Enchanting Juno

Really, I'm about more than dating.

I swear to ...oh, right, I'm an agnostic.  Well, I'll just swear, then.  I assure you it is appropriate.  Because dating is a rich vein of absurdity.  Very, very rich, the interactions between persons desirous of sexual contact. 

You all know I am Super Tall, right?  Sometimes I embrace my height - such as when purchasing these:

Which are from Target and make me about 7 feet tall, but are rock solid to walk in and so. very. sexy.  I just had to.  Though  I keep thinking I maybe ought to have gotten the tan - more 70s, less streetwalker.   Hi, I'm RuPaul.  I mean, definitely not a drag queen or a man, but when I dress up I have a certain amount of impact that is, um, not entirely unlike. 

Other days, I am more like this:

Which I do not own --- yet.  But I do have these:

(Just for Kellee.  Left side: brown crackle suede, red suede, purple leather, black canvas platform, glen plaid printed suede.  Right side:  Brown felt (yes felt), green and tan canvas, hawaiian print canvas, taupe suede with blue, green leather.  Center: Herringbone wool tweed Chuck T's)

But whether I am embracing the tall or ignoring it, it is a big part of who I am.   This used to be a complex psychological issue with lots of luggage.  But now, mostly, whatever.  I yam what I yam.

Recent introductory email from prospective online dude said - I want you to know I don't have a problem with your height.   Why thank you for being so willing to overlook my...self.   He went on to say that, in fact, he found my height attractive.   Which......OK, I prefer tall men.  It doesn't mean I won't date men shorter than I, but historically, my type (if I may be so rigid) is tall, skinny to athletic, articulate, wicked smart, often geeky or scientific, unconventional, not necessarily good looking, but with interesting faces. Or some of the above.   Everybody has preferences.   But there is a difference between a preference and a fetish.

(I have a preference for chocolate and a fetish for shoes wool.  See?  Easy to tell the difference.)

Someone likes me and likes that I'm tall - fine, dandy.  But if he is interested entirely because I am 6'3"?  I am not interested in being primarily a fetish object.  That's a deliberately unequal dynamic, and about a million miles from what I want in a relationship.  (I'm thinking now, maybe I ought to return those shoes.  But then - pooh.  There's nothing wrong with playing with this stuff, I just don't want to live there full time.) 

(You know, I don't want you to think I only get the weird ones.  I only BLOG the weird ones, or the ones who have incurred my wrath.  The nice & interesting ones I respect by not making a public spectacle of them. This is the pillory.  Rotten vegetables in the basket on your  left.

All of this is a lead up to an email I got yesterday.  It reduced me to incredulous laughter and it reduced someone we all know to be never short of words to silence.  Dead silence.  I'm going "Dude.  Did I kill you?" into the phone and for like, a full minute....nothing.

Names and locations have been changed to protect...well, my privacy.  I do not give a rat's ass about his dignity.  We are calling him Herb in honor of WKRP's delusional ladies' man.

Hello! (Grown ups - particularly men - ought not to use the exclamation point.  If you think that's sexist, well, sue me.)

Well, your profile was very meaty. Very informative, I thought it was nice that you were a bit deeper than most other chicks I see on this site.  (Um, thanks? Also !!!!  In this case, this chick is making an exception the exclamation point rule. What other choice, really, do I have?)

My name is Herb, I'm 33 and live in XX not far from XX. I work in the public relations field.  (Does your boss know you have no sense of ...anything related to public relations?  I feel I ought to let her know.  As a public service.)

I have a good amount of self-confidence and a good sense of humor. (Too much confidence.  No humor.)

I'm very independent and very easygoing to be around. (I'm glad?)

I have intellectual interests as well as non-intellectual ones.  (Good for you.)

Maybe we can talk again sometime soon. Take care now.  (Never in this lifetime.  No thanks.)

-Herb

------ Profile Attached -------

Intelligent, athletic, worldly, sophisticated, tenacious, ambitious and fun, a man with many different interests.  (!!!)

