with my superhuman might

i woke up with 3 doors down's "kryptonite" stuck in my head.

the song where they are so influenced by pink floyd they had to mention dark side of the moon in the first verse. twice.

rows and rows of big dark clouds

(completely unrelated to this post, i've become a far more nocturnal creature since i've been in california - which also, unsurprisingly, correlates to my unemployededness. and i totally didn't make that word up)


people have intermittently told me for years that i should listen to patty griffin. did i? nooooooo. because i'm a nerdface. wanna know what it took to get me to listen to patty griffin?

it was an episode in the second season of joan of arcadia. yeah, i said it. (and i'll also say, that there was a different episode from the first season which i still purport to be one of my favorite hours of television, like, ever) it was when joan bought her brother a kite that he had wanted for several years. in the background, they were playing patty griffin's "kite song". the line that leapt out at me was:

made of something light as nothing

it's still my favorite line in that song... but that whole album (impossible dream, for those of you keeping track at home) is stellar. stellar stellar stellar. especially "mother of god" which is my favorite song on there... she verbalizes the transcendent in the mundane. it's accessible and it's genius. she realizes it lyrically and musically.

her music is pretty sparse, but the music i gravitate toward tends to be. not only does it appeal to my aesthetic* but it's also the type of music i can realize on my own with just me and my guitar, piano, or dulcimer.

i'm getting too wordy. the thing that i've been meaning to say this whole post is that i bought a new patty griffin cd the other night: 1000 kisses. which is a TOTALLY chick title for an album. but so it goes. she's a chick, so am i. however, the reason i bought it is for her song "rain". that song has not been out of my head since the first time i heard it last wednesday. i've learned to play it on guitar, have most of the lyrics learned. as i've said to erik quite a bit, it's just the right amount of sad.

i have a hard time describing precisely what appeals to me, musically. it's much more of a visceral and emotional reaction than any other art form. i can verbalize why i like certain paintings, writing, theater - but music is much more chthonic and physical. there's a certain ache that i seek in music. when i say ache, i mean a physical ache. the songs i love the most give me a dull and tingling (can it be both?) ache just above my uterus when i hear them. they don't have to be slow and contemplative - take "chief" for instance. it inspires me to try to write music. (making it all that much more disappointing when the music i write is crap)

i'm overtired. i started this post a good 45 minutes ago and don't know how to get out of it. unless i do it the cheap way, and end with a link to patty griffin's myspace page... hey, that's an idea. maybe i'll finish this properly later.

maybe not.


*i hate classic rock because it's SO overwhelming to me, contemporary jazz because it's too self-indulgent and arrogant, most pop because it's too overproduced/compressed/slick/glossy. i think the most beautiful music is found in what's left unsaid - it's not music without the silence between the notes. but likewise, i respect your right to like whatever kind of music you want. even if it's totally crappy.

the sock curse continues

snowflake sock
Originally uploaded by swandive00.

this is my snowflake sock. 'tis frogged by now. see, but this time, it wasn't a boredom with socks issue...

the problem is with stupid addi. their addi naturas US2 are 3mm, whereas a standard US2 is 2.75 mm. so when i'd put it on and it was baggy, this is why. however, unbeknownst to me, i have an addi turbo in a US2. why the turbos are 2.75mm and not the naturas is a little beyond me. however, the join in the naturas was precisely the right size to catch every.single.stitch that crossed over it.

anyhow, i recast for the snowflake sock earlier and did 2 whopping rows of the cuff.

i can't let myself say i'm not a sock knitter until i COMPLETE a whole entire pair and make that decision. i'm also holding out until i can knit a pair of fun little kneesocks that will hopefully be large enough to be tight around my dainty little ankles without cutting off circulation to my gigantic filipino calves. maybe even striped (the socks, not the calves). who knows?

