Big Muscles

K,

My garbage disposal is being fixed at the moment! I called my Dad, and we tried to figure it out. My word, I even put my hand down there once and came up with a peice of metal. Finally we called the landlord, who drove out an hour last night to check it out. Such a nice man. Together we realized that the garbage disposal had imploded on me.

You ask, how can a garbage disposal implode? Well, we pulled out a few pieces of rusted metal, and then, eventually, an entire ring of rusted metal. You see, whatever this ring did (and I suspect it kept the disposal from leaking, as that is what the sink does now) it had taken all the food and water it was going to, and it had rusted away. Suddenly, that one day I was sending just water down? Too much! "No more! No more!" it shouted, and gave way like a confused biochemistry student with too many metabolic pathways to memorize. Then, the garbage disposal began to try and dispose of itself, to eat itself. Obviously this was not good. This is why it wouldn't work anymore. But TJ came, we figured this out, and he bought me a new garbage disposal, and he's in the process of putting that in right now! Which is really nice of him, since he had a family emergency today, and is busy with that, too.

Speaking of biochemistry, Karen, I'm a bit ashamed of you. Do you remember when we raced to put the entire metabolic diagramma pathway on the whiteboard? So you're feeding James lots of protein. This is good. However, he needs more than protein! I know you're giving him more than protein, but I also know James. He is not fat. I mean, there's that poster you have...with the unmatched socks. He's not fat. That means at the level he was working at, he had the correct sugar and diet level. Now he's working harder. He needs different levels. The body first consumes sugars, then fats, then proteins. Now, we know he doesn't have many fat stores, that's just his nature. If he doesn't have enough sugar, then his body will go right into breaking down protein to consume, and this isn't good. Remember the Atkins diet=starvation? His body will start breaking down his own muscle to get energy if it needs it. To me, it sounds like you're doing really good at getting him enough protein, but he needs more long-lasting sugars to get him through the day. Aim to get him on a mix of a swimmer's/Asian/body builder's diet. What I mean is this: swimmer's before a big meat eat starches: pastas, potatoes, things like that. Keeps you going for a while with long-term sugars. Asian cuisine, contrary to what you experience at the chinese resturaunts, are composed mostly of rices and noodles as well, also for long-term energy, with just a little bit of meat thrown in. Body builders eat meat, meat, meat. So keep him on a high meat, high starch diet. Dieters don't eat the starches because they're trying to dip into their fat stores to lose them, but James doesn't have the fat stores. There is a lot you can do with rice and a lot you can do with noodles. I'm not talking about pasta every night, just a pasta or rice side dish. There are entire books devoted to making purely different kinds of rices.

Then his body could use that during the day and save his protein for muscle building and not energy.

I hope that helps.

I found buttons for my cardigan! Remember the lace cardigan I'm knitting from Vintage Knits? I went to what I thought was a fairly large fiber and yarn store today, and it was truly just a corner within another store. However, the store it was within was fabulous! It had beautiful well-preserved antiques at good prices, which is hard to find. But I found buttons and jewelry!

The color is completely off. This is my bad camera. This is a gray teal color:

This is a royal blue color:

They are antique dyed pearl buttons. I think pearlized, but I'm not sure. They're not plastic, not bakelite, but I have a hard time believing they are actual pearl...maybe mother of pearl? I don't know.


And they're gorgeous! I also picked up 2 old pairs of earrings and a crazy necklace. I'll see if I can get some better pictures later. Maybe now that I have buttons, I'll finish the sweater? It would be really nice to have a light sweater for fall. It'll be my next goal! I also picked up some cotton roving to try and spin...short staple length=difficult, but I think I can get the hand of it eventually. I might make a mini-spindle to spin even faster! It'll be exciting. I'm dying the cotton now.

I know. I dye everything. It's just so hard to work with white...so dull, but so full of possibility. I understand about not getting things done. In the hour before TJ came last night I freaked and cleaned the apartment. Not my room but the rest. I've been trying to force myself to do that for a week. It's quite the quandry. Going to a picnic!

Love,
A

A,

First of all, I loved your rant. It gave me great joy. The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance reminds me in a certain way of our holy FSM. Let us fight injustice always with sarcasm!

I am sorry about your garbage disposal. I have never broken a garbage disposal before, but I can empathize with that moment of sheer panic that you feel when it first hits you that something has gone terribly wrong. Similar to the rising of water in an overflowing toilet. Or realizing you just spilled red nail polish in someone else's white-walled bathroom. Your situation did remind me of a poem I just read, though only the first few lines of it are relevant. It's too long to share it all here, but I will share the first few lines. It's called "Finished" by Ai:

You force me to touch
the black, rubber flaps
of the garbage disposal
that is open like a mouth saying, ah.

