and…..we’re off!!! (in 14 hours 
)
Tonight I’m off to Turkey! My flight leaves JFK at 11pm, but I have so much to do today I won’t be posting again here until I get home. I’ll arrive in Istanbul around 4pm Saturday (which is 9am Saturday in NYC) but I probably won’t post anything the first day. Although who knows. I have a new camera battery so I shouldn’t have trouble with photos this time, like I did in Laos. I’m so excited!!! Bye y’all (which is the title of this post, by the way).
think positively!
I love this. I love this so so so so much. I’m going to say this to myself in the mirror every morning while brushing my teeth:
We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glow-worm. ~Churchill
[I really think we are all glow-worms, but if you say that it loses its punch at the end.]
[Tomorrow I'll post the link to the Turkey blog, if you want to follow along.]
[It's just about to start dumping the rain. The sky shifted, and so did the air.]
[I hope things are well with you!]
[I'm a big fan of parenthetical comments. Asides, if you prefer.]
da da da da da da? da da DA da da da!
This is definitely going on my happy page, but I was afraid you’d miss it and it’s just too wonderful. Thanks to Pamela for posting it on fb!
I don’t know who Asha Tyson is, but s/he is so right.
My first instinct was to write, “I don’t usually go for these kinds of things, but…” and then I realized that yes I do tend to go for these kinds of things. In fact, I think it’s just the I’m too cool for that this-century hipster attitude that has inserted itself in my brain, because I very much love these kinds of things.
Yeah, I believe that.
spring has sprung, fall has fell, winter is here and it’s colder than usual. but just that first bit.
I feel busier than God on the first day of creation — so much to do in preparation for our trip (we leave this Friday), including finishing up a huge load of work. I’m never complaining when I talk about having a lot of work; as a freelancer, those periods are rain after a drought. Still. A lot of work to get done. So my apologies to everyone for not responding to comments and emails. Oy.
Despite this busy-ness, it’s the first absolutely gorgeous spring day here, and I just had to get out in it for a little breath of air. I took my camera to my dearly beloved Riverside Park, and enjoyed all the blooming flowers in the beds, the gorgeous yellow-green of the leaves, seeing everyone in much less clothing and many more smiles. I think Europe has had this weather for a while, from what I gather, but this is the first one for us, as far as I remember.
So here, a bit of Manhattan:
my standard shot, and why this is my favorite park. It's just so lovely.
this is where parents take their kids in NYC -- these are our playgrounds. Very different from the kinds of playgrounds my kids played in, but filled with parents playing with their children.
the persistence of spring, forcing its way through the cracks
Happy spring, it’s so nice to say that and feel it!
when the moon is in the seventh house, and jupiter aligns with mars…
Are you like me? Do you love time-lapse photography of the sky? Yeah? Here:
From the photographer: This was filmed between 4th and 11th April 2011. I had the pleasure of visiting El Teide. Spain´s highest mountain @(3718m) is one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars and is also the location of Teide Observatories, considered to be one of the world´s best observatories.
The goal was to capture the beautiful Milky Way galaxy along with one of the most amazing mountains I know El Teide. I have to say this was one of the most exhausting trips I have done. A large sandstorm hit the Sahara Desert on the 9th April and at approx 3am in the night the sandstorm hit me, making it nearly impossible to see the sky with my own eyes.
Interestingly enough my camera was set for a 5 hour sequence of the milky way during this time and I was sure my whole scene was ruined. To my surprise, my camera had managed to capture the sandstorm which was backlit by Grand Canary Island making it look like golden clouds. The Milky Way was shining through the clouds, making the stars sparkle in an interesting way. So if you ever wondered how the Milky Way would look through a Sahara sandstorm, look at 00:32.
Music by my friend: Ludovico Einaudi – “Nuvole bianche” with permission.
ch-ch-ch-ch-cha-nges…
In psychology, it’s said that people do mesearch. He studies self-esteem? He doesn’t have any. She studies deception? Big liar. He studies social dilemmas with a focus on people who don’t play nice? He doesn’t play nice. Etc. Social psychology is all about us as social animals, the way the world outside us has far more to do with who we are than we like to believe. The way roles, and scripts, and other people shape our behavior — and then of course we swear that no, that’s not right, we wanted to do that.
