and down in the crowd waving, or C waving the PACE flag (how cool is it that she brought that?) and I�d lose track of my wheel and veer away, but otherwise it was the perfect non-thinking job for me.

Afterwards, T was pretty overwhelmed by the crowds, so we went to Jes�s house in the Mission and drank some Jack which calmed us all down. Oh, yes. Then back to Civic Center where we watched the after-party, which mainly consisted of us standing on a pedestal and watching the crowd flow past. Best entertainment in the world. Two pics under Recent Fun (I have so many more, but they all have people in them who would probably rather not be displayed on the internet�that�s what sisters are good for�they don�t get to tell me they don�t want to be on my site). I forgot the cowboy hat, damn it. But I had pride. Now I have exhaustion, but it�s the good kind.

062903 0750
Just a quick note before I trot my gay ass over to the City one more gay time:

The Dyke March is one of the coolest things in the Whole World. And I mean it!

I met up with some friends at a barbeque where all we talked about was how fun it was going to be, then I went with Karen, a new friend, to the park where we lay in the sun with beers in paper bags, surrounded by thousands and thousands of women doing the same thing, and listened to people speechify and sing. Two friends were riding a motorcycle in the front, so we went and watched the bikes line up, rev in place, and then roar away. Fevered women, everywhere, excited by the noise alone!

Then four of us walked AROUND the march, bought more beer and met up at Geena�s truck, which she had quite splendidly parked right on the route. We cranked the dance mixes, and danced in the truck bed. We cheered and waved and hollered and felt the world was pretty dang all right.

It�s a safe feeling, you know? You know you won�t get hurt, not then, not there.

Now I�m off to wear B�s cowboy hat which will make me look MUCH cooler than I actually am, and I�m gonna march with the Aids Emergency Fund, the whole route. I�ve never done it before, and I�m totally excited. A friend of mine has never done it before, either, and she�s scared. I�m proud of her. It�s hard, to be out there for the whole world to see. But we have to be out there. Someone has to be, and we�re gonna look GOOD doing it. Uh huh. I�ll wave to you on channel 4.

062703 1700
I have a tip for you, gentle reader, one you�ll appreciate and thank me for, I know.

Don�t do yoga in the bathtub.

I know, it�s an obvious thing to want to do, but don�t! Lying there in the warm water, you know it�s an easy thing, while this warmed up, to do a couple of good, deep, forward stretches. All well and good. It�s when you get ambitious and do that pose you can�t remember the name of but it involves lifting the arms and legs while seated and grasping the ankles and achieving a state of seated balance that your ASS flies RIGHT out from under you and go sliding with a large whump under the water.

Water up the nose does not make for good yoga.

Just thought you should know. You�re welcome.

In other news, almost done with the Shapely Tank. Ooh, just realized it would be nice if I finished it in time for Pride this weekend, hmmmmm. I adore the orange color, but I�m just hoping it fits. Might be a leeetle tight. Well, it�s summer, ain�t it?

Thinking of yoga, which I really do practice, mostly on dry land, I have to admit I have Very Bad Posture a lot of the time, especially while writing and while knitting. Also while at work in front of the computers. So, yeah, pretty much all the time. Need more yoga. But for that, I need more money, so it�s a class at a time.

Pride Weekend starts tomorrow! Dyke March tomorrow night! You want pics? I�ll bring the camera. Mwah! Oh, and speaking of Pride, you know that Portia de Rossi (the blonde reason to watch that stupid Ally McBeal show) married her girlfriend Francesca Gregorini (daughter of Bond Girl Barbara Back) last week? You go, girls! I want to see the dresses.

062603 1700
It�s too damn hot here. Oakland doesn�t fare well in the heat, and it makes for really busy nights at work. Everyone�s drunk and stupid (well, I can empathize) and they fight a LOT.

I have to write out a tiny secret desire: I want to submit an idea for the amazing Squib�s new knitting book (which in itself is just so exciting!). I�m ninety-nine percent sure it won�t be accepted, but I�ll be proud of myself if I do it. Just submit.

This will be a disjointed post � I didn�t sleep well today for the heat, and I�m going in to work for more overtime tonight, so I�m in a hurry, but I have to mention what one of my friends called my Denise interchangeable needles. She called it my MacGyver set. Yep, add a match, a rubber-band and a stick of gum, and I could dismantle a bomb and exit a sewer grate, all while fleeing a melting-down nuclear reactor.

Well, considering that I spent an HOUR this weekend just trying to repair my clothes rod that had crashed to the floor with all my clothes on it the week before, I probably couldn�t do much with the Denise needles. But I like the idea. The clothes rod, however, UGH. Two friends had kindly offered to help me with it, and in my standard stubborn way I refused them and did it myself. Shoddily, I might add. I was told I needed anchors. So I walked to my little local hardware store in Elmwood and the guy showed me what I needed. I bought four screws and four anchors, total of fifty-two cents. Just my price. Got home and had NO idea what to do with them. Dude at the store had told me to start the screw a little way, pull it out and then tap in the anchor, then add the screw. Yeah. Whatever. That didn�t work.

Part of the metal hanger that I was reattaching was over a stud, so after sweating and cursing for a good while, I said fuck it and screwed the puppy right back in again, new holes this time. It lasted for years without falling with no anchors, hopefully these holes will hold a few more years. I�m so freaking bad when it comes to hardware repairs. Give me yarn any ole day.

062403 1225
(My stupid internet connection's been down for a day, don't know when I'll post this, but I'll write it anyway:)
I have no one to blame but myself. I went from having the flu to going out and getting WASTED in the old college way in less than two days. I'm only now on Tuesday beginning to recover from the weekend and feel human again: Yesterday I was worthless, hung over to within an inch of my life, feeling like crap and remembering all the old days.....

But it was worth it. Sometimes you just have to shake loose. I had a fabulous time at the Lexington in the City-bought a black hooded sweatshirt with "Every Night Is Ladies' Night" and a devilishly naked mermaid swimming in a martini glass on the back, an olive on the tip of her trident. Yeah, that kind of summed up the night. The afternoon, rather, that stretched into the night. I ALMOST won at Scrabble, only lost by two points. Damn it! Oh, so many happy hour beers. And Fernet. That was the wicked part - that damn Fernet Branca. And we had one drink that was called "Pink Panties." There's a REASON I keep my lingerie white or black. Lord.

Why is it that alcohol always leads to kissing? I'm not complaining, just asking. Luckily, not the confusing kind, just the fun kind, but why is that?