I think the aversion to touching disposals is universal. Maybe you can make friends with someone is willing to squish around in there for you.

I've given myself the title of household coordinator. I think it has a nice ring to it. It makes it almost sound like I do something around here. The interesting thing to me is that the more time I have, the less I get accomplished. It's the most confusing concept to me. Like a proverb from the bible: Those who are first will be last, and those with the most time will not make proper use of it. I guess it's more so the nature of unstructured time. It tends to run away from you.

My main duty as household coordinator is to prepare food. I shouldn't say that I do that exclusively on my own either. It's kind of a cushy job. But one thing that I am realizing is that James and I have completely different dietary needs. I was about 1/3 vegetarian until I started this gig, and now I'm eating meat every day. And the most exercise I get is a nice walk to the grocery store or library. James, on the other hand, is working is working himself to death. Actually, I'm kind of serious about that one. I'm worried about him. He comes home with fresh bruises or mat burns almost every night. And he's losing muscle rather than gaining it, because he doesn't have the time to rest and let his body regenerate. We're on slightly different exercise schedules. Oh, plus, he has a bit of a bad knee. He had to stop playing soccer after high school because of his knee, and now it's starting to act up on him again. I've been making him protein snacks. I'm pretty sure that's a limited solution though. I'd like to think that legumes could solve all of our problems, but sometimes you just need more in life.

Speaking of, I should start dinner.

Promiscuous Girl

K,

I am a loyal person. I am loyal to my friends. I am loyal to my man.

Why am I not loyal to my knitting?

My desire to start a lace shawl right now is only curbed by my lack of lace yarn for it. Or else it would be started right after work today. Right away!

The funny thing is, I could knit lace. I have a lovely lace sweater in the works, as we know. I must control my desires! Also, I'm going to Washington D.C. for Independence Day, which should be really fun. And lace would be such an easy project to take along...

What should I do? What should I bring? It's so hard to pack light when I don't know what I'll feel like knitting that week...

I'm super scared. Because I feel that I’ve broken my garbage disposal. I was making something and then I thought I just had water in the sink, but apparently there was more, because there was this loud sound, and I though “Oh NO!” and then smoke was emanating from the sink hole. And then it stopped working. I didn’t think I’d put any metal down there, or any knives, but when I got up the courage to shine a flashlight down there, I saw some metal. I pulled it out and think it is the end of a table knife, though it is hard to tell. However, does that mean the rest of the knife is in there? I don’t know! I’m so scared of disposals. When they are hidden, that is okay, but when they break, you might have to put your hands in there, and…

I hate really thinking about that, so much. Ohhhh! Heebie Jeebies all over the place! Let’s just say that garbage disposals are very hard to fix emotionally for me. However, I think I may have just overloaded the disposal, and apparently on most disposals there is a red button to push on the bottom to reset it. In this case, pushing the red button might save me from buying an entire other disposal for the apartment. I really hope so. The only issue is that there may be more knife pieces hidden in there, and I might need to take them out first beforehand…AHHH!

Breath. I must breath.

Maybe a few pairs of old bent knitting needles would help in this situation to poke around down there? Lose a needle, save a knitter’s hands? Okay, I really can’t talk about this anymore. I’m just so…my fingers feel so squishy…

Ew ew ew ew ew,
A

Weekend of Wonder and Wedding Wranting

K,

This turns into a rant by the end. You are forewarned, but you started it.

I'm glad you've got some green in your life. I know it must be hard going from a lush prodigal summer to a bare environment. It's interesting how we do things: I've got a sunset jade plant, which is of the desert variety, and you've got a pepper plant, which we're accustomed to growing in the Midwest. At least I am.

I love how you go through all these other fancy lace patterns until you come back to the one that you originally fell in love with and frolicked with before your mind was beckoned to the entire world of lace that lay beyond your simple pattern. It's like you went full circle, a rambunctious child that has to go and see and experience the big city lights before coming to the realization that the small town she grew up in was what fit her best.

Now that I've revealed them to the recipient, I can reveal them to you. I've been knitting on a pair of gloves for Kristopher out of Knitpicks Swish Superwash in Jade, which confused me with its color at first. I had a color card, Kris picked it out, I bought the yarn, and was very confused. The colors seemed earthier and army green that true green, but I began knitting and am now pleased with the color. It's still a darker earthy green, but it doesn't have as many brown undertones knitted up as when it was in the ball.

