The worst blogger ever

I've discovered, that I do so much other chatting via e-mail, telephone, journaling, whatever, all day long that I'm not a terribly consistent blogger, am I? Ah, well, it's the least of my faults, I assure you.


I saw the Sean Penn/Jude Law version of All the Kings Men the other day; one of my favorite books of all time. My father tells me the original movie is far superior, but I was impressed with this version. The novel has so much beautifully written internal dialogue that you forget what a really fabulous story it is. (Well, maybe you didn't forget.) I just remember I love it when Robert Penn Warren goes off on a tangent. That's what happens when poets write novels! Having seen this movie, and having recently read The Kite Runner, which I also loved and which was very well constructed have made me remember, "hey, I do that too." Except that lately, I don't. I have at least defined the crisis of being one of having lost the stories to an extent by focussing on product rather than process. To cure myself, I've been knitting.


That leads to the fact that my focussing on process is apparently not up to snuff. Fer instance, you'll remember I told you the sad, sad story of pulling out "A Cardigan for Arwen" about a gazillion times, only to frog the whole thing and start over? You remember? (I remember, believe me.) So, I'm happily knitting along up to the sleeve where I need to do some short rows. (Alright, it's time to admit that I've only been knitting since October of LAST YEAR (2006) and this sweater, and the Accordion in process for the terrorist, are my very first sweaters.) And I know that in order to do these short rows and not screw it up dramatically I'm going to have to have some peace and quiet. So, I've been waiting for that. In the meantime, I take a glance down at the lovely front, left side only to see, as I mentioned in a previous post, that the cable is uncrossed. (you can click on it to see the bigger picture)


What??? What's that? So I just forgot to cross that cable right there??? Are you kidding me? The SAME cross exists in the pattern two other times in that very same row!! I've provided a lovely arrow, for anyone who can't see that glaring 'I ain't going that way this time, dammit!' cable (like there's anyone out there who can't see it!) Sigh. So, I'm reading Knitting without Tears (I've always assumed she meant 'tears as in boo-hoo, but maybe she meant 'tears' as in, 'I am going to rip this knitting in half any second now!!') ANYWAY, EZ says she has taken a six stitch cable, dropped those puppies down to the error and picked them up again on dpn's and 'whoosh' re-knit them all the way up!

Now, I'm not saying I'm totally clueless as to what she's talking about because, also in process, is Kate Gilbert's Clapotis from years ago. (Since I'm not a knitwear designer, gettin' my yarn for free, it's in Noro Kureyon and not the originally specified but 'you spent what on a scarf/shawl??" wool.) See what I did to this hooligan?



See that lovely row of purl stitches glaring out there on the right side of the fabric??? Well that row used to go in about twelve more stitches, and having just read EZ the night before I cavalierly dropped everybody down 7 rows and pulled them back up again, sans purl row. I still have a few more to do, as you can see, but I can't work my head around what Elizabeth is trying to say, in regards to the cable. Is there anyone out there reading this blog who has knit 'A Cardigan for Arwen?' You know how the cable stitches are sometimes involved in one cable and sometimes, a different one?? You know what I'm talking about?? (Is there anyone out there, is probably a more salient question). You know how the ending and beginning of the row, the uncabled stitches, are sometimes two and sometimes four, because of this whole, 'I'm involved in this cable, no that one, no this one' shenanigans? Know what I mean? So, tell me, the best I can figure, I would have to drop the ENTIRE 20 stitch cable to fix that puppy. Right? Right? Am I right? 'Cause if that's so, I'm mailing it to the Yarn Harlot and let her fix the damn thing! Otherwise, .... still Amish, and wearing it JUST LIKE THIS AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME!



And yes, someday I'll have to knit another one, just to see if I can get it right. Here's something that, far as I know, doesn't have any errors yet, but it's still sitting around, waiting for me to care about color work, or dpn's or whatever I need to care about to sally forth. These are Eunny Jang's endpaper mitts. Vibrant arent' they??? heh heh heh.

What I'm doing at home

I've been working on Accordion by Leigh Spencer from the Fall 2003 issue of Knitty for the three year old, or as I like to call him, the terrorist. (I've probably been flagged now by the Department of Homeland Security, but whatever, knit along, boys, knit along). I knit the whole thing in one piece on a rather long circular, because I'm lazy.

As you can see, the left front side is finished up to where I'll grab the collar stitches and I'm currently working on the back. During my fit of laziness, however, I decided it would be better to modify the chest stripe so my particular terrorist has a bit of a Southwestern flair, (because Southwesterners do everything with a flair, which the rest of the world generally just considers poor taste.)