Ooh, and before I forget, when we got to the bar, a very pretty lady in a very pretty red polka-dot dress (with black crinolines) was setting up for her birthday bash, a barbeque to which we were cordially invited (by virtue of camping on the bar-stools - we weren't going anywhere, anyway - she was just being polite). I saw the word "Mel" on her cake, and several hours (and beers) later, I noticed on the chalkboard that right under the "Pink Panties" drink announcement was a Happy Birthday message to Mistress Melanie.

Shocked, I turned to T. "Could that possibly be THE Mistress Melanie? Founder of the Crafty Bitches?"

(They're the (large) group that meets at the Lex every Wednesday night to stitch'n'bitch. Well established, well known, they're the group that I've dreamed of rivaling in the East Bay with my little first-Sunday-at-the-White-Horse gig. Mistress Melanie is the guru of the Crafty Bitches.)

T just shrugged, how could she know? She told me to go ask.

"Are you the Crafty Bitch?" My heart was pounding.

"Why, yes! And you are?"

I told her, and she laughed and hugged me. Me! She said she'd been wanting to meet me. I just love it that there's this small, odd community out there of queer knitters. There aren't that many, and they're all a little off, but that's the good part. I told her that sometimes my group is eight or ten strong, and sometimes it's only two or three (including me). She just cocked her out-curled-platinum-blond-bob to the side, smiled through her brilliant red lips and said, "Oh, darling, you don't know how many times I've wanted to quit."

Ah. It's like a brush with a star in my little crafty universe.....

I'd tell you more about the night, but it hangs under a cloud of beer haze and barbeque smoke. I believe I called people I shouldn't have on my cell phone. I know I lost at pool, quite a bit. I know I told some guy that he wouldn't get any play, and he said he only wanted to watch anyway. Ew! Straight men in lesbian bars are odd. Not like we wanted to kick him out (no one cared enough), but it's just odd. Do they not get it? Is that it?

Also on my weekend saw Whale Rider. Go see it. One of the best movies I've seen in ever so long; I adored it. Tears started toward the beginning and didn't stop till the end. Either it was brilliant or I was seriously PMSed, but I don't really care which. It was wonderful.

062403 2134
Lord, internet connection irritatingly down at home, and immeasureably slow at work.... Hopefully will post tomorrow. I've finished the back of the orange Shapely Tank, and I'm feeling better, over my cold (but not my hangover). Hee!

062103 1600

I finished the Boxy Cable Sweater! Look!

What do you think? I�ll add some outside shots this week, as soon as I feel well enough to go outside. I�m starting to feel better�I just don�t WANT to go outside, I think that�s it. I don�t want to do the whole put-on-nice-clothes-and-do-my-hair thing. I love just lounging in the house in sweats and a Mills College hoodie and slippers.

AND I�ve finished the front of the Shapely Tank. I guess having the flu is good for something. I sat and drank tea and knitted for HOURS.

Now I�m BORED. Just added a couple more pix to Sisters page and made a new one, Recent Fun.

And hey, do you think I should write out the pattern for the Hot Water Bottle Cozy? I wish I had better pics of it�it really did come out lookin� so cute. If anyone would like the pattern, I�d be happy to transcribe it.

And dig my happy scrolling buttons, code courtesy of Anna!

062003 1440
The word of the day is still Bleah, heading towards just a simple Blah. Still sick. And added to the fever, now I have a tummy thing that�s keeping me out of the bed I want to be in.

I have the patience for this for about another 24 hours. Or less. Then I�m done. Sick is not okay. I have way too much to do. I called in to work, and I feel even crappier for doing that, but I�m trying not to think about it. First time all year.

But I do have one cool thing to report before I make another run for the porcelain goddess: T is volunteering for the Aids Emergency Fund float for Pride next weekend, and she�s got me a placement as a monitor (I think that just means I have to be conscious that no one falls off the float and down a sewer grate and that no one gets run over by rogue Dykes on Bikes).

I�m going to be in the Pride Parade! Walking right out there, people waving, right smack in the middle of all that excitement and joy! The float is #25 in the queue, so it�s nice and early, not four-exhausted-hours-later, and I can�t wait!

So now, back to bed (oh, wait, I�m already there, love a laptop) and more sleep. My throat hurts. Blah.

061903 1700
Bleah. Sick. But just a hair not-sick-enough-to-call-in-to-work. If I felt just a bit worse, I would, I swear I would. But as it is, the guilt would outweigh the pain of the sickness. It�s a fine balance. You have to feel just bad enough to be able to lie in bed and feel vindicated for staying there. If that �I should have gone to work� thought is able to flit through your mind, you�re hosed and even NyQuil won�t help with the guilt that�s worse than the flu.

Not that it helped today. It made me feel funny. I tossed and turned and answered calls, I moved my hands a lot. I was conscious of being in bed and that the people I was talking to weren�t real, but that didn�t stop me from talking to them, out loud, using my hands for emphasis. I slept WORSE for having taken it. Again, the word of the day is Bleah.

Finished the Suki bag handles. Started a Shapely Tank in a great soft orange tweed. Tried not to cough.

Bleah.

061803 1615
Totally feel like I�m getting a cold. And as I haven�t been sick once since I got my tonsils out last year, I�ll be very disappointed if this is true (although what was I thinking? I�d never get sick again? Sure! Why not?). I�m drinking Echinacea tea and overdosing on vitamin C, things that health professionals say really don�t work, but they do for me. Or so I tell myself.

While my tea was brewing in the kitchen, I stood next to the fridge, like I often do, staring off into space. I realized I wasn�t really staring, I was actually reading the little City of Oakland magnet that got mailed to every household when they installed the sirens a few months ago, the sirens that alert you that there�s been a nuclear/chemical/biological/rabid-pigeon attack.

Two things struck me:
One: They�re called �Safety Sirens.� Nice euphemism, eh? {Ew, bad tea, gross tea.}
Two: It reads, under the instructions (seal doors and windows, tune am radio to 580, yadda yadda), Do Not Call 911.

Are you kidding me? People call 911 for the time. They call when their power goes out. They call when there are fireworks at the Coliseum. They call when there�s an earthquake (that�s actually my favorite dumb question: �Did we just have an earthquake?� �Well, idiot, I felt the earth, too, and it seemed to quake, so I�d say yes.� �How big was it?� �Felt like a four to me, what do you think?� Thus the earthquake link to the left�at least a few minutes after a shake, I AM able to tell citizens how big and where it was, but it�s not instantaneous.) If there were an attack of any kind, all 911 lines would light up, and fast, and it�d be pretty darn impossible to get anyone any kind of real help.

Safety Sirens. Sheesh.