I'm not afraid of a girl taller than myself. I won't play games.  (The light dawns.)

Read it out loud, without my comments, and see if you have any words.   Me?  I laughed until I had trouble breathing.  Rich with absurdity, I tell you.

Definitely a record.

86 comments.  Definitely a record, but even better, you told me stories.  I love stories.  I once fell in love with someone because he told me stories and right now I am in love with you all for the same reason.

Thank you  for helping me celebrate my blogiversary in such fine, fine style.

I went to Boston and except for the heinousness of Route 95 (smack me if I ever take the GW Bridge again please) it was so delightful I want to move there and live happily ever after in walking distance from LUSH in  Cambridge.  I visited with Kellee and the patient Rick.  I held the demon twins - who are perfectly lovely babies and were exquisitely well behaved while Auntie Juno was in the house making faces at them - and got to give Melanie a hug and some pie.  I drank gin in company with a significant portion of Team Boston (Hi) and spent a fairly ridiculous Sunday trying on every shoe and handbag in Target with Kristen and Kellee.  Somewhat inexplicably, I bought a picnic basket.  With square plates.  And a rocking chair (though that was at a yard sale, not Target).  It was five dollars and wildly comfortable:  am I made of stone?

We had the least nutritious dinner ever.

The next morning I felt both ravagingly hungry and faintly sick, which is a strong argument in favor of balanced meals.

I could go on and on, but of course the thing about weekends so amusing and satisfying that they make you want to move is that spelling out the details makes them vanish like a deer's white tail fleeing through the woods.

Rest assured, it was a fitting anniversary celebration, even if that was an accidental conjunction of events.

So - everybody go read the comments and stories and just take a moment to appreciate the odd way things can happen.  The best laid plans, etc.  Really, I find it is better to sometimes not have one - serendipity delivers magical things when you take the unexpected turn. and when you take the most direct route sometimes you end up sitting in bridge traffic 2 hours each way because you are too stupid to deviate from the Plan.  Not that I am bitter.  Oh no.  Because there is a Lesson here.

All of this has just taught me again that I am an extraordinarily lucky woman.

The random number is ...60...which means that the winner is.......(if I have counted correctly) (I counted twice) ( I was an English major)......Chris at Stumbling Over Chaos. 
Chris needs to tell me if she would like a knitting thing or a spinning thing and then we can get down to the stash diving.

Must. Card. Wool.

Nighty-night.

Do you know what today is?

Well, not actually today, tomorrow, but that is Saturday and I'm not home anyway (what a peculiar time construct this is, since I am writing this ahead of time), but really, let us not quibble. 

Actually I am not sure that I can stop my self from quibbling.  Always the the nuances, the ellipses, the galloping segues, that's me.

But tomorrow,  Saturday July 24th 2006, (UPDATE & CORRECTION:  That would be JUNE 24th) is the second anniversary of my first post.  It was terrible - what was I thinking?  Apparently I suffered from delusions of Rock Chick - obvious to me now, but unintentional at the time - and spoke in the third person.

Yah.  I'm not cool enough for that .

And nobody needs to reassure me about my coolness.  I do not regret it - I am myself and that is fine by me.  I  have many fine and memorable qualities:   I have occasionally attained fabulousness and  on one memorable occasion I was the bee's knees - but I am not detached enough for cool.  This is a true thing.
Cool does not knock over the wine in her enthusiasm, a regrettably common experience in the life of Juno.  Which is why third person only lasted for a little while, until it interfered with the free expression of .....something.  Then I ran over it with a truck.

Anyway - 2 years.  So odd.  I never thought that in doing this I would change my life at all, much less for the better, still even less in such dramatic ways, but I did.  It did.  You did.

