Knitting Update

I was puzzling over what to write this week and realized that I haven't shown any knitting for a while. I do have 2 hats and 2 pairs of socks in process, and I finished my scarf for the Red Scarf Project last night, but I haven't done a photo shoot for any of those yet. So, without further ado:


A charity hat, a desert themed washcloth, and Ravelympics stuff




Swap items (kitty toys -- octopi & goldfish -- and a beer cozy. I didn't have any bottles, so my stapler is modeling it.)


Traveling scarf sections:

Full

I never used to be a crier. From the time I was six or seven until I was about twenty-nine, I can count the number of times I cried. It does require both hands, but that still averages out to roughly once every 3.29 years. I learned fairly early that crying is just asking people to make fun of you. One of those seven times, I’d been upset about something for a few days. I don’t even remember what it was now. So I took the blanket and bedspread off my bed, pulled all my sweatshirts out, climbed into my closet, burrowed to the back, under all the old Halloween costumes, and piled all of blanket/bedspread/shirts on top of my head. Then I cried. But I still tried to be quiet. Not quiet enough, obviously. Parents are people too, you know.

One of the many, possibly myriad, reasons that I’m overweight is that I’m very adept at stuffing my emotions down, and food is as common a stuffer for me as it is for most people. When I do cry, I can stop myself very quickly if I need to – usually meaning that someone might see and/or hear me. I wonder sometimes if it would freak people out to see just how quickly. It almost freaks me out sometimes. I know at least one friend’s mom used to be kind of weirded out when I’d get hurt (wipe out on a bike or something). I’d be bleeding, but not crying. She never could wrap her head around that one. After the first time it happened, I secretly thought her daughters (my friend included) must be real wimps, if they cried that much. Nice, hunh? I must have been a really annoying kid.

The odd thing is that, lately, I’ve been getting a lot of practice at crying cessation. I’ve started to think that maybe there’s a single reservoir inside me to contain tears. It will hold a finite number over my lifetime. Such a large body of water, albeit suppressed water, would surely be affected by the moon, just as the oceans’ tides are. Higher tides during the full moon would explain why any little thing seemed to set me off this past week or so. And since the reservoir is so near its capacity, it’s much more difficult for me to prevent crying in the first place. Once some tears escape, it’s possible to close the gates again, but even water’s amazing surface tension will eventually give way and spill over.

So that’s it. I think I’m full. Done. Replete, even. Expect to encounter crying at any time from now on. And please pass the Kleenex.

Another Quiz

I really liked this one -- lots of hypothetical situations, and some creative responses to choose between.

Your result for Reincarnation Placement Exam...

Tralfamadorian Messenger

We had trouble placing you, but finally found just the thing... for someone who adores technology and knowledge, but doesn't care for much else. Intrigue and adventure? Not important to you, evidently. The company of your fellows? Not to your tastes. The bustle and crowd of the city? Not for you. Were it not for your positive attitude toward modern technology, we would have made you a medieval monk and let you live out your days in a quaint little cell, with access to all the books you could possibly want to read. But instead...

You will be a mechanical being, born on a planet where machines have long ago taken completely over and organic life has become extinct. You will be sent as a messenger to the other end of the galaxy with a message of good will -- a journey of approximately 205,125 years.The message reads: "Greetings."

Hello. Goodbye. We hope you have an satisfactory journey.

Take Reincarnation Placement Exam at HelloQuizzy

Eddie Izzard

Okay, seriously, am I the last person on the planet to have seen any of his stand-up? If yes, why on earth didn't the rest of you tell me to watch him? And if no, Go Now! Rent, Buy, YouTube! Links? Glad you asked.

Dress to Kill -- I think this is my favorite. (Skip to about 4 minutes in, if you just want the stand-up.)
Unrepeatable -- Unless this is.
Definite Article -- Great outfit. I love that color on him.
Glorious -- I'm not crazy about the beginning bit on the DVD, but that's not in this clip.
Circle -- I love the elastic, stretchy things for the stage set. And the DVD extras on this one are great. (Although I haven't found them on YouTube yet.) Also a very good outfit. Although I haven't seen him in a really bad one yet, anywhere.

Warnings: This is not child-safe stuff. Language, sex, etc. And he is emphatically NOT religious -- I love the bits where he tries to figure out the connection between Easter and chocolate eggs. Oh yeah, and he's a transvestite. If you think you'd hate it, don't blame me if you're right. ;-)

Want a window into my mind? Absolutely nothing he says is too liberal for me. In fact, I'm a bit more liberal than some of his stuff. Although I'm still kind of feeling my way to exactly what I believe religiously -- something in the pagan area, but nothing's felt quite right yet.

Honestly though, watch his stuff. You'll thank me.

Edit: YouTube just took down Dress to Kill. I don't know if the others will remain available. If not, I'm sorry. But rent them!

"Nice" and "Ninety?"

No no no no no. "Nice" and "ninety" absolutely do not belong in the same sentence. Well, maybe if you're talking about a person who's ninety. Or a tree. Or ... well, I suppose there are a few possibilities. But I categorically refuse to concede that they ever belong in the same sentence that is describing the weather.

The weather guy on the radio this morning had the audacity to tell me, "It's going to be nice today, in the low nineties." On my way home from work, the weather chick was burbling on about the "beautiful" weather, and then read off a whole string of ninety-plus degree temperatures. I know that neither of them are meteorologists. (It's a dead giveaway when they can't pronounce things like "hurricane" or "cumulus" correctly.) However, I really expect more intelligence than that, no matter what their educational background.

You know, I'm as fond of alliteration as the next person, maybe more fond. But no one needs to natter on about nice nineties. Never.

Clearly I need to move farther north. That's not really an option at the moment, but it's definitely something I'm keeping in mind if the opportunity ever presents itself.

Ninety. Ugh.

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. :-)