On denim yarn, blue fingers, and impending storms

I've been working on the sides and strap for the little cable-trim Tasha bag for the last week or so. Blah. I'm using Rowan Denim (colour #229: Memphis) which I noted previously that I found on sale. Darn good thing, too. The Rowan website describes this as a "hard wearing yarn". Indeed. This stuff is brutal on the hands, and I'd hate to feel like I paid extra for my pain. I have to knit a bit tight to keep the 2 x 2 rib looking OK. My hands and fingers are sore after a couple hours and now have a distinct blueish tint to them. I can't imagine I'll be using this yarn on anything resembling a regular basis, but I guess now I know.

It doesn't help that I fought with the pattern for several hours the other day. I think there's something wrong with the strap instructions. It says to do the rib for 9.5", ending with a WS. Then there are instructions for 2 rows (1 increase, 1 in pattern). Then it says to start the cable pattern for the strap, of which Row 1 is a WS row. What is wrong with the math here? It can't just be me, right? And it doesn't look good. At any rate, after ripping it out a couple times for various reasons, I finally decided to start the cable pattern on Row 2, leaving row 1 out for the first rep, and now it looks OK. Knit stitches in the 2x2 rib flow into knit stitches in the cable.

On the storm front, I got the draft of my paper back from both readers this week. The second reader is an excellent writer himself, and a good editor. This means that I trust him when he says I need to rework some things for stylistic reasons. He had a hard time following my examples and how they fit in the text of the paper. As a result, I think it bogged down the reading process to the point that he had a hard time figuring out what my major findings were (and there are major findings, really!) So, I have some work to do. I've been ignoring it for two days now, since picking up the drafts... I'll have to deal with it tomorrow night for sure, since I need to get the final draft back in early this week. I just have to hang tough and slug through it, it'll be done soon, for better or worse.

We have a family function to attend tomorrow afternoon (in which we will be well-fed, so who am I to refuse?), and then it' to work for me. I wish I could do it in little bits over several days, but I don't seem to work well that way. It's like being nibbled to death, voluntarily dragging out the pain. So tonight I'll go look over both sets of comments and screw my brain on for tomorrow evening, so that I can get through a good chunk of it while my husband revels in the return of Family Guy to television. I understand the appeal of the show, I just can't seem to sit through an entire episode. Ah well.

We did make time to go and see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy today. Good fun, even if they didn't show the Serenity trailer before it, as was the rumour. I went in with few expectations, which I always think is the best way to go into a movie based on a beloved book. As a result, I left happy, with the campy "So long, and thanks for all the fish" song ringing in my ears. I guess it's Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith next, sigh... now there's a movie that I can't avoid expectations about. I expect it to be unnecessarily sappy to the point that I'll be wincing in pain, and yet I know I'll be there to see it, however agonizing it is. I have "completeness" issues. On a related note, the Best Blog In Recent Memory award goes to this site. It's good to know that creativity isn't dead.

Next week is exam week. No, I don't have to take any exams, but I have to help administer three of them, and give a 3 hour help lab before one of them, winding up the week with at least a full day of grading. Mix in a few evening rehearsals and the draft re-write for the first couple days of the week, and we have the makings of a storm.

Well, I did ask for it.