Enchanting Juno

Sweating in the twilight.

Is what I did on Wednesday.  But in a very good cause.

Remember these?

My date blew me off, but it turned out to be a good thing.  It's a good small venue - no bad vantage point - but no seating unless you were very, very special indeed, so most of the concert was standing room. 
Damien Rice is an artist with whose work I have a deeply emotional relationship.
(I'll be happy to wait while you go buy a cd.  Get 2, they're small.)
Since I was there alone I didn't feel compelled to make conversation, or worry about having made someone else stand around sweating in a crowd while I was having a wonderful time.  I did eventually snap at the women standing next to me.  They were talking and talking and talking that kind of girl talk I've certainly done where you scarce draw breath.  I felt bad afterwords and apologized for telling them to leave if they were only there to talk, and a friend of theirs said no, it was good, she'd wanted them to shut up too.  Talking about caterers  (I think it was caterers) during Volcano?  So. Not. Cool.

Waiting for the show to start I did what any knitter would do.....

Beer, AstroTurf and repairing a short row mistake. 

I didn't bring a proper camera, so you must make do with camera shots.  That faint figure on the stage in a sport coat (he must have been mad.  It was 9 million degrees in the audience.  Add the metal of the stage and the lights.....) is Damien Rice, who writes songs that devastate me.

They are linked for me to an ex.  THAT ex.  You know the one.  When I first got the tickets I had an email conversation about it and since I've failed several times to capture it for this post and cannot do better than the extemporaneous outburst I had then....

I can't stand it.  I can't wait.  Even though I'm sure I'll need therapy after the show.

It's a complicated emotional package because the Damien Rice CD was given to me by an ex - you know that guy, skinny, Celtic, cheekbones like a knife, poetry in every word, the one you never quite get over because if he'd just had the one tiny extra piece of soul it would have been the most amazing, transforming, extraordinary relationship  in the history of the world and you would have traded all the assholes who fuck and dump or lie for more than you ever really dreamed was possible.

But he didn't.  And it wasn't.  And he gave you the CD it sometimes feels like just so you could have the lyrics to Delicate to hate him with at a later date.
But the music is so good, you still love it.  Even if you have to put it in the freezer sometimes when it hurts too much.

Or something.

So it was not a light evening of the heart, but good.  Curiously cleansing to dig those feelings out again in the glare of the sun setting over New York and with the amplification and the crowd and my solitude and the heat and the furious intensity of the artist, who is not a mild performer by any definition, and just feel. 

Fiona Apple was excellent as well - she has enormous charisma on stage and a vast, raging voice.  She dances like a lunatic, possessed by her own music, but it works for her.  She made me laugh when she thanked the sun for going down.   But the heat had gotten to me, or the experience, or the sweat or the crowd and I never connected with the music the way I would have liked to.   Another time.

It was a wonderful night.  I slept deeply on the train home, with my knitting in my lap and more music in my ears, dehydrated and headachey, drained, renewed ..... The beauty of the MP3 player is the ability to have your personal soundtrack trailing behind you and I walked home from the station through the cooling, finally cooling, dark to 32 Flavors. 
 

The New Economy.

So Wednesday, I was out of the office at lunch, and I stopped to get gas.  45 bucks.  Sigh.

Then I ran some errands, picked up a salad, went back to the office.  Went to the gym.  Home for a quick shower, then off to dinner with my friend J.    It was a gorgeous evening, the heat had broken a bit and driving along the river was beautiful.  The air was cool through the open window  and flipped the ends of my hair against my arms in a pleasing way.  I had the Baja Sessions - Chris Issac is the perfect summer evening soundtrack - on the CD player.   I love to drive on summer nights. 

Some where along there I noticed that the gas gauge looked funny for the mileage on the tank, but I was having a good time and the thought wandered away before I nailed it down.

Yesterday I was driving back to the office with my lunch and the empty light flicked on.  I looked at the odometer.  63 miles.
Weird.
I pulled over, looked under the car - no leak.
I opened the tank cover - and the cap was loose.

At first I thought that the gas guy yesterday didn't close it - but there are no spill evaporation marks on the car.  There was no smell of gas.  Maybe he didn't fill the tank all the way?  No, the receipt was for the full amount. 
It's been hot, the cap was loose, maybe it evap....oh.

Somebody boosted it.  Somewhere yesterday - at my work, my gym or on the street in front of my house, somebody stuck a tube in my tank and siphoned away 13 gallons.

Today after work I filled my tank.  45 bucks.  But I'm sighing for a different reason now.

Red Tent

This isn't about knitting, or politics, of lifestyle or dating or anything.   It is about blood. 

I want to know why menstruation is unmentionable.  I mean, I'm mentioning it, so perhaps that's the wrong word - but I'm 37.  I'm long past the age of being embarrassed by having to purchase menstrual supplies, but I still remember in college, running into a boy I had a crush on - what was his name? - while I was in the grocery store and holding a box of tampons in my hand.  I buried that box in my basket so fast I didn't notice I put it IN my giant purse, gaping open in the basket, instead of under it....until check out when I set off the theft alarm with the illicit box of now stolen feminine products.   