The blog, the people I know because of it, the passions enhanced and evoked because of it, the self knowledge learned from writing it, all inform the daily rhythm of my life.  Hell, I'm driving to Boston right now to visit people I never, ever in a million years would have known without it,  and even writing ahead of time I can tell you that tomorrow and yesterday I spoke with someone  or two without whom my life would now be unspeakably bleak and whom I would not know without the blog.

Also, there is really a lot of wool.  Which I love.  Almost as much as the people.  But not quite.  Because, really.  Perspective.

In honor of all of which I feel an urge to give something away.

But what shall you do?  It has to be more than a comment - though it would amuse me to have the most comments ever on this.  Because anniversaries ought to marked in some way.

I know - I love it when people leave me stories about their lives.  So tell me something you did - small or large, planned or spontaneous - that bore unexpected fruit.  Or just say hi, because now that I think about it, I cannot compel you to tell me a personal story.  But I like them.  So think about it.

And I'll put everyone into a hat and draw a name and then reach into the stash and withdraw.....something really good. 

In the meantime:

You know what that is?  Watermelon.

There is something Just Not Right about that cat.

It's a good thing we're charming.

Argh.  Computer crash took message with it.  I swear I saved that thing. 

OK. 

I WAS going to regale you with the cleverness of the cat - her fascination with the electronic workings of the auto litter box and the devious way she liberated new toys from the Toy Mouse Super Maxx facility.  But then I set up a current knitting picture and Miss Kitty did her best to convince me that I might be  a little tiny bit optimistic about her IQ.

It is just a wee T-pin mum, please can I eat it please.

So, not so smart.

On the bottom the pile is the resurrected Nameless red sweater.  I've tried a number of different names for this - the pattern name (The Very Thought of Him) is vomit inducing - but nameless it was and nameless it remains.  I substituted Bingo Chine for the suggested cotton, which I thought likely to widen and widen and widen unto infinity, and I've got some rustic Jacob horn buttons for finishing this off.  I'd forgotten how fun this knit is - mistake rib amuses me, which may prove the simple mindedness.
But here's a thought  - when  I started this I'd never met Julia, or Cassie, or Stephanie or anyone from the knit blog world.  And - brace yourself - never thought about spinning.

It wasn't that long ago.  It is freaking me out a little.

On top of that is Matilda Jane.  Which is a divine pattern that I love and adore and  am test knitting.  Imagine it 18 rows longer, which it was until Monday night, but I made a little miscalculation so a moment of silence for the 5000 stitches I just ripped out.  Rowan wool cotton - nice yarn - and 4 mm needles.  Oddly, I feel philosophical rather than  depressed about this.

(I know, knitting!  How long has it been?)

I am obsessed with the heartbreaking loveliness of Lene's mittens and with the help of a friend turned up a copy of Twined Knitting, which you can see on the top right.   I like to delude myself that I can make something half so beautiful.  Go admire.  I implore you.  These mittens, I actually feel them in my heart.  Like love.  Or art.

I did manage to acquire another bag.  Go figure. 
I've always like the Jordana Paige bag, but the basic black was a little too basic black for me.  This Knitter's Graffiti version is something a little more like.

Also, we spin.  Not quite caught up with my monthly commitment - but in spirit yes, I am putting in time nearly every night and I am beginning to get the hang of the new wheel.  The orange walls are still the best thing I've ever done for my house.  They make EVERYTHING look good.

Always the last to know.

One likes to think one is reasonably aware of the word around one.  One reads the papers online - or skims the headlines and reads what looks especially scary and particularly funny on busy days.  I miss the thing in college where I had not just the time but the leisure - which is different from time - to sit in the lobby and read the LA Times from front page to last, not skipping so much a single Ann Landers column nor box score.  Well, some of the box scores.   

But it was different kind of world knowledge.  I miss paper papers.   

But if I got one now - any paper, not just the LAT - I'd skim the headlines and read the particularly scary bits or the especially funny bits and then it would become another part of the pile on the desk because although really, I have lots of time, I don't have leisure in the same way I did then I was 21.  Maybe you can only have that when you are 21.

