Wow, the month went quick. Yikes!
Research is ramping up right now, we have some new and exciting things that I'm going to be responsible for, that I think will be a good general direction for my research to go. It's not exactly what I said my research would be in July when I wrote my research proposal, but it's not completely unrelated. Plus, it's way cool and I already have some preliminary data. Yahoo!
I also bought some more yarn from elann.com today. In the last few months I've had a couple of very specific projects come to mind that I want to do once I've finished the last of the holiday knitting (which I'm about 3/4 done with at the moment). All of them are on the complicated side, but I'm at the point in my knitting where I feel pretty confident with the fundamentals that are required to do more intricate work, so I'm raring to go! The first project is the lace shawl that I showed yesterday. The second is a two-color tank top knitting experiment that I'll be designing start-to-finish--I showed the yarn for that awhile back, a bunch of organic, cotton dyed with roots and shoots, or some such nonsense.
The third one?
It's right here.
This sweater is just so lovely. I found it in a book in the library and oohed and ahhed. I've been keeping an eye out for yarn that looks appropriate with a price that doesn't make me cry (hint: If I spend more on yarn than I would on a sweater, I'll cry. I don't spend more than 50$ on sweaters. This is super-cheapo in knitting circles, but whatever, I'm a grad student, I can get away with being comparitively cheap.)
Well, I found some perfect yarn, and it's on its way to my yarn tub. I'll be making the sweater in a slightly variegated, wine-y color with yarn that seems to be of a good quality. A lot of times folks reccomend that you make Aran sweaters with light colored yarn so you can see the pattern, but as you can see from the picture, it seems to show up just fine on a darkish color, and it's not an especially busy pattern, so I don't think the center pattern will get lost at all.
And now that I have all the yarn I need to keep me busy with happy projects through a good chunk of the winter, I'm done with yarn buying for now. Or so I hope.
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In other news, Jeremy's response to my description of his toes yesterday (I believe I said "nasty and crusty") was: "my toes are NOT crusty! Only the bottoms of my feet!"
Interpret as you will.
Another picture I forgot to show off awhile back:
A wall at my mom's house. She'd sent this to me to show me the color of the new paint job in the living room, but the guy playing the cello made me smile in that "part of home-ness that I forget about sometimes" kind of way.
The guy playing the cello has been on mom's wall since before I was born. When I was very very little, I thought it was a picture of my grandfather, who shared a vague resemblance, in that they were both old men with white hair. Later, I assumed it was painted by mom's artistic cousin as a gift--when Jan isn't making cartoons, she makes things pretty soft around the edges, so stylistically I wasn't SO far off.
I think I was in college the day I made some offhand comment about the painting that made the assumption that Jan had made it.
"What?" said my mom. "Jan didn't make that, a friend of mine bought some used canvases from an art class that he was going to repaint, but I liked that one, so I took it home."
Whoops.
By the way, like I said, this painting has been on a wall of every home I've ever lived in until very recently. Not until I looked at this picture just now did I realize that the wall behind the old guy has a huge jog in it, making his world physically impossible. It really is a terrible painting.
That doesn't mean I don't love it.
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J and I went out last night to The Orpheum, and saw a documentary about artist Andy Goldsworthy.
Ok, ok. I know what you're thinking. I've finally cracked. I'm an official snob, watching a movie about art. If the movie was about anyone else, I'd be thinking the same thing.
See, I'm not much of an "art" person. Some pictures are pretty, but I really get annoyed when people try to come up with these complicated silly explanations for something that's simply pretty (or worse, something that isn't). My favorite place at the Met is the musical instrument room. Everything there is beautiful, AND has a purpose. Modern art? Bla.
But Goldsworthy's work is unique in that I really find it moving. He did a brief stint as artist-in-residence at Cornell my senior year of undergrad, and made some really beautiful, crazy things. I appreciate that what he makes is by nature temporary, and natural, but at the same time artificial, because he puts an incredible amount of work into careful coloring or appearing to defy gravity.
