It’s Furious Balancing

It started with the fall catalogs.  I could tell that that this Long, Hot, Miserable, Satan’s Arsehole of a Summer would soon be gone.  Then came the fall knitting magazines, both in print and online.  Sweaters!  Mittens!  Wool!  Cozy stuff!  As soon as I finished the ESTJ Socks, I cast on a lightweight beret for myself.

Pattern: Anthera from Twist Collective.  For a mere $6.00, you get a pattern for a beret, cowl, and cuffs.  Instructions are charted, not written out.  Twist Collective has great charts in terms of legibility and ease of use, so don’t wimp out if you’re chart-phobic.  If you can knit, purl, yarn over, ssk, and k2tog, you can make this beret.  I can’t believe that I’m the only person on Ravelry who has made this beret thus far.

Yarn: Louisa Harding Kimono Angora Pure (70% angora, 25% wool, 5% nylon) in Color No. 6, Teal.  I say it’s Turquoise.  Approx. 90 yards.

Size: One size.

Needles: US size 4 and 5 (3.5 mm  and 3.75 mm, respectively) both Brittany Birch DPN’s and Addi Natura 16″ circular

Mods: None, other than the absence of a dorky i-cord macaroni thingy on top.  I’m not fond of dorky i-cord macaroni thingies, so I just left it out.

Comments: This needed Aggressive Blocking to get it to the point where I thought it had enough slouch to be called a beret.   Aggressive Blocking translates to a full 30-minute soak in Soak and a 10½ inch dinner plate.   The lace pattern really opened up.  If you like a lot of slouch in your berets, I think you could do an additional repeat of Rows 1-12 from Chart A and add about 1½ to 2 inches to the depth of the hat.

This is perfect for fall.  I plan on wearing it with my brown leather jacket and Norovirus Scarf v. 2.0

These are photos of my twin brother and me, taken somewhere in the neighborhood of 1970-1972 or so.  Teh Husband and I bought a printer cum photocopier cum scanner, and I’ve been messing around with scanning old photographs.  You know, the ones from back in The Dark Ages when everything wasn’t digitized and there were such things as film and negatives.

I scanned these with the idea that I would update my Facebook avatar with a photo of myself, albeit one taken almost 40 years ago.  It may sound odd, but every time I see this avatar of myself, I feel happier.  It reminds me, somehow, of when I was feisty and playful and had all those years stretching out ahead of me.

I’m not saying that I’m no longer feisty, or that I feel that I’m out of time.  No, it’s not that.  I see this little girl and know that she’s still a part of me, that I’m still pretty damn feisty, and that I would like to get out of this dress, please, and into my playclothes so I can go climb trees or play down by the creek.  Milk and cookies afterward.

I think I’ve found a cure for my seasonal depression — Anger.

It’s really more righteous indignation than anger, but if it’s enough to get me off my butt and write a post, I’ll take it.

There are two things that push my Anger Buttons:

• Intolerance in any form, from your garden-variety racism to intolerance based on a person’s sexual orientation, religion, social class, etc.
• Stomping on someone’s civil liberties.  I’m a proud, card-carrying member of the ACLU, and Teh Husband and I send in a monthly contribution via automatic withdrawals from our checking account.  I believe his main concern is privacy issues, while mine is the straightforward First Amendment stuff:  Freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press.

If you’re paying any attention to current events in the United States you will know exactly what I’m talking about.  I’m not here to write a post discussing the issue in detail, I just need to say this:

If you’re wrapping yourself in the flag and claiming what a “real American” you are for opposing Park51, it’s painfully obvious that you have no concept of the principles set forth in the Bill of Rights.  None.  You are a “faux American.”   Pathetic.  My suggestion to you is to grab a Sharpie and write “IGNORANT BIGOT” on your forehead in really big letters.  That will save us the trouble of having to listen to you.

Oh, yes there is.  Lots of coffee, lots of yarn, lots of narcotics, and a daily dose of Wellbutrin XL.

