Enchanting Juno

Apparently my intellect is antique.

Not really a surprise.  My favorite professor in college told me once that I had a very 19th century turn of phrase.   I had a better vocabulary in those days, I think.

The unexpected, part 1.

On the right you can see a line of yarn overs - that would be the center of the shawl.
On the left are the remaining stitches to be bound off.
In the middle, my remaining yarn.

You see the problem.

Fortunately, before I began my preparations for ritual suicide (well, really, I just started swatching some Wool Bam Boo, rather than disemboweling myself with ebony straights.  Knitting has, if nothing else, taught me fatalism) I thought to email Judy at Smatterings, the artist who authored this yarn.  She believes she has a half skein or so about the place.  If true, I can even rip back and add the last two rows of the border.  Which would be bitchin'.. ..

...because this is much too pretty to leave on the needles indefinitely.

Unexpected thing the second was much pleasanter but even more of a surprise - I had, after all, rather begun to suspect that I wasn't going to make it all the way through the cast off some time before I actually ran out of yarn.

Last night I arrived home to unusually congested parking and a park ranger (we have those?) who gave me permission to park illegally.   Quite oddly, a person or persons unknown had erected a stage at the end of the street, upon which there were three guys playing some pretty decent summer music.  Kind of a Santana/blues/Ventures kind of thing.

Gotta click for big so you can appreciate one of Our Nation's Fathers supervising the proceedings.

There isn't much that's more enjoyable than outdoor music on a summer night.  I don't know who they were or why they were there, but the ranger told me they were playing in different neighborhoods each night, working their way through the city.  Which is one of those things that is just a gift to the universe - like buying a thousand copies of the best CD you ever heard and giving it to 1000 strangers.   Or the time I was leaving the grocery store and passed a guy coming in - a stranger - and I was done and he needed a cart and we just handed it off like we could read each other's minds and grinned at each other.

Miss Kitty was fascinated by it - once I was home cooking to the blues coming through the open window, every time I looked she was at the door or the window with her ears oriented to the music.

She's an odd little creature.

v. 3.8

I had a refreshing experience the other night - I had dinner with a friend.  The same friend who started me off on all this by making the remark about the woman who wrote The Rules.

I warned him at the start that I was a little bit chapped about sexism that day and he should be prepared.  And he wanted to know what brought this on. 

"It started with something you said".

I could see he was surprised.  After a little silence he asked what that was and I told him.

Then he stared at the wall a bit.  And almost said something.  And stared at me a little bit.  He was a little bit dumbthwacked.

Then he said that I was right, he had used different standards to describe a woman and a man doing the same stupid thing.  He was really surprised by himself, I could tell.  (I sympathize - when I find myself holding a bit of misanthropy, or sexism or racism in myself, I am always really startled and sometimes inclined to refuse delivery on the knowledge as well.  Overcoming reflexive denial - hey, I'm not like that! - is the natural first stage in recognizing the injustices we see and perpetuate.)

Later he said I had given him a ton to think about and he couldn't tell me how much he had enjoyed the conversation.

The best thing about it?  He listened to my opinion with out adding a "but" at the end (I hate that 'but').  I may not change his mind about this, in the end he might go on using different standards for men and women.  But he heard what I had to say.  He accepted my opinion as a valid point.  He did not offer examples of how it really isn't that bad and he isn't like that.  He did not try to deflect my point.  Which is to say, he treated me like an equal with a legitimate viewpoint.

It was great.

The fact that I found it an exhilarating change from the norm is a bit depressing, but I'm going to be happy about it anyway.  One step to begin a journey, one stitch to begin a sweater.  You know.

Thank you all for telling your own tales, sharing your own opinions in the comments from the other day. I love it when you tell me stories and I loved hearing all the ways in which you have felt the same way - it may not be a cause for optimism, but it is nice not to be alone in my frustrations.

I'm getting less and less inclined to not speak these days - I used to be uneasy being direct with people, worrying that my perspective was not educated enough, that I didn't know enough to have a right to speak.  But there are plenty of people talking out there - with whose viewpoints I disagree deeply - who clearly don't worry about their own right to an opinion, so what am I accomplishing with my discrete silence?  Participation is what - the wrong kind of enabling, silent complicity.
So I am leaving behind my 'nice girl' more and more every day and I feel fine.  The world doesn't end and hardly anyone is injured.  A spoon full of sugar is a trick you use get children to swallow something unpalatable and I don't think that approach is much of a compliment to adults on either side of any discussion.