I knitted up the first glove and presented it to Kris completely unfinished, ends sticking out all over, since I wanted to check finger lengths and widths and such. He seems to enjoy it, though I have not washed it yet and hear that the length shrinks. We'll see, I suppose. I don't mind knitting them up again. Hopefully this will result in him wearing something over his fingers in the winter, as he usually is indisposed to. I don't know how he got away with it before, but I feel it is my duty as a knitter to clothe my man from the elements.

This weekend was fabulous and exciting. I arrived on Friday evening, driving through heavy rain out of my area to the glorious sunset clear sunset where Kris was. We had loads of fun, trying to watch some Doctor Who (though none of our tapes, since the only VCR in the house didn't work), watching some Doctor Who, hiking through a bit of Decorah, trying to fly my mini-kite, eating a bit of "authentic" Mexican food," knife shopping, and meeting up with the ladies we both know and love. We went out Saturday evening with Ben and Elisabeth and Kris tried ice cream for the first time in a year, and while it sat heavy in his stomach, there weren't serious repercussions yet. I hope things go well on that front. It'd be nice if he could eat some dairy and not feel completely sick. On Sunday evening we went over to Dr. E's, my old microbiology professor, farm, and played with her kids and the chickens and cows and pigs and cats and dog and had a grand time. There were brats straight from the hogs on their farm and yummy salad and delicious strawberry desert from whipped cream, cream cheese, fresh strawberries, and some delightfully expensive liquor that Dr. E's husband accidentally bought not knowing the price ($100 for a bottle of it and a bottle of Grand Marnier) for cooking in desserts. Dr. E says it should last for a lifetime. Then is was heading out and driving home to my abode to work in the morn.

I whipped up a batch of muffins for Alex's birthday at work, but I'm a bit scared, because I put an egg in them, and I don't think I baked them through all the way. I'm worried I'm going to kill him. I hope not. It's really the opposite of my job to kill people. I mean, they are good because they are super moist, but I'm really worried that they are moist at the expense of death. I hope we don't die.

I completely agree with your points about marriage and children. I haven't seen the movie, but I did see the previews, and I understand where you're coming from. I think it's interesting how our society connects those things. Evolutionarily, it makes sense to me. I mean, typically male and female species connect relationship-wise in order to mate and procreate. However, that is not to say that we don't have more complicated relationships in animals with higher-ordered brains.

In bonobos, which could arguably be some of the higher intelligence mammals, males and females are promiscuous, mating with many different partners, and the female raises the child on her own, but in larger groups of other bonobos. The female is the dominant figure in society, although the males have a more pronounced hierarchy.

In contrast, predatory birds, which tend to mate for life and are loyal to their partner, have small brains, and while deadly and cleaver, are seldom thought to be intelligent.

What I'm trying to say, is that even though we are intelligent animals, I don't think we can necessarily explain our relationship and mating behaviour from our animal and evolutionary backgrounds. If we were to, perhaps we would be more like the bonobos than the single life-long partner predatory birds our society wants us to be. I'd further attempt to explain this because of our Judeo-Christian backgrounds that encourage to be fruitful and prosper, and that the purpose of marriage is truly to have children. Except, of course, that you can check into many world religions and fertility and children are prized right along-side a home and marriage. They remain connected.

I feel my best explanation is a mixture of societal and physical realms. The Bible and our hormones both urge us to have children early and often. Only our reason tells us not to. The Bible urges children for many reasons, not the least of which is so that the religion has proponents. Our hormones are merely attempting to continue their lineage into a new line. Perpetuation of the species, plain and simple. Often means more chances for more genes perpetuated later and more chances (arguably) on survival, and early means that there is less chance of genetic and birth defect in the child.

Except we then hit our intelligence, that which has given rise to the wheel, electricity, and email. Our brains tell us that we have utterly overcome this planet, are decimating it, overpopulating it. As we have heard so eloquently put before, "If you don't think that overpopulation is the the world's greatest problems, you are a sadist." We've succeeded beyond nature's greatest hopes, and we're quickly approaching that spot in the graph of a differential equation where we stop growing in size and start dying just because we don't have enough resources to handle ourselves.

But back to your question, of which I am obviously far, far off topic: Why force ourselves to go through all the levels all at once, to get married and grow up and move out and take care of ourselves and have babies all at once, when just a month before we didn't even clean our own toilets? Because that's how it's always been done, and that's how it societaly appropriate to do it that way. Because our society likes babies of all species, even though most human babies aren't that cute. Because the younger you are, the less likely chance you have of giving your kids birth and genetic defects. Because the Bible told us that the main purpose of marriage is to have children.