I don't know. Like I said, I'm not an art person. I just think that his work is really beautiful, and touching in a wierd kind of way.
The movie gave me an opportunity to see his work in a new way--to actually watch it disintegrate, and move. I WANT to see the delicate structures float away with the tide, accidentally fall to pieces (there were a few heartbreaking scenes in the movie, showing that things DO fall apart when he doesn't want them to sometimes), or simply fade.
If you can find a movie theater in your area, I'd strongly reccomend seeing it there, even if you aren't familiar with the artist. I wanted to dance out of the theater.
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A bunch of pictures--this usually happens on Mondays, I think.
First, in the "J has asked me to brag about him" department:
He broke that piece of wood yesterday. With those nasty crusty toes that are being displayed.
Secondly, I brag about myself:
I'm so excited about finally working on a non-holiday project that I'm breaking my own rule about not showing works in progress. It's kind of hard to see all the details here, but it's the beginnings of a lacy shawl. I made up the overall pattern myself but used a book of small pattern repeats to figure out what would go where. Right now it's only big enough for a babushka, but I'm learning a lot along the way. In theory I'll be bringing it with me to Italy, but this might take a while. We'll see.
Thirdly, I pity my little cousin:
Poor kid. Just started school, too.
Ever since I reworked the wedding page, I had a lot of folks going to the old link that Google was still providing (you wouldn't believe how many people look for "wedding stuff". Maybe you would.) So I reinstated that page, although it's not on the sidebar, and has no pictures. In fact, I just stuck this link in so the spiderbots could still find it. I think the advice is good for anyone that's searching for weddings. Basically, shut up and do it.
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I like dictionaries (not that you can tell from my verbal vocabulary), so reading about how they work is neat.
(link via Bekee.)
Jeremy asks a question:
"Aren't Buddhist dieties supposed to embody a connection to the universal goodness and truth that lies within us all?"
Then he adds "Apparently not".
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"Familiarities arouse dangerous desires"
Unfortunately there's not a particularly user-friendly way of looking through this pamphlet, but here's the parent directory. The first half of them seem to be from some young person's guide to the birds and bees and are very entertaining, the second half are posters about the dangers of syphylis, and are less silly.
But I reccomend a look-through. Because doing so could help transmit fitness for a finer race!
(link found via Ernie.)
Update: Jeremy says that this one wins the poo-eating grin award. Not his *exact* words, but you'll forgive me for trying to keep the website PG.
Oh, I forgot to talk about the Willy Street Fair. Ah, the fair.
A quick background: Willy St. is the ultra-liberal local neighborhood--Midwesterners that haven't seen such a thing before describe it as "bohemian". If all of its contents were stretched out and laid over downtown Ithaca, Ithaca would change very little.
This past weekend the neighborhood had a fair, similar to the Ithaca fair, only more.
Picture 5 blocks of little booths selling food, crystals, hemp jewelry, and handpainted clothing. Picture 4 stages with live music ranging from angry teenager punk on one end of the street to soothing African music on the other.
Picture wall-to-wall freaky people.
A lot of folks that take the festival atmosphere as permission to let their freakiest flags fly. An all-inclusive gay pride parade of folks blowing bubbles with the children and watching the skateboarding demo raising money for a skateboarding park.
Now in situations like this I'm not always so comfortable. I was wearing chinos, a long sleeved shirt, and a polartec vest. Blendy-in clothes. Comfortable clothes. Clothes I always want to wear.
Clothes that are COMPLETELY out of place at a thing like this.
I hate feeling like The Square That Everyone Is Looking At And Thinking "What A Square".
But I didn't feel like that on Sunday. The extra-nice thing about the fair is, everyone is completely happy, relaxed, and content. No one is TRYING to look the freakiest, posing, comparing their outfit to everyone else's, judging. No one is worried about sticking out, being not quite wierd enough to be cool.