It really is everywhere.

I don't think I'm doing my wraps per inch right.  I make 9 wpi for the orange yarn as finished. 
And I unwrapped my swatch - the 4.25 stitches per inch one - and got a quick 11 WPI on that one. Though I really ought to give it a rinse to straighten out the bends before I take that as useful

According to the charts that makes the finished yarn bulky and the original swatch heavy worsted.   It doens't seem accurate.  Any thoughts an the correct amount of tension to apply during the wrapping process would be welcome.

In the meantime, I'm feeling broody about men and women and the impossibility of it all working out.

Yesterday I was catching up on some non-knitting blog reading and stumbled across a post about the end of the Sopranos by a blogger I have a lot of respect for.  I didn't watch the show, but I'm interested in his opinions about most things, so I read it - I've enjoyed seeing the differencing levels of outrage and interest in the end of this show all over, actually.  But he closed his post with a joke about Carmela vs Meadow.  It shocked me.

Partly because that's a kind of casual misogyny that I don't associate with this person, and partly because it came a few posts after a really pointed piece of writing about about older actresses and their sexuality in movies and the ways in which women are considered viable in the public eye only as long as they have sex appeal. 

I left a comment.  And then the brooding began because I think the last time I left a comment on this blog it was to protest language I read as perpetuating anti women stereotypes. So now I am that woman, who's always complaining about sexism.  And I am - the more aware I get the more I see the poisonous thread of hate and fear that informs the place of women in the world.

There's a commercial I've heard a piece of recently - I don't know what it is a commercial for, because as soon as it penetrates my consciousness I start to lose my temper and I never hear the end.  But it is for some new man-show, offering man-stuff including a venue to discuss the compelling question of which Jessica is hotter.  Because there is no other place to discuss that important issue. 

Can you imagine the outrage if anyone proposed a show for women that featured a discussion of the sexual merits of two lightly clad men?  It's gross isn't it?  Hint:  If it is gross for one, it is gross for ALL.

The other day I was talking to someone about dating and The Rules and the comparable program for men about How To Score and the hateful, hateful way it dehumanizes all the participants to treat the other sex as the opponent in a competitive sport, and the person I was talking to said yes, the guy doing the how to score program is an idiot and misses the point.  And Oh, yeah, I saw that Rules woman on a talk show and my god - What A Bitch.  And ugly.  I bet she hasn't had sex in years.

And there it is.  A man who writes something base and manipulative about women is an idiot.  A woman who writes something base and manipulative about men is vicious and sexually unappealing. 
Because that's the worst thing we can say about a woman.  That she has no sexual value.

I could go on and on and possibly will - I may very well have a longer post brewing about all the things that have made me despair and rage in the past month.  A very long list, sadly.    I'm tired of it, I'm tired of watching basic human rights be eroded away from women drop by drop, I'm tired of a culture that pats me on the head when I express my concerns, that says that its only language, it doesn't matter, that I encourage my girlfriend to be more X or Y or Z without understanding that if its about you, its still sexism even if it looks kinder, a world in which its OK to joke about whether a fictional mother or daughter is the more sexually intriguing without being at all disgusted by what that implies.

I am a hypocrite too - I worry about being attractive, I worry about my own desireablity, my social worth, my sexual value in the marketplace.  I don't think I can stop being a part of the problem as much as I also want to be part of a good solution.  I don't know what to do to change it, except talk.  I believe in cumulative action, I believe that every time I explain to the person in line behind me why I use cloth shopping bags that I AM making a difference, that my words make an impact....but when it comes to the firestorm of hate we have for women, I don't think its working.

And SPEAKING of artifical substitutes.....

I discovered via Making Light that the FDA is considering allowing manufacturers to remove the inconvenient and expensive ingredient (I am making an assumption here as to the reasons) COCOA BUTTER from chocolate.  Which they could then still market and label as chocolate-flavored.

Because it would still have cocoa in it.  Also the delightful mouth feel of vegetable oil instead.

In a word full of horror this is perhaps a small thing.  But goddammit no. 

I draw a line.  Fake art, I protest.  Fake chocolate?  A barbaric yawp.

I refer you to Don't Mess With Our Chocolate (which, full disclosure, is the website of an independent chocolatier.)

