my desk -- the bright orange glass of water that always lifts my spirits, the white mug filled with green tea, a book I'm reading to write a review, a pair of earrings, my cabling needles, my orange handknit scarf on the back of the chair, filtered sunlight through white curtains.

my computer desktop -- clear of clutter (always) and a beautiful bit of scenery.

I sit by a window that looks out onto the street, so I’ve come to know the regulars and their activities. I watch the trash dudes do their work, and wonder about their lives. I watch the supers stand on the sidewalk and chatter in Spanish (I think….they’re from the Dominican Republic so it may be a particular inflection). I watch the sun move across the sky and when it hits the spot between the buildings I have to close the blinds for 5 minutes because the glare is so intense, and then it keeps moving and I can re-open them. I know the weather because of what people are wearing: ah, clutching their collars close to their neck this morning, must be bitter. Jackets unzipped, it’s nicer today. I watch the regular rhythm particular to New York City of moving the car for the street sweepers. I hear people fighting, I hear people laughing, talking (and sometimes not listening) to each other, I hear the crazy religious schizophrenic who is just trying to save our souls.

Here’s my old office, when I was an acquiring editor at Oxford University Press:

it was a lovely office, 8 floors above Madison Avenue. HA! I see the same orange water glass and white mug. That's so funny.

What’s it like where you work?

the back, with shaping darts -- of course I had to do extra shaping for my waist, as always

that hem facing is madelinetosh DK, in tart. so tarty, so pretty! It won't be visible at all, since this is a pullover, but I know it's there.

Unfortunately for me and my knitting time, the next run of work is editing, not evaluation, and I have so much it’s stressing me out, waking me up at 1am. In fact, I got up at 1 this morning to get some work done. So this rate of progress will come to a halt for now, but it sure was fun!

*ring ring*

me: Hello, this is Lori.

her: Um, yeah. I saw you on my computer. [long silence]

me: Yes? Can I help you?

her: Um, yeah. You’re an editor. [long silence]

me: [trying to manage my irritation and corresponding rise in blood pressure] Yes I am. Can I help you?

her: Um, yeah. I need an editor. What do you charge. [long silence]

me: [trying with a little less success to manage my irritation] Well, if you’re looking at my website, you’ll see the page titled RATES.

her: [silence]

me: So as you’ll see

her: [interrupting] Yeah. What do you charge.

me: Well [deep breath], as you see, it depends on what kind of editing you want. There are different types of editing.

her: [silence]

me: Why don’t we start this way – why don’t you tell me a little bit about your project.

her: Um, yeah. It’s a book.

me: [fighting mightily against a growing tide of wanting to kill her] A book? Is it a novel?

her: Um, yeah.

…..I described the types of editing and we somehow agree she needs {surprise!} the deepest level of editing. I give her a quote…..

her: Um, yeah. Will you sign something about giving me the copyright?

me: Well, that’s not necessary, but I’ll sign something if you want me to.

her: Um, yeah. See, I don’t live up there, you feel me?

me: Not really, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll sign something if you want me to.

her: Um, yeah. So I’ll give you my address and you’ll mail me stuff.

me: No, you email your manuscript to me

BANGING MY HEAD ON MY DESK. This went on for several minutes. Am I holding my breath? Um, no.

The social phenomenon under the prism of our observation can espouse the shape of an engraved mentality that is tributary to heredity, and at the same time be transmissible from generation to generation.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

One may think that any writing can be improved, that an editor can surely impart sense and clarity on any writing, no matter how bad it might be. And one would be wrong.

I am a social psychologist. When I worked as an acquiring editor for Oxford University Press, I acquired books in social psychology, which was an honor and a thrill, and quite unusual. Usually, a new editor just inherits a subject and a list and you develop your knowledge of that area. But in a stroke of luck, I came a-calling just as they needed a social psychology editor.

An acquiring editor thinks of book ideas and finds people to write them. Or, people have ideas and come to the acquiring editor to see if the publisher is interested. The acquiring editor is the gatekeeper for what does and doesn’t get published; it’s a powerful position, actually. Since I did not go into academia after graduate school, this was an amazing opportunity to make a real contribution to my field. Just the right book at just the right time can have an enormous impact. It was a responsibility I cherished and never took lightly.

There is one book I signed that just brought me to my knees. The concept was that the 50 most prominent social psychologists would, in a casual tone, write about their work that was misunderstood, ignored, or that didn’t get the attention they thought it would get. Sometimes, your article comes out just as a more provocative paper is published, so yours gets lost in the shuffle. Or you just gave it a terrible title. Or you just didn’t write it in a compelling way, etc. And sometimes, the article is misunderstood and takes on a life of its own.