No one is acting the way people USUALLY act under these circumstances.
And since no one else was worried, neither was I. I danced a little to the Salsa band, I ate a funnel cake (similar to but not quite as good as the New England fair food called "fried dough"), I looked at tchotchkies, I wanted to juggle at the juggling booth but they seemed to have sold all the juggling supplies, so I kept walking. I was simply Myself, and no matter what I was, outside or in, that was okay.
It was a lovely afternoon.
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I did a ton of cooking this weekend. I was going to include a picture here but it mysteriously disappeared from the camera. Ah well. You'll just have to imagine a stove that had crammed onto it:
*A nice apple cake in a Bundt pan. I froze half of it for the knitting group on Thursday, which may actually improve it, because the top was a little over-crusty right at first and made cutting into the slices difficult.
*Some fresh pasta from a local company that I'd been meaning to get at the Farmer's Market since the first time I saw it. It was all right, being unused to fresh pasta I think I overcooked it. Tasty, though, especially with
*Some nice sauteed red peppers and mushrooms.
*Finally, I made another attempt with the Gramma Rolls. For those of you non-family folk, my gramma makes these infamously good dinner rolls--the closest description I can come up with is a slightly sweeter, slightly more doughy version of challah. And way better. No one in the family except gramma can get them quite right--they don't rise, they're too dry, they're too sweet. The running joke is that we can't get it quite right because the little recipe cards we all have in gramma's own hand have been, um, "adjusted".
Well, mine didn't come out too bad. J's never had The Official Gramma Rolls and thinks they're spectacular. He ate 4 of them just at dinner the first night (and these are not small rolls). But I know better. They're very good--the best I've had that haven't come directly from the source--but there's just a little tiny something missing.
Darn sneaky gramma.
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I'm still 99% knitting holiday things, so no, you can't see. I've made a lot of progress though, so your holiday present might be a picture of lovely holiday items, if not actual holiday items you can use to beautify your surroundings or keep you warm (I'm still not telling).
That 1% of non-holiday knitting will be shooting up very soon. What am I up to?
That. The pile of earth-toned yarn is some nice organic cotton that I got from elann.com. It will be turned into a tank top someday--I'm thinking that knitting a tank top in February may lift my spirits a bit. It will also be a more significant foray into two-color stranded (aka fairisle) knitting, which I've only done on a couple of very small things so far. I just need to make up a pattern, but I've got plenty of time.
The insanely skinny red stuff is Brown Sheep Naturespun. Its source wasn't especially reliable (I got it yesterday but had ordered it over a month ago) so they get no link, but I'm not naming them either, so blah. I'll be making this yarn into a shawl I plan on wearing on the Italian Adventure. I have a (probably unrealistic) image of me having this nice geometrically patterned lace shawl of my own design, giving me a little bit of warmth in the cooler evenings, and having Romans think of me as looking quite stylish for an Americano stupido.
We'll see.
The shawl yarn leftovers, of which there will be plenty, will go into making gloves, maybe. First I'll see how tiny the needles need to be to make non-holey gloves. Then I'll cry. Then I'll make another shawl.
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You may also notice that my hands seem unnaturally pink in the above photo. That's not miscoloration due to poor lighting--I took this picture after climbing last night. No real blisters, but my fingers are kind of tender now. Plus, any meager ability I might have gained in the 3 weeks I went climbing over the summer, I lost completely in the month that I hadn't been able to make it out there.
I was pathetic.
But I had fun.
After habitually forgetting to ask someone for a ride, the weather being too hot, feeling under the weather, or just having a rotten Monday for the last month and a half, I'm officially going climbing again tonight. Sadly, my hands have lost all the climbing calluses so my fingers will lie in tatters on the spongy floor after an hour, but no matter. I will feel all powerful and manly with my bruises and blistered hands.
Apparently autumn came on a Thursday this year. 'Tis a pity, since I was indoors for most of yesterday.