    "...if some members of the U.S. Chocolate Industry have their way, it will negatively change the quality of chocolate you love.  Their plan is to change the basic formula of chocolate in order to use vegetable fat substitutes in place of cocoa butter, and to use milk substitutes in the place of nutritionally superior milk.  These changes will have adverse effects on the eating, physical and nutritional quality of chocolate, and beg the question: What consumer benefit is associated with implementing these changes?   The answer is none."

The FDA has extended the public comment period to May 25th. Please to make some noise.

It isn't the erosion of civil rights or the war or terror, I know, but a more subtle continuing degradation of quality for the sake of business economics and 'convenience' and it makes me furious.  Art without passion and food without flavor or nutrition.

Who are we?  WHAT are we becoming? Every day there is less food in our food.

(Edited to add that the FDA comments section is not allowing me to post.  I'm faxing mine.)

(Also, the section of the DMWOC website describing the role of the FDA is kind of interesting reading. Take a look.)

(I particularly enjoyed the letter linked here.  PDF file.)

rising fast

Its been dampish here in the east.  Springlike in the truest sense - violent changes in the weather, soggy, greening slowly, the oozing squish of mud in the grass.  And cold.  That last bit is less typical.

There is a creek behind my house. Ordinarily it is a slow moving thing, thigh deep, rock bed visible, with reinforced walls where it runs through the urban landscape.  It is one of the reasons I bought my house, the sound of water and the pretty canopy of leaves and light in the back in summer.

I can lay in bed and listen to it in good weather.  Those are the best nights for sleeping, the deck off my bedroom like a room in a treehouse - less than it used to be, we've lost some trees in the past year - but still a magic place of shadow leaf movement in moonlight and the rush of water. 

We've had something like 10 inches of rain in the past two days, sleet, snow even, overcast and miserable droplets down the back of the neck.  Everyone is cold, more becasue this confounds their expectations that because it is more than chilly, really.  Grumpiness is rampant.

40 percent of the local roads were flooded yesterday - my estimate, but a fair one, I think.

Last night I walked around the park and looked.  Everyone was doing the same thing, strangers looking over the bridge and making uncommon eye contact with each other - this is a city, after all.  Someone - sometimes me - would say "wild", and the other would reply "can you believe it" - call and response in the church of weather.

The wall at the back shows the high water mark - about 12 inches maybe less.  Though I think the crest was actually early this morning.  Open up the images if you have time.  The water moves even in the still image.

The wall showing on the right is ordinarily visible to the height of a tall ladder.  12 feet, not less than two.  With a four foot ledge at bottom, along the creek that runs below.

I have some idle thoughts that maybe that flood insurance isn't such a bad idea after all, but mostly it leaves me voiceless.  Contained by the work of man, sort of, this rushing water is still a primal force, unregulable by puny human work.  It is good to remember that.

Interesting alternate universe you got there dude.

And other stories.

I had a whole detailed thing about this written up, but it was too much. I'm having trouble with my funny recently and I'd end getting a lot of emails about being careful about creepy men, and y'all, I KNOW.

So just the punchline.

Dude I'd IM'd with a couple of times called me this weekend.  He was driving down from NY to not far from me and wanted to know if he could see me on the way home.

I was surprised to hear from him - the last conversation we'd had ended with my saying "this isn't really catching fire, is it?  I'm going to go."

Which I thought was goodbye, but I guess was open to multiple translations.

So I said "I don't know.  I'm surprised - I wasn't expecting to hear from you".

"Why not?" followed by "Can you put me in touch with who DOES know?"

That last one could be cute or annoying and in this case...annoying.  Something about the impatience....

So I said he should call me when he left his friend. see what we were in the mood for.  Maybe we could meet somewhere.  I made a joke about it, because in the first conversation he told me he didn't drink alcohol or coffee.  Which is a limitation for a first meeting.  And he said, well, he really couldn't meet for a drink or coffee - because as he'd told me, he didn't consume either of the relevant beverages.

Never mind that these social conventions exist to give us a chance to look each other over in a neutral setting and dude, you can order water if you want.  It is an opportunity for CONVERSATION.  No, he wanted to meet me at HOME.

I said, "I'm certainly not giving you my address."

"Why not?"

"I don't KNOW you.  It is a little rule I have about complete strangers."

He said, rather snippily, "Can you go for a walk? If this is a step you can handle?  Because it is a big one, maybe too much for you."

I told him not to call me on his way back at all and said goodbye.

