Rachael

I had a lovely phone conversation the other day with Leslie of Nake-id Knits. It was the first time I’d ever spoken to a blog-friend, and it really was weird at first. Then we fell into it – just as you’d think would happen. What I found curious were not only the connections that we’re all already aware of (the knitting, the writing, the cats, the (generally) liberal stance, the graciousness of spirit), but also our shared rapidity of speech, an ability to zoom from one topic to another and back again. It must be the knitting. The ability to make it up as you go along. She’s of the “trotting horse” school of thought, as am I (as opposed to someone like Becky whose finishing work is the stuff dreams are made of). It was a blast to talk about this kind of thing, to reference familiar blogs in our conversation, dropping names and sites, knowing we’re all just one big ole happy family.

I love it. We’re lucky, don’tcha think?

Plus, I get some great readers who are non-knitters who boost my spirits in just the same way. The other day my friend Nichole called me just to say she had read the virtual highway entry and wanted to thank me for making her laugh. She doesn’t knit, but she loves me despite my obsession. And special props go to Brandy and Kathy, who have read since day one, who make me feel so special. (One day Kathy’s son was in dispatch, and she said to him, “Oh, David, this is the website lady.” I didn’t think he’d really know what the hell she was talking about. Yeah, Mom. Whatever you say. But he exclaimed, “No yoga in the bathtub!” I almost fell off my chair. He knew me, all right.) And Brandy’s a knitter now!

Didn’t know this post was going to be a love-fest. But it is. There you go. Thanks for reading, thanks for being my friends. It means more than you know. Or heck, maybe you do.

Anyway – what I WAS going to talk about is the opposite of a love-fest. Yep. A knitting hate-fest. It’s what I haven’t been talking about (no, it’s not the Secret Project, but that’s done, too) because I was too busy just making it.

I hate this sweater. Hate (almost) everything about it. Won’t frog it because I hate ripping out my knitting and I hate this yarn. Not worth rewinding. It’s just Plymouth Galway Highland Heather, color 741 – not even that despicable a fiber. Good solid hundred percent wool. Nothing fancy. It’s the color I despise. What was I thinking?

In the sun, it’s beautiful. In the sun, there are hints of yellow and blue under the mint green. MINT! Aaaaaarghhhh! And how often do you wear a sweater in the sun? Huh? Huh?

And the pattern, a photocopied no-name travesty, is unavailable anywhere on-line. For good reason. I can’t even begin to document how many problems there were in the pattern. Just plain wrong, written in language that was just plain stooopid.

For these reasons, and for the sake of my sanity, I cut it short. Whap! It was supposed to have full sleeves with the pattern done down the arms. No fucking way. It got cap sleeves just so I could bind it off yesterday, for once and for all.

The thing is, I hate it too much to even give it away. That’s when you know it blows. The only way I find it tolerable is layered under black, which means I’ll wear it only on winter nights when I know it’ll be cool enough to keep two layers on (I overheat quickly). While cap sleeves might look good on some, they don’t on me, baby. I’m a tank-girl. Cap sleeves make my arms look like thighs.

Enough ranting. Here’s the monstrosity:

A detail of the twists which were pretty all right, I suppose, once I rewrote the (almost wrote “code”) pattern:

Digit weighs in:

Me dancing in black. Trying to cheer it up.

Sheesh. At least it’s over. Mint…. Grumble….

No post tomorrow, no time, so have a great weekend! See you Monday! Mwah!

Thanks to a link from Brooke, an animated vision of the end of the world as we know it. (Warning: Strong use of language. But that’s what makes it so damn funny.) Go HERE.

Early to work today…. Happy Halloween!

A lot of writing today to make up for the fact I won’t have time tomorrow:

Having a hard time getting my ass in gear to write this weekend. Not this blog, not the morning pages, those I don’t struggle with. But the other writing (I hate to call it the “real” writing – let’s use “other” instead), that’s what I’m fighting with. Not even fighting. It’s more like a cold war.

If I write all my pages during my four-day work week, then I give myself the weekend off. It’s the only method that consistently works for me. I like it. But when I DON’T write all my pages I promise myself I’ll write on my weekend. Have I? No. Is this my Sunday? Yep. Back to work tomorrow.

Which means I HAVE to write today. (Well, there’s no have to about it. But I want to. I wouldbe happier if I got my work done.) Which means I have to trick some goblins.