It's stupid, it's evil, I hate it, but it's how our society runs, and how many societies run. Marriage is the start of a family and thus: children.

On a darker note, the connection of marriage and children has gotten much judicial press lately in all the gay marriage laws. Whatever one believes on the issue, it is interesting the points that the laws bring up, and how they make our society consider what we view marriage to be. A recent law was proposed in jest by the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance in response to Justice Barbara Madsen upholding a Washington marriage law by saying that the law was enacted to "promote procreation and to encourage stable families ." Which, I would say, does about an equally incredible good job with your movie trailer at screaming rather than hinting that marriage is about babies and children.

I'm going on and on, but I also have strong feelings on the subject. I feel it's interesting that even our judicial courts seem to be taking against the world's fight against overpopulation. I, for one, stand with you in that fight. Karen, have kids when you want. Take no hurry. You've got a world of living to do, and your genes won't go bad for a long time. Besides, while I have a lot of knitting books and patterns, I definitely am not stocked up on the baby yarn and baby patterns. You've got to give me some time to get it together on that end. And that's going to take me awhile.

Oh, and K, beets don't dye the color that they are. They dye yellowish. It's fascinating what you want and what you actually get in life. The whole realm of natural dying is fascinating, actually. If I got involved in mordants, I might dally into it, but not quite yet.

You always keep me pondering my own existence,
A

Sergeant Pepper

A,

Speaking of babies, this is our little baby pepper. He likes to grow by our kitchen window. I like to joke that as soon as our baby gets big enough, we can eat him. I enjoy the way the plant makes it look as though it's squeezing out the pepper, like a tube of toothpaste. Push! Push! Push!






I'm not quite sure why this is underlined, but let's just go with it. My next project is the "Reading-in-Bed Shrug." I've been doing a fair amount of reading in bed, so naturally this choice made sense for me. I tried some different lace options, and this is one swatch of several that I tested for the pattern. In the end, I did not actually go with this swatch. I decided that it had too many yarn overs and it might be difficult to see the overal pattern. So I'm going with the original pattern, after all that consternation. It's a little simpler and pretty easy to follow.

This is how far I am on the actual project. Hey, the underlining went away, how about that. It's not very far past the ribbing on the cuff, but hey, it's better than nothing. The purple is such a lovely color. I commend you for your dying job. Hey, is it possible to dye with beet juice? I've always thought it has such a nice vibrant color.

I got to meet some of James' co-workers. They were having a barbecue this Saturday. We brought cake. It almost felt like a church pot-luck . . . until we got there. They seem like good people, we played volleyball and it was nice to finally meet a lot of the guys. But, you know, I might liken them to a lot of the residents in Dirty D. Not exactly the type of people I hang out with. Nor, honestly, the type that James hangs out with. It made for an interesting time, if nothing else.

K

License to Birth

A,
Yesss!!! I am so happy that you have a place to live. I have to do my own searching now, too. I've done some finger research, but I need to start calling/visiting actual apartment places. I got some reviews online, and they're all very inconsistent. One person will love the place, another will liken it to hell. So there's a bit of discrepancy. But you! You have a room with walls and floors and ceilings and real live apartment-mates and a home! How exciting. I will live vicariously through you momentarily. Happiness.

There's this preview I've seen on TV a few times for a Robin Williams movie called License to Wed. You may have seen it. Now, I haven't seen the show, so I may not quite understand the context of the thing, but it struck me as somewhat odd. There's a couple coming to be wed, and in order for Williams to agree to marry them, he has to be sure that they are truly ready for such a commitment. Or some such thing. What I don't understand is, why does he give them the robot babies to play with? Why is it necessary for them to be ready to rear children before they get married? Is this some new requirement I was not aware of? As far as I could tell, the girl was just out of college, quite young, ready for marriage, but does that really mean she has to be ready to birth babies?

It's interesting to me, as I reflect on being recently wed, yet years away from being ready to have a kid. And I liken it also to my own experience. At the time that I got engaged, I was fully prepared to be engaged. I was so ready for that. But was I ready to be married? No. Absolutely not. That came later. One step at a time, you know? I don't think I'm alone in needing to take certain steps to mature. And so it bothers me that the movie makers created a situation like this. I understand that it is entertainment and such comedies are probably not meant to be analyzed particularly in-depth (especially before having seen them), but I don't think I can help it--I like to pick at things.