In knitting news, I finished knitting the Suki bag (link and scroll down). I made one handle last night and will make the other tonight. Then I just have to find a washing machine with hot water so I can felt it. Totally excited about that�I�m joining the felting revolution! I messed up with the pattern last week, and the stripes are off (I was using the main color as if it were a contrast color) but I figure no one will notice, let alone care. Design detail. The color in the picture isn�t good, it�s really more purple and yellow. I�ve decided I want a gaudy sweater in those colors too. I stay so far away from color usually, and I want more of it in my life. And wardrobe.

061703 1645
Here it is! This is the super-secret project I wrote about: I was making it for T�s birthday, which was yesterday:

It�s a hot-water bottle cozy!

in the form of a mini-turtleneck sweater! Geek-o-rama! But it�s the first thing I ever designed right out of my own head with no other inspiration, and I�m proud of it for that reason. I�ve never done anything without a pattern before. I�m going to write out the pattern, and post it here soon. I love knowing I can have a free pattern on my site! Whoo hoo! I made it out of Brown Sheep Naturespun and it�s so soft and warm�.. (One more picture linked on Knitting page) Whatcha think?

Last night went out on the Friends outing with T. And it was great. It didn�t feel funny or odd or strained, nothing at all like that day last week when we sat in the barbeque place and looked everywhere but at each other�..

We went out for beer at a little bar I had heard about�Johnny Cash records on the walls, a line of lava lamps over the bar mirror, good mix of punk and rock in the jukebox, new felt on the (expensive: a dollar a game!) pool table. The bartender had hot-rod flame tattoos. There were pin-up Varga girls and fuzzy leopard-print paper-towel covers in the bathroom. Nice pool sticks. The bartender not only knew what Fernet was but also knew how to pour it. We had a couple of Guinnesses while the sun shone outside; we established that he did have dice behind the bar, and said we�d come back after sushi, which we did, full and happy. I beat her at dice! Finally! Something I�m better at! I�m sure it�s only a matter of practice, though, before she�s better at that, too. S�all right.

The bar filled with good people as the night wore on. Red-red lipstick on everygirl and no one gave a FUCK about anything but the music and a little pool and the occasional cigarette (god, what I wouldn�t give).

And I think it was a success. There was a sad moment, when neither of us had picked the Coldplay �no one said it would be this hard� song, and it played anyway, and we looked at each other and resolved�. What did we resolve? Dunno. Honesty? We can try for that, but, come on, who�s really honest? Even with ourselves? I get better at it as I get older, but I�m still a pretty good liar, especially to myself. I�ll try. Friendship? Sure, but we�d already agreed to that. We just�. agreed. That�s all.

And she�s got a hot-water bottle cozy, so who could ask for more?

061603 1745
Just blew off the road and into my little apartment. I�ve spent what feels like days (but was only really about 4 or 5 hours) in the convertible, top down, hot wind scorching the life right out of my body. I LOVE my convertible. There are a few days, however, that I would give my left nut (if I were a generous boy and not the selfish girl that I am) for air-conditioning, instead. It was ninety-seven degrees driving through scenic towns like King City, Soledad, and Gilroy. Those places are truck stops, not towns. I have a triangle of odd brown/red color on my neck�I think that�s from the seat-belt strap.

I love Oakland. It�s cool today, and sunny, just perfect for a nice walk, which I�m NOT going to take because I�m still so overheated.

Going out tonight with T. Our first outing as Friends. For some reason (and it may be because my head is SO far under the sand, but I hope not), I�m not worried about it. I�m looking forward to it. To seeing her, to talking with her. I THINK I�ve pretty much talked myself out of her. Gawd, I�m convincing. Sometimes I scare myself with what I can talk myself into or out of. Of course, the brain chit-chat only extends so far. When I see her, when we play pool, that�ll be the test. Okay. My stomach just got a little tight. Breathe. She�s a friend. She�s a friend. Say it with me.
Anyway, it�s her birthday, and I�ve made the COOLEST gift for her (okay, it�s a nerdy gift, but I designed it myself, and it�s been killing me not posting it here, will post tomorrow).

I HAVE to shower�I feel like most of the grime and highway salt in Salinas ended up embedded on my face and shoulders. Good driving, though, singing with Christy to Alison Kraus and Slaid Cleaves�. Drinking lots and lots of icy Coke to cool down, ending up with a caffeine head rush, hopping into the carpool lane in San Jose, just �cause we could�. I love driving with someone; the ride zooms by.

I think I�ll take a nap on the floor first, before the shower. I�m too dirty to lie on the bed.

061303 1915
The thing about working an essential job (9-1-1/police dispatch) is that you can�t leave it unstaffed. That means, when someone�s sick, your time off gets cancelled. It�s expected, and you can�t be annoyed with the person who�s sick (who is apparently VERY sick, poor thing), just with the circumstances. I was going to have tonight off so I could sleep and get on the road early in the morning to go home for Live Oak Music Festival. This is a family tradition, Dad�s a site coordinator and we can�t NOT go. But I have to go in tonight, and worse, I�ll have to stay late in the morning.

This means getting on the highway at 11am, driving for five hours and being sparkly when I get home. Or if not sparkly, at least not-a-tired-bitch. Sigh. It�ll be a short weekend.

Tuck and Patti are the closing act on Sunday night, and I�m looking forward to hearing them again, if only because they�re my closest brush with singing fame. I can say �I opened for them once.�

Okay, I was in a college jazz group that opened for them at a winery in Paso Robles. A small winery. The crowd wasn�t more than a thousand. And there were eight of us in the group. BUT I had a solo. And they came on afterwards. Sure. I opened for them. Yeah. Tuck and Patti who? (We had to wear the ugliest lime green shirts.)

I can�t wait to see the little Mama. Bringing presents for her (it was her birthday last week) and a catnip mouse from the mouse-along for her babies.

Oh! I got the best email this morning from a woman who told me about her daughter, who writes and sounds like me, and who goes to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (uh-huh, it�s like that). She told me she likes to read my site because it reminds her of her daughter. That is sooooo flattering. Made my whole day. And to be compared to the person she probably loves the most? How wonderful.

Moms who love their daughters. Hey, I got one o'those.

I'm almost done with the Suki bag, I'll finish it tonight and post pics on Tuesday when I'm back from Mom's house. Almost almost finished with the Boxy Cable.

But I HATE finishing! I'm a starter. Not a finisher. (Hey, that says a lot about my relationships, too....)

Happy Weekend!

