Summer Daze (the longer, but no less non-sequitur version)

I am quite possibly the most infuriating person I know.

That fucking tunic that I was going to finish before I left for Pennsic, the one that has been on the go 3 years? Yeah, not finished.

That fucking article review that I was going to finish before I finished the fucking tunic before leaving for Pennsic? Went with me to PA, where I carried it around Pennsic with me, slept with it under my pillow, worked on it here and there and finally sent it off a day before packing up my tent.

That large wool sweater that I need to NOT be knitting during a heatwave? Yeah, still knitting it. It has a sleeve now.



To top off the crazy, I started another sweater! In the middle of summer.


Another Liesl cardigan, this time hopefully better-fitting for me, and definitely in a harder-wearing yarn.

Taking a look at that top picture of the "Hey, Lady!" sweater again, I think I've finally figured out my fitting problem with several of my handknits. No, my arms are not quite that freakishly short, although they are pretty short. The problem lies in the back width. I always make the pattern for my bust size, and my sweaters always come out huge - the neck yokes end up going halfway down my upper arm, with the "sleeve" portions starting closer to my elbow than my shoulder.

Same thing happened on the Liesl de no Manos (which has now officially been gifted to my big sister Kath, yay! And it looks fantastic on her.) Same thing on the Shimmer shrug, which resulted in many shortenings of the sleeves.

Problem is, while I am busty* and extra-large-sized because of considerable extra weight, I am a petite build. That means my shoulder-to-shoulder width is way smaller than what patterns for my bust size are designed for. I need to be making smaller back sizes, and fixing the bust size issue with short rows or extra width on the front or something. There are ways. And I will learn them. I will learn how to make them work for me, and bend them to my will.

Because what I really need to do is learn about clothes sizing and proper fitting techniques, rather than work on Big D, right?

Yeah, like I said: infuriating. But very, very me.

*According to the first Real Bra I have ever purchased, after having had my first ever Real Bra Fitting: I am a (UK)40H, which is also a (US)40K. Yes. Fucking K-cup. Baby Jebus could fit inside my bra cup and take a nap.

Summer Daze (the non-sequitur, abbreviated version)

This blog will resume shortly.

Note to self: Knitting a large wool sweater during a July heatwave is stupid. Stop it.

Note to self 2: I will finish this fucking tunic before leaving for Pennsic on Friday. It's only been on the go for three years, and I would like to wear it next week.

Note to self 3: I will write up and email this fucking article review before I finish that fucking tunic before leaving for Pennsic on Friday.

Note to self 4: A day when I have to clean up cat barf twice before noon is just taking the piss.

How is your summer going?

Into the fire

It's hot.

It's really, really, fucking hot.

We are having a heat wave. In May. In Toronto. 30+ degrees today, not counting the humidity.

Did I mention that our AC hasn't worked for over a year? Yeah. Probably need to get on that.

The cat is desperate for cuddles, and I can't stand to have him on me. His fur sticks and I sweat more. Poor thing. Instead, he and I sit at the kitchen table under the ceiling fan, trying to stay cool.

I'm teaching this term, hence the relative silence. We're half way through the first 6-week summer term, only 6 more lectures and a final exam to go. Um, whee? Even when you've taught the course before, it's always more work than you think it will be.

What, then, is a sweaty, cranky fibre fanatic to do? Knit, of course. The "Hey, Lady!" sweater is very slowly gaining sleeves. Well, a sleeve, so far. As the average daytime temperature rises, progress has slowed on anything semi-heavy and made of wool. Pictures once the first sleeve is on.

In the meantime, I'm making a hat.



I was further along last week, but I decided I didn't like the way the hem folded up (the purl row stuck out rather than under), so I ripped back down to that point, added a couple more rows, and re-folded it. I'm at the pleat row now for the second time, and much happier with how the hem looks..

The best part of this hat, and the thing I'm most excited about, inexplicably, is that is calls for a ribbon band. This of course meant that I was required to make a trip to Mokuba on Queen Street, which is easily the best place to go for ribbons and trim in the city, if not the province or the country. It's also likely one of the few places where I could drop $60 on 4.5 meters of ribbon and be thanking them when I leave. But it's that good, it really is. Not being a great fan of sewing, I have little reason to go ribbon or trim shopping, so if I'm going to do it, I'm going to splurge. Considering that they have spools of stuff that go for well over $150/metre, I like to think I did pretty well.

So, what does $60 of trim get you at Mokuba?


2 metres of 50mm golden-yellow grosgrain ribbon, and 2.5 metres of complimentary floral tape

The floral tape will be tacked to the grosgrain in a wave.

Finally, I've been feeling a bit bereft this past week, since my favourite show has wrapped up. No, not Lost. Give me some credit, please. I mean Ashes to Ashes. Not quite sure what I'm going to do without my weekly dose of Guv Luv. Keep an eye out for the next good thing, I guess, and in the meantime, watch A2A and Life on Mars from the beginning again.





I'm going to be deadly serious here for a second. Gene Hunt: Best. Character. Ever. Accept no imitations.

Last night: Jonathon Coulton, Paul & Storm, in concert. Always a wonderful show, wouldn't have missed it for anything. So we didn't.

Better living through technology

At last, Mother Nature, that Tease, has decided to let us have a real taste of spring. I wore sandals outside yesterday for the first time this year. "They" say it's going to be nice for at least the next several days, but I don't trust her, Mother Nature, that Bastion of Bitchiness. She's pulled this stuff before.

