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And you know who’s laughing hardest at me, finally giving in to the SpinBug? Claudia, over at her new house. Go and wish her happy new blog plot, and if you get close enough, steal her Sheepy Sweater for me. I really, really, really want it. Really.

Oh, my goodness. There’s something about it, isn’t there? Janine gave me BEST lesson, ever. She taught me history and technique, and she was patient, and she made me feel like I was doing great, even though it was obvious that I wasn’t — I couldn’t even get the wheel to go only one direction — it kept turning and unspinning/tangling the yarn into great lumpen messes.

Oh, but it’s fun. She loaned me her Ashford Traditional (made in my mother’s NZ hometown, Ashburton) as well as a book, and the oil, and the little picker-thing that I know has a real name, and a Lazy Kate, and she showed me what to do with it all!

Busyangelmom asked in a comment:   What is behind this
recent motivation that keeps   cropping up in all the serious
knitting blogs?

For me, it’s something I’ve always, always been drawn to, ever since I was a kid. I used to open the vitamin bottles and remove the cotton balls and spin them into thread. I would sit on the couch for HOURS doing this, never doing anything with the thread, just wanting to spin. Maybe it IS the New Zealand sheep-farm blood coming to the top, but ever since I saw a woman spinning on her Traveller at a bluegrass festival ten years ago, it’s been something I haven’t been able to let go of.

What I was scared of was buying a wheel and realizing belatedly that I hated spinning. Janine kind of laughed at that, I think. She was right. I love it. I’m thinking about the Traveller, myself, since I could take it to, say, bluegrass festivals. Or Lala’s house. Or, you know. Just the fact that it folds. That’s way cool. I like foldie-things.

It’s like learning anything else, though. I’m impatient. I’m frustrated when I’m not great at it right NOW. I’m getting better, and the learning curve is steep, as everyone says. But when someone tells me a learning curve is steep, I think: Great! I’ll be a master at it and spinning gossamer moonlight by Wednesday. Instead, my spinning isn’t that clumpy anymore. That’s the best that can be said. But look. I’ll show you.

That first ugly white thing was supposed to be yarn. I swear. Stop laughing. The second skein is a little better. The third, not any better than the second (all from Correidale top).

In the bedroom I have three little skeins of better stuff hanging drying right now
:

See? That almost looks like the real thing, don’t you think?

I was so excited this afternoon that my first skeins were finally dry and ready to be wound into (teeny-weeny) balls.

And then I had to:

It’ll eventually be a scrappy little scarf. I have to tell you, it’s surprisingly soft.

I’m in love. Dude. Love.

I don’t notice spam much, as yahoo does a pretty good job of filtering it right to Bulk, where I just delete it without looking. But today one slipped by, and I found its text  interesting. I actually left it open and read it a couple of times. An excerpt:

i ve got the solution – visit the tundra spend a month or two you ll be
longing to hear the sound of other humans!
the signal is soliciting me not to testify to the us government about
the activity of soviet spy rings on the freshwater pearls  and other earthy materials.

What crazy person wrote that? It’s almost poetry, but really bad poetry which is the only kind I like anyway, so I enjoyed it.

Feeling better. Thanks for asking. I think I kicked its ass. Yeah.

And we got a raise! Kind of amazing, when you consider how broke our city is, but we were 19% below top-step dispatcher salary for our county, and now we’re starting to close that gap. It’s just impossible to hire good dispatchers when they can go somewhere, anywhere, else and make way more money, which is why we’re always short and worn thin working fourteen hour days.

Also: Just finished the BEST book I’ve read in a long time. I was in the airport with Bethany waiting for Mom and Christy to arrive from Paris, and their plane was delayed for an hour and a half. So we wandered into the bookshop, and Bethany put a book in my hands, saying, "You should totally read this. It was great. I loved it." I looked at the jacket and said, "Okay."

Her jaw dropped. "What?"

"I said, okay, I’ll buy it."

"No one EVER buys what I tell them to."

And she was right, it was wonderful. The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Not great literature, sure, but fun as hell. It’s kind of meta-noir, a thriller novel about a thriller novel, set in Barcelona, and written thickly, all foggy and shrouded. Oh, lovely. (But if you buy it, please buy it at an independent bookstore or Booksense, which is as easy as Amazon and makes you feel lots better about yourself.) Tell ’em Bethany told you to buy it.

Okay. I have lots to do today, including a spinning lesson! I can’t quite believe that I’m going to learn, or going to be able to figure out what to do with my hands/feet, but Janine has been lovely enough to offer her help, and I’m so excited. More to follow. Happy weekend, y’all.

This is a very weird sickness. Off and on, in a matter of minutes sometimes. I feel fine! Whee! Up to make a cup of tea! And whump. Ick again. Quite, quite annoying. But I’m resting. Really, I am.

I just have to say quickly: There’s a certain type of motorbike, and I’m not sure which kind, that makes a noise when it’s alone on the freeway in the middle of the night that sound JUST like the disaster sirens that are placed throughout the city. At four in the morning, I woke last night, listening to the long whoop and fall of what I thought was the siren and thought, oh, hell. What a disheartening sound. Nuclear attack? Biohazard spill? The end of the world as we know it? Nope, a motorcycle. The relief is great. But the heartbeat is not easily slowed. And I’m not even a very Worried Person.