Okay, I’m being facetious here.  My summer blues are hitting me very hard  and I’m feeling rather grim and cynical.  I’m functioning, but the days are long and draining.  I find myself dreaming of cooler weather.  Long nights.  Frost.

I thought it would be a good idea to write a post — even a short one — to let the Innernets know that I’m still alive — just in a truly foul mood. When I’m “like this” writing is a chore.  Actually, just about everything is a chore.  Meh.

I’ll be back when I feel better.

I can finally truthfully say that I am on vacation.  The nature of my work means that Thanksgiving through Candlemas are incredibly busy — if not downright insane.   Taking large swathes of time off during those months is very, very foolish.  You wouldn’t think that there’s a busy season for estate planning and probate; I can assure you that there is.  This year, it started in October and it hasn’t ended yet.

In any event, I don’t need to darken the doorstep of The Firm until February 22nd.  Don’t get me wrong — I love my work, I love my boss and co-workers, and I even love some of my clients — but Lord I need a break.

I also need Alone Time.  Thinking back, outside of sick days, I haven’t been alone in the house for an extended period of time since Art Fair 2008.  Early 2009 was Knitters for Obama in Chicago.  Spring was Paris.  Art Fair 2009 we had new windows put in.  Thanksgiving was traveling to Texas.  I need the psychological buffer zone of having some time alone when I’m not coughing up a lung.

A lot of people don’t understand this.  The easiest way to explain it is that I need to recharge my batteries.  Even though I’m just puttering around the house, doing the taxes, and organizing the yarn stash, I need to do it by myself.  I’m frayed at the edges and if I don’t un-fray myself, things will get ugly.

So, I’ve got the aerosol cheese and Twinkies, several knitting projects, and a new (to me) computer game.  I’ve made another batch of those chocolate chip cookies.  I’m ready to rock, cats and kittens, and by “rock” I mean sitting quietly at home with the felines, knitting, reading, watching movies, and napping.

And people wonder how I sleep at night.

Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the marvellous city, and three times was he snatched away while still he paused on the high terrace above it. All golden and lovely it blazed in the sunset, with walls, temples, colonnades, and arched bridges of veined marble, silver-basined fountains of prismatic spray in broad squares and perfumed gardens, and wide streets marching between delicate trees and blossom-laden urns and ivory statues in gleaming rows; while on steep northward slopes climbed tiers of red roofs and old peaked gables harbouring little lanes of grassy cobbles.

It was a fever of the gods; a fanfare of supernal trumpets and a clash of immortal cymbals. Mystery hung about it as clouds about a fabulous unvisited mountain; and as Carter stood breathless and expectant on that balustraded parapet there swept up to him the poignancy and suspense of almost-vanished memory, the pain of lost things, and the maddening need to place again what once had an awesome and momentous place.

H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath

When I find myself under stress, when I’m overwhelmed, there are several things that always help me feel better.  One of the tried and true methods involves sundry combinations of chocolate, sugar, and caffeine.  Another is immersive computer gaming, fantasy RPG being my preferred genre.  The last, oldest, and perhaps the most important for my mental health is reading.

That should be re-reading, actually.  I go back to my favorite books; they’re comforting and familiar.  It is, perhaps, my choice of books that may appear… unusual.

I’ve been going back to savor the stories of H.P. Lovecraft.  Curling up with Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath or The Case of Charles Dexter Ward has helped maintain my equilibrium for the past week or so.

It’s the delicious, dense, antiquarian prose that draws me in.  I love the sound and shape of words for their own sake, and Lovecraft’s words are what lead to my idea for this post.

When I read, I use a large Post-It note as a bookmark.  I use this to keep track of interesting words I encounter in whatever I’m reading at the time.  Words I want to look up since I’m not quite certain of the meaning.  Words that are complex and multifaceted.  Words that make me pause and think  “Oh, this looks really, really cool.  How delightful.”  These words eventually appear in one of my lists at Wordnik.com

I’ve filled up two Post-It notes and part of the back of an envelope with Lovecraft words.  They’ve been lurking on my nightstand.  When I saw them this morning, I thought — for the first time in a long while — that I had something worth sharing.