In the meantime, knitters work to clothe ourselves and our loved ones for all contingencies. For example:

The finished "Liesl de no Manos" cardigan:


Made with almost exactly three skeins of Malabrigo worsted, in the "Plena" colourway

I suspect I'll be making a couple more of these, as gifts. It was a relatively quick knit, too. But first, another one for myself, this time a concert-appropriate black version for over the sleeveless black concert dress. Here's a preview:


Fingering-weight spun wool-soysilk, to be knit together with a worsted-weight black to make another Liesl cardigan

I'll start a gauge swatch shortly.

Finally, the continuing progress on the "Hey, Lady!" Sweater:


No sleeves yet, but it's almost long enough.

I got far more done on it than I realized while visiting PA a couple weeks ago. Since I have such a short torso, the body is much closer to being done than I expected. I tried it on, and it's looking like a couple more inches of the lace pattern are all that's needed. Then it's the final couple inches of garter stitch, then sleeves.

In other news, I'd like to officially welcome the newest member of our household:

Oh no, I didn't...


Oh yes, I did.

An antique Canadian Production Wheel, bought from a lady in my concert band who is moving and downsizing. Purchased by her father in 1967 from an antique shop in Baie-St.-Paul, Quebec, it was kept in her parents' cottage and home, and following that, her home, as a decorative piece. They took great care of it, so although it hasn't been used as a working wheel in well over 40 years, it only requires a disassembly for a good cleaning and oiling, replacing the dowels that are missing on the wheel supports, and putting on a drive band.

Bandfriend Derryl and I had talked about this wheel last year. She mentioned she was planning to sell a bunch of things, including a wheel that had been in her family for decades. She wondered if I knew people who might be interested. She didn't even know if it worked, and she wanted to have it appraised, so I told her to let me know when she had an amount and I would put out feelers and drop by to see it. I promptly forgot about it until she mentioned a couple weeks ago at rehearsal that the appraiser had suggested CDN $200, if I was still interested, otherwise it would be put up for auction. Some phone calls and 24 hours later, my friend Jean and I (she's a wheel spinner who knows what to look for, so I was hoping she could come with me) went to look at it. Within five minutes, we knew the only real question was, "Will it fit into my car, or does it need to go in Jean's truck?"

It fit in the car. I called DH on the way home to warn him. He was... understandably surprised. Heck, I was surprised.

There's no maker's mark on it. It has been refinished in its past, and the mark was likely a simple stencil that was stripped off. However, thanks to the magic of the innernets and some wonderful research being done on these wheels by an online group, it has been tentatively identified as a Michel Cadorette wheel made in St Hyacinthe, Quebec, some time before 1929 (when Michel died), and likely before 1922, when his son Phillias took over the business. A woman in the online group has an exact twin of this wheel, with identical wood turnings, maker mark intact.

And so here it sits, in my kitchen. I'm pleased, if a little bewildered. Seriously, I wasn't planning to buy a wheel any time soon. I'm very happy with my large collection of drop spindles. I use them regularly and productively. Being of the belief that to really understand how things work, you have to start at the beginning, I've often considered a wheel something of an unnecessary technological luxury in my own "process" spinning. But there was no way I could walk away from this one. From her. She's a proud old lady who has stood the test of time, and she wants to be used, put back into production.

Also, she needs a name. Preferably something French Canadian - suggestions welcome. I'll learn to pronounce it properly, I promise.

The week after I brought her home, I showed pictures of the new girl to Lady S while we were chatting at the beginning of our weekly meeting - I figure it's just as well your supervisor knows exactly why you're distracted from work, no sense hiding it. Later in the meeting, my computer began to act up. I was charting something for Lady S and trying to print it, while Excel (that bastard) was crashing, taking Word (that farging arsebadger) with it, and with that the rest of the system. I cussed firmly and force-rebooted the whole dratted laptop.

"Just in case you ever wonder why I bought a spinning wheel," I said over my shoulder, "or why I have a loom, or a tendency to use two sticks to knot string into fabric a lot, this is why."

Lady S raised an eyebrow in question.

"In 40 years, this thing" - I waved jauntily with my middle finger toward the rebooting laptop - "will be junk. It won't work. I depend on it daily. I rarely leave home without it, and in a few years, it'll be a paperweight. But I'd put hard money down right now that in 40, or even 60 years, that 80-year-old spinning wheel in my kitchen will still be working."

She smiled. And she did not take me up on the bet.

When the going gets tough, the tough make stuff.

Some times are meant more for creating, it seems, and others for talking about and documenting the creating. The last few months have been more of the former, less of the latter. I notice that the last couple entries are about losses. January and February were pretty arse-tastic in that respect, I suppose. My brain's response has been to prod me to make things - things to keep me and others warm and wrap us all up in comfort.

Makes sense to me.

I finished those mittens that I was working on in December, according to my notes, on January 10, and they have seen wear almost every day since. The pattern was for fingerless with the option of making them into mittens. I decided to make mittens with removable tops:

Mostly-Fingerless Malabrigo Flip-top Mittens

We also have another finished baby blanket for a friend. Little V, daughter of Vanessa, is nearly a year old now. This blanket has been on the go since before her arrival was imminent:

Crochet really can fix anything, it's true. Consistent sized squares? Bah, that's for wimps.

