Let the rain kiss you / Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops / Let the rain sing you a lullaby / The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk / The rain makes running pools in the gutter / The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night / And I love the rain. ~ Langston Hughes
It is an utterly beautiful day to be working at home, one of those that makes me grateful to be a freelancer, grateful to be sitting at my desk in the window, watching the drenching rains, seeing the wind blowing the drops across standing puddles, seeing the lights turn on in apartments across the street as the skies darken. I met a favorite client this morning at my corner Starbucks and proceeded to dump my giant cappuccino all over the table, on our papers, and in my lap. She was kind and gracious as she grabbed napkins and helped me clean up, assuring me with a gentle lie that this happens to her all the time. I came home during one of the brief breaks in the rain, peeled off my coffee-drenched jeans, and pulled on flannel pajamas. Made a big mug of green tea and lightly toasted a sesame bagel. Pulled out my chair, opened my laptop, and took a deep breath. Selected the perfect music: Berliner Messe, by Arvo Pärt, performed by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra.
After weeks of not sleeping, I took a pill last night that made me sleep deeply, all night long. It’s not something I can do regularly — the drug is not addictive, but it has dreadful side-effects like weight gain and the potential for tardive dyskinesia — but getting one good night of sleep is enough, for now. Happy Friday, y’all. I hope it’s as peaceful and lovely where you are as it is at my desk.
Here’s a different piece by Arvo Pärt, also perfect for a rainy day:
“Sickness shows us what we are.” ~Latin proverb. Apparently I’m a whiner.
Winter colds are miserable, but a summer cold has its own form of ick. The heat makes sneezing and watery eyes feel worse, I think, and the fact that everyone else is cavorting and frolicking around — as it looks to the sick person — just adds a log of ‘unfair!’ to the fire. Yes. I have a summer cold. Boo hoo, poor me.
Today I’m very grateful that I work at home, that I can work at home, that I have enough (but not more) work to make it possible for me to do this. Going down into steaming summer subways isn’t much fun anyway, but with a cold it just feels way too wrong, universe. Way wrong. Instead, I get to sit on the couch, read an interesting manuscript and try to make it even better, drink tea, adjust the air conditioning to meet my changing hot-cold status, wear comfortable clothes (and not wear uncomfortable clothes), moan a bit, and nap if it strikes me. That’s a big thing to be grateful for, so I pause here and say that.
Achoo.
I’m in the flow of editing a thoughtful and beautifully-written manuscript, with an even more beautiful one waiting in the wings. Cue the telephone:
*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.
not to worry but i’ll be quiet for a bit
Another book that meant a lot to me was Little Women. My bitchy grandmother (the other bitchy grandmother) gave me a hardback copy when I was in 2nd grade, I think, and I still have it. It’s falling apart and the pages are brown. I remember crying every time I read it, when Beth died. (no!!) My daughter Marnie’s name came from a misunderstanding of the mother’s name in Little Women (it’s Marmee in the book, but my father-in-law’s mother wanted to use it for her grandmother name and she got it wrong, so she was always called Marnie, but it was a mistake).
ANYWAY. Remember how the little women are always reading (or being exhorted to read, by their mother) Pilgrim’s Progress? I’ve never read it, but somehow I know of the Slough of Despond and sisters, I’m in it. I’m in it up to my waist. Just personal stuff going on, not for public blog consumption, and no one’s dying or anything so in the scheme of things it’s surmountable, but the Slough is sucking me down.
I’ll probably be quiet for a few days — sure I’ll be back.
