wednesday morning things

 * Got a bunch of things coming in the mail, which gives me something to look forward to (which is important to me). One of my Bluesky mutuals (Hi Diann) mentioned that Long Thread Media is perhaps starting a new knitting magazine called "Farm and Fiber Knits" (webpage here) and because I still both love actual "paper" magazines (as opposed to online patterns, where you either must refer to your laptop/phone or have the ability to print them out) and am still mourning the death of the paper version of Interweave Knits, I thought I'd give it a try. Also, I've been happy with Long Thread's adoption of Piecework and how they've kept it going. I get the sense that they're a company that cares about their subject matter (as opposed to F and W and now whoever bought the rights to Interweave)

 

I'll see how the magazine is when it comes but based on the information on the website, I really hope they can make a go of it (TEN patterns, plus several features!) and they print more editions. If they make it something like a quarterly or bimonthly I'll definitely subscribe.

 I miss having a knitting magazine that comes in the mail. 

* My copy of The Spellshop (which is sort of a magical/fantasy/romance novel) is on its way, just published. The author promoted it on Bluesky and I read about it and not only is it a PRETTY book (it has lavender-edged pages! It has a nice cover), it sounds fun and interesting and maybe a story I need right now.

(I am still slowly, with breaks, working through the re-read of Dracula, but at times it feels sad and suffocating and I can't always with that. I am still reading "Death on the Chertwell" but am at a slow bit of it - one of the protagonists is meeting with her sister and the sister's husband and while I suppose it moves the story forward, they're less-interesting characters).

I also ordered, largely sight unseen, a novel promoted as "Korean magical realism" that's called The Dallergut Dream Department Store and perhaps yes, I do long for a bit of magic and fantasy in my life, as my quotidian life is rather boring at the moment. It'll be interesting to see what it's like; it should come in a week or two (Both books ordered from the excellent Bookshop.org, which also provides a tiny bit of support to brick and mortar indie bookstores - the only one near me seems not to participate in the program but if they start up, I'll mark them as "my" bookstore)

*I also ordered some new-to-me yarn, supposedly a heritage-style heritage-breed sockyarn made in the UK. Partly in order to get the free stitch markers that were available with the Simply Socks yarn order, but yes, it is nice to once in a while try a different yarn. I bought about 400 yards but have not yet settled on whether it will become socks or fingerless mitts. It's sort of....a light loden green, I guess, is the best color description

hopefully not all those things come on the same day; I wish I could space it so I got one package a day when stuff was coming to me because then you've got several days of nice things instead of one (or where you have to not-open some of the things you bought when they come, to stretch out the pleasure of New Stuff)

* I do need to get back to knitting more. I went to dig something out of a storage box in my guest room yesterday and .... yeah, I have a LOT of yarn and I seem not to knit much any more. It does feel like it's harder for me to sit still and work on stuff any more, I'm not sure why that is. 

* But tonight is the monthly round of meetings (Elder's and Board) at church, so, yeah, unless I break out of here early (=get the reading I intend to finish completed), I won't get to knit much tonight. 

* Also, a self-soothing sort of thing (?I guess?) I've been doing has been slowly going through the various "small Japanese apartment/house" videos one guy has up on YouTube. He's lived here, so though he's not Japanese, he seems respectful enough of the cultural differences, and he does interview Japanese people (some of them the residents of the apartment buildings he's touring.

here's an example:

There's a whole series of these. This is one of the nicer of the apartments; there's one where a "concept building" was turned into apartments so each room is centered on one room type with very little else - so there's an apartment that is literally an entryway space, a bed, and a bathroom area, and another one in the same building that has a very large nice tub but no place to cook and just a loft to sleep in (the man living there I think said he took all his meals out?)

I don't know. I find it interesting even as I know I couldn't do it. I have too much stuff, and I don't live somewhere where I could just go out for every single meal (and I think that would get tiresome), it's still interesting to see how people manage with the various constraints and how a lot of them are very cheerful to have a relatively inexpensive apartment.

I suppose if you do have a number of "fast and healthful" restaurants and konbini-mart type places, maybe not being able to cook much is less of an issue. 

(Though still I wonder how these residents managed during the pandemic: how would you get food if the restaurants were closed and you could not cook at home? How would you survive a stay-at-home order in like 200 square feet?)

another question I have in light of what I've been dealing with: most of these places seem to have a loft for sleeping with a ladder you must climb up - or there's one in another video that's five separate layers (entryway with a living space and then loft above, a main living space with kitchen below, and then bathroom below that) all with ladders. What do you do if you're injured to the point where you can't climb ladders? One of my longtime objections to having a loft type bed for myself was "I don't want to have to navigate a ladder in the middle of the night if I need the bathroom" (and while yes, there are things you can do to urinate without having to go into the bathroom, I would rather not do those things, and it's harder for my style of "plumbing" than it would be for someone with the OTHER style of "plumbing").

I'm guessing if you become disabled or seriously injured for a long time you just have to move? Or if you have a space you can get to without a ladder, maybe you just live in those few feet until you're better? I don't know. 

Maybe it's a tradeoff worth making - having a smaller, more confined space but you are in the middle of a vibrant city where you can get everything you want? The closest I had to that was in Ann Arbor and even then it was quite a long walk to get to places (and there wasn't great public transport, no light rail you can hop on and off). And yes, there, I lived in the smallest space I ever have (except for the dorm room) because apartments were expensive and I preferred not to try to negotiate several roommates. But even then the studio apartment I was in had a full bathroom (and not a tub right in the middle of the apartment, either) and it was like 20' by 25' even not counting the hall and bathroom space. But that felt really small after a while - and now I imagine trying to be a student doing online college in 2020 from that space and yeah, no.