Friday Favorites (finally)

Posted on June 27, 2008 by HappyGoth

Whew! Sorry I’m late – today was awesome and crazy, all at once (not that those two things are mutually exclusive,  but there it is). I love when we do “extracurricular” things at work, but it kind of bisects the day and you get less done before and after than you normally would. It kind of disrupts the natural order of things.

However, one of today’s favorites came out of the awesomeness in the middle of the day, so I’m not complaining.

Here they are:

1. Skirt steak and brie sandwiches. No, really. We had lunch catered in, since many of our clients and friends came to our office just to hear Ray Anderson speak (he is incredible, inspiring, amazing, and a lot of other wondrous things that begin with vowels). He spoke about sustainability in business, and, fittingly enough, the food came from a local slow food caterer. I chose the skirt steak with brie, and declared to the other people sitting at my table that it was perhaps the perfect sandwich. I have had a while to think about it, and it is indeed the perfect sandwich. The steak was just roasted enough, and put on while it was still warm so the brie melted a little, and the whole thing was topped off with organic greens, heirloom tomatoes, and a fantastic mustard aioli.

2. Blueberries. But only when they’re in season, and you pick them yourself and eat them right out of the pail. Mmmmmm.

3. Fan fiction. I have written some of this myself, but never shared it. I have, however, spend a great deal of time the past couple of weeks reading loads of it. I find that the amount that I read directly correlates to how satisfied I feel with a story when I’m done. I must not have been completely satisfied with Twilight; I’ve been reading a lot of Twilight fan fiction lately. Last night, I read a fantastic spoof fic that brought together the Cullen family and the Winchester brothers (from Supernatural), with hilarious results.

Only three today, folks. I’m pretty brain-dead today (but maybe less tomorrow).

Happy Friday!

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In which

Posted on June 26, 2008 by HappyGoth

Jennie is disgustingly good at knitting, and we all go to see Eddie Izzard.

That pretty much sums up last night.

Jennie brought along her knitting to show off, and in two days she has a third of a pretty damned decent scarf. She managed to create a stitch in a way I’ve never seen before, but overall the scarf looks awesome (we found and removed the extra stitch). I think that she’s ready for socks. Probably by Monday evening. I must remember to pick up some more teeny dpns before then.

Eddie Izzard was fantastic. I spent too much money on “Cake or Death” merchandise, and now have a lovely mug to grace my desk. It is enormous and holds nearly an entire pot of coffee. It also seems to be a good place to balance a bagel when you have forgotten to grab a napkin. Our computer guru at work missed it, unfortunately; I brought him a program to look at.

I don’t remember most of the jokes. I remember the gist of the routine, and I remember laughing so hard I made my throat hurt. The husband really liked the jokes that were (a) puns or (b) about science. Generally these were the ones the rest of the audience didn’t get so well. My husband is a nerd (so am I). One of my favorite bits was when Eddie did a Casablanca and Planet of the Apes mashup, wherein he made himself laugh while miming a monkey playing the piano. And he has added yet another hymn to the list of hymns that make me laugh during somber church services. This list is a long one, between Eddie Izzard and the Pythons. Most of these hymns get played several times a year. I love being an Episcopalian. (I’d yammer on about this for a little longer, but I’m discovering as I write that a stand-up routine is not nearly as funny second-hand).

And that was pretty much it. We left and went to a diner for dinner, and then went home, and overslept this morning. Though I’m generally slow in the morning, I apparently have the uncanny ability to dress myself and get myself together in 10 minutes, if I’ve overslept. The husband would like it if I was this fast every morning; perhaps he should tell me I’m late more often.

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Why I Knit, Reason #2

Posted on June 25, 2008 by HappyGoth

Friends. I knit because of friends.

This seemed like a good time to post this; a knitting friend is currently experiencing a personal tragedy, and all the knitting folk have been awesome in supporting her and letting her know she’s loved. All because of knitting (maybe not directly, but knitting did initially bring everyone together).

I knit because a friend got me interested, and because another friend made me enthusiastic about it (and taught me all kinds of excellent things, not least of all to knit socks). I knit because through it, I’ve made lots more friends. I’ve made friends I’ve never actually met in person (and if you’re on my LJ list, you know how big this is – I do not friend you if I do not know you in person already).

I don’t make friends particularly easily. I’m shy, elitist, and horrible at small talk (actually, I’m not horrible; I’m really more apathetic than anything). I say offensive things without realizing it until after I can’t take them back. I have only as many close friends as I can count on my fingers, and I’m cool with that. It took a long time to get to that point. However, I have many acquaintances, and often I find that it’s nice to go somewhere and not feel completely awkward and left out. So I was overjoyed to discover that knitting gave me common ground and instant conversation with a bunch of total strangers (some of whom are not strangers anymore). And as if that wasn’t awesome enough, becoming a knit blogger further strengthened this.

My dear friend, the ChickenGoddess, would probably be dear to me, but not so quickly had I not been a knitter.