061203 1700
Relationships are the funniest things. They can spin and throw you off balance in an instant, leaving you sick at heart and sad. And then they can shift and become new and different, and totally awesome.

T and I are not going to try to be anything more than friends. Which is what we probably should have been doing from the very beginning. But we both thought the other person was so fabulous that it just made sense to try to make it into something big. That�s a lot to live up to. Just her being her and me being me is as big and wonderful as anything I could imagine, and I�m so thrilled I get to keep her as my Friend. Capital F. She is stunning and funny and a kindred spirit, and I get to keep playing pool and drinking beer and playing Scrabble with her, and I�m so happy I could cartwheel. But I just had two pieces of sourdough toast with peanut butter and honey, and I think that would make my tummy feel funny.

Get this: I still get to sleep alone, which is one of my favorite things in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE, and I get to be single, which I adore, and I get her, too!

Happy happy happy.

I love being happy. Duh. Or, as I heard someone say last night, �Doi� (must start using that phrase more). Of course I love being happy. But having three days of not happy further reinforced how lucky I am that happy is where I naturally reside. I�m lucky, and blessed, and if one day my body chemistry changes and I crash into depression, I know that I�ll be the first in line at the pharmacy, hooking myself up with whatever drugs are available to help with a chemical hand.

People deserve happiness. I know I do, and I know the people I love do, too. Even the people who severely annoy me at work deserve contentment. Life is too short not to share it with people (like T and J and my sisters) who make your heart bigger and sweeter and increasingly more beautiful. You know?

061103 1725
Don�t feel well, heavy and ponderous in body, mind, and heart.

When I was learning to drive (at fourteen, in the Jeep on Saipan, skidding on the slick coral roads), Dad had a method of teaching emergency braking procedures. At any time, at any speed, he�d yell, �Panic stop!� I had to slam and pump the brakes and try to regain control over the vehicle while stopping in the shortest possible distance. My sisters would bounce against the roll bar and throw candy at the back of my head.

It was a good lesson to learn. Doesn�t help with the shock of it, though, from moving along a highway at a comfortable, pleasurable, understandable speed, and then having to stop, suddenly, screeching and burning the brake pads.

And it doesn�t help telling yourself you have to stop. Even though you could have probably just veered around the traffic hazard.

Guess I�ve pushed that metaphor to its limit.

Working on the Suki bag. It�s relaxing to be working on something that just goes around and around and around. I�ll post pictures tomorrow. I was so flustered last night at work that I TOTALLY screwed up the pattern, and instead of working my main color in rows of three and the other contrast colors in rows of eight, I did everything in eights. Gonna be a long bag. I�ve adjusted it back to the pattern instead of ripping it out (just too darn lazy), and I�m just going to call it a Design Detail. Won�t nobody have a bag like that, nosiree.

060903
I spent the weekend working and not knitting enough. I'm in an awful kind of mood--restless but tired, not sure what I'm thinking except that I'm thinking waaa-yyy too much.

How do you turn the brain off? Apart from working to exhaustion or drinking too much (and neither of those really work), I think too much. I beat dead horses till there ain't even a carcass. Just bones, picked clean. A few flies, buzzing impatiently. And my brain. Still a'whirrin'.

Yoga tomorrow. That works. Watching the breath.

Work tonight. And knitting.

060703 2200
The people upstairs are so loud. SO freaking loud. Someday, I�m going to live on a top floor, and I�m not going to care one little bit about how much noise I make either. I�m going to jump up and down. I�m going to raise the bass on my TV so that I can hear it while standing outside.

When they stomp, my metal heater shakes and rattles on my wall. The glass panes in my windows rattle like they�re going to break. It isn�t even the stomping that�s that loud, it�s all the noise the glass and metal makes shaking. If they�re still doing it when I get out of the bath, I�m going upstairs and asking them to turn down their television. It wouldn�t even be that bad if they weren�t playing what is apparently a prerecorded George Bush speech. They probably Tivo-d it. They�re so white collar Berkeley Republican.

Aargh. I hope I sleep. I hope I REMEMBER how to sleep.

I�m off for a little trip with the girl I have a crush on. I�m going to put the top down on my convertible Petunia and cruise down the coast, blasting whatever I feel like playing on the CD player and meet her in time for breakfast. Then I hope we�ll walk along the beach and do nothing in particular with the rest of a lovely foggy day.

060703 0237
Well, I got three hours of good sleep, from 9pm till midnight. Now I'm up again, reading and tossing and turning. Digit's gonna claw me right out of the bed.

I've tried:
Bath
Sleepytime tea
Valerian
One sleeping pill

Still time for one more pill. Not the hard stuff, never tried any of the prescrip drugs, but I usually do pretty well with plain old Tylenol PM. Not lately, though. I might try some melatonin, although I always feel if you miss the melatonin "sleep window," you're completely fucked. Once that train done left the station, you done missed yer ride.

This sucks.

060703 0000
Happy Birthday, Mom!

I'm probably the last to see Rob's Amazing Poetry Generator, but it looks at websites and creates poetry, randomly, from the words it sees. Here's a poem it wrote from my site:

**********************************************
Italy the first time,
Dad appeared to take brief encounters, good exchanges
with Ginsberg. Huh! Oh, but
sleep. For those Tintorettos and certainly the girl
talking on. Bit
of those slinkyshapes and finished MOST wearing
headsets to play
in lots of wine Again. And see
Things must end, all
over and Muhammad
is. And when the
sidewalks,
will linger
in your mind; After I was after;
this is squid, cooked
in the GiottoChapel and I suggested
such a Worth it.When I can
you ready? for Greece....
***********************************************

Hee hee.

Tired, so tired. Thus, no writing. Yesterday, I forgot how to sleep. Entirely. Two sleeping pills and a shot of Slivovitz later, I managed to get an hour and forty-five minutes in. I really, truly thought I had lost the technique for doing it. I would get so close, and then I would think: �I�m almost asleep!� and I would shoot right back to full and panicked awareness. Then a ten hour shift at work, followed by a four hour nap, and up for more.

Went to a barbeque at Y�s house, out on the water. Lovely place, great food. But I was an idiot, sleepy and stupid. Hate being stupid. I wore my PW Damned Fair-Isle sweater, though, first appearance in public, and it was acceptable. It was really too warm for it, so I had to take it off almost immediately. That�s perhaps the way it should be worn.

Finished my secret project. Will post pictures of it later. It�s the first thing I�ve ever designed myself, and I�m quite proud of myself.

I am too tired now to sleep.