***
p.s. #1 If, like me, you never said Slough of Despond out loud because you didn’t know how to pronounce it, it’s slough like through — slew.
p.s.#2 And many thanks to Jess for commenting on my political post to let me know that the Republicans have decided to remove the word “forcible” from their definition of rape. Yay, thank heavens for that small favor. Kristen Schaal said on The Daily Show Wednesday night, “You’d be surprised how many drugged, underaged or mentally handicapped young women have been gaming the system. Sorry, ladies the free abortion ride is over.” Guess she’ll get to eat her sadly funny words.
in which the wordsmith uses words to say she cannot deal with any more words today
I’ve been doing deep editing of a dissertation proposal, and OH MY. It’s requiring every molecule of ATP in every cell just to keep my mind working hard enough. My brain is so fried, I’m taking a huge risk by picking up some knitting, but I just can’t work one more second. I’m around the elbow of the 2nd sleeve on my Dark & Stormy, so I’m coming into home plate.
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. 
work work work BEANS work work work
Well, you know how they say you should be careful what you do on New Year’s Day, because you’ll do a lot of that thing throughout the coming year? I don’t know if this is good news or bad news, but I worked all day long, like 10 hours. And I did the same thing yesterday. But I did finish the giant manuscript, hallelujah.
A photo that captures my weekend, therefore, would have to be me at my computer. BO-ring. So instead, here’s a shot of Texas caviar, the cold black-eyed pea salad I eat every New Year’s Day. It’s a southern tradition to eat black-eyed peas for luck, but guess what? It’s actually an ancient Jewish tradition. The Talmud recommends eating them at Rosh Hashana for prosperity in the coming year. Many Jews moved to Georgia in the 1700s, so of course that tradition came with them. Southerners recognized a good thing when they saw it, and adapted it to their New Year celebration (and adding the obviously un-Kosher ham hock, but that’s what makes it so good!).
So with no further blathering: Texas caviar. It’s damn good – meaty and spicy and limey and jalapeno-ey.
eaten with tortilla chips, so good it'll make you slap your mama
too much to do! too much to do! stress monster, aaargh!
That would be me, today and for the rest of this week — Wendy Whiner. Whiney McWhinerson. I have too much work to do, (a), and something’s gone jiggy with me, (b). My muscles are all vibratey and jittery, my head’s kind of wonky (-er than usual), and as my kids used to say when they were little, I have daddy-rhea. I’ll let you figure out that one.
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……..
so many WIPs, so little time. i know, you hear that ALL the time.
I thought that working from home would give me more time to knit. HA! Silly, silly me. I’m knitting less than before, for many reasons. I don’t have my subway commute time, which was a guarantee of ~45 minutes to an hour each day. I knocked out little projects during that commute. (NOT complaining about not having the commute, don’t get me wrong!) Also, another problem I’m not complaining about….I have a lot of work. Thanks to my Google Ad for my little business endeavor, I have more work than I can do, quite often. Just yesterday, I was contacted by 3 people wanting to hire me to edit their 100,000+ word novels. One is amazing, one has the potential to be amazing, and the 3rd is stupid. They can’t all be amazing, and at least the stupid one is not about Dracula and prairie schooners.
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.
help me! All you need to do is retweet something…..such a little thing..
Wa-hoo! I was hired to write a book review for Psych Central, and it was published today, I think (maybe yesterday, don’t know for sure). Anyway, the founder of the site emailed me to ask if I’d be interested in doing more writing for the site….beyond book reviews, I think. Still waiting to hear.
But I could use your help! If you are on Twitter or facebook, and if you don’t mind doing this, could you tweet it (or facebook it, or stumble it, there are lots of social networking options at the bottom of the article). Here’s a link to the book review: “The Skinny on Willpower”. If you scroll down to the end of the article, there’s a button to tweet the piece, and then the other options too.
Caveats: I know I am making much of a book review. But it’s the first piece of writing I’ve done that I was paid for (and paid pretty well!), and I hope it helps me get other writing gigs. Also, I have no idea if a little viral social networking will help me, but I do know it can’t hurt me! If you are one of the ones who loves me, could you also ask your friends and loved ones to do it too?
Thanks, my friends. I really mean that. And very shortly we will return to knitting content. Since – after all, according to the masthead – this site is about life with needles and thread.
do you need an editor? HIRE ME!
