6/30/04

So, there's this lace shawl from the Gathering of Lace book that I really want to make, despite already having one useless shawl. Forgive me, knitting gods--I love to make lace, depsite its pointlessness, which I've noted many times before. But it's a truly lovely thing, and will take forever and ever, being done on size #0 and #2 needles. That's an entry in the "pro" column for me, since I like long-term projects. I can't find a picture of it online, but it generally looks like this:

(My drafting talents. Classy, classy.)

Think of priestly vestments, only lacy, and not quite so long.

I got a yarn catalog in the mail yesterday. I'm not sure how they got my name, but I didn't really mind because their stuff is NICE--and saw a yarn that would work well with the pattern, so I took a closer look at the detail of the thing, and realized something, and descended into abject panic.

You see that frilly edging? One puts that on last, by picking up stitches the whole way around and then working your way outwards. I knew this, and I also knew that a thing with a fairly large perimeter and small gauge would need to have a lot of stitches picked up around the edges.

But reading the pattern and actually seeing the words "pick up 1500 stitches" still made me gasp.

(a point of reference for non-knitters: an average heavyish sweater is 200-400 stitches around. A neck on said sweater--the sort of place where one usually picks up stitches--is 100-odd stitches around. A handmade sock is 60-70 stitches. 1500 is a lot of stitches.)

Have I mentioned how I can't pick up stitches worth a damn?

I mean, I still want to make the thing. I just see a week or two of nonstop swearing in my future, with J forcibly bringing me on long walks to get me away from the heathen thing.



6/29/04

Doo de doo dadadada, la lee doo bebeeeee dee doop...

This DVD is SO FUNNY. Absolutely the perfect thing to watch on a summer evening. And they have it at Bongo--or at least, they will, once we return it.

Watch it. Your inner child will thank you.



6/25/04

I can see my house from here!: The US Geological survey has a huge compliation of pictures. They go down in enough detail that I can tell they're off by a couple of houses when I type in my mom's address, because the big oak tree is in the wrong yard. And now I know that there's a name for the big ravine behind my dad's house.

And look how pretty the Isles of Shoals are. (Star Island is the one that looks a bit like Africa, and the image is clearly pre-pooptank).

A time-sucker, but fun.

My hair is improved now that I got my bangs out of my eyes. If I comb it way forward I look like a gimpy, emotionally stunted, Greek Beatles impersonator, but I won't ever do that again now that I've seen the result, so it's okay.

Shi loffs yow, ya, ya, ya.

And that concludes any discussion about my hair for a good long while.



6/24/04

Chopping off 11 inches of hair. It's a good thing.
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Correction, now that it's dry: 11 inches of hair, good thing. 10 inches of hair (which was, apparently, the amount removed) and my bangs are in my eyes, and I have a whitegirl fro. Less good thing. I'll fix this tonight, myself. That's probably a really stupid thing. But I'm cheap and I'm not going to get 2 haircuts in 2 days.

The hairdresser just didn't believe me when I said how much I wanted to lop off. But I take my haircuts seriously. Get rid of it all, I don't want it here no' mo'.

On the upside, I've astonished my co-workers who didn't know T's Official Hair-Care Methodology:

Cut hair.

Don't cut hair. For 2 years.

Repeat.

Hey, it's worked since high school.

Confidential to D: No, I didn't end up with your hair again, thank God. It's shaggier than that.



6/22/04



At the risk of losing out by telling y'all, this contest is pretty cool.

If you win, then thank me.



6/18/04

I know I've got a few displaced Cheeseheads that read this occasionally, hoping for a local reference to remind them of home. I know *I've* searched high and low for CT bloggers that live where I'm from and are also entertaining. I'm afraid there are very few.

ANYhoo, I dedicate the following paragraphs to you homesick Madisonians.

