very random thoughts

World-Improvement:
First of all, what is the correct spelling of Hezbollah? I've seen it spelled about twelve different ways and I am annoyed. I am of course more than annoyed about the fact of their existence and the evil history of the whole modern Middle East, but I am starting small in my world-improvement regimen. First order of business: pick a way to spell Hezbollah (and Osama too) and stick with it, people! It's not a name like Brittany (which I had 5 incarnations of in my former workplace) or Ashley, you know. And PLEASE learn the difference between its and it's. It's really annoying...ok I can't even keep that punctuated incorrectly. I just corrected it. It's that annoying.

Bloghards: Negative Nellies on PCP
Next on my list: blog comment negativity. I don't have the luxury of so many readers as to necessitate attention by people I term Bloghards (like blowhard, but both sound really scandalous and disgusting. sorry). I think in blog lingo, they're called trolls or something. There you are, having a perfectly amiable blog conversation about, say, double crochet versus half double, and BAM! Someone's accusing the main blogger that they've always had it in for double crochet and their house is a mess and they should really seek therapy for their obvious mental disturbances and they can't BELIEVE all the MORONS who are writing otherwise. I just took part in such a surreal experience last week, and it was so over the top I didn't know what to think. Like, were there a few comments in the line that I missed that would get them all fired up, like "I really enjoy eating children and all nonwhite people are scumbags?" Unless those comments were erased, I found no reason to be so bloody militant. Have a glass of wine, people. We're not curing cancer over here.

Outraged
I can gauge my stress level by the frequency with which I visit "letters to the editor" sections in the papers (or in my case, online news sites). In case you are wondering, the more out of control I feel, the more pissed off I get and the more I read other people's opinions who inevitably piss me off. Because they're such MORONS, you know? (I think that was a joke, but I kindof believe it's true too.) When I am unbelievably pissed off, I write a real letter to the editor. I have had two such letters printed before, in the Sun. I could write a sampler, boilerplate letter to the editor for you if you'd like to use it: Dear Editor: I am appalled and outraged by ______________(cite article and date here). ____'s left-wing (or right-wing) bias is so blatantly obvious that he/she should immediately resign. And Bush is the Antichrist and eats little Democratic children in cowboy rituals OR gays and illegal immigrants are the reason our country is going to hell, and you commie pinkos are the first on Satan's list. Sincerely, Outraged.
Whoever said public discourse has deteriorated? Well, they're obviously dumb and on drugs.

blogger photos: you're dead to me!
To continue with my Anger-thon, I have decided to forego posting photos here for a while, as blogger continually has problems posting them. Either they're too big (which I fix), they're named in a way blogger just can't understand (which I fix), or Blogger just doesn't like my photos enough to post them. I can't seem to get them up here without a serious PITA. SO, go to Yahoo photos, and look up marykateissmurfy, and that should do the trick. I have a ton of new crochet-related photos up there, all of which took the same amount of time to post as 3 photos take on this-here site. So NYAH!

The Ipod meme
Ok, to wrap things up I will offer something truly hilarious I found on Drew the Crochet Dude (TM)'s blog. It's a meme, a term I looked up and still don't understand--something that will become a sort of cultural phenomenon? Just a cool way to say "random game you can play?" I don't know. Anyhow, you put your Ipod on shuffle, and each song is the answer to the following questions. Here's mine for tonight:

