Archives for August 2003

Written yesterday at work –

I don’t know why I’m so stumped on my writing. I’m at work right now, taking my break. I try, most days, to do my writing on my forty minutes off. But lately I’ve been acting like a petulant child out here in the empty foyer.

Bah! Bad words! Don’t like these words, give me something else. Mom! Tell her to stop!

I stamp my feet. Aargh.

Yep, throwing a little tantrum out here right now. Not happy. Don’t know why. I just DON’T KNOW where the novel’s going. I know the end is close, the denoument is approaching, and I don’t know what it is. The characters are bugging the hell out of me.

You know those Tuesday mornings, when you wake up and your stomach kind of hurts, and your back is stiff, and when you put the lipstick on, you’re totally aware that your skin kinda looks gray? And there’s not enough milk for cereal, and there’s no cream for the coffee, and you stub your toe on the door while you’re carrying out the cat litter? And the cat’s whining and yelling and there’s absolutely no goddamn reason for her to do that, and your house is a mess, and you have absolutely no will to clean it?

That’s what writing feels like right now. I’m going through the motions. I’m writing because I promise myself I will write. I didn’t even write at all yesterday, and I’m feeling guilty about it. So I’m in the writing blahs AND I have guilt.

And I’m not even writing right now. I’m writing this blabber to make myself feel better, but I still have to close it up and get back to the real writing, which I DON’T WANT TO DO!

Raspberry blowing. And not in the good way.

Foot stamp. Why can’t writing be more like knitting?

– Later – You know what? That little tantrum helped. Just did my writing. I don’t hate it. It was kind of fun. It’s usually kind of fun. It’s just getting my ass into the writing seat that’s the hard part. I need to throw more tantrums.

Dude, it’s a knit-along! Got the list up to the right. Wanna join? We need a button, though. Any ideas? Maybe I’ll hit up Pioneer Melissa, since she did such a WONDERFUL job with mine, but I hate to abuse anyone like that. God knows I don’t have that talent (to make the button, I mean, but nor do I think I possess it to abuse anyone….). And I don’t think there will be any special “done by” date, maybe Christmas perhaps, but it’s fast and loose. Just like the shawl/scarf. Like I said, I still haven’t felted Suki. Mare, you’re a doll for holding space for the picture…..

It’s Friday! And I don’t work at all next week! Ten days off! Four of those in the sun at Strawberry (hopefully the link works today) in Yosemite. That’s a lot of beer in the sun, dancing to the music, and the best Greek Gyros you’ve ever had. I worship the man who runs that stand. His name is Spiro (he says) and he’s small and wide, with more hair than you’ve ever seen. For the last ten years, he’s run this stand at various bluegrass festivals with no more than fast hands and a young blond guy with lots of piercings. When you step up to the stand to order, without fail he asks, “What’s it for you, my love-a-lee?” And when he hands you the hot, dripping, lamb cucumber goodness, he always says, “Here you go, my love-a-lee!” Over the years, the young guy with all the piercings has become much wider (all that gorgeous lamb) and now he actually calls all the women love-a-lees, and he totally gets away with it. Spiro’s blond California employee now speaks with a Greek accent. Oh, it makes me happy. If they weren’t there, I think I would cry.

Cool Thing Number Twenty-Seven for This Week: If you google the word Rachael, now I’m number TWO! Isn’t that crazy? Course, it’s for my old site, which directs to this site, so it doesn’t feel as official. But I’m Rachael Number Two! AND if you google “my glass house” my old site is number ONE to pop up. This site, not so hot. It comes up number twenty-six.

Of course, these are arbitrary assignments of popularity in an electronic ether. Who really cares? Why SHOULD I care? But I DO care, that’s just it. I want the word Rachael to hit on ME first, not on a weird Rachael singer that I’ve never heard of. Give me time. Mwah hah hah.

Happy Weekend!

Hey! Wanna knit-along? Maggi and I are getting together – we’re gonna do the shawl seen here.

Here’s the pattern . Only Maggi’s thinking of doing it more as a lace-weight scarf. I’m going to do it as a worsted weight shawl. How will you make it? C’mon, you can’t belong to too many knit-alongs. Shoot, I still haven’t felted my stupid Suki bag. All it would take is getting my ass over to the laundromat, as my washer isn’t sophisticated enough to connect to hot water. But nooooo, I’m too lazy.