I miss the visual memory of a particular ad that had a sweater made of of socks sewn together patchwork style and the way I always had to raid the men's room for the sports pages - pigs, leaving them on the floor in there, as if you had to have a penis to care how the Dodger's did the night before and also, how unsanitary.  I think I know more about what's happening in the world now - but the picture is less charming.  Maybe the world is less charming. 

It was nice to be able to take a couple of hours every day to do this, and the cross word, and not have to sacrifice anything else.

Where was I?  Oh yes, being in the know.  This weekend I was hanging out with a friend.  We were talking about that adolescent fantasy part of visualizing a romantic partnership - which, face it, you do not have to be an adolescent to succumb to (be honest now) - the one where you are on a beach in early autumn, wearing something in white linen that blows fetchingly, and yet the hair is not ever in your eyes, and holding hands, and understanding each other just perfectly without tedious talks, and the garbage never needs taking out because we do not have waste in this world (environmentally correct fantasy!), and there are no bills, and the sex is always fantabulous, and everybody always finishes at the same time, with fireworks.

And something about the inflection of fantabulous caused her to reference Eddie Izzard.  To which I said, "Who?"

So she made me watch the DVD of one of his shows.  My god, the funny.  Also, the rather sexy, yes?  I like a man in tight velvet suit. 

I would like to know what rock I have been living under for, oh, the past 8 or 9 years, and also, how come y'all knew about this and didn't tell me?

This and that, illustrated.

Still behind on the spinning, but here are the first fruits of the sample project.

Clun forest/alpaca/angora 2 ply.  Let us not speak about the spinning, which is really all over the place.  The one thing I have learned is that with angora, I like a bit of silk.  Otherwise I find the angora catchy to draft.    It isn't the first time I've noticed it, but this is the first time I've put it together than angora is the common thread.  So I have learned something.  Which is kind of a goal.

This is a bad picture - sunset - but this is a three ply skein of off-white romeldale.  I dried it flat and think I am pleased that it is really straight - almost balanced?  And incredibly springy and elastic in the hand.

My grist is better but still inconsistent and my ply - well, I'm still mastering my new Lazy Kate and it got away from me in spots.  But overall I really like it.  In some ways it is the most successful thing I've done, because I had an idea and more or less achieved it.    I think it will be fun to knit with and I think that the tightness will let it wear reasonably well.  This is what I have in mind for Gladys ultimately (but better) - a fingering to DK 3 ply with a tight twist.   Also, this has confirmed for me that I just love Romeldale/CVM.  It is gorgeous to spin with and a pleasure to draft and handle.

New Lazy Kate.  Think I have the skill to manage a 6 ply?  If  I ever get there, I have the technology.  Many thanks to Morgaine at Carolina Homespun for hooking me up with this purpleheart wood beauty made by Will Taylor.  I like using it - very heavy and stable and cleverly designed - but I haven't quite figured out how to manage the strands.

I like this picture, so you get to see this skein again (it's the Romeldale).

Moxie meets a child.  Juno laughs.

   

   

And as much as we want the darling girl to grow up and know that she is smart and strong and clever and able.....and tell her so...Moxie's not the prettiest girl anymore.

 

I am hopelessly in love.  Somebody knock me up quick while I'm still drugged on the smell of baby.

Moxie uses the cat cave she's ignored for 5 months in order to casually stay on the scene while the interloper is in the house.  Subtle, cat, subtle.

This and that.

So I 'm two days behind on my spinning commitment.   Somehow I seem to have been out a lot in the evening this week, and then, you know, there's the sleeping.   I did make a 3 ply I'd like to show you, but the camera is under the chair in the living room. 

I don't know why.   At such time as the camera is not under the chair in the living room, I would like to solicit some opinions about the ply twist.

Also, Moxie met a baby this weekend and it was hilarious.  I expected to see the cat evaporate as soon at the neophyte human being entered the building, but instead she hung out and interacted.  She was, plainly, a little jealous.  And since I am a terrible person I found this amusing.  Again, the camera is under the chair in the living room, so you will have to take my word for it.