How am I feeling today?
Watching the Sky, the Bangles. was a bit rainy today...
Will I get far in life?
How to disappear completely, Radiohead (apparently not)
How do my friends see me?
You're wondering now, The Specials. You certainly are.
When will I get married?
Sinking, The Cure. hmm. not good for the anniversary!
What is my best friend's theme song?
If only tonight we could sleep, The Cure. So my ipod is heavy on the cure, ok? doesn't mean it's wrong.
What is the story of my life?
Something must break, Joy Division. OMG, so absolutely true.
What was high school like?
Obstacle I, Interpol . Amen.
How am I going to get ahead in life?
New Day, the Cure.
What is the best thing about me?
Climbing up the walls, Radiohead. Yes, it's quite obvious isn't it?
How is today going to be?
World, New Order.
What is in store for this weekend?
Train song, Mindy Smith. Choo choo!
What song describes my parents?
Don't be cruel, Elvis Presley. I am not making this stuff up, people!
What song describes your grandparents?
Ruined in a day, New Order. Sheesh my songs are depressing.
How is my life going?
Lost in the Supermarket, the Clash. One could say that.
What song will they play at my funeral?
Speak my language, the Cure.
How does the world see me?
The legend of John Henry's Hammer, Johnny Cash. I am tougher than I think.
Will I have a happy life?
Fitter Happier, Radiohead. Like a pig, in a cage, on antibiotics.
What do my friends really think of me?
Bell Jar, the bangles. Dang people.
Do people secretly lust after me?
All I want, the Cure. All is kindof a lot.
How can I make myself happy?
Going to California, Led Zeppelin. See ya, East Coast suckas!
What should I do with my life?
Interesting Drug, Morrissey. I just say no.
Will I ever have children?
Getting Better, the Beatles. Good.
What is some good advice for me?
Altogether, Slowdive. Not terribly helpful.
What is my signature dancing song?
Pink Moon, Nick Drake.
What do I think my current theme song is?
Give my love to Rose, Johnny Cash. For ten long years I paid for what I done.
What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Siamese Twins, The Cure.
What type of men/women do you like?
A message, Coldplay. So this meme thing doesn't always work.
What kind of kisser are you?
Fifty-Fifty Clown, the Cocteau Twins. Insulting!
What's your style?
Some velvet morning, Slowdive. I can dig it.
What kind of lover are you?
Waiting for you, bangles.
What would be playing on a first date?
Singin' in the Rain, Gene Kelly. Maybe A's first date.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Pretty (Ugly Before), Elliott Smith. Hopeful.

sponge

What I have felt like for a couple of months, and now I am trying to wring myself out. I have been privileged to go to some amazing places, eat incredible food, meet wonderful people, learn remarkable things, and take a break from the norm since the end of May.

This is probably my first real summer vacation ever, when I think about it. Every year since I started college, I was working on one thing or another, teaching, moving house, preparing for Fall and stressing about not getting enough artwork done. Every August was the same dread feeling: I haven't done enough painting, I haven't re-worked my curriculum, I haven't chilled out properly and want to continue my idle lifestyle. In a word, guilt. Guilt for not being self-motivated, guilt that I really hated the drudgery of school life--especially when that school was so cushy and easy to handle compared to the war zones my friends were working in. Also guilt for not keeping in touch with people I felt I should keep in touch with. I felt guilty for who I am, an introvert who needs 5 days of complete silence to recuperate from the whirlwind of daily life.

This summer has been different, a fact for which I am truly grateful. The biggest difference is that huge insoluble lump of guilt has been removed. I can't say it was a great experience, the surgical slicing-away I had to go through this winter and spring, and the parts that had lived with the lump longest still remember their companion. Just today I felt that gnaw in my mind, "I'm down, things are f'd." But I can't put my finger on why that feeling was there except that is my default mode, so I can brush that aside as just a residual feeling with no basis in fact. And I remembered to breathe. For someone who almost literally held her breath for years, this is a huge step.

I guess it all looks very cryptic here, but that is how it feels to go through such a transformation.
It's not something easily explained, nor should it be. It's deeply personal and one might wonder why I am writing about it anyway. I don't know, really. It feels good to share healing, especially after I have shared so much anguish here. And I'm not just talking about smelly yarn or impossible knots, but I think they echo my inner life as well. Because I untangled that knot, instead of cutting it up into 3-inch linguine and setting it on fire. I dealt with the crap, instead of closing the door and letting it fester like I had my whole life. It was exhausting, expensive, and deeply painful, but so is any life-altering surgery.

I still struggle with a feeling of hopelessness about the world, the inevitability of history, the impossible march of decay in cities full of trapped people. I don't believe peace is possible in a large-scale way, but I have found peace for myself. I have a deep hatred for corporations and corrupt governments with no concern but the making and keeping of money. I don't believe in the commonness of decency, as it is so obviously absent from public discourse, military actions, religious pronouncements. I believe that Christ has overcome the world, as he said in John 16, but my belief is more a matter of faith than of a tangible reality. The world, and our country in particular, are so out of balance. We are absurdly wealthy and self-absorbed, so illiterate of history and so incapable of civil debate, so divided. Our moral authority is spent, really and truly. And the people reporting this to us rub their hands with glee, because nothing sells better than chaos. Yet I am here and mostly content. It is a major miracle. Peace that passes understanding, guarding my heart and mind...

he's a dad toast

That's what A said today about his large piece of garlic toast. Don't mess with dad toast, let me tell you.

Two days ago he was sitting on the sofa, then unceremoniously chucked his kitty cat stuffed animal on the floor. I asked him, "Why did you do that to your poor kitty?" and he answered, "I'm a artist."

