Paging Dr. Phil...

Because my only response to this shirt is "How's THAT working out for you?" (said in the most sarcastic possible tone).

(It's a t-shirt for preteen girls, claiming they are "too pretty" to do homework, so they get their brother to do it for them. Yes, I know it's humor, but...I don't find it all that funny*. Just like I don't find the whole "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them" line of girl's t-shirts funny.)

Or, maybe, I'll quote another syndicated-television guru, Judge Judy (who I like a darn sight better than Dr. Phil): "Beauty fades but stupid is forever."

(FOR-EVER....FOR-EVER....FOR-EVER....)

(*the fact that I don't find it funny may have something to do with having been a college prof for a dozen years now, and a TA for nearly as many years before that, and having seen more than my share of arguments from students as to why they shouldn't "have" to do some instructional thing. No one's ever claimed to be too attractive to do, say, a lab write-up, but I've heard excuses that have come close.)

And yes, I know they discontinued it after people complained, but, golly...doesn't anyone remember the furor over "Math is hard!" Barbie? I wonder who greenlighted that shirt and if he still has a job...

A quilt's cost

To Anonymous: it depends greatly, but $400 sounds excessive unless it is a king-sized bed quilt requiring detailed, specific, line-by-line quilting. (Though for handquilting...all bets are off. I used to pay $75 for a small-twin that my mom's church group quilted)

I get the quilts I make quilted with an "allover" pattern (not following the seam lines of the piecing). I think the last full-sized quilt I had done, a couple years ago, was on the order of $120.

I paid $80 for two slightly-larger-than-crib sized quilts ($80 for both) that will go to Project Linus.

Not sure what this one will cost exactly; I think she said roughly $90, but that was with a different batting and a tighter pattern.

That was FAST.

The quilt I took in for quilting Friday?

It's done already. That's wonderful. I told the woman at the quilt shop I hoped to be able to pick it up Friday. (I may take another quilt down at the same time...I have quite a few tops ahead that I should just get quilted up, and save just one or two extra-special ones to hand quilt myself.)

I also have some binding to do...I have the two "puppy dog" print quilts that were done earlier this summer, I need to get bindings on those so I can take them to a Project Linus drop-off point some time when I get a chance. And now I'll have this one to bind.

Restarting a project

I commented earlier, in reference to the Jane Brocket "Gentle Art of Knitting" book (and having looked at it again this afternoon, I stand by my assessment that it's a nice book. "Nice" in the nicest possible way: friendly and restful and comfortable to look at, with attractive, enticing photographs and projects that would be pleasant to make and to use) that I should re-start my Vintage Vertical Crochet Blanket

Look what I found. (It was where I remembered having put it - stuffed in a bag with some of the yarns I was using on it.)



I added a couple more rows while relaxing this evening. This is going to take a long time - 250 double crochets per row is no joke. But it will be nice when finished - colorful, vintage-y in that sort of "cheap but cheerful" way that some things used to be made of bits and scraps. It's very heavy and I expect it will be extremely warm when finished.

The pattern's been around quite a while, in Internet time - it was first published on Bella Dia in 2006. As best I can determine by hunting in my archives, I stared one round about May 2007...and mostly didn't work on it.

But now I've dug it back out, found that I had, in fact, acquired a Clover ergonomic hook in size I (so I won't kill my wrist with the old Susan Bates hook I had been using), and started up again. (And I might...I just might...on my trip out this weekend see if there's any "clearance" yarn anywhere, where I can just add one or two skeins to the palette of mostly-dark colors I have right now.)

The fun thing about the blanket is trying to decide what color to do next. Every row is done in a different color but I am trying to space the repeats (especially of the super-bright colors, like the hot pink) carefully so it looks a bit less haphazard.

I know, the "cool knitters" have all moved on to doing the Hexapuff quilts (And I admit, they do have the attraction of (a) being pretty and hexagonal - I think hexagonal shapes are very attractive and (b) using up those oddments of sock yarn you wind up with, if you are the kind of knitter who makes socks). But I'm not sure I will ever make one, because of the time commitment involved (she says as she embarks again on a double-crochet blanket that is some 6' long and will eventually be at least 4' wide) but also, the name is a bit....offputting? It makes me think of Heffalumps. Or perhaps Parasprites.. (Heh. I saw that episode and I was all "My Little Ponies tackles the issue of invasive species!")

But I've kind of mentally designated this fall as FINISH ALL THE THINGS! (I have three other very long-stall projects: the Samus cardigan (which I may just have to re-start from scratch if I've lost my place on the bottom braid too badly), a pair of socks knit of Wisdom Yarn's "Poem Sock" (very pretty yarn but miserably splitty - I'm up to the second sock's heel flap), and the Rosy-Fingered Dawn Shawl, which I have sitting on my hassock where I stack up projects, and which I occasionally look sadly at and think I really need to get back to).

New word, maybe?

I was writing a post in a Ravelry thread about an unfortunate e-mail that my department received from a prospective student. (It was a hot mess of misspelling, poor grammar, lack of punctuation, and lack of capitalization).

I remarked: "It made my inner grammarista cry."

Now, I don't know...it could be I read that somewhere and my brain appropriated it and I forgot the source. Or it's also possible it's one of those polyphyletic things that many people come up with at once.

But the word immediately pleased me. ("Grammarista," similar to "fashionista.") A lot of times people use "Grammar nazi" for people who are strict on grammar, but I dislike that because:

a. I don't like for anything except the evil that was national socialism to be associated with nazis. (See: Godwin's Law.)

and

b. Caring about grammar and the proper use thereof does not make one a nazi.

So: "grammarista." Which means one cares deeply about it, likely more than other people do - but there isn't necessarily a negative connotation attached to it.

(Crud. I had forgotten until just now about "Sandinista," which does have political connotations that are negative for at least some, and was probably the origin of the "-ista" suffix. Well, darn it, I STILL like my neologism and will pretend that it is modeled solely on "fashionista." Yes, my instinct was right: World Wide Words gives the origin of the "-ista" suffix. Ah well. I STILL like it better than "grammar nazi.")

Come on, fall

One of the people I follow on Twitter - Aven, maybe? commented the other day that there's a point in August after which, it may still be warm, but it feels like it's switched over to fall mode.

(Now, correcting for the fact that Aven lives in Canada and I live in Oklahoma...that day here should come early October...)

But at least today it's overcast. Which feels like an improvement. It's still kind of muggy but at least the sun isn't blazing away like it has been for so many weeks.

As I've said before, I like clouds and I like rain. (Really what I like though, is variation in the weather. Too many days of the same thing gets me down).

I'm waiting for the day - it already seemed to have occurred up in Illinois right before I left there - when the sunlight starts to take on more of a "golden" and less of a "white hot" tone. That's when it feels like fall. I'm sure it's tied up with the apparent angle of the sun in the sky.

(One of the things I love, and think is wonderful and fascinating, is the analemma. It always made me sad that my genbio students never seemed to think it was as cool as I did. And here's another great series of analemma photos, this time taken over Greek ruins.)

I notice this on a much smaller scale as I drive to work every morning. (Or at least, I can notice it when Mulberry Street is open and not messed up by construction - I drive a couple blocks east on it before turning onto First to go up to campus). In the summer, the sun appears to be north of Mulberry - and then in the winter, it's south of Mulberry (discounting those days when, because of the butt-end or very-beginning of DST, I have to drive to work in the dark). There are a few days when, if the sun is up when I'm driving to class, it's right smack in my eyes as I drive up Mulberry. (A Stonehenge effect! Mulberry-henge? Of course, it's not really keyed to any particular equinox or solstice or anything that I've noticed).

So, at any rate, I anticipate that day when I can feel like things have tipped over to fall. Because fall really is my favorite season. (Someday, when I have more flexibility of time - probably won't be until I've retired - I AM going to take a trip somewhere where there is good fall foliage and just stay there for like a week and drive/hike around and look at the trees. Because real "fall color" is one thing I miss living down here - most years, the leaves just kind of dry up and fall off the trees.)

(And mirabile dictu, the NOAA weather page took away our heat advisory! It's still supposed to be 102 today, but it might rain...and at any rate, 102 is cooler than what we've had for a while).

It is supposed to get "cooler" this weekend (mid to lower 90s, rather than mid to upper 100s). I thought I'd never look forward to, and think of, lower 90s weather as 'cooler' but there you are. (Maybe the heat has given me some form of Stockholm Syndrome. I know I feel like I've been a hostage to my house for several weeks).

I still plan to go antiquing this weekend. I'm strongly leaning towards Sherman/Denison (both towns have antique shops). The bonus would be that at the end of the antiquing day, I could make "big grocery store" run to either the Kroger or the Target...and be able to get stuff I can't get up here.

***

I helped out at the local...not sure what to call it, I don't like the name "soup kitchen," because we don't ever serve soup, and "soup kitchen" sounds very Depression-era to me - but a local charity that serves a free hot meal, mostly no questions asked, to anyone who needs one. (This is something the church I belong to does fairly regularly. I can't often help out because I usually have Monday afternoon commitments).

I remember how someone I used to know talked about this and the local food bank, how she felt those things just encouraged "continued dependence." And I have to disagree with the person on that...it's not like the people eating there are doing it to take advantage of it, it's not, I think, an "Oh, hey, if I eat here I don't have to buy food" kind of thing. No, it's more a "there's no food at all in the house, I will have no money until payday, and at any rate, I don't have a working car so how do I get to the grocery store?" thing.