Then, after finishing the stripe I noticed that being lazy has simply not paid off at all. Check out the flip side of this cutie pie little sweater. Why, yes, there are eight gazillion yarn ends I have to weave in, and yes, the stranded loops are actual loops as the 4x4 rib pulls in like, well, you know, like ribbing. NOT TO WORRY! I'm absolutely positive that a gentle wash and blocking this puppy out will firm up and mildly felt those loops to the back. Really. I am. Except that, now I'm thinking, perhaps I should leave the stripe out of the sleeves and just go for a straight grey sleeve or the poor tyke will jam his fingers into a mass of loose yarn every time he tries to put a hand through a sleeve. I could move the stripe down, also, to where it's right on top of the maroon stripe, but that would probably look downright goofy. And I'm not sure it would solve the problem. I'm so confused. I guess I'll actually block the body before I decide. I could also, possibly, back it with fabric like those clever Norwegians do, but I'm not nearly as clever as they, so I'm shying away from that option.

The stripe, is supposed to be Southwestern in the following pattern:

Notice what the ribbing does to the pattern?

Doesn't look a thing like it does it?

You know, if I'd just keep my mouth shut about how much things don't come out the way I planned them, maybe it wouldn't be so damn obvious, eh?

Blaaah

My red blood cells have been smoking, apparently, as they aren't carrying any oxygen to my brain. This would not be a huge surprise, as I have been smoking for a long, long, time now (ewww. . . you'll make the wool smelly ... wool is washable, damn you, I've seen sheep standing in the rain with my very own eyes!) Wouldn't that be funny if the sheep figured out, once they got wet, that they could roll back and forth on their backs in the grass, thereby felting their coats, making themselves a truly weather impervious coating, and screwing all the knitters out of yarn at the same time? (yes, hilarious, wtf?, you see what happens when your brain is oxygen deprived?)

I haven't written in some time because of aforesaid blaaaah ... I was going to post a picture of the front left half of A Cardigan for Arwen, and then, when I actually looked at it I saw a meandering left side rope of the cable that was meant to be doing all sorts of crissing and crossing and, instead, like the little bull snake who got into my office the other day, was just languidly 's'-ing it's way right up the left hand margin of the cable pattern. Damned cables, you can't take your eyes off them for a second or they go galavanting off without a care in the world, leaving tracks all over your knitting. I pulled out about two repeats of the cable to try and pick up the error, re-knit it back to the starting point, looked again (perhaps I should have done this step sooner) and voila! started off on a wrong row and ... screwed again. This went on three or four times. Finally, I pulled the whole thing out and started from scratch. I'm about halfway up the left side and this morning I see that, overnight, while I was blissfully dreaming a third of my life away, the cable was unventing itself and crossing when it should have been crissing.

I have decided to pretend I'm Amish. The Amish, who really do walk their walk, and are probably the most accomplished fiber artists on the planet, intentionally put a little mistake in all of their quilts, because over there in Pennsylvania, 'only God makes something perfect'. So good on them, and good for me, because I've gotten that little imperfection in there so I'm not being all boastful and braggy (yes, I know that's not a word .. should be) and I'm assuming the appropriate amount of humility, and maybe I'll knit in some i-cord loops on the right cable so I can button over the mistake .......

Who, me? Missing the point? ..... it's possible .... anything's possible

Also, because my brain has been smoking (probably up all night drinking, too, that character really can't be trusted with a responsible position) I simply cannot remember to put my digital camera in my purse at night so I can bring it to work and photograph knitwear. (who, me, knitting at work! What are you implying?) This is pretty easy to understand considerng that every single evening of my life I walk in the front door and place my purse down on my desk, right next to my camera. Obviously, I'll need to hide the camera in the back of the refrigerator before I make the connection to put it in my purse (good grief, I used to be smart. I swear. I have friends from then .. you could ask them.)

Anti-Depressants

Well, went to the doc on Friday so he can check my blood and my thyroid. Last year I got rather severely anemic and was ordered to take a whole mess of iron to give me back my energy. For any of you that have never been forced to take iron pills I should tell you that, digestively, you might as well just swallow a railroad spike. You'll get just as much iron and it will probably cause you less intestenal upset.

So, a year later, I've managed to choke down most of the six months worth of hardware I was directed to take and yet, I still do not have the energy I should. I told the doc we needed to check both my blood and my thyroid again, as virtually all of the women in my family are possessed of thyroid's which, along about middle age, decide they've absolutely had enough of participating in running this rather complex organism and decide, instead, to go lounge about on a beach in Greece and suck down ouzo for the rest of their non-helpful, miserable lives.

The doc, a thoroughly nice, non-condescending, otherwise helpful person, proceeded to rail me with the fabulousness of anti-depressants. Now, lest Brooke Shields come over here and whoop up on me, let me just say that yes, I believe there is such a thing as clinical depression and yes, I believe anti-depressants are an appropriate option for people suffering from it. That said, not every middle aged, slightly overweight woman with not enough energy needs a freakin' happy pill! (oh, I'm sorry, was I shouting??? My apologies, don't know what came over me. Perhaps my thyroid left it's bathing suit on the bed and kicked in one last hurrah before departing forever!)