Digression #1: Here’s the coolest research I know. So some psychologists go to a mall with a fake questionnaire. As a reward for taking the survey, participants get to choose one of a set of items. In one study, for example, the items were pantyhose. The secret is that every single pair was identical, in every way (and that wasn’t disguised; in other words, the researchers didn’t try to make them appear different). People would mull them over, look them up and down, and then pick one (very reliably, the one on the far right). That’s interesting, but here’s the point: They would be asked why they picked that one (the real point of the research) and people just made shit up. “Well, I picked it because it’s the highest quality.” “I picked it because it’s sheerer than the others.” “I chose that one because it’s the best match to my skin tone.” Etc. And they were all identical. The title of the published paper was “Telling More Than We Know,” and it’s a classic. People do all kinds of things and then make up stories — on the fly — about why they did the thing. And they’ll insist, very strongly. Hilarious.
Digression #2: I’m a social psychologist, but a very unsocial animal. I’m awkward, shy, uncomfortable, and hate parties with the burning passion of a thousand suns. I’m good one-on-one (love that), ok with 2 others, start to wobble with 3, and am lost with 4+. I don’t know how to do small talk, and go immediately into inappropriately deep stuff that makes people suddenly remember they need to go to the bathroom. At home.
So all of that is to say this:
Such a busy social butterfly I am! Last week, lunch with a friend one day, breakfast with another friend one day, and my writing group one evening. This week: breakfast with a friend one day, breakfast with Will this morning and dinner with 2 girlfriends tonight, and then breakfast with another friend tomorrow morning. I hardly recognize myself!
I hardly recognize myself right now, anyway. I daydream about doing plank (plank!) and love to think about getting my form right, on squats. [me?! the most exercise i ever did was moving the mouse around.] I care about how I’m eating and want to be sure I get enough protein and the other stuff I need. And I’m kind of dressed up every day….even just to sit around the house. I enjoy shopping! ME! Yesterday, before my Wednesday appointment, I had some time to spare and stopped in at Filene’s Basement to see what’s new. ME!
I woke up from an unremembered dream a couple nights ago, and I didn’t know who I was, where I was, what I was doing, when I was (by which I mean what decade it is), and couldn’t figure out what I might be doing the next day. Complete and utter identity confusion. Who is this exercising socializing careful-eating dressed-up adult-like person?!
Help! I need somebody(‘s advice) Help! Not just anybody(‘s advice), HELP!!
HOW — can someone please tell me HOW to hardboil eggs so the shells come off easily? I’ve googled it and tried the near-unanimous answer (put them in cold water, bring them up to a boil, boil for a minute, turn off the heat, cover and let them sit for 10 minutes) (and yes, I am not using fresh fresh eggs, as required), and I sit here getting higher and higher blood pressure as I pick off shell in the tiniest bits, losing much of the egg in the process.
I don’t remember this being a problem in my younger years.
Seriously, if you know how to do it so it works, please let me know! I’ll say a little prayer in your honor every time I peel an egg.
Now, your reward. It’s National Poetry Month, as you undoubtedly know. There’s a thing going around facebook trying to get up a Poet’s Strike, which cracks me up. But your reward is the following three poems, each of which I love for one reason or another. You’re welcome. Below the jump, in case you are a poetry hater or just don’t have time:
CLICK to continue reading a question, and your reward... Continue reading »
You must perhaps both pray for & abandon / your peculiar strength of patience, / daring daily more or all. (John Berryman, excerpted from To A Woman)
Although I’m shrinking now, I’ve been tall nearly all my life. I peaked out at 5’11 something….never 6′ tall, but close. The tragedy for such a shy girl was that I reached that height in 5th grade. The boys hadn’t yet gotten their growth spurts. I was awkward, shy, bookish, unkempt, and was having quite a difficult life. It’s not like I went to school dances, but when there were dance-like events (square dance week in P.E., for instance), the boys’ faces hit me mid-chest and since I also developed very early, it was a double whammy of humiliation.