Without further ado, in no particular order, and in nowise comprehensive:

miasmal, cenotaph, niter, necrophagous, aegipans, lambent, interdicted, acidulous, eidolon, teratologically, squamous, vigintillion, ductile, ichor, palimpsest, quintile, foetor, cartouche, labyrinthine, cumbrous, illimitable, bas reliefs, terrene, pallid, spheroid, aggultinations, dadoes, cryptical, similitude, austral, Cyclopean, anent, bizarrerie, portent, preternatural, immensurable, trans-montane, ineluctable, nefandous, congeries

While my absence from blogging primarily is due to a heavy work load at the office, knitting under a deadline, and not a few problems with my home computer, I am, for the most part, Doing Quite Well — at least as far as my depression is concerned.  I enjoy the dark, cold winter nights.   I crawl into my den with my books, cats, yarn, and computer games, and I am Very Content Indeed — happily and cozily cocooned.

There’s a passage in Moby Dick, when Ishmael and Queequeg are under the covers at the boarding house, prior to their sailing on The Pequod, which describes this comforting warmth and well-being perfectly:

We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was chilly out of doors; indeed out of bedclothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room.  The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast….[I]f like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of you nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm….[T]he height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air.  Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

No Seasonal Affective Disorder here, thankyouverymuch, at least not the “normal” kind.

We have a Christmas tree up for the first time in two years.  Two Christmases ago, I lost Gregor and I had new kittens to care for.  Last Christmas, a combination of Teh Husband’s work and mine (and a few bouts with head colds) kept us from doing much.  This year I finally have the energy for a little celebration and relaxation.

I am officially off work until Monday, December 29th.  I know it might not seem like much to some of you, but to me, I have four consecutive days of freedom and pleasure.  No traveling.  No relatives.  No must-attend parties.  No Christmas shopping.  No craziness.  I have four days to call my own and I have no intention of doing anything I don’t feel like doing.  I think the most stressful activity will be doing the grocery shopping tomorrow to get the missing odds and ends for our Christmas Day Feast.

Le Menu (so far)

Foolproof Rib Roast. Teh Husband and I are going out in the morning to pick up a 6-pound standing rib roast at Knight’s Market.

Steamed Asparagus with Real Hollandaise Sauce. This involves whisking egg yolks and lemon juice over a double boiler as you incrementally add melted butter, whisking, whisking, whisking all the way.  There is no comparison between Real Hollandaise and That Blender Crap.

Delmonico Potato Casserole. If you’re nice to me, I’ll type out the recipe.  The recipes I found online for Delmonico Potatoes left a lot to be desired.  One even called for — I kid you not — cubed processed cheese food. I’m certain there is a time and a place for cubed processed cheese food, but my Christmas Day Feast is not it.

An As-Yet-to-Be-Determined Dessert. Maybe.  Teh Husband picked up the Williams-Sonoma Peppermint Bark for me today, and I’m satisfied to call that our dessert.  This is assuming I don’t eat it all in the next 36 hours.

More later, cats and kittens.

I’ve decided, quite on the spur of the moment, to participate in Blogtoberfest.

Yes, it is at bad as it sounds.  A blog post every day during the month of October.  If you feel compelled to point out to me that today is October 3rd, thank you.  I already know that, and the “rules” say you can begin on any day, including October 30th.

I’ve been in this gray, inchoate place in my mind with regard to blogging.  I think of things to write about, certainly.  I  never actually work up the energy to craft a post, or it just turns into a Facebook update. I’m growing weary of this and figure I need a kick in the pants to get me up and running, or rather, blogging.

I’m hoping I will be able to write a few things this month that aren’t “what I had for lunch today” posts.

September 1st.