I told this story to someone, who said, well, dude was hoping for some sex. 
I know.  I'm not offended by the desire OR the attempt to get in my pants.  I mean, we're all looking for something.

But the approach was a reach.  He had to know it was a reach.  Didn't he?
Be a little gracious in failure is all I'm saying. 

Jury duty is over and I have a million piles of undone paperwork to reduce to dust today......Matilda Jane is be-buttoned and blocked, but I misunderestimated the amount of ribbon needed for the lacing - a trip to the fabric store is in order.  Also some daylight for photos - rained all weekend.   

The best thing I have eaten recently is a toss up between the chocolate-hazelnut spread from Trader Joe's which I consumed half a jar of this weekend.  Yum. And a spinach, paprika, nutmeg, feta cheese thing I made for dinner (but for which I can claim no credit.  Ripped it off from TMW, who is one hell of a cook).

I went to a funeral Friday at Arlington Cemetery in DC.  It was extraordinary.  If I can find the right words, I will tell you about it.   

 

Tamponificate

This is my new favorite word.

So you all may remember that I have strong feelings about menstruation.  I may have mentioned it.  (Did I ever tell you that someone broke up with me because of this post?  Not really, of course - it was on the map already - but it was the root cause of an argument about my just learning to filter myself please.  And went down hill from there.)

So a friend just emailed me this and I looked at Seventh Generation's site and it seems legit and it ties in neatly with a comment left regarding freecycling - that menstrual and cleaning supplies are often an unbearable burden on a very tight budget.  Being necessities that the world doesn't make much allowance for.

So go visit Seventh Generation's "tamponification" site - if you have something to say about your period they want to hear it.  And if you follow the two-click steps on the link, they'll donate chlorine-free menstrual supplies to a women's shelter in your state or province.  Or Kenya.  (The link gives options for 50 states, Puerto Rico, DC, 12 provinces and one African country.  I want to know the story there.)

Help some women in a tough spot without even leaving your desk...what could be better?  And pass it on......

Excuse me - gotta to go click on my state.....

21st Century Moments

I've been feeling pretty astonished by the days I live in recently, by the matter of factness with which I have adapted to improbable things.  I live 20 miles from where I grew up, yet my best friend lives in another country and this is workable because of technology that was speculative fiction until 5 years ago.

A few weeks ago I was in the car, crossing this bridge when I noticed that the river had frozen in the past 24 hours.  I was, at the time, talking to a friend and I pulled over, jumped out of the car, grabbed my camera and scrambled down to the river wall. 

I'm not a photographer.  I make a workmanlike record, rather than creating a beautiful image.  But I have good digital camera and I do enjoy how I see differently through the lens and through my eyes.  I'm standing there, phone stuck down my bra, wireless ear piece in - some fluke gave us a crystal connection in the wind - digital camera in hand, trying to find a way to show how extraordinary the ice looks and I had this moment of complete disassociation.

This is a 21st century moment. 

Later that day I had another one, less wonderful, but no less illustrative.

I don't know any phone numbers by heart any more because I have speed dial.  I do know a lot of email addresses.

I needed a hotel room recently, I went to Priceline.

I needed a claim number for a 6 year old workman's comp issue filed through a defunct contractor?  I went to Google, found a number, made a call and got what I needed in less than five minutes.

Google is a verb.

Checking email is a recreational activity.

Most of the most important people in my life I met online.  This no longer seems weird to me.

The baseline for minimal technology for 1st world life gets more and more absurd.  My handbag sometimes looks like a tech store: Phone, MP3 player, camera, notebook (and by notebook I mean very tiny computer), accessories and cords for same.

I just put my mother on Bluetooth to save my neck.

Ticketmaster is mocking me with its failure to put up the presale ticket information it was supposed to post at 10 am this morning.

Last time I bought a concert ticket, Ticketmaster sent me a text message to remind me when the tickets went on sale.

I bought my first computer in....1995?  It was a fortune, I researched for weeks about what to buy and the internet was AOL and a lot of undeveloped potential unless you were a real geek.  Things have changed.

My final example is a little indulgence I am actually kind of mortified and fascinated by in equal measure.  Meet the Aerogarden.

Its a counter-top hydroponic garden.  I'm growing my own lettuce.  Because I love a fresh salad and got tired of how bitter a lot of commercial greens are.

This picture is from almost two weeks ago...I've got sprouts now.  I come home every day and look to see how they are growing.  Sometime I think I can see a difference from moment to moment.