Hmm. It's in the blood, apparently. A few years ago my husband was still a college student at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He and a friend, an imposing fellow who always wore a leather jacket, walked through a subway tunnel to the station on the other side. They emerged from the tunnel, filthy and sweating, and a plainclothes policeman came up to them.

"Hey. What'chou been doing there?" The cop said. D's friend, with complete seriousness, said, "We're artists. We just wanted to see what was back there." The cop said, "Oh," and walked away.

As a side note, I didn't find out about this until way after the fact, as we weren't married yet. I couldn't believe how stupid those two guys were, walking through a dangerous, disgusting, rat-infested tunnel just to "see what was there." Everybody knows what's in there! Dirt, rats, and occasionally an electric bloody subway train going at high speeds! Durh. Another amazing proof that evolution doesn't work on the male of the species.

it is finished

The bolero from hell. The PITA (painintheass) poncho. The diabolical skein of ribbon yarn has been vanquished. But is it done with me? No. The bloody thing still smells like smoke, after I washed it twice in gentle shampoo. I am more than pissed. I am proud of myself but I am seething at the same time. Proudly seething, that's me. I am so glad I am done with it. I think I listened to about three books on tape from start to finish, and more than that to get things untangled and unraveling bits I shouldn't have done. I don't mind unraveling, because I know I am not going to half-ass my way through the pattern.

The name of the pattern was "Short and Sweet," in The Happy Hooker book. The pattern itself was quite easy to figure out--the motif was written out in symbols so I didn't have to worry about typos in the other part of the pattern. The Stitch-n-Bitch books are notoriously loaded with errors, and require careful reading of the errata pages online to make sure things are kosher.

I was so afraid of running out of yarn for this, I just can't tell you. I read the yardage required but I didn't believe it. I don't ever EVER want to buy this yarn again. It looks wonderful, feels divine, but I haven't had to do this much babysitting of a fiber in my life. Does that make sense, babysitting a fiber? Well let's say this was the Paris Hilton of yarn. Beautiful, yes, but try working with it.

Two things that saved my life with this project I learned at the Knit and Crochet Show this past weekend in King of Prussia, PA. I went to a class by Lily Chin, knitting/crochet superstar, and I don't think I have ever learned this much stuff in 3 hours. I love learning shortcuts, different ways to use old things, elegant solutions. Well, she told us how to keep ribbon yarn from getting super-twisted as you work. Shove a huge knitting needle through a shoebox, through the skein, and back out the shoebox so you have essentially a yarn TP dispenser. Works pretty well--not great but still better than before. The other thing I used a lot with this project was weaving in reeeeeeeally short ends into the work to finish it. Sometimes the tail of the yarn isn't long enough to thread the needle AND tuck into the piece. So she said to poke the needle into wherever you want the thread to go, THEN thread the needle and pull it all through. Fricking brilliant. This stuff is so bloody slippery that the yarn would just fall right out of the yarn needle, but smaller, sharper needles would poke the microfiber and be impossible to pull through without yucky pulls. Ah. Sigh.

So I am done with it. It is now drying/blocking on a towel in my studio, and I am wondering what to do about the smell. I don't want to smell like I just came out of a skeezy nightclub, don't know about you, and I already wrote the owner of the yarn company about it. She said that they absolutely NEVER exposed any fibers to cigarette smoke. Hm. Maybe. Perhaps it is the dye they used--does that smell funky ever? I know vinegar is part of mordant, but whenever I have dyed anything it never came out smelling like grandma's ashtray.

myspace is wierd

It's late, my eye is twitching, but I just had to write about my experience on myspace. I signed up and have a profile and all, but I couldn't tell you how to access all of it. I'm in there, if you check Baltimore Lutheran alumnae or something. Which is where I spent an ungodly amount of time just now, and saw one former boyfriend, another guy I went to school for 13 years with, a few folks from D's class, and way too many sexed-up photos of recent graduates. Zoinks, people! Show a little decorum, not your...um...anything else.

What a scary, surreal world, I tell you. I felt like a chameleon on a tartan. Who am I? Who are you? What was I when you last saw me? Shudder. How were you in my class of 60 people and I didn't even know your name? That's the really shameful part. It was sad, too, as there were a few who were venting their spleen about how much Lutheran SUX and all. Why put it on your bio then, and invite all those other sucky people into yourspace? It's just petty. World hunger SUX. Child prostitution SUX. A dinky high school, lame, maybe. I liked it there.