Yeah, I’m shamelessly stealing from my daughter Marnie. When she was facing a life change, she put a note out on her facebook page, asking people to keep her in mind when opportunities came up that might fit with her skills. As an academically-minded person, she included a citation:
“In my empirical study of recent job changers, I found, in fact, that if weak ties are defined by infrequent contact around the time when information about a new job was obtained, then professional, technical, and managerial workers were more likely to hear about new jobs through weak ties (27.8 percent) than through strong ones (16.7 percent), with a majority in between (55.6 percent).”
-Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” 1974
So in the same spirit, and with a bit of happy experience under my belt, I do the same thing here. One of my friends who comments here, and who I met through Ravelry (hi again Kelly!), has already helped me. I just finished an editorial assignment that I got from an agent Kelly connected me with. And in the true spirit of weak connections, it wasn’t actually an assignment from the agent, but rather from a friend of hers who happened to mention that she was writing a book proposal. (thank you Kelly!)
Oh, the strength of weak ties. What good is this social networking thing, if we don’t put things out there? If we don’t occasionally shake the ropes and see how far out they ripple?
So here’s what I do, and if you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who needs me, please think of me! Having been an acquiring editor for a major publisher, I know what publishers need and want, and can provide invaluable assistance to authors who are preparing proposals, or who have written manuscripts. I wear my acq ed hat, and I also wear my in-depth editor’s cap, which allows me to see the book that may be buried in a not-quite-there manuscript.
I also have a strong background in market research; you know the Harris Poll? Yeah, I worked for them and used my background in survey design as a social psychologist, along with my research and analytical skills. Most recently I used those skills to help publishers do research around new online products. But whatever! I know how to craft questions to get real answers, and I know how to program surveys and prepare the results.
Up there at the top of my site, just under the masthead, is a new tab labeled Hire me! See it? It goes to my professional site. And while I am shy about this, there’s a page in my professional site that includes comments from my authors. They were awfully nice.
Even though I have a particular grace and skill at just being myself and being charming, no one has paid me to do that just yet. So I’m in the market for work, doncha know, and if you know someone (who knows someone who knows someone…..), please think of me! I’d do the same for you, I promise.
.
i did it! i did it! i did it! i did it!
happy! joy!
SUCH a wonderful, happy day for me! I finished the final little details of my old job, tied up every last loose end, left nothing undone, left on a very high note.
I finished grafting the shawl together, and it LOOKS GREAT! I was so worried that the graft would be obvious and weird, but you know the kitchener stitch is really amazing. It really looks seamless. Now I just have to weave in a couple of ends, then soak it for a bit and do the blocking.
Isn’t it great when the things that hang over you are finished? You know that glorious feeling of liberation and accomplishment and exuberance?
Yeah. I’ve got those going. After I finish the blocking, I think I’ll do the next swatch for Peasy, so I can work on it on the flight later this week. To my daughter’s wedding. Two girls happily married, that’s another great relief, you know?
blocking
.
goodbye lori.
The final farewell at work – and thank heavens, the party was moved into the office, instead of on the rooftop of a midtown fancy hotel at 5pm in the midst of a record-breaking heatwave. The office lacked a certain charm, to be sure, but it had the awesome benefit of air conditioning. It was sad to say goodbye, even though of course I’m still working with everyone in a consulting capacity.
I thought you might like to see what the office of an acquiring editor, on Madison Ave., at a major NY publishing house looks like. Here it is back when my stuff was in it:
a LOT of great books were signed here
that's Madison Ave down below my enormous window
and now, the end is here
My friend Craig, whose office is right next to mine, saved the day for me many a stressed-out day, and I think I did the same for him. He’s away at a conference, but I stopped in his office to take a picture of something that makes me smile.
he kept that 5th grade picture of me, right by his computer. aww.
One more day, tomorrow, of tying up loose ends and then I’m done.
