It's here! It's here! Santa Claus came for me!

I'm having a bit of a migraine (I got careless: I thought I had something at work for lunch, but I didn't, and when we're in the middle of weather changes, which we are, and my sugar gets too low for too long, which it did, I get a migraine) so I apologize if this post is a bit addled. I ate like a linebacker when I got home, and my headache is at least no longer pounding, but maybe I should take an Imitrex, just for in case.

Then again, maybe I'll get up and do some yoga in a minute. But first:
My knitpicks yarn *sound of heavenly chorus on an extended "Ah!" vowel* These are destined for a pair (or two or three) of Endpaper Mitts. And since I got smart and figured out how to do circular knitting on two circular needles instead of the dreaded double points, I may even be able to do them properly!

The yarn feels very nice, actually, which makes me feel better about paying so little for it. I'll let you know what happens when I try to knit with it.

Knitpicks yarn batch 2: For a pair of mitts like Johnny Depp wears in Sweeney Todd, when I figure out the stitch involved. I'be been borrowing and buying stitch dictionaries like crazy of late--I'm swatching up a storm, too. I will figure out which pattern it is if it takes me until I'm 95! Anyway, I bought it in two colors, intending to use the gray for the mitts and the red....well. I just thought it was pretty. And it's cheap enough, I don't feel guilty for stashing!

You may have noted in the picture of the blue and yellow yarn a plastic bag in the underneath. Since I keep my yarn in a three seasons room (mostly in a large plastic tote, but some of the stuff I'm working is in a bag) that seems to function as a spider nursery, I tend to keep my working yarn in plastic bags to keep the bugs out. I am not afraid of spiders, but I really don't want one in my lap any more than Little Miss Tuffet did. Not that I'd go running, but I might say something...unflattering and rude. Which wouldn't do.

Anyway, I've discovered that if you squeeze them, it compresses the yarn--sort of like those overpriced vacuum sucky bags for clothes and stuff that you see on the informercials--and then lets it pop right back up. Like thus:



But for way, way cheaper. Which is all to the good. So I've started going into my stash tub and baggy-ing up my other yarns. To compress them. Which I'm sure is bad for my health, because it will create more room for more yarn. Which it its own problem, in a way.

Storage issues aside, here is the apotheosis of the yarn orgy of this past week:
*even louder heavenly chorus*

I know, I promised sunlight licking along the yarn, but it's crappy out today; whatcha gonna do? It's still beautiful. And I got a free project bag (underneath) which my dog was very interested in (perhaps it had been used to transport squirrels at some point?) and a pretty card. And how psychic is Cattywumpus--Van Gogh is my favoritest of painters, and just look how the card co-ordinates with both the yarn and the bag! Nothing in the envelope to go to waste! Now, if I can just settle on something to use it for.... So many projects, and it's just one sweet little ball of yarn.... Sigh.

Oh, well. Until it gets earmarked for something in particular, I can keep in its baggie in my room (way up high so the kitties don't make something of it for themselves) and take it out at night to look at and smile upon.

Yes, yes. I know. I'll go put my huggie coat back on and sit quietly in the corner until my drugs kick in (I caved on the Imitrex. I really need a new computer--the delay and afterimage while typing on this one is vicious....)

What I Did For Christmas Vacation

No, I didn't get lost or fall in or whatever your favorite euphemism is. There were, in my life, Great Events. I wouldn't be here updating my blog now, frankly, if it weren't for the fact that I'm about to email my blog link to another knitblogger (and watch how quickly I get tied to the stake for the foulness of my language) since I'm so exhausted by all the garbage I have to attend to. I figured I might as well, you know, actually blog before I send the link off.

Ok. Some of what went down is more personal than I like to get in public, so the greater part of the mayhem will have to remain a mystery to those who don't get my near-daily whine-fests (aka: emails.) Let's see if I can get the public stuff straight.

For firstly: Dog tore his ACL. The Tuesday after my last post, actually. I had to take some time to take him in for repairs. Since he tore the other ACL two years ago, we are now referring to him as the Bionic Dog. Ironically enough, the two surgeries cost $6000. I'm going to have to totally rip copyrights to make him a dogshirt on CafePress.com with his face in the familiar orange target/scope thing and the slogan: "We can rebuild him, we have the technology" underneath. Too bad he doesn't make that way cool mechanical sound when he hobbles around.

