Heh. Seems I've garnered a bit of fame for my comments on the new movie that may or may not be based on a Jules Verne novel.

It amuses me what people pick up on. I wonder now if I have almost as many non-knitting readers as I do knitting readers - because there are thousands of knitblogs out there (well, still thousands, I guess. A lot of them have gone defunct in the past couple years, either because the person writing them got sick of it, or they had life-changes [babies, new jobs] that prevented them from having time.) And I realize I'll never be a "knitting celebrity" (though I admit I fantasize a bit about it: how lovely it would be to have a hand-dyer name a color combination after me, or be invited on a lecture tour, or have people longing for my input on things). In reality, I'm not that creative (in the sense of coming up with fancy shiny new content, like a free online magazine or a weblog that could be parlayed into a book deal. And perhaps I lack the personality necessary for that type of fame - I've said before I'm not that good at self-promotion and I am probably overly modest about my accomplishments (if the comments of my department chair at annual evaluation time are anything to go by).

But still. It's fun to write, and especially fun when I know other people are reading and might get a laugh or a different way of thinking from what I've said.

*****

I really needed to get to Sherman for certain things today, including a run to Sam's Club. (Yes, I know that it's odd that I as a single person living alone has a membership, but whatever. It's sort of comforting to be able to buy a year's worth of t.p. and such at one go....knowing I won't have to do THAT kind of shopping again for a while)

And I spent part of my "stimulus check" - they had vols. 1 and 2 of the Poirot movies (the ones with David Suchet, which, IMHO, are the only Poirots worth watching) at Sam's Club, for $25 each. I dithered about it but decided that some Friday evening this fall, when I'm tired and want to be entertained and everything on the television stinks ("TV, stop being stupid!" is one of my regular comments-to-an-inanimate-object), I will be glad to have these. Because they're one of the things I find re-watchable - I love the costume design and the stylishness of the setting and the characters and the fact that nothing is crude or coarse and I especially love Poirot.

Or they'll be good for when I'm sad and I just need something absorbing and pleasant and that I love to cheer me up.

I also needed to get a new pair of khakis and a few other garment type things. (Kohl's for that. And, true to form, the three items I bought - a skirt and two pairs of slacks - were all marked with different sizes. The sizing of women's clothing is kind of nuts. My theory on it is that we're all so hung up on our actual physical size* that it would give the female populace of this nation a collective aneurysm if they started sizing clothes like they size men's jeans, in other words with actual inch measurements of how big the waist, etc., are. Of course for women you need waist, hip, bust and possibly rise or length of the waist to actually get an idea of the fit...But still. It's frustrating to pull, say, a 14 off the rack, when shopping alone, try it on, find it's too big/too small and then have to truck out to find another size. At least when I shopped with my mom I could send HER to get the correct size.

*because otherwise, why would a size 0 be presented as something to aspire for? I know there are size 0 women and while I suppose they're glad to be able to find clothes that fit...to me it just seems strange to refer to a body size as a 0. I'm not sure I'd want my body size referred to as a number used to designate nullity.)

I also went to three stores-that-sell-books-and-magazines in hopes of scoring a copy of the new KnitScene, which is supposed to be out. No luck. (I know: I should just take out a subscription and be done with it.)

And I went to Hobby Lobby. They are carrying the new Red Heart sock yarn and also apparently will be carrying Paton's Kroy.

Except they had exactly 1 50-g ball of each color they were carrying. One. That's great if you want to make socks for a tiny child (or your favorite house-elf), but for an actual adult person, 75-100 g of the yarn is necessary. And none of the single-ball combinations would have worked as pairs for striped socks or such.

I wonder if they'll not sell any, then cancel any future orders, saying, "People around here just don't knit socks."

I did, however, do something I had not planned on doing.

I bought another row-counter. So I can start the lace ribbon scarf. Because I really need something new to work on.

I also took myself out to lunch. An Olive Garden has opened in Sherman. I got some kind of shrimp and pasta dish. It was good, but I expect that garlic will probably be coming out of my pores for the rest of the weekend. I don't use such a heavy hand with garlic when I cook.

The good thing about it? I'm done shopping for a while. Doing it all as a big bolus makes sense, both gas-wise and in terms of burning me out on shopping - mid morning I was like, "I'm done. I'm ready to go home" but of course I still had other things on my list to do.