Truly a group project in every way, Lydia, Manami, Sarah, Chris, Tanya and myself worked out a layout, went shopping together in December 2008, divided up the yarn squares and got creative with picking our favourite stitch patterns for the squares. Several of us even took up hooks over the last couple months and learned (or re-learned, as the case may be) to crochet so that über-crocheter Liisa wasn't stuck putting it all together on her own. It was finally delivered last weekend, and pics of a happy Little V with her blankie landed in our inboxes earlier this week. Hurrah for finishing before she's ready to go to grad school herself, I say!

And then there are the cardigans. I recently decided there is an appalling lack of cardigans in my wardrobe. Enter the Liesl cardigan. I originally started it as the "Liesl de Manos", in a lovely light colour of Manos del Uruguay silk blend. Unfortunately, I needed size 15 needles to even come close to gauge, and I didn't like how it was looking, so it was frogged a few rounds into the yoke increases. I re-started using Malabrigo worsted, and redubbed it (in intentionally bad Spanish) the "Liesl de no Manos":

The Liesl of Not Manos, in Malabrigo worsted (Plena colourway), ready for some sleeves.

The left sleeve is done now, and I'm working on the right one. The back will be as long as the remaining wool allows.

It's going so well, and so quickly, that I've decided to make a second one, this time as a "concert black" cardigan for when I don't want to sweat my butt off under stage lights wearing the Shimmer shrug for band concerts. I love that shrug, it was a true learning experience. But it has its problems, not the least of which: it's heavy. Really freaking heavy. And despite all the re-engineering of the sleeves, they are still a little longer than I'm totally comfortable with when playing the horn. I really need a short-sleeve concert sweater.

Not to make it too easy, because what's the fun in that, I'm planning to spin some lightweight singles to knit together with the plain black yarn to give it a little shine. I found this marvelous roving last month:

Wool and Soysilk, Louet "Karaoke Black Tiger" roving

Spinning is underway. I'll need a good 800 yards of it at least, so it won't be an instant gratification kind of thing, but I'll have enough by the time I finish the "Liesl de no Manos" to be able to start knitting, and I'll continue to spin as-needed.

Finally, in a fit of crazy, I started a second cardigan. This one is a bigger project, definitely not for instant gratification. It's also intended to be another on-stage-appropriate cardigan for over the sleeveless black concert dress. I'm making a February Lady Sweater, or what I have dubbed my "February 'Hey Lady!' Sweater":

The neverending garter-stitch yoke increases on the "February 'Hey, Lady!' Sweater." Yarn is Cascade 200 wool.

I can't wait to separate off the sleeves so that it no longer takes me 15 minutes to knit a single row. The never-ending garter stitch is killing me here, I'm looking forward to the lace pattern. My friend Jean, who is a glass bead maker, offered to make me some buttons for this, because she is made of awesome. I can't wait - this sweater definitely needs special buttons, and what she has in mind sounds perfect.

When the Zombie Apocalypse comes, my friends and I will be ready. We'll have plenty of warm blankets, we'll be wearing sweaters, and we'll be kicking butt and taking names.

Nine+Taylers+Make+A+Manne

The world lost a Teacher yesterday. A dear and unique man, with a most infectious laugh. A stop by his office very often led to a discussion about something else once business was taken care of. Maybe Celtic languages. Or typefaces. Or computers. Or a story about the department in the 70s. Or why he had a dried chunk of dirt wrapped in plastic in his desk (it was a peat brick from Scotland, which of course led to another conversation). Or how his latest cooking class was going. Or books.

Gems of conversations, each one held dear.

He was kindness, calm, generosity and philosophical wisdom all rolled together with a twinkle in his eye, a smile, and a bottle of Diet Coke in his hand. He is the reason I didn't give up on one particularly bad day. The books he passed on to me when he retired are cherished and regularly put to good use.

He taught me an enormous amount about teaching.

Once, during a discussion about bell towers and carillons (a topic arrived at by a perfectly logical course of discussion that I couldn't replicate if I tried), he recommended a particular book. Today I can't get it out of my head.

To my friend and mentor:

"The voice of the Bells of Fenchurch St. Paul: Gaude, Gaudy, Domini in laude. Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth. John Cole made me, John Presbyter paid me, John Evangelist aid me. From Jericho to John A-Groate there is no bell can better my note. Jubilate Deo. Nunc Dimittis, Domine. Abbot Thomas set me here and bade me ring both loud and clear. Paul is my name, honour that same.

Gaude, Sabaoth, John, Jericho, Jubilee, Dimity, Batty Thomas and Tailor Paul.

Nine Tailors Make a Man."

- Dorothy L. Sayers, The Nine Tailors

Many, many people will miss you dearly, Hank.

I will miss you dearly.

Toll the bell nine times. The world has lost a Teacher.

*sigh*

We lost Tiger on Wednesday evening. It took us by surprise, but was mercifully quick, and we were with him, at home. In retrospect, it's surprising he lasted as long as he did, even though that very day we were still holding out hope that he'd rebound and pull through like he did last month. But really, he was nearly 17, and he had been through too much. It was his time.

Dammit.

DH and I are melancholy on and off. We're grateful for the good long time we had with him. He had a wonderful life, and he was a joy to us every day of it. Sweet, curious, gentle, affectionate, persistently yet kindly demanding and without a cranky thought in his fuzzy little brain. We knew it was coming, but I don't think you can really be ready to lose one of your guys.

I'm mostly fine until I try to find a couple pictures to post, and I start to go through my archive. There are a lot, thankfully. He was with us since spring 1996, when he was three years old. I even found some short MPEG movies, but I don't think I'm ready to share those yet. Later.


ca. 2004, age 11, in the old apartment


late 2008, and very comfy thank you

Hug your fuzzy ones. Give them a treat and a skritch and a belly rub if they are so inclined. Feel the love returned back tenfold.

