My Favorite Week-Long Holiday

Warning: I'm not really sure what inspired me to right this post, but know that it is very...excitable/hyperactive/exactly the opposite of how I'm feeling right now.
I did a rather odd thing tonight. I made a very WEIRD hat. See?



I knit it out of leftovers, and as you can see, the fabric is quite sturdy. This hat stands up for itself!



It even has a point. That and the vibrant green makes me think of a dinosaur, and so I give you:



THE DINOSAUR HAT!!!!
(Also known as THE WEDNESDAY HAT!!!!!)
Because the hat serves two functions (Looking like a dinosaur and standing up for itself), I shall wear it on days when I a) wish to look like a dinosaur
or b) wish to stand up for myself.

Now, you MAY JUST be wondering why I named the hat after a day of the week, and I'll tell you why! It's because I have, as of about three minutes ago, declared it WEIRD HAT WEEK! That's right folks! This week I plan on trying to make at least four weird hats! (I'm thinking about going really crazy and making one every day! We'll see how that goes!)

Celebrate with me people!

Thing to be grateful for today: Random ideas that make a single week quite fun.

Chugging Along

Here's a a list of notes/what's going on right now/etc.

• The second sock is in progress. I'm about halfway done with the leg.
• I read the two plays I needed to read for my mentor and answered her questions, and now it's on to Hamlet and Cat On a Hot Tin Roof.
• I need to be doing German work more.
• My yoga schedule got thrown off this week by other commitments so I'm looking for a replacement class time this week.
• I'm going to really have to make myself run tomorrow, because I need it.
• Happy birthday to one of my favorite people in the world. I am so glad to have you as a part of my life, and have no trouble celebrating the day you were born.
• I'm seriously considering defeating second sock-itis by only making single socks. I think that that is a pretty cool idea, but then I'd have no matching socks.
  
• I think that for the most part I could live with that. I also think that my next sock project are a pair of dress socks for myself; black with a blue cuff and toe. I actually planned to make those ages ago. They are of course exempt from the one sock only policy. Dress socks that don't match are lame.
  
• I've decided that I always need to have a sock going because they are very portable projects.

• I've decided that May is UFO month (for the non-knitting minded, that would be "Un-Finished Objects). The things I would be working on are:

1. My mother's shawl.
2. The Cardigan (What cardigan? I don't know what you're talking about).
3. A pair of fingerless gloves that I'd intended to be fingered but are no longer for me and therefore this person is getting fingerless because they are easier.

Thing to be grateful for today: You.

One Sock-itis

I am currently shoving through a case of One Sock-itis. I've finished the first sock...



and, while my excitement over finishing was great, now I have to work on the second, which is a total buzzkill. Also, looking over Franklin's socks again, I see that he did something very clever in that he made the stripes uneven so that one sock had thick stripes in one color, and the other had thick stripes in the contrasting color. I wish I'd done that now, but there is no way in hell I'm starting over for something that silly. Plus, I like the sock for the most part. I'm not 100% happy with it, but it's a learning curve.
My socks get progressively better every time. Or at least I'd like to think so. My goal is to be able to knit one sock on my journey to Germany this summer, and one on the way back. And perhaps to knit a lot of socks for Christmas presents this year. You may all be wondering why I have all this sock knitting lined up (How obvious of a lead-in was that?).
Well you see, I'd very much like to be a part of the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Sock Club next year. For those of you who don't know what a sock club is. It is a company that you pay at the beginning of the year, and they then send you one original sock pattern a month, yarn included. I think that that's a pretty badass idea. I'm quite excited.

Thing to be grateful for today: Speaking my mind.

Truly Terrible

I've contracted a rather poor habit. I've been staying up into the wee hours of the morning (anywhere between one and three) knitting and watching Lost. The funny thing is, though I like Lost, it is not the reason I'm staying up. It's the knitting. I just keep saying "one more row" or, "finish this stripe" or "I'm not that tired, I should really keep knitting." This goes on for several hours before I finally succumb to sleep. Tonight is different, because tonight I'm saying no. I'm truly very close to the end of the first sock; I've just begun the toe, but I must put it down now. I need to sleep. It is past two in the morning, and I really need to be out of the house by noon tomorrow, fully clothed, cleaned, and fed, ready to work. That means I must go to sleep, but the sock is calling my name. Surely, that last inch of sock will not be the death of my sleep pattern tonight...
No! I must say no to the sock, though it is enticing, because if I finish the toe, then I'll want to graft the end, and if I graft the end, then I'll want to weave in the end (yes, one end for two colors of yarn. I'm truly amazing). Then! Then I will want to try on the thing, and at that point I will probably pass out on my living room floor, my feet covered not by blankets, but by a single striped sock.
I'm entirely aware that the socks will look much cooler as a pair. They'd be alright socks if they were the same, but having the stripes be off-kilter is what makes the socks so cool, and it is that two-sock interest that makes it so hard to put this project down! I just want to start the second sock and get far enough along that I can show them off to people together, so that they too can share in the truly awesome nature of these socks. However, I must say no. The first step is admitting I have a problem.
Good night sock.
Good night readers.
Good night cat.
(Good night moon.)

Thing to be grateful for today: Bad days that do one-eighties.

Curioser and Curioser...

I've gotten a decent amount done on the "Alex Through the Looking-Glass Socks" (that's what I'm calling them now).



The pattern is simple enough, though like anything I improvise, it isn't "design worthy". Still, I'm posting it on my her for my own reference more than anything, so if you want, you can skip the next few lines.