Even though the kids aren’t officially Back to School and Labor Day is still ahead of us, this is the first indication that summer is over.  I made it through another one. Thank you and Hallelujah.

This particular summer was not too intolerable.  The Powers That Be decided it was time for a cycle of cooler temperatures and more rain.  Even though I feel a (little) bad for the gardeners whose tomatoes never turned red, I enjoyed the respite this year.  Michigan summers can be a particularly awful mix of heat and humidity.  Thank you, Powers That Be.  I owe you one.

I can feel parts of my brain coming back online.  I tend to shut down during June-July-August; sometimes getting through a work week all boiled down to my putting one foot in front of the other and my self talk.  My mantra became Sufficient unto each day is the evil thereof.  If I’m breathing, I’m winning.  One day follows another, and eventually it’s September.  In a week or two, I’ll be able to go outside without cringing.

Another Finished Object:

Pattern:  Noro Striped Scarf, by brooklyntweed.

Yarn:  Noro Silk Garden, 2 skeins each of colorways 264 and 279, with maybe 20 yards (total) left over.  I much prefer the Silk Garden for this scarf over the Kureyon.  It’s softer and has a nicer drape.

Needles:  Denise Interchangeable Needles, US size 8.  The Silk Garden is more slippery than the Kureyon, so a stickier needle was is order.

Size:  Before blocking, 72′ by 5 ½’.  After blocking, 78′ by 5½’ .  Long enough to wrap twice and tie in front.

I think I’ve got the Norovirus out of my system. I picked up the fuchsia cabled vest yesterday, having suddenly realized that I want to wear it this fall, which will be here soon (fingers crossed). Very soon.

This happens every year — the excessive heat, light, and humidity go away, and my mood and energy level increase a hundredfold.  I sleep better.  I don’t snarl as much.  My skin clears up.  I get to laugh at all the people who whine about winter coming.  I decide it would be Bad Form to stand on the corner and chant “Neener Neener Neener” at the kids on the school buses.  Life is very good.

“You lack faith,” said Candide.

“It is because,” said Martin, “I have seen the world.”

– Voltaire (Candide, Chapter XXIV)

Checking in — Not necessarily because I have something to say.  I’m hoping if I start typing something, anything, I can get out of the not-blogging rut.

For the insatiably curious:  I have played 350 games of that 1-win-in-200 solitaire game without winning a single hand.

For the knitters:  I finally finished the Black Rose socks.  I have rechristened them the “Thorn in My Side” Socks.  10 weeks of knitting.  It’s not that it’s a difficult pattern or that the yarn was hard to work with.  It was all operator error.   I ripped back the second sock after I seriously goofed the heel turn and tried to fix it.  I frogged four-weeks’ of progress in a fit of pique.  I don’t have a decent picture to show you yet , though.  My photography skills, such as they are, are failing me.

For those monitoring my mental health:  Let’s just say that if I wasn’t on Wellbutrin, things would be Extremely Bad.  On the Wellbutrin, it’s Merely Bad in General.  Hate summer.  Hate light.  Hate heat.  I’ve been trying to make a list of “positive” things about summer.  Let’s see.

• Lots of time sitting in an air conditioned house working on big knitting projects. 
• Thunderstorms.
• Fresh home-grown catnip for the pusses.
• Nectarines, my favorite fruit, are in season (and sold in lovely air-conditioned produce sections at the store).

That’s it.  The rest of it is all sweat and humidity and mosquitoes and People Who Really Shouldn’t Be Wearing Anything Sleeveless.

Enjoy your weekend, cats and kittens.  I’ll be sitting on my couch, watching documentaries, and ploughing through 4 inches of 1×1 ribbing.  On 220 stitches.  Pictures may or may not be forthcoming.  I’m just happy to keep my head about water right now.