When I visited all these profiles and whatnot, I felt like I did when I went to the few parties or outside events that school people had. Like I shouldn't be there, that the cool kids had their own lingo and looked down on me for not knowing it, that the cheerleaders were so shallow, and that I was just as bad chasing after boys like it was my full-time job. Not that I am chasing after boys now, it was just that yucky insecure feeling I had for maybe all of middle and high school. You know, the one that makes you hunch your back and cross your arms in front of your chest and try not to move much while you walk so that nothing jiggles and your hair doesn't fly out of control. Thank God that is over. Can't help but jiggle now, unfortunately.

I surmise that's what I felt emanating from myspace, insecurity and sophomoric appeals to be taken seriously. I also surmise that I am using bigger words for no reason.

In an unrelated but bad note, today walking back from fireworks, A stuck one of his glow-sticks in D's ear, perforating his eardrum. He went to the hospital with his dad and needs to see a specialist about it. They say that hearing loss may not be permanent, and that it may heal itself in a couple of months. In the meantime he's getting drops put in by me, it's bleeding a bit, and I know he's really angry but one can't really do much about it since A didn't understand what he was doing. He knew it was wrong, but not how wrong. He felt very bad about it, because he knows that the hospital is for very serious boo-boos. It's just a sad affair all around.

what a tangled skein we pull, part deux

So I decided to be brave, and try and use the microfiber ribbon I spent 10 hours unraveling from the bloody knot from hell. I had a rare feeling of optimism, which should have been my signal that something was amiss.

I wanted to make this ribbon into a beautiful bolero from "the Happy Hooker" crochet book. The bolero has an openwork leaf design, ingeniously incorporating front post and back post DC's to make a relief of the edge of the leaf. Leaf Relief. Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence...

Ahem, focus.

I've been working on the first panel, which is the back of the bolero, and have about 4 repeats of the pattern. Since the ribbon is green, it's really beautiful and organic looking, but also shiny and silky too. Getting there has been a real problem, though.

I used the "ball" I wound of the slippery stuff, which I had cut about 10 times to get it unknotted, so every few rows or so I need to knot on some more of it--the knots don't really show in crochet and it's too slippery to just stitch it in like normal. So I have a bunch of knots with dangly bits hanging. And any tiny piece of hangnail or 3-cell uneven bit of skin on my hands pulls a little bit of the microfiber ribbon as I work. Oh, and it smells like smoke. Like my Nanny's house, minus dog piss. I wrote to the lady in charge of the yarn company about it, and she said none of her stuff has been exposed to cigarette smoke. Period. But unless someone opened my bag of goodies from the Sheep and Wool festival when I wasn't looking and puffed about 3 packs of burning funk into it, I don't know where else the dang stuff could get exposed to cigarette smoke.

The real kicker is I don't think I've crocheted the correct gauge, because the leaves look much smaller than the picture. I measured and I'm only an inch off if I don't stretch it a little, which it will do...is an inch a lot? Lella, tell me true. Because the measurements for the size I am making are a little larger than I am, I think. I don't know. I am considering frogging the whole thing and starting over with a bigger hook. But that is a PITA.

Annnnd...I don't think I have enough of the yarn to finish it. I have a whole other skein, unbroken because I finally decided to follow directions and unwind it with a person holding on to the yarn. Great, right? It would be awesome, if only I could find the END of the damn YARN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I tucked it in nice and secure, knowing I had a beautiful unbroken bit-o-ribbon, and now I have to cut it because the end is lost forever. Woe! Woe is me!

My only consolation is that I am not listening to the Da Vinci Code on CD anymore, which was enough to make each of my stitches twice tight and angst-ridden. Ugh, that book! I wanted to know what all the hubbub was about, and now that I know, I can understand why people were so annoyed. People make up crackpot junk all the time, and fiction is just that: fiction. But nearly everything that could possibly be construed as true (the construction of the louvre, Leonardo's habits and personality, the Council of Nicea) was also complete crrrrrrap. Leonardo did play practical jokes, but he loved 15-year-old boys, not women. He was about as far from worshipping women via sex acts as Elton John. This book could be read aloud to imprisoned Christians and art historians as a form of torture. The figure next to Christ at the Last Supper looks like a young boy, not a woman--or he would if the painting itself wasn't a mangled mess of poorly-preserved fresco. I could go on and on but it would just give me an anger headache.

Far better is listening to "the Number One Ladies Detective Agency" stories. They are so calm and charming, and leave one feeling like problems can be resolved with just a little women's intuition. Far more respectful to women than old patronizing Da Vinci Code. I'd like to see Robert Langdon get a beat-down from the "traditionally built" Mma Ramotswe. She could teach him a thing or two about life. Maybe she can teach me how to unwind my green skein from hell.