(and i'm about 2" inches into the final sleeve on rogue v.2. woot!)

paper dolls

Find your own pose!

i am lining up my heros like big paper dolls...

let it be known, i am an enormously light sleeper. i don't think that i've ever slept through anything in my life before. it takes me forever to get used to a new sleeping situation - whether that be in a new apartment, having rearranged my furniture, staying over at someone's house, and it takes me days and days and days and days to be able to sleep through a night. that being said, i find it enormously comforting to have people sleep in my bed (no, not in that way) even if it means that i don't sleep. what i find terribly interesting is this description:

Paper Dolls Traits and Tendencies : Paper Dolls don't do well when separated; they need regular physical contact to keep in sync. If forced to remain apart for a stretch any longer than eight to ten hours, they can sometimes feel untethered, or even dizzy. But once reunited, all it takes is the simple brush of fingers, or a surreptitious foot-on-foot press under the table, and all is right with the Paper Dolls once again.

THAT is too true. i'm the sort of person that is very hands on. when watching a movie, when just passing through a room, when driving, i find myself sneaking contact and fleeting touches. i love to lay my head on chests, i love when heads are laid on mine. i frequently touch the back of a neck apropos of nothing. the pressing of one sock foot over another under the table. and that is what centers me.

i'm feeling the need to restrain myself right now because i have another post i want to do, but i know that 4 posts in one day after nothing in 4 days is pretty overwhelming. so i'll wait until later.

thanks, erin, for the link....

sunday in the park with george. er, with mr. pants.

yesterday, mr. pants and i went on a picnic. we went to ford park in redlands, where we munched on english cheddar and gouda from henry's, fuli apples, green grapes, and burgers. (really? burgers?) then we wandered around the duck pond looking at the mallards (there are few words as fun as "mallards". say it out loud. then say the "r" for a really long time. "mallarrrrrrrrrrds."). we went to the other pond and watched a chocolate lab doing retriever training. we talked about wind and water and gooey stuff and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and jobs and all sorts of stuff.

then i had to pee and i don't use park bathrooms because i'm a princess, so we left the park and went to starbucks because they usually have clean bathrooms.

we didn't finish our food so we went to the gardens outside the prospect park carriage house to eat the rest of our cheese and fruit and burgers. (wait, still you had burgers? really?) we looked at the flowers, the bees, the sky, the clouds. i got interested in trying to take worm's eye pictures of mr. pants with the macro lens, but because of the distance between me and the bottom of his shoe, i didn't quite realize my initial vision. and when i was lying on the ground when he was sitting on the picnic table, he decided to pour water on me. which was funny in that i totally didn't believe he'd do it.

then we came home, and watched the amazing race.

and amazing end to an amazing day.

to see the pictures, click on the retriever. go on. you know you want to see my water-soaked shorts.

tonight on fox: when dyelots lie

the body of rogue v.2 and one of its sleeves is finished. i finished the hood this morning, went back and frogged the sleeve cap of the sleeve to make it 2" longer (i'd rather have too-long sleeves than too-short sleeves, and it was DEFINITELY too short), finished the ends on the body and the sleeve.

then i washed the body to get off some of the lanolin, work out the tension issues, and to get it clean after a month and a half of kntting off and on.

then i laid it out to dry on my bedroom floor (it's a little luxurious not having a dog that i have to worry about walking on a knitting object or shedding on the floor)

i enjoyed my three needle bind-off on the hood. last time i tried my hand at grafting, which isn't a great technique to try to learn on cables. so this time, i bound them off in pattern. it looks nicer! as does my grafting of the hood to the cables! (it's not immaculate, but it's pretty consistent, nonetheless)

then, i looked again. what the? is that a line?

i have no idea if you can see it on your monitor, but the hood is pretty drastically lighter than the body. and i started a new skein on the hood. and i used the rest of that skein to extend the length of the sleeve, so there's a line too. and i have one skein left. and a sleeve takes about 7/8 of a skein. (of paton's classic in too teal, if you were curious). i double checked all the ball bands (hee!) and sure enough, these are all from the same dyelot.

so, i'm hoping that since it's on the hood and not a light section in the middle of the body, and at the sleeve cap it won't be all that noticeable. because i don't have any extra yarn. and truth be told, i don't feel like reknitting the freaking hood again.

so it stands.

wackos

i think i did it again

i cute more off of my hair. hahaha, that was a total freudian typo. i was going to say i "cut" more off my hair.

and i also put wacky red and blonde highlights in it.

i've got to play with it to get it styled the way i like it, but it's going to be too much fun.

i haven't had hair this short since i was in college. it's like i'm 22 all over again. woot!

more pics here.