I know that if I were in a situation where I had to go to an old school cafeteria every day, wait in line, be surrounded by lots of other people, and then eat whatever was provided me, I'd do whatever I could, if possible, to get out of that situation.

A lot of the people we served were elderly. A number of them were disabled in some way. The men who came through, most of them looked like day-laborers - their clothes suggested someone who did landscaping or roofing work. (Ugh, doing roofing in this heat!). One man, when I handed him his iced tea, commented that this was the first chance he had to eat all day.

So, I don't worry so much about "continuing dependence." I don't think the food we serve is so wonderful that a person would "scam" and not buy their own food if they could.

I know a lot has been said about "the poor" - and I know I've seen students of mine who complained they "couldn't afford" the textbooks for my class, all the while while texting on a fancier nicer cell phone than what I'd bother to have. And I'm aware that there are a number of people who maybe set their priorities poorly and who wind up not being able to pay bills at the end of the month because they spent frivolously.

But there are also people who are really, truly in need...those are the people we're feeding. I didn't see any fancy cars in the lot or anyone using a fancy cell phone. I hear about "food insecurity" - meaning there's a certain segment of the population, even here in the U.S., who cannot keep food on the table. Not because they spend their money on fancy toys, not because they can't plan...but because there's no money. The center that provides the food is in the "poorer" part of town and as I drove there I noticed many houses with windows and doors standing open - presumably the people do not have, or cannot afford to run, air conditioning. (And with our nights not getting down below 80 or 82...that must put a lot of physical stress on people.)

I think they said last night that 144 people came through for meals...maybe a few more because I think they just have the adults sign in, and there were a number of children. (One of the people who runs the place was also handing out school supplies to some of the kids...they also do a coat drive in the winter). One of the people in charge commented that they tend to see a peak before the first of the month (when checks come out) but that they'd been consistently feeding more people lately.

So, I don't know. While I don't have a lot of patience for the student who claims they can't afford a textbook (because they have car payments to make on a fancier car than they really NEED) or the person who goes into major debt trying to impress their neighbors...the people we fed last night are not those people.

I will say when I finished with my shift (4 to 6 pm - we stop serving at 6) and got home, I felt more gratitude than I had thought about in a while - for a good strong roof over my head, and the wherewithal to pay for air conditioning, and for a well-stocked fridge, and for the ability to choose what I wanted to eat for dinner, rather than having to take what was provided.

Knitting for comfort

That's what I spent most of the rest of my free time this weekend doing. (Well, I did also spend maybe 2 hours total handquilting on the quilt in the frame).

I worked some on several "stalled" projects - the Tea Time Socks (the first one has been done for a while; I'm about half done now with the leg of the second one). These are knit on size 0 needles (the pattern specified, "Do not knit the leg too loosely or the pattern will not show up"). (Also, size 0 needles mean that the fabric is "tighter" and will wear better).

I also pulled out the Lace Ribbon Scarf that's been sitting on the table next to my big chair for months and added a few more rows to it.

One of the things I like about knitting (and also about quilting) is that with most projects, you can put them down when you need to, and you can pick them back up months later, and find your place, and start again. As much as I used to enjoy doing work with clay back when I was in high school (and as much as I'd love to be able to use a potter's wheel again, and actually get proficient at it), that's not the kind of thing you can easily pick up and put down and give only 10 minutes to at a time if that's all you have.

I also was thinking about the idea of "knitting for comfort" - I bought Jane Brocket's new knitting book ("The Gentle Art of Knitting") with my last Amazon order. (The rest of the order was two books that I need to read for the directed readings class I teach - "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," which I've been intending to read for a while (but admit, I put off until I "had" to because I suspected the ethical breaches discussed will make me sad and angry) and another one called something like "What's going on in there?" (it's about the brain development in babies and small children - and the woman who picked that book as her choice is expecting a child (not sure if it's her first or not, but I think it's interesting that she's reading that book at this time).

I haven't fully digested "The Gentle Art of Knitting" yet. (It's one of those books that takes multiple go-throughs in order to see everything). Lovely photography, as always. And the whole idea of coziness and comfort - for example, there are a set of hot-water-bottle covers done in colors to match various publisher's spine-colors (There's "Persephone Grey," for example).

My immediate "favorite" (and the one I started thinking about sockyarns in my stash that would work for) was the cabled sock pattern. But there are also pillows and a big bulky pullover and facecloths and several lovely afghans. (Some of those might actually be crocheted, if I remember rightly...which reminds me that somewhere deep in one of my project-bags, I have that "vintage crocheted afghan" that I never got very far on...and should maybe consider pulling out again and working on.)

I like the book because it is very restful to look at. As I said, the photographs are lovely and suggest coziness and comfort - being in on a rainy winter night with a good book and a cup of tea. Or having a big arrangement of the first flowers of spring on your mantel, even though you might still need to wear a scarf to keep your neck warm.

***

Next Monday we get off (Labor Day). I've decided that the end of this week, Friday afternoon I'm going to work on whatever (either some research stuff or making up yet another chapter's stuff for PI) and Monday I'm gonna come in and work. But Saturday, I am taking off.

I think I'm going to go antiquing in Sherman and/or Denison, and take myself out to lunch somewhere, but that could change. (I could also just go to the couple of antique shops here in town....and there's a tearoom sort of place where I could get lunch. Or I could go over to Ardmore, though that's a lot farther).

I think I need to try to plan "waypoints" for myself where I can say, "Yes, you are working this Saturday, but in x number of weeks, you can have a Saturday off."

I have to say, I marvel at the strength and persistence of people who work multiple jobs, who never get a day off, who are going from 8 in the morning until 9 at night or something like that. I suppose when you have to (when it's a matter of being able to keep a roof over your family's head and feeding your children, or something), you manage, but seeing how exhausted I am after a "normal" week where I don't even work as hard as many people...well.

Quilt for comfort

The photography session was much more pleasant than it might have been. The two employees of the photo-place were a married couple (he photographed, she collected the information and went over the pictures with us so we could pick the one we liked best for the directory.) When the photographer found out I was a bio prof, he talked about how his degrees were originally in science education (earth history concentration, it sounded like). He talked about some of the field trips he had gone on as a student, and I think that led to me smiling more comfortably and more naturally than if he had come at me with "honey" and "darlin'" and "sugar."

(There are very few men I permit to call me things like that...my father, though he has only ever called me "hon" as a term of endearment. And I guess it would be okay, if a little weird, from my brother (though my brother would be much more prone to call me "duuuuuude!" than he would be to call me "sugar."). And a hypothetical boyfriend/husband. Or a very close male friend if he were the sort of male friend who would, if you get my drift, never be romantically linked to me. But other than that, no. I'm more comfortable with some of my female friends calling me "honey" and stuff, because they are mostly the older sort of friend and they call pretty much any woman who is 20 or more years their junior "honey.")

I will say one of the really nice things about digital photography is that you can LOOK at the photographs right away and go "Yeah, that's one's ok...no, ugh, not that one..." and so on...you don't have to come back to look at proofs or anything.

After that, I decided to take a few minutes and run to the quilt shop. I decided to put together one of my quilt plus backings that I had hanging around and take it down to get it quilted. (It's the Piecrust pile-up pattern I made quite a while back. (January 2010, to be exact). I had a nice backing for it - bought at the very quilt shop where I took the quilt to be quilted - that is printed to look like pseudo-Scandinavian colorwork knitting. Which I think is pretty perfect for a quilt for me.

The little quilt shop in town seems to still be thriving - the fairly short time I was in there, several people came in and bought stuff. And they now are offering classes, I see. And they have the quilting service. (I was lucky...the young woman who is one of the co-owners said that "Oh, the lady who does the quilting has a bit of a lull right now, so she ought to be able to get to yours almost right away."). I chose to have the quilt done with an allover snowflake design. There was a quilt up on the wall quilted in the design and it looked good. (And the quilter can do it a bit smaller and tighter for me - apparently her longarm machine allows for resizing and rescaling of designs).

I also realized I had one of their "loyalty cards" all filled out. Many quilt shops do this - you buy a certain amount of stuff (either all at one time, or over many trips) and they will fill in a card, or punch a card, or something - and when you spend a certain amount, you get either a percentage off your next purchase, or money off your next purchase. (Many places do 10% off...at this quilt shop, once you've spent, I think it's $200? you get a card good for $20 off your next purchase of $20 or more - which is a fantastically good deal because they will also count the cost of having quilting done to the card, so it can add up fast.)

So I decided to spend the card. At first I thought of buying yet another jelly roll, but then I remembered that I had seen more of the fabrics from a line called "Hideaway" (very, very cute novelty fabrics with kind of a pseudo-Alpine theme - there is one with wee tiny deer on it, and another with cuckoo clocks, and another with chalets. I had some of the deer fabric and some of the chalets, and some other fabric I'd picked out that went with those...but I decided I wanted more, to do a larger quilt. So I went around picking out fabrics and came up with a nice pile of things - some from that same line, but several from other lines (other fabric companies, even) that coordinated and also had the same sort of style to them.)

While I was "accumulating" (and "auditioning fabric" - which means holding a bolt of stuff you think will work up to the growing pile and kind of squinting at it to see if the colors go), another person came in with a quilt to drop off. This person is a Local Quilting Personality - I don't know her personally but do know her by name and reputation. She had some fairly detailed instructions as to how she wanted her quilt done (in contrast to my, "Oh, yeah, the polycotton blend batting will be nice. And I like that snowflake design over there but if she could make it a tad smaller it would be even better.") I don't say this as a criticism but as a setting-up of something I'm going to say later.