I think for normal people this would be a story of "ew, gross". This is the time of year when, if I'm walking with someone, they request that we go a little inland. I'd probably think it was gross, too, if it wasn't for the fact that I, too, grew up next to a lake. And boy howdy, the stink of a lake in full algae bloom makes me miss the little cottage my dad lived in until I was 9 or so.

The lake stinks. The one I frequent does, anyways. I'm surprized things haven't gotten riper earlier--it seems like the point last year when it got unpleasant even for me was right after finals, in early/mid May. But then, it's been a lot rainier and cooler than it was last year, when it rained so little the barely-formed corn dried and cracked, still in the husk and on the stalk. Last summer we put our air conditioner in the only amenable window, which happens to be the one in our walk-in closet. We'd close the door behind us and watch the super-tiny black and white TV I got for Christmas a few years ago, automatically reverting to childhood fort-building ways.

It's was on the days I'd come home to a seemingly empty house, finding J napping directly under the flow of refrigerated air, that the algae rotted most eagerly. Anyone who spends time near water knows that Lake Stink is coming on those days.

Yesterday wasn't a particularly bad case of Lake Stink, honestly. But it was enough to make me remember Amston, which was enough to remind me of people for whom these lakes are the ones that are homey and familiar.



6/17/04

This rant made me laugh my head off. Something about the phrase "Hey crackhead" gets me going. Maybe because k sounds are funny.

(link via Ernie)

And yes, I have had a lot to say lately.



6/16/04

I have spackling compound sitting in my backpack right now, and I'm much happier about that than a normal person should be.

There's a small, local-ish hardware store in the same stripmall complex as J's tae kwon do school. When I accompany him to his lessons (a few times a month, because the grocery store we like is nearby), I almost always stop in there to kill time. There's something about a real hardware store that I love--not so much the Home Depot places, where the 17 year old workers that don't know a thing nevertheless ask if you need help, but the smaller places that are a little jumbly and dirty. I wander around, breathing the smell of fertilizer and motor oil. I read labels, sometimes, when I have no idea what something is for. I dodge the owner, who's a little jumbly and dirty himself. No, I'm not looking for anything in particular. But thanks, I'll ask if I have any questions.

I usually end up buying something. I got some waterproof glue there I hadn't seen elsewhere to test something in the lab. I bought all kinds of things to improve our apartment's hardwood floors--it didn't work. When my aloe plant is starting to look like a Catholic mother, I pick up a bag of potting soil.

I'll get a candy bar, at the very least.

My mom has gotten the same way since she bought her house--she prefers the big places, though. Gets a bag of mulch, an area rug, a new front door. She loves fiddling with the furniture, the paint, the lawn. I want to fiddle too, when I'm there.

With the exception of maybe 2.5 years at the edge of my memory, I've always lived in apartments. My mom bought her house after I went to college, and I've never spent more than the month of winter vacation there. So it's really mom's home, not mine. All of those little things that homeowners can do--repaint the bathroom, transplant some hostas along the driveway, call a plumber themselves when the sink drips--they're all things that seem a little indulgent, a little taboo, simply because I've never been able to do them. For Christmas last year my parents- and sister-in-law gave us some lovely and very personal framed pictures. They lean against a wall on top of the radiator, because putting nail holes in the wall is just a little more than I can handle.

And so I wander around the hardware store every few weeks like a hungry kid with twelve dimes at the 7-11, trying to figure out: what can I get? How can I maximize this slim opportunity?

I work on projects with nearly invisible effects, things like trying to sand away the pickle-sized burn in the living room, or making the kitchen table (which we don't even own) stop wobbling.

All so I can spend an extra 5 minutes next to the strip molding, stealing glances at the paint chips, and dream.


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Wednesday is probably going to turn into Food Porn Day for most of the summer, because on Tuesday evenings we get our CSA share, and the last two weeks I've come home and immediately made something with what we get. We keep getting things I haven't even seen at the farmer's markets, and it's beeen great, even though the boxes are still a little on the empty side.