For now, I’m watching A Single Man, that incredibly stylish Tom Ford movie, with Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. I just finished eating a pint of peach frozen yogurt for my dinner, and I’m going to knit for a while. That seems like a nice way to honor this transition, from something to something else. Stay cool, y’all.
i love my friends – i’m such a lucky person
So my dear friend Craig, another editor at my office, organized a smallish going away party for me at a neighborhood pub I’ll just call the Galway Hooker. Because that’s the name of it. There was an intimate, lovely room near the back, with 4 seating areas, and a waiter I fell in love with named Col. He reminded me so much of my son I had to keep forcing myself not to hug him.
Anyway.
Unbeknownst to me, Craig had taken 4 very old photographs of me and had them enlarged and mounted on foam core board. He and I got to the place a few minutes before everyone else, to kind of set up, and he started pulling these things out of his bag. He stuck them all over the room, and mounted one on the door frame going into the room. MY SHAME. First of all, it gave the space the air of a wake, and second of all, three of the photos are humiliating. But everyone liked them, and kept picking them up, gazing at them, and asking me about them. It was kind of sweet. Here’s the room:
here it is, the party room
It was a wonderful space, filled with people I love. Since you don’t know these people, I’m just inserting a slideshow – my kids and family, who’ve heard me talk about all these people, might want to see faces to go with the names. Otherwise you can skip them.
When each person left, he or she hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. It was stunning and warm and loving, and I thought “this isn’t how people think of New Yorkers, and they’re so very wrong” because this is how people here can be. I love these people.
Today is the last day I’ll go into the office as a regular employee. I will work at home until July 7, which is my last real day as an employee – I’ll go back at the end of that day for the big going-away shindig, which is on the rooftop of a hotel in midtown….a gorgeous space. More about that party afterwards. On the way to the office, I’ll start the next Peasy swatch, with the next size down needles. It’s a beautiful summer day, and I am very happy. I hope you are too.
2nd lesson in 2 days about knitting – i feel like such a grownup!
Well, aren’t I glad I did this – I dutifully completed my (first) swatch for my beautiful new Peasy sweater. Last night I wet blocked the swatch, and I just unpinned it, got out my measuring tape, and checked my gauge. Using a 3.5mm needle, my gauge should have been 22 st and 30 rows = 4 inches. But I got 23.5 and 31 rows = 4 inches. Here are my lessons learned:
1) because I now know from my Wowie Zowie sock lesson that what seems like a small difference can actually be a very large difference,
2) I need to go down a needle size, and
3) the fabric is going to be absolutely gorgeous, with the most lovely hand and drape ever.
Madelinetosh is not in danger of being toppled from the top of my favorite- yarn- ever list — especially not with tosh merino light in this world — but Rowan Tweed has scootched immediately to a close second. I think I’ll knit a Manu with Rowan Tweed after I finish my beautiful Peasy and an Austin Hoodie with TML. I also have enough yarn for an Inaugural sweater.
Oh dear. I think I’ve just become a sweater knitter.* Good thing I live in a place with a long cold winter.
With a nice long weekend coming up, I have knitting plans that include finishing Marnie’s wedding shawl and getting it blocked, doing some work (you know, instead of saying work I’d rather say ‘fun’) doing some fun on my Wowie Zowie socks, and maybe I’m just sayin maybe getting going on my Peasy. Last night was the first major festivity associated with leaving my job; 20 people I work with came to a little party for me, and it was quite amazing. Much toasting and fete-ing and love; hugs and kisses from each one at the end. Tonight is a drinks farewell with my boss’s boss and my best work friend, Thursday night is my writing group. Not much will happen until the weekend but it’s all going to be fun. When it’s good, life can be really, really good, you know?
*disclaimer and acknowledgment: knitting a swatch does not guarantee becoming a sweater knitter…there is still the ability to be in it for the long haul, the perseverance to finish all the fiddly bits, and (for some sweaters) the ability to assemble pieces. The jury is still out on me with these parts!
perspective sure makes a difference.
