NaNo

I've been thinking about NaNoWriMo lately. I won NaNo last year.

Oh, you remember me shouting about it at the time? Sorry.

Anyway, I've been thinking about doing it again, of course. Lots of people talk about a sophmore slump with it, and I'd like to be an exception. Then again, I don't have and idea that's quite so exciting this year. Perhaps that will make for a readable novel, instead of one that requires a dark, dusty attic with lots of spiders, so that anyone who thought they wanted to read it would get too discouraged or grossed out before they actually got to it.

However, what I've really been thinking about is trying NaBloPubMo (as I believe it's called). This one's scary though. There's no way to pull consecutive all-nighters at the end and still squeak through with a win. Which is very much my style. And yet, a couple of the blogs I read regularly are doing Blog365, and it's so nice to have new blog entries to read every day. If they can manage it for a whole year, surely I can do a month. I think.

Then again, this would mean that I'll need to write a blog entry every day, which is an entirely different animal from just enjoying others' writings. I'm not entirely sure what kind it is -- so far I can just feel that creepy, predator-type gaze nailing me in the back of the neck. And that's with just thinking about trying it. And yet, the whole point of NaNo is to challenge yourself. If I'm confident that I can write 50,000 words of a novel, is that still a challenge?

Or is the challenge proving that I'm not delusional? :)

I'm such a copycat.

Your result for The Director Who Films Your Life Test...

Kevin Smith

Kevin will take your slacker life and turn it into the cult classic it deserves to be --- like Mallrats (just kidding). If you can handle the menacing presence of Jay and Silent Bob all throughout your film, then Kevin is willing to oblige. Basically, he can take the lives of people who don't have much of a life and make it entertaining, so you're in good hands. Go watch your copy of Clerks, now.

Take The Director Who Films Your Life Test at HelloQuizzy

I saw this on one of my favorite blogs and had to try it out. And I'm pretty happy with the result. :-)

Being More Vocal

Well, I just posted at the Hope Is Kindled blog, saying that I've been talking more over here. So I'd better start talking, right? I'm actually typing this up in the wee, small hours of the morning, and we'll see if I post it in the light of day.

(pre-publish edit: I'm posting it. We'll see if I delete it later.)

Part of the reason that I rarely posted here in the past -- and wasn't terribly talkative on any of the Shieldmaiden boards, either -- has been that I've spent most of my life trying to fit in, be liked, and not piss people off. I'm getting increasingly sick of those past-times, and the gloves are coming off. (I might knit myself mittens instead. We'll have to see how that goes.) Many of my opinions and positions (notably political and religious) are, or certainly seem like, minority opinions when I'm with the Shieldmaidens, or my family, or my co-workers, or classmates, or just about any gorram place in my life. Since I do not seek out or enjoy conflict, my answer to that has been to keep my mouth shut and try to stay out of any lines of fire.

Shockingly (or, you know, not), this has led to me feeling very isolated and ... not exactly misunderstood, but not understood either. I'm tired of it -- feeling like that. I can't really be more outspoken with my family; I need to keep living with my mother. Can't piss her off so badly that she throws me out. And if she ever got that mad, my sister would probably already have tried to kill me or have me exorcised or something (and she's not even Catholic), so moving in with her would be right out. I'm not able to support myself right now, and I don't expect that to change. Hoped for years that it would, but things have been getting worse instead. Since the pneumonia, even if I magically got my head fixed up, I physically wouldn't be able to hack it on my own.

I could try to be more myself at work, but no one would notice -- they're a pretty oblivious lot. I say this with confidence because I've been speaking my piece more and more over the past year, and it hasn't really made any impression at all. Part of that, probably a large part, has to do with the extremely high turnover rate. Another large contributer is that I'm stuck in the office, by myself, and only get to talk to customers who come to the window. They don't really care what I say as long as I get them processed quickly and with some level of professional courtesy. And really, it would be incredibly unfair to target random strangers with my accumulated frustration. Classmates? All of my classes are online this semester; that's a no go as well. So my blog readers are elected. Don't you feel lucky?

You may notice that I left the Shieldmaiden boards out of that list of explanations. I think that's one of the places that I feel most isolated, really. People in my "real life" who know about the Shieldmaidens think that it's this huge group of women that I'm really good friends with. But I don't know if that's actually true. I've never really been willing to put enough of myself out there for people to know me, and if they don't know me, how can we be good friends? Friendly, sure. Even friends. But good friends? And yet I've been part of the group for nearly 6 years. It seems a little late to be introducing myself around.

I tried to talk this through with a close friend once, and she insisted that the group does know me, because just being around for so long makes it impossible for others not to see who I really am. Maybe she's right. But if she is, then lately some people have decided to try to determine exactly how pissed I need to be before I explode. (If you're wondering if I'm talking about you ... I'm not. I have spoken and/or e-mailed directly to the people involved. If you're not sure, clearly you're not them.)