CO 64 st.
*K1 p1* repeat to end. Complete this round twelve times in Co1.
Switch to Co2. *Knit to end.* repeat four rounds.
Continue switching colors every for rounds, at some point decreasing to 62 stitches. Complete 16 stripes after ribbing. Increase back up to 64 just before you begin heel. Work heel in Co2. Pick up side stitches and resume knitting in the round. Continue stripes as before, beginning with Co2.

That's where I'm at right now.



The colors aren't as rich in either of these photos as they are in real life. The purple is darker, and the brown is more of a teddy bear color. I was skeptical of the colors at first, but it was either this or blue and brown, and I wear and knit a lot of blue and brown things, so I thought purple and brown would make for a nice change. As I've gone on though, the colors have grown on me, and now I quite like them. I can't wait to be done, so I can get to wear them around town.

Thing to be grateful for today: Lewis Carrol.

Differences In Teaching

I've taken two yoga classes this week. One was much better than the other. They were my first classes in a while, and I'm so glad that I went to both, because they showed me what I want out of a yoga teacher. The first class was good, I just didn't feel like the teacher was really "there". Provided, she was rather pregnant, and so I can understand her not wanting to get up and down from her podium. My problem was that I just didn't get any connection with her at all during the class. Today however, my teacher was wonderful. She was present, she knew most of the students by name, she knew the body very well, and she would go over to individuals to adjust their postures. Both teachers were incredibly nice, and I don't have any judgment against them as teachers, because both styles work, I just now know which style works better for me. I need a teacher who works with you and your body, and checks in with you. I need someone who is really focused on the person rather than the group.
I'm like that with anything I'm trying to learn though. I react much more positively and get a lot more out of a teacher if they are focused on working with their students as individuals. For me, an ideal teacher is someone who can be easily approached in and out of class, and someone who knows their students well enough to be able to see when something is amiss. I'm certain that that's why I've done so well in private school. The smaller class environment has been great for me.

Thing to be grateful for today: People who care enough to make sure you're ok at their own inconvenience.

Roads Turning

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a new era, both in knitting and the play. Provided, the knitting era change will not be all that exciting. I'm just starting a new project. Recently, Franklin of "Franklin's Panopticon" recently wrote about his Wonderland Socks, so I decided that this was a crazy nifty idea and decided I'd make myself a pair as well. I'm quite excited. I'm thinking that the colors will be indigo and burgundy. Sound nice?
Here's what's going on with the play. I met with my mentor today, and she pointed out to me that what I had so far is really good as "pre-writing", because it provides a lot of backstory, but it really isn't what I need in the play. Her opinion basically came down to "You have what can't be taught, a good ear, but you haven't really got the structure yet, which can be taught." (I just spelled "taught" as "tot" the first time. That worries me.) So right now, we're doing "official" pre-writing, and I've been given a list of questions to answer about my characters and story, in addition to the characters and stories of four other plays. I'm really glad to have her support, because with her, I'm getting so much great work done and so many awesome ideas flowing and churning around. It's wonderful.

I stayed up until two last night finishing the hat last night. I have to say, I think it's pretty great.



I'm happy with it.

Thing to be grateful for today: Ceasing to wait.

This Post Contains a Note to Self

That is the question.
I have definitely decided on the prior, which means that I'm going to fringe first before I make the hat, that way, I can have a nice fringed scarf that I really like and am totally satisfied with, and I'll just have to make do with what I have left for the hat. I'm not normally a fringe guy, but this scarf already has a nice vertical movement and I think the fringe would really add, so I've decided to do it, hat be damned! (But not really, because I'd rather have both)

After having added the fringe (about an hour after I wrote that first paragraph), I find that I quite like it.



Nice, yes?



I love that it adds so much length to the scarf. (Also, what on earth is going on with my hair in this picture??)
Now, I'm using the remaining single ball of the blue yarn to make myself a cabled beanie. I'm pretty excited. My original plan was to make a basic beanie with a few alternating gray and blue stripes just after the ribbing, but after the fringe I didn't have any remaining gray that was over six inches in length, so instead I went with an all blue cabled beanie. I'll probably finish tonight or tomorrow, and when I do I'll put pictures up. So far it's looking quite nice. I'm designing it as I go, so it's a little hodgepodge, but I'm okay with that. It gives the hat character. I would never give it to someone as a pattern, because it isn't designer perfect, but it serves it's job, and you'd only really ever notice these little discrepancies if you were looking for them.

I'm meeting with my mentor (the lovely, Skyler) again tomorrow to discuss my play, so that's exciting. I'm hoping she can help me with my outline, and that we can talk about the scenes I gave her to read last week. I haven't gotten much writing done this week. In fact, I haven't written any on my play. I did write a lot of poetry though. I'm being kind of hard on myself about it, but at the same time, I understand the purpose of my writing, and it's different with storytelling and poetry. Poetry is my expression of self. Very much like knitting, I pour myself into poetry. Every line is a fragment of soul. Storytelling is like that, but less so. Poetry brings me to my core, while storytelling is more fanciful, and allows me to explore other selves.
The people I write about tend to be people who live in my head, if that makes sense. Sometimes, they're the people I want to be and sometimes they're just people I like to think about (even if those people don't really exist). I've been telling myself stories since I can remember. I'd go out into the front or back yard and I'd pretend to be someone else, going on grand adventures. I'd play like that for hours, all by myself. Creating worlds out of myself. Some characters keep coming back, like Gabriel.
Gabriel is my incarnation of humanity. He has flaws, but he's always a character that is inherently good. In my play he is perhaps at his most flawed. Normally, he is an illuminator in my stories, someone who brings forth the truth, but in this story, he's just the opposite. He's the person who covers up the truth and ignores it, but all for reasons he thinks are good. (Note to self in blog: Gabriel's hat is knitted because his mother gave it to him).
Sorry about that, I was hit with backstory inspiration and had to put it somewhere. The blog just happened to be a convenient place at the time. Anyway, this is one of the only times I've ever written a post over the course of several hours, and in this time I've gotten the hat very far along. Hopefully I can finish tonight and then show it off tomorrow.
Anyway, that's enough for tonight. I love you all.
Thing to be grateful for today: Stories untold.