It was too cold and windy at the bus stop to do my knitting today. Tragedy!
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I had a nice time with the knitting group last night. I guess I'm hosting it next week, and we're going to try some type of "Bring a non-knitting friend" thing to get more butts in the seats.
So if you want to be my friend, send me a line.
Apple cake will be involved.
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Yarrr.
The photo album section has been thoroughly redone, even though it looks almost exactly the same. I edited the wedding pages down to a less absurd 3, also.
Thinking the word "picture pages" over and over got this stuck in my head.
Time to get your crayons and your pencils!
Ok, ok, I know that if you took constant footage of me you'd eventually a picture of me looking roughly like this.
But still. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!! Fark could do wonderful things with this, and probably will.
(link via Ernie)
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Ariel has a rather nice post about being the child of hippies. Although I don't think my mom really thinks of herself as having been a hippy (although if YOU saw the pictures you'd disagree), I identified with a lot of the things that Ariel mentioned.
I feel like I grew up with very few taboos. My parents claim that I was just such a wierd, self-directed kind of kid that I simply didn't need many rules. Mostly, I followed nonexistent rules that were more strict than the ones they would've set up if I'd been wilder. If we were at a restaurant and I was torn between two meals, I'd pick the cheaper one. That kind of thing. What child thinks like that?
Of course, if they'd been different parents, they could have set up rules anyway, or otherwise created an environment that made me WANT to rebel. I appreciate that they didn't.
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Oh, Leonard Nimoy, you're my hero.
This computer has no sound. I can only imagine the tune to go along with it. I know that the most wonderful thing I can think of is not even close.
(link via Dave Barry.)
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If I hear the word "birth certificate" one more time this week someone is getting slapped. Sometimes J gets on a nagging roll, wanting me to deal with bureaucracy in a way that won't change anything, ever. Just about the only time I ever don't want to share a roof with him is times like this. I understand that he likes doing things early--and I certainly don't mind getting my tax refund check before February's over--but in the process he enjoys stressing me out because we NEED this thing RIGHT this SECOND or the WORLD WILL EXPLODE BECAUSE FORMS ZRQ-151 AND 12-TMJ ARE INCOMPATIBLE!
INCOMPATIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!
I just see that the machinery of government grinds at a different time scale; the opposite of a New York Minute. But at the same time, I trust the paper-pushers and rubber-stampers. Things will get done, even if a long lunch break is involved beforehand.
I just don't mind not being in control all that much.
Update: And now he's testing me....he's sent 2 more emails since I wrote this. The next meal I make for him will not be nearly as tasty as I could make it, which is about as terrible a thing as I can do.
Every time I have beamtime I end up doing some kind of site overhaul. Current projects (may be half-done if you're keeping track so beware odd error messages)
*New picture upstairs--not difficult but it takes awhile to get to all the pages.
*I'm putting the wedding pictures into the general pictures section, instead of having a link on every page. I've officially been married long enough that the marriage is more important than the wedding. So I don't need to be reminded of the wedding so often. The pictures haven't gone away though, so don't despair, family that cares!
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Groupthink font formation. Very neat. Found indirectly via this story, which is also pretty neat.
Oh, and another addition to the list.
Language, yo.
(I wouldn't have found any of that if not for John.)
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I'm just feeling sort of logy right now. I've been trying to decide if I was going to tell this particular story or not, since whether you believe it or not, the end result is you looking at me funny. But it's something I have to write out in some form, just to have it all there for me to see. Avert your eyes if you want to think of me as being free of That Hippy-Dippy Nonsense.
Ok. So I mentioned recently that a woman I worked with at the dining hall died a week and half ago in a car accident. Dan flew to New York for the funeral--flew on Sept. 11th, too, and he's a Nervous Nelly to begin with, which just says how much he cared about her. Anyway he called on Sunday to tell me about it, and to think out loud a bit more on the topic of what a lovely, lively human being Lisa was. This sounds like a completely depressing conversation but actually we were both laughing a lot, full of whatever it is that's left when you have no more sad left to be.