I was sitting here thinking about this moment in my life – leaving a secure (though terribly stressful) job without anything specific lined up – and thinking that I feel happy, and full of hope and possibility. This wasn’t always true; in fact, for most of the 6 months I’ve been considering this move, I have instead been terrified, imagining that I am too old, at 51, to start something new. That nothing would happen for me, that I’d fall into poverty and death. (dramatic, I know, but you know how fear can do that to you!)
Then a line from a wonderful old song popped into my head: What a difference a day makes, 24 little hours… But instead I thought, What a difference a mood makes. “Mood” isn’t quite right – it’s much deeper and more pervasive than a simple mood, but it fit the lyric rhythm.
Perspective. What a difference perspective makes. Perhaps it matters whether you’re looking at your feet or at the horizon. Truth is a raspberry, not a piece of sand – bulbous, multifaceted, multicolored, round, bumpy. The truth is that I am 51, and have started over so often I have a patchwork resume. But the truth is also that I can do a lot of things, and am flexible. I cannot be a lady of leisure (though I’d be so great at it!). I need an income, but for the first time in my life, I am not the sole or primary support of 4 people. For the first time in my life, I have the freedom to at least take the leap and see what happens, and that’s a pretty lucky thing.
Here – pick a version of that great song and give a listen. I recommend that you start with Dinah.
i gave notice at work, and guess what happened….
So. On Monday I gave notice at my job, and I didn’t know what to expect. I knew they would be surprised – and they were – but beyond that I just didn’t know. I was prepared for everything except what happened.
They cried. They really did. My boss cried when I told her, and came into my office the next day, sat down, and did it again. Colleagues said the most incredible things, things that were hard to take in. Inside, I imagine myself as just slinking around the perimeter, and not registering with people. I imagined that I’d just quietly slip out the door and no one would even know I left for a while. But that’s not what happened, and it has blown me back off my feet. It’s hard to take in, hearing people tell me what they think of me, what I mean to them. (Remember when you were about 12 years old, and you’d get mad at your mom for something and imagine that you died, and everyone was at your funeral, and they were all so sad, they’d all be so sorry then? This has been something like that, but without the death part!)
They immediately started listing freelance work they want me to do, so they can keep me around and also to help me, which is kind. My authors have wailed, and sent me the most amazing letters that I will absolutely cherish.
I think this is true for most people, and we just don’t realize it. We make an impression, we have an impact on people, people in our lives feel all kinds of things that they don’t ever say, because they think they don’t need to, or they’re shy, or they’ll just tell you tomorrow. I think you’re a very lucky person if something happens while you’re alive and you get the chance to hear it – especially if it’s all at once. So maybe the other side of that is that we should actually tell people these good things we feel about them.
One thing nearly every person said in their little lists referred to my sense of humor. Well, I am a dramatic person, I do have a quick and dry sense of humor, and my reactions can be large and hilarious. For example (you can see that I like you, I’m willing to be ugly in front of you), someone snapped this shot at a birthday party they gave me. I was responding to something someone said. Oh the humiliation….
silly, dramatic me
So anyway, I’ve been silent because I’ve been silenced by all this. Plus I’ve been insanely busy. I did finish the wedding dress and today I bought beautiful little Italian mother-of-pearl buttons from Tender Buttons, which is such a cool store. Only in New York, man. We have a button district, yes we do. In the morning I’ll take it to the cleaners for a good pressing, then get it off to my girl, the bride-to-be.
I promise knitting content will return soon. I’m dying to return to knitting…
oh yeah? then how would YOU define it?
I go around thinking I know a thing or two, especially where words are concerned. I was one of those funny little kids who spent all her free time reading the World Book from A to Z, the Child Craft from beginning to end, the dictionary from AA to Zygyzy….read and repeat. Read and repeat. Then embroider a little pillowcase. Then back to the obsessive reading. I still love to read, and love dictionaries and reference books. My graduate research – and my dissertation – were all about the psychological import of the specific words people use. I love words and think about them a lot.