060503 1735
Found Live365 radio (courtesy of Amy, who has her own station), and it rocks. Call me backwards, but I had never tried online radio (never had a computer until now that would support it). Amy�s station is chock full o�Indigo Girls and Dar Williams. And I�ve seen (but haven�t yet tried) a bluegrass channel, and a rockabilly one. There�s just too much out there. I love it.

Also love what I saw two days ago driving down San Pablo: A PACE flag hung in a martial arts studio window.

Think about it. It�s gorgeous.

Knitting a super secret little thing, actually designing it myself. Thus, I�m totally unsure how it will turn out. I�ll post pictures when it�s done. I hope it works. Haven�t made any more progress on Beth�s Boxy Cable, but that�s only because I�m working on the surprise.

I dream about knitting. I dream I make incredible things from my own designs, and that they just fly off the needles without effort. Never any finishing involved. Never any bloody dropped stitches.

Went to yoga yesterday, and I�ve found my new teacher! She dealt with breath almost exclusively, using the breath as the base of every pose (duh, I know, but it�s amazing how people forget it, me most of all). Breathing is why I got into yoga in the first place when I quit smoking. I never knew how to breathe. A year and a half later, I�m still not much better at it. But the teacher was excellent at using language to instruct us in what the breath was doing and where the breath was going, and I got it. I�ve found that in yoga you have to speak the same language as your teacher�some people use the phraseology that makes sense, that instantly sparks awareness in your mind. Others say things like �feel your sacrum open like a spring rain.� That�s not my language, pretty as it is. I get all concerned with how spring rain might open (?) and forget to breathe.

Off to write. And breathe.

060403 1600
Both my cats are droolers. And I mean drool tide. If Digit sits next to me and cuddles and kneads for just a few minutes, I�m left with a drenched spot that doesn�t dry for hours. I�m used to changing shirts. Adah doesn�t actively salivate as much as drips. Just petting her sets off a line a drool that hits the floor under her chin. Most disgusting is when the saliva tickles her (often) and she shakes her head, sending a fine mist of drool to cover the victim and her magazine. At least this usually happens the most while I�m in the bath (Adah�s favorite position is perched on the edge), so I can just slide under the water for a dunk. (At the shelter, where I met her, I actually identified her as my new cat by the drool-string. Ah, she must be a Herron.)

Ick.

Had the variation-on-a-theme nightmare today. This time, I was traveling with Christy and Dad to Paris. As we ran to catch the Amtrak that would get us to the airport, I realized I didn�t have my passport. Back at my house (where I slept in a waterbed in the garage), I sent Christy in to find the passport while I rummaged through all my knitting stuff for a set of double-point threes. I HAD to make socks on the plane, as much as I HAD to have my passport. It went on and on, and as the dream always goes, I didn�t ever get to the airport. I knew in my dream that we were already two hours late, but I hoped hoped hoped that the plane would wait for us.

It�s an odd recurring nightmare, since I only have one travel mantra. For days beforehand, and all during a trip, I recite �Tickets passport money. Tickets passport money.� I can get anywhere in the world (that I care to go) with these three things, screw the knitting needles and the right attire. Someday, I�m going to be somewhere, and I will have lost one of those three, and I will FREAK out. Until then, I just practice in my dreams.

Looked at plane fare to Ethiopia. J must be crazy. Three thousand dollars? Uh uh. I have to do better than that, or I�m not going. I can�t even imagine being able to afford a thousand dollars, which is what I thought she said it would cost. Three thousand just isn�t possible. I have nine dollars in my bank account to last till Friday. Sigh. Money.

060303 1700
Where did the day go? Oh, yes, I know. I learned how to play WordOx with T online. She kicked my ASS at it, but I just have to practice. Yeah, that�s it. Sure.

Went to see Spellbound last night. What a movie! I�ve been fascinated with the Nat�l Spelling Bee ever since I watched Rebecca Sealfon win on ESPN in 1997. The crowd in the theatre was great, too, gasping over the wins and losses. One man, however, was WAY too into it. He moved his hands in the air, as if conducting the letters as they escaped the contestants lips, and would bring them back down and yelp, �Yes!� if he thought they got the word right. Note the word �thought.� Sometimes he was wrong, and he had to do a little body dance to shake it off. He was a good speller, most of the time, only I paid TO SEE THE MOVIE, not him. I had to hold my right hand up for a while, to block him out. Either that or knock him out. But it was an emotional movie�we roared with laughter, and I got a little choked up. Okay, a couple of times. Or maybe more than a couple.

All this leads to banter with T that the winner of the Great Scrabble Match will not be a foregone conclusion. This, of course, is only banter, �cause I talk good smack, but I haven�t played Scrabble in a long time. She�ll totally beat me. But she�ll look cute doing it. I blame WordOx for my loss, in advance.

Oh, and I�m published in Islands magazine this month. That is, if you can call winning the stooo-pid �Which Island Type are You?� contest and getting the result published in the �Letters� section. I would reprint the 100 words here, but they really are too smarmy to be believed. Idiotic. Just goes to show how a writer can abuse language to get somewhere they didn�t really want to be. Gertrude Stein only wrote _The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas_ to make money. I only wrote those dum-buh few lines so I could say �I�ve been in Islands magazine.� (Yeah, that makes me feel better, putting myself in the same paragraph as GS.) Only now, honestly, I�m too ashamed even to say that. It�s in the �Letters� section, and it�s ridiculous. They didn�t even send me the free copy they promised, either; I had to pick it up at Longs today. But it has Samoa on the cover, so it was worth buying, I suppose. Ah, well. Nice to know my name is in a lot of stores right now, even if it ain�t worth looking at. It�s there.

060103 1330
Time to archive last month. And thank goodness. For some reason, all my links and bolds and italics slip to the left after a week or so. Not sure why, but it�s irritating as hell.

Almost as irritating as Adah doing her long-arm reach, claws out, trying to pull my fingers toward her for petting. I�m typing, Cat!

Had Stitch�n�Bitch yesterday at the bar, which was a bust. It�s either just great or just not, and yesterday two very cool people came, my sister Christy and T, because I essentially made them come. The only other person who showed up was a very irritating woman who talked loudly about things NO ONE cares about. Why am I so irritated by the whole Renaissance Faire/SCA thing? {shallow and callous comment to follow:} I just don�t like those people. As a rule. I had one friend I liked, Chris, who was totally into it. But I only ever saw him at Pirates� Cove (nude beach) and he was way easier to handle when he had no clothes on. As soon as he put clothes on, he started Morris dancing, whether or not there was music playing. Sheesh.