Having struggled with my weight for most of my life, and having that “I’m so big and have a too-big chest” thing going on too, I compensated by wearing big baggy clothes. I’m not as big as I think, and I’m trying different kinds of clothes and taking many big breaths these days. Marnie suggested small cardigans, of a scale I never thought I could wear: very fine yarn, quite fitted, and shorter than I’ve ever worn (i.e., not going down below my bottom).
My ravelry sweater queue features the kinds of sweaters I always thought I needed to wear, not the kind I’m trying to wear now. In fact, so many of the projects in my queue are large-scale — and of course some large-scale things are the best, big and squishy and warm and enveloping. So now I need to rethink things and try something new. A Goodale, perhaps. Even the Laar, perhaps, since I already bought the pattern and a gorgeous red laceweight yarn for it.
I’m also newly interested in making some very bright, eye-popping accessories to wear with my basic pieces, which are kind of anchored in black. I’ve had this great madelinetosh lace in a gorgeous springy green called lettuce leaf; I’m just beginning Jared Flood’s new shawl, Rock Island:
this baby is as delicate is a whisper
For some silly reason I had to start over 4 times; on row 3 I always forgot the last YO and when I tried to tink back I screwed it up. There are 71 repeats of the 8-row pattern (only ~12 stitches/row) so it should go quickly, but it’s not. My hands are accustomed to the drastically different scale of my other WIP:
this baby is huge and weighs a LOT!
This is my traveling woman shawl, the giant edition, in madelinetosh DK, colorway byzantine. I’ve finally gotten to Chart B, and may do it twice. The rows are pretty dang long at this point, and that return all-purl row is a boring killer, me not being a huge fan of all that purling. Still, I’ve put this much time, effort, and expense into it, and I want it to be what I want so I’m hoping to stick with my plan to do 2 repeats of Chart B. I’m into my 3rd skein of the dk now. That’s a lot of yarn.
I’m starting my 2nd week of strength training and taking care with my appearance, which makes me feel proud. It’s fun seeing my strength improve (on plank, at any rate), and it feels so good to be sticking with it. This is a 3-month experiment, set to “end” on August 1, but I’m not fooled: sticking it out that long is just a clever ploy to change my life.
i think i love you, isn’t that what life is made of, though it worries me to say, that i never felt this way (harpsichord interlude)
If you’re on facebook (friend me!!, see the icon in header, above), maybe you’ve encountered those crazy quizzes — what’s your soap opera name, what jewel are you, etc. I look at them now and then, as a psychologist, to see what ideas are underlying the questions, how they’d factor out. [nerd] This morning, a friend on my facebook wall took one called “What’s your hippy name” and I checked it out. This time, I even took it for a laugh. I’ve spent the entire morning cleaning out my closets and drawers, organizing for spring and my new interest in taking care of myself. Here’s what I got in the quiz:
Your hippy name is Phoenix: you’re deep red. Like a sunset. You are passionate. You put a lot of effort into everything you do and are an extremely caring person. You tend to put others ahead of yourself and would sacrifice a lot if need be. Sometimes you lose sight of yourself while helping others. You are artistic. You love to create and are disappointed when people ask you to do things which you reveal as mundane. You can be pretentious at times but are mostly helpful.
Well, like any of these kinds of things (including horoscopes), it’s easy to say yeah! yeah, that’s so me! to some of it, and wince at the rest. Pretentious? I don’t really think that’s true of me, but maybe I’d be the last to know.
Still. My friend’s hippy name was Astrid. It feels timely and apt for me that my hippy name is Phoenix. I like it, maybe I’ll adopt it as a pen name for a while.
Here are some random things I’ve collected for you over the last couple of days:
i opened my bookmarked weather page, nothing unusual, it's exactly what I do several times a day, but this time some of it was in FRENCH!! I love a little pluie as much as the next girl, but what was this about?! and only bits were in French. hmm.
you've GOT to be kidding me. This was on the front page of the NYTimes. Maybe I won't pay for online access after all. was it a joke?
look at this AMAZING quilt by Carol Taylor, called Transitions. Stunning.