This week's novelty: garlic scapes, which are these little curly things that come out of garlic plants--they'll turn into flowers if they don't get picked, and will suck the energy out of making a tasty garlic bulb. I hadn't ever heard of them before, but I made some pesto with them and the spinach we got, and mmm. I'm having the scape and spinach pesto with some ravioli for lunch today.

I'm not a huge garlic fan--I like the overall flavor of it but if I bite into a raw piece of it, ugh. Which is why the scapes are so nice--I ate a little piece as I was chopping them, and it was very garlicky, but they don't have that same astringent, eye-watering effect.

So, an A+ for my CSA. They more than made up for the wilty spinach and radishes last week.



6/15/04

I've been feeling like I should write something about John's site, or lack thereof, for a while now, especially since I wasn't the only one worrying.

I feel like a 90's throwback for saying this, but the Internet is a funny thing. [Hey, at least I didn't say anything about being roadkill on the information superhighway. Except then.] John's site has been one of my favorites for nearly 3 years. I love his writing, and I always felt some emotional common ground there--unfortunately, he's my proof-positive as to why I write very little about the darker sides of my family (not *that* dark, but I spend a lot more time worrying over people than I talk about here).

My feelings are particularly mixed about this whole thing because if I miss John the human being enough, felt like fully violating every personal boundary in the book, and wanted to reenact a scene from Not One Less, I could just sit in front of the co-op for a week until I saw him walk by.

But since I could have done that any time in the last 3 years, I'm not about to start now. I do have SOME moral code.

Anyway, I don't really feel like I've lost a friend. Even without stalking I'm bound to run into one of the gang eventually. Instead I feel like I've lost a place. It's as if a local hangout closed up, and everyone in the neighborhood realized they don't actually know the last name of any of those people whose company they enjoyed so much.

Granted, in this case I don't know most of the people's FIRST names. But the same principle applies.

There's a similar happening I've been following in this entry, on a site that's rapidly becoming a new favorite (the comment section has gone supernova--read every 10th or so comment to get the flavor). There's a lot of hubbub to do with the true identity of the writer which I have no opinion on, since I'd never even heard of the site before finding this. But some folks have expressed the same feeling of "I wish her well, but I miss the discussions in the comments", which resonated so thoroughly with me that I've been following the conversation, just to allow myself the same lonelywist.

See? That's how bad it's gotten. I've started making up words.

There needs to be such a thing as a website funeral.



6/14/04

I got a lot farther in the Harry Potter video game this weekend, at the cost of personal hygene and getting lots of real work done (read: boring academic junk from the previous entry). Though it still makes me sad to see that this game is right at the limits of my abilities. Plus, I get way too stressed out. It's to the point where I know just need to finish the game, so I can stop playing it. Maybe then my blood pressure will go back to where it should be.

I did have one excuse for my hermit ways: I got what I think is a spider bite on my face, about an inch below my right eye. From a great distance, it doesn't look like much, but at a typical socializing distance of 2-3 feet it looks like a big horrible pimple. It's only right up close that one can tell that it's a bite.

So I feel like a 13 year old girl with acne at a dance--I just want to run to the bathroom, hiding my face.



6/11/04

Lots of small things happening. I had a classic I-hate-academia moment yesterday. I walked into a meeting bright and excited about how my data is working out, and walked out bogged down with a lot of tedious things I have to finish up before I even start thinking about the fun stuff. So it's time for my semiyearly examination of what the heck am I doing spending all this time training for a job (professorhood) that seems really horrible to me?

I'd be a really good lab tech, I think.

I'm tiring of my upward mobility. But don't worry--my inability to change course mid-stream will get me to my Ph.D. eventually. I wonder what percentage of grad students get through simply because they can't be bothered with all the paperwork that would be involved with quitting?
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Knitting has fallen by the wayside. It usually does in the summer. I did finish something last night, but it's a gift so you'll have to wait for it. And I'm still knitting on the bus, working on a pair of socks for J. I like how they're coming out. I may make a similar pair for myself.