It’s all about tricking or treating them, innit? I can trick them – can tell myself I’m going to write something, anything, and it’s going to be a shitty first draft (a la Lamott), and then I write fast and loose before they know what’s happening. Before they round up the censoring troops, I’m done with the work for the day.

Or I can treat them, but I find this less effective. I’ll tell myself, If you write, you get to go to the matinee. Then I don’t write, feel crappy about it, and cheer myself up by going to the matinee.

So really, for me, it’s all about tricking them and sending them out for smokes (and NO, I’m not bumming them when they get back). I send them out the long way and tell them to go to the store seventeen miles away ‘cause it’s the only store where they won’t get funny looks with their forehead tattoos that read CENSOR and THAT’S NO GOOD and NO ONE CARES. I tell them when they get back they can chip away at me to their hearts’ content. By the time their jalopy rolls up, thumping that goblin bass, I’m done writing and I thumb my nose. And I don’t have a light for them either.

Speaking of olallieberry jam, I bought the BEST jam after I left Duarte’s the other day at a little country produce stand call Phipps Country Store and Farm. Get this: they mail order their jam. They’re only $4 a jar (and don’t wimp out and get the Strawberry-Olallieberry mix, that’s boring – You’ll LOVE the olallieberry, I swear. It’s like raspberry but sweeter and finer tasting). I swear I’m not getting a cut of this – I just think it’s fantastic.

Went out last night with a couple of friends who actually left the City and came to see ME! Rachel and Kira are a great couple who used to live with Bethany before she went on walk-about. Beth and Rachel met while they were freshmen in college. Rachel came out in maybe her sophomore year? Junior? Can’t remember. We actually threw her a Coming Out party with rainbow streamers and Tinky Winky on top of her rainbow cake (it was during that whole Falwell nonsense). Rachel and Kira have been together now for years, and they’re an awesome couple to hang out with. For some unknown, inexplicable reason, they’ve decided to adopt me. I’ve said it before, I know that I’m their token over-30-and-still-got-it lesbian friend. That’s the only thing I can chalk it up to.

Kira’s a mad knitter. She’s the store manager of Artfibers and get this: Every two weeks she gets fifty bucks worth of yarn since she’s encouraged to make everything she wears to work. Uh huh. Life’s rough. Last night she was actually complaining that she can’t ever leave the job or she’d have too high a yarn bill. Welcome to our lives, huh?

We went to dinner at Soi 4, one of those trendy minimalist Thai places where the lighting hung from strings and the host station held burning votives and bamboo plants. We sat and ate and drank beer and talked about how insufferable anything south of Santa Maria is – how Santa Barbara is just a horrible little LA suburb, how we can’t stand the plastic-ness, the cell-phone and collagen-ness of it all. Then my cell phone vibrated in my pocket and I looked around at the people draped gracefully in their hip recycled-wood chairs. A meta-trend minute. We tried to get over ourselves. Then we finished our beer.

We were going to see Thirteen, the new Holly Hunter movie. But Kira had the brilliant idea of renting a movie so we could buy a six-pack and knit. Gotta love that. We picked up Whale Rider which neither of them had seen. I think maybe it’s been a while since I had official company. It was nice to have more than one knitter in my living room (although I think we freaked Rach out a little – Kira and I spent a lot of time discussing the use of fiber in the movie sweaters).

Here’s Kira with Adah (yes, she made her sweater).

And Rachel, after I told them both to smile.

A nice night.

Oh, since I’m TOTALLY rambling – I just have to mention one thing about the ocular migraines – I got the first one last Thursday morning while curling my eyelashes. One minute I could see what I was doing, the next I was almost blind. For a while I TOTALLY thought I had curled my lashes wrong. Really wrong.

https://rachaelherron.com/a_lot_of_writin/

Sister Bethy got the job at the hostel! I tell everyone and myself that I’m not really worried about her, but it sure was with an odd sense of unexpected relief that I realize she’s inside, away from the cold. Dang. Happy. Go read. She rocks.

I love it that we’re all such geeks! Special props go to Em (for faking the eye exam to get specs) and to Alison (for saying screw it, I’m just getting the glasses anyway).