Continuing to Heal

I know I've been really vague about what I've been going through the past week, and I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to talk about it on such a public forum. I'm still healing right now. That's important. I finished the cashmere/merino scarf about half an hour ago. Those two things are important together (not the cashmere and merino, but the finishing and the healing). When I started the scarf this weekend, I was worrying that I was knitting my problems into it, and that I would never be able to wear it, because it would become a reminder of the past few days, like a noose around my neck whenever I wore it.



However, the past few days have been about finding myself, and that was part of this scarf's journey. This scarf followed me through pain and into healing, and it's story is not one of hurt, but of strength in the face of hurt. This scarf is a shield. Maybe I will think about the hurt of the past few days when I wear it, but I will also be reminded that that hurt led me to my own inner strength.



I can't decide if I like this picture of myself or not. I definitely like how the scarf looks in it though.

Today Lauren (yes, THAT Lauren) suggested that I make a matching hat, which I think is a great idea, especially because I had a whole skein of the blue left, plus the leftover few yards from each of the other skeins. I just cast it on, maybe I'll have it for you tomorrow. I'm still planning on adding fringe to the scarf, but I'm going to wait to see how much yarn I have left after the hat. That's why the ends are still hanging loose on the first picture.

Lauren and I also went to yoga today. It was a great class, and it was absolutely what I needed after I ran yesterday (my legs hurt). I hadn't run in a very long while. Running has always been spiritual for me. Yesterday's run was my way of finding strength. I ran until I hurt all over and didn't know if I could finish the last lap, and that was when I told myself, that if I couldn't find the strength to finish, I couldn't find the strength to take care of myself. That thought kept me going to the end, and that was what was important.

Thing to be grateful for today: Superheroes as opposed to warriors (I'm looking at you, Lauren).

Journaling

I've done a lot of journaling today. Journaling is one of those things that I've always said I'd get into, but never really have. I'm hoping that this changes things. Sometimes, you just really need time to sit and write shit out, and today was definitely one of those days. I wrote a good deal about some things I'm going through right now, and that was really healing.

Today though, I want to talk about the goals I set at the beginning of the break. I'm a little more than a third of the way in, so I thought today would be a good day to see how I'm doing.
It doesn't look good. Here's the original list:


1. Go to yoga at least 6 times (that's two a week, for the mathematically challenged).
2. Sit down and work on my play for at least one hour six days out of each week.
3. Start a dream journal. Sit in bed after waking up and try to remember my dreams.
4. Go through at least 12 hours of Rosetta Stone (I have the program in German, and have barely scratched the surface. I can already tell that it's a great program. I really need to pick up the pace with my German education, since I'm going to Germany a few weeks in the summer.).
5. Finish at least one and a half panels of the garter stitch blanket I'm making (It's knit in three striped panels, so that's half of a blanket).
6. Read "Letters to a Young Poet", "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Clean House". Those are all three things I've been wanting to read for quite a while now (I know, it's shameful that I only ever made it a third of the way through "The Fellowship of the Ring". I was in third grade).
7. Take at least two days out of every week (or six days over the total course of the three weeks), where I do not get on the internet at all.
8. Go on one of my adventures down south Congress once a week (Basically, I take the bus down to the SoCo district and walk around, grab lunch, visit the yarn shop, all that good stuff. It's always a total treat).
9. Visit with at least five people I haven't in a while (I mean really visit. Sit down, just us and hang out.)
10. Weed out the music I do not like on my iPod.

Here's how I'm doing:
1. I haven't gone to yoga at all...I keep meaning to...I ran today! (Cheers)
2. I was really good about that...until this weekend. It kind of killed that goal...I'm still working on it though! Really, I'll be fine as long as I finish Act 1 by the time school starts back up.
3. I journaled today. And like a page of it was about dreams! HUZZA!
4. I sat down one day and did some...I could still make the twelve hours...
5. I already wrote a post about this one. Knitting should be fun, dammit! So right now I'm knitting a scarf because I feel like it.
6. I read "The Clean House" (already posted about that too), and I've started The Fellowship of the Rings, but I've been put on a detour by my playwriting mentor, so I'm reading more plays right now instead.
7. Well, this one wasn't really thought through well, because I need the internet to write the blog...so...yeah...I didn't get on facebook at all today (VICTORY).
8. I did this already a couple of times. It was nice. I only took the bus one time though. I drove myself the other times (with parental guidance, I don't have a license yet).
9. Well...let's see...I've hung out with...1...2...3...4...yeah...four. That's good!
10. That process has in fact begun. Go me!

Before I sign off for tonight, I'd like to go on a quick rant about the words my spellcheck does not recognize in this post. They are: Journaling, SoCo (understandable), iPod, journaled, Huzza, playwriting, facebook, and (get this) Spellcheck. I don't know about you, but I think every one of those words except for SoCo is used often enough that my spellcheck should recognize it!
Rant over.