While I was waiting for my stuff to be cut (I wound up with, um, nine fabrics. But hey, some of that fabric was FREE) she asked me what I was going to make with it. I said I hadn't fully decided, maybe a simple geometric pattern like the Rail Fence or something...something that would show off the fabrics.

And she started talking about quilts she had made, pointed out one hanging up in the store, showed off some applique she had done. And while I don't think it was at all her intention, I got a bit of the feeling I used to get from a few more hardcore-than-me quilters I've dealt with. As I said, I think this lady was just sharing information about what she liked to do but in the past, I've dealt with a few "quilt snobs" who took the attitude of "If you're not doing applique, you're not really making a quilt top." or "If you're not doing stuff like Mariner's Compass [which has really tiny fiddly points and pieces cut at challenging angles], you're just kind of playing with fabric." In other words: if you're not constantly stretching yourself to push harder, do more complex things, to stretch yourself, you're wasting your time.

And I don't know. But by the time at the end of the week when I can finally sit down at my sewing machine, I'm pretty much all stretched out already. Especially this semester when I'm having to go deep into my memory for things I've not thought about in 10-15 years, like the Chemiosmotic Coupling Hypothesis and also learning stuff I didn't even know existed (well, maybe NONE of us knew existed 15 years ago) like chaperonins.

So, when I make quilts I want to make things that are just pretty and functional and that GET DONE. (I could probably do a Mariner's Compass if I set my mind to it, but I'd still be working on it when I was 80. I'd rather make the simple geometric pieced quilts - which I like the look of, anyway - and actually get them done and be able to use them.)

So I admit I felt briefly a little forlorn after my ditzy little comment about "I might do a rail fence" when the other quilter was showing me all this complex stuff she had done.

But driving home, I realized: She quilts for her reasons, and I quilt for my reasons. And those reasons are (apparently) very different. She quilts to impress people and win contests and stuff. I quilt to feel like I've got something to show for my free time, to put together pretty fabric in ways that delight me, to make quilts that are cheerful and funny and make me a little happier when I wrap up in them after a difficult week. I don't care if none of my quilts ever win a prize...that's not why I make them. I make them for me. They're one of the relatively few things in my life I don't feel judged on (my teaching, my grantwriting, my manuscripts, even some of my volunteer work...I get "judged" on all of that) and I need that in my life.

And this line popped into my head: it's inexact for the situation but it made me laugh all the same: I quilt for comfort, not for speed. (reference, in case anyone's unfamiliar).

Heh. Maybe I need that on a t-shirt. (The world of t-shirts being what it is, there probably already exists one that says that.)

Your own mask...

I'm back in my office. I think they're probably serving the lunch now. I wound up bailing on serving after learning that they were all delayed at the cemetery, and that they probably wouldn't be back before 1:30.

So I went home, at lunch, finished my day's piano practice, and now I'm back here to start prepping the definition slides/diagrams for cell metabolism.

I feel guilty about bailing, but I'm just to the point of being wiped out...I've been pushing myself like crazy this week, the heat makes every day feel like it's a month long, my tolerance is low...and when the lady in charge came up to me and said, "you cooked and helped set up. We have enough people to serve" I remembered something the minister's wife once said in a cwf meeting: that when airplanes have an emergency severe enough to make the oxygen masks drop down, you have to put your own mask on first, before you help your child or elderly parent or the person next to you who can't manage theirs - that if you're gasping for air, you won't be much of a help to anyone.

So, my minimal goal now this afternoon is to finish the next two chapters. And then I'll take the other classes' stuff home and work on it tomorrow. And if I can get home by 4 or 4:30, I will force myself to do the hour of exercise I couldn't this morning.

(I wonder now if I could be starting to develop some kind of low-level thing, like a cold...I don't feel "right" and often that's a warning.)

And Okay, Okay:

I talk about not liking to be told what to do, and then I tell east coasters what to do in the hurricane.

I retract that statement.

But I do worry about people. The aftereffects of Katrina (which I may have seen more of on the news, being where I am) are still too fresh in my mind.

It's finally Friday

I'm really worn out.

I'm also borderline tearful this morning. I suspect I will not fare so great at the funeral today. (borderline tearful because of other stuff, not just because of saying goodbye).

Crud. I forgot to bring tissues. I'll have to steal some from one of the classrooms.

I baked a cake last night...they're having a "light lunch" but they still wanted cake. So I made the hot milk sponge cake that I've made many times before (for happier occasions) and made a cooked chocolate frosting ("Chocolate Satin" frosting out of the County Fair cookbook I posted about last week). Doing a cooked type of frosting is less annoying than the sort of no-recipe, "mix some milk and some powdered sugar and then add flavorings" frosting I have done in the past - with the no-recipe one, either I wound up with not enough or way too much. And I'd have to keep adding more milk or more sugar and it sometimes wound up too stiff or too runny.

Another thing I'm fed up with right now - part of the Groundhog Day mentality I'm suffering - is the construction near my house. This is that intersection they just closed from February on. It was supposed to be finished at the start of this month. Well, it's open again, in the sense that you can drive through it, but it's not finished - they still have barrels up blocking some lanes, and the stoplights are set to blink red, which signifies "treat it as a four-way stop."

I have not seen ANYONE - nor have I heard anyone, and I live within hearing distance of the site, I got to hear them tearing up pavement all spring - working on it since I've been back from break. So I now refer to it as "Your Tax Dollars Not At Work" and I am quite annoyed...it's like the crew looked at it, went "Good enough" and moved on to some other project. While we're left to deal with an unfinished and imperfect intersection. (And no, I don't think it's a "don't work out in the heat" issue - I've seen construction crews on other projects. Or, they could work first thing in the morning before it's 100 degrees out)

And the thing that particularly irritates me is that some people around here do not understand the concept of a four-way stop. The first car arriving goes first. Than the next car. YOU TAKE TURNS. I've run into people who decide to be "generous" and wave others through (messing up the order) or, worse, who decide that four-way stop means, "The most impatient person goes first."

This morning, pulling up to the stop, I waited on a small white car (there first), then a red pickup truck. And then, the guy in a gray convertible who was behind the pickup truck decided it was HIS turn, even though it was mine. (Somehow, it flashed in my mind that he might do that, so I didn't accelerate too fast). Yup, he blew right on through.

"You're a dingleberry. Who owns a convertible. Good for yooooooou!" I exclaimed to the air as he sailed by. (If I had pulled through like I was "supposed" to, he would have t-boned me. Right in the driver's side of my car.)

I really don't want to buy the farm on my way to work. If I do, I will ask permission from St. Peter or whoever handles those things to be allowed to HAUNT the person who killed me.

It's bad enough driving in to work at 7 am on a day after a night when you didn't have enough sleep and you were hurting too badly to work out and then the local news had a story on OMG IN 20 YEARS HALF OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION WILL BE OBESE and you look down at your potbelly and begin to feel personally responsible and wonder if you could skip the bowl of Cheerios this morning and maybe every meal between now and October....

I really need to get out and do something fun; I can sense my mental equilibrium starting to slip, but I also really need to prepare the next three chapters of PI stuff.

And I have to get my picture made tomorrow. They're doing a new church directory. They warned us it could take up to an hour. I hate being photographed. (I don't mind photographing myself wearing something I knit or sewed...that's different. But having someone fussing over me and talking me up and reminding me to smile and stuff...my parents had it done recently and afterward, my mother kind of rolled her eyes and said she got heartily sick of being called "honey" or "darlin'" repeatedly.)

Oh no, Irene

If you're on the East Coast in the path of the storm, and they tell you you need to be getting out, please to be getting out right now. This looks like it could be extremely bad. I think flooding - and farther inland than people might think it could go - is likely to be the big thing with this.

(Even IF everyone gets out...well, I'm thinking of all the historic buildings and such that will be in its path..and I feel sad.)

If I could push our "dome of high pressure" far enough east to steer the hurricane safely out to sea, trust me, I'd be doing it. And not just (and not even "mainly") because that would get rid of our high pressure and heat and drought.

But then again...

You do have to try to find little things that make it seem worthwhile. Little escapes, little amusements.

(I think part of my malaise this morning is twofold: I worked all day long yesterday and then worked all evening. And also, because of the level of stuff going into my brain, I'm having crazy jumbled-up dreams where I wake up feeling like I haven't slept, because my brain's processing so darn much. And that's not likely to change any time soon. I just have a lot of things I have to do this fall.)

Then again, there are things out there that make me feel at least momentary delight:

My Little Top Gear Or perhaps, Top Ponies. I don't know. (Charles posted this on his Twitter stream). It's a very clever job of re-lip-synching the ponies and editing the audio. (Rarity is Jeremy Clarkson, Fluttershy is Richard Hammond, and Pinkie Pie is James May. Which I also find hilarious.)

Top Gear is one of those shows where I don't really know what they're talking out perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 of the time (British terminology plus car stuff conspire to leave me in the dark on some of it) but I still find it amusing. (Yes, yes, I know there's an American version out there; never have seen it. I'm thinking I wouldn't find it nearly as amusing because the main reason I watch the Brit version is for the interaction between the hosts - and for the classic British "game with points" where the points are either ludicrously assigned or total cheats. (They used to do similar on "My Word" and "My Music," both BBC radio programs I used to be able to listen to on WCLV...)

