distort the news feed us your views i'm not fooled so easily

But I apparently can fool others easily. And I swore I wasn't succeeding.

My Fiber Goddaughter was Melissa (as in crazycatladymel, not Melissa who lives in Marietta (and I have something for you, Melissa) or Melissa who is my first cousin and has the cutest kids ever (and I have something for you, Melissa, and I apologize for being so disorganized as to never send it out in, like, a year). So I was so convinced that Melissa would know it was me so I did things like when I sent her the bee tape measure I then asked as myself, Hey, can you ask your FG where you got that? Subtle, huh? It apparently did fool her, though, and you can see what I sent her here.

I got a package from Bethanie and I can't show you the picture I took of it because I cannot find it. I am the worst organized person ever. And therefore, I'm a records manager. Yeah, it all makes sense now. Anyway, Bethanie sent me some Jo Sharp DK Cotton, a wonderful watermelon pot holder, and strawberry lip gloss. Yum. I'm thinking hard about what to do with the cotton.

And Imbrium sent me some red and black swag for the Rocky Horror quote I knew. And I can't find that picture, either. *sigh*

I've been progressing on the Bohus-lite sweater from Handknit Holidays. I'm past the bottom ribbing band. You might think this is no big deal but with the tubular CO and two rows of tubular stockinette (and why is it called stockinette when it clearly creates a ribbing pattern? Why can't it be called tubular ribbing?) and then six rows of fiddly crossed ribbing, getting to the stockinette section is no mean feat.

And then, I realized.

I have three WIPs now. One, the Morehouse Merino Melody shawl, is endless rounds of stockinette. I'm thinking of frogging and using the laceweight merino giant ball for something else. One, the silk camisole, is endless rounds of stockinette. I'll get through it, eventually. And now I'm on the endless rounds of stockinette section of this sweater.

I don't know that I prefer knitting in the round over piecing. Because it seems to move MUCH more slowly. I am never going to be done.

Oh, and of the yarn I chose for the yoke of the sweater, which happened when I might have been drinking, maybe, and it's all in Blue Sky Alpaca, one of the skanks is just plain fug. It's fug with the rest of the sweater and I'm not sure I like it on its own. It's a mud olivey green-brown that does NOT go with the rest no matter what color combination I use.

Edited to add:
Oh yeah, and Jane and Janice, ummm....the lime greens and plums are, like, my signature colors. I even have lime green on the sweater I'm making, and the Melody Shawl is lime green. I'm all about lime green. It's not a conspiracy, just me quietly trying to force the world to come to the dark side of weird greens, one knit at a time.

if you add two and seven the digits you get nine the digit sum that's true of any product of mine

And here she is:and a closeup of the lace pattern and the ability to see my brand-spanking new snowglobe pajamas that were an early birthday presentand here's how much of the Cracksilk Haze I have leftand this is about all of the post I can make right now because my trusty little iBook is dead, dead, dead, okay, no, she's in a coma, we'll say, and she doesn't like to be awake for this long.

Except let me just say, regarding today's lyrics, that the iTunes Music Store has available all of the Schoolhouse Rocks in their video section. Go, you can see a 30-second preview of each one. You know you want to.

And while you're there, pick up "Boundin'" from Pixar. In the short films section. It's about a sheep who gets shorn and is sad because his fleece is all gone. When he was picked up in the truck and then tossed back, all naked and bare and pink, The Man Who Lives in the House looked at me, looked away and muttered, "Damn knitters" under his breath. And it's brilliant. But I'm prejudiced.

guy you've finished the booze and you run out of speed but the wild side of life is the one that we need

I have FINISHED! Donedonedonedonedone. My boiled bucket of wet goat's ass is currently stinking up the guest bedroom and blocking unevenly with quilting pins jammed haphazardly into my carpet. It's crooked and the edges are scalloped and I don't give a shit, I am done. Seven of Nine is about 51" long, and I planned for 50" so it works for me. Longer would look odd, I think. I have enough Cracksilk Haze left to do the little lacy scarf in Last Minute Knitted Gifts. When Seven is done blocking, she is going to go to Stitch DC (if they want it after the crap blocking job I did) to preen and so as not to be wasted in a drawer until next xmass.

Other things I did this week:

1. I took down my xmass tree. Shut up. SOMEONE I know had hers up so long that she she finally took it down in July, the UPS guy commented, "Hey, you took your tree down." Or was it August? V?