Partway through the conversation, D mentions that in the course of thinking about Lisa and how much time she wasted without realizing how little time she had, he's decided to grab his life by the reins in some ways he'd kill me for describing here. Suffice it to say that it's all a good thing, and good for Dan for turning a kick in the pants into a dance routine. (Sorry, I really hate the lemon analogy.)
"You know that she's laughing her head off right now," I said, referring to Lisa, who would be really pleased with what he's up to, and that she was largely the catalyst for it.
That's when something wierd happened.
My mouth kept talking, saying in essence that she would have said positive, sassy things to him if she were on the phone at that moment. But as I was talking I had a very strong, very strange sensation that I wasn't the one speaking right at that moment. My consciousness was still sitting there, somewhere in my body, but it wasn't quite in the right place--I heard my voice, in someone else's inflection, using words not quite in the way I would have.
It was a few steps beyond just "what Lisa would have said"--I feel like they were the words she DID say. The sentence finished, Dan laughed, the moment passed, and I spoke my own words again.
I have no idea what happened for those 10 or 15 seconds.
It's possible that I had an intense but very real feeling based on things which exist but that we can't see.
I also think it's possible that I had an intense but illusory feeling based solely on sympathy for the whole terrible situation. An intellectual shutting-down when I got too close to a painful emotional core.
But I don't think I'm crazy. And I also don't think I'm the next John Edward. I just think these things are possible.
This, along with making the mistake of watching a World Trade Center documentary that included all the footage I missed because I didn't have a tv September 11th two years ago, left me awake for much of Sunday night. I had a lot of Big Questions to think about.
Don't we all?
By the way, I've been writing a lot today (most recent up top) because I have the Dreaded Beamtime to deal with right now. Sitting in a basement listening to loud constant electric humming is not helping.
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Who on earth are these people? Call me a milquetoast product of a liberal liberal-arts college, but the phrase "I like that [gender] [stereotype]" never comes out of my mouth. I've gone into this gender stuff before, but I every time I see something like this I feel the need to remind the world. Eventually everyone will see my rant, and then they'll all shut the hell up.
So, a question: what are these people thinking when they see me? I am not a curvy human being. My voice is not melodious. I don't need bugs to be killed on my behalf. I don't wear perfume, or makeup, or uncomfortable clothing. I am not graceful. I am not the mother of anyone's children (and don't plan on it).
And don't you freakin' DARE call me "vulnerable" or "sensitive".
I will admit that I make squeaky noises when surprized, and that I seem to be good at making people feel comfortable with me. And I knit, which is stereotypical, although not on the list.
However.
Ok, breathing.
I'm sure that the point of this exercise was to make men and women feel good because someone likes their gender, or something. But let's just go into my head for a little while.
I read: "What do people like about women? [insert all the things I just said I'm not here]".
I'm not any of these things. There are two conclusions. Either:
A: These people would not like me, or
B: I'm not a real woman.
Most people actually do like me, so it's probably B.
Sigh.
Can I just tell you how absolutely tired I am of people I don't know telling me I'm not a real woman? Most of the time, I allow this kind of thing to pass me by. I've worked through a whole lot of garbage in order to define "femalehood" in a way that I feel applies to me. Most of the time, I can say "I've always been and always will be female, and I'm okay with that."
I wasn't able to say that for about 15 years.
I don't like having that taken away from me.
When I do get my gender self-identity and self-acceptance taken away from me like this, I tend to get more and more upset until I just break. Then I shut down for a few days. During TChem ShutDown(tm), I tend to behave in a manner that gets me called "sir" more than usual. I basically reject anything that could remotely get me called "feminine", because if someone so much as thought that my head would explode. I smile less, I'm quieter, I have a hard time following conversations.
In short, I lose it.