Thing to be grateful for today: The freedom of running.

Double Oops

Well, I had INTENDED to take pictures today. In fact, I even stopped making a baguette this morning to run over and get my camera and take a picture to show you guys, but as I turned on the camera, a "No Battery" sign flashed across the screen instead of the image finder I'd been hoping for. That means, that I spent all of my good picture opportunities were missed today, as I let the battery charge. It was very disappointing. The baguette wasn't.
I took the leftover pizza dough, threw in some rosemary, parmesan, and garlic and then rolled it up and popped it into the oven. It was soooo tasty!
My cookies were good, but they also sort of sucked. See, I actually FORGOT to put in the oatmeal, which is an important part, but they still tasted good, so I suppose that's not a huge deal. However, I also learned that it's important to be patient and let your butter soften, rather than melt it in a pot first, because otherwise your cookies come out flat and kinda funky. Again, still tasty though.
I started a scarf today, made out of a REALLY AMAZING yarn that's 90% mohair and 10% cashmere...sigh...

Thing to be grateful for today: Rent.

Oops

So, I did the blog a disservice today. I made a beautiful homemade pizza (I did everything without a hitch), and I did not take a single picture of it!!!! I have no real evidence of the entire event, except for the SINGLE slice on my kitchen counter!
I put sundried tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, feta, artichoke, and olives on the pizza, along with garlic, Parmesan, and rosemary in the crust. It was DELICIOUS! My only complaint was that my crust came out a little too thick. It was basically a deep dish, but I wanted a crust that was thin, but with some bounce.
I don't know if I've ever said this on the blog, but pizza is one of the few things I can make from scratch and have it consistently come out excellently without anyone else's help and without any significant problems. Unfortunately, I can't make pizza very often, because I consistently eat too much of it when I do.
Unfortunately, I was expecting a good deal more people than I had tonight (I ended up alone), so I made a lot more pizza than was necessary, and more dough than was going to be used. That means I'll be making pizza again sometime this week, and I'll definitely be taking pictures that time!!!!
Tomorrow, I'm going to make cookies! That's something else that I'm good at.

Well, that's about all I've got today. See you tomorrow (or not, but you know what I mean).

Thing to be grateful for today: Choice.

A Promise

So, tomorrow, I have at least a few really fun things that I'm going to write about, but tonight, I think that it's more important to work on my play, so I shall be here to give you all kinds of fun updates soon.

Thing to be grateful for today: "Tomorrow's Another Day" can be true.

Sorry About the Lameness

So, remember that really shitty day that I had a couple of weeks ago where I basically said, "Had a shitty day, so this is all you're getting."?
Today topped that day really spectacularly in godawfulness. So...this is basically it.
Also, if I wanted to write on the blog about what had happened, I would have, so don't ask what's going on (I'm looking at you, Lauren).

Thing to be grateful for: The people who took care of me today.

Revamping

Some of you may have made the connection when I showed you the beginning's of the afghan that this yarn was the same yarn I was using to make a blanket back in January. That's right, I changed course. That's one of the beautiful things about knitting. If you don't like how something is going, you can just start it again, or do something entirely new. In this case, I choose to do something entirely new for a couple of reasons. Reason the first: The first blanket had a lot of problems that I wasn't really willing to deal with. Reason the second: Making a pattern from the book on knitting afghans that I bought justifies its purchase.
Here's the old blanket as it was when I last showed it to you:



And here is the afghan as it currently exists:



I like this version quite a bit more. The coloring is off in this picture though. The blue is a bit darker than that, and the brown is MUCH more obvious. The dimensions right now are 14"x22". I'm rather pleased with it, I have to say, though at this point I can't imagine myself finishing a whole stripe and a half by the time I have to go back to school, which was the goal I'd originally set myself. I might go easy on it, and just say one stripe, because that was my original plan. That's still pushing it, I think, as I want each stripe to be 77", and right now I only have 14" of length. God be with me. Of course, at the same time, I'm letting it be loosey-goosey, because the whole point of this project was to STOP knitting on a deadline. Jeez! Apparently, I'm just bad at that.

Anyway, the garter's charm has perhaps started to wear on me, but we'll see. If the ennui gets too terrible, I can always make the cashmere cabled scarf I have waiting for me (and perhaps a matching hat?). That yarn is CALLING me! For now though, I am resisting.

Thing to be grateful for: Pie.

Horrors!