2. I went to Trixie's because she's in DC for a month and I met the rat guy and the guy got a dead rat from the trap and stuck it into a transparent Publix grocery bag and was whipping it about while he was talking to me and I could see the dead ratness outlined through the bag.

3. I started on another hunter orange hat for someone I work with.

4. I sent my Fairy Godmother final package out.

5. I got a package from someone, I don't have the card in front of me to say who now. I'll put up pics and acknowledgements later.

6. I got a package from Imbrium. I feel compelled to use the tacky goodness in a cocksucking intarsia project. Gonna think about that. I'll also post pictures later.

7. I referred to my work to my boss as a bucket of boiled ass. It netted some deep silence as that was processed.

8. I got someone to my blog from a Google search of "i'm so extreme ninja" - that's a perfect description of me, thank you.

well that was easy waiting everything's easy now

I did four more repeats of Seven of Nine last night and I measured it, and I think I have only four more left to finish it. When I block it, it'll be longer than the spider spit one in the pattern. And I do like the Cracksilk Haze.

set out running but i take my time a friend of the devil is a friend of mine

I spent last night working on Seven of Nine, my own boiled bucket of ass. I got four repeats done, for a total of 18. I wanted to get two more done, but I started fucking it all up again and being off on my row count and so I ripped back to my lifeline. Here's a picture, even though all y'all know what Branching Out looks like.I think I'll be done at about 28 or 30 repeats, because I thought when I had 14 done it would be good enough for half of a scarf, and I think 18 is too long for half of a scarf. I dunno, though. Any thoughts?

chilled to the bone chilled to the bone hot wired heat all the way home

Have you ever gotten really cold and nobody around you is also cold? I always have this problem with The Man Who Lives in the House, but it's been really bad these past few days. I was sick all day yesterday, so yeah, enjoyed that holiday oh, so much. While I was sick, I kept having these dreams that I was at my elementary school's after school film series that my parents had to sign a permission slip for us to see because they showed the classic "Dear Diary" and some other movie about a girl who shoplifts and eventually gets arrested, while my brother in the boy's movie room saw movies explicity describing the act of sexual intercourse. We get "Oh, I got my period! Whatever will become of me now?" and the guys get actual sex. Fucking patriarchy.

I finished the hat I started at Stitching for Sanity last week. Beans really likes it.So much so that he put it on.This took exactly one ball of Karabella Aurora 8, I had about 12" of yarn left. Now that's planning.

you went away you went away you went away but now you're back

Yeah, nothing to say today. I ended up working all night instead of knitting, so Seven of Nine is still where she was three nights ago. However, I do have Monday off of work, being a federal holiday and all, so perchance I shall get much more accomplished?

hot to assimilate we'll rot or annihilate

I was all about taking the advice from ellie (and have you watched the David Hasselhoff video ellie links to? You must. Right now. Go there, then come back) and La and ignoring the Borgness of the scarf and allowing the leaves to assimilate here and there, and then I went to the Stitchin' for Sanity night last night and Janice decided she wanted to put herself through the utter torture of tinking the lace mohair and making it right again.And then after she did that, I started working on it again and got two rows in, had to tink back, knit three more rows, had to tink back, and I decided that yesterday just wasn't my day for lace. I am exactly where I was the day before and everything I touched turned to extra stitches and missed YOs and sl1, k2tog, pssos that I did too many times. And because the scarf was once assimilated and is no more, it is really the Seven of Nine scarf.

And here's a bonus picture of Knotty Mouse and Jane and Famous Steve.Speaking of photos, Mouse and I were just having a chat about posting of bad pictures on the interwebs. This reminded me of The Worst Picture Ever Taken of Me. Brace yourselves before you click.

i just mess up and i go wrong but i can change i can change

Remember my Branching Out scarf? I have ten repeats done now, and I looked last night and...I messed up somewhere on the tenth repeat, which mess up I didn't find until after I moved the lifeline to above the tenth repeat, and now I have two leaves melding together in a fused Borg assimilation manner, Do I rip it out, keeping in mind my lifeline is above the fucked up part, or do I keep it as a design element? Note: I have the correct number of stitches, so I don't even know where I went wrong.

I might make it to the Gwinnett SnB/stitchers/whatever thing tonight. I might stop being invisible, this week.

does it mean i should run with the dog pack is that the way to be the one to survive

This is my dog Birdie.At this moment, she is in the ring at Madison Square Garden for the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. I'll report on her progress, keep good thoughts in your head about her.