The sky is gray, the air is cool (which is great, because the furnace is blasting hounds of hell heat….when is the super turning off the heat, for god’s sake!), and it’s going to rain today. But I’m happy, and I hope you are too! Happy Saturday, y’all.
wisdom of all kinds!
Just a collection of things on this Friday afternoon — I’m still so heavily focused on learning how to eat and deal with exercise, it’s consuming all my extra time and energy. Who knew that it would be harder to learn to eat than to do exercise. Hmph.
Anyway, a few little things:
- A great article titled Old broads: the golden years of pumping iron. Inspirational, as is everything on the site.
- This dude — he looked in the mirror one day at 85 and thought he looked old, so he did something about it. Inspirational. How can I sit on the couch as a spring chicken of 52?!
- The world’s oldest man just died — here are his brilliant words of wisdom:
- Embrace change, even when the change slaps you in the face. (“Every change is good.”)
- Eat two meals a day (“That’s all you need.”)
- Work as long as you can (“That money’s going to come in handy.”)
- Help others (“The more you do for others, the better shape you’re in.”)
- Then there’s the hardest part. It’s a lesson Breuning said he learned from his grandfather: Accept death. “We’re going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you’re born to die,” he said.
And in my ongoing efforts to be happier with how I look, a couple quick photos:
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- today’s outfit — so comfy, more than jeans or yoga pants!
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- heidi braids – amazingly easy to do and easier to wear. it’s like having no hair at all, but without the ugly fish-belly white head. :)
Have a great Friday, everyone! Knitting content coming very soon!
just keep your ears open — though you don’t have to try too hard. it’s pretty loud here.
Heard, the first: Subway conductors vary from a terrible recorded set of messages, to the cranky dad kind (I’m going to have to pull over if you don’t get your coat out of the door), to the unexpected cheery (make it a good day, it starts with you!). Today, though, I heard a new one. Today was the “really?” guy. He said, “Really? do you all have to use the same door? Come onReally?! There are lots of doors. Really.”
Heard, the second: Two guys in tweedy jackets, about 24-28 years old, music teachers (apparently). They were discussing their students, and one said, “Have you met Richard yet? Yeah, he thinks he’s really special but all he ever listens to is Mahler. [eyeroll]” Really, guys? Really?
Heard, the third: OK, this wasn’t something I overheard today, but it’s a bit of a new documentary about NY accents. Which I find hilarious, because the NYers in my life insist that they don’t have accents. Really?
one of the top 5 weekends of my LIFE
My little idea for “weekend’s best” was to post one or two photos, but I indulge myself this week because it was one of the best weekends of my entire life. Why?
- Marnie came to visit.
- She and Will saw each other for the first time since July 2008. And it was good.
- I got to have dinner with two of my kids at the same time — now I just need to get us all together at the same time….hard, since we’re so far-flung. But I’m going to do it, somehow.
- Marnie and I went shopping and I got this very cute little style going, now.
- Marnie helped set my life on a different course with a strength training routine, and lots of conversation about it. I get it now. I’m ready to go.
So here are some photos that capture some of the above (all photos courtesy of Marnie; click to enlarge any of them). It was wonderful.
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- another cute outfit! me happy, facing 2 of my kids and missing the 3rd really badly.
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- smiling at her brother — she has such a great smile!
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- sib play
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- will at highline park, wearing the hat Katie knitted for him
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- bad Easter candy debauchery. you can’t see the Peeps because I already ate them.
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- will, smiling at marnie
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- heads together. again. always. i love this one.
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- one cute outfit!
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- marnie at highline park
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- always with their heads together. always.
Weekend’s best, of the best weekend.
amen, sisters and brothers.
To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.
