cat nature / 1/2 pi shawl p1

i sat with the black cat punitively cuddled on my lap and i pondered the way of things. i looked to where his tail lashed me, vertebra by vertebra – the envy of yoga practitioners everywhere. despite the fact that i had him over my arm with his chin and front hands resting on the same, this cat could not be imprisoned.

i watched as he watched the other cat; his swamp jungle eyes sharp on her as he contemplated the lint taste of her fur on his tongue. his viper tail twitched, timing her movements as he planned his own. despite his momentary incapacitation on my lap, this cat, as i said, was not imprisoned.

i think that time must work differently to cats, and all of the possibilities of the situation were working themselves through his head. he was both attacking her and not attacking her, all at once. this expresses the clear truth and symbolism behind using the cat as Schrodinger's (there's an umlaut in there somewhere, i'll see if i can't find it) box habitant. the possibilities of the cat in the box occur in one setting, one set, all at once.

this is also the truth behind the calendar page magneted to the refrigerator. it's a little tabby cat in japanese-ish garb. it almost looks like a kimono and scrubs made a little cat garment baby, and while normally i am opposed to dressing up cats, the cat in question doesn't seem to be too put out about it. anyway, the quote is “adapted from a Zen koan” which like okay sure, but reads:

Does the cat have Buddha nature?
This is the most important question.
For if you say yes or if you say no
You lose your own Buddha nature.

which like okay, wow deep whatever. and it's from a cat page a day calendar. but i still got a little bit of illumination there, and also from holding the black cat on my lap.

1/2 Circle Pi Shawl day 1:
i cast on today and have worked through all of the repeats of the paw print lace pattern. i haven't knit that before but it was fairly simple, and i love it. it doesn't look exactly like paw prints, but i still meditated on kitties (oh okay and Big Love too) while i knit it tonight. i love the concept of this pattern and look forward to the final result. i admit that i am already nervous about not having enough yarn, but i'll just enjoy it for now.

KNITWORTHY

My family is TOTALLY KNITWORTHY. Consider the following mug shots, with a description of their particulars.
My Gran: She teared up when I gave her the Bitterroot. She really loved it and it looked incredible on her. I am well chuffed. (Anglophiles, did I do that rite?)

My dad's wife who hooked me up with two GIANT bags of stash this summer. I gifted her a worsted weight Springtime Bandit - just like my banned anna tres except in brown heathery natural type wool like Eco wool or Fisherman's Wool. I suspect the latter, but it is afghan-y; she's a small lady and gets chilly if it's below sixty degrees (F) outside. She loves animals and my dad and used to knit so I like her really well. She's had a tough year and LOVED her shawl.

My mom - we were both pretty loopy by the time I gave her the mini-kellokukka. Not enough yarn, or time; I would have liked to have made it larger. The shawl is still fantastic and so is she. She wrapped it around her head and neck and smiled.

My partner and step sprog got new hats (a usually yearly tradition. Turn a Square and a Felicity striped up like TaS stuffed their stockings. Both grinned. Gave my incredibly wonderful 13 year old cousin a little dark bluish grey Paton's wool beanie with an owl cable. It reminds me of Athena - good for her grades and self-esteem. (There's nothing wrong with either, as far as I can tell.)

venting - message in a bottle.

because this is not my blog.

I recently decided to cut internet ties with people who were making their opinions known in a particular medium. Some of these people were family.

Everyone's entitled to opinions, and they ought to feel comfortable airing them. But - I don't have to listen/read them. I was confronted about cutting someone off yesterday and I did not respond in the way I would have liked. I would have liked to have said:

When you say ignorant things about "People having all the kids they want on *my* tax dollar," it hurts me.

I work my ass off, but despite how hard I work, the simple facts are that I am only eligible for part time work at my place of employ. In the present state of jobs and the economy, I should think it obvious why I would stick it out; I also love my job fiercely. Love, however, doesn't make me eligible for health insurance through my employer. So that has to be handled privately, and at a cost.

To discuss the other adult in the household - he did what everyone calls "serve our country" and gets thanked by lots of people every November 11. He used to get thanked all the time, because of the haircut. But being sent to war twice does not make him eligible for good, low-cost health insurance, for some reason, despite everyone's lovely, abstract "gratitude".

We are in the position of trying desperately to get a child on some sort of state sponsored health insurance. We want to be able to get the preventative care for her that she needs in order to keep her from suffering from anything we didn't catch later on. There is also the practical fact that a health emergency on her part would absolutely, literally, no joke about it, bankrupt us. I feel I'm tempting the devil by even mentioning it, but it's a huge burden to carry around. When I write, "trying desperately," I do mean that we are fighting to get her some coverage, because a fight is what it requires.

Also, back to that private coverage I've got - the insurance understood quite well that I am ostensibly of reproductive age and capability, also plus, I'm biologically a woman. However, the cost of maternity coverage is ridiculously high, and considered to be an "add-on," even for a person of my condition. Therefore, if I were to conceive, the theoretical offspring would need to be covered somehow - what with the necessity of prenatal care for healthy babies and mothers - and that would probably involve someone's precious *tax dollars*.

This should make all the facts clear. This should be helpful in understanding why, in my position, I feel personally attacked when people who are "better off" than my little family is, rail about their fucking tax dollars. Because dollars are so much more valuable than education, health care, and children, right? Because the ability to go buy a new phone or laptop because it has been released in a new color is much more important than the health of the poor child sitting next to yours at the coloring table, right?

Sure. Keep thinking that, and say it all day long. But I don't want to listen.

momentary fear

a cessna, flat black like dried spray paint
in an otherwise blameless blue sky.

groundhog's lament

oh
i don't want to come out of the cave
the cave the hole has got me.
it's dark and i can't see the end of my little tunnel
but also if i found it, it would be raining.
so
i tuck my little head in my cave
the cave the hole that's got me.
i can pretend that the little tunnel would take me elsewhere
but if i got there it would be raining.
tho
i could make a letter or paint a picture
on the wall of my cave
it's dark and i cant see it, it would be a surprise.
when the rain let up and the sun lit up, my handiwork might glow.

lessons

i don't know if we are friends, exactly
but you've taught me ever so much
about how boldly ambitious leeches suck.

the joke ruined itself

something about 33 chilean miners being turned away from the underground bar.

whatever. it was my favorite news story of the week.
a drink or whatever to celebrate the workers, everywhere, appreciated and not.

but far better would be improving conditions for people at work everywhere.

rape is worse than

just bad sex.

there. i said it. i'll say it another time:
rape is worse than just bad sex.

sexual assault is literally assault with a deadly weapon.

these are things that people, particularly the ones who make laws and interpret them, should understand. these are things that people who operate in the world with a variety of people should understand.

i'll take off my fuckmepumps w/ platform heels made from soapboxes now.

the real rock stars

are gas giants and balls of carbon
or something

are the poets, in whatever metaphorical medium
who acknowledge
humanity's finely tuned sense of self destruction
umm hmm

acknowledge it
drink another beer
and leer into
the long dire night.

how best to spend saturday (ten years in)

i have heard many suggestions about various amusements that folks have planned for themselves this weekend, for september eleventh.

i am one of us who's come to age in the long dark shadow of corporatist, imperialist, racist intrigue.

some plan old-fashioned book burnings. others plan to set fire to the PATRIOT act.

i myself will be working in my garden, planting some vegetables to nourish my family and hopefully the plants will do their bit to clear the air. these people who plan to burn dead trees (who never really did anything to anybody) probably ought to consider their carbon footprints.

color stripes shawl recipe/improvisation

Okay, so here's what I did. I've been making triangle shawls for a few