The endless weather.

We are supposed to have a "cold front" come in today.

The predicted high for the day is still 105.

No, I don't get it either. If it's a joke, it's certainly not a very funny one.

I think a big part of my distress with this kind of weather is the unchangingness of it. That every day is a carbon copy of the previous one. They could just tape the meteorologist saying "High in the low 100s, heat index near 110, no rain. Don't go outside unless you have to" and send him or her on vacation until mid-September at least.

On the one hand, large unsettling changes upset me. But on the other hand, the feeling that I've somehow fallen into a time warp where every day is a repeat of the previous one bothers me, too. And the weather is one thing I look to for evidence that I'm not actually living "Groundhog Day."

I like rain. I enjoy looking at clouds (Well, we get a few of those...they come and taunt us for a while, and then dissipate). I like some variation in the temperature.

I admit, this is the time of year where I do feel like every day is more or less a repeat of the previous ones. As I walk out to my car in the morning, I ask myself: "Do you still really want to be doing this when you're 60 or 65? Carrying your little bag with your little string cheese sticks and jar of fruit and granola bar, going over to work at a time when most reasonable people are still asleep, working all day, then coming home?"

On good days, the answer is "yes" but on not-so-good days, when there's either an acrimonious or time-wasting meeting, or where I fail to connect with the students, or I have to deal with demanding people, or something, I find myself wondering. Especially when I don't have much time to pursue my "alternate life" that exists outside of work. (I got home after 5 yesterday afternoon. Washed my hair, practiced piano for 20 minutes, ate dinner, and then read several more chapters of the new-prep textbook).

And it's not even, on the bad days, that I so much want to be out of academia...but that I want things to be different somehow. That I don't want to be trucking in after 5 pm on Wednesdays with a full slate of things still to do in the evening...Or that I realize I have to do my grocery shopping at (ugh) 4 pm on a weekday because I can't quite stretch the milk out to last until Saturday morning. Or that I just feel like I'm shouldering so much by myself. And feeling like I'm STILL making it up as I go along.

So, I don't know. I guess a person has to find little things to amuse them.

Last night, on The Weather Channel, they were talking about their new "social networking" stuff and how "everyone Tweets the weather."

And I remarked: "Yeah, but no one ever does anything about it."

Some knitting content

First off, a tiny finished object:



These are a little pair of mitties. I knit them from Alison Van Zandt's (of Simply Sock Yarn) "Simple Shorty Mitts." She sent the pattern - it's printed on a little glossy card, very nice - with the most recent order of yarn I got.

I used the second ball of the "Rocky Gorge" colored Wildfoote - the first ball going to make fingerless mitts for my mom. This pattern took maybe 3/4 of the ball - so maybe 35 grams? Somewhere less than 200 yards, at any rate.

These are a gift for my swap partner in the most recent online swap (And now I have everything assembled so later this week I should send it off). Oh, I don't think my swap partner reads here, and even if she does, I don't think she knows I'm her swap partner.

I want to make a second pair of these, maybe out of some leftover BFL* sockyarn I have, or an extra ball of one of those Paton's striping sock yarns.

(*BFL - Blue-faced Leicester. A breed of sheep)

They didn't take long at all to make, and though they're fairly simple, I think they're kind of nice.

Also, the red scarf (another giveaway project) is growing:



I feel happier about this now that it "looks like" a scarf. I joined in the second ball of Bamboo Ewe the other night - I think it will take all of two balls to be long enough. (I have three.) If I decide to bind off before attaching the third ball, I can always use it to make a hat or mittens or something for some other group that needs warm things. (Or swap/give it to someone else who needs that color). That sort of tomatoey-red is the worst possible color for me to wear, so I won't be making anything for myself of it.

This is a comforting sort of pattern to knit on - easily memorized, proceeds fairly rapidly, has a nice rhythm to it.

I was in the campus nurse's office yesterday afternoon (allergy immunotherapy) and the student serving as receptionist asked me how long it took me to make a scarf. That's always a hard question because I can't really answer it - I work on things here and there, as I have a few minutes. Or at night, when I'm listening to music or watching television or sometimes even reading. So I can't keep track of how long, really...sometimes people actually get annoyed with me for answering that way, but she understood and remarked that it was "cool" that I knit.

(I keep waiting for someone to ask me to teach them. It will come, someday, I'm sure.)

I had been thinking, "It would be interesting to try another version of this scarf, but use one of those color-shifting yarns like Kureyon for it."

And I also got to thinking: Maybe my mom needs a new scarf as a Christmas present. (Never fear - she doesn't read the blog. Doesn't even know about it, I think. (Now watch me get a "Busted, Erica!" message from her or my dad.)

And then, last Friday, when I ran down to the Target - and took a few minutes to duck into the Hobby Lobby just to, you know, look, because it is, you know, close to the Target, and if I've driven a half-hour to get to Target I might as well at least LOOK at some yarn.

And those two ideas: "fun to make this cabley scarf out of a color-shifting yarn" and "maybe I should make my mom a scarf" combined into ONE idea when I saw this:



That's "Amazing," which is (apparently) Lion Brand's entry into the Noro-esque color-shifting yarn category. The color is called "Glacier Bay" and it is all colors that (a) look good with my mom's complexion and (b) should match her winter coat (both of them, actually - the casual running-around-town jacket and the more dressy wool coat she wears to church).

So I decided to buy it and try it out. (I probably won't NEED the four balls, but I wanted to be safe. Hobby Lobby has a way of carrying something for two weeks and then never having it again. And any leftover yarn can become mitts/hats/critters).

It is pricier than many of the Lion Brand yarns, but then again, Noro is pretty darn pricey - the Lion Brand is still more reasonably priced. (And everything is going up in price, sharply it seems, I note with some annoyance. I think this will be a fall to start working through my "stash" of yarn and fabric.)

I do like to see Lion producing some more "upscale" feeling yarns...I know a lot of people diss Wool-Ease, but I can't - it's a good basic yarn and it's also the yarn that got me back interested in knitting back around 1997 or so.

(Now if they'd just start making some sockyarns again...or at least, some that the Hobby Lobby and such would carry. Though I can't complain, because HL does carry some of the Paton's sock yarns, which are pretty nice considering their price.)

Curiouser and curiouser...

In re: the "Why are women going so GIRLY" blog-kerfuffle of the past days...apparently now a feminist magazine has outed the original poster of the post that led to girly-tough bloggers from around the world responding as a GIRL herself.

In that, she makes cupcakes. And has an apple orchard.

Meh. I'm'a gonna step back from this now because it's starting to smell like "Mean Girls." And I had enough experience with "mean girls" from age 6 or so to age 14* that I'm just done with it all.

(* Age 14, because after a few months in high school, I found enough friends to make an insulating core around me. I still had to deal with mean girls but having friends like Kirsten (yes, I'm doing a shout-out, if you're reading this) to make me laugh and keep me believing that I was OK made a huge difference to me.)

I've often said that women tend to be each other's worst enemies. I stand by that comment.

(I also wonder if the same principle as I see in some fights-in-academia applies here: that is, the smaller the stakes, the more vicious the fighting. No, I don't get it either, and I've worked in academia for 12 years, plus the time I was in grad school)

Now, having completed two more chapters of intro bio for the day, I'm going to go home and practice piano. (I wonder where learning to play the piano for one's own edification and delight falls upon the spectrum of "girly" pursuits...)

Edited to add, later on: While driving home it occurred to me - regarding the whole back-and-forth I alluded to above - the problem with engaging in "micturational combat" is that even if you win, you still have a big puddle to clean up.

Heh. "micturational combat." I think that's the best euphemism I've thought of yet. (I am also very fond of "coprophagous grin," but I didn't come up with that myself - someone else said it somewhere, and I appropriated it).

So, I give the whole mess a big "whatever." (Normally I do not like that usage of that word, because it smacks of dismissive-teenaged-girl, but what better way to dismiss apparent infighting among women than with an eyeroll and a "whatever.")

Yes, I'm procrastinating

Someone on CPAAG posted this...I guess it's from FB, but I don't FB, so...

1. Open Paint (or similar drawing program)
2. Close your eyes.
3. Draw a cat.

Mine came out rather Picassoid:

I'm sure there are some people who do armchair-analysis who would look at all the various drawn-without-looking cat pictures and come to some conclusion about someone's personality based on how they draw a cat with their eyes closed. (Like - I left the face off mine, but that was really because at that point I knew I was so disoriented as to where the other parts were that I knew I wouldn't get it in the right place. And my cat has kind of a tiny head.)

It's STILL summer

I'm really weary of the hot weather and lack-of-rain. They're telling us - at least until the end of the week - "Don't spend time outside doing anything strenuous" (I believe the heat index got up to 110 yesterday afternoon here). They keep promising rain but we never get any right around me. I think my lawn is dead. (Maybe if it is, I'll try being "landscaping transgressive" in the future and try to find drought-tolerant prairie stuff to replace it with, blow my perfect-perfect neighbor's mind)

I finally broke down and bought some new filters for my Brita pitcher. I hadn't been using it because the tap water had been tasting OK, and I didn't have room in the fridge for the pitcher, and leaving a bottle of water that's not totally sealed out on the counter means ants find it and go swimming in it (I mostly get ants coming in in search of water, it seems).