Possibly my friend is entirely correct. The Shieldmaidens do know me. Maybe it's just that I'm feeling the need to reinvent myself, and they don't know who I want to become. Maybe it's one of those post-near-death reevaluations or something. Except the pneumonia wasn't really near-death. Hell of a lot closer than I wanted to be, but probably not really Near, given modern medicine and all. And if this is a reaction to that ... well, it's really belated. And yet the frustration has been building for a while. Who knows?

No, seriously, who? 'Cause clearly I don't. Someone must.

This whole post could probably be condensed into something like "General angst and stream of consciousness rambling. No resolution." And I don't even know what sort of resolution I would choose, if it were some sort of multiple choice exam. Future posts may have a lot more in common with this one than with other stuff I've posted in the past. Well, except for the knitting. That will stick around. It may even be an indirect cause. You see, I've posted and commented in a few knit-related places that link back to this blog. And I'm not interested joining another community just to feel stifled in exactly the same way. You might want to be careful -- I'm getting more outspoken just as I've started carrying pointy sticks (and yarn) around with me wherever I go.

Elephants on Parade!

Or, you know, on Knitting!

My stitch markers have arrived! The other winners in the contest posted yesterday that they had received theirs, and I was so disappointed. But my elephants are here now, and I'm so happy. I immediately popped one onto the second Coronet Hat that I'm making, instead of the loop of yarn that I had been using.


(The obsevant and/or knitting-savvy among you will notice that the right side of the cable band is facing the same way as the knit side of the stockinette. Yes, that was deliberate. I was goofing around with the yellow Coronet during the photo shoot, and I liked the way that it fit better inside out, so I have flipped the band on this one.)


And then the other two elephants felt left out, so they're helping out with my Steam Scarf, for the Red Scarf Project. It's not really hard to count to 16, but it's easier if you don't have to. ;-)



Thanks again to MyOwnIgloo and mkvral on Ravelry for running / inspiring the contest.

Contest Results

I won! I took third place in the "A Butterfly and a _____" contest. How exciting! Now I've got another package to anticipate -- elephant stitch markers. Wanna see?

(Stitch Markers made by FishBabeez on Etsy)

Such fun! Thanks to MyOwnIgloo for running the contest and to mkvral for starting everything off by having such an interesting Ravatar. It's been fun, reading everyone's stories.

A Butterfly and a __________

So, what is it? The butterfly is obvious, but even though I know it's an eye and some really dark lashes, it always looks like a caterpillar to me. A fuzzy little caterpillar just seems to belong better with the butterfly than an eyeball. Plus my own eyes are really twitchy, and I don't like to think of an eye just sitting there in an avatar, vulnerable to anything on the internet that wants to stab it. Add to that the fact that this avatar (Ravatar) is used at Ravelry, home of all kinds of knitting needles and crochet hooks, and someone with a too-vivid imagination could have a really hard time looking at it at all.

I really wish I could see the elephant trunk though. That sounds cool.

This blog entry is for a contest on Ravelry, in case any of my regular readers -- oh, who am I kidding? In case Wiz is confused, since she's the only one reading right now anyway. Hi Wiz!

Swap!

My spoilee got her package yesterday, and she liked it! Whew! I'd been kind of worried since it's my first swap. And since I'm, you know, me. I come from a long line of worriers. I've cut down a lot, but haven't been able to kick the habit yet. Is there a patch or anything?

Anyway, here's what I sent:

Yarn: Manos Silk Blend (very yummy)
and Knit Picks Bare (undyed) worsted

Three Ball Band Washcloths -- one for each of her kids










Two Mason-Dixon Washcloths for tdeane (Ravelry ID) herself. Or one for her and one for her SO, if she has one. They're tied up around bars of soap, with brown ribbon since that's her favorite color.











One of the M-D Washcloths spread out.









One of the soaps. This is handmade soap from the Gitchee Gumee Soap Company, located in Ashland, Wisconsin. Which is just south of Bayfield, home of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, the Seagull Bay Motel, and the future moot that I'm hosting, whenever I can pull it off. Yes, everyone will most likely be getting GG soaps in the Moot Bags that year. The scents are really great. This one smells like the shore, and there's one that really smells like the deep woods parts of an old forest. (Not the edges of the forest. You'd have to hike at least half a mile in to find the right scent.

It was suggested that we include something from our home area with our swap package, but there's nothing from around here that really speaks to me. However, the Wisconsin Northwoods are the home of my heart, so I decided that they count.

In case anyone's interested, this was Swap on a Budget, a Ravelry group. The moderators are great. There are angel plans if someone drops out, although I haven't heard of that happening yet this time around. (The official end date is August 29, and at least half of the people have received their packages already.) There are already plans for another round of swapping sometime this winter. Also, I like the budget part. I can manage $20 for one package. A lot of other swaps are beyond my means at the moment.