And I still think it's important! And so I write you.

K

A Roof Over my Head

I've got a place to live! Ahhhhh! I'm so excited! K, I went for it! I went for the crazy Coralville one, and it was all I thought it could be. The greatest part? I'd emailed the girl earlier and told her yes, that I'd like to live with her. When I called her tonight and talked to her, she said she was really excited, because she liked me much more than the other girl that was looking at it.

Oh yea. That's the knitting charm pulling through there. You know why? I told her I'd teach her how to knit. Works every time.

I'm so excited. It's gonna be super great. Bus time=knitting time!


Here's a picture from your wedding of how happy I am about this. Yes, I didn't know at your wedding time that this would happen, but it is representative of my future happiness that I am now experiencing. (Garble garble garble)

Smiles all around!

Oh, and why would you be wearing layers with the tank? Why even wear a bra? I mean, it's got ventilation holes. Those have to mean cool. It's about as close to naked as you can get without actually being naked!

Love ya,
A

Sometimes

K,

Sometimes I just feel like I'm being gently screwed over by everyone around me. And then they try to make excuses. "I found someone else," "I chose this other person," "I forgot to take that post down."

Just admit it, people. You're screwing with me. I've got a lot of wool, but it's not over my eyes. If I didn't have my wool and dye, I'd probably go throw some more shoes around my apartment right now.

I've got a lead on a Christian girl who is looking for someone with similar values/lifestyle.

I'm really scared of what that means. But her rent is a decent price, and she's got in-unit laundry. I mean, similar values/lifestyle could mean let's both not smoke pot or have big parties at our place, or it could mean 'I don't believe in evolution.'

Maybe it's all the people screwing me over killing the birds? I think they might be in collusion with that one woman about something big. And it involves me not getting an apartment and dead birds.

That's really creepy that the birds don't have feathers. Voodoo creepy?

I'm going to go meet some more people who are probably going to screw me over tonight.

Wish me luck!
A

P.S. Yes, I realize that these are truly nice good people. They don't know me. They have no allegience to putting a roof over my head. They aren't trying to screw me over. This is just my frustrations and ventilations, because if I really start screaming the neighbors would likely think that the girl who's subletting the apartment next door is getting killed or is crazy and call the police.

Dead Birds

A,

There are dead birds behind my apartment. I didn't think much of it when there were only two, but I found the third one last night, a little skimpy thing that looked like it had toothpicks for legs and had had most of its feathers plucked out. These are all within twenty feet of each other, a fairly small unit of area for the amount of dead birds it's supporting. At first I thought that maybe the heat did them in. If people are susceptible to heat stroke, it is possible a bird is as well. But then I got to thinking. There's this woman who puts out bird seed in the alleyway behind the apartment. She puts it right in the road, and every time I drive through I think what a terrible place to put bird food. It's like she has a death wish for those birds. And then I thought, maybe she does. Maybe she is slowly poisoning the birds and that's why they're all dying. Well, you've at least go to wonder. Because birds can act as indicators. Think of the canaries in the mine shafts. I live near a town whose major business is oil refinery. I'd rather it be a crazy old woman than the status of the air that's killing off the wildlife.

Speaking of knitting, however, your last post reminded me of a children's book. I think you should look into that. You could make a whole story about yarn as though it were an animate character. You'll have to explain to me, though. Why the hot and the cold hot and cold and beating of the yarn? Is this some new plying method that I'm unaware of? It seems a little violent to me. Do explain.

I have fewer pictures than you, but I do have a couple to share. The first is the finished dishcloth that I wrote about a while back. Very thrilling, I know.

I got the pattern out of the Knitting With Balls book, although they preferred to call it a "utility cloth" rather than a dishcloth. What amused me was that they reminded me to check my gauge on this pattern. Like that's a really important thing for a dishcloth. Really, you just knit until you feel like it's the size you want. Actually, if I had gone with their gauge and kept it the length they suggested, it would have been about three times the size I wanted. And really, it's not good to have such a bulky dishcloth. The only problem with this thing so far is that it continues to bleed in the dishwater. I should probably put it in a vinegar bath to set the colors but I don't have any vinegar on me at the moment.

I finished my halter top on Friday and then washed and blocked it. The rather exciting detail of this project is that the straps are crocheted. This being my first attempt at crocheting, it was a little exciting.


