Does anyone remember me?

I know, I know. Lots of people re-start their blogs in January. For most of them it's probably a New Year's resolution type thing. Well, for me it's totally not.

See, a big part of the reason I have disappeared so completely from the knitting bits of the internet is that my camera had no batteries, and then I knew I had more AAA batteries but didn't know where I'd put them, and then kind of forgot. And now I'm home for Christmas (well, at this point almost done being home for Christmas . . .) and have no fucking idea if I even brought my camera home from New Orleans. So there you go.

But anyhow. In this magical month of not-having-any-homework-not-even-a-little-nothing-I-need-to-study-for-at-all-not-really, I have been doing a lot of reading. A lot of reading of library books, actually. It turns out (if you think about this for a bit it should be blindingly obvious why) that the extensive public library system in Madison, Wisconsin has a lot more knitting books than the university library at Tulane, or even the New Orleans public library system (although admittedly I don't have a New Orleans library card yet . . . I should get on that). And one of the myriad knitting books that I am trying madly to finish before I head back down to Louisiana and have to return all my library books (There are, like, 29. Don't laugh, this includes DVDs.) includes a book that I have actually finished--The Close-Knit Circle by Kerry Wills.

For the most part, I found this a fascinating and educational book. I'm relatively familiar with the subject matter, but it definitely did goad me into blogging again. Theoretically this is a book about the knitting subculture, which I feel myself to be a part of, but it spent a little more time talking about the knitting fad, which I think is kind of stupid, than was strictly necessary. This is theoretically one volume of many in a series about subcultures, including one about vegetarianism. If the author of the vegetarianism had spent this much time wondering if vegetarianism was still cool, their editor probably would have thrown them out on their asses. However, due to the misperceptions of knitting in the media etc etc (I just listened to Episode 45 of Cast On which touches on this subject) I suppose there is a possibility that it's not the author's fault that the knitting trend (OMG can it die now please? Can people stop assuming that because I am young and knit I am the same as people who will only knit the ugliest simplest patterns out of Stitch 'n Bitch?) is all over her book, because the editor might have been like, um girl, you need more about this knitting trend thing I been hearing about. Snip snap snizzle. Because that is 100% how I would talk if I were an editor . . . slash not.

Anyhow. I had a really happy holidays and in my camera-free time I have made three knitted gifts two of which are all the way in New Jersey and Harlem and things and therefore might never ever get blogged. But if my camera turns up/I steal my dad's camera in the next couple days, y'all can totally see my brother's ballet socks . . .

A vignette

I work at a public secondary school here in New Orleans that is almost entirely black. I help out in an 8th grade English class, working one-on-one or just generically helping kids with questions.

I went in today and the kids were just so happy and in that moment it didn't matter that I had missed out on the victory party with the local staff because these 8th grade kids are going to grow up in an America that has closed Guantánamo and maybe they will see that they (and me and all of us) are the ones to do what needs doing.

(They asked me if I voted & who I voted for & I showed them my bag with an Obama sticker and Obama buttons and they all cheered. Except for the two Vietnamese kids. If we end up with a Republican congressman he will be Vietnamese.)

A post a day keeps the doctor away?

Maybe?

Anyhow, I spent most of today at the Obama office making calls.

Yes we can!

If the polls in your state have not closed, and you have not voted, please vote. That's what makes democracy work. If you are in line before the polls close, you will be able to vote. Do not leave without voting. Consider programming an election protection number into your phone.

Yes, I know this should have been last night's post.

Anyhow, I'm off to the land of election coverage. Haven't been paying attention to the news all day . . . Actually I think Morning Edition this morning was my only news exposure since Sunday. I'm so ready for this thing to be over . . .

This one's just about me

and contains absolutely no knitting content whatsoever.

. . . So last night I overheard my roommate talking to one of her friends over, like, video chat or something that she wanted to transfer from Tulane to Indiana, because she doesn't like that the party scene is too bar-centered and not enough party-based. Or something.

And here's me, thinking about transferring either home, which has myriad disadvantages but is where one of my best friends going to school and would be in-state public school tuition, or else to Santa Cruz because I am a grown-up now and can start thinking about decisions that will affect my entire future, and there is this boy in Santa Cruz.

I guess it's that I've always been a little emotionally fragile, and don't make new friends (and I mean true forever friends, not oh-hey-how's-it-going-I-don't-see-you-enough friends) very easily, and basically I'm such a mess right now and I know that you're not supposed to make this sort of decision lightly, and I do love New Orleans and I do have some friends, but the thing is the bar scene is also hurting me--almost every friend I've made here drinks enough that I don't bother hanging out with them, and I'm just such a fucking mess. And if I don't get out of bed I might be dropped from Italian but I can't make myself care. Also I can't get a psychiatrist appointment to save my life because apparently everyone here is as fucked up as me.

What I've been knitting . . . the yarn, by the way, is an alpaca/linen/silk blend. It is the best. Thing. Ever. For reals.

And now I must away.

Halloween drive-by post

I would have liked to make this longer but, well, it's NaBloPoMo and I'm spending the afternoon in the Obama office and the night in Baton Rouge so I really don't have time to linger. Just a little Halloween teaser:



I was supposed to be the fairy of Hope and Change, but it's kind of hard to tell.



But I did end the night with a lot of beads . . .



As well as a cute little kitty cat!

If you can correctly guess anything about my Halloween, you win . . . well, my lasting admiration. Or something. If you want to see a full post of what I did, with a few pictures by me & not of me, say that in the comments too!

Can I post every day? Do I want to?

OK, first off, I just realized that I was really stupid to not realize that the reply-to for my comment e-mails would go to the commenter. So it's totally possible for me to have little conversations with my readers and actually, you know, make friends. So if you want to make friends, and not just be absorbed by my wit, please comment! For reals. Because making friends is totally awesome.

Also, in a fit of crazy, I have signed up for NaBloPoMo. What I'm going to try to do is build up a "cushion" of posts and set them to post in the future. So this is like an experiment post, to see if I know how to get that feature to work.

Also, expect my posts to become more pithy in future. If you ask me a question in the comments about my projects/etc, there is a good probability the answer will turn into a post.

Anyhow, I need to get back to my homework, so this post will not be a long one.



You all may remember my Obama t-shirt--it's been a pretty frequent subject of my blog posts. Well, it was kind of dying. As I posted on its Ravelry description:

10/27: Oh, my god. Absolutely everything about this sweater is wrong. Everything. I might salvage the intarsia and make a “HOPE” cowl, or something, but … yeah. This is not going to be a sweater. Cockiness is not a good thing in garment-making, apparently. Who know? :P

So I have decided to remove the intarsia from the sweater back, and make a cowl. Since I took that picture, with its odd gaping maw, I have completely removed the top of the sweater back from the intarsia's bottom, and done an I-cord bind-off in the dark blue yarn. I plan to make something resembling a wearable cowl out of this thing on Friday, and wear it for the remainder of my phonebanking shifts.

Speaking of intarisa, look at this close-up:



Do you see the loose stitches at the "corners" of the letters? (They didn't show up any better in any of the pictures I got taken before sunset; you can see bigger versions if you click through to Flickr.) And do you see how there are a lot more in the "P", and relatively few in the "O"? Those stitches generally are right near a tail of yarn.

And as you can see, I've woven in most of the ends on the "O" . . .



It's like a puzzle, figuring out where all those fiddly little ends should go.