The Texas Board of Education has passed through several "alterations" to the public school history and social studies curriculum in our state. The purpose they said, is to balance out the left-leaning bias of our current textbooks. Having read several articles and watched a few videos with interviews and reports on the subject, I have to say that I'm appalled. Many of the changes are blatantly racist and diminish the suffering of millions all to make past republicans look better.
Here's a link to a video and and two articles on the subject: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/textbooks-a-texas-dentist-could-love/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1253
Every single change is objectionable, but here are some of the worst. They plan to put a kinder spin on the anti-communist movement of the cold war era, which was a movement riddled with racism and fear tactics used to control the populous. They are removing references to hip-hop and replacing them with a higher emphasis on country, saying that hip-hop is not an important cultural movement. There is going to be a diminishing of our already bleak Latino history and culture education, and Thomas Jefferson is being removed from a list of influential writers because he supported logic over faith and is a non-Christian founding father (the horror!). In fact, a heavy emphasis is being placed on the founding fathers being entirely Christian, which is certainly not true; many of them were Deists, an enlightenment movement based in the idea that God doesn't give a shit, and a predecessor to Atheism.
The people who are being included makes the entire thing even more terrifying. General Stonewall Jackson of the Confederate army is now an example of good leadership (apparently, being a terrible racist makes you a good leader now). On the list of influential writers are John Calvin, William Blackstone, and St. Thomas Aquinus, all of them fundamentalist Christians. Also included as leaders of the "Conservative Resurgence" are the National Rifle Association, and the Moral Majority! I'd never actually heard of the latter until I wrote this, but I just did some research, and I'm shocked that anyone could, in 2010, feel it justified to acclaim a group that opposed the equal rights act (I'd like to be able to say that I'm also shocked that they would acclaim a group that pushed an anti-homosexual agenda, but sadly, I can't).
The leader of this pack of monstrous changes is Dr. McLeroy, a self-identified fundamentalist Christian who does not recognize the separation of church and state as a pertinent and important part of the United States constitution. He has blatantly diminished the work of women pushing the equal rights movement by saying that "The women didn't vote on [the Equal Rights Act], the men did, the men passed it for the women...The minorities were not able to do it by themselves, it took a majority to do it for themselves," and "Men gave women the right to vote." The offensiveness of those statements is ASTOUNDING.
I'm pretty sure that you all live in Texas, but if you don't (and even if you do), you'll be interested to know that, because Texas has the second highest population of any state in the country, many textbook companies cater to our laws, so this decision affects the entire country. This means, that all over the country, history is being altered and clipped because of Texas conservatives. I find this very disturbing. I propose we protest this terrible injustice!
I beg you all to leave a comment telling me exactly how you feel, if there are any developments, and if you have an propositions as to what is to be done.

Thing to be grateful for today: People who are properly horrified by all of this!

Office Man

My school has this amazing program called Work Experience. The basic idea is that each year, every student is given two weeks to complete 4o hours of work. Each year has a theme. In your freshman year, the school assigns a farm that you are to work on, and in tenth grade, you choose an artisan to work with. This year, we are to choose a non-profit that assists humans or animals today. I choose Citizen Schools, a great program that works with middle school kids, helping them
to find joy in learning and work with the school system to their benefit. It's really quite awesome.
I already work with them as a knitting teacher after school, but for the next few weeks, I'll be working with them as a tutor for the kids after school and as an office assistant. Today was my first day, and I had so much freaking fun! It was great! I really enjoy the company of everyone who works there, which makes the whole thing a ton of fun.
Work Experience has the benefit of completely eliminating burnout (I just tried to convince myself that "elimate" was a word. Clearly the midnight hour is putting me down). After three weeks of NO SCHOOL (Work Experience and Spring Break put together makes three weeks), it's almost nice going back (almost). If nothing else, you aren't dreading the return, and you get a really lovely rest period.
Speaking of rest, I'm tired as a Russian whore on Sunday night. (Don't ask me to explain. I have a Rusian Whore themed simile thing going on today)

Thing to be grateful for today: You.

"SHITTY COW SHIT"

The above quote is from a soliloquy in the play I'm about to rave about.
Today, I finished reading the most amazing play I have ever seen or read, "The Clean House" by Sarah Ruhl. It is a real piece of art. The stage directions are incredible (most of them are very poetic, and give a very clear image that an actor can work with very well, but the text would not come out to an audience as it is written, or even close to it). Every single character is all at once someone that you can relate to and mock.
"The Clean House" focuses on a doctor, Lane, and the antics that surround her life over a period of perhaps a week, though the time frame is ambiguous. Over this period, she discovers her husband is cheating on her with one of his patients, the meaning of the word "beshert" along with the proper pronunciation of the Brazilian name "Matilde", and has a woman die of laughter in her home. The entire story is one fiasco after another, but they blend seamlessly into a plot that is somehow very believable.
There is no topping this play. Ruhl's brilliance and eloquence astounds me, and her ability to make normally tragic occurences into comedic ones while still retaining their humanity and the compassion of the reader/viewer is incredible. As I read the script, I could see every single scene perfectly in my head, and now I desperately want to whip up a cast of five and perform this before the school is out. I think it could be loads of fun.

Thing to be grateful for today: Places I do not live that I can call home.

Knitter's First Afghan

The reason this post is going up so much earlier than normal is that I won't be getting home until very late tonight, and I don't want to have to write some crap two sentence post at midnight. I already wrote on the play for an hour today, so don't worry. I wrote several opening monologues, and right now it looks like I'll be fixing up the entire thing so that instead of having one character open with a monologue, each character will have their own to begin with. I might continue that theme throughout the three acts (the names of the acts are Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis), with each act opening with a series of monologues.
I'm going to get home so late because I'm working with a friend on a music video today. It should be a lot of fun, and she's very talented. Here's her website. (I'm sending good, "Visit my website" karma out there so maybe more people will start reading the blog). She's a very talented musician and you should all listen to her.