Now, what it called for in the pattern was the equivalent of a cast-on row, so in all honesty it was not the most strenuous crochet task. I have to say I mastered the basic chain stitch fairly quickly, and you can see the results above. I did try to go a bit beyond in my experimentation and do some single crochet (sc), but my attempts at that were a little disastrous and I'm going to have to practice at that before I post any pictures.

The finished product turned out pretty well. This was the Tea Rose Halter Top from the spring issue of Interweave Knits. As you can see, I am not the most adept at taking a self-portrait. It was either my face or the halter, and I chose the picture that best shows the halter. The original pattern had a portion of ribbing in the middle, but I found that this added some extra bulk, and overall, I liked the lace pattern throughout. I am pleased with the finished product, though I may have to wait a while to wear it. Though it is made out of a cotton yarn, it's getting up to 105 today. And any extra bulk or layering is unnecessary I think.

Happy mitten-making!! I envy you in a way, mittens are such a happy thing to make.

K

First Yarn

K,

I'm pretty darn excited right now. Because this is what was happening Thursday night when I was upset and watching Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice.

Oh? What? You want to see more? What about if she were taking a hot, steaming bath the next night?


Maybe too hot? Well, you know what they say. Tough love. Beat 'em up now, they can handle the pain of life better later.


It was hard waiting for her to dry overnight. I mean, she's my first yarn I've made in a decent quantity. Not the very first practice yarn, but still, wool I dyed and spun and will eventually knit with my own hands. That's an exciting day.

She went out to explore the sun after she was dry.


She liked the rocks,


but then climbed past because she saw...

flowers!


Pretty purple blooms

in which anyone would delight to lounge.


Ready to knit, awaiting my needles.

I'm unsure about exactly what I want here. I think I'm going for mittens. I know, I have a lot of mittens, but there's reasoning behind that.

1. I live in a place where it's cold. For a great portion of the year. I really don't like the cold. We all know this.

2. I already have a pair of teal gloves.

3. I already have a pair of sangria mittens.

4. I'm starting new pomegrante-colored thinner yarn which may be more appropriate for gloves.

5. This is thicker, which may be more appropriate for mittens, and is in the teal family.

At least, this is my reasoning.

Specs: ~4 oz. Rambouillet, in Monet's Waterlilies. Look at it and tell me those colors aren't what we're talking about. Okay, I will admit after I plyed it the colors became more muted and teal instead of hints of blue and green with a bit of purple every once in awhile. Imagine if the painting had acetone thrown on it. That's what it is. Worsted weight, 3 ply. Very uneven. ~190 yards. Beat-up method. I mean, seriously. After I put it through hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold water, I took it outside and whipped it against the brick of the house. Hard. Multiple times. So hard the yarn stuck to the brick and I had to peel it off at times. MMA hardcore.

I'm working on some cotton dying right now. I'll let you know how it turns out. The first time the colors weren't kaPOW enough for me. This is the second go at it.

Love ya,
A

Housing Pains

K,

Do I get nervous about other people randomly in my apartment? Oh my word, I so freak out sometimes. Especially since I'm subletting the place, but one of the owners is just out of town for the summer, but she has the complete freedom to stop in whenever she wants. Which means she could walk in the door right when I'm stepping out of the shower, or sleeping, or whenever. Now that's a bit freaky. Yeah, Kris came one of the first weekends back, and I was so nervous, I made him check behind the shower curtain.

So I was waiting to hear back about housing from a fellow student for two weeks. Her dad helped her buy a condo, and she was looking for a roommate. The girl was picking between me and someone else, and last night I learned she picked the other person. I was so frustrated with all my struggles, and all my hopes being lost, I walked home to try and release my anger a bit and ended up going a bit crazy. On the way home I passed a robin sitting in a very shallow stream, just sitting there contentedly, cooling itself. Taking a bath, without all the usual bird splashing. It was hot here, too, yesterday. I've never envied a bird so much in my life. I stared at the bird sitting there for about 4 minutes and pondered my life and why I couldn't just take off all my clothes and jump in the stream as well. I seriously tried to think of a place where I could just sit in a river for awhile and no one would care or notice.

I cannot stress how much I envied that robin in that very moment.

Finally I nodded to him, and he hopped out and sat on a rock, continuing to stare back at me. I sighed, and walked away, watching him flap is wings as well out of the corner of my eye.

Why does it have to be this hard to find a good place to live? Why am I so picky? Why can't I just jump into a stream and be contented with life, contented to sit and live and enjoy the moment?