Yesterday T took me to Clement Street, in the Richmond in SF. Her home stomping ground, she really did seem to know everyone in it. And I love learning a place from a local. She walks like I do, into a store, have a quick browse, feel things, pick them up and turn them over, then out and have a little coffee. More walking, browsing, and a quick drink (well, we stretched that out a while). We had amazing sushi, and she made origami for me. Really. Her kangaroo kicked ass! I learned how to make a crane. Hmmm. Must practice that, as I think I�ve almost forgotten already.

Couldn�t sleep till 4am, and the trying made me frantic. I don�t know why. It�s my day off, I should have been able to lie there contentedly, but I was far from content. I just wanted SLEEP, and it was reluctant to visit. Sigh. But that allows me to sleep till noon, always a good thing.

Gonna knit. I�m half-way up the back of the Boxy Cable, almost done.

053103 2115
Just one more geek note: I'm so freaking happy to be sitting here, right now, on a Saturday night. People are on their way out for the night--my sister's going dancing--my upstairs neighbors are clanking around, giggling girls filling their computer-fied rooms. And I've got Kris Delmhorst playing on the (crappy) stereo, I had a great afternoon, I'm going to have a long bath and some kind of snack (Tofutti Cutie?) and get into my soft bed for a long, soft NIGHT of sleep. I adore sleeping at night. It's good good good good.

1930
Courtesy of Joz, I found that my eyesight isn�t as good as I thought it was, at least, not when it comes to color. Take this test.

T had to attend a horrendous wedding this morning and I had a messed up night at work last night, so we met for drinks this afternoon. I was just fed the fuck up, and I think she was too. She makes me laugh. She makes me feel good, and fun, and smart, and sweet, and sexy. And she is all the above.

I totally dig her. Obvious, huh?

Oh, and I did the Geek Test. First of all, you have to be a geek to even WANT to do the long-ass test. I scored 32.45% which equals Total Geek. I'm actually kinda disappointed. I thought I was geekier. There should be a Knitting Geek Test. Yeah!

053003 2300
I�m on my break at work and I�m sooo crabby. It�s Friday, that much is sure. I�m ready for a weekend, I�m ready to take my headset off and not have to listen to citizens whining about problems that, for the rest of us, don�t really matter. If my life�s biggest problem was the abandoned vehicle that was parked in front of my half-million dollar home, I wouldn�t harass the poor dispatcher who gives most of her paycheck back to credit card bills and student loans.

And speaking of that, where the hell does my money go, anyway? I have on-line bill pay through my bank, and I set up every two weeks who gets paid on payday. And now, one week to go to the next payday, I have $9 in my checking account. How is that possible?

I�m trying to pay so much to these damn credit cards, to get them out of my life, but it feels like I�m swimming upstream. Never was a good swimmer. Tend to inhale too much water.

And I�m not a big spender. I keep my used cars for years. I buy my clothes at thrift stores. I do spend too much on digital/computer equipment, but I haven�t done that in a while. I do buy too much yarn. But I work hard, and a lot. Where the hell does it go?

Okay. Now to write. I didn�t have time to write this afternoon, and this being my Friday, I won�t write again until Tuesday. I love having a real weekend. The novel is going a little squirrely on me�things keep happening that I didn�t plan. People are saying things that I didn�t intend them to. I suppose that�s a good thing. I think this is the way it�s supposed to work. But it�s scary.

T was talking about a blank piece of paper, and painting the ocean. I balked. She said, �that�s what�s good�you might just put two splashes of color, and that would be YOUR seascape.� I said it would be too exciting and too frightening, at the same time. She said that was the great thing about it.

I like this kind of fear. The fear of the unknown, a new person, a new form of art. I don�t enjoy real fear: that of losing someone you love, or of dying, or being hurt, but that tentative trepidation, that �maybe� fear is awesome. It�s as close to skydiving as I�ll ever get.

(Aside: I typed, first, trepidatious. The state of feeling trepidation. Mighty annoyed when spell check underlined it. Yep. Apparently, it ain�t a word (don�t start with me). This is an awful feeling, as I realize I think I made �trepidatious� up, probably at a very young age, and no one has EVER corrected me. Mortifying. Almost as bad as when I said, out loud, �Confisticate.� I knew how to spell confiscate, of course, but in my own mind, I pronounced it incorrectly, and then one day, I said it out loud the wrong way, too. Urgh.)

053003 1730
I finished the front of the Boxy Cable yesterday�and I can�t even tell ya how nice it feels to only deal with one strand of yarn at once. I think everything feels easier after the PW Fair-Isle. And I like the yarn on the cable sweater so much, it�s a gray Donegal Tweed, and there are little surprises of interesting color in it: blue, and yellow and a very odd but lovely green. I�ve cast the back on, and only have that to finish. It�ll be the perfect Stitch�n�Bitch work, too, just stockinette the whole way up. Won�t have to think at all.

After that, I�m going to do this tank in a wonderful orange tweed I got from Article Pract. Hooray!

Last night of work before the weekend tonight�have to go in early, and I had to stay late, as well. That�s when the job is hard, when you only have eight or ten hours off between shifts. I actually had ten off today, so it�s not so bad. But it�s still hard to have any approximation of time to oneself when you�re rushing to sleep so that you can get up and showered in time to go right back.

No other news. Absolutely nothing. Been a quiet week. I get to see T tomorrow night, and I�m happy about that.

052903 1717
Okay, way too into checking blogs on the internet. I�m putting a stop to it today (at least temporarily) so I can write this and then my real writing. Then, if I have time, I can play a little. I must be the parent here. I must be in control.

Some people watch TV. I watch the computer.

And how fun it is! I can queue up my music, sit in my comfy rocking chair, talk with the kitties, drink my espresso, and eavesdrop on people�s lives. Current new favorite is Live@Lakeridge. She�s got the razor-edged humor that I wish for.

Went to sleep so late this morning, way excited about my new button. It�s beautiful, isn�t it? I guess I�m gonna have to start collecting them, too.

There. I just finished my 100 things list. Now I�ll write.

052903 0815
Check it OUT! I have the best new button anywhere, courtesy of the AMAZING Pioneer Melissa, who cranked it out in a matter of what seemed like minutes. It's from a photo I took of myself, standing alone on a small pier in Venice, the Rialto behind me. I am sooo excited I can't even stand it. Please steal my button!
And stop by Pioneer Woman with Cell Phone and see her other fantastic work. I'm so lucky!.

052803 1715
And this: I just viewed my site statistics: My most hit pages are most often viewed after googling the following terms: "Cutting neck steeks" (good, at least it's knitting) and "Posters of Spanish monks drinking wine." Waaahhh!! That strikes me as hysterically funny.