~William James
We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a physical experience ~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
I’ve been so body-bound, but body-ignorant, all my life. I’ve tended to approach life in the way de Chardin denies: I’ve been a physical being having an occasional spiritual experience….not that I’ve chosen that in a mindful way, and not that this is the way I’d most like to be in the world. But at the same time, I have not taken care with my physical self, in any way (see the previous post, or see me in person!). Now and then I’d get focused on weight loss; I’ve lost 50 pounds so many times I could create a small army of people — or maybe an army of small people. That reminds me of the old joke about being great at stopping smoking, having done it dozens of times. So when I get it together, I know how to lose weight, but obviously that’s only a first step.
Marnie and I talked a lot about life and how to live it, as we always do. I love that about seeing and talking with her. I admire her so much, as I always have, and learn so much from her in ways she doesn’t even know. Part of one of our conversations was about our bodies, and her deep embracing of being a strong woman, and that the embodiment of that is so much more than physical strength and a groovy metaphor. She is certainly strong; she and Tom have a regular strength-training practice of weightlifting. Listening to her talk about it really inspired me, and it landed at just the right moment in my life. She’d tried in the past to encourage me to do strength training, because she was concerned about my aging bones and she knew how good it would be for me, in a whole-self way. The timing must not have been right then, because this time BAM I got it. Before she got here, I’d been thinking very hard about how much I wanted to approach my life and body differently.
One really cool thing she told me that clicked is the idea that strength training is always hard; it’s maintained at a hard level. So for one thing, it doesn’t get harder! But the other thing is that you can do more and more, it takes more to keep it hard. Right now, holding the plank pose for 6 seconds, 3 reps, is HARD, man. I quiver, and on the 3rd one I’m a little sweaty. And I’m right proud of being able to hold it for 6 seconds! But one of these days, to keep it at the same level of hard, I’ll be holding it for a minute. My dear friends, I wish this for you, I wish this for your health and well-being, and for your aging process.
I’ve only done the training workout two days, Sunday and Monday, and I’m very keenly aware of my stomach muscles, the muscles that wrap around my sides, my butt muscles and leg muscles, my arm muscles, my upper back muscles. Keenly aware. I woke up this morning thinking about this, and looking forward to the next time I do it — tomorrow, because today I’m doing yoga. I look forward to seeing if next time I can hold plank for 7. If next time I can replace one set of modified squats with regular squats. Maybe to plank, probably not yet to squats, but it’s just a matter of time. If you put in the time and don’t cheat yourself while you’re doing it, muscles get stronger. Period.
I’m not becoming a proselytizer, and I’m not going to keep writing about the joy of this change; I’ll do that on my fitness blog. Tonight Marnie’s going to send me the photos she took while she was here, so when I get them I’ll write a proper post about her wonderful visit. It was huge, and one of the best times I’ve ever spent with her. As Katie reminded me, 2011 has been magnificent where my children are concerned, because I’ve been so lucky to spend good face-to-face time with each of them. My next goal is to spend good face-to-face time with all of them at once.
Well I quit those days and my redneck ways / And oh the change is gonna do me good
STYLE: I’m 52 — that’s young, or at least, I’m young. I’ve never had money, ever, and frequently had an astonishing lack of money and resources. As a young mother, I had so little money and no health insurance, and babies need things, so of course the little money we had went to seeing that they had what they needed. My “style” was old jeans and old shirts — often my husband’s old shirts. In college and graduate school, it was the same story about money but somehow there was even less of it, and my “style” was still old jeans and older shirts.
Before Marnie arrived, I started thinking about wanting to develop some style, wanting not to look like a bag lady all the time; of course it’s kind of tricky, since I work at home and can stay in jammies (and do). Do I dress up to sit around the house all day? What does that even mean, “dress up?” Just before she arrived, I’d come across a wonderful blog, Une Femme d’un Certain Age (this post in particular), so I was ready. There are lots of blogs like this and I’ve started collecting them — I’ll write about them later.