I feel like I have two forces pulling on me at the same time: to be animal, enjoying the moment, nature, feeling, and the forces of my body, and to be spiritual, living morally, looking beyond myself, building for the future, and reaching beyond my own desires. I felt both pulls as I watched that robin bathing, because although I knew that he was fulfilling a merely animal need, there was something more spiritual and calming about the way he did it. Something that touched me at that moment.

Maybe that's what is so hard about finding a place to live: I'm trying to satisfy both desires. My animal desire to have a nice place, to live easy, and my spiritual desire to live with a person I enjoy, and who helps satisfy my need for human companionship and conversation while living together.

It's back to the apartment search.

Oh, and after I got back to my current sublet, I proceeded to throw my shoes across the room and watch the BBC Pride and Prejudice. And spin. And then ply. I made cookies, but they defintely fell. I'll have to research on why. But I needed to fulfill my sweet tooth at that moment. Something you need to do when you have a bad day.

A

Catching Up

A,

I am proud of both of us for being in apartments. I'm not always alone, but still! There are things like bugs to deal with, and I'm the only one here to do it. Plus it was a little scary being here the first night, getting in at 2 AM and not having enough time to acquaint myself with the apartment before I fell asleep (alone). Plus I don't know about you, but the shower sometimes scares me too. It's an enclosed space and all you can hear is the water and I keep wanting to peep out of the shower curtain and make sure there's no serial killer waiting for me in the bathroom. I guess I hadn't thought of this before, but when I'm at a friend's house, I always check behind the curtain to make sure there's no one hiding in the tub. Maybe it's just my own weird thing. But anyway, my point was that yes! We are in our own apartments now, and I can already tell that we are embracing the utilitarian and practical nature of such an endeaver. Because you, my friend, are not the only one of us to knit something practical here. I, too, finished another sorely-needed washcloth just this afternoon. Coincidence? I think not.

I'm sorry to hear about your feet. And your eyes. My left eye has been slowly deteriorating ever since the start of highschool, but I don't think it's serious enough yet to necessitate getting glasses or contacts. Glasses would probably be safer in the lab. Especially if it's organic. Well, unless something blew up. But regardless, that doesn't really matter.

By the way, are we putting up pictures of us on this thing? Because I have some pictures of us and roving if you happen to remember. I thought they might be appropriate. Besides the roving pictures, I have some more to add, but I think that's going to have to wait for a later date, because they're not yet in my computer and I don't have the drive right now to add them.

Peace,
K

Testosterone on the rise

K, you remember how you told me you were in the room with all the men at the computer lab at James' work, and how you could feel the testosterone as you were knitting?

The testosterone is on the rise here. Juan and Alex are starting to get to know each other. And they both like to golf.

I've tried to get them excited about knitting, I have, and it's not working so far.

I'll keep working on that.

A

Color

Hey K,

This rainbow that you are about to experience is available to you today because of something extermely exciting. I'm not sure the exact name of it. I call it my memory card XD USB converter whatchmacallit. It's lovely function is to transform the images of my life here in the cornfields to you over there in the cactus...fields.

First of all, guess what arrived in the mail from knitpicks yesterday? Remember when I tested the jacquard dyes? I might have picked up a couple more.



What? You're thinking that's a very small order from me? Well, first of all, I wanted another few dyes, but they were out! Unavailable for me! Argh. So the dying waits again another day for something from these nice people.

You'd be so proud of me living on my own. Not that your not living on your own, but I'm proud of you too. I even unclogged the toilet a couple days ago without a plunger. I'm still trying to figure out the science of that one, but apparently if you pour liquid detergent in your toilet, then pour buckets of preferable hot water from as high as you can into the toilet. And Whoosh! it all goes down.

I don't know why either.

So what's up with my life? I made a ballband dishcloth! It was super-fun. I highly reccomend. I dyed the pink myself, but it was my first experiment in cotton-dying, so it didn't turn out exactly the right shade.




That's almost entirely knit on public transportation. And at another wedding. Other than yours, I mean.


Do note that the DVD says "Fitness for beginners." Because it's not really a bellydance DVD. Or a hardcore workout DVD, though my abs are burning. It's fitness for people who can hardly do anything. People like me. I've been doing a bit of exercise ever since I tried to bike to work and realized that I'm obscenely out of shape. I mean, I have about a 7-10 minutes bike ride to and from work. This is an estimate, because I've only done it once. That one time was hell. I mean, it was perfect weather, I had my helmut on, and oh help me, my legs just stopped working. I literally could not make them peddle any more. I had to embarrasingly walk my bike back to the apartment. That was bad.