And if I don’t want to talk, everyone at Sunday knitting at Knitch is completely comfortable with me just sitting in silence, listening to everyone else, needles clicking away.

We knitters are cool like that.

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Early bits

Posted on June 25, 2008 by HappyGoth

natalie dee
nataliedee.com

Forthcoming following this:

“Why I Knit, Reason #2 (Wherein I Explain What the ChickenGoddess Has Done For My Knitting)”

To follow after your regularly scheduled lunchtime programming. In my case, more work and perhaps a free staff lunch (which I’m always happy to see).

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I MADE SKULL-A-DAY!

Posted on June 24, 2008 by HappyGoth

My foot made Skull-A-Day! This is so incredibly exciting! *hyperventilates a bit*

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I’m still doing too much

Posted on June 24, 2008 by HappyGoth

It’s like I’ve set my throttle to maximum and can’t shut it off (metaphorically speaking, of course). Last night we had people over, which is a rarity chez HappyGoth.  Jennie wants to knit a gift for a family member, only she didn’t know how so I promised to teach her. I was going to start her off with socks/arm warmers (I think she decided on the latter), but both the Chickengoddess and I forgot tiny dpns, so I unearthed some extra fat needles and some fuzzy leftover acrylic for her to practice with.

The girl is a natural. She completed a whole section of knitting in a couple of hours, and by the time she went home had learned to knit, purl, and rib. So she’s pretty much set. We sent her home with more yarn so that she can practice “reading” her knitting. I’m in awe. The Chickengoddess was muy helpful, since I generally forget to tell people important things about what they should be learning. So mostly, I started Jennie off, and then danced around my living room to the Chickengoddess’s selection of punk albums (which she had graciously brought for us to listen to). All others in the room wisely ignored my spastic flailing (I call it dancing – wise persons know otherwise). At the end of the evening, I unearthed a scarf that I’ve been working on for *mumble* months. It’s close to being finished. I’ll post photos when I’m all done. It’s my first pattern done all by me without any stitch dictionaries or pattern books! Don’t get excited, though – it’s not that fancy.

Tonight I have a number of freelance projects to start/continue/wrap up, and some laundry, plus some grocery shopping. However, the living room is clean, so it feels like I’m a little less harried. Tomorrow night we’ll be at the Eddie Izzard show, which promises to be excellent. And then I’ll hopefully have some down time before next week’s trip. I planned the trip without bothering to see if people would be in town and now we’re scrambling to make plans and I feel kind of really bad about doing this to the husband, who was reluctant to go in the first place. I owe him many back rubs to make up for this.

And maybe after that I can slow down a little. I hope.

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I did too much this weekend

Posted on June 23, 2008 by HappyGoth

Big surprise. I always do too much. I didn’t knit, though. This seems to be a trend (I will, however, make up for it by having Jennie and the ChickenGoddess over this evening, where we will eat something delicious made by the husband, and teach Jennie to knit socks with her own hand-dyed sock yarn).

Instead of knitting this weekend, I did the following (I like lists):

1. Went fabric shopping, then decided that I could buy what I needed cheaper than I could buy fabric (awkward sentence, yes?). Husband found some stretchy brown stuff for his DragonCon costume, so it wasn’t totally a loss.

2. Nearly finished the kilt cards. I have three to go, not including the box and refining the backs.

3. Went out to the goth club with Jennie, wherein we were hit on by shirtless guys, and I discovered that my New Rocks are most excellent to dance in. However, I will be wearing thicker socks next time, as they stretch out a bit and rub on my heels as I dance.

4. Stayed out until 4am for the first time in, like, a year. We ate at R. Thomas, which was full of clubgoers in search of some late-night fuel.

5. Did a clothing swap where I didn’t so much swap anything as take stuff off Jennie’s hands.

6. Bought some plane tickets to Chicago for the July 4th weekend (hooray!). We’re flying into O’Hare this time, which is strange to me, since I’ve only ever flown into Midway. It was much cheaper through O’Hare, though.

7. Ate an enormous and delicious Japanese dinner at Haru Ichiban with the Chickengoddess and the Mad Celt. Holy crap. Excellent, and next time the HappyGoth will reign it in and not order ramen AND appetizers AND onigiri AND sushi AND dessert. That was altogether too much. I foisted my leftovers upon the husband, who happily consumed them for me. Something about all that food made us really silly on the way back home. And none of us had anything alcoholic to drink! I blame the pickles. You never know.

8. Read two whole novels in two whole days. Granted, they were not particularly difficult reads, but I’m still pretty impressed with myself. I generally am, until I realize just how little I’ve retained from what I read. These novels were the Magic (fill in the blank) series by Ilona Andrews, and they’re set in an alternate-future Atlanta. I think that’s why I enjoyed them. Well, that and they’ve got werewolves. I’m a sucker for werewolves.

And that’s pretty much it. I slept until 2 yesterday, which was glorious, but left me kind of groggy for the rest of the day. I’m hoping to get at least a little something done on my socks this evening; I’m still a poor excuse for a knitter.