So we spent Saturday out shopping — a normally-dreadful chore, done as quickly and thoughtlessly as possible — but with a mind to helping me get a bit of style going. I just want to be comfortable and put-together, and look appropriate and nice. She also showed me some freaking adorable ways to do my hair; the next outfit I show you later this week is my favorite, and includes the cutest hair you’ll ever see. For now, here’s what I’m wearing today:
skirt: old, I’ve had it at least 10 years and can’t remember where I got it
black camisole: H&M, $6
green cardigan: H&M, $30
black tights, Duane Reade
flat black shoes, Aerosole, $40 on sale
black meditation beads worn as bracelet
FITNESS: I’ve also never had a very healthy approach to life — a lot of one thing at a time, usually, imbalanced, emotional eating, I can’t see how I really look, recriminating inner voice, you know, all that jazz. So another reason Marnie’s arrival came at a great time is that she is also a dedicated weight trainer and she pays attention to her food, and lives a very conscious life. She spent a good bit of time coming up with a strength-training routine for me to do at home, involving squats and plank and push-ups and hip and leg lifts.
My goals are much more about strength and fitness, and getting some regular activity into my life in a mindful way, i.e., not just a little random walking in the park now and then. There’s a button in the menu bar up top to my fitness blog, where I plan to track and record progress in this whole new part of my life.
So much more to say about Marnie’s visit, which I’ll do separately.
two of the thoughtful people who mean a lot to me
the sweetest baby
She’s here! Marnie arrived very late last night after a nearly-disastrous trip from Chicago — lots of people trying to leave Chicago had nearly-disastrous trips yesterday thanks to fog. Or so I hear. Anyway, Marnie’s here for the weekend and I am so glad to see her.
Marnie in India, in college
I’m not quite sure what we’ll do during her visit, but I know it’ll involve a lot of talking and sharing (our specialty) and probably some art-looking (her specialty) and eating good food (our family specialty). She’s also going to show me how to do some cute things with my currently uncute and extremely long (for me) hair. And maybe we’ll play Scrabble and watch movies. Lots of choices.
Depth, in the post title, refers both to Marnie, who swims in it, and The Pale King, the book that’s just come out by David Foster Wallace. Actually, his editor assembled the unfinished book, but it’s classic DFW, from the sound of it. I can’t wait to read it. The NYTimes book review made me want to cry, from missing DFW’s writing and spirit in the world. Infinite Jest was about our obsessive need for all-consuming entertainment, and The Pale King is about our boredom. From the NYTimes piece:
Perhaps, he writes, “dullness is associated with psychic pain because something that’s dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there,” namely the existential knowledge “that we are tiny and at the mercy of large forces and that time is always passing and that every day we’ve lost one more day that will never come back.”
Happiness, Wallace suggests in a Kierkegaardian note at the end of this deeply sad, deeply philosophical book, is the ability to pay attention, to live in the present moment, to find “second-by-second joy + gratitude at the gift of being alive.”
Sigh. There aren’t that many people who talk like that, and people you can talk with about those concerns. Marnie sent me this link to a wonderful article about DFW’s papers, which are now collected at UT Austin. Of course I love seeing the notes people leave in books (as I wrote in this post), so reading his notes is a great experience.
It’s a gorgeous sunny spring day here in Manhattan — I hope you’re facing as wonderful a Saturday as I am! Pictures will be taken, that’s for sure.
I know they come looking for me, boy, know they come looking for me…gotta get behind the mule in the morning and plow.
Just in time for the upcoming Christian holiday:
And don’t think he made this up — this page shows you all kinds of chocolate Jesus confections, if you want to get some for the kids this Easter! Chocolate Last Suppers, chocolate crucifixes, crucifix lollipops, something for everyone. Me, I love Peeps.
Tom Waits LOVE. I love this one too — the line “come on down off the cross, we could use the wood” — is just so great.
The world is not my home, I’m just a-passin through, that line in the song is from an old hymn my great-grandmother sang for the last dozen years of her life.
And this one reminds me of a specific day with my friend Sherlock.
Hafiz had it going on.
A half truth is a whole lie. ~Yiddish Proverb
Adrienne Rich said, “Lying is done with words and also with silence.” I almost think the lies that are in silence are worse, because you’re left being unable to trust what’s said and what’s not said. At least when someone lies with words, you’re left only unable to trust their words.