You know where I keep the lens cap when I'm taking pictures?  In my bra.   That can't be right, can it?

I had dinner last night with my friend J-who-lives-in-the-best-house-in-the-world.  Who has slowly been becoming a capital-K-Knitter since I sat in her house and cast on for Clapotis during the Superbowl a year ago and she mentioned in passing that she'd been trying to remember how to knit.  In the past 8 months or so, she's finished a sweater for herself , plus 3 scarves,  and is currently sewing together the pieces for a silky tweed pullover for her son and half way through what will be a very sexy alpaca sleeveless top for herself.

She has paraphernalia now.  Her tension is improving by leaps and bounds.  And even though all I've really done is give her the Ann Budd book and answer a few questions, I feel as proud as if I made her myself.   ( I did give the swatch lecture.  With my usual passion and commitment.  That was important.)

I have reached a short row /bust shaping decision point on Matilda Jane and I'm rather stalled.  It fits the way it is supposed to so far and I really need to make room for the ladies.  But I'm having trouble hurling myself over the cliff.    What I need to do is block the first collar attempt to see how the material relaxes because I think I'm having doubts about the fit.  Which is technically good, but the profile I see with needles still around the bust line and the stumps of sleeves on waste yarn is not giving me confidence. 

Nobody looks good in one third of a top down raglan, right?

On Saturday I knit for a movie and a half in wool/cotton in stockinette - about 18 rows of 300 + stitches on 4 mm needles.  Which may not seem like that big a deal to you, but it is the first time I can remember since shortly after Rhinebeck 2004 that I have been able to knit for more than about 20 minutes without a terrible ache and soreness and cramping in my hand and wrist.  Really.  If you look at the finished objects, the ill fated Klaralund was the last thing I knit in one swoop.  Everything else has been slow progress and distraction and starting something else because not only did it hurt, but I was slow and would get bored and frustrated with my slowness.  The surgery was in April 05 and it is only in the last month that I can chop garlic without pain.  So this is big. 

Maybe I'll be a real knitter again soon.

Pictures tomorrow.  If I remember to get the camera out from under the chair.

You don't have to like me

but you will,  I have decided, treat me with a minimum of  politeness.

I met a guy on line.  This isn't all that unusual, I meet several most weeks.  Often - even usually - the exchange is one or two emails that drift into nothing and that's fine.  Dating on or offline is a percentage game and you got to be in it to win it.  Something like that.
If I'm the one who loses interest I try and send a polite note that says I'm sorry, this isn't working for me, best of luck to you.  But sometimes it seems weirder to do that than to just drift into silence. And I'm not offended - or more honestly, only tweaked for a day - when I'm on the cut end of that stick.

But then there are the ones where a real conversation starts - there is a back and forth, tastes and habits are revealed, there's some discussion of a plan to meet, I get a feeling.  And then nothing. This happened to me a month or so ago and my reaction still pains me - I followed up with the guy to find out what happened. 

Yeah, don't do that.  He didn't suddenly forget we were going to have dinner.  He changed his mind and took a coward's route.  Men are people with their own fears and complexities, for sure, but this is not mysterious behavior.  Don't look for the deeper meaning.  Even if it exists, really, it doesn't change anything for you.

It happened again last week, with a difference - dude emailed me and said something had changed for him, he wasn't feeling it and he didn't want to go out in a half hearted way.   To which I said - thank you - if you aren't into it, we should absolutely not go out and I wish you good luck.  And I meant it.  Because funny ephemeral things can put any of us off pursuing a relationship in the beginning and doing anything against instinct is a mistake.   Because of his decency I think kindly of this man and his karma has benefited and the store of good in the word is increased.

It is really a very simple thing.