I find it all a little too entertaining.

I also wish you could have seen how beautiful the ice was that day.

   

Raise More Hell.

I just discovered (via Bitch PhD) that Molly Ivins has died of cancer.

Well, shit.  That sucks.

I wish I could be more eloquent about something that has given me a real and dreadful pang of loss.  But all I've got are the basics.

My father, who was a conservative and a Republican, was a huge fan of hers, oddly enough, and gave me her book, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? when I was in college.  I think I understand now that even if he couldn't admit it, he respected our differences - deep inside him was a progressive with no way out, I swear - and just wanted me to be more outspoken about what I believed (I used to be pretty quiet).  Molly Ivins was his way of telling me.

The Texas Observer has a tribute on their home page right now, well worth reading.  And the Nation as well.

 

A kick in the head.

A lot of people left comments yesterday expressing their deep gladness with singleness and wariness about dating and the insanity of other people and I really wanted to say a little bit about that.

First - my thanks for all your outrage and sympathy on my behalf.  It is much appreciated and also a lot of fun to picture you all at my back like angry dancing hookers in artistic rags.  My recent encounter with Love is a Battlefield in 13 Going On 30 lingers, apparently.

Second - there have absolutely been times when I have looked around at what I can see of coupled life and been deeply, deeply grateful to be unattached.  Just as I know my married friends sometimes look at my life and are envious of my independence and sometimes look at my life and are deeply, deeply grateful for their spouses, we all have moods and moments where the grass is greener.  Or not.

On balance, I would like a family.  If I don't ever find it, I will have a satisfying life, continue to evolve and enjoy myself and my freedom, despite the periods of loneliness.  If I do I will have a satisfying life, continue to evolve and enjoy myself and my family, despite my occasional longing for loneliness.  But I would like a family, so I date and I use the Internet because it has been a far more effective tool - for me - than real life for generating actual dates.

I don't do everything right, I assure you.  Every time I go out I learn a startling amount about myself and about other people.  Sometimes it is terribly painful, sometimes hilariously awful, sometimes exciting, sometimes wonderful.  But I like to learn.

And here is the point I want to make.  I do not regret any of it. 

Let me say it again - I do not regret any of it.  Not the ones that ended with a bang or the ones that ended with a whimper.  Not the ones who hurt my feelings.  Not the ones who made me incredibly angry.  Not the ones who made me doubt myself in a 1000 ways. Not the one who broke my heart. 

I really believe - not just saying it, not trying to believe it - that experience is a worthwhile goal in its own right.  Actually, I don't just believe this, I know it.
I want a great outcome, of course I do, a fantastic romance, a life changing love.....but our experiences never really complete themselves, so beginning by looking for a result is desperately premature, shortsighted even.  Fairytale thinking. 

Stories - real stories - don't ever end. 

It is the journey that learns us, the landscape we travel that shapes our lives and I chose to, as much as possible, remain open to it.  I concede that some days I do a better job than others.

That's what works for me - your experiences may have led you to a different perspective and I can't and wouldn't change that.
OK, that's a lie.  If you are my friend I have almost certainly tried to persuade you to this viewpoint.  Perhaps ad nauseum.   I like to think I would respect you enough to not be disrespectful, but I know something.  And I want you to know it too.

The things I told you about yesterday - yes, depressing.  People can be the worst.   
Also, deeply, perversely, limbs-don't-work funny.

I can't tell you to head out shields-down.  I can't, because you will absolutely, guaranteed, get kicked in the head.  Bruised.  Embarrassed.  You will worry that you're too fat, or bad in bed, or boring.  That no one will like you.  You will think that men are insane.  You will doubt yourself.  You will be sad.  You will show too much too soon, you will blow it by being too guarded, too careful.  You will be astonished at the lies people tell, as well as the lies you tell yourself.

You may also have someone say something to you you've never heard, you'll make out in a parking lot, someone will touch your hand and you'll feel things you had forgotten, you'll surprise yourself with what you're capable of, you'll stand on a street laughing as hard as you've ever laughed with someone and it will feel like a miracle for a minute.  You'll make a friend, you'll learn new kinds of honesty.  You might feel known.  You will learn what it is you really want. 

And you'll have lots of good stories.

I don't think life is supposed to be an even keel.  Have high expectations, have hopes, have standards.  Don't be afraid to tell someone to get lost.  But don't be afraid to tell someone to sit down either.