It looks nastier than it was, really. Mostly it's razor burn (since he doesn't shave regularly.) Be assured he is almost completely recovered, and his limp makes all the girlies flock to his paws--chicks dig scars and all that garbage. However, I will have to Sing the Ballad of How The Squirrels Are Evil for you one day (they got his first knee, two years ago, and this knee went out as a result of how he was walking since then.) We will be interrupting some of our knitting through the winter so we can build miniature siege engines (trebuchet for starters and, if I can figure out the engineering, an onager. Yes, I'm quite excited, too) and going out to take some heapin' hot revenge. Eventually, Dog plans to have a bandolier of little furry scalps to wear when he dances in the bloody light of a cold harvest moon around the great earthen barrow where he will bury all the bits of squirrel he doesn't eat at his great victory feast. I think he's been reading some westerns lately, this little ceremony seems a tad derivitive.

For secondly, the holiday fell on me like something very heavy and smothering. I've been bracing myself for another bout of depression this January (I wouldn't say I have SAD, not that there's anything wrong with it other than it sucking the joy out of everything, but January, traditionally, is very difficult for me.) Fingers are still crossed, but it's actually...ok. I'm making an effort to get out more often and talk to people a lot more, and my favorite BBC program of all time is finally showing the second season this year--Life on Mars. If you've never seen it, I pity you. It's what David Lynch could have done with Twin Peaks if not for that pesky acid habit and the dancing dwarf. And the new season (for BBCA) of Doctor Who begins in two weeks, and who can be sad when David Tennent is being all floppy puppy goofy cute in those little glasses? And the suits. Ay, mio. The wisdom of ZZ Topp comes to mind. *

But never fear, I did do some knitting.

I don't know if you can tell (because my computer is crap at the moment), but it's an unintentional tam (my gauge got lose and it ended up a bit larger than intended, but it still worked) in what I call winter sherbet colors. It's Joann's Sensations line, something called Dolcetto (colors are lemon and lime. How appropriate.) It's soft for a wool/cotton blend, and knit up like buttah. And I love the colors. I wanted to lick the hat (but it really is too fuzzy a yarn, it would have been nasty, yick.) I also did a twisted drop stitch scrawl (somewhere between a scarf and a shawl) in the same colors as well, and I think the next time I do a twisted drop stitch, I will have more contrast in my colors. Don't get me wrong, in person, the colors look beautiful together. But I think the twist would be more effective in strongly contrasted colors, like white and red (for a candy cane scarf) or light and dark shades of one color. Anyway, I made the set for my aunt on behalf of my mother.

I also cast on for the mittens I promised my priest (for his nephew; apparently he can't find men's mittens large enough in Chicago, to which I say, WTF?!? Maybe he should try looking for them. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to do it, I just doubt the boy has bothered trying to look.) I need to get back to them, too. Thankfully, they're knitting up fast as a greased pig, so it shouldn't take too long.

Also on the knitting front, I found http://www.knitpicks.com/. If you haven't been there, you should check it. My order shipped today, so I should know within 5-14 days if the yarn is as good as promised. I certainly know it was cheap, which makes me very happy. Now, just to see if it is less scratchy than I'm fearing.

I also won a contest on another knitting blog--Cattywumpus--and was doing a little happy dance all day yesterday. I entered because one of the prizes was a totally sexy cake of gorgeous, hand dyed bluey-greeney-yellowey merino. Fortuna apparently got tired of peeing on me and allowed me to win it. Oh, Fortuna indeed! I was doing a happy dance all day yesterday. My coworkers thought me a bit touched in the head, but then again, I am a bit touched in the head with this yarnporn addiction, so it's understandable. I can't wait until it arrives so I can sit it in front of me and just stare at it, rather like people in those old photographs from the halcyon days of Big Radio--smiling rather vacantly in my bobby socks and penny loafers, knitting in my chair.... Yeah. I'm a little off. Just...go with me on this one. When it arrives, I will photograph it in sunlight, allowing the buttery golden light to caress the yarn as it gently flows between the layers of strands, causing it to glow from within so you can see why I'm so bewitched. I can't decide what to do with it, once I'm done staring at it reverently, but it must be something special that enhances the flow of color along the yarn. Maybe something with a dragon or ocean theme. Or forests. Or just go ape-excrement and attempt all three in one project. Oooh.