1645
Wow! Pioneer Melissa just told me that she�d design me a button for my site! I�m so frikken excited! Whatever she does will rock, I know that.

I�m so way deep into this blogging thing. What a geek I am.

Love it.

Started my Suki bag last night. It�s the perfect antidote to finishing the Damned Fair-Isle�just miles of round and round and round. I�m also working the Boxy Cable, only four more inches of cabling to go before I start the neck shaping. Whoo hoo! Light wool, not scratchy, hands not getting tired, just simply knitting. Love that, too.

Also loving Devil Makes Three. I adore that CD. Lines like: �I�m just leaning on my shovel in the graveyard of broken dreams.� (paraphrased from faulty memory, the CD�s in the car) Walking the plank songs. Whiskey drinking songs. Underage-barfly songs. Songs that make you want to dance and kiss yer girl in an alley, a smoke in one hand, a bottle in the other. �Course, I don�t smoke any more (long sigh of regret�..) and I�d probably break the bottle on the recycling dumpster....

Feeling oh-so-boring and slow today. It�s beautiful out�going to go for a walk and then do some yoga and THEN do my writing.

052703 1300
Can it really be the 27th? Maybe it�s the 26th and I just can�t find a calendar. I suppose I could look one up, but I�m too lazy. I�m doing laundry right now. That�s enough work.

Aren�t we spoiled? I know I am I know I am I know I am. And I�m grateful for it every day. I�m not beating my clothes on a rock (although it�s a gorgeous warm day, it would probably be quite nice to do so); they�re spinning all by themselves until they�re clean and dry. Leaving me time to write.

It�s my Monday, so I have to get back into the work mode. I will write today. I will try, at least. I�ve been finding that I have very little motivation to write until I�m actually at work. And at that point, I think it�s the motivation to LEAVE the room that is the impetus to write. After that first little writing session, I can carry the energy through the rest of the week, both at home and on my work breaks. But Tuesday afternoons, when I�m still gearing up, are difficult times to get motivated.

Especially after such a good, busy weekend. I spent yesterday with T, breakfast at the Merritt Bakery and then shopping at Thrift Town and Macy�s. From the sublime to the ridiculous, I suppose. She cleaned up at Thrift Town, scored a fabulous Fairfield baseball jersey and some cool green poly pants, as well as various odds and ends. I only got a book and a sugar bowl. Sigh. She bought me the Devil Makes Three album which I�ve been lusting after�totally rocks.

I�m having a bonfire for my birthday! Yippee! I know it�s more than a month away, but I like to look forward to things.

No other reasonable thoughts to share. Just pretty dang happy. Off to shop for yarn for my Suki knit-along. And maybe for a tank top. Hee!

052603 2200
Done! With the Damned Fair-Isle
Philosopher's Wool, Kilim Jacket, Size small. Thank you, Hay-soos!
Picture of me wearing it to left.

052503 2300
Mango was a blast, I�ll have you know. Went yesterday afternoon. It�s a dance/barbeque/thing at El Rio on Mission once a month or so, and I always hear how cool it is. So J and I went, and it really was fun. Mango goes from 3pm till 8pm (I think) and we got there about 3:30. We waited in line an HOUR AND A HALF. In the afternoon! Hundreds of women, dying to salsa and groove, all ready to play in the afternoon.

I think that was the cool thing about it�that it was during the day. Women�s parties at night have that element of debauchery, which, if you�re into, can be good, I suppose. But if you just want to hang out and dance and watch people (and not drink, I had to work last night), the afternoon is a much better time to do it. It felt like a barbeque with a lot of friends, only I hardly knew anyone. It was funny, though. The girl behind me (I had been checking out her AWESOME orange polyester pants) turned out to be Acosia from my Stitch�n�Bitch at the bar, a total sweetie.

The dancing was mostly out on the back patio, and there was hardly room to move on the floor. The DJ was hot, moving from salsa to hip-hop and back, no house, thank god. And the women were so fun to watch�there was every style imaginable on display. Girls in shorts and tanks, girls wearing school uniforms, grrls in combat boots with pigtails, jocks in tees and ponytails, punks, players, and regular ole gals just dancing. Lots of tatts and piercings and way cooler shoes than I own. But it wasn�t cheesy�it didn�t feel like a pick-up joint�people were just there to dance. I�ll totally be back. Just good to feel at home somewhere, you know?

Tonight I did two fun things:
Finished the Damned Fair-Isle at Kira and Rachel�s S�n�B! (well, I still have to add the one clasp, but who cares?) It�s done! And so ugly. Can�t even tell ya. But I like it because it was so difficult, because it's actually done, and because I don�t have to bother with it anymore. I can hardly even bear thinking about adding the button and blocking it. I should do that tomorrow, just to get it over with. I�ll try to add a picture tomorrow, too lazy tonight.

And after that I went to a beach bonfire. Actually, I just kind of crashed the party�the S�n�B is on 47th Ave and Lincoln, and the bonfire was at Ocean Beach, so I went down to Fulton, found my friend�s car and walked up and down the beach, peering into the fire rings until I found her. It brought back so freaking much�how many times have I sat on the beach in the dark, fire sparking, sand in the marshmallows, beer held between the knees, shooting the shit about things you really don�t care about, you�re just so glad to be right there, right then? That�s gotta be one of my top ten things to do. Made me change my mind about my b-day party�I'm not having it at my house. I hate having parties. I�m gonna have a bonfire for my birthday. That way, I�m not the host. I�m just there, warming my face with everyone else.

That smell! I wanted to take a bath tonight, but I don�t want to lose that smoky smell that�s lodged in my hair, my sweatshirt. I want to take the beach with me to bed, dream about it, wake thinking it�s near. I don�t go to the ocean often enough. The Bay doesn�t count. At all. It�s nice that the Bay�s there, but it so doesn�t count.

052503 1500
Have been working on my 100 Things About Me. (see Stuff to left) I've only done 62 so far.

052403 1430
Only a few minutes to write.

First the bad part of last night, just because I want to write it right out of my system: Walking out of Merchants with a terrible man yelling �Get the fuck out! Fucking lesbians!� All the way to the car, �Lezzzbbeeeee-yanssss!� Did he think the word itself was the insult? �Cause it�s a mighty good word. I don�t think he even tried �dyke,� but I like that one, too. The insult was this: That was my bar. I loo-oo-oved that bar. I hung out there, day in, day out, saw morning in there, saw nights out. I kissed my girlfriends there. I was protected. I knew everyone. Last night there was just a group of very straight-laced banker types playing pool on one table, and us on another, and a bunch of ugly cretins in the front room. Fuck them. Hurts, though, to be yelled at like that. No one standing up for us. I liked it that T paused, pulled on my hand like she wanted to go back and chat with him. But I pulled her to the car. Sigh. Sometimes the world is so ugly.