So, thanks, website, for reminding me that I'm an unloved freak of nature in the process of trying to be cutesy.
(link via John. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder, even when the absence isn't as long as originally planned, or when the lack of absence results in a entry that indirectly makes me temporarily insane.)
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Atention local folks: the knitting group I recently joined is actively recruiting right now--I think there's roughly 10 regulars (as in people that come more than once a month), so they'd like to see some more fresh faces.
I just joined a few weeks ago, and they're a nice bunch. Mostly grad students, mostly in the liberal arts, all levels of talent--from the woman that learned how to knit last night to the person that was making beautiful gloves on impossibly tiny needles. We meet on Thursday evenings at various member's houses (so far it's been mostly near-east side locations).
Anyway, that's the recruiting pitch. So if you're a local person that does some kind of crafty thing, or would like to learn, and you'd like to socialize with some other crafty types, just get in touch with me (contact info is on that red menu bar over there).
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I managed a partially media-free day yesterday, as per the entry from the 10th. I checked and wrote email during the day, and looked up a couple of academic research papers from the 80's, but that was about it. I listened to a Harry Potter tape while making dinner, talked to my mom on the phone, and met with the knitting group. It was nice to have decided to do it beforehand, instead of forgetting, turning on the tv, and flicking it off again in annoyance. Again, thanks to John for the idea.
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One of my academic advisors is a veterinary opthamologist--aka, plays with animal eyes. In group meeting yesterday, we got off topic (not that that's unusual), and he told us how something like 15% of seeing eye dogs are actually nearsighted and need some kind of vision correction. The engineers started joking about dog eye charts--one big cat on top, smaller cats, bones, and fire hydrants below. And then came the big question:
"How do you correct a dog's vision? Glasses?" we said, laughing at the thought.
"Well, no," he said, totally serious. "We have these things called Doggles, that fit the dog's head much better."
Enjoy the doggles. I sure did.
John has a really good idea regarding tomorrow. This reminds me a lot of the Day of Silence, which I've also participated in. It also reminds me of what I said last year (although looking through my archives, it looks like I deleted it and instead said "I'm in a bad mood right now")--if the tv networks are so into reminding everyone of the terrible thing that happened, why can't they all just be quiet for one damn day? Just have a silent screen that says "Nothing we can say will bring back the people murdered two years ago, so we ask that you turn off the tv and give thanks for those you love who are alive and well."
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I think I'm feeling especially grateful for those around me that are okay right now, because I found out the night before last that one of the full-time staff at the dining hall was killed in a car accident over the weekend. She was a good, joyful person. She had two small children. She took this picture, which is my only photographic proof of all the time I spent in the dining hall. Other people have written more eloquently about death, about remembering small details of a person, about realizing that you never really knew in a deep-down way the person you suddenly miss.
Well, I miss her. Say a prayer for her family if you have a moment.
Well besides the bus ride described below, I had a really great time at Dan's. I recently had a long conversation with a friend of mine from Ithaca about old friends, and how sometimes an old friendship turns into a friendship with who someone used to exist, but has now been replaced with a twin with a different personality. D is really terrible with email, which means that at any time I only have the vaguest idea of where he is and what he's doing. Sometimes I'd write to him, and wonder: who am I really writing to? The person I was friends with in May of 2001? Or the person who's really on the other end of the computer in 2003? D is one of very few non-blood relations that I consider to be family to me, so the idea of me not really knowing him anymore even if I still cared about him just seemed to be a terrible fate. Not being able to connect with the person whose mind I was able to read like a book for 4 years? It seemed to be simultaneously impossible, and entirely possible and worrisome, all at the same time.
A few weeks ago I had a dream that he was coming here for grad school, but that he avoided my eye if we passed each other in the street.
I couldn't have that.
The next morning I emailed him and asked him if there was a good time to visit. He now lives just close enough for it to be a reasonable occasional visit. Honestly, I was a little nervous getting off the train, watching him smoke, waiting.