But lately, the tap water developed an off taste. I'd describe it as either muddy or algae-infused. (I'm hoping it doesn't mean they're scraping the bottom of Lake Durant for the last few drops of water, but that's what I envision). So I bought some new filters, filled the thing up, stuck it in my fridge.

(I know this is being very Goldilocks but: I don't really like "fridge water" - at least, not straight out of the fridge. I have sensitive teeth and it's too cold for me. So usually I pour a glass and let it sit for 10 minutes or so to come up to room temperature.)

So at least there's that. And I think I finally got a "base cooling" in my house after having been gone, back to where it's comfortable again. (I had turned the thermostat up while gone from home, so the house was warm when I got back, and it took several days of the thermostat set colder to get the temperature down to where it felt comfortable to me.)

Still, going outside isn't fun. Going out and interacting with the world in general isn't fun. I went to the Green Spray yesterday and had my first-ever bad experience there. Three girls - I believe the oldest was about 9 - were running around the store. The oldest was pushing the youngest in a grocery cart - they'd send the middle kid on ahead to check if the aisle was clear, and then they'd tear down the aisle, whooping and hollering. (They nearly ran into me once as I rounded an aisle. I gave them The Look (as best as I, a childless person, can muster it up) but they ignored me. I'm always afraid to say anything to undisciplined kids in public because I've had a few bad experiences of a huffy mother waiting to pounce ("HOW DARE YOU speak to my children!").

But I had a headache. And I was tired. And I winced every time their yells bounced off the high ceiling of the store. ("This is why," I thought, "we can't have nice things.")

I'm guessing - as I didn't actually see a parent - that their mom lived nearby, and decided that because it was too hot to send her kids to the playground, she'd send them to the grocery store instead. Thanks a lot, absent mother.

Once again, I heartily wish for a grocery delivery-service in town, where I could fill out a web-form from my office, note I'd be home at 4:30 (or whenever) and have the Friendly Grocery People meet me at my door with my groceries. That seems like it would be so civilized in comparison to what I often wind up facing now.

So, I went back home, washed my hair, did the rest of the day's piano practice, cooked dinner...and then sat down to knit. And it never feels like there are enough hours in the day these days.

I did work some more on the red scarf for the Red Scarf Project, but I'm beginning to feel like I want to start a "selfish knitting" project (something just for me - my over-the-weekend push was a little gift item for someone else.)

And people on Ravelry are beginning to talk about the fall fiber festivals, which this year makes me doubly sad: I'm always sad because they're always so far from me and they always fall at a time when I can't get away. But this year, doubly sad, because we're still 10-20 degrees hotter than we should be (still in the sweaty, nasty grip of summer) and it's not rained in almost long enough to make me believe that rain is a fairy tale, kind of like soulmates and the Tooth Fairy and comfortable shoes that are still flattering are.

I remember my first year teaching here - I looked at the calendar about this time, realized how long it still was even to Labor Day, and just put my head down on the desk and cried a little. August really is the month that never ends.

made the decision

Dr. B's funeral is Friday morning. During the time of my ecology class. Even though I think HE would say, "Don't cancel class for something like this" (having known him), I think it will be meaningful to the rest of the family for me to be there...so I am taking a rare "personal day" and cancelling that class.

I also e-mailed the church secretary to tell her I'd be available to be a "pair of hands" if they are doing a lunch for the family. Because I feel like that kind of thing is important - I served at the funeral lunch for my friend Dorothy; it feels almost like one last kind act I can do for the person.

Even though I'm busy and could just as well use that time for class prep...it does not feel like a burden on me to help at a lunch.

Some more thoughts

It's interesting how big "personal" news can make you stop caring so much about what some person with strange opinions and a keyboard thinks.

I got to thinking last night: my friend and her family are going to need more caring and nurturing for a while now that their "patriarch," the person they looked to for advice and kind words and a knowledge of the family history, is gone.

And it occurred to me: I wonder if some people who call themselves "feminists" would decry the idea of nurturing people who are (at most) friends and (at least) acquaintances. But you know? I don't care if being kind and nurturing is seen as being "feminist" or not. Because it's HUMAN. And being human trumps being whatever else a person might aspire to be.

Another thought: I think part of the reason the article angered me was because I interpreted it as the author saying, "You must deny a part of who you are in order to conform to some societal role." And I went through eight years in the public-school system - in a public-school system that had more than its share of "mean girls," even for the more-innocent-than-now 1970s. And I realized at some point along the way that I would NEVER be popular, I would NEVER be anything other than a target of scorn/humiliation/shunning/whatever they wanted to do that week from those girls - even if I somehow got a part-time job and earned enough money to buy Jordache jeans (my parents, wisely, would not spend $50 of late-70s dollars on designer jeans for a girl who was still in the progress of reaching her full adult height) and if I acted dumb* about math and science, and if I talked back to the teachers, and if I threw away all my stuffed animals and put up posters of the current popstars instead of the posters of National Parks I had up in my room...

So I decided, on some level, "screw it." I realized I could be miserable at school being teased and shunned, and reasonably happy at home and on weekends being myself, or I could be even MORE miserable by pretending to be someone I was not - or worse, try leading a double life, being a "cool girl" at school but still having a stuffed Snoopy on my bed at home.

(* I read somewhere that supposedly girls do this because they think it attracts boys. Do "boys" (or men) really go for that? Do guys REALLY want someone more stupid than them, or at least who pretends? I find that hard to believe. While I can see being an arrogant pedant being off-putting, I think I'd find it equally off-putting to be around someone who giggles and acts like a ditz.)

So anyway.

(Someone on another blog did suggest the outside possibility that the person in question wrote the blogpost as trolling/chumming the water - either to get more readers, or to be able to get a lot of knitters/bakers/Hello Kitty fans unhappy, and then be able to post a "HA ha. Knitters U got punkd. U sure R stupid" post. Which would make me think even less of the person in question.)

The Marple Shawl

This was a pattern reprinted in last fall's "Needlework and literature" issue of Piecework. It is a reprint of a pattern called "Stripes of Openwork and Stocking-Stitch" from a ca. 1930 issue of Weldon's Magazine.

The pattern was presented as an example of something that Miss Marple could have possibly knit (If, as I said, she were a real human being, rather than a creation of Agatha Christie). I was intrigued by the pattern (Just as I love recipes-of-the-past, I also love patterns-of-the-past) and I realized I had several balls of Noro's Silk Garden Sockweight that would work for it.

So I began. And I knit, and I knit. I started it, I think, shortly before Christmas of last year. Like lots of large projects, it takes a long time. For a long while, it was my invigilating knitting - because it was easy to carry, the pattern was easily memorized, I didn't have to look at it while I worked, and there were no stitch markers marking off pattern sections (stitch markers have an unfortunate habit of popping off and flying away at inopportune times when you're trying to knit unobtrusively).

As the months wore on and I began on the decreasing section, I realized I might run short of yarn. I quick check of Simply Sock Yarn - the place I had bought the original yarn - showed they had it, but not the same dyelot (that turned out not to matter much). Alison, the owner, warned me that the yarn had been discontinued, so I figured it was prudent to buy the extra ball then. As it turned out, that was smart, because I needed it for the last 20 or so rows - and since I had yarn to spare, I went ahead and did the little single-crochet edging (called "dc" in Weldon's British terminology - but I knew it was British, and also the photo showed me something that was obviously what I call single crochet).

So it's done. And it's very lovely. I soaked it in warm water with a bit of shampoo in it to soften the yarn (and to test colorfastness - and amazingly, this yarn did not bleed ANY dye into the water, unlike other Noro yarns I have worked with). And then I pinned it out on the carpet in my parents' living room (with their permission; they don't use that room all that much) and let it dry for a couple of days.



This is one of those happy cases, I think, where a color-patterning yarn interacts WELL with the stitch pattern - I have my share of cabled socks made of dark variegated yarns where you cannot see the cables, and I've ripped out a few things where a self-patterning pattern fought with the stitch pattern I wanted to do.

It's nice and warm. And while the yarn is softer after its bath, it still has a pleasantly "crunchy" and rustic feel.

I carried the shawl to church today, to put on over my little thin chambray dress (this is yet another dress I made - it's more than a dozen years old now but it still looks good)



And a "wingspan view" -



I wound up not having to wear the shawl - the air-conditioning was not that cold - but I was glad I had it anyway, for comfort. At one point I just reached over and put my hand on it.

Because, just as the minister was getting ready to launch into the announcements, I heard the back door open, and heard a woman cry out and then leave.

"That sounded like my friend Dessie" I thought. And I wondered what was wrong.

Almost before I could come up with possibilities, one of the other women ran up to the front and handed a note to the minister.

Dessie's father, Dr. B., had died. Just a few minutes previously, I guess, and the nursing home where he lived sent someone to fetch Dessie.

Dr. B. was very important to our congregation. He was a retired minister - he was the senior pastor years before I was there (before I was born, even: he was something like 94 or 95). He had stepped back into the pulpit after the church split in 2003, trading off with another retired minister. I credit him as being one of the main people who helped gather up the little remnant of scared, sad, hurting people when the congregation split, and patching us up, and getting us going again, and convincing us that we could continue to exist and even grow and prosper as a church.

One of the elders at the Communion table today referred to him as a "good and righteous man" and I think that's probably the best-fitting short description.

I got to know him when I started helping with the youth program. His three great-grandsons were in the program, and so he'd show up, as often as he could (even back then his health was not the greatest) to help out and provide encouragement.