The book’s editor succeeded in getting the superstars of our field. I was completely blown away by the roster. The names wouldn’t mean anything to you, but if you knew my field you’d be as gobsmacked as I was. And the essays were charming, and humble, and funny, and surprising. It was a peek behind the curtain, a chance to think “wow, even HE was ignored?”, a chance to learn lessons from people whose opinions you should trust. It was a wonderful concept, a shocking roster, and full of great stories.

But then something went terribly, terribly wrong, and it looked like the book was not going to make it. I had most of the essays in, but the book crashed and burned. I was heartbroken and devastated, and I’m not being melodramatic about that. After several bleak months with many people working behind the scenes trying to revive the book, the best and right thing happened and the book came in. One year late, but the book came in.

Today I received my copy. When I pulled it out of the envelope, I started crying. This book is me, in such a real way I gave birth to it, and it was a huge-headed baby whose birth nearly killed me. I wish I could express all the feelings I have, but I can’t tease them apart. I am so proud, so honored, so thrilled, so many things, to have brought this book into existence, and to be forever connected with it. My dissertation advisor is in the book, and the article he cited (as a success, not a disappointment!) was one on which I was a co-author…..I know he did that just for me.

In the acknowledgment, the editor of the book wrote about me in the 2nd paragraph. I put it here not to brag, but to have it here for my own future reference and to convey a bit about how involved I was, to help explain why I am sitting here with shaking hands:

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Lori XXX, Senior Editor at Oxford University Press, who saw the value in this project from the start. her advice and counsel at every stage, start to finish, and her willingness to field incessant questions and lend her critical eye to all made her the best sounding board anyone could hope to have. Lori is not only a gifted thinker and writer generally, but her PhD in social psychology meant she knew all the “usual suspects” and she understands the field intimately, and I ultimately adopted the salutation Jedi Lori when writing her (as in “Dear JL”).

In some ways that captures it and in some ways it really doesn’t, but it is a reminder to me of the book’s often-terrible journey, and its ultimate birth. My heart is still pounding, 20 minutes after seeing it for the first time, my hands are shaking, and I’m crying. It really is a lot like giving birth.

About being an editor. When I was in graduate school, when people asked about my research I learned to be cautious in describing it. I studied what we can know by analyzing the words people use. As with most things academe, it was much more interesting in concept than in detail — people who are depressed use the pronoun ‘I’ more frequently than non-depressed people (but then again so do women, and coincidentally women are more likely to report being depressed than men). There are pronoun differences as a function of power status, a particular linguistic profile associated with cognitive complexity, more complicated pronoun differences associated with psychological and emotional change, etc. Really interesting stuff! But when I’d answer someone’s question about my research, they’d often grow quieter and quieter, and they’d frequently say that they no longer felt all that comfortable talking to me because I’d know stuff about them. (Note: you can either listen to someone, or count their pronouns. You can’t do both simultaneously. And you can’t really count their pronouns just listening to them, either. So it’s definitely not a problem…)

Even though I’m not a clinical psychologist, people who don’t understand the different types of psychologists sometimes say that they are afraid I’m analyzing them. I may be, but just in the same casual way you are! I suspect people who are clinical psychologists get this all the time. I’ll bet they also get people telling them their problems, hoping for free on-the-spot therapy.

And now that I’m an editor, people are often quite self-conscious with me about their writing. This one’s a little more complicated than the previous issues, because it’s always been true of me that I notice typos and incorrect grammar in everything I read. Chicken and egg, man. Still, there’s a big difference between noticing and judging, and this makes all the difference. When I read my friends’ writing, whether in an email or a blog post or any other format, I assume my mind registers any typos, but I don’t tend to really notice them because I’m not reading with editing in mind. And I definitely don’t judge them! The only time I do get judgmental and irritated is when there are a lot of errors in a published work. That’s bad form, publishers and authors. Well, one more: THE “INCORRECT” USE OF “QUOTATION MARKS” AND APOSTROPHE’S. (incorrect there for emphasis, as if the all-caps weren’t enough.)

The other side of this sword is that now, if I make a typo or use incorrect grammar, it has dire implications. If a potential client emails me, my email had better not have a single typo, or I’ve lost the job. I live and die by the same sword, not to be all violent about it.

Anyway, my work isn’t typically about spotting typos and incorrect grammar. That’s just proofreading. An editor does deeper work than that, expanding and eliminating, rearranging, making sense and better order, reworking paragraphs and sentences to make the author’s voice clearer and the story oh so much better. You kind of have to hold the whole thing in your mind at once. It’s great great fun, like solving a 3-dimensional puzzle that’s also a 4-dimensional Rubik’s cube. Trust me, that’s fun.

So in keeping with the old adage, since I don’t have anything nice to say, I won’t say anything at all. But in the celluloid words of the recent governor of California, I’ll be back. Just as soon as I get this work done……..

Took me a while to figure it out. Feel clam, y’all.