At more or less the same time I had a brief but intense flirtation with a fine, fine fellow who thought I was a very sexy girl.  I thought he was a very sexy guy with excellent taste, a promising beginning all around.  There was a charming, honest discussion of goals and interests, timing and geography.   The last message I got from him was about checking his schedule and getting back to me  about a time to meet for coffee. 

Then nothing.   It has been a week, I'm not going to hear from him.  I am not happy.  I  wanted to say something, but I didn't want to be Scary Stalker Girl.  Much less Even Scarier Bitter Woman.

Today, it came to me.  This is a teachable moment.  I will do it for Hetero-Woman-Kind. 

Subject Line:  Dude.

What is up with you? When a gorgeous woman says she wants to meet you, you have a couple of courses of action open to you.

1) Say no thank you graciously while appreciating the warm glow of having been found hot.
2) Go out with her.
3) If you are ambivalent or busy but still interested, say so, and then engage her in conversation.

Say 'we could have coffee', then never follow up? That's just not right.

(I recommend option 2. Maybe 3. But then, I would.)

J.

Yes, I actually sent this. I feel much better.

Later:  Unexpectedly, I got a response.  Quite a good one.  Still interested.  This saying what I think, being who I am is astonishing.  I would have expected to never hear back.  Or to have provoked defensiveness or anger.  Nope. 
So teachable moment for me too.  Or am meeting better class of men than previously.  Which may also have something to do with being who I am.  Hmm. 

(If it turns out my mother has always been right about this I may need medical assistance).

Wool.  Let us look at wool.  Much less complicated.

140 yards of Freedom.  I think I mentioned that I won't have enough of this for a sweater, which is a disappointment.  But a nice shawl? Maybe a Highland Triangle out of my carefully processed silver Shetland lamb? How cool would that be?

Close up.

Not perfect, but pretty happy with it.

I've also been working on some Chinaberry red merino from Kim Kaslow. 

(I love this picture.)

I've been having some trouble  - an adjustment problem to the new wheel.  It is so blame fast my drafting needs to pull up its socks and be much more handy and precise.  I've done 2 of 8 ounces so far and I think I want to do better with the rest. 

So I pulled out all the samples of various wools I bought from Spirit Trail last summer.

I'm going to multi task this and spin up all the one ounces of things I have, and use that exercise to increase my wool knowledge and experience and to get a handle on the speed of the new wheel - without ruining a drawer full of hand dyed angora merino or a prized fleece.  I'm going to take  my cue from Cheryl at Seed Stitch and  make a commitment to average at least an hour a day on the wheel this month.  Only practice will sort me out.

First steps.......One ounce Angora/Clun Forest Lamb. 

Note dirty dishes.  Oops.

You know what cracks me up?  Wool and sex.  All the permutations and combinations there of, that what I write about.  I had no idea I was so primal.

 

Dark goddess.

I quit smoking again.   I know, you didn't know I'd started again.

It’s been an adventure. I started originally when I was 16.  My reasons were rational, sound, yet the stupidity is writ in 12 foot letters of fire.

I quit for a year in college.

I quit for a year when I was in my early 20s.

I quit when I was 30 when I had whooping cough and couldn’t smoke for 4 months.  That one was kind of a freebie – Too sick to notice the withdrawal! Score! - and lasted for four years.

For the last two and a half years I’ve been on and off.   I quit for a week or so in December using the patch (weird dreams, noticeable aggression, very hostile).    For maybe a couple weeks a year ago last April.  Quit in a well-I'll just-meet-so-and-so-for-a-drink-because-then-I-can-bum-one-off-her-but-I'm-not-buying-my-own kind of way.  Mostly I've been a smoker.  An organic-cigarette-smoking, excuse-making, lying-to-herself-and-others smoker.

I’ve paused when I had company who didn’t know, when I visited my mom, when I was around someone who didn’t like it – but these have been stop and start efforts.  I realized recently that it is a self destructive act for me.  No really.   There is the obvious way that if you smoke you are conspiring with a drug to shorten and inhibit your own life, but there is also, for me a deeper way that the act of lighting a cigarette is a form of self-loathing I couldn’t quite give up. 