He was one of those people that I consider the best sort of example of the Christian faith: he did not use his faith as a bat to hit other people with or tell them they were wrong. Nor did he use it as a wall to build up between "us" the Christians and "them" the unchurched or those who believed differently. He used it, instead, as a reminder to show love the way he believed God loved, and as a guide for his own behavior. If someone asked him to talk of his faith he would gladly share it - but he did not try to persuade unwilling parties. Instead, he simply loved them and treated them with kindness and respect.

I think of two things he used to say to me. Knowing I was a professor, he would exhort me to "Teach 'em good!" (oh, he knew the properly grammatical way of saying that, but he preferred to use the more homey form). Or he'd encourage me to "keep fighting against ignorance!" And he didn't just mean that in my duties as a Sunday school teacher or a youth group leader. (We had some interesting discussions about evolution - he was perfectly willing to accept it as a natural fact, and suggested that he saw it as perhaps even a tool used by God).

So I thought highly of him and felt close to him. So, sitting in church this morning (I admit, I didn't "hear" much of the sermon; I was thinking about him and his family), I felt kind of like I had lost a family member.

I admit that though it's sad, it's not entirely unexpected. As I said, he was up considerably in years. His wife passed back in May and everyone expected he would follow not long after. I know he had expressed a lot of concern for his wife, were he to pre-decease her: he was physically frail, but he was still as mentally sharp as he ever had been (even was, the last time I saw him). She, however, had advanced Alzheimer's and he feared that if he died, there would be no one at the nursing home to watch over and advocate for her as he had done. (He knew their daughter would try, but of course, she could not be there 24/7).

He had just recently returned from a family reunion and I wonder if he was just holding on for one more family reunion - and then, he felt as if he could "let go." (I do believe that some people DO "hold on" long enough for some milestone...that some people may be able to willfully stave off the end of their lives for at least a few days that way).

I don't know yet when the funeral will be. I'm hoping it's Thursday, when there will be a bigger gap in time. If it's Wednesday, I'd probably have to cancel class...and honestly? I'm not sure Dr. B. would have wanted me to for something like this. (If nothing else, I can go to the "family time" the night before.)

I'll miss him - but he had a long, very good, very loved life.

Two more thoughts

These came to me this morning, as I was (yes) knitting on the giftie for my swap-person AND watching MLP:

There are two other reasons that article bugged me. I don't think they were necessarily attitudes the writer actually had, but they are attitudes I have run up against in people who take the "What, you KNIT?" disbelieving response:

First off, and this was an attitude I saw some in the very wealthy bedroom community (my family - where my father was a low-level college admin and my mom was a stay-at-home-mom (BY HER CHOICE, I hasten to add), was actually on the "poorer" side of the income spectrum) and it's an attitude I sometimes see in academia (and I find it particularly ugly when an academic espouses it). That's the attitude that manual labor - whether it's mowing your lawn, or cleaning the house, or doing the laundry, or whatever - is somehow beneath you because you are so highly educated or such a high wage earner or such an important person.

I have no complaint against people who, say, hire a gardener because they have health issues that makes it hazardous to work out in the hot sun. Or who believe a gardener will make their yard look nicer and more in line with what they had in mind. Or who'd rather help one of the local teenagers earn a few bucks by mowing their lawn. Or who would rather pay someone to take care of the yard in return for their having that amount of free time back.

What I dislike is the attitude that "There are some people whose station in life it is to do such things as mow lawns and clean houses, and then there are people like me."

Actually, the distaste for manual labor in our culture in general is the reason some skilled-laborer jobs (like mechanics) sometimes go begging, while there's a glut of people with B.A.s in things like English and Psychology and Whatever Studies, and it's why books like "Shop Class as Soulcraft" were written.

(And I've also heard anecdotes about people with B.A.s who could have taken jobs in something more like a skilled trade - but they didn't, because, gosh, they were College Men and College Women and such a thing is below them. I just hope those folks do eventually find a job that suits them.)

The second thing about the dismissal of things like baking, or sewing, or knitting that bothers me is that all of these things are skills. I tend to be very encouraged about seeing people gain skills. Whatever they are. Because I tend to think that more skills gives you more independence and more choices.

A couple of examples: Knowing how to sew. You might never have to do it. (My brother knows how to sew, for example - but he isn't interested in making quilts or clothing, so he rarely sews. But he knows how to). But if you lose a button off a shirt, knowing how to sew means you can quickly and correctly reattach it - you don't have to wait to get the shirt to a tailor, and pay the tailor for it.

Or, perhaps a more "real" example (because I think most people who "don't sew" can reattach a button - though then again, I tell you, I've seen things): you buy a new pair of trousers. Because you're (apparently) shorter and stouter than the model they draft these things on, the trousers are an inch or so too long in the hems.

If you don't sew, or won't sew, you have a couple of choices:

1. Take the trousers to a tailor, leave them, and then pay him/her for the work when you pick them up. Two trips, plus the cost of the work, plus the time lost using the trousers.

2. You can let the cuffs drag, which looks untidy and which means the hems fray. (Or you can roll them up into cuffs, which sometimes looks goofy).

(And granted: if you're a rich-folk who shops only at places like Nordstrom, probably those places have on-site tailors that will alter things as part of the customer service. But if you're an average Jane who buys her trousers at places like "Blain's Farm and Fleet" (and yes, that's where my most recent pairs of Lee slacks came from), you don't have that option).

If you can sew, though, you have the additional option of rehemming the trousers yourself - which is what I choose to do, because it doesn't take very long, really, and it's free. And because I don't have to make two trips out to get my trousers shortened.

Now, granted, in some cases, if you have sewing skill, you may choose to hire someone instead. When my sister-in-law's parka zipper broke, she took it to my mom to see if anything could be done. My mom said she could replace it - but that she recommended taking it to "Victor" ("Victor" is the man in my parents' town who has a small alterations business) because he could do it faster and probably better, as he had an industrial-grade sewing machine that could sew on the heavy parka material better.

Another example, perhaps a more extreme-sewing one, of how having skills gives you more choice: As I posted on, about a week ago, I had had some frustration in finding a dress I actually liked in any of the shops here. So I decided to make my own. And I was very happy with the results. If I couldn't sew or didn't like to sew, my only other options would be to hire my own dressmaker (which would be nice but would probably also be so pricey I wouldn't do it) or continue to search, maybe go to mail order. And while I'd probably eventually find something nice, it was faster and more satisfying to me to make my own dresses.

And another thing about having skills and being able to do stuff: it makes you less helpless in the face of whatever. A person could argue that not knowing how to make stuff leaves you helpless in the face of having to be a consumer of whatever's put on offer - for example, if you don't know how to bake bread or won't bake bread, and the little town you wind up living in has one grocery store and the bread they sell is terrible - well, you're stuck, if you want to eat bread.

I think also having skills that make you feel independent in one realm encourages you to make an effort to be independent in other areas.

Not to wave my toughness cred, or my "so you think you're a feminist" cred, but over recent years I've changed the wax seal on a toilet myself, removed a large tree branch from the roof of my house myself, and removed a mouse or small rat from my toilet myself.

In two of those cases it was because the people I could have hired - or who would have come help me - were sufficiently busy that I couldn't get them out in a timeframe that worked for me (for example: I have one bathroom in the house. Waiting a week for my toilet to be fully functional again is not an option) or I didn't know to whom I could appeal (the mouse). So I did it myself.

And this is another thing about me: it frustrates me when I see people being what I perceive as helpless. Oh, I understand physical limitations and phobias and everything, but I've also seen my share of people who believed they "couldn't" do some thing that I knew very well that they could. And I don't have a lot of patience with that attitude, I suppose it's because I live alone, so if something happens - like the wax seal on the toilet failing and all the plumbers being too tied up with other work - I just kind of sigh and square my shoulders and do what needs to be done.

And actually, I don't think that's a behavior I learned recently. I think I've said before that I was one of those little kids who, if a teacher tried to help her too much, would flail her arms around and go, "I want to do it MYSELF!!!"

And I wonder now how much of that attitude came from my parents - I was pretty much allowed, with supervision, to do a lot of different things as a kid. My parents were good and attentive parents but they also were not overbearing helicopter parents who worried excessively about me - so I got to do things like climb trees, and poke mud with sticks, and build things, and make messes, and generally do the sort of fun little-kid stuff that some of the kids of hyperprotective parents miss out on.

And also, I remember reading the Little House books as a kid. I found parts of these fascinating - how the family smoked meat in a hollow tree, for example. Or the descriptions of the food stored up for winter. Or how Pa built stuff.

I re-read big parts of the books (also some of the later books, which I hadn't really read as attentively - I kind of lost interest as a kid when Laura "grew up" and became a "boring teenager."). And I'm struck about the level of independence that's promoted in the books. And now I can really see Rose Wilder Lane's influence (or perhaps, her influence being influenced by growing up as Laura and Manny's daughter) - Rose Wilder Lane was one of the founders of the libertarian movement.

(N.B. I don't agree with everything the libertarians - either little-l or big-L - say, by a long shot. I just thing it's interesting that she edited her mother's memoirs and was involved in the movement, and I can see aspects of the philosophy in the books).

(Actually, I wonder how some school districts today would react to the books - given the treatment Native Americans get, and the "minstrel show" in one of the later books, and also the very common references to the family's Christian faith).