Turns out my vision is still great! 20/20 in one eye, 20/25 in the other. I don’t need glasses. A part of me was very happy. But I have to admit another part was totally disappointed. There were some CUTE frames out there in the store. Thank god I hadn’t let myself try any on while I was waiting for the doctor or I totally would have pulled an Alison.

And that weird loss-of-vision thing? Ocular migraines. I had thought of that, but had rejected it in my mind since I didn’t have headaches along with the vision loss (everyone loves a self-diagnoser). The doc said I was a textbook case, from the length of time the spells lasted, to what I saw (or didn’t). She also agreed with me that they’re TERRIFYING when you don’t know what they are. You only know you can’t see. Turns out my sister Christy and my mother get them, too, also without the pain.

So it was a good doctor’s visit. Even if I’m still spectacle-less. Sigh….

After the eye exam, I saw American Splendor with my friend Nichole. You know how you have friends who don’t really go to see art movies? This was NOT a good movie to take a friend who isn’t into counter-culture. She hated it, poor dear. I didn’t like it that much, either, but I can’t figure out if that’s because I was sitting there KNOWING she hated it and feeling badly for dragging her along, or if it just wasn’t my cup of tea. But we had burgers at Barney’s after and that rocked. Big ole medium rare burger with blue cheese and bacon. Yum. I might not have to eat again for a year.

I’m officially the most boring person on the planet today. I’m signing off to read other, more interesting blogs. Peace out. (I think it’s actually Peace. Out. Two separate thoughts. But I like Peace out better.)

Got a great email from Jane of the Venice-Adventure who said to my “This…. Was going to be this…..” entry from yesterday, “Why is Rachael trying to knit a baby?” And then she said various charming things about me and this blog, none true, and attached this picture which made my morning. They don’t have a dog.

As to the pattern for the baby sweater, I don’t really have one. I have the beginnings of it written down as follows (from unknown source):

Bring on the SpitUp Baby Sweater

With sport-weight yarn and size 5(US) needles, cast on 22 st. Row1: P3, place marker (PM), P2, PM, P12, PM, P2, PM, P3. Row3: Knit across, increasing on both sides of marker by knitting into front and back of st before and after each marker (8 increased stitches). Row3: Purl.

Now the Rachael part: Repeat rows 2 and 3 until you think it’s big enough (that’s the hard part for non-mom me). Separate for sleeves by knitting to them, placing them on scrap yarn holders, and connecting the body portions. Knit the cardigan body until it’s long enough. Change colors and rib the bottom about four or five rows. Bind off. Go back, pick up sleeve stitches, knit down about three or four inches, change colors and rib 3 or 4 rows. Bind off, sew sleeve seams. Using the contrast yarn, pick up stitches all around sides and neck, rib four or five rows, putting in button holes at appropriate spacings, bind off. Add buttons (always my LEAST favorite part). Voila.

Sorry it’s not more scientific. I knit loosely, so I actually use size 4(US). Sometimes I use worsted weight and start at casting on about 18 stitches and modifying.

It’s my weekend! I have Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays off – I love having midweek days off ‘cause I can run around and do things while it’s less crowded. Hate crowds. Today I’m getting checked for glasses. After a scary weird episode last week where I saw jagged lines across my vision and then couldn’t focus on anything for about thirty minutes, and after reading darling Greta’s trials and tribs with her eyes, I’m not putting it off anymore. Can I just say to the salesperson, in a very little voice, I want super-cute glasses, please?

My eyes were SO bad while I was growing up that by the time I was six I was wearing bifocals. And I HATED my glasses. Despised them. At one point, when I was perhaps eight or nine, I I lost my glasses. I remember seriously not knowing where they had gone. I was standing on the stairs that led to my attic bedroom and my mother confronted me, thrusting my muddy glasses at me. “I. Found. THESE. Buried. In. The. GARDEN.”

I didn’t remember burying them. Truly and honestly. Maybe Christy buried them for me, but I don’t think so. I think I must have hated them so much that I subconsciously took ‘em out there and stuck them in the ground, hoping that either I’d never see them again, or…. or what? We’d grow a glasses-tree and all the kids would want some and I’d finally be cool? Dunno. Don’t remember.

As I grew, though, the farsightedness got better and better and finally I had almost-perfect vision. I was warned at age nineteen that someday my eyes would get bad again. That day has come. Dammit. I want really cute glasses, okay?

I’ll keep you posted.