I was going to give you an example of the how and wherefore of the self-loathing I am talking about, but then you'd all say nice things and reassure me when I don't need reassuring and then I'll feel like a blog-whore and let's just not go there.  Imagine the worst kind of low self-esteem wallowing you personally have experienced and apply it to the moment I flicked my Bic.  And move on.

(And yes, I begin some of my sentences with And.  And But.  You'll live.)

The point is that lighting a cigarette, when done consciously, always had a little flicker of that remembered self hate in it that went hand in hand with my deep love for smoking and all its ritual.  Oh, I do love it, love the smell of sulphur from a fresh lit match and the way the metal of the Zippo warms in my hand, the patina conferred on the brass by years of rattling in pockets and purses with loose change and laundry lists, the folds of smoke in the air, the way that with smoking you reach into every corner of the space you are in, the first inhalation.  It is a little S & M.

A month ago I met a guy for whom smoking is a deal breaker. Sex (and the possibility there of) (just shut up) has always been the best distraction, so at lunch the day before our first date I smoked my last cigarette. I tried to really pay attention to it, to savor the pleasure in it, to inhale with passion and concentration and exhale with contemplative intent.   Then I cleaned my house for a day and a half as an alternative to flipping out on both the nicotine and romantic fronts.

The date was not a success, but I'd gotten through the first stage of withdrawal.  Because this guy was really just an aid, a way to use the potential of sexual desire to replace the specific desire for a cigarette.  I’ve been having this odd kind of awakening for the past few months, where the years of therapy and the relationship successes and failures and the changed experiences of friendship have all combined into a better knowledge of myself.  I seem to be having greater expectations for what I have to give and deserve to receive.  Some of my friends have been kind enough to say some strongly worded things to me on how I seem to the world (as opposed to how I seem to myself) and the cumulative evidence finally seems too much for me to ignore:  I'm done.

How is this different than all the times before?  Maybe it isn't.  But it feels different, because I am not making myself do the "right thing"  in a spirit of regret and resignation but instead seem to be acting on an inevitable flow of change. 

The first week I didn’t sleep at all (making me reassess my mom-related insomnia.   She didn’t know I had started smoking again and so every time I’ve seen her I've gone cold-turkey for the duration of the visit.  Good golly, maybe it isn’t her - or me - after all).  I've had that insomnia, tightness in my chest, a sore throat, sore gums, irritability, an ongoing and very bad taste in my mouth, some out of cycle water retention - good times.  I even think the weird off-gassing effect I mentioned Monday was part of this (although I cannot take credit for figuring this out.  I'm slow).  It felt like I was shedding something toxic through my skin and hair and perhaps I was.

Since that first week I have been sleeping beautifully for the first time in years.  I seem to be snoring more – for which I apologize to anyone I happen to have slept near recently – but I hope that will ease as my lungs clear,  plus my heart rate is down, my exercising heart rate is REALLY down, I have been improving at the gym exponentially and it is just all good.  Except for the increased appetite.  But I’m keeping an eye on that and have decided I can accept up to 10 pounds in the service of change.

There was that one time I almost mugged a friend for a drag off her smoke.  I have to tell you this because I don't want you to think I am all tough and strong about this.  I am not - in fact I almost cried when she wouldn't let me.   She threw bits of chocolate at me in a fashion tragically reminiscent of Scooby-doo and Shaggy until I gave it up.  The only cheering thing about it is that if I was Scooby, that makes her Shaggy. 

I woke up a few weeks ago and said – I’m ready. I meant ready for a real relationship, since this is a topic I am mildly obsessed with right now, but it applies in a larger sense too. I am ready to not kill myself slowly, which means, I think, that I am ready to live whatever life is out there for me without sabotaging myself too much.   I’m ready to fall in love.  I’m ready for whatever the universe brings me.