But things were perfect. After 10 minutes, we were laughing at my bus experience. After an hour, it seemed silly that I'd ever be worried about drifting apart.
He's at a good school, has good friends (who I met and may be hanging out with in Chicago at the end of the month), and has a good apartment that allows the doggies:
I didn't realize my "sit down you naughty girl" finger-pointing was visible in the picture, but I didn't crop it out. It's pretty accurate. Bailey, on the left, is a complete spaz. She has the leggy clumsy hyperness of a 5 minute old colt. Jessie, on the right, was the mascot of the house senior year when four of us lived together. She remembered me, and looked up sadly on Sunday morning when she saw me putting my pj's into my backpack.
The ride home was uneventful. I got home to a glowingly happy Jeremy, who had done very well at his Tae Kwon Do tourney in Omaha:
If you can't tell, the color of that medal is gold. It was a great weekend for both of us. I hope you had a good one too.
Bus ride from HELL. If you're eating you may want to set it aside for a few minutes. Let's review what I've learned so far:
* Greyhound doesn't take traffic into account. Even traffic around Chicago, which is as ever present as death and taxes. This made me miss my connecting bus to see D.
*I always assumed I would be a sympathetic vomiter, but now that I've watched as the teenager sitting in front of me proceeded to release his artificially orange drink-containing stomach contents onto the floor of the bus--TWICE-- I guess I'm not one. But I still do have an overly high level of fear of the stuff, which caused me to irrationally run to the back of the bus with my eyes closed, so I could hide from Mr. Pukey and his splatty friends rolling around on the floor.
* There are only two buses that go to Purdue from Chicago. Miss one, you'll wait 14 hours.
* I'm one lucky girl. When I found this bus information out, I almost started crying, and decided to leave the bus station and wander around, because otherwise I'd just cry and watch Mr. Pukey talking on the phone warily. I picked a direction, walked 4 blocks, and there in front of me was a wonderful sign, no doubt sent by heavenly powers. It said:
Which leads me to my next lesson:
* Amtrak is really very nice. Instead of getting here at 10 in the morning via Greyhound (or else, my alternate plan of just giving up and getting home at 2 in the morning), I reached here at a much more reasonable 11:45pm, and took the trip with a bunch of relaxed, happy Chicago tourists playing Euchre and laughing. So far I've had a good time wandering around, playing with the doggies, and bitching with Danny.
If I ever make the trip again I'll take the Amtrak from Milwaukee. WAY easier.
Some combination of uncomfortably-dreaming sleep last night, worrying about J being broken in two at his Tae Kwon Do tournament this weekend, minimally participating in an intense yet pointless meeting this afternoon, and dealing with all the little things I need to take care of before travelling tomorrow has given me one horrid, fork-in-the-eye headache. So I'm going home early to take a nap, even though I shouldn't considering I won't be in most of tomorrow.
Here's hoping that the figurative fork in my eye gets gently removed before I go sit on a bus for 7 hours tomorrow. And that J isn't returned to me in traction. And that Dan remembers I'm coming. And that no one important notices that I've had 3 3-day weekends in a row.
Getting tired of thinking about who you want to be president? Would you like an online quiz to tell you who to vote for instead of researching stuff yourself?
Me too. Here you go.
Of note: It gave me Howard Dean as a 100%, and that's who I like anyway. I would crap myself with joy if someone so unabashedly progressive made it to the White House.
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Been watching a lot of movies the past few days. Up last night was Raising Victor Vargas, which turned out to be a much sweeter film than I thought it was going to be. I think part of the connection I felt with it was based on the neighborhood and the family--a grandmother-headed family in an apartment with couches encased in plastic, a padlock on the phone, and utterly without privacy, even in the bathroom.
It wasn't my childhood, but it was the childhood of kids I knew growing up, and so the indoor scenery rang all sorts of little bells deep in my head. I ended up babbling about my grandparents (my dad's parents, not around anymore) to J last night, not quite being able to get at what I was feeling.