And remember, the holidays are just around the corner……
(Do you hate me now? Every year I always officially hate the first person that makes that threat.)

Digit’s inside at reasonable hour (5pm) and is now screaming to be let out. But if I do that, he won’t come home for hours out of spite, so he’s not going anywhere. Last week I had to leave him out one night when he wasn’t home before I had to go to work. When I got home at seven the next morning, I gave his “come home” whistle. I saw him way down at the back of the neighbor’s garden. I watched him see me, kick up his heels, and then GALLOP all the way across two yards and a long driveway to skid to a stop at my feet. He was so HAPPY to see me. Usually he doesn’t betray that at all. Way too cool for that.

And a big shout out to Karen, who’s the coolest kid on the block today. She helped me secure the missing Strawberry Music Festival ticket that our family needed to go as a whole. This, for bluegrass lovers, is like winning the lottery. Christy hadn’t bought one before they sold out, and we’ve been devastated about it – after it’s sold out, you have to either sleep with the devil or sell your soul to Nike to get a ticket. But Karen tracked one down for us, and I’ll pick it up in the City this weekend. And we can ALL go camp in Yosemite and listen to Alison Kraus! Whoopee!

….come on, knit along?

I worked fourteen hours last night, and I’ve been fighting a headache for two days now. I think it’s true: If you miss that caffeine window, the headache has a place to snake its gnarled little fingers in, and it doesn’t let go. I did it again today – hit the ground running and kept MEANING to get coffee, but it wasn’t till now, seven pm, three hours after waking up, that I’ve finally made the death-strength espresso that I sorely need.

Chugging espresso (with a leetle sugar and some half’n’half. I ain’t stoopid.) Work, come on, baby. Kick in. I need you. Oh, darlin’….

I had a couple or three missions when I woke: Drop off a book and CD for a friend. Check. (Bonus: Sun-warmed tomatoes, right off the vine.) Get to the LYS and look for yarn for a shawl. Check. Get to yoga. Nope.

You know what happens when you go to the Local Yarn Store, right? This shawl is one of those projects that has been haunting me – a dear friend said one day that she wanted me to make her one. I chortled or did whatever it is I usually do to change the subject. Since then, she’s watched me turn out project after project, and she’s become serious about it. Please? Pleezzzeee? I put her off, but for some reason it came up again last night, and I found this pattern, thanks to Wendy and her new lace links.

NOW I’m excited about it. Don’t worry, I’m not a pushover (well…. not when it comes to yarn, anyway). I WANT to make this for her. It just took until the time was right to get motivated.

Went to the yarn shop and realized that every skein I picked up was unreasonable. She wants black, I want outrageously soft and rich. Yeah, right. Looking at over $140 for this puppy. I love her, but I just don’t have the funds. So I gave up the yoga idea and trundled over to Michael’s (sob) and picked up some gonna-be-just-fine-get-over-yourself Wool-Ease in black. The lace pattern will show well, I think, and she’ll love it. I just wish I could have used the cashmerino….

Coffee’s starting to hit me. Aaahhh. Imagine what it must feel like to have a heroin addiction (typo: heroine addiction – I have that already) if just getting a coffee fix feels this good. Damn, I miss smoking.

[Aside – did you notice B came to her own defense in the comments below? Nicely done, says I.]

Oh, and it’s Cari’s birthday! Thirty! Now is when it all starts….

We love the gals who can throw the International Rock On sign without thinking about it, like Pamie in her most recent post. Check her out HERE (scroll down for pic). She’s too cool. Me, I just look awkward when I do it. (And oh, my god, you should have seen me learn to high-five last night. Apparently limp-wristed and flappy ain’t the sporting way to do it.)

That’s why I knit. Just not that cool. But we’re rocking (thanks to Alison).