I actually have been saying that – that the universe can bring it.   Which may be asking for trouble.  But I can handle it, or believe I can. Which is kind of a new confidence.  I just wish it would get here. All of this positive change is not making me any better at waiting.

Let us not talk about what this says about the size of my ego that I think the universe should just hop to it on my whim.  (You think maybe the damaged self-esteem was nature's way of keeping the monster of my ego in check?  Nah, that's a little too grandiose.  Again.)

Hey, I quit smoking - anything could happen. Anything should happen.

Your Quit Date is: 5/13/2006 12:30:00 PM

Time Smoke-Free: 24 days, 21 hours, 26 minutes and 33 seconds

Cigarettes NOT smoked: 498

Lifetime Saved: 3 days, 19 hours

Money Saved: $87.50  (except that at 6.35 a pack that ought to be 158.11.  I'm just saying.)

spin, nap, pet the cat.

The little fuzzy troll is proving herself to be the Compleat Fiber Cat in ways good and bad.  I mention this because she has just chased a cashmere swatch off the table and is eying a stitch marker in a predatory manner.    I would like to think any cat of mine would treat cashmere more respectfully, but I am afraid she regards it as a rival for attention rather than an object of reverence.

She does however, seem to approve of the new wheel (can you see that she is supervising the plying strand here? Tus is explained her intense focus.).  Every time I sit down at it she appears and pays most particular attention to what I am doing, at any rate.  I think she likes it more than the Majacraft because there are many more obviously rotating parts, but perhaps she just knows quality when she sees it.

I love my new wheel.  I may have mentioned this before, but I thought I'd mention it again.  For the first time I can conceptualize spinning enough of one thing for a sweater without dying of boredom or exhaustion.    The Suzie is terrific and I don't regret her in the least, but the physics of the thing are inescapable - the larger wheel generates more rotation with less effort and thus I am spinning faster and more with greater ease.  It is good.    I am not spinning as WELL as I have been on the Majacraft, but I think consistency will come with time. 

And in the meantime, I spun up 140 yards of 2-ply sport weight gray Shetland and the first ounce of 8 of some of Kim Kaslow's gorgeous merino handpaint.  In a remarkably short amount of time.    Which is good because I had a very difficult time staying awake this weekend.  I didn't really feel sick, but slept for hours each afternoon, accidentally dropping off over a book and feeling generally clammy and grubby the rest off the time.   Barely left the house.  At first I thought I was depressed but then I realized that it felt like I was off gassing some kind of toxin.    Weird.

Damn flash.  Can't see the detail.  The skein is drying in the kitchen. I'll try for daylight when it's done.

You know what I don't understand?  Weighting a skein to dry.  I guess it sort of straightens out the skein, but to what purpose?  It also stretches it out and conceals bias.  So as soon as you knit with it and it hits the blocking water......contraction and distortion.  I've gotten to the point that I wash my skeins in the hottest water I can touch, rinse them in cold, wring them out like a dishcloth, wack the snot out of them on the counter (I am unclear on the technical purpose of this.  I do it because it is a) a bunch of fun and b) seems to fluff and even the plies.  But mostly because it is fun and speeds drying), and lay them loosely on a sweater rack.  If I hang them I hang them with no tension at all.  If they are going to change, shrink, felt or twist I want to know now, before I invest any knitting time in them.  Anyone have any actual information to contradict or support this approach?  I'd love to hear it.

Someone asked about the new spindles.  On the top left there is the new Forrester, on the bottom left the Bill Hardy and on the far right the Phil Powell.   The Bosworth in the middle bottom I bought at Vermont last October and the one above it from Toni at the Fold at Rhinebeck.  I don't know the name of the woodworker, but it is beautiful - I love the dome shape.
Not a bad small collection for someone who one year ago swore that she would not learn to use a spindle because they freaked her out.  Of course, until I actually spin enough of something on one to be something other than a sample, I'm just a poseur.  Wouldn't be the first time.