Here's an option, Doc. Maybe there are some people on this planet who are slightly more introspective and thoughtful and who are, consequently, a bit more, shall we say depressive than some other people. I believe you can just call us your writers, artists, poets, jazz/blues musicians, sculptors, photographers or maybe just plain old eccentrics. There was a time when people understood that we're not all exactly alike and that was okey dokey. Granted, we're not the most productive cogs in the corporate/capitalist machine and, by and large, we're perfectly okay with that. In our opinion (if I may speak for the collective) if you're living in the 21st century, globalized world, especially in 'W's' America, and you're not slightly depressed then, in our opinion, you're really not paying any attention at all. And that's o.k., Pollyanna, knock yourself out! Please, afford me (and all my mildly depressive writer friends) the same privilege, won't you?

And how about a little synthroid, while you're at it? (is the medical community working for the makers of anti-depressants, or is it just me?)

Eat what's in front of you

Florida, although rather a strange collection of unidentifiable and tremendously large HOUSE plants along the sides of the highway, was a delightful time. There were children eveywhere, who helped to divert the attention of my child from his usual full-time activity of taking every last bit of Mom's attention. I know some women who are absolutely naturals at having large hordes of kids around them and seem to be able to still operate like a fully functioning adult, despite the constant demands on their time and attention. I am not one of those women.

The ennui, however, was just supressed in favor of Bloody Marys on the beach, warm sun and salt water. When I returned home I had a dream that I was riding in a touristy/ferry boat kind of contraption, with enourmous windows, like a sight seeing bus. We were heading to England. Suddenly a tsunami sized wave came and tossed our ferry boat off at a 45 degree angle from our course. We were rolling, side to side, with water splashing up on opposite windows as we rolled. I assumed, quite calmly, that we were just sorting ourselves out, until I noticed the water was rising on both sides of the boat and, when it was about a foot high on the windows, the steward told us that we each needed to pick our own window; we'd need to kick it out with our feet! "Holy Crap!" I thought, "I'm going into the North Sea!" This is what you should expect if you sublimate angst.

My fabulous friend, Franklin, whom I've never met, nor even introduced myself to as a lurker on his blog, took the sad, wandering, undirected attitude that's been slathered over my brain like a candy coating, and smashed it against the rocks by pointing out that, 'you can only eat what's in front of you.' Something I know, but which I routinely forget whilst failing to live in the moment and rather thinking of the enormity of life and all my many projects.

Both of my novels are stewing at the moment, but I have at least picked up my knitting and have resumed Kate Gilbert's 'Cardigan for Arwen' from the Winter '06 Interweave Knits. k49, sl 2 sts onto cn, hold in back, k2, k2 from cn. Ahhhhh ... finally, something I can do!

(and for those of you knitters who've been living under a rock, or buried eyeball deep in your stash, the incomparable Eunny Jang has take the helm at IK and will be in charge beginning with the Fall '07 issue .... oh I can hardly wait!!)

Going to Florida!

(why, yes, I am blatantly ignoring the fact that I have not posted here for two years .. won't you join me?)

I need a vacation from my incredibly stressful life of hardly working (I do more before nine a.m. than I do the rest of the day) and tickling the three year old. Consequently, I'm on a plane tomorrow for a day of travel that begins at 11:15 and ends at 8:30. Considering that I'm toting the three year old along with me, that should do just mountains to relieve my stress, doncha think?

I wonder how the Department of Homeland Security feels about me putting 'whiskey sandals' in the 'place your shoe's here' bin.

And the thought that will go with me on this holiday is, "do I really even want to continue being a writer? Should I actually submit something before I quit altogether? Should I get a safe deposit box and just start throwing things in there, like J.D. Salinger?"

Why the ennui? It's a bit of the whole publishing-business-blues, garnered from surfing (and not while wearing my whiskey sandals!) I'll have to 'dote on it', as my old college buddies from Texas used to say, while I'm lying on the beach, sucking on my shoes.

Can I make this private??

Apparently not. I would like to blog to only my close personal friends. Yeah, yeah. That's the ticket. So if you're not in the group of five (maybe four by now, who can keep up?) then keep moving, jocko, hit the road, jack, make like a banana and peel, buster!! There. That ought to take care of the riff-raff (no, no, wait!!! Close personal friends, I don't mean you!!) COME BACK RIFF-RAFF! Ahh, close call. I opened this blog up because I thought it would be an easy way to post pictures of the terrorist, otherwise known as my almost two year old kid. Now I've got some software named hello downloaded onto my computer and I have to figure out YET ANOTHER stinking computer program. I'm tired of figuring out computer programs. I want the computer to behave like it does in Alien. Computer, take care of my business, will ya. Let me know when we reach earth.