But now I wonder if reading those books as a kid - and some of the other stuff I read, as well, things like Abel's Island (upper-middle-class-twit mouse winds up stranded on an island and learns to be self-sufficient) and My Side of the Mountain (Boy runs away from his crowded family apartment to family land in upstate New York, lives in a hollow tree with a hawk that helps him hunt) influenced my independence and ideas that knowing how to do stuff for yourself is important and valuable.

(And in reading done much later in life - Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac" - in his chapter on "Good Oak", he writes:

"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue.

To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside."

And while I don't know that I'd go that far - I'd probably be pretty thin and malnourished if I had to grow and/or hunt all my own food - I do think there's some value in knowing where stuff comes from, and the work that goes into making it.

(There's also supposedly a Buddhist saying about how it "takes 99 people to feed you" and the idea that you should express gratitude for those people - the farmer, the seed-merchant, the person who harvests the food, the person who transports it to the store, all of that)

(Leopold also later discusses how his dog interposes itself between him and the fire he is trying to build - the dog wants it to be warm, it knows that the hearth brings warmth, but, because it does not understand the cause and effect of "man lays wood on hearth, man lights kindling, man tends fire until wood catches fire," it just blunders there in the middle and gets in Leopold's way. And I think there is something symbolic about that. I've occasionally said, "Don't complain about how something is impossible to the person who is doing it" - in other words, if you're being helpless, don't get in the way of someone who's working).

At any rate: I tend to think that developing skills in whatever - cooking, baking (and cooking and baking are two slightly different, if related skills: I know gifted cooks who don't bake, and also people who would much rather bake than cook), sewing, knitting, playing an instrument, building stuff, basic car repair, even things like beekeeping (I have a student this semester who is a hobbyist beekeeper. I think that is very cool) - has value. Both in terms of what you can do with it (I could see my beekeeper student earning extra money corralling swarms, or carrying his hives to melon farms or somewhere where a pollination force is needed) and in terms of what it does for you (it's a little hard to explain to someone who is resistant to the idea that people in the modern world would "bother" to knit the satisfaction that comes from making your own hat or sweater). And also, I just find it interesting when people have "unexpected" skills - like the student of mine who keeps bees. (And I daresay having interests outside of work make a person more interesting. I remember talking with a man on the train - we were sitting at the same table for dinner - and he expressed concern that his father-in-law was approaching retirement and that the man had no interests outside of work. My dinner companion's concern was that his father-in-law would either become one of those men who hounded his wife as she went about the daily tasks (I've seen that happen) or he'd become one of those men who retired, and then died not long after, perhaps in part because he felt he'd lost his purpose in that life (I've known people who said they thought that's what happened to husbands/fathers/brothers).

So, I don't know. I know I really don't have to justify my hobbies to anyone, and anyone who thinks ill of me for having them, the shame is on them. But I also think for people who do want to develop interests and/or skills, there's a lot of value to that.

Shaking my head.

I really need to be taking this time to work on prepping stuff about cell metabolism instead of responding to a rather silly piece but this was all over my Twitter stream: Apparently a writer in the Huffington Post wants us all to stop being girly, because we're hurting the "cause."

(And she semi-dissed the Yarn Harlot. Heh. I went "ooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh" when I read that, just like I did back in fifth grade when Brian S. talked back to the really hardnosed math teacher...you KNOW someone's gonna get in trouble for that.)

ETA: Someone on Ravelry commented: "Don't [tick] off the knitters; they have sharp pointy sticks." Hee. (And actually, I thought something somewhat similar)

I don't know whether to sigh (Isn't the point of having freedom to do what you want to do being able to, well, do what you want to do? Even if that's knitting? Or making cupcakes? Or painting your toenails?) or to yawn (Haven't we been through this several times in the past dozen years?)

Look: I don't claim to have any level of "bad assery" (sorry, gentle readers for the harsh word). But I do actually think I'm pretty tough in a lot of ways that count: If I say I will do something, I do it. I don't make up excuses or justifications if something more interesting comes along, or if I want some free time to myself, or whatever. I woman up and do the thing I said I'd do.

I'm an honest person. I have a set of ethics I live by and won't compromise on. Even if it might mean things were easier for me.

I earned a Ph.D., even in the face of being asked to leave the first program I was in. I got a job in a field that is perhaps still male-dominated (I don't know for sure; in my department we're pretty evenly split by gender). I earned tenure and a Professorship. I have published articles.

I strive to remain calm and positive in all my dealings, even if the person I'm working with is melting down in front of me (Had a situation like that yesterday - essentially a miscommunication leading to a student getting some very scary news, when, if the party in question had called ME and asked ME about the situation instead of freaking the student out, they would have found out what was actually going on.)

I juggle a huge amount of things and try to remain cheerful in the face of it.

And yet: I enjoy knitting. And quilting. And baking (though I don't do that as often as I'd like). And I like the new My Little Ponies show. And I like Hello Kitty (I went to the Target this afternoon and took a pass through the toy section while on the way to school supplies. They have wee tiny Hello Kitty figurines now! I made a silent inward "Squee!" when I saw them. (No, I didn't buy any. But they were awfully cute).

And you know? For years there's been talk about how for men, it's OK for them to have a tender side along with the tough one. (I'd argue in fact that it's a good idea, especially for men who plan to be dads). Why can't women have tenderness as well as toughness? Or for that matter, why does any given woman have to be tough at all?

Because: for me, to come home after a week of teaching membrane transport and plate tectonics and paired-sample t-tests and clay mineralogy (just some of the more "manly sounding" things I teach), it's a relief to be able to sit down and knit on a pretty sweater. (And at that: people who don't make stuff, and diss people who do: they don't get it. They don't understand the sort of satisfaction that COMES from being able to make your own sweater/bread/cabinets/fix your own car/whatever.)
And it's not because it's simply girly and feminine: I don't even really think of that. It's because it's creative and fun and fulfilling. (As I said in a personal tweet to one person: "stupid muggles*")

(*for the non-knitters: some knitters - I think the Yarn Harlot even started it - refer to non-knitters as "muggles." I would only apply that term to a non-knitter who made fun of knitting; I have no complaint against people who simply do not knit.)

And you know, some of the people who have made some of the most positive comments about my knitting skill, and even how they think it's kind of bad-ass (sorry, that word again) that I knit? My male colleagues. Oh, the women think it's cool, too, but I've gotten some strong approving comments from men I work with that suggest they think it's something akin to being really awesome at field identification or knowing what stats test to use in a situation: that it's something cool and worthwhile)

It frustrates me when people think they're the arbiters who dictate what is and is not OK. This is, in my mind, not really any different than 25 or 30 years ago making fun of women who wanted to go into oil-field exploration or something as being "butch."

Again, as I said: just leave me alone to live my life. I think I'm smart enough to figure it out. I'm doing pretty well so far.

I know, yes

I haven't talked as much about knitting or sewing on here as I did in earlier days.

Part of it is, I'm just busier. (Even with tenure. Even with being Full Professor...there seems to be more that needs to be done). Especially this fall, with prepping a new class that I've never taught before.

I do have various projects going on but none is in a near-finished state - the red scarf is growing, but slowly. (I did get to tell one person - one of the support-staff over at the nurse's office - about why I was making it, because she asked). I have, however, switched over to a quick small project...I'm participating in a swap (the send-out date is Sept. 1) and it seems like everyone else is talking about making stuff for their swapper (the original plan was "Spend $30 on a combination of yarn plus something from Etsy for the person"), so I figured I would, too. So that's what I'm working on right now.

I did finish the Miss Marple shawl over break, and now I realize I never took a finished photo of it. Maybe this weekend.

I want to start new stuff, but I also look at my pile of ongoing projects that are not getting finished...there just aren't enough hours in a day. I've probably lost a lot of my knitting audience anyway.

Three things, linked

My mother had requested a sample issue of the new "Mary Jane's Farm" (the whole Mary Jane Farmgirl thing seems to be becoming a new media empire) magazine - it's some crafty stuff, some country stuff, some "organic living" stuff.

She didn't think she'd wind up subscribing, and I don't, either - most of the information seemed to be stuff that we see in other magazines that we get. But there was one editorial that caught my attention.

It was talking about frugality. And how we're all being called upon/told/exhorted to be more frugal now, and lots of one-size-fits-all dicta are being issued. Like, ALWAYS BRING YOUR LUNCH TO WORK. DO NOT GO OUT TO LUNCH. or "Make your own darn coffee at home instead of paying a few bucks for something from a coffee shop."

And the writer made the point: we're all grown-ups. We're all smart enough (well, I'd hope we are) to figure these things out on our own. But a blanket policy is not always the best policy.

The writer gave the example: what if you had a really good week at work, you completed some projects? And you happen to enjoy foofy coffee drinks? Then, she said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with stopping off on the way home and getting a foofy coffee drink - or, even better, taking the people who worked on the project with you out and buying themselves and you foofy coffee drinks.

Because frugality can quickly become stinginess - and we need to celebrate and be happy sometimes, and regardless of what the frugality gurus say, you don't ALWAYS have to do that for free.

And I found myself nodding in agreement. The problem is, I think, partly one of my issues: I tend to feel like I'm never doing "enough." That I'm never eating healthfully enough. Or I'm never working hard enough. Or I'm never socking enough money away for the future (though I swear, I think eventually banks and funds will start charging US interest to look after our money, the way things are going, instead of the other way 'round). That sometimes, you just need to relax and tell yourself that things will be OK, that you ARE doing "enough."

