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So I’ve been having trouble looking at computers and reading lately — just vague, annoying eye strain, but my computer glasses with their four-year old prescription weren’t helping, so I went back to the eye doctor. 

Am I the only one who thinks the whole getting-glasses thing is really woo-woo? I have to tell the doc which image is clearer? Doesn’t she know? I can NEVER tell (and I tell her that). Based on me saying, “Um…maybe the first one? Or maybe the second?”) she writes me a prescription? 

Anyway. I suppose I can accept that. What’s harder to accept is that now I have to wear them all the time I’m in front of a computer or reading. This is, of course, ALL the time. So I need some cute frames. 

Luckily, we live in the future. I got my prescription in my hot little hand, measured my own pupillary distance (because I’m a knitter and I’m good at using a tape measure to measure difficult distances), and ordered a couple of glasses from EyeBuyDirect, hitting a BOGO offer, scoring two pair for $50. Total. Dude, that’s $25 each, including prescription lenses. I love the internet. I ordered some kind of funky ones (I think — I barely remember) because you know what? They were $25. I’ll show you those when they come. 

I also ordered 5 pairs of Warby Parker glasses to try on at home (free trial!). These are more expensive, at $99 each, so I need help choosing. I think I know which pair I want but I want to hear from you, please, in case I’m really off the mark.

Poll below. 

#1: 

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or as I like to call it, the longest band name in the world (says she whose book is title How to Knit a Heart Back Home). 

Lala's on this album! And in this video! They're funding their new album (titled The Wonderful Clatter, which is so great I wish I had thought of it) on Kickstarter. They're quirky and a little (a lot) weird and I love their sound. And I think this video is kind of adorable, especially Lala's last line. 

 

I went through kind of a dry spell there. I was reading a stack'o'books for a contest and couldn't blog about them (which is fair, since I'm scoring them). But that was a month of reading that I couldn't write about. And while there were some good books in the pile, sadly, there was nothing astonishing that I felt like I had to break the rules to tell you about, so I was eager to get back to my planned reading.

And I'm back! Honestly, I'm loving being back on the Kindle–real books felt so heavy in my hands. Isn't that wussy? And the formatting kept distracting me. I love that on the Kindle all books read the same, formatting-wise (or should), so there's nothing to keep you from plunging into the story.

Horizon, by Sophie Littlefield 

This is the third book in Sophie's Aftertime series. Disclaimer: Sophie is one of my favorite people. She's who you call when you want to be good, and she's who you call when you want to be very bad. And when things go wrong? She's the first to call you. I'm honored to call her a friend. 

And it's a good thing she's a friend, because if she weren't, I'd have to hate her for her talent. She is the MASTER of emotion. She can wring so much out of a seemingly simple sentence that you just kind of sit there, stunned, asking "Where did that come from?" 

I'd say this: read the first one, Aftertime. It's scary and post-apocalyptic (not my usual fare but I gobbled it up) and wonderful. I won't tell you much more, but know this: you'll be hooked. I loved the second book, Rebirth, also. But Horizon blew me out of the water. It's an absolutely stunning conclusion. 

 

A Bad Idea I'm About To Do: True Tales of Seriously Poor Judgment and Stunningly Awkward Adventure, Chris Gethard

This one was a fluke. I can't remember where I read about it, but it was one of those sample chapters I threw at my Kindle while running by, and I loved it. It's a brief, painful, humorous memoir (the best kind) of a seriously funny manic-depressive. From chapters on his intestinal woes to pro-wrestling, he moved through a landscape that was so solidly male that if asked, I would have guessed it wouldn't have been a book for me. Too male, I would have thought. Too something. But his humility and capacity to relentlessly poke at himself made each chapter lovely, and I roared through it in a day in bed sick with the flu. 

 

 

Falling For Me: How I Hung Curtains, Learned to Cook, Traveled to Seville, and Fell in Love, Anna David

Confession: If a memoir is about a privileged 30-something woman learning to do something we all think we should be able to do (but sometimes can't) on a journey of self-discovery framed by a device, no matter how clumsy said device might be, I'm IN* (see My Year With Eleanor, a book this one is reminding me of). Really, I'm in. Anna David finds Helen Gurley Brown's 60s classic Sex and the Single Girl and decided to try living her life by its tenets in order to see if she can figure herself out a little more (and maybe catch a man along the way. Okay, no, she establishes firmly that this is NOT what the experiment is about. But she's candid enough to share that the idea keeps rearing its head).