Ok, now I'm freezing, I'm starving and I need to remove my nail polish--still wearing my holiday theme of alternating red and green. With black/irridescent purple-blue on the toes. Merry Christmas. Ho. Ho. Ho. >:-) Anyway, I'm chipping something fierce. And did I mention my fingers are frozen? 'Cause they are. So I'm going to a) remove the polish, b) make some hot cocoa and c) pop some popcorn with buttah. In that order. And then it's time for Most Haunted. Since it is Friday. Yay.

* Every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man. In trainers. **

**Britspeak for sneakers. His look like old Converse high tops. He's workin' it old skool.

Hot Stuff, Baby This Evenin'

Sorry. That song got stuck in my head as I sat here, trying to figure out how to post about my evening. Oh, don't get all excited. This is me we're talking about here. First things first:



This is my finished gaiter, both flat on the chaise, and on my person. Enjoy my double chins. It's comfortable, warm, but I can see why they used a finer yarn for the original pattern. It works, don't get me wrong, but it's...chunkier than I think it should be, and it tends to roll. But, hey, it works. And that's what matters.


Now, on to the hot stuff. Much more interesting, in my opinion. I went to see No Country For Old Men this evening because I love the deeply wrong cinema that is produced by the Coen Brothers. Oh, my, in this they did not disappoint! The only reason to abstain from this film is a weak stomach. Seriously. This is one of the best films ever. EVER. I don't usually like Westerns, but this was not your typical Western. The bad guy...yeah, he wore a lot of black, but at the same time, you could see where he was broken off. It was like he was just a stump of a person, a sort of half-remembered ghost of what he might have been. Creepy. Very creepy. And kind of sad in an empty room sort of way.


I have to confess, I'm going to have to read the book, just to see if the book is as bizarre as the movie. Between the sagacious lawman and the oddly Zen hitman ("Don't put the coin in your pocket, or it will just become a coin...which is what it is.") it was a dizzying blur of wit, intelligent (and rather self-indulgent) rumination and spurting blood. My biggest disappointment was in the fake movie blood. Seriously, folks out in Hollywood. Thin that shit out, please? I'm tired of people bleeding what amounts to bright red motor oil. Human blood is water based. Keep that in mind when you next mix up your corn syrup and food dye, yes? The thick stuff makes for good, sticky spatter, but the real stuff isn't quite so viscous. At least, not in anyone with a total blood cholesterol level of under 1,500.


Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. No Country. If you've read the reviews, you know that basically what happens is a fellow named Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles across a rather grisly scene of a drug deal gone bad while out in the desert hunting. Just prior, we see the incredibly deadpan and philosophical hitman, Anton Chigurh, getting arrested with his trusty, air-powered cattle gun, and taken off to jail by a rather neglectful deputy. In short order, Anton frees himself, takes his cattle gun and hies himself off to find another car. Moss, meanwhile, has found and made off with the cash from the drug deal, and rather foolishly comes back to the scene (it's an altrustic action, and one which ultimately he will regret). He gets chased away, but the people who paid the money up front find his truck and send Anton off to find him. All sorts of hijinks and hey-nonny-nonny ensue, as Anton tries to get the cash back for his employers and Llewlyn tries to get away and the rather laconic sherriff follows them both, hoping he'll get to Moss first.

The body count is extremely high, and the cinematography is luminous and golden--very like I'd imagine Texas actually is in dry season. Everyone turns in an incredible performance, even the people who merely walk on and serve as poorly appreciated cannon fodder for Anton's blank faced and silently austere violence. It was incredible to watch, the completely bland way that Chigurgh just...kills. I was going to say kills like it was his job, but hey, it was his job. He put as much visible emotion into it as I put into working my data entry job, which is to say none. The ultimate professional, or, as he himself puts it at one point, "You use the right tool to get the job done." I'm not sure I would refer openly to myself as a tool, but then again, I haven't got a gun that large with a silencer the size of my head, so I suppose my case is different.


