Coupla' things.

First of all, Friday I'll most likely ('God willing and the creeks don't rise' as a friend used to say) meet fellow knitblogger Diann, of Knits With Cats. This is my first blogger-meeting. It should be cool. (Well, the meeting should be cool but unfortunately it looks like the weather is going to be deadly hot again).

(Diann, if you don't get my e-mail, how about Kelley Square in downtown Sherman - maybe around 10:30 a.m. or so? We can figure out what to do from there.)

Last night, I cut a few more squares for the endless-seeming Paris Flea Market Rose quilt. I should have, in retrospect, gone with 6 1/2 inch size squares rather than 4 1/2 inch size. For a full bed quilt, I need 40 **dozen** squares at the smaller size. I still have 14 fat quarters to cut up.

I also added most of another repeat on the Hiawatha shawl. I think that seven will not be enough for the shawl to look in proper proportion. I may just hold it up and check after each new repeat is finished, but I suspect I'll wind up going for the full 10.

I also learned something interesting yesterday - you know the singer/actress Macy Grey? Turns out I went to high school with her. (She went by a different name then, of course, so I didn't realize it earlier). I didn't know her super-well, as she was a year or two ahead of me, but I remember her.

And you know, I'm happy for her (though, if I'm not misremembering, I thought she was planning on a pre-med track in college...). And it's kind of weirdly cool to realize you were in school with someone who's now famous. But you know, I have to admit a tiny bit of grass-looks-greener jealousy. As much as I realize there are probably things I'd totally detest about the music/entertainment business (first and foremost being that if your weight changes by even an ounce, the tabloids are all over it), I have to admit it would be sort of fun to be in a profession where one had fans. Not psycho-stalker fans, or the nutjobs who have massive plastic surgery to look like you because they lack identities of their own, but normal run-of-the-mill fans. People who eagerly await your new project. People who ask for your autograph if you happen to be sitting next to them on a plane. People who like what you do and let you know about it. (Although you'd also have detractors, as the second result on a Google search of her name shows. Although I think the dude writing that webpage may have some issues.). I dunno. It would just be nice to be in a career where you weren't almost universally portrayed as either evil, bumbling/absentminded (as much as I actually MAY BE absentminded, I don't like the stereotype), someone who's so socially inept that they COULDN'T work in another field, or the old, "those who can, do...." proverb (which really makes my blood boil, really it does.).

Although I suppose if being a professor were as "cool" as being a singer, it would be a lot harder to get jobs in the field. Still, the general pop-culture stereotypes of the scientist-professor - either as someone who's sort of inept at living and can only survive in the terrarium of the university, or, worse, as someone who's evil and twisted and not like normal people - really bug me.