Edited to add:
She got Best of Opposite Sex! Yay! (For the non-dog showers out there, this means she was the best in the variety of the opposite sex of the dog who won the variety. So if the winner is a dog, the judge also has to choose the best bitch in the ring; if the winner is a bitch, the judge has to choose the best dog in the ring.)

as we taxi toward the runway with the smog and haze reminding me of how i feel

Today's post title for the super awesome incredibly wonderful kicks-ass Jess because she called me on the way to the airport to ask me if I was okay and because it's the Supersuckers.

I barely made it out of DC on Saturday afternoon. My flight was cancelled, as were a slew of other flights to Atlanta and elsewhere, due to weather in the northeast. So I thought, hey, I'll work on Eowyn, and I realized I fucking lost the first Eowyn I made. Did it fall out of my bag in the bar on Friday night? (Jess, that's one for you, it would be by the pinball machine, just a swatch of wide cabley-goodness in plummy-brown-black Kid Classic.) Did it fall out on the street? Is it still at work? Is it in my apartment? I don't know when I'll get back to DC again, because I might have to go sooner than expected, so I decided to start on Branching Out in lime green Kidsilk Haze.

And then I had to rip it out because I massively fucked it up. Throw out the knotted yarn, start again. Get two pattern repeats into it, realize a really bad fuckup, rip out what I can, throw out the knotted mess, start again. Get three pattern repeats into it, rip the casting on row in half when I'm just trying to take a look at it, rip out what I can, throw the knotted mess out, start again. So here was my progress as of yesterday evening at 5 PMSo that's four pattern repeats, and I did two more last night, so I have six, of what I think will end up being about thirty-six total, huh. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this scarf when it's done. I likely won't wear it. I guess I'll put it in a drawer until next holiday season and give it away? It would be pretty to display, but I have nowhere to display it.

I also worked on the endless loop of stockinette for the silk camisole I bitched about two weeks ago, and I am pretty much no closer to the necessary 14.5" before I start working back and forth with the v-neck.

every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints

Soooooo very tired. I want and need to finish the Eowyn arm warmery thingies but I haven't had time to knit. I've read some knitting magazaines at lunch (like IK Spring 2005, because it was in my desk drawer and I never read it). Ummm...yeah. I had a meeting that lasted hours upon hours upon hours today. I am seriously fried. Please hope that no snow comes through DC or Atlanta tonight and tomorrow so I can fly home. And sleep.

You know how sometimes you feel like the worst person in the world and you can't do anything right and you're a massive, I dunno, sinner isn't the word, but like, just bad person? Yeah, that's how I feel.

i'm all lost in the supermarket i can no longer shop happily

Sometimes, life is a drag. And I have tons to put pictures up of and maybe a pattern if anyone's interested, and I just have lost my energy. And I keep having life interfere with the Eowyn shit. But I'm going to post this now and then knit more Eowyn. 'Cuz although I am in the knitting olympics, I like to live dangerously. And work sucked the life out of me tonight.

but if you open your mouth then i can't be responsible for quite what goes in or to care what comes out

Jen, this would be drunken post #10, since January 1st. Always happy to accomodate.

So Juno who probably doesn't read my blog but I'll link to her anyway, pretending I am not such a lameass loser, albeit in La's company, as to not have a blog that Juno reads and wow did that even mean anything at all? So Juno emailed me about the cocksucking intarsia and I can only paraphrase what she said because switching to my email right now would be way too much fucking effort and she said something along the lines of is it really a good thing to associate intarsia with the term cocksucking because you know, not all cocksucking is bad. Well, that's not exactly what she said but it was the jist (gist?) of it. So my response to that is that there is the good cocksucking, and then there's the sucking cocks where you're on your knees and you're doing it because he ate you out and really, he didn't do a good job at it but whatever, it's payback, and you're drooling all over yourself and you're getting a bad case of TMJ and oh will you fucking come already PLEASE? I think I responded as such to Juno which netted zero response so I probably offended, whatever, I mean I am who I am, so. I notice I have fewer than 192 subs to the second bloglines feed so I lost somebody else with my post yesterday, might as well offend everyone in the world at this point.

[edited]

Now that I've lost at least 160 subscribers, here's some knitting.