The ending was a complete surprise--one that those around me will not be surprised to find I liked. It was ambiguous in the extreme, and the ultimate surprise is who managed to live to fight another day.


But, truly, Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurgh was the highlight of the movie. Despite the fact that he's stated in interviews that he purposely did not try to give the character a backstory in his mind to keep him blank, a total cypher, just watching him gives you a glimmer of what he could have been doing. Llewlyn Moss was in Vietnam (the movie is set in 1980). Dollars to donuts Chigurgh was, too. Or at least served in the military, seeing hard service. There is virtually no other way for someone to get that rather deadpan, slightly bored air when it comes to killing someone up close and personal, as he must do several times. One always gets the feeling that he'd rather be watching television, not because killing is a morally reprehensible act, but because now he's going to have to do laundry again and he just washed this shirt, dammit. It feels like the whole thing is a massive imposition on his time and effort, and not because he's killing and likely to get killed himself, but because he's vaguely bored by the whole thing. It's a character we've never really seen before, and I'm slightly giddy at the newness of it, the excitement of being shown a new critter. I want to go back and see it again, now, just to see if I was imagining it or if there really was this fabulous, rare animal peeking through the branches. God, so exciting. It's been a good long while since I came out of a movie theater excited. Seriously. It's so rare we get anything new....


Well, and I'm really tired. I think I'm going to have a bowl of cereal, order stuff online, then go to bed. And dream sweet, sweet dreams of relentless killers in cowboy boots.

Stuff to remember

No more talking of work. Actually, I have to, if only a little, to explain what I'm going to talk about. Oh, before I start up:

Gaiter--coming along swimmingly, after only one frogging. I cast on the wrong number of stitches. God bless Google--there was a website that explained what I was doing wrong when I entered in my stitch pattern (broken rib, if you want to know.) I should be done soon and will be posting a picture.

I also got a Ravelry account this week. It's a fabulous e-notebook, and handy for people like me, who surf for patterns without a printed yarn and needle inventory at their elbow. If I ever find time to inventory my stash as thoroughly as they seem to think I should!

I'll come back to this topic later. If my post goes as intended, it will tie in.

Anyhow, I was at work today, again being sulky that I simply cannot seem to thrive in a business environment, wondering what was wrong with me that I was not winning friends and influencing people, so to speak, when it struck me. I had just been agonizing with a friend that anywhere you work is going to be rife with politics and bullshit, and how much I hated that, and here I was, upset that I don't thrive in that environment. I finally asked myself, But do I really want to thrive in this type of environment? And all I could answer myself was NO! The subsequent question to myself was, Well, if you don't want to thrive in such environs, why do you take it so personally that you don't? It's not like you really put any effort into it, you don't want it, so why do you get so down on yourself about it?

This goes back to my training as a child. My grandfather, God rest him, was an artist. In modern terms, he was a graphic artist, if I interpret my Mother's recollections of what he did correctly. Anyway, my Grandmother, God rest her as well, had Ambitions and wanted to be a wealthy woman, but as the poor child of a large, Irish brood in the 1910's, she had no option but to marry it. Now, even I know--if you want to be wealthy, if you want a near certain shot at achieving lasting wealth and power, and you must marry for it, you don't marry an artist! But like millions of women even now, she believed she could change my grandfather, make him be what she thought he should be. It didn't work (alas), and when he died, she had to begin working outside the home. This made her very bitter, and the only thing I can think is that she, very like my own mother, God love her, had a sense that life owed her something, or that life should go the way she wanted it to go instead of being Life and, as such, rather capricious about things like how it goes.