Today though, I want to talk about afghans, and their significance to me personally. I've grown up with handmade afghans, because I had a great-aunt Buena who made them. They were crocheted, which is an art I haven't really tried my hand at before, but I can still appreciate the mastery that went into each and every one. They are beautiful works of art. I don't remember Buena, she died before I was really old enough to get to know her, but according to those family members that did know her, she always had some handcraft project with her, mostly knitting or crochet.
Buena's afghans are stories. She gave them to people she loved, and she made them with them in my mind. As the years have passed, the afghans have been given around the family from person to person. When my mom went to college, her afghans stayed with my grandmother, who's given them out to my cousins and I, and returned a few to my mother. There is one in particular that struck me this past winter at my grandmother's house. It is an afghan that Buena made for my mother. It's a beautiful with yellow and white stripes and little vines and yellow flowers embroidered on. I fell completely in love with it. By the time I was ready to go back home, I was sad to say goodbye to it, and so my grandmother gave it to me, saying that, since it was really my mom's and I loved it so much, I should have it. That afghan went up in our cupboard with all of the other afghans Buena has made for us, waiting for their glory days of Winter, when they're brought out into the house proper to lay on beds as extra warmth on cold nights, or laid on the couch so we can bundle up on chilly Winter mornings.
For me, afghans are a true labor of love. They take a huge amount of yarn and time. There are thousands of stitches in every afghan ever made, and each one is a small act of caring. Those simple little actions add up, and carry inside of them the feelings of love and hope you have for the people you are making the afghan for. That love will wrap around them every time they wrap your afghan around them, and it will keep them warm on those cold Winter months.
For me, afghans are tradition. They are things that I can pass on to my family, and maybe one day, I'll have great-grandchildren, or great-great-nieces and nephews who will wrap those afghans around their bodies, and be told stories about me, and how I always had some hand-working project with me, and how, even though they cannot remember me, I had known and loved them. And maybe they'll pass those afghans on to their children, who will be told that they are family heirlooms, and to keep them safe, but to never hesitate to use them, because that's what they were meant to do. They were not meant to sit and look pretty. They were meant to be well used.
And, just has Buena has stayed alive because of her afghans, maybe I'll be kept alive too. Famous to only a few souls who have my works of art, made out of love for the people I cared about and for their children and their children's children. That's what I want. I want my afghans to become family treasures, and I want babies to throw up on them, and coffee to be spilled on them, and for lover's to curl up together wrapped up inside. I want my afghans to hold not only my own love and memories of making them, but the memories my loved ones have of using them, just as Buena's afghans have for my family.

That's why this first afghan is so important to me.

Thing to be grateful for today: This seems pretty obvious, but afghans.

Off to a Relaxing Start

Tomorrow, my Spring Break officially begins. I'm starting it off right by meeting a dear, old friend for brunch and knitting (I'll be covering that part for us). Later, I'll be going to a movie shooting, so sometime between there, I will have to fit in my writing for the day, because if I missed out on the first day, I'd be really disappointed in myself.
Later on this week, I'm meeting a friend's mother who has volunteered to be my mentor for my play. We'll be talking about my ideas, drinking coffee, knitting (again, that'd just be me), and just chatting. I'm really excited about that, and I'm so grateful to her for helping me out. She's pretty awesome and just came out with a book that you should all check out, especially those of you who like Neil Gaiman or vampires. Here's here website.

I finished the Parzival scarf last night after hours and hours of embroidery and Lost. I was up well past midnight. Today when I presented the hat and scarf, everyone including my teacher really liked it, so that my everything worth it. Plus, I get a nice scarf with a fun poem and a new skill out of the deal.
Here's the front of the scarf on me:



And here's the back:



And finally, here's the scarf laid out on my kitchen table.



I started knitting my garter stripes blanket today. I've been really enjoying the whole knitting for my whole pleasure and not for some cockamamie deadline thing all day. I really like how it's turning out so far. A little while ago, an odd idea flew through my head to count the rows and then calculate how many stitches I've knit today. I did that, and then I double-checked, because I was kind of gobsmacked.



3066 stitches, I've knit 3066 stitches today. I'll admit, that I'm pretty impressed that I can do the same little flick of the wrist that many times and not want to rip out my hair.

Well, good night. See you tomorrow.

Thing to be grateful for today: Breaks.

I Can't Resist a Good List

I start my three week break from school tomorrow. The first week is off for spring break, and the second and third are off for a thing my school calls "Work Experience", where every student finds a place to volunteer for at least forty hours. Each grade has a theme. Eleventh grade's theme is human and animal non-profit services. I decided to work with a program called Citizen Schools that works with kids in rural areas, teaching them life skills, helping them with homework, giving them something to do after school before their parents get home, and just being with them to have a good time.
I actually start my hours next week. I'll be painting a mural with kids at a local middle school every day, and I'm pretty stoked. I know some of the kids already (I teach knitting with Citizen Schools too), and I'm really close to a staff member or two. My second week, I'll be tutoring kids after school and helping the Citizen Schools office.

Now, other than those forty plus hours, I have to do in the next three weeks, so I've come up with a list of things that I want to make habits in my life that I'm going to start practicing during this time.

1. Go to yoga at least 6 times (that's two a week, for the mathematically challenged).
2. Sit down and work on my play for at least one hour six days out of each week.
3. Start a dream journal. Sit in bed after waking up and try to remember my dreams.
4. Go through at least 12 hours of Rosetta Stone (I have the program in German, and have barely scratched the surface. I can already tell that it's a great program. I really need to pick up the pace with my German education, since I'm going to Germany a few weeks in the summer.).
5. Finish at least one and a half panels of the garter stitch blanket I'm making (It's knit in three striped panels, so that's half of a blanket).
6. Read "Letters to a Young Poet", "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Clean House". Those are all three things I've been wanting to read for quite a while now (I know, it's shameful that I only ever made it a third of the way through "The Fellowship of the Ring". I was in third grade).

*Note: It was at this point that I decided that, because I'd already passed five goals, I needed to reach ten, so that I'd have a nice, friendly, rounded sort of number.