Hoo boy. The weekend was long and jam packed with things to do. Yesterday was stressful (in that self-imposed way), as I went slowly crazy and Bethany watched with glee. I decided to redo the apartment. This had been coming for while – I had been feeling the need build up in me, but it suddenly hit full-force. Beth and I redid the living room, making an actual entertainment center out of a bookcase. The TV, VCR, digital box, and stereo are all in one place! Using one extension cord! I moved most of the yarn out of the living room and into a Cost Plus basket in the bedroom. Moved Adah’s personal chair back into the living room next to the working yarn, shown here:

and best of all, got rid of five huge bags of books. I finally found the gumption to get rid of all the wonderful books that I’ve loved passionately yet know I’ll NEVER read again. I had to leave the dream behind. Sigh. When I was a kid, I read the same favorite thirty books over and over and over again. I thought it would always be that way, gain a new favorite, read it four times. Now I have over sixty books in my to-read pile, and more enter the house every week. I’ll never again be that summer-vacation, watermelon-eating, Gone With The Wind for-the-seventh-time-reading little girl…..

Also this weekend: Went to a surprise birthday party Saturday night where we scared the pants right off the intended victim – she just gaped at us (and I can just imagine – who the fuck are all these people in my darkened living room?). I was the only person over thirty in the room. One lovely girl was aghast when she learned I was thirty-one. Right reaction. Wrong method. No, it’s okay, I had to soothe her. I’m all right with it. I like being thirty-one, really…. Honestly, it’s not that bad….. I had been up for twenty-odd hours at that point, and everything felt like such an effort.

Drove into the City again on Sunday night to attend K and R’s knitting. The fog was banked at a distance, and we leaped from the metering lights to the height of the Bay Bridge with such abandon…. Only to slam into traffic again at the island. But it was a gorgeous night to have the top down. Knitting was actually held south of the City, in San Mateo of all places because one of the girls has a swimming pool in her complex. Right on! Bring on the swimsuits and the wine coolers, said I.

I found my way to SM (stop it!) pretty well, but when I exited the freeway, I got a little lost. Well, ahem. Made my way on accidental surface streets through Burlingame (which prior to this trip I had just thought was an alternate landing strip for stray SFO flights, but it turns out to be quite charming in a small-town softball way) all the way to Millbrae. Twenty-five minutes and innumerable eucalyptus trees later, I found I had missed the imperative turn-off long before.

Knitting was good, when I finally got there. I’ve started Bonne Marie’s LoTech Sweatshirt in a camel-colored cotton. It’s actually just kinda dirty beige, but I feel better calling it camel.

Monday was spent running around with Bethany, shopping at Chain Stores From Hell (we won’t mention names, but I got the sweetest lamp – I promise I won’t go back), shooting, and reorganizing my house. Bethany is a saint. She took me at my stressed out (but where am I going to put all the photo albums?) whiny worst and made me into a calm, cool, collected gal who only had to walk to three different stores to find a bulb that fit in said Chain Store lamp.

Then I went bowling in Albany. I’ve been to Albany perhaps twice in my life, and I think once was on accident. It was surreal. Rock’n’Bowl. More like Hip-Hop’n’Bowl, with crazy action lights that were trying SO HARD to be cool, and a big video screen (to which I was glued, since I ain’t up on my Mary J. Blige). Every once in a while, a chintzy smoke machine would send gloopy steam over the lanes. It was dark, and the neon balls glowed. The lanes were full of either people wearing too-tight clothing who missed the lanes entirely, or guys who chucked the balls in seemingly arbitrary arcs and made strikes every time. I bowled one game for a whopping 138 and WON! I was trounced soundly in the other games. I suck. But every once in a while, I’d hit something good and stick with it.

B met us there, and I think she was as shocked as I was that she made it over the Bay Bridge. She was, I’ll admit, super cute, bowling way better than I was (after she warmed up), and she even came home with me afterwards. Of course, this was because I had taped last week’s Boy Meets Boy, which we watched before she set out valiantly in a westward direction. (Spoiler: Dan was SO straight!) I KNEW I taped that episode for a reason. Girl trap. Didn’t work all that well, as she left afterward. Gawd, I hope she made it home. If SHE ended up in Millbrae, I’ll know I gave her the swimming-pool directions, and not the City ones. Dang. Hope she made it home, ‘cause it’d be nice if she came back over sometime (said coyly, scuffing toe on floor).

The East Bay rocks. It DOES! (well, at least it rock’n’bowls, and that’s something, ain’t it?)