Not entirely unlike The Exorcist. Also, mittens.

I started a pair of fingerless mittens using the skein of yummy soft Malabrigo chunky. It's an almost instant gratification project. I'm using this pattern. (note: you have to have a Ravelry account to see it). The left mitt is almost done, see?


I was too lazy to pull out the swift and ball winder for a single skein last night, so I wound the pull ball on the nostepinne.*

In other news, we've cleaned up cat barf five times today between two cats. Tiger is slowly recovering from a serious illness and occasionally, much like a scene from The Exorcist, has trouble keeping his food down - this was one of those days. Both of them are getting over a persistent cold, the main symptom of which has been one or the other sneezing on us at every opportunity. To make today even better, they're both working on hairballs. To top it off, Ford got into my glass of milk this evening with predictable results.

The onslaught seems to have abated for now, thank goodness. Tiger is resting comfortably out front on his chair, the poor thing. Ford has decided to take out his frustrations on a piece of scrap paper, and is shredding it into little bits as I type. And he's still eyeing my glass of milk, because "cause" and "effect" mean nothing to him when there's milk involved. And also, he's hungry. Can't imagine why.

That's pretty much it, here. Mittens and cat barf. I think I need a vacation from my vacation.


*A fancy name for a very useful stick.

It's sentimental, I know

A simple thought for the season:



I quite like the songs, too.

*tap* *tap* Is this thing still on?

Dum, de dum, de... Oh crap! I have a blog!

Things have been a little crazy the last few months. Autumn is over. Solstice was Monday. I am tired. I'm also mostly on vacation. When I declared myself to be on vacation yesterday afternoon, I felt guilty about it for exactly 3.4 seconds. Then I remembered what I've been doing for the last four months (longer, really, since I was also teaching in the summer and last Jan-May).

From September to now, I have:
- Taught a class of 140 students, with 2 TAs. Finals still need to be graded, but I'm working through that. The first part-time job.
- Finished and submitted the written version of my Big D proposal, 70+ pages. The other part-time job.
- Defended that proposal orally, in a 1 hour presentation to the faculty and graduate students of my department. I am now *officially* ABD (All But Dissertation).
- Given two conference presentations, on different topics, within 2 weeks of each other in October.
- Done the final re-read on a joint paper so that it could finally be re-submitted.
- Tried, with medium success, to attend my weekly band rehearsals, occasional quintet rehearsals, and SCA meetings.
- Helped out with two full-day SCA events in September, and played 4 or 5 concerts, between the band and quintet.
- Helped to nurse a very sick kitty (Tiger) this past month. We almost lost him, but he's doing much better now.
- Not fallen apart, mentally or physically. Mostly mentally.

That last one is huge. I can't tell express how huge. A year ago I was in complete shut down. I still have *days*. I still don't like getting out of bed most of the time. But I can, and I do, and that's what counts. I still drop balls (see that bit about the final exams still needing to be graded!), but I usually catch them on the first bounce.

Of course, there has been knitting and otherwise playing with string. The double-knit hat from hell is has been finished since September, and even now it's almost too warm to wear. It's a hat for the coldest of the cold sub-zero plus windchill days:


My model prefers to retain his anonymity

I also just finished this scarf, probably my longest-term WIP ever, started on July 4, 2001. I hadn't bought my own set of knitting needles at that point, and started it on a pair of Gram's old 1950's metal needles (pink). I'm not fond of knitting on metal, and the combination of yarns was extra frustrating (mohair and rayon). I would do an inch or two and then put it up for a year. Long ago, I declared it would be done when I ran out of one or the other yarn. I finally, blessedly ran out of rayon Monday night! I present the lace scarf, final length just over 7 feet (before blocking):


Lace scarf from Knitting for Dummies, started July 4, 2001, finished December 24, 2009.

And then there was this little guy, made not quite in time for Remembrance Day.


Pattern available from Laura Chou, Cosmic Pluto, and please donate to the Royal Canadian Legion Poppy Fund

There has also been yarn shopping therapy, oh yes. I have plans for all of these...


Top to bottom: malabrigo chunky, some worsted-weight merino-silk blend, and DK alpaca.

There has also been spindle-shopping therapy. First, the good deals:


Inexpensive beginner pine spindle bought, along with four of its siblings, at Pennsic from Baron Tancred of Tancred's Tangled Wood (no website). Boat-anchor spindle by Roger Hawins (Peterborough, ON), bought for a holy-crap-whattadeal price at Gemini Fibres.

And then the other very good deal, but not due to the price:


A Forrester supported spindle with yellowheart whorl and birch shaft, and a paduak bowl, bought at Gemini Fibres in Mt Albert, ON.

I was torn between this bowl and a purpleheart one that had a small hole in the corner to hold the spindle, but the yellow whorl and orange bowl are beautiful together in a uniquely warm way. The fibre is this cochineal-tin dyed roving that I bought at Pennsic in 2008. Now I just need to learn to use a supported spindle properly!

In eight minutes it will be Christmas Day. Nothing special planned, we prefer no-stress holidays. We'll have the usual lunch at the in-laws, perhaps a board game or three, some knitting, and possibly our traditional trip to whichever local Starbucks has the honour of being open so that their employees don't feel like they're there for nothing. Overall, it's going to be a good day, that much I know.

Five minutes. G'night.

A Magpie in Autumn

Aaaah! *flail*

Elisem is having a sale again. And people, the prices are getting darned good.