The primary reason for the slacking, besides my more generalized ennui, has been the Playstation.

J picked up a Playstation 1 off of ebay for 30$ a few weeks ago. He's played it more than me, but I've played a bit here and there. I've never had a video game playing thingie of any kind ever before in my life save computers, but even then the height and breadth of my gaming technology was the wonders of the Oregon Trail.

So, we've been playing a Harry Potter video game, and my terrible hand-eye coordination has instantly become apparent. This is how dismal a game-player I am: In a game designed for 8-year olds, I can't even make it to Hogwarts.

At least Jeremy has plenty of laughing-at-me fodder. Because I'm not just a bad game player, I'm a panicky, theatrically swearing, try-to-make-the-character-jump-by-heaving-the-controller-up-and-down bad game player.

So at least I'm funny.

That should be my epitaph.



6/7/04

An excellent vacation. Fair weather, everyone was in a good mood. Everyone behaved at the wedding, except for one screaming tantrum-throwing flower girl.

The best wedding moment? Watching my 9-ish and 6-ish aged cousins failing miserably at the Electric Slide but enjoying themselves all the same. They were usually just a beat or two behind the rest of the group, which made our section of the dance floor look like a scene from one of those swashbuckling movies when a storm hits the ship. People rocking one way and the other, more or less the same way but not entirely.

I spent the rest of the week absorbing New Englandy goodness. I went duckpin bowling (a mostly Northeastern phenomenon), and then was in such a bowling mood that I watched some candlepin bowling on TV. That's where I got my fill of working class Boston accents.

I had a grinder, which is really not the same thing as a sub. And I had a veggie burger at my family's favorite seafood place. And actually, a Seafood Sam's veggie burger is one of my favorites, too, despite not being their specialty at all. The secret? Cucumbers instead of pickles, and tartar sauce for my fries. Mmmmmmm.

I got to see my aunt--the one that was so ill a few months ago--she's doing a lot better. She's still got a ways to go, but she's at the point where things are slowly and surely improving.

Pictures will come soon. I came home yesterday evening, had a nice dinner, and crashed almost as soon as I got home.

Now, time to go see what damage has been done in the lab while I was away. Hopefully some forward motion has occured.



6/4/04

I can't wait until the youngest of my two sisters is old enough to appreciate MST3K (she's nearly 10 now. I figure another 2 or 3 years will be enough).

She's already got the ideal sense of humor for it--this wicked blend of dry and loopily absurd.

And she's already making hilarious jokes about tv shows in an MST3K Child sort of mode, if such a thing had ever existed. Quite a few steps above "that man is ugly!", the lowest rung on the media-jokes ladder.

A few nights ago, she put a terribly babyish show into the DVD player. It's the type of show one plays to encourage a cranky two year old to take a nap, complete with animal stunts that are very obviously fake to anyone over the age of five.

She's way, way smarter than to be entertained by that sort of thing.

And so, we mocked it into the ground. Not that it was a difficult one. There was a song about bubbles that described them as (I kid you not):

"Bouncing just like shiny babies,
Laughing in the sun."

Shiny babies. Good grief. The first time we saw it, the two of us looked at each other, heads cocked to one side.

"Did they just say that a bubble is like a shiny baby?" she asked.

"Um, I think so. A shiny baby laughing in the sun is like a bubble?" I replied. "That can't be right. Let's listen to it again.

And we did, but yeah, that's exactly what it said.

And so, "shiny baby" became our codeword for ensuing silliness.

When we went duckpin bowling and she missed the pins, I told her to bowl more like a shiny baby.

When she woke up yesterday morning, the first thing she told me was about her dream of metallic babies turning into bubbles.

We sang the song in silly voices, prancing around and giggling.

This is the stuff I miss, not being near them. Stupid little in jokes. It drives me nuts to be so far away most of the time.