So as a little girl, it was over and over impressed upon me that artists were fools, people who attempted to pursue creative lives were idiots who would die poor and lonely. Smart girls got real jobs that involved suits, nylons and high heels, and then married men in pinstripes and bulging pockets and retired to discreet domestic bliss. In particular, she wanted me to be a lawyer and from thence to politics (probably so I could marry the man who would be president.) Hah! I can't stand the bullshit in the boardroom, how would I tolerate it in the courts? Anyway, this is one of those most difficult, inborn, carved-upon-my-psyche things, a value that I held, even as I felt intense guilt over my creativity and desire to spend my time with my toys, making stuff. Oh, I intellectually knew this was silly thinking--Picasso was filthy, and most artists (while not rolling in it) are certainly not unloved, and really, is wealthy my value, or was it hers?

Today, though. Today was the first time I actually felt this. Why do I take it so personally that I can't succeed in business when I don't really care much for business? Why do I get so bent out of shape when at home and in private, I deride those values of profit above all else, including humanity? It's like a saint crying because the sinners don't like him. And I let it go. All that wangsting and being unhappy because I'm not cut out for the power suit and hose. I'm a barefoot princess, a new gen hippy. I'm a free spirit, and there's no cause for crying over that! At least not for me. If her aneurysm hadn't done her in years ago, I'm sure this sort of declaration from me would have killed my grandmother. But for the first time in ages, I feel free. I can set my own values and live by them, I no longer have to live by other's--which is lovely, as my values seem to be stricter--at least as regards professional ethics and the kindly treatment of my fellow man in the workplace.

So I tell my creativity coach about this tonight, and he again urges me to make a mandela or write a prayer or build a ceremony for myself for clarity on what I want my life to be like. I'm drawn to the idea of the mandela, and whenever he suggested I do this exercise before I would come over all shy because I'm not sure how to make a mandela. But today, I decided that, as a Free Spirit, blythe and bonnie and gay, I would make one as I think it should be made. I will make a personal, private Mandela, one that expresses me, and use that to make my intentions plain. I understand the need to learn the form and function of artistic expression, but first you have to let yourself play and express yourself. Once you play, once you've tried your various means of expression, you learn the "proper" ways, and then you figure out improper ways.

I'm excited to begin. There will be glitter. And glue sticks. And clay. Yeah, I like mixed media. But it's not about writing a sonnet, it's about...making something to serve as a sign for me. So it doesn't matter if anyone else gets it. That's just gravy.

So, anyway, at this point, I begin to think Maybe I should cast on for that sweater. The yarn is looking at me with longing, asking to be knit. And as with the gaiter, if I screw up, I can frog and cast on again. There are as many beginnings as I need. And no judgements. Not from me.

And I am glad.

Frozen

No, not my home or me, well, yes, me. I am tired of my current employement. Since no one is allowed a private life anymore, even on the web, I can't go into details because even though it's my opinion and I always state it as such, they could probably sue me. And they're just big enough...insert derrogatory comment heres to do so.

I won't insult the word Bitch by using it to describe them. Frankly, if my only choices are to be a bitch or a compliant, constantly irrationally cheerful mote of sunshine, I'll be the bitch, thank you very much.

Anyway, I never played well with others--I can scan my kindergarten report cards if you like--and job hunting is a particularly unpleasant activity for me. On top of the whole "I never get the ones I want" problem I have (both professionally and personally, but that's a post for another day), deciding to take a particular job (since I've never had a time when there was more than one from which to choose) is problematic. How do I know I'm making the right decision? Which way is the right way?

Currently, I'm online avoiding double checking my resume for a job out of state. I have a better than even chance of interviewing for this position, even though I'm probably not as qualified as others who might want it, due to who I know (heh, for once.) I don't know it's the right thing to do, to move. What if I move and the perfect opportunity opens up here? What if I move and I hate it there? What if I move and it turns out to have been the wrong choice to make?

I ruined myself by taking physics in high school. The concept of multiple realities and the billions of realities that open up at the making of each choice....it makes me freeze before the big ones (although I have no problem deciding between iced or hot mocha at Starbucks, although if I drop the hot one on my lap while driving my whole reality could change in a flash.)

Sigh. I think too much. And my cousin just walked in, and I want to talk to her about alpacas. That makes sense, it really does. Unlike most of my life.

Harrumph.