But the good part of the night far and away outweighed the ugly: Dinner at Scott�s. Perfect. Drinking and shooting pool at the Lucky 13 in A-town. Watching T kick some ass on the pool table (and I kicked a tiny little bit, too). Smiling at her. Her winking.

Etymological talk later. Seriously! Can you imagine? I have such a fuckin� blast with her! Enough. :)

Only knitting news: I�ve made six mice now, trying to power out a bunch to give as little gifts. The kitties love �em. Thanks, Wendy!

052303 1600
Busy as hell last night, huge fire out on the base. Now that we don�t dispatch fire, you�d think it�d be easier, but with a blaze that size in a warehouse where things were exploding, and people calling 911 from San Francisco who could see the flames, it�s all hands on deck. I ran roll-calls every 30 minutes to make sure I knew where everyone was. Insanity.

You know what? I have very little else to say. Tired. Fighting grumpy. Want to knit, but it seems like such a big deal to get the shit out, untangle the stupid Damned Fair-Isle and work on the last button band. I think this is laziness I feel. Want nothing more than to crawl back in bed with White Teeth (which is getting sooo good, BTW). But if I do that, I�ll fall asleep and that wouldn�t be right, would it? Would it?

052203 1700
Not much time to write, got called in to work early�. Sigh.

But LOOK: my kitties are famous. Or at least they are in my mind. They�re six rows down, Adah�s the one next to the books. What fun a mouse-along is! I was telling a friend at night what a knitting nerd I was, and I showed him the mice, and he sadly had to agree. He almost equated it with Star Trek convention kind of thing. But knitters are cuter.

And I got my Denise needles. I�m in looo-oo-ve. I made the mice using them, and they�re easy to use, feel good in the hands, and I have everything I�ll need, any size, any length. It�s a pity (wink) more things in life aren�t like that.

I suppose I have time to write. Damn it. I really want to blame being called in to work early as my reason for not writing, but I can�t. Here I go.

Oh, and: I love this neighborhood, so much. I needed more catnip (want to make one for Trish�s cats), so I just walked out to the nearest pet shop. And I bought a big ole burrito for dinner/breakfast tonight. Life�s good.

052103 1745
I'm so doing the mouse-along with Wendy, button to left. Everyone knits their kitties a few catnip micies, then posts a pic of their pals playing (typo: slaying). Whee! (later, finished one, to left, Digit playing)

1500
This was in the New York Times three days ago: Dating a Blogger, Reading all About It. Good article on how blogging is changing the face of some friendships�with all these miniaturized memoirists, people have to weigh what they say to whom, for fear they�ll �get blogged.�

I wonder if my friends feel like that? It was a criticism once, that I keep my entries too generic, few names, few specific details. I think, though, that I sometimes say too much. I try not to write about work (hello, Internal Affairs) and I try to disguise anger as cynical humor (and I delay it a while, change the details a bit), but I�m sure most of what I write is recognizable.

A blogger-friend sent me the link, and it was weird to note that blogging has become such a cultural feature that it rated listing in the �Fashion & Style� section. It says (can this be true?) that there are an estimated three million blogs on the internet. If so, can you imagine all the junk that�s floating around out there? Me times three million? It doesn�t bear thinking about.

I want to know more about why people keep blogs. I keep mine to kick-start me into writing�to remind me who I am and what it really is that I�m doing. To remind me that I have an awesome life and I am not and never will defined by my day(night)job. It really works, happy to say. It�s also, I realize, completely narcissistic. Oh, well. I write a whole lot more than I mean to, though, and it�s funny when random people mention, �Oh, I read your site sometimes, but you always have too much on there to keep up with you.� Good. Lose them in the details.

Both my sisters have had blogs. Only B lost hers, couldn�t remember the site and never attached it to any search engines, so it swims out there in the night, alone. C�s is cool, but I can�t at this moment remember her site name.

Okay, that was weird. Googled C�s internet-nickname to find her site, came up with not her website, but a list made on Amazon. I can�t figure out if it�s her or not. One of the books on the list is Fodor�s New Zealand, which would imply that it is my sister. But the music listed just can�t be her. I know she would enjoy and appreciate Frank Sinatra, Sleater-Kinney, and X-Ray Spex, but all together on a list? Can�t be her. That�s the strangeness that�s out there.

Reading White Teeth:
� �I�m as liberal as the next person,� complained Alsana, once they were alone. �But why do they always have to be laughing and making a song-and-dance about everything? I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not.��

052003 1145
So this is what I want to know:
How do you sleep on your back? I just can�t do it. I practice, too. I know it�s the �right� way to sleep, better for your back and internal organs, but I have problems with it. For one, what do you do with your toes? They stick straight up into the blankets! And the heels! They get tired, being pushed into the mattress. And I think I so seldom have my legs out straight that they get confused. Whenever I lie with a leg straight, my toes go right to sleep (leaving the rest of me behind, sigh), even if there�s no pressure on the leg.

Jeez. Does it really have to be this hard? Just give me my three pillows and let me sleep on my stomach.

It�s gorgeous today�warm and sunny (and what just got hit outside? I don�t want to look�okay, not my car) and I should be out in it. Instead, I�m doing the laundry I didn�t yesterday and listening to music. Going to knit a little more this afternoon. Finally finished a button band yesterday (picture to left) and picked up the second one. And NOT following the Philosopher�s Wool instructions made it a lot easier this time. I didn�t �knit into the bar stitches� (which is what killed me and made the pick-up look worse than the one I got the other night at the coffee-shop) but I just went back to good-old using a crochet hook. Zip-zip, picked up, and I might finish the second band today. Then just a little finishing at the bottom, and CUTTING.

Best line on Six Feet Under this week: Claire says, �Can you give a me a ride? I need to get an abortion.� Oh, my god, I love that show.

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I�m sitting on my couch (oooh, should be doing laundry, just realized), having a nice afternoon off, cruising websites, thinking about knitting (I will, I will, just after I close this machine and open the washing one), listening to the CD that L burned for me. We had dinner last night, a planned and looked-forward-to night.

She was the Big One. I hate to say �the,� so I�ll correct that to �a� Big One. I had never been hurt before her�my heart had been wounded before, but she was the only one to ever truly break my heart. To lay it wide open to the elements. Bef