So much for my self-imposed moratorium on buying jewelry and other shiny things. I've already bought this pendant

And there are tektites, meteorite beads and dinosaur bone beads. Yes, that's right, meteorites and dinosaur bone beads.

Go, go, go. We'll talk when you get back.

If it were E.T. phoning home, I'd be more OK with it

I press a button near my ear. There's a little *bleep*, and a digital female voice says, "Say command."

"Call home," I reply.

"Did you say, 'Call home?' "

"Yes."

----------------------------------------------------------------

The province is introducing a law at the end of the month prohibiting the use of hand-held devices while driving. Cell phones. MP3 players. As of the end of the month, you have to be able to operate them hands-free if you're behind the wheel.

If only they could prohibit pedestrians from using the same distracting hand-held devices while crossing the street, we'd be all set. I had two separate potential my-fault-accidents walk out in front of me — without looking, against their signals and into the middle of downtown traffic — while talking on their phones this Friday afternoon. But I digress.

I get it, I really do, and I fully support the law. I don't use my cell phone in the car that much, but I'm certainly guilty of taking and making calls once in a while while driving, and it's a convenience that I'm not willing to give up. What that means, though, is that I'm being dragged kicking and screaming into a little more technology in my daily life than I am completely comfortable with.

I'm of that in-between generation. The internet started to become more widely used while I was an undergraduate in the early 90s, but the web didn't come about for several years after that. I was an early, if slightly reluctant, internet user, but it quickly became integral to how I communicated with friends. I could telnet into a MUSH and talk with them in real-time when I was on the other side of the ocean. Email was a necessity. When the WWW came in, I was in my early 20s, and I acclimated just fine. These days, I check my email compulsively and usually have my laptop nearby. I'm a Mac girl, through and through.

It took me longer to get a cell phone than an ISP. It seemed... too much connectivity. I finally broke down in 1998 after a car accident in Western PA, and we realized how much issue it would have been had we not had family right there with us to help out. Only a handful of people have the number, and to this day, my cell plan is the cheapest one I can get that includes voicemail. I do not have an IPhone or a Blackberry, it's just a basic cell phone. It has a camera, that's kind of cool, but whatever. I do not have data or text messaging. Honestly, I have three email addresses and I check them 50 bazillion times a day. I'm not hard to reach. I have to draw the line somewhere.

Which brings us to today, me sitting in a cafe with a bizarre-looking earpiece sticking out of my ear. I figured I'd try this hands-free cellphone thingy out when it's not critical, so we set it up and I went out to do some errands on a Sunday afternoon. I'll admit, the voice-dialing thing is neat. I knew the phone had the feature, I just never used it.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I was heading out the door, and realized that I look like one of those people that annoy the living shit out of me - earpiece sticking out of their ear, you never know when they might stop talking to you to take a phone call that you didn't hear coming. They talk loudly, and apparently to themselves, in the coffee shop or in the line instead of ordering or paying. I'm reminded of one of those stories where everyone is plugged into their technology all the time and it takes over their minds. I sighed.

"I look ridiculous."

DH stuck his head around the corner.

"Hey, just pretend you're like Uhura. 'Captain, you have a call...' "

I grinned. You know, I hadn't thought of it that way.

"Captain, Priority One message for you from Starfleet," I said in my best phone-professional voice.

"There you go!"

Sometimes, he really knows what to say to make me feel better. If Uhura can have that thing sticking out of her ear and still be awesome, I'm good, right?

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Did you say, 'Call home?' "

"Yes."

The line begins to ring on the other end, and my husband answers the phone.

"Starbase 5-8-0-0 here."

"Hi, honey."

"You broke the ship again, didn't you?"

I break into peals of laugher. I love that man.

[Insert witty title here]

I am beat. Spent. Wiped.

Also, I am in Edmonton at the moment.

These two things seem to be related.

The first conference talk of the month, and I did not make an ass of myself. In my world, that is an unqualified success. (ETA *)

The last month has been a frenzy of preparing lectures, doing revisions, writing conferences papers (one to go, in two weeks), helping to run events, band concerts, wrangling sick cats, battling moths and sticking a thermometer in the mouth of a sick husband. There have been occasional moments here and there of knitting, dyeing and weaving, but they have been few and very far between. My schedule is so screwed up, I'm not sure I could immediately recognize my husband when he's awake.

We pulled out Audrey the Indigo Vat last week to get her going again for our annual early October dye day. She wasn't quite at full speed for the day last Saturday, but I've heard that she's going gangbusters now. She's still hanging out at friend Helena's house, in the shed, on her heating pad, since I was preparing for Edmonton this week and didn't have a chance to go pick up and wrangle back home a big Rubbermaid bin containing a very stinky4-gallon jar of 18-month old fermented urine. It's good to have friends who understand "BYOP", and do it without question.

Also, I finished the neverending double-knit not-a-toque. It's big and warm and comfy.

A real update, with pictures and everything, perhaps when I get home tomorrow. After I commune a bit with my bed, cats and husband, not necessarily in that order.

* Well, Would you look at that. Huh. I guess it went better than I thought.

Progress With Work begets Playing With String

Ah, September. I love September. The weather is cooler, but not too cool. I don't need a jacket yet, but I don't want to lay around all day under a fan and sweat. Summer really is my least productive time of year. I turn into a sweaty, useless lump. This is not helped by our air conditioner being dead - not a huge deal, really, expect for that one week. But still. Hot and sticky = cranky me.