7. Take at least two days out of every week (or six days over the total course of the three weeks), where I do not get on the internet at all.
8. Go on one of my adventures down south Congress once a week (Basically, I take the bus down to the SoCo district and walk around, grab lunch, visit the yarn shop, all that good stuff. It's always a total treat).
9. Visit with at least five people I haven't in a while (I mean really visit. Sit down, just us and hang out.)
10. Weed out the music I do not like on my iPod.

All right, there we go, I have ten goals (YAY! Ten!)
Anyway, I have to go frantically finish the embroidery on the Parzival scarf now. Ta.

Thing to be grateful for: Inside jokes.

Another (Wo)man's Treasure

I finished the hat for my class on Parzival today. It's exactly what I wanted as a piece that represents the themes that run throughout the book. However, I was having trouble seeing it as a very attractive article of clothing, until one of my good friends came up to me and begged to have it after I'd presented it to the class.



This hat is that sweet, albeit rather stupid and kind of ugly puppy at the pound that very few people will adopt. It just needed to find it's true home, and I know that it has. My lovely friend, Maya will take great care of it, and it fits her really well, which is great (I can barely get it around my head as you can see).



You can't see the fair isle on the hat very well in those pictures, so here's one that should show it off better:



I'm still working on the scarf. I'm not yet halfway through the embroidery, which is worrisome because I have to be done by Friday morning. Once I'm done though, it's garter time!!!

Thing to be grateful for today: Prop 8: The Musical

The Proper Course

So, today, after having ripped out the lace for the second time (I twisted the damn stitches!!!), I decided that lace is stupid, especially on a deadline of four days, and that it just wasn't happening. So, now my hat is more complicated and the scarf embroidering continues. I'm tired, so that's what you're getting tonight.

Thing to be grateful for today: Finishing.

Awful, Really

I think I might have grossly overestimated my speed knitting abilities. I have, as you know, finished knitting the scarf, and as of right now, I have a word and a half embroidered onto it (embroidering is way more time consuming than I thought). The lace continued to kick my butt this morning, when it someone stopped having the right amount of stitches and I had to rip the whole thing out (I suspect that it lost a few stitches during the numerous tinkings), and somehow I failed to notice that I had TWISTED THE STITCHES at the beginning of the hat, so I've had to start that over too!!!!! Somehow, I am expecting to finish all three of these things by Friday morning at nine o'clock. If I succeed, I swear to God, I'm going to knit nice, calming garter stitch for a month!
Actually, I have just the pattern. Remember the blanket I was knitting back in January? Well, I bought a book of afghan patterns today, and I found one I really like, so I'm making that instead. That means on Saturday I'll be ripping out blanket and casting on something new. I'm pretty excited! I think that the thought of all of that garter stitch is the only thing that's keeping me going right now. The pattern is three panels of striped goodness, I'm so excited.
Anyway, I'm going to bed now. Hopefully tomorrow, I'll be able to say that I've miraculously managed to get a massive amount of knitting done and that it looks like I'll be able to finish after all.

Thing to be grateful for today: Little Adventures.

Ouch!

The locker hurt me! (Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahaha!!!!! That was terrible)
Anyway, "The Hurt Locker" one best picture in addition to five other awards tonight. I would go see it, but I really can't stand war movies (says the guy who was rooting for "Inglorious Basterds".
This morning I thought about working on the lace project, but decided that I'd rather eat my hands than work on it today. The scarf still isn't dry after being blocked, and I started a hat that will also be for this project (if I can finish it...I'm starting to smell and all nighter).
Speaking of which, I"m going to go sleep now.
Ta!
Thing to be grateful for today: Pretty good days that seem great when compared to the one that came before them.

Today Sucked

I can honestly say that I cannot at this time remember a day that sucked as much as today has. It was just one fiasco after another. That's my bitching, I'm done (mostly), now I'm going to focus on knitting.

I finished the scarf today, and blocked it (It's very long, so I took two separate shots):



Here's the white side, and some of the black.



Here's the black side.

Tomorrow, I begin to embroider. Today, however, while the scarf was drying, I started this. It's my first major lace project, and to complete this, I must learn how to do a provisional cast on (check), perform a knitted bind off, bead a piece of knitting and how to do the russian join. Those are four totally new skills, all while working on my first major piece of lace. This project is also for the class I'm taking on Parzival, and will take the place of the mittens, and perhaps the hat, depending on how much time I have.
Today, I cast on Ice Queen, and then worked the first three rows without any problems. However, the moment I hit the chart, disaster struck. First, I misread the chart, but didn't realize I was doing it wrong until I was all the way at the end of the 156 stitches (In lace, that takes almost an entire episode of Lost), and then after I'd tinked the entire stinking thing and then REKNIT it, I found that I'd once again, made a mistake that threw off the entire ROW!!! So now, I'm tinking it for the second time, and suddenly this "fun but challenging" project, is not quite as fun anymore.

Thing to be grateful for today: "Some days you just have a shitty week."

Underland?

My camera is still out of batteries (I've been out of the house all day, what can I say?), so today I'm giving you a review of Tim Burton's "Alice In Wonderland".
Overall, it was a good movie. Anne Hathaway's acting was not very good at all, and she made the white queen seem schizophrenic, but this was balanced out by both Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp's amazing performances. The story was new and interesting, but kept themes and characters mostly true to the books, though the clear use of the hero's journey as a motif for the plotline did not at all fit the style of Lewis Carrol, which was rather disappointing. Some changes just seemed silly, like changing "Wonderland" to "Underland" and sluffing off the old name by acting as if it was six year-old Alice misunderstanding what the inhabitants of this world were saying. The animation was just as lovely and whimsical as one could hope. It isn't Burton or Depp's best work, but it's hard to top something like "Edward Scissorhands". Overall, I'd give the movie three and a half stars. It's definitely worth seeing, but don't expect to be blown away be Burton's rendition of the classic fairy tale, and try to keep an open mind to his interpretation.