And I thought of this article again yesterday. We got a survey regarding workplace wellness programs.

Now, mostly, these are fairly helpful/innocuous things, doing stuff like offering noon yoga classes (at least, to the people who have the luxury of a long lunch break, or who can manage to get through the day without eating lunch). Or helping people with stress reduction. Or helping them do things they specifically come in and ASK for help with, like quitting smoking/losing weight/exercising/whatever.

But I've also read some anecdotal stories about office "wellness programs" becoming more of a coercive program, where they adopt a "goal," for example, of having everyone everywhere 100% tobacco-free by some deadline. And so, the people who choose not to go along with whatever the goal is, for whatever reason, well, they're Messing It Up For Everyone and they are wrong-thinkers and need to be re-educated.

And I've also heard of wellness programs "partnering" with one of the diet-food-purveyors (e.g., Jenny Craig) and then trying to push their overweight members to go on those plans.

And I'm sorry, but no. Yes, I know I'm overweight. Yes, I know I'm heavier than I should be. But - as I answered on the (supposedly anonymous) survey: I think I lead a healthy lifestyle already. Because:

1. I don't smoke. I have NEVER smoked. I don't use tobacco in any form.
2. I see a doctor annually, or if I get sick.
3. I exercise an hour a day most days (And recently am trying to add in an additional 15-20 minutes of yoga in the evenings a few nights a week)
4. I make an effort to eat fruits and vegetables, even though there are many vegetables I dislike, and there are a few (carrots, celery, some of the squashes) that don't agree well with my digestion (and so, I have to avoid them)
5. I tend to avoid fried foods, and I very rarely eat restaurant meals.
6. I don't drink soda. I don't care for it all that much, and I figure that's one way I can limit the amount of sugar in my diet.
7. When practicable, I buy organic produce.

BUT - and this is a big but(t) - I am overweight.

And to some people, that negates all seven things I listed above.

And that's why the whole wellness-program thing makes me vaguely suspicious: I don't want it to be some kind of coercive thing where some life-coach or something wears on me until I go, "Oh dammit, okay" and hire Seattle Sutton or who-the-heck-ever to cook for me now and forever, and wind up crabby on 1200 calories a day.

Because the problem as I see it with weight-loss diets (as opposed to get-the-nutrients-and-try-to-avoid-particularly-unhealthful-foods diets) are that they are often pretty draconian. (Seattle Sutton, for example, promotes that they provide but 1200 calories a day. I tried 1250-1400 for a little while when I was in college, and could not maintain it, because (a) I was hungry all the time and (b) I was weak and crabby.) And the problem with weight-loss diets is, if you're already a heavy person like me, you probably need to STAY on the diet - or something very like it - for the rest of your life, or you will merely regain what you lost.

And I'm sorry, but I personally cannot give up the little square or two of dark chocolate I eat in a day. Or the occasional cookie. Or bread. Or meat. Or whatever it would take giving up to get the number of calories down to that magic number where my body starts having to burn itself up to maintain life.

And here's the other problem. And this was raised by an article I skimmed in Eating Well. Now, I like Eating Well - they often have good recipes (there's a lentil "burger" recipe in this new issue I want to try). But some of the articles make me roll my eyes and think, "First World Problems." Because people get so hyper and so worried about food. And you know what? I don't have the energy. I mean, I'll take reasonable steps - like trying to find organic spinach or something - but I'm not going to panic about how the sugar in the food I am using was processed, or whether it might have sat in the same room with some piece of plastic that contains BPA, or something. (The article in question: woman gets pregnant and suddenly freaks out, realizes that the entire American food industry is bent on poisoning us, goes on crusade to save us all. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but that's how a lot of those articles go. And yes, I don't deny, if you're expecting, it's smart to be careful about what you put in your mouth. But it's also smart to do stuff like take pre-natal vitamins and do gentle exercise and take it easy when you're feeling tired or dragged out)

And this raises the other issue: the idea among some in my society that if you disagree with them, not only are you wrong, but you are very likely stupid and evil.

This goes back to my college days. I remember once at the grocery store I was buying a box of Oreos. Now, I like Oreos. (I like Newman-Os slightly better these days, especially the mint ones, so I tend to buy those, but that's neither here nor there). Anyway, someone I vaguely sort-of knew from class (it was one of those monster 300-person classes) looked in my basket and recoiled in horror: "O! M! G! Do you actually EAT those? Do you KNOW what they put IN them?!?!"

And that kind of thing makes me so tired. Yes, I know Oreos are not exactly health food. Yes, I know they have quite a lot of sugar in them. Yes, I know the filling is basically Crisco with more sugar. But I HAPPEN TO LIKE OREOS. And I only eat a few at a time. And the rest of the time I eat stuff like salad and baked sweet potatoes and beans and rice...it all balances out, I like to think.

So please don't give me the documentary on how evil they are and how I need to be re-educated. I'm fine, thanks. I'm a freaking adult. I can make my own decisions. If you want someone to dominate and fill with your food anxieties, please have a child. (I'm being facetious here: we don't need more humans being raised with screwed-up ideas about food).

I think part of the problem is we don't understand risk levels and risk tolerance. For example: Some additive in food gives people who eat it a 2% greater risk of, I don't know, massive kidney stones. Does that mean the additive should be banned? Does that mean everyone should be told not to buy it? What if the additive does something other that is useful, like making the food not harden up before its time or taste good? Still, that 2% risk WOULD have some people calling for banination.

(A blogger I like to read often refers to the fact that we all have a 100% chance of dying. So something like a 2% risk of kidney stones, meh)

And that's the thing that gets to me: I don't like being hounded. I don't like being told that my personal choices, which I came to based on my understanding of and tolerance for risk, are BAD and WRONG and DUMB and I need to do whatever the other person is doing because it WORKED FOR THEM and therefore is the best and right and really only choice.

The other big factor - actually, a fourth linked thing - is the study that came out earlier this week. I haven't read the whole thing to see if it has holes in it but it seems to be in concert with things I have anecdotally observed in my own life. The study reported finding that people who were overweight, but were otherwise in good health (i.e., did not have any underlying chronic health issues) and who exercised and ate healthfully, were at no greater risk of early death than their thinner counterparts. (And in fact, might be at less of a risk than the thin-but-sedentary - I've seen more than a few studies suggesting that being sedentary is what raises your risk for a lot of chronic health issues the most).

And "Overweight but otherwise healthy, eats healthfully*, and exercises" pretty much describes me.

(*Well, MOST of the time. Though much more than I did 15 or 20 years ago...I realize now it's been almost a year since I tasted a hot fudge sundae, something I used to eat more regularly when I was younger)

So I don't know. While I'd welcome things like a more accessible way of getting a bone-density scan (the one chronic disease I do really worry about is osteoporosis - my grandmother had it very badly, my mother has been diagnosed with it (and is taking steps to try and slow its progress), and I very likely am at high risk - though ironically, my being heavier may offer some protection there), I'm not sure I'd be on board for regular weight-loss cheering sections.

Because I feel like I'm doing all I can right now, thanks. I've sacrificed some things (see hot fudge sundae comment above) in the name of eating healthfully and frankly I am not willing to do even more. And I don't care if that's stubborn or willful or if it sounds "wrong and dumb" to some people. I'm an adult woman, I have a fine understanding of nutrition, calories, and metabolism, and it's a choice I have made. I do not need to be re-educated, I do not need to be picked at until I surrender: I need to be left alone to live my life.

(The fact that the ONLY things I use my health insurance for these days - other than the annual checkup - is for treatment of allergies, which, from every study I've ever read is 100% unrelated to my weight - is what I will make as an argument in the face of "But if you lose weight, you will cost less in health care!")

More vintage cooking

Hunting around a bit for info on the Farm Journal books (there are still a few I don't own, and, since I tend to be a completist about some things, I'd like to get them. ESPECIALLY the original bread book - my mom has it and uses it all the time. I bought one claiming to be it, but it was a reprint by "Galahad Press" and they left out some of the recipes I wanted).

Anyway, Amy Alessio has a blog where she offers vintage recipes (and some commentary, and occasionally a vintage craft).

(Incidentally, one of her posts is on Goldenrod Eggs - which I've never had but have seen several recipes for and keep thinking I want to try. It's essentially hardboiled eggs in cream sauce (What? I kind of like that sort of thing) but with extra yolks sieved on top of it to make the "goldenrod" pattern).

(I also want to try curried eggs or what used to sometimes be called Hindoo Eggs, which is a similar dish, just that you spice up the sauce with curry powder (M.F.K. Fisher has an amusing story about how she and her sister, as children, cooked them - but put in far, far too much curry powder and actually suffered what were probably chemical burns in their mouths)

Some older recipes are best left in the past, but there are others that deserve to still be made.

My grandmother's tomato soup, for example (which is pretty much the same tomato soup recipe that's in "Lost Recipes" - another good cookbook). And her pineapple icebox pie, which I got the recipe from my mom for this last break - you make a graham-cracker crust, make a cooked vanilla pudding, then add a can of crushed pineapple. You finish it off with meringue on top (because the pudding takes egg yolks, it's convenient to use the whites up in a meringue). The pie is delicious and it's wonderful in the summer on a hot summer day (because once it comes out of the oven after baking the meringue, you refrigerate it so it's served cold)

(And searching on Lost Recipes - the book I have is by Marion Cunningham - turns up The Lost Recipes Found website, another source of "vintage" recipes)