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Friday!

Posted on June 20, 2008 by HappyGoth

https://i0.wp.com/www.buriedlede.com/projects/sweater25.jpg

(Image linked from Angry Mongo’s blog)

Finally! Without further ado, here they are:

1. Old snapshots of people I don’t know. I love to go to antique stores and rifle through the big boxes of photographs that are inevitably crammed in amongst actual useful stuff. I like the ones that are family snapshots, especially if taken with silver emulsion film. I have some really wonderful ones, most of which I picked up for less than $5. I think that at some point I will stick them up all over my living room and make up stories about my “relatives” when people come to visit. I often wonder, though – who are these people, and why do their loved ones not have the photos any more?

2. Horrible sweaters (see photo above). I don’t like to knit them, don’t like to wear them, but they make me very happy anyway. Wil Wheaton’s clown sweater, anyone? It’s the best.

3. Recycled sari yarn. I do not own any of this yet, but it’s really beautiful. It’s the one fiber that makes me want to spin (a lady at SCA this past week had some wool with bits of sari silk and shiny fibers mixed in, and I couldn’t stop petting it).

4. The drive-in. Last night I went to see the Sex & The City movie with Jennie, and it was fantastic. I much prefer seeing movies from my own car than wondering who sat in the theater seat before me and dealing with other people. I don’t like dealing with other people. It was interesting, though, to be watching a film about glamorous people in New York while sitting in a tiny car in Atlanta’s hinterland.

5. Fridays. Not the restaurant; the end of the week. Boy, howdy. Always.

Have a great weekend, folks!

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Whew.

Posted on June 19, 2008 by HappyGoth

No news today, folks.

Okay, so maybe a little. I tore out the sock yet again, because I managed to moebius it. This, um, fifth time should be more productive. Hell, if I can just keep it on the needles, it’ll be more productive.

I’m contemplating casting on yet another pair of socks, this time with some of my old stash, and attempting one of Cat Bordhi’s wacky sock patterns from New Pathways for Sock Knitters. Or perhaps I should rethink this and get somewhere on my lace that I started (or finish all the other socks that are still in progress).

I’ve been a poor excuse for a knitter these past couple of weeks.

I’ll make up for it by sharing a whole bunch of my favorite things tomorrow. Really, I will

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Why I Knit, Reason #1

Posted on June 18, 2008 by HappyGoth

[Image from ashleyv‘s flickr photostream]

I’ve been giving some thought to this lately, seeing as I’ve done little knitting in the past two weeks. I don’t know if I’m still burnt out from the road trip, or if I need a break, or if I need to dye the crap out of yet more yarn, but whatever the reason, I’ve been thinking about my motivation and the lack thereof.

Anyway.
I knit because I don’t do the Zen meditation thing. I have a million things going on at any given time in my life, and I don’t deal with stress particularly well, so I need something that keeps me sane.

In grad school, when my life consisted of design and only design, this was particularly difficult. I would wake up, go to school, come home and do homework until I couldn’t see straight (generally a good sign that I had overdone it, and usually a daily occurrence), and then I’d go to bed until I had to get up and do it all over again. I averaged about four hours of sleep a night, though sometimes I didn’t sleep at all (I didn’t drive myself anywhere on those days).

I started knitting my last year of college, when I was trying to keep my head in all my advanced French Lit classes while also working 15-20 hours a week and putting together a senior Studio project for my major. To top it all off, my then-boyfriend (now my husband) had graduated the year earlier and moved away. I didn’t like my roommate (didn’t dislike her, either, but she used a lot of toilet paper), I was across campus from my best friend, and I wasn’t on the meal plan any more. It was a hard year. So when a friend said she was part of a Stitch N’ Bitch group, I got the brilliant idea to learn to knit, also kicking myself mentally for taking on something else. For Christmas, I received two Learn-To-Knit kits, plus lots of starter yarn, and a family friend taught me to cast on and knit Continental style (I had previously attempted English style, with disastrous results – I still can’t knit properly that way). And I was off, sort of. I gave that first finished scarf to the friend who got me into the whole thing in the first place, and she very graciously accepted it without comment. Thank you, Gemma.

The truly amazing thing about it was that rather than being an extra source of stress in my life, it was the opposite – it was the thing I did when everything else was too much. Granted, everything I knit in those first couple of years was in garter stitch, including a lovely scarf that I somehow did in twisted rib without knowing it, but it let me unwind and relax.

Now, even though the projects have gotten more complicated, I still use knitting as a form of meditation. It’s nice to be able to totally devote my brain to something that clears my head. I completely believe what the Yarn Harlot said about knitters and Buddhist monks sharing the same brain waves, because of the nature of knitting and meditation. That was a total “duh” moment for me.

Lately, the past couple of days, at least, I’ve been feeling the itch to pick up my knitting again as life begins to get crazy. I think this is perhaps why I have so many WIPs going at once – unlimited options.

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