My Big D proposal draft was turned in on August 15. On August 20, I received the following email from CM1. I thought it was worth posting here verbatim, because it is both hilarious (to me) and touching:

I raced through the thesis proposal these last two days because I won't be back again for a couple of weeks. It sounds good to me. It is repetitive and method-obsessed but readable and as sensible (surely) as anything else in the literature on register. All my comments in the attached pages are editorial, not substantive. I will have to study your results more closely eventually but for now the document seems to me to be clearly acceptable as the basis for a thesis proposal. No problem. (Organizing it in PowerPoint will undoubtedly make it more svelte.) I am well pleased. And happy, of course, to see you emerge from a long battle in such good shape. Nice going.

In person, he also told me that he had wanted to check before he left that it was "sane" (it was, which made him happy), and that he was pleased that I was once again "as comprehensible as you've ever been."

I thanked him, and told him it was possibly the first time I'd ever received an email using the word "svelte." To that end, I believe CM1 has now earned himself an official Blog Name. He is henceforth Sir C for his amazing ability to interweave Compliments and Constructive Criticism in the most Concise and Creative ways. Also, this is the first time I've felt complimented by someone telling me I was Comprehensible.

A little back story: Sir C is very well aware of my battle with depression over the last several years, and has been unwavering in his support for me to talk about it openly, admit and come to terms with it, and never consider it something shameful or to be hidden. This attitude is something I appreciate more than I can say, especially coming from a field like academia, where it seems every grad student goes through a bout of depression at some point, and there is still a certain amount of stigma attached to "taking some time off" for that reason. Sir C has also, in the nine years over which he's read my work, never been particularly comfortable with my writing style, something we've discussed many times. "Method-obsessed" is absolutely, 100% true, and everyone who knows me knows that I am, indeed method-obsessed. Part of my purpose in the Big D is to improve on methodology. His comment is his way of saying he recognizes that and it's fine, but I also need to work a little more substantive theory in there yet before it's done - and he is correct, as always.

In the meantime, the fall term starts tomorrow, and I start teaching again on Thursday. It's the same class I taught in January, so at least my prep time is minimal. I expect to hear from Lady S (that's S for Supervisor, since we're revisiting the blog-name thing) and CM2 (Committee Member 2, as yet blog-nameless) soon, and then maybe this thing can move forward. I've taken the last couple weeks off, except for a few rounds of The Administrative Paperwork Dance, which is a neverending production in academia.

But! The important things! There has been progress on things which involve Playing With String!


One blanket, star and moon charted by me, the overall design and layout cribbed from another pattern.

And a picture of the back, because I'm weird that way:


It will not be backed at the recipient's request.

Hopefully I'll be able to catch up with and hand it off to its intended this week. With that finished, I returned to the Double-Knit Not-A-Toque of Doom:


DH thinks it should be high enough now, so I'll start decreasing in a couple more rows.

No major screw-ups for the last couple inches. Crap, I just jinxed it, didn't I?

Finally, I have a warped loom, and I'm not afraid to use it:


A full-width dummy warp for the colour samples for the Coppergate textile (wabengewebe pattern) yardage, which I'll be weaving possibly eternity.

I've been wandering around in a daze today, convinced that there's something I'm supposed to be doing that I'm forgetting. I've come to the realization that, in fact, I'm extremely well aware of everything that I have to get done this week - including several things for tomorrow - and the fact that I don't feel like doing them is what's causing me to be such a space cadet.

And on that note, I'm going to soak in the tub.

What summer?

It's nearly the middle of August, and I'm not even sure I remember July. I just finished teaching a summer-term course - an entire 12-week semester course crammed into 6 weeks. This means I write and delivered two two-hour lectures per week for six weeks, as well as preparing two hours of tutorial material per week. It's as crazy for the instructors as for the students. As one of my friends said, "If teaching summer courses were easy, the profs would be doing it, not the grad students."

A friend and I did manage to sneak down to Pennsic for the August long weekend, though, spend three days there and coming home in time for me to teach class on Tuesday evening. It was exhausting, but worth every minute of the drive. Glad we went, and glad we didn't stay longer (although, I would have loved to have been there Wednesday night, but it was not an option). We were ready to leave Tuesday morning, though.

My friend got in a couple days' worth of glass bead classes (i.e. "playing with fire"), and I got in a couple days' worth of warping my loom (i.e. "playing with string") at my favourite Pennsic hangout, Seelie's picnic table in the back of her shop, with other weavers. Aside from that, all I did was some shopping, a lot of walking, and a little visiting with the parents. Picked up a nice umbrella (which I can't find at the moment, how does that happen?), a solid cloak clasp, another good hair pin (which I'm wearing), some warp yarn (pale yellow Cottolin, for a specific project), and year's supply of honey. I did not buy fabric I don't need, or an alpaca or llama fleece which I need even less. I did get my niece addicted to weaving. All in all, I have to call it a good weekend's work.

Knitting on the Wiglet Blanket for my friend's newborn continues. ("Wiglet" was the baby's nickname while he was in utero, and it has stuck). Should be done soon, only one more easy block row to go. Here is Tiger demonstrating how it is both comfy and cool at the same time:


Guess I'll be washing that before it goes out...

The sky has just opened on us in what can only be described as a deluge, cooling down one of the stickiest warm days in what has so far been a cool, wet summer. There's a helluva light & sound show out there. Time to go watch.

It's good to be home.