I hate that euphemism.  They were OB tampons.  And last night I bought a packet of Always and while I wasn't embarrassed exactly, I was very...um...aware that the clerk was a young man.

And what is with these products names?  OB?  Does that mean anything?  Is is supposed to suggest the clinical rectitude of their ancestry? (Designed by a woman gynecologist!).  Always?  Always what?  Prepared?  Protected?  Bleeding?  And the cryptic boxes - thin means what? Low bulk? Low absorbency?  How 'bout a nice clear "rated for X grams of fluid".  Now that would be helpful.

I swear to all the goddesses, I am tired of being made to be discrete about something that happens to a significant majority of women, as much as 25% of the time, over a significant portion of their lives.  It's messy.  So are birth and sex and love and the rest of the things that make up the topography of the human landscape.  We need to admit this.  Get used to it.  Make it part of our worldview.

I really think half the discomfort comes from sort of emotionally and physically trying to not make a mess, to hold it back - to suppress the self, this force of nature.  Which as women we are asked to do a great deal of the time already.

Last night,  I was complaining at therapy about how awful I felt and how I just needed to be left alone to bleed quietly for a couple of days and how much I resent the fact that I'm supposed to suck it up and not feel headachey and bloated and tired and stupid and heat sensitive - because apparently this is female and weak and not terribly polite - even though all my body's resources are being used for essentially a complete system reboot and I haven't got anything left for being sparkly. 

I was in full rant, and my therapist - who is a man - suddenly looked struck.  And asked me if they ought to keep appropriate supplies in the bathroom at the office.  Tampons dude, yes, you should keep tampons in the bathroom.  Most of the doctors who lease offices there - men.  Custodian - man.  Building manager - man.   Never thought of it.  Probably would be embarrassed to think about it.  But no matter how well you plan, sometimes you are caught short.  This is not a moral failing, a weakness or a sign of incompetence, it is a indicator of the unpredictability of the human body.  And it would be nice if a solution were available other than embarrassment and an uncomfortable roll of TP.

He wanted to know where they ought to put them.

Under the sink.  With the extra TP.

Will women know to look there? 

Um, yes, I think we could manage that.

It's a new idea for sure.  He'll mention it to someone and maybe there will be one office in this town where your period can come early without woe.  For a little while.

So obviously I'm over most of my conditioning if I can discuss this freely with a middle aged man.  But it isn't just that I'm tired of pretending, is that I want the process and the strain of the experience given a proper place in the world.  It doesn't have to be a loud place - I don't need a banner to march under.  I just want to be able to unapologetically be bleeding.  It takes energy, you know?   A lot of energy.   And even more to strap on a smile and pretend to not feel anything.

You know that movie with Emma Thompson and Arnold Schwarzenegger?  Junior?  When she rants about the swellings and achings and leaking of being a woman?  I love that.  I don't hate what's happening to me.  I love being female.  I just think a lot of what makes it hard is the need to be underground and polite about it.  To not be able to say right out that I can't go anywhere today because I need to keep challenging things to the minimum and to be near a restroom.   To have that not be a reason for someone to make a joke or pat me on the head or think I can't hold political office because I might bomb something in crampy moment.

Because you know, it's menstruation at the root of all the bombing.  Right.

A conundrum.

I had a post about repetitive patterns of behavior, but it isn't...quite...ready.  And I was going to show you something cool I did with short rows, but that's not quite ready either, I am afraid.

So I'll settle for a simple query.

I went to NY this weekend and somehow acquired 4 skeins of very, very pink Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn.  I don't know what it is with me and pink recently, but I am digging it the most, the lipstickier the better.

I need triangle shawl patterns, something lacier than solid.  What am I missing?  I've been through all my patterns, everything I can think of.
Diamond Fantasy?  Close....... but not It.

I want something bold enough for hot pink.....open enough to show a black dress through it.....and more graphic than progressive in pattern.

What hidden treasure has passed me by?

Types of Crazy

We all have them.

For instance, right now, I have the PMS.  Which leaves me gloomy, extreme, sensitive, crazy, emotional and generally unable to roll with things that I would step over the other three weeks of the month.  I used to have a rule about emailing an ex of mine when I had the PMS, because email and hormones can be a particularly devastating combination.

One of my friends is working on an email recall button solely for the use of premenstrual women.  I wish she would get on that.

Then there's wool crazy, which I know you all can get down with.  When did my life become such that these words in a Google search (and yes, I was googling sheep information, as if you haven't done the same thing, uh huh) are so fascinating that I immediately clicked through.