Thing to be grateful for today: Old Friends.


P.S. The costume design in "Alice In Wonderland" is definitely worth seeing the movie in theaters for.

Snowfall

Today...I got no knitting done. Today, I left my knitting at home, and that is VERY upsetting indeed. I wish I could show you a picture of the scarf, totally knitted and ready to be embroidered, but I cannot. So instead, I must finish the scarf and begin to embroider it tomorrow. Then I will take it with me to the courthouse on Saturday when I get my passport renewed, so I'll work on it there.
I did get some poetry written and revised today, which is really nice. This is actually one that I wrote while I was visiting Massachusetts, and then revised a couple of time.

I walk across a plain of snow
(feel a twinge of guilt
for marking a blank canvas
that is not your own).

There never was a sleep
So peace nor so deep
As that which snow will grant.

So lie in a bank and wait
In that white and empty
(almost too full) space
For some boon of dream,
Light as lace
and down as death.

Whereby snow tells its tale
Of ice and powder and hail,
When some wretched sole came
And marked snow with its name.

The snow has a name we cannot say
And a voice beyond the ear.
It has the limited time we fear,
And it blesses our life today.

The snow waits for you.


Thing to be grateful for today: Beautiful smells.

I Have an Organizer!

The moon is in Virgo right now, so everyone is all kinds of crazy when it comes to neatness and organization. I went out and bought an organizer today. I feel very empowered. Now I can always right down what I have to do, so I don't have to keep it all straight in my head, which has very limited space left in it, because most of my spare rooms are used for knitting patterns.
I had planned to post pictures of both the scarf (which is now over halfway done, so I'm knitting in black instead of WHITE) and my new organizer (His name is Phillip), but unfortunately, my camera just died, so you'll have to imagine for now.
Another example of me being organized (anal retentive) today is my decision to buy three different colors of sharpies so I could have a color for German verbs, adjectives, and nouns when I make my flashcards. I think part of this parade of office supplies is coming from my need to make things simpler and less stressful for myself right now, because I have so much to do all the time, and it's getting very stressful to keep track of it all. I love everything that I do, and that is why I do it, but honestly, it's almost too much. Anyway, I don't have pictures, so I'm going to get some sleep now. Good night.

Thing to be grateful for today: Gym

I Need An Organizer!

So, life is all kinds of crazy right now. I'm doing a lot of things that I really love, but I'm finding it hard to give everything the time it needs (I'm actually failing rather fantastically). The blog has suffered because of that, and I know it. So I'm going to start trying to force myself to write longer posts. Even if I just right a long post about how soothing and lovely garter stitch is and the stresses of knitting something white (see below).

Garter stitch is soothing and lovely. I did go through a period of my life in which I was foolish enough to call it "boring." Those days are past. Now I see garter stitch as a lovely canvas with thousands of possibilities. Now, I knit garter stitch when my brain is totally fried and my hands need something to do, or when I just want to be able to knit something really gentle on the soul.
Garter stitch is the ultimate in calming drugs. You just knit and knit and knit. There aren't any fancy tricks, or purled stitches, or anything! You just knit. Straight up knit. It is the art of knitting at it's most basic and in many ways it's most beautiful. Of course, you can make an absolutely gorgeous lace shawl that everyone you know will gawk over every time you pull it out, but were you experiencing life while you knit that shawl? No. When you're knitting garter stitch, you can just go about your day, not really paying attention to the knitting, and carrying on as you would. In this way, garter stitch is superbly beautiful, because it has the potential to carry days of your life, the memories placed lovingly into each stitch. For me, that is a far more beautiful thing than any lace shawl.

Of course, all of that peace and tranquility is totally counteracted by the fact that this freaking scarf is WHITE, so I'm constantly worried that it's going to get stained! Do stains come out in the blocking?
I have to say though, that this is a really decent amount of knitting for twenty-four hours.



Tomorrow, I start the black half.

Thing to be grateful for today: The little things that ground us.

And the Knit Goes On

The olympics may be over, but my epic knitting adventures most certainly aren't. As I mentioned last week, I'm studying the book/poem "Parzival" in school right now, and we've been assigned to create a piece (or pieces) of art that represents six themes throughout the book, and as I said before, I've chosen knitting as my medium. Now, knitting has never been done before, so this should be interesting, and because the teacher really isn't familiar with the medium, he can't help me much, so I think that, as long as the pieces are cool, and they work well with the themes, I should be fine. Right now, I'm looking at three projects (at least).

Here's the yarn:



On the bottom left there are two skeins of worsted weight that I dyed myself. The two colors are "Flowers For" and "Algernon". I'm thinking that I'm going to either knit child's mittens or a hat our of them, to represent the theme of innocent. That project should be quick and fun. The colors are beautiful. Now, some of you might be thinking that 200 yards is an awful lot of yarn for child-sized stuff, but these yarns are sisters/brothers, and I think I might cry if I didn't knit them together (and I know that they'd be sad too), so together they stay. If I do mittens, I might even, knit an i-cord to go between them to enhance the childishness.
The black and white yarns are going to become a scarf, with the opening passage embroidered on in the contrasting color. Whatever black chunky I have left will go to a hat that is going to be an imitation of the hero's helmet as depicted on the front cover on the book.
Anyway, the knit goes on!

Thing to be grateful for today: Purposefulness.