The luck just outside our door

My mother has this strange, magical and occasionally infuriating ability to find four-leaf clovers. I suspect it's her superpower. She can be walking through a parking lot or down a city street, glance at a patch of grass and Bam! Four-leaf clover. She's been doing it all my life.

Over the years, she has taken to picking and pressing them, keeping them as reminders of places she's been. Sometimes she finds so many that she gets distracted, and sometimes it drives Dad a little crazy,* even though he generally finds it endearing, her looking for napkins to press them in, writing on it when and where she found it and bringing them home. There are napkins with pressed four-leaf clovers around the house, in books, in drawers and around her office desk.

Mom was visiting a few weeks ago and went out back in the morning to sit at the picnic table with her coffee and read, as she likes to do. Our backyard is now filled with flowering clover, which we have neglected to mow, partly out of laziness and partly because we like it, and its bee-friendliness. Some days it's positively buzzing.



Mom sat down and started to read. Within seconds, she was distracted. One. Two four-leaf clovers.

"I have to stop this," she said, "it's insane. Oh, for heaven's sake, there's another one!" She hadn't even gone into the clover patch yet - she was still standing next to it.

I went and got her a paper towel to press them.

"Can you see them?" she asked. I looked carefully, and no. Not for the life of me. It's definitely her superpower, not mine.

"It's like the pattern just jumps out at me. See? Here's another one. That's four. Dammit. I'm going to have to go inside, or I'll never stop."

It's a little comforting that I seem to come by my OCD-ish tendencies honestly.

As for me... I've been busy. Very busy. Working. Writing. Teaching. Playing. Going a little crazy with the Busy, trying not to drop any balls that are too fragile to hit the ground, catching others after the first bounce.

But you know what? I have house full of love and a backyard full of luck. It'll all bee fine.



* This might also be partly because he can't find them; this is a man who can spot a deer in a far-away field while driving on the interstate at 70mph.

Snippets from Crazyland, Academia

I met with my full thesis committee last week for the first time in over two years. The players:

Me: Eternal student, trying to get back on track.
Lady S: My long-suffering supervisor.
CM1: Committee member 1, another long-suffering mentor who I adore, even if we don't always agree.
CM2: New committee member, a recent hire.

What follows are some of my favourite excepts:

------------------------------

Lady S to CM1 and CM2: I've been getting regular updates on her draft. My last email to Bridget was last Monday, titled, "Where is it?"

Me: Was that the one that I responded to you with song lyrics?

Lady S: Yep.

Me (thoughtfully): It was a good song.

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Lady S (digging through her file cabinet): Why can't I find your folder?

Me: I don't know, they should be easy to spot, you have, like, 7 years of them now.

CM2: She has seven years of folders on you?

Me: Or is it eight?

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CM1 (looking over my CV): You spelled "assisstant" (sic.) with one too many S's on the top of page 6.

CM2: And two lines below that, I guess that's a copy-paste?

Me: Actually, I was going to say that was me being as "ass," but yes. And oh look, here's the same typo again! And again! Joy.

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CM1 (looking at a journal citation on my CV): Shouldn't this title be italicized and not in quotes? Since it's a special volume?

Me: You know, I specifically checked the Chicago Manual of Style on that one and apparently, this is how they do it.

CM1 (once an editor always an editor): I don't know about that...

Me (once a typesetter always a typesetter): I'd be happy to send you the reference to the page in Chicago or bring it in...

CM1: That won't be necessary. *pause* Besides, we don't use Chicago style...

We continue to nag each other for a couple more minutes about editorial minutae.

CM2: I would be very surprised if anyone else ever noticed the difference.

Me: True. And we can continue to argue about italics and quotes later.

Lady S (ever patiently): Yes, thank you.

------------------------------

Lady S: So, what day shall we set for you to turn in the draft?

Me (firmly): This coming Monday.

CM1: Are you sure? Will you be able to finish it by then, do you think?

Me (grinning): Well, since you're giving me the option, how about the following Monday?

Lady S: If we give her another week now we'll have to pry it out of her hands in two weeks.

Me: Without a doubt. This coming Monday, then?

------------------------------

Miraculously, I'm not only still a graduate student, but apparently things are going okay.

PS: Note to self, do not open and look at your previous semester's teaching evaluations from your students while working in the department four hours prior to your long-dreaded committee meeting, for which you are not yet ready. Save it for when there's wine, and possibly fire.

PPS: Monday approaches, and the draft is not yet ready.

Ask not what we do to history; ask what history does to us*

Some days, I think, should simply be re-written. Forgotten. Pages removed from The Book and dropped into the fire.

I tried to explain this to a Librarian once, and was threatened with excommunication and confiscation of all of my library cards for being a heretic. Librarians can be scary.

Mind you, some days, I want to be a Librarian too. "Fear me," I would say, and others would tremble as they handed their books back. Naturally, I would only use my Super Seekrit Reference-Finding Powers and my Mighty Data Mining Decoder Ring for good. Also, my cape would look suspiciously like a lace shawl.

Obviously, I digress.

I think what The Librarian didn't understand is that I wasn't implying that it was only the bad days that should be forgotten.

History is tomorrow's spoilers. "Doomed to repeat itself if forgotten" and all that.

On those days when it seems like there is nothing new in the world, nothing exciting that can make me want to do, to create, I curse my inconveniently good memory and beg to forget something that made me insanely happy so that I can rediscover it and be insanely happy about it again.