This work is of the type that causes (and requires) complete immersion. If I were just doing proofreading, I could pick it up and put it down. But I have to hold the whole novel in my mind, see redundancies, sections that would better fit elsewhere in the novel, gaps, inconsistencies, etc. Plus, I get in a kind of flow with it; I’ll open the file and start editing, and the next thing I know it’s 8 hours later and I haven’t stopped to pee or eat or anything. Poof! Eight hours have passed.

I’m also teaching stats, and let’s be honest. None of the students love stats the way I do. They’re required to take it, some are very smart but some are incredibly stupid. That’s right, I said it. Some are mushy-minded people who seem to have been failed by the educational system. But anyway – also teaching stats. And also needing to do 6 research projects for the publishing house I worked for.

So when’s a girl to knit? I also worry about all the hours doing very finely-focused computer work (on a laptop with a cramped keyboard) and getting carpal tunnel. That would be just horrible. At the end of these very long days, I still need to eat dinner and straighten up, and the day is done. Last week I didn’t sleep one minute Tuesday night (thank you stupid waitress who clearly gave me full-caf instead of decaf, even though I emphasized and asked again twice before drinking it), and Thursday night I slept 2 hours.

So here is the current state of my WIPs:

there it is.

First up, the one that’s been sitting in my bag the longest: Mondo Cable Cardigan, with madelinetosh merino, in Graphite.

near the end of sleeve 1, body finished.

look at the beauty of the yarn

I realized some of my skeins were a drastically different color – blue black instead of charcoal gray – and it put a hitch in my gitalong. Thanks to ravelers, I was able to score a couple of skeins that matched better, but I’ve never recovered my mojo on this one. But it really is beautiful, and softer than a baby angel fairy’s bottom.

coming along - but not too quickly. FUN pattern to knit!

This is blanket-sized: It’s the Totally Autumn pattern by Anne Hanson, and it’s such fun to knit! The pattern is cool, and it remains so engaging as I work on it. The Cascade 220 is hard, though, and my index fingers starts to feel raw after a while, as the yarn runs over it. It’s never as hard as I remember it, so whenever I do pick it up to work on it, I’m always surprised. Still, I’ve got a long way to go on that one.

Peasy - after I finish the current ball, I'll be ready to do the collar and button band!! WOO-HOO!!

Peasy, of course, though I couldn’t photograph the color accurately today, for some reason. You’ve seen it so many times on my blog, so you know the color is a rich avocado. I’m getting there, and cannot wait to wear it at Rhinebeck. One good thing that’s come about as a result of this sweater: I don’t hate the purl row as much as I used to. The collar and button band are simple, and not very wide, so I really am getting near the end with this one. Just one more ball of Rowan Felted Tweed.

this one is suffering from no commute time

The Sockhead Hat, in a Regia yarn that I’m not all that crazy about but it was a gift so I love it for that reason. This one stays in my project bag in my purse, and whenever I’m in the subway I feverishly work as much as I can, but I’m only in the subway once a week now.

I don't know; I'm not feeling it. The yarn is just so special - may just frog this.

This snowflake hat pattern is fun to work, and of course the yarn nearly makes me cry, it’s so soft and lofty and such gorgeous colors too. I suspect I really want something different for the yarn, something I might wear against my skin – a little shawl or something, to wrap near my neck. I do suspect I’ll frog this.

close to the toe on sock #1

And my socks, out of Tosh Sport (colorway tweed – this photograph does capture the color pretty well, which I think should be called bronze. But they didn’t ask me.)

the beginnings of bag #1

And a new project I cast on yesterday – the Monteagle bag, using the Louet Euroflax yarn string yarn I recently got from Paradise Fibers. I’ll be making two of these, if I can tolerate it. The linen is kind of hard to work with, especially with these tricky stitches (the next one of which I cannot begin to figure out: “*Knit into the back of the second stitch with a double wrap, but do not transfer to the right needle; knit the first and second stitches together through the back loops with a double wrap and transfer both stitches to the right needle; repeat from * around on each following pair of stitches.”) WHA??? And the linen wants to be straight and hard and pop off the needle mid-stitch.

For now, though, many other less-pleasant tasks are calling my name. Shut up you less-pleasant tasks! I’d rather be knitting.

I must also acknowledge that people might ridicule my research, even though I found it terribly fascinating. I wasn’t trying to cure cancer, of course, but I thought my research questions were very interesting, and the data were often compelling. Still. I studied pronoun use and what it reveals about us, psychologically.

So I stand in my own glass apartment and throw a little pebble at this line from an academic paper I edited yesterday:

There is strong evidence that the drop in neighborhood-level white poverty rates in central cities has been caused by the decline in neighborhood-level white unemployment rates.

Really? When people get jobs, their poverty levels drop? REALLY? I am certainly not disparaging the writing (academic-style, such a wimpy passive voice but it’s how it’s done), or the discipline (sociology), or the finding (though I could’ve told them that). It’s just so ……… academia.

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