I finished the garter stitch hat I was making for my nail lady. Two strands of Koigu (same color, whatever that was). Here are some pictures.and here it is aloneand here's a closeup showing truer colorsNow I need to pass out, really, gonna sleep. Sleep good.

oh something won't let me go to the place where the darklands are

So I'm on IM with mouse and we were talking about how I'm drinking this kickass beer I got tonight (Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout) and watching House and knitting my Eowyn from Rowan thirtysomething (okay, maybe we weren't talking about that last thing, but I was doing it and fucking a I hate when I'm drinking how many typos I come up with and the tv software program I use to watch tv on my computer when I'm in DC just crashed so there's weird silence instead of tv background noise going on right now) and mouse asked if I was going to drunk blog again (which I guess I kinda am now huh) and I said that nobody, but NOBODY had commented on my semi-drunk post from last night and she said that said post hadn't shown up on her bloglines so I checked my bloglines because I am such a lame fucking loser that I subbed to my own blog and yeah, it was there and then I noticed that I had 5, count 'em, 5 whole subscribers to my blog, that's fucked up thought I, statcounter says I have many more people coming from bloglines, so I did a search for my blog name in bloglines and it comes up twice, one with 5 subscribers and one with 192 subscribers, and last night's post doesn't show on the 192 subscribers bloglines feed yet, and why am I on there twice anyway? And I remember checking last week and discovering this same thing that I had forgotten all about now, because of the whole drunkenness and shit, and there were over 200 subscribers to that weird second feed (because the one I'm on is clearly the right one, by merit of my being on it) and mouse thought that maybe I lost some people who were friends with Frieda and yeah, maybe, and it got us to kinda wondering who judged that contest anyway? And I have been thinking since then that the woman had to fucking crochet her entire afghan and in like plain single crochet and then cross stitch the thing and that's, well. I knew someone once whose mother would buy a teaset made of iridescent orange beads and safety pins, no lie, and her mother would say, "But just look at the craftsmanship!" And that's my only comment, think of the craftsmanship that went into crocheting in what has to be the equivalent of stockinette stitch, or maybe even garter, and then cross stitching a cowboy pattern on top of that.

Well, I was gonna write more, but the beer is making me tired and I have sitches to go before I sleep, stitches to go before I sleep.

And I forgot what I was saying. What was I saying again?

i was thinking how the world should have cried on the day jack kirby died

Yeah, yeah. I have oodles to post about. Wanna see my blingy new yarn, black with green sequins? Wanna see my new green Namaste knitting bag, that I am soooo happy I got from my favorite enablers as it prevented me from making the carpetbagger bag from that IK last fall or whenever that has the cocksucking intarsia on it? Wanna see the hat I gave to my nail lady or the socks I finished or the pluckyfluff Beetlejuice mitts?

Yeah, me too. Alas, I'm also far too fucking lazy to grab the camera phone next to me and take pictures in the dim light of my furniture-less bedroom (I'm in DC this week).

So right now I'm going to talk about Jack Kirby.

Twelve years ago today, Jack Kirby died. There was mourning in my house.

I met Jack Kirby as a five year old girl at comic book conventions. I collected Spider-Man and there, in front of me, was the creator. He was so nice to an awestruck little girl who was told that she was about to meet God. At the time, I had a kitten and I named him Jack. He was a silver and black tiger cat. He was a wonderful cat.

Years later, when I got another kitten who was a silver tabby, I named him Jack, after both Jack the cat and Jack Kirby. (By they way, I am talking about Beans, his real name is Jack, but The Man Who Lives in the House renamed him.)

Too few people know of Jack Kirby today. They all know who Stan Lee is. There's sadess and a little irony in that.

If I ever could master the cocksucking intarsia, I'd like to do a Kirby cover. Perhaps Daredevil.

And I apologize in advance if I end up with two tribute-y posts in one week, but February 8th is a big day for me as well. Someone should be able to guess why. Anyone?

i say don't you know you say you don't know i say take me out

You know when you go out to drink and you have like, two beers, and you're pleasantly buzzed but not drunk, and one more beer would make you very happily drunk but you decide no, you won't have that third beer, because after all, it's a Bass Ale and you don't drink that cheap, watered down shit and you sober up on the very long Metro and walk home and it's cold out and you wish you were still drunk or buzzed or whatever, if even for one more hour so you could enjoy the experience more?

no matter what weapons you use a ninja will never die

I am so productive.

First, I finished the pluckyfluff mitts. They are fabulous in their green and purple stripiness, if I say so myself. I'll take a picture, I promise.

Second, I finished the second one of these socks. While seeing Brokeback Mountain. I will say, it's difficult to k2tog when you're in the dark in a movie theater.

I'm now on some cabled gauntlety thingies from Rowan thirtysomething. And I'm doing quite well with them.