My life has been a bit crazy lately. I went to get my eyes checked out today with my new ophthalmologist, and she was freaked out that I still wore the contacts I did. Apparently they are close to obsolete. She says my eyes didn't have permanent damage yet. Yet being the key word there. I've already got new contacts that we're trying out, which gave me literally double vision the first time I tried them on. An interesting phenomenon, when you're looking at something and then suddenly another jumps right next to it. I also had my eyes dilated, which meant that walking through the very well lit and windowy hallways at work was about killing me. I probably looked like the little girl from the ring with my hair hanging all around my face, trying to block out the sun.

I have plantar fasciitis, which means that I must wear good-for-me shoes.


I haven't decided to keep them yet, and am just wearing them around the house. Lovely fashion. At least they're pink.

I've been spinning! I've got about 12 grams left of the wool before I'm done with my first batch. The color is my interpretation of Monet's Waterlilies, because it's really the exact same thing. This is not all that is spun, by the way. More is hiding elsewhere.


This was found at the hometown Goodwill, and I am at a loss with what to do with her.


A beautiful lambswool sweater from the Gap, size L. Doesn't fit like a dream, but does fit. Is scratchy. What to do! It's a really good sweater, but while I'm at work, someone has been getting a little lonely in the apartment during the day.


I know you've already met Roving. Believe it or not, he keeps me warm at night sometimes. Literally. If I just put him on my chest when I'm chilly, the wool does it's thing. Anyhow, I was wondering if he might want a play-mate. But I don't know.

Meanwhile, here's the works in progress. And a purse. Which contains another work in progress.

One of them is my current focus. Guess which?

Love ya,
A

Definitions

K,

You seem to be under the impression that we are going to, herein, use this only as a knitting blog. Nothing could be further from my mind. You see, you posted loveliness about your halter and then proceeded to relay to me your stories via email about the rest of your life.

My question for you today is, can we separate knitting from the rest of our lives, and if we did, would we want to? I can't help but want to think about knitting and crafting and dying and spinning all the live-long day! I think we need to set out and deliniate exactly what we want to do here. I mean, I cannot imagine letting a knitting blog only be for knitting, because I have to spin. I may not know how to spin very well, but I certainly enjoy it. I'm almost finished (20 g left) with my first spinning for the pair of mittens/gloves I'm going to make. And by almost you must realize that it takes me forever to spin because I'm not entirely that good at it and I get distracted easily. I'm super excited.

In any case, spinning is as much of a part of my knitting overall process as is the rest of my life. My life factors into how much I knit, where I knit, what I knit. I mean, K, you're down in the brand-spankin' new Mexico, and obviously we're not going to need as many thrummed mittens down there as you needed in Ioway. I feel that we should write whatever we want on here. My word, pretty much no one even knows that this exists besides Kris and James.

It's up to you darling. I don't feel bad about displaying my thoughts in public as long as we never throw a last name or other identifying info on here. But you may feel differently. It might evolve into a happy medium, where some things go on here, and others are private. But I think everything you emailed me about was appropriate to put on here, and I personally plan to rant as much as I like on this thing.

What are your thoughts?

My thoughts drift heavily toward buying a cable so that I can upload some dang pictures. This is so texty.

Remind me to tell you how I unclogged my toilet yesterday. Somebody's a genious, and it's not me for once.

Love,
A

A,
It's so good to start this thing. In the spirit of swanky knitting, I thought I would share my current project. As with most projects, had I known what I was doing to begin with, I would have completed this halter top long ago. However, I restarted and remodeled. This is where I'm at now. There was some ribbing the pattern suggested, but after knitting it in I decided to throw it out. I like the lace look all the way through. I don't think you could ever have too much lace.

NM is pretty hot. Although that is to be expected, seeing as it is the summer. The heat affords me an excuse to stay out of the sun and knit my summer knits, though. Of which I am a fan. So far, no yarn stores in sight. Although I did see a big warehouse building the night I got here that had the word Wool plastered on it. But as far as I can tell, it's a false lead. No wool to be seen. It's a good thing I brought a stash with me.

New Beginnings

K,

I got this thing started for us, just like I promised. Hopefully it's not too technology hampered for you. I wish I had a cord and could send some pictures on here. Meanwhile, we'll post some old hat pics, just to give the internet world a little proof of your and my genius.

Here's an example of yours.



And here's a bit of mine.



I hope the wide world of New Mexico is treating you well, as well as your new hubby. Don't get stuck in a cactus!

Love,
A

Experimentation

...is the meat of any good science. I like to practice good science.