A Dominant Felting Lustre Mutant Fleece-type in the Australian Merino Sheep

Unfortunately it was going to cost 30 bucks to read it and I didn't find it THAT fascinating.  But it's a change from a year or two ago.   And do you know about the Breeds of Livestock Project at Oklahoma State University?  A worldwide resource.  (They are looking for photographs of the Armenian  Semicoarsewool .  Anybody got a hookup?)  But not the kind of casual reading that might previously have interested this English major.

(Did you know I was one Greek or Latin credit away from a  classics minor?  Me neither, until I went to file some kind of paperwork my senior year in college.  When it was too late.  Just as well - given my facility with languages (dead or otherwise) (nil, in case you were wondering) I could have done some damage to my GPA.   But I've always had a fondness for Homer.)

I was looking for information on down wool breeds - the Long Draw Project continues, with info from MamaCate to guide me.  I thought this was general but interesting on wool types. Useful for broad categories.

So we have hormone crazy, wool crazy...cat crazy....

Project crazy......

I was edgy about something Saturday and calmed myself by hand winding this 200 yard ball.  Some body stop me from consummating the relationship casting on this cardigan from Fiona Ellis.    Cherry Pink wool/cotton.  I'm only human, people.  Only human.

The long road.

I've decided to stick it out learning long draw on the new wheel - if I can do this, then I think I can do it with any wheel.  Because I am finding it hard, oh very hard.

My single bobbin full of  singles is bad.  But not as bad looking as it ought to be to represent the awfulness of my long draw spinning. Because what makes it onto the bobbin is the semi-successful effort.  The disaster  gets stuck in the orifice, backed out, ripped off and left on the floor.  Which for a while there looked like a very flat sheep.

But I'm going to keep swinging until I stop missing.

Commercial shetland top.  But this doesn' t look that bad.....wait.

Crap.  Very depressing, this going backwards.

For one shining moment, I got it though, and it was magical.

There is not much that makes me this happy.  And most of the rest of it isn't fit to print.

Oh, and I've fallen in love.  With the Knitpicks Options Needles.  So shiny.  So pointy.  So affordable.  So sleek the join, so flexible the cord.   I feel a little breathless just thinking about it.  And this from a women who has publicly declaimed her hatred of Addis.    I still love my ebony needles, but for anything that needs the assist of less friction, Knit Picks had me at hello.

Check that point - options on top, addi below.   My wool cotton is flying.  Well, flying for me.

Try 'em.  Bet you'll like 'em.

Back to school.

It's July and I must publicly submit myself for chastisement.  I did not make 30 hours of dedicated spinning time last month.  I didn't keep proper track, really, but definitely not.

The new wheel is fast.  Really really fast.   And while I seem to be able to spin softly with fiber I prepped myself (see Freedom, scroll down) - it drafts so nice everything works - I am strictly worsted on fiber prepped by others.

This is not always the right thing for the fiber.   (I did something to some Shetland X locks that was really tragic. )

On the other hand, my understand of worsted vs woolen spinning is becoming extremely good - almost visceral.   I did have a chance to use the Susie again and I'm glad I did - she and the Merlin Tree wheel are entirely different beasts and I had started to think of her as kind of a shabby poor cousin.  But really, they do different things and I am glad to have them both.

Rosemary began to teach me long draw last weekend as a solution to my worsted problem and for the 4 seconds I occasionally get it it is freaking magical.  But letting go and letting it happen is unbelievably difficult.   The question is - can I overcome my control freak tendencies enough to learn?  I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime I'm ransacking the stash for commercial top I can spin from the fold -  odd to spin woolen from a worsted prep perhaps, but when I try to long draw from roving - my god, the train wreck.

No pictures because I ain't hardly been home and also - wow, do I suck.  Fun to go back to a place I'd barely gotten out of, for sure.  That lovely feeling of being incompetent is such a delight to revisit, but at least this time I know I'll come out on the other side.  When I was a kid I often resisted doing new things - the humiliation of being clumsy in front of someone, of not being in control, or not being good at something, totally paralyzed me.  I wonder when that changed?  Is that what being an adult is, being willing to risk humiliation in pursuit of a goal? 

I really do feel like that now - most of the time, making a fool of myself seems negligible in the face of the reward if I succeed.  Interesting.

I do have some visuals for those with short attention spans.  First of all, would it please stop raining for a few weeks?  My roof is leaking egregiously and also - this is my backyard Tuesday AM:

I was trying to show my mom how her favorite rose was thriving under my neglectful eye - see those 8 blossoms?  Thing was a 7 foot stick with one flower for the first 10 years of its life.  Now it has about 6 stems and a jillion buds and flowers.

Wednesday AM I saw this:

Can you see the pink of the rose peeking out on the left?  I feel lucky that this did not land on my roof or through my kitchen window.  And let's just say there will be a lot more light in the yard next season.  But my suitable gratitude does not keep me from wishing that it would strop freaking raining so I can let everything dry out and clean it all up.

But I ought to shut up.  Plenty of people very near me have lost their homes to the rising Delaware flood waters.  I am lucky.

Really lucky.