This is one of those funny human things — everyone lies, all the time. Ordinarily they’re little unimportant lies, like saying you have another appointment to get out of something with someone else. Social grease, those lies. So we all lie, and not uncommonly, but when we are lied to, oh the outrage! How could he!
There’s an AA saying that’s something like ‘the louder the no, the louder the yes.’ I’ve probably botched that; I hear these things second-hand and don’t always get the full explanation. But anyway, the point is obviously that when someone is being Quite! Certain! about something, the opposite is likely true. And not just in a “methinks he doth protest too much” kind of way, but in subtler ways, too. When I was first dating, I was pretty loud and certain: Oh no! I’m never getting married again, that’s for sure! Why would I. I’m not having more kids, mine are grown, that’s it for me, never getting married. Ever. Never. For sure. For real. Don’t ask. I’m done. And slightly less than a year later, I was married.
But the less-subtle over-protests are red flags: no! I did not do that, and I’m outraged that you would suggest I did! mmm, yeah. I’ll bet you did.
So I was lied to within the last 24 hours and it sucks and it feels pretty awful and I’m trying to regain my own equilibrium. I’m trying to keep in mind the thing about everyone lies (me too), and all the rest. But it’s just a wrenching thing, isn’t it, learning you’ve been lied to. Especially in silence. hmm.
it comes and goes, it comes and go-oh-oh-oes…
First, isn’t that the weirdest word, rhythm? The spelling always slows me down. Rhythm. Rhythmic. Weird.
Anyway. I get so distracted. I’ve been thinking about this general pattern that happens in life, where everything ebbs and then flows. My work is certainly like that; I’ll go through periods of being inundated with new clients/patients, and then periods of absolute silence, no work. It’s gone on long enough that I know it’s somehow just the rhythm of things. I don’t know why all at once lots of people want editing, and then for a long time no one wants it, but it does seem to go in clumps.
When I was a kid, I’d have periods of absolute addiction to reading (that was the bulk of my time, for sure) with periodic brief lulls where I just felt so burned-out by reading I didn’t think I could bear to pick up a book. It also happened with the what of my reading: obsession with literary fiction to the exclusion of everything else, and then a profound disinterest in it, and all that felt interesting was nonfiction.
And handwork follows the same kind of pattern — the frequently-mentioned “loss of mojo.” I think it’s just the same kind of deal, this ebb and flow rhythm of things. When you enjoy doing a lot of different things, that helps; a period of boredom with knitting just means more time to spin! When my kids were young, there was always so much to do and so little time, I don’t remember this experience happening too often, because there wasn’t time to immerse myself in any one thing for too long. I made most of their clothes, smocked the girls’ dresses, was president of the spinner’s and weaver’s guild (and obviously I loved to spin and weave), I did some quilting – piecing and quilting entirely by hand, and aside from that, I played guitar and picked a little banjo, and made big meals every night and had to make everything from scratch because of my son’s severe allergy to corn syrup. Even our bagels. Everything.
And I find this ebb and flow happens in blogging, too — for me and for others. I’m in an ebb right now, and was in one for most of March, due to that flare-up of depression. (Does depression flare up? That sounds too active for such a down experience.) Now, though, I’m not depressed but I just talk myself out of writing whatever I think to write about. “Nah, that’s too boring.” “Trite.” “Who cares.” “Really? Really?” The closely-examined life can sometimes just be too closely examined, I think during these ebb periods. I love my life as it is, and don’t want to change anything fundamental about it, but it’s not a lively exciting life, filled with daily adventures and drama to share. I wake up between 5 and 6, usually, grind my beans and make some coffee, drink it while poking around online, then I sit and edit manuscripts all day long, until it’s time for dinner. I eat, we clean up, then I knit and we watch something together. Then I hit the sack.
Even this post is dull and uninteresting, but instead of talking myself out of it I’ll just click publish. I’m pretty sure I’ll move from ebb back to flow one of these days!
leave me alone, droid. i’m just fine on my own. really. pot favor.
I know this isn’t anything new — there are even blogs about it, I think — but WHY does my phone have to “spell check” my texts? It’s almost never right, and anyway, don’t we expect there to be typos when we type with our thumbs? If words can be brutally abbreviated, what’s so wrong with the occasional typo. Good grief.