I feel like I’ve been stuck in the same loop for a while.  I’m still knitting the Same Damned Sock that I was knitting four weeks ago.   I’m still monitoring Emma’s blood glucose levels.  I’m still trying to win this really, really annoying version of solitaire that gives the odds of winning as 1 in 200 games (I’ve played 250 games so far — no dice).  I’m still feeling the rumbles and stirrings of The Black Dog — it’s twitching in its sleep, I swear — and I’m hoping that it slumbers on for a little while longer.

There’s a wonderful article on the history of the metaphor of The Black Dog here.  I wish I had the energy to absorb it all, but I may need to wait until my Black Dog Season goes away in the fall.  The incongruity there is not wasted on me.

I’m not so much “too busy to blog” as I am worn out at the end of a work day. Worn out as in “spending too much time in front of a computer screen.” I thought I should check in and scatter about a few random bullet points.

• Emma’s blood sugar readings were all over the map the first two and a half weeks.  I think we’re almost at the point of getting her on a fixed insulin dose and only doing the blood testing a few times a week as opposed to twice a day.  Let’s just say that I’ve gotten really good at poking lancets in a cat’s ear.  It’s a two person job, and I have a highly cooperative cat, but I still think it’s a marketable skill.




• Why is anyone still listening to Dick Cheney?  He is utterly irrelevant and the only thing I’m even remotely interested in hearing from Dead-Eye Dick would be his testimony before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.




• I am still in my Summer-Is-Coming-and-It-Sucks depression.  Our home air conditioning will more than likely be turned on later this week.




• I’m still in Sock Knitting Mode.  The Lenore Socks were finished a few weeks ago; I haven’t taken any pictures of them when I’m actually wearing them, though.  They are lovely and I’m completely in love with Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock (lightweight).  Today, I finished Sock Number One of the Blackrose Socks and cast on Sock Number Two, using Dream in Color Smooshy in the Gothic Rose colorway:






• I’m in pain.  I have terrible allergies.  I’m cranky and contrary.




• I’m flying to Paris next Friday.




• Srsly.

10. Pain issues.  It’s been very bad since I’ve gone off one of my medications.  I have more intense pain to deal with, but it’s only for a “few days a month.” Yes, that’s a euphemism.  Enough said.  I’m currently typing this while on too much extra-strength Vicodin and I have the attention span of a dog.

9. Depression. This goes hand in hand with #10 above.

8.  Lack of bloggable material. I’ve started a few posts in my head, but none of them have come to fruition.  I have one idea — using the Seven Deadly Sins to write about knitting and yarn addiction — but that’s inchoate at the moment.

7.  Facebook.  Yes, I finally got my sorry butt on Facebook.  I’m there as Laiane Wolfsong if you need to look me up.  

6.  Other Internet addictions.  Besides Ravelry, that is.  I’ve gotten most of my financial stuff up at Mint.com and I’ve been known to waste a lot of screen time with StumbleUpon.com.

5.  Worry.  I’m concerned that Emma, my 14-year-old tuxedo cat, is developing feline diabetes.  We’re going in to see the vet Thursday, and I’m doing a lot of reading up on caring for a diabetic cat.

4.  Morrowind.  I’ve said before that this game is the best computer game of all time, and the primary reason is its re-playability.  I’ve been a Morrowind fan for years, and I keep coming back to it.

3.  Knitting.  One thing I do not suffer from is Second Sock Syndrome, if only because after I try on the first sock off my needles I want the second sock ASAP so I can wear them both.  I’m cranking out the second of a pair done in this lovely Socks That Rock Lightweight from Blue Moon Fiber Arts.

This is the Haida colorway from the Raven Clan series, and it’s going to turn into a pair of Lenore socks.

2.  The Prisoner.  I hadn’t heard of this 1967 television series until The Husband mentioned it.  After Patrick McGoohan died earlier this year, he mentioned it again and we decided to order the series on DVD.  We’re more than halfway through, and I know I will need to watch it again to catch more of the subtlety (You know, foreshadowing, allusions, symbolism –  all that “literary” stuff that gets me excited).

1.  Too much cat help. A picture is worth a thousand words.