That feeling was: I don't see those people any more.
I've talked before about feeling some separation from my upbringing in a thoroughly working-class environment--now, my mom can afford mortgage payments and lives across town in an adorable little house in a better neighborhood near the local college. Now, I have the money and ability to go eat Indonesian food every day. Now I worry about thesis writing. I know that there aren't just students in this town--I've been riding the bus with the townies all summer.
But seeing isn't the same as being. Not anymore.
Most of the time I'm vaguely aware of moving towards this middle class life--I have no problem telling people that I grew up poorer than I live now, as a grad student. It's only when I see where I used to be, even if it's just in a movie, that I realize just how far from home I am.
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It's been a while since I've mentioned my knitting. This is because it's mostly gifts I've been working on. Yes, it's early. If I started in December I probably could've managed everything I'm planning. But the smallish projects that a wide swath of family will be getting are good to work on when it's hot, and I didn't even want to think about the sweaters I'm planning for myself.
Suffice it to say: I've gotten a reasonable amount done, I think folks will be pleased with the results, and by the time I'm done with gifts I should have used enough yarn from my box that I won't feel guilty about filling it up with projects for myself.
Actually, I did already order some yarn for myself, for a shawl I want to make and bring with me to Italy. I just have an image of me wearing something that looks chic, keeps me warm as needed (Roman Novembers are cool), and can also cover my hair when I go into churches to look at pretty things. It'll be my first foray into heavy-duty lace knitting, but I've made up a pattern already and can't wait! The yarn will be somewhere, color-wise, around the shade of the website background. Dark red. Can't wait to get started--if it comes by the end of the week I'll be starting it on the long bus ride to visit Dan.
Ok, that was wierd. The whole entry below disappeared, and I got really mad, and I thought I'd done something wrong. Knew I'd have to rewrite it, and decided to come back to it in a few minutes. When I did--magic! It's there! How'd that happen?
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Two movie reccomendations:
Pirates of the Carribean: In which Johnny Depp proves that the word "drag" does not only mean a man wearing a dress. Very entertaining. Perfect with gummy bears on a Labor Day afternoon.
Not One Less: A Chinese drama that you really need to see, although I don't know if you'll be able to find it at Blockbuster. I caught the first 5 minutes of it and thought it was going to be too depressing so I talked to my mom on the phone for awhile. I went back to it 20 minutes later and got utterly hooked. Wonderful and compelling cinema. Jeremy's words: "I need to add that to my list of movies that don't hate me and all humanity." His list is quite short.
Watch it if you can.
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Why I love Madison:
I was at the Farmer's market on Saturday getting my usual assortment of veggies and a cinnamon bun from that place that sells the insanely large donuts (non-locals: size of salad plates, filled with cream. I'm not even joking).
(Another side note for the non-locals: the farmer's market is on the Capitol square, and the corners are where various political/social/musical groups demonstrate, hand out pamphlets, peform Capoeira, etc. It's set up in such a way as you can get info if you want, or easily avoid eye contact. Perfect.)
So, I'm approaching one of the corners and I see a guy set up with signs about how Planned Parenthood is lying to their patients, and how women still die from abortions, and how sick and wrong abortion is, etc., etc. He's talking about all the scary stuff in an intense way totally inappropriate to a gorgeous cool sunny day with happy families walking by.
There's an older woman a little ways ahead that sees him, pulls a piece of paper out of her purse, scribbles "I AM PRO-CHOICE", and stands--complete with half-full bags of vegetables-- about 10 feet away from him, smiling and waving at the children going by in wagons.
I just loved that this woman felt that she needed to counteract this angry guy--not only with an opposing message, but with a smiling face and a peaceful demeanor. Most people don't bother with all that--they agree and get mad at the naysayers, or disagree and get mad at the folks that agree. She chose a different way, and I loved her for it.