So imagine my surprise to listen to a great little TED Talk, by Alain de Botton, in which he defined the word snob in a way I’d never heard: a snob is someone who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. At first, I kind of jumped back a little and did some sassy back talk to Senor de Botton: IS NOT! That’s too simple, and anyway, that’s the definition of stereotype, so there. Ha. You’re wrong and I’m right.
But he’s right. That’s exactly what a snob is, isn’t it. It’s a topic of conversation on Ravelry, here and there – people self-identify as ‘yarn snobs’ and if someone talks about having used acrylic yarn, the yarn snobs sometimes come out of their dark corners to say unkind things. So those who don’t want to use acrylic yarn have decided that people who do use acrylic yarn are … well, a whole bunch of things. It’s very interesting to think about the word snob in this way, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I listened to the podcast in line at Starbucks 2 hours ago. Here’s the talk – it’s very nice, and is more about success and failure than about snobbery, though snobbery does have its place in the mix:
Today has been a really shitty day, there’s no other way to say it. One of my authors has decided that I personally betrayed him because of the way we had to price his book, and he has spent an awful lot of energy and pixels writing me the same email a dozen ways, emphasizing the personal nature of the betrayal. To soothe myself a little, since I am working at home today, I cast on 15 stitches and knit a few rows of stockinette in this luscious madelinetosh pastoral, colorway terrarium. I have to say, it did make me feel better:
such pleasure
And I’m nearly finished with one sock, will knock out the toe tonight and cast on for the other one, so I can work on it in the subway tomorrow:
at the toe now, sock #1 will be finished tonight
I’ve decided to name this pair of socks “minkeys” – a play on pink monkeys, and also I hear it in my mind in the Inspector Clouseau voice and that just makes me giggle.
I hope you’re having a better day than I am!
a mishmash of thoughts, plus a picture of monkey socks
A random mishmash o’ stuff today:
* It’s been a hell of a week – 12.5 hour workdays, which were nowhere near enough. By the end of each day, I was still too far behind, how does that work?
* I saw a friend I usually see once a week, and the evening I was on my way to see her, I thought ‘man, it feels so long since I saw her!’ It took me the whole trip to realize that I hadn’t seen her in 2 weeks, and that’s because last week I was on vacation. In Honduras. Last week feels like forever ago. And not real.
* Until this moment: for my vacation, I took the electric kettle, a huge coffee mug, a plastic cone for making one cup of coffee at a time, and a stack of filters (plus a bag of fresh-ground really good coffee). So every morning on vacation, my routine was to make a cup of coffee and drink it on the porch and knit. So this morning, I just made my coffee and poured a cup into that particular mug. The vacation feels real, I remember it. And I wish I were there.
Two sides of me:
* The not-so-nice side – I always get really mad on the subway when an adult with small(ish) children expects other adults to give up their seats so the kids can sit. What??! Kids have all the energy! They haven’t just worked a terrible job all day, they’re not stressed out, their backs don’t hurt! I’m sorry, if you’re 4 or 5 years old and there’s enough space for you to very safely stand and hold onto a pole, I am going to keep my seat. Bite me, adult giving me a dirty look.
* The nicer side – I have a friend who had a major stroke last year and who is currently in the darkest place of suicidal depression. She’s very brave but she doesn’t know that (or anything good) right now. So yesterday I wrote her an email that included this: “The bravery of us poor little frail people in this world, going forward as if we know what we’re doing, going forward as if it’s all somehow guaranteed (until something happens and we’re reminded that it’s not……but we go back to our old habits of thinking it’s all guaranteed). It makes me feel quite tender toward humanity whenever I think about this. Here we all are, with all our troubles, with the pain and trouble that we all bear in one form or another, with our small joys and our fragile hopes and plans. Here we all are, tiny little specks in an unimaginable infinite, on a tiny little planet whirling around a tiny little sun in just one little galaxy, here we all are, doing our best. GREAT. Now I’m starting to cry. I think we are all amazing, and that includes you. And I guess, then, that it must include me.” See? I can be kind towards people. Just don’t ask me to give up my seat to a 4-year old.