It's a slippery slope, I know. Remember that episode of Fantasy Island, where the couple wanted to fall in love again, so they were made to forget each other and they almost hooked up with the wrong people? I know I'm the sum of my experiences, of my history, and I like who I am, and I wouldn't erase a part of that. To quote a truth from an otherwise unfortunate movie, "I need my pain!"** Eventually, something else comes along that brings me joy again. I hold out for those moments, because if I lost hope in them, I would surely go crazy.

But still, there are some days...

...some days when I wonder if in order to experience true joy again, we first need to forget what it was like.


*A musing on the pendant What We Do To History, made by elisem.

**And just what does God need with a Starship, anyhow?

In which I re-read the last post and cringe. And also, shoes.

Wow, when I resort to blogging song lyrics, you know it's been a rough week. Let's move on to hopefully better things, shall we?

This, I think, should be the lunch of hardworking graduate students everywhere:


Iced tea (Jasmine), cherries (Mmmmm), and a generic version of my second-favourite Girl Scout cookie, Samoas, (which are not sold by the Girl Guides in Canada.)

I recently stocked up on these cookies in the event of a Zombie Apocalypse. For the record, Thin Mints are my favourite GS cookie. They don't sell those in Canada, either; they have a different chocolate mint cookie that I don't like nearly as much. It's OK, I maintain a US supplier for Thin Mints.

On the weekend, I believe I submitted what is officially the Crappiest Abstract Ever. We shall see. I had another abstract accepted yesterday to a different conference (which I'm even looking forward to), so even if CrappyAbstract is rejected - and well it should be - I can relax and be OK with its complete suckiness.

My stress has been finding new and interesting ways to manifest itself. I've never been much of a stress-relief shopper. Today, though, in a rare and bizarre fit of vanity (and definitely stress relief), I bought three pairs of Very Nice Shoes, from a great store that is normally outside my price range, but does indeed have exceptionally nice and somewhat unique things, and was having a great sale.

I can naturally rationalize this by pointing out that my current "dress" shoes are several years old and no longer qualify as nice in any sense of the word. Further, I had intended, very soon, to buy both some decent new SCA garb-appropriate footwear (which I got today X 2), as well as something tastefully dressy for black concert wear - preferably with heels for a change, as I haven't owned a pair of heels in years. This is all true, and rational, and perfectly explainable.

Or, I can just let out a crazy-lady whoop and say, "Yeehaw! I bought Shoes!! I did it just because I wanted to, and They Are Awesome!!" It seems like such a wonderfully typical female thing to do, and I'm of a mood to embrace that bit of myself that I usually don't allow out of the bottle.


Go ahead, tell me these don't kick ass. Really, go for it, I dare you. You're wrong! HAHAHAHA!!

So, yeah, I don't shop for shoes much. Or clothes, for that matter. I tend to view clothes shopping as a form of torture. So when the mood strikes, the finances are acceptable and I find something I like, I take that as a sign and go with it.

Ahem. So, to sum up: Abstract fail and success, writing semi-fail, shoe success. It all balances out, and even allows for some happiness. And on the theme of balance and happiness, two happy cats, my opposite-boys:


Tiger, who prefers to sleep in the poofiest, cuddliest spot available, and right up against a human who will pet him indefinitely if possible, but does not, under any circumstance, like to be picked up or held.



Ford, who is usually up for several furious, in-your-face snuggles per day, but who likes to sleep at least partially on a cool, flat surface, away from potential human (or other) contact.

"Even when it's approaching torture, I've got my routine"

A year ago today, I had a Very Bad Day. It wasn't that kind of bad, if you understand my meaning. No one was in physical danger. But it was still bad.

Friends helped. Family helped. Talking helped. Medicine helped.

Things are better today.

And yet there is something I still struggle with, a lingering leftover from That Day. I have still not written the thing I was working on when I had my Very Bad Day. I fight with it, I poke around at it, I write a little and then I stop. And the next day, it starts again. Some days I give up completely and walk away. Sometimes it's for weeks at a time.

This has been going on far too long.

It's not that the thing I'm writing is hard - well, OK, actually it is hard, and it's supposed to be hard - but I've done things that are much harder in the past. This one, though, is linked to the Very Bad Day, and until I get through it, That Day will always be there, hanging over me. And more to the point, if I don't finish it in the very near future, I will be willfully, intentionally shooting myself in the foot, sacrificing years of work and time on my part and many others' because I had a Very Bad Day that I'm afraid to face again.

All the flowers have fallen from the magnolia tree out back, and it is fully, lushly green. Nature waits for no one, not even for me to find a way to write the thing I was supposed to have written before that last flower fell. So, I will pick up again from yet another missed deadline, and keep plugging.

The innernets, though, has a wicked sense of humour. As I was sitting here wasting time this evening, surfing the endless seas of YouTube, thinking about what I should be doing while I was doing anything but, thinking about one year ago today, and promises, and magnolia trees, this song came up unexpectedly, randomly, and I knew it was right (repeated lyrics edited):

----------------------------------
Oh, for the sake of momentum
I've allowed my fears to get larger than life
And it's brought me to my current agendum
Whereupon I deny fulfillment has yet to arrive

And I know life is getting shorter
I can't bring myself to set the scene
Even when it's approaching torture
I've got my routine

Oh, for the sake of momentum
Even though I agree with that stuff about seizing the day
But I hate to think of effort expended
All those minutes and days and hours
I have frittered away.

But I can't confront the doubts I have
I can't admit that maybe the past was bad
And so, for the sake of momentum
I'm condemning the future to death
So it can match the past.

- Aimee Mann, "Momentum" (from the Magnolia soundtrack)