Now, a bath. I’m having the laziest vacation in the history of the world. (Then I have get up and go to a union meeting/salary vote at work — that bites, does it not? A raise is a good idea, but today? Sheesh. But at least I don’t have to wear a uniform. I don’t even know where my uniform is, for that matter.)

But I’m watching Miyazaki tonight (my first) at Lala’s brother’s house (he’s married to the sweetest nicest girl that has ever lived, by the way. Seriously. You have no idea.) And knitting. Lots of knitting. (I just typed lot’s of knitting. The horror!)

I was just watching Four Weddings and a Funeral — don’t laugh too hard. Everyone knows Andie McDowell can’t act her way out of a speeding ticket. But I wanted something sappy to play in the background while I wove in ends on the cotton sweater I’m making. (Dude, Sugar’n’Cream in red, buck fifty a skein, and I’m doing a top-down cardie — just finished the sleeves, and I’ve miles of stockinette to go to get to the bottom. Good, brainless knitting. But I do like to weave ends in when I attach the sleeves, so that the final finish is a triumphant WOOT! and not an ohshit NOW I’ve got a lot to do.)

That was a long aside. What I meant to say was this: I’d forgotten how good that movie was in terms of showing gay marriage without sermons or moral judgments, without an agenda. Simon Callow and John Hannah are the only truly happily married people in the movie, and it’s never addressed directly because it didn’t need to be. They were just together. It was refreshing and sweet and lovely.

And we’ve gone backwards since 1994, haven’t we? In November, 11 states declined to think of people like me as people who deserve the same right as all Americans.  But a judge in California has the right idea. A proud moment for us. But it’s kind of exhausting, isn’t it? It’s still going to be such a battle, and the fight is ON in the city, people yelling and waving signs for both sides, and nothing will be truly decided for years and years. But one can hope.

And one can make some noise. Or at least a statement. I don’t know where y’all live out there, but I know you live a lot of different places, and you live near people with a lot of different ideas. Say something, will you? The next time you hear that guy talk about fags like that, shoot him a look. The kid behind you in the grocery store who calls his friend gay for dropping the gum on the floor — say something. Shake ’em up.

And those friends of yours who are all about saving the country money? The Congressional Budget Office predicted last year that allowing gay marriage would save the federal government almost one BILLION dollars a year. Don’t the right-wingers want that? Isn’t that enticing? That would totally be way more money to throw at the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell program that the government has spent 200 million on in the last ten years.

Anywho. I found some cool bumper stickers. (Why is iTunes skipping? I hate that.)  I liked this one and this one, and this one is wrong, but it’s hella funny.

Enough rant. I feel sick and tired, and it’s not just politically motivated. Still fighting the sick fight — still haven’t succumbed, but I feel myself weakening. Bah. I want to go to Lala’s when she calls after band practice, but I have those hot eyes, and they’re not the good ones. You know the ones. A little feverish. Just a little. A REAL little. Take THAT, flu. Put ’em up. I’m going to go read a book in the tub. That cures all. Mwah.

https://rachaelherron.com/i_was_just_watc/

The cats are romping and sounding like a million cats instead of just the two that they are. Digit still sleeps on the top cabinet in the kitchen while the dogs are here, so he’s happy to get down and run around when they’re gone. He clobbers Adah with a polydactyl backhand, and she comes back for more, so I let ’em. It’s a companionable house-trashing noise.

The whole magic of Dogs On The Bed keeping away the most annoying cat in the whole world (Adah) has worn off, however. Even people who love that cat admit that she is, in fact, the most annoying. She’s a rescue, and very literally neurotic about being petted. She must be touched, at ALL times, including the middle of the night, and will pat your nose (with claws out sometimes) over and over and over, no matter how many times you fling her off the bed, hoping that you might pet her little head just a bit.

For a while the dogs were a godsend. She slept in the living room and all was peace. But now, she lets herself in* and gets up on the bed. You’ll see that she’s not scared of dogs anymore.

Damn it.

Ah well.

I’m feeling better, I think. I go through stages where I just feel like utter crap, and then I’m fine again after a couple of ibuprofen. I feel like I’m fighting and winning, so THERE. Poor Christy is STILL sick and miserable. This one just knocked her out, but it could have been the jetlag from the Paris trip with Mom….

Last night I had a house full of people watching the L Word and knitting. I tell you what, there’s nothing like entertaining on a small scale, in a small house, to make you feel good. And Lala learned how to cable in between programs. It was great to watch her move from disbelief to faith. Cabling is just one of those things: no matter how many times you tell someone, "No, I’m serious, it’s SO easy. You can’t believe how easy it is," she still looks at you with that "You’ve made a bajillion sweaters so of course YOU think it’s easy but just shut up and show me how EASY this little trick is, you crazy knitter" look. And then you show her how to do it, in one sentence and one demo, and she says, "That’s IT?" Oh, yeah. It’s magic, baby. (I’ll let her tell you what she’s making. Tres cute.)

And a gratuitous yarn shot:

* There isn’t a door in the house that Adah can’t open except for the outside doors, and I’ve caught her hanging from those, her paws wrapped around the knob, swinging back and forth. She’ll get it someday.