This morning I was texting my son – the only way to reach him, apparently – and I was trying to figure out his schedule for the weekend, because Marnie’s coming to town and they’ll get together. So I texted him, and I typed:
what’s the schedule, por favor?
A perfectly reasonable sentence by any estimation. Here, however, is how my Droid believed it should be written:
what’s the schedule, pot favor?
I just don’t know where to start. If you got the “corrected” version, I’ll bet you never would’ve suspected it was a “typo” correction, you would’ve just wondered what the hell was I talking about. Pot favor. Good grief.
This conversation brings to mind famous typos I have made, typos that were NOT caught by spellcheck because they were spelled correctly. Like the paper I turned in that discussed “seasonal shits” in something, instead of seasonal shiFts. And the one about “pubic awareness.” For want of an L, my humiliation ensued.
Would ya like to buy an o? No? Then could I interest you in a 9?
Every time I do something like this — shh….wanna peek? — I think of this:
Ah. The little kids years, such fond fond memories, to the soundtrack of Sesame Street and Mister Rogers, and Raffi. Baby beluga in the deep blue sea….
OH YEAH. Here’s why I stopped by. Want to see my progress?
so lush! it's going to be so big and blankie-ey
love the horseshoes, such fun to create
My Traveling Woman obviously, madelinetosh obviously, colorway byzantine (maybe not so obviously). But now I have the song in my head:
would ya like to buy an O? circular and sweet? looks just like a donut, really good enough to eat….it’ll cost you just a nickel (a nickel!) a nickel, shhh, a nickel right, so buy the O and take it home tonight don’t ask any questions…
Maybe that’s not really a good lesson for little kids to learn, now that I think about it.
Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment. –Ellis Peters
Spring seems to have arrived in NYC; I noticed yesterday that the giant tulip tree on Broadway is in buds, and this picture kind of captures the weekend just past:
spring! colors! farewell to gray!
My weekend included plenty of knitting time, and baking blueberry scones, and running errands, and Sunday brunch with a friend, very nice. And did I mention it’s spring?
everything just came together and i had to do it.
Remember my ill-fated Eve’s Rib Shrug? That project I was so enamored with and so frustrated and so ticked-off and so ultimately frogged? The whole problem was the pattern, not the incredibly gorgeous yarn, so I let it sit until the fury subsided over the pattern.
Last night I was cleaning out my giant project bag and there was a cake of the yarn, madelinetosh tosh dk, in the colorway named byzantine. Byzantine, reds and purples and snaps of gold, really rich and beautiful. And then something started buzzing a little in my mind, itching and twitching hey…. byzantine … Byzantine Empire … hey, Constantinople …. HEY! In 27 days I’m traveling to Constantinople … ur, Istanbul. HEY! Traveling! Byzantine!
And so I cast on a Traveling Woman shawl (the giant edition) in my precious byzantine-colored yarn. Here’s the take-off:
that color is so rich it makes me weep
The yarn really has such beautiful stitch definition, and the pattern is fun and pretty quick, though I am making it XL size, the better to wrap myself up in glory with. I imagine I’ll take it with me to knit on the plane, unless some kind of miracle happens and I finish it before we go.
Off to hit the shower, happy Saturday y’all!
angie, you’re beautiful, but ain’t it time we said goodbye?
I finished Katie’s socks — the pattern is Angee, by Cookie A, and the yarn is the ultrasoft and super washable KnitPicks Felici (colorway: green vegetables, in the most obviously-named color ever). Katie picked the pattern when she was here, and it was fun, like all Cookie A socks.
angee, in knitpicks felici
I did round 1 swatching for my Mothed sweater and didn’t like the fabric; I need to swatch again, going down a needle size. It was just too thin and kind of gauzy, and not what I’m going for, really. I persist, like a real grown-up knitter!
Other parts of the NE got snow, and we were supposed to but mercifully we didn’t. It is gray and drizzly, though, so it’s that kind of April Fool’s Day. I hope you aren’t fooled today (unless you want to be)!
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