Finished the monkeys – will block them and get them in the mail to Katie first thing Monday morning:
one's a little smaller than the other - i'd bet the smaller one is more tightly-knit and therefore the one i knit here in Manhattan. looser = vacation.
blocking the monkeys to make them closer in size to each other; actual color is closer to the photo above this one, which came out weirdly golden.
I have a 3-month plan: I am putting all my ducks in a row, getting everything lined up to quit my job in 3 months. Period. I’ll teach, as much as I can; I’ll do writing and statistical consulting, as much as I can; I’ll try to do developmental work and rewriting on manuscripts for publishers, as much as I can; and I’ll make things and sell them, as much as I can. I’ll pare down my expenses, as much as I can. I cannot persist in this job that sucks the living life out of me. I’ll be 52 in November, and I say uncle. I want to have a life that’s not just bearable and happy on the weekend, you know?
This week, 3 people at work quit. Two of the editors in my group are going on interviews and will leave the second they get another job. Granted, I don’t know everyone on my floor, but everyone I do know is looking for another job. No exception. My boss even told me that she suspects our brand new assistant is already looking for another job. My company is based in the U.K., and there, it really is an enormous honor to work for this company. People stay with the company their entire lives – so very proud to work for this company. And I get it – it’s an amazing amazing and old company! It published the very first book. BUT (1) it doesn’t hold the same cachet here, (2) the Madison Ave experience is 100% different than the experience on that lovely lane in that beautiful town in the U.K., and (3) publishing is under such pressure now due to the economy and the transitional moment between books and online presentation of [free] content, we’re all turning into diamonds from the pressure.
Anyway. Lots to get done this weekend! No easy traveling knitting right now, as my knitting time is turned entirely to the wedding shawl. I’d hate to carry that in the subway – snowy white cobweb-weight wool, complicated Estonian lace patterns. My only other knitting alternative right now is the lettuce-green Ishbel, which is also a bit hard to do on the subway. So this weekend I’ll get back to the shawl, and I just have so much other stuff to do towards my eventual release to freedom. I feel myself getting lighter, just thinking about it.
it’s a black and white world right now
I know, talking about the snow is getting SO OLD. Posting pictures of the snow, the same. But I haven’t done so yet this year, and even though I’ve been living in the north for 7 years now, snow is still an exciting thing for a Texan – especially this much snow.
As much as I complain about the soul suck of my job, one good thing about it is that for the most part, it’s possible for me to work from home if I need or want to. And today I wanted to, because of the silly pronouncement of the “snowricane” or “snowrnado” (depending on which weather site you pick). Reports of Gusting! Winds! UP TO 75 miles per hour! Days and days of power outages expected! Watch out! And also: back alert weather. The snow is heavy, and you might hurt your back so watch out.
We haven’t had the winds – at least here in Manhattan – but it has been snowing without stopping all day long. It started snowing before 7am and there hasn’t been a moment’s pause. Some hours the flakes are huge, like monarch butterflies, and other times they’re normal sizes. The trees are hanging with heavy snow on the branches – all the way out to the tips, hanging heavy. The snow is so wet, it falls in fists off the ends of the branches. It’s really pretty. I sit at a desk right by the window and work work work, pausing to glance out the window at the beautiful view. Want to see?
practically my back yard
pretty lampposts
Riverside Drive - so empty!
the end of my street
I know they look like black and white photos, but they’re not. It’s just a black and white world right now. Very very pretty – especially since I get to just watch it out my window.
Tonight I hope to get some knitting done, and I have a LOT to get done this weekend: making the pillows using my new fabric, finalizing a syllabus, and cutting out that wedding dress I still haven’t cut out.
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