I've been keeping busy. I frogged the gaiter I was working on in the fine blue yarn (it's too fine for the project, even though it's the sort called for--ok, ok, it's too fine for me to use for the project. I really haven't got that much patience.) I restarted the same project in a heavier yarn, the red I used for my Rasta hat. I read the Yarnharlot's book, Knitting Rules!, in which she encourages you to make gauge swatches. If I hadn't taken her advice, it would have been impossible to convert the pattern for me. So I've got a swatch and a beginning pattern notebook, and I feel like a real-life, grown up knitter now. Well, sort of.

I'm still avoiding my sweater, though. I'm going through my chocolate time, if you know what I mean, and I feel this is a project to begin on a day when I'm feeling wrecklessly brave and confident, not sobbing into my cocoa-wheats at Hallmark commercials.

My cable's going in and out, too, and it's driving me nuts. I hate it when it sticks like that. I get about three seconds of a show, then a minute of black, then several more seconds of show, then black.... I'm about to slap someone. I want to watch this show! Grrrrr.

Oh, well. Gives me more time to read the book of Lovecraft stories I got out of the library. Thank God I don't tend to avoid authors based on their politics or personality, or I'd never read these. Eh. So far, he's no M. R. James, but he's ok.

Grrr, Blogger!

I started a post, but Blogger ate it. Which, considering the trouble I'm having getting a picture to upload, is not surprising. Let's try this again.....

I've got a picture here of the yarn I bought for my very firstiest sweater ever:




Isn't it pretty? The picture I'm seeing is quite blue, but in actual real-life, it's more purple. I need to test it for color fastness (which should take all of three seconds) but I'm hesitating. I'm hesitating on starting the sweater itself, too. I'm a chicken when it comes to my knitting, and since a) the sweater is so very, very pretty and b) the yarn is so very, very pretty, I'm hesitant to screw it up. But there's a big part of me that just wants to start it already. Sigh, I'm so torn!


I'm actually supposed to be going to my knitting group tonight, but today was the second day of my "baby-brand-new" gym habit, and my trainer wiped the floor with my weenie a$$. She's far better, and has more finesse than our last personal trainer (my place of employement, while not paying me fair market value for my services, does offer beautiful freebies, which probably more than makes up the difference--we've got a gym and personal trainer, yoga, pilates and a step class, mostly paid medical, fully vested 100% matching up to 100% of our salary 401(k), etc.) who, being a 300 lb former Marine didn't appreciate that, as a female, I sit to pee, or, more precisely, I have to stand up again to get out of the bathroom, and therefore didn't understand that several sets of 75+ speed squats were not a good idea. She modified my workout today to compensate for the fact that I hyperextend my knees (ie, bend them backwards when I lock them). Of course, "modify" does not in any way, shape or form imply she "simplified" or "made it easier"--to the contrary, I got double the ab work today. I almost puked, but my knees aren't sore.


Anyway, I just have to brag on my Nieceling. Four weeks ago, I purchased a book for her in New York City as part of her "Auntie Went On A Trip" swag. It was new. Brand new. Sparkly, even. I asked her to borrow it (I got her Golden Compass, a book I'd always thought of reading but didn't want to buy it for myself), so last Saturday, my father comes in and drops a book on the counter saying "here's the book --insert Nieceling's name here--said you wanted to borrow." I didn't even recognize it. Why, you ask?

Someone done read this one hard, y'all.


At least I know it's been read, LOL! Actually, I don't mind. There's something about a delicately curled and skinned book that speaks of a wanton, voluptuous enjoyment of the contents. This is the bibliophilic equivalent of what happens to Michel Cluizel 98% Dark Chocolate squares when I'm around. I can practically hear her little eyes licking every last word from the page. Another little pervy bibliophile in training. E-eexcellent. *tents fingers and taps them sequentially* Nephew is just as bad, only he tends to be easier on the covers, which is, frankly, surprising. For a little baby linebacker (actually, he got moved to center, which makes sense because in Pee Wee Football terms, hitting Nephew is a bit like ramming a cement wall; ain't nobody getting to the QB with him in front) he's awful delicate with his stuff. It's kind of cute, actually. Although I see it becoming obnoxious and tiring as he gets older. Sigh, fussy men are so...irritating!