So, all y'all are babbling about knitting podcasts, and I have to say, I haven't subscribed yet. Because I listen to The Onion's daily podcast (about two mintues long) and I watch Diggnation because I miss Kevin and Alex on The Screensavers and Kevin Rose even has his own Adagio tea sampler and Kevin and Alex do drink beer on each episode and I listen to TWiT because I would leave The Man for Leo LaPorte. And The Man knows it. And I really miss Leo and Patrick on The Screensavers.

That said, I discovered a new podcast this weekend: Ask a Ninja. It's worth watching for the opening song alone. (And it's available from iTunes, the podcast is, and you do not need to own an iPod for it.)

Edited to add:
Please tell me I am not the only extremely geeky chick out there.

old pirates yes they rob i sold i to the merchant ships

I once worked at a store where the store owner played "Redemption Song" over and over and over again. One 90 minute tape, just "Redemption Song" repeated. Think of how long that took him to make with the days of yore and Ye Olde Mix Tapes. And I always thought (back then) that the first line of that song was:

Oh, a pirate's just a rabbi
Sold out to the merchant ships

And I never understood what pirates had to do with rabbis.

I'm insanely jealous of everyone making the pirate hat, because I don't have anything in my stash that would work for it and I'm too lazy to like, buy new yarn. I know what you're saying. There's no such thing. But I think I might have hit a current saturation point. I actually want to knit with what I have, but I feel flooded (to use a dog behavioral term) with my yarn so I don't know what to do.

Maybe I'll set up a poll so you can tell me what to do next. Because I have so much right now, I'm at a loss.

Does anyone else ever feel this way?

out of the sea wish i could be part of that world

Despite his being a fascist and an anti-Semite, I adore T.S. Eliot. In honor of the feast of bridgid.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

seasons don't fear the reaper nor do the wind the sun or the rain

My knitting? Not satisfied with anything. Finishing the incredibly boring garter stitch double strand Koigu hat. This brings my collection of Koigu down to roughly 1,249 skanks, by the way. I do plan on frogging the Pluckyfluff, and when it falls apart I'll spit splice it, so I'll be okay. The silk camisole is on a timeout. The socks are on time outs. The sex gloves are still unfinished. Two fingers and a thumb to go.

And then I find out I might could (that be Southern speak for all y'all Yankees out there) apply for another job in my company, same group of people I work with now, doing something totally different. Do I do that, or keep my same job? (Imagine salary, travel requirements, etc. are the same for both.) I'd like both of them. Both are very different in tasks.

So, to cheer me up, crazycatladymel sent me a prize package with loads of goodies - sock patterns, a pattern for hemp washcloths and soap bags, some Nature Cotton, which reminded me that long ago I was part of the Nature Cotton-Along, and boy did I love knitting with that, and boy, do I get lime green cotton fuzz all over my black pants every time I wear that shell, but I love the way it feels when it's knit up, and this is in a great mustard color, and some beautiful stitch markers, and a cowbell. With the words "need more cowbell?" written on it. Which made me laugh because I had forgotten all about The Cowbell Project and that SNL skit with Christopher Walken. And now I have "Don't Fear the Reaper" in my head.

Edited to add:
And the only version of "Reaper" I seem to own is an acoustic extended version, sans cowbell. Irony? An opportunity for me to play my new cowbell along with the song?

jump in the line rock your body in time somebody help me

So. I'm feeling rather "meh" about the sock I'm finishing for someone. I'm sick of working on the silk camisole from hell. And I was *drumroll* cleaning the other day, and I found thisand I realized that I made it over a year ago and I hated it. HATED IT. So I ripped it out, not an easy feat to do because a) that Pluckyfluff ("Eight Grade Science Project", but The Man Who Lives in the House says it reminds him of "Beetlejuice") is, in the purple parts, barely spun...fluff, and b) because I knit the thing with one strand of Jaeger something or other, maybe Albany, that Kitten Avec Whip gave me, and the end part when I ran out of Pluckyfluff was done with two strands of Noro Cash Iroha along with the Jaeger, and boy this was a massive pain in the ass to frog. But I did it and I started fingerless mitts, my own pattern, with it, and got this farand then I realized this morning what I was thinking was wrong all along, that for the thumb gusset, duh, knit TWO rows between increases, not one, because look at what I haveyeah, that's right, a hugely wide and short gusset, and I'm not sure the Pluckyfluff with survive another frog. So I started on a hat for my nail lady, made with two strands of Koigu held together.

In times of trouble, pretend the problem doesn't exist and start something new.