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Thanks for all the positive comments on the Sweater I Hate. Maybe I’ll wear it sometime….

It’s raining here tonight – just started as I was driving home. I love the sounds I’m hearing right now: Digit’s rough tongue washing himself, the hiss of the gas heater next to me, the people upstairs thumping about (somehow homey), the rain falling in large enough drops outside that they’re making that plopping sound, the occasionally great THUMP as Adah hurtles her little body at the bathroom door, hoping to get out so she can steal Digit’s food. Okay, that last isn’t a nice noise. It’s a pretty funny one, though.

Look! This is cool. Adah has her own little doppelganger. This is Adah:

Shelley in England (from Jane):

I had a migraine yesterday. A real one. I was at work, and the headache started up and just kept getting worse. I have new respect for all you sufferers out there. It sucked. Understatement. Not only did I just want to lie in the dark and/or die, but I got snappish and teary and all out of sorts. I also turned stupid and refused to go home sick, preferring to play the martyr. How annoying I must have been. I woke up this morning feeling completely sick and hung-over. The hang-over with none of the fun. Shite.

And today I started training a new person at work. It’s kind of big deal for me – I’ve dodged the trainer bullet for a long time. Scared, I guess. Dispatching is just such an impossible thing to teach – it generally takes about three to five months, sometimes longer. It took me three years to start to get comfortable with the job, and training feels like stepping back to the beginning, somehow. Reliving the agony. I had a dream last night that I was trying to talk to the trainee and she wouldn’t listen to me and when I looked down I had forgotten to put on shoes. It was awful.

I talked constantly for almost ten hours today, until I was hoarse, and I said almost nothing. For everything I taught her, I thought of forty-seven other things that she absolutely had to know right at that very moment. Frustrating and difficult, but somehow satisfying. Don’t quote me on that.

(But training is going to be so all-consuming for the next month that I won’t be posting as often. Or as well, for that matter. I’m sooo brain-fried right now. I feel like I’ve used my allotment of words for the whole week, just today. And it doesn’t really allow for me to take a break, so no writing on my lunch break. MUST WRITE AT HOME. Must not rely on work breaks to get my writing done. Hold me to it, kay?)

Off to make a lamb chop (wish me luck) and take a bath. And off to bed early tonight, ‘cause I’m gonna get some writing in before work tomorrow morning. Yippee! Hope you’re as happy and warm and dry as I am tonight. I lurve fall, don’t you? Knittin’ weather if I ever felt it.

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.)