I'm not done with this one yet and I'm guessing by its subtle title that perhaps a man does come along, but I'm enjoying it enough that I'm sharing it now. 

*Oh, I just realized I'm so in, I wrote one of those myself. Hmmm. 

Now, since I'm in the light-hearted secretly-kind-of-deep memoir mood, Sophie's novel notwithstanding, anything you recommend? 

Just a brief hello to whinge. I'm sick, people. Just run-of-the-mill flu sick, but I haven't had a cold or flu in so long I'd forgotten how crappy it feels to feel this crappy. 

Deep, innit? 

But THIS JUST IN: I just found a flashlight and took it in the bathroom and looked at my throat. I swear to god there are little prehensile* tonsils back there. 

Do you know how I jumped backward? Now, it's probably just that I'm sick and my throat is SUPER swollen. But I know from tonsils. I had mine out in 2002. And then again in 2007 after I had month-long bouts with tonsillitis for that went untouched by antibiotics. Yep, the regrowth can happen. Okay, I've only ever heard of it happening to my dad and my uncle, so apparently it can happen to Herrons, but tonsils regrowing twice? (Edited to add: I just googled it and there are quite a lot of people on the interwebs saying What the hell? Mine came back, too! Sneaky buggers!)

Anyway. I'm taking to bed as soon as I can (can't go there quite yet, but soon). And I'm going to think very clear, non-tonsily thoughts. 

* Lala reminds me that: You know that prehensile means they can be adapted for grasping or holding, right? Cause that's super creepy and probably means you're the host for some invading extraterrestrial species. Just sayin'. To her I say, My tonsils are much like Digit's extra toes. They both get stuck in the bedspread and make us grumpy. 

So I've tumbled head over heels into the world of fiber preparation. 

I wasn't really ready, I know I wasn't. But I wanted a Cormo fleece because I'm so in love with the fiber itself lately. And I knew Brooke could get me one, a local one, a fleece from a sheep with a name, and then Kira kindly brought it to my sister's place, which is how I ended up with this much awesome in my house. 

This is from Karo (like the syrup! Five pounds of sweetness!): 

Look at that crimp! Could you die? That's what it looked like when I peeked into the bag. 

I did a bit of rudimentary research online (thanks, Ravelry!) and decided to go for the quick-and-dirty top-loader method of washing. I got the water in the washer as hot as I could (by turning off the cold tap entirely), added some liquid dish soap, and threw some fiber in to soak. (This isn't actually that much; I wasn't going to risk much of it, I swear. But it looks like a lot.) 

Oh, GOD, was it disgusting-looking in there. It got worse the wetter it got: 

That's poop, people. Okay, not much poop because it was beautifully skirted, but there's oil and vegetable matter and dirt from the field. Lemme ask you this: but do I want to re-skirt it before I wash more? I do plan on getting lingerie bags and using them instead of letting the fleece roam free in the washer. I didn't agitate it (of course), I just spun the water out for all five (FIVE!) soaks, but I was completely convinced I'd felted the whole thing, because you know what? When you pull wet fleece out of a washer, it's flat and thin and looks irreparably felted. I asked Twitter, which told me it was normal to think that and to stop panicking. 

And it WASN'T felted, as you can see here on my uber-classy drying rack. 

Uncarded, just dried Cormo. Almost clean. Ish. 

So: there's still a little dirt on some of the tips. Is this normal? Should I have clipped ALL the darker bits out before washing? 

And for something like this, how do you prepare it? I bought two dog combs, figuring worst-case scenario we'd have better-groomed dogs, and I've decided that making rolags is what I like best at this point:

 

I think the way I washed it caused me to lose too much of the lock definition to flick it, so carding it what I should do, right? (Ignore the little neps you see. I think that's because I over-carded that bit. As in, I carded it about forty times instead of five. I'm getting better at the motion.) 

And here's the first bit, spun up: 

I'm thinking three-ply. Oh, yeah. 

(For those of you who warned me against starting with Cormo, bless you. Yep, I see what you mean. But you know me, I like to jump in with both feet until I'm underwater and fighting my way back up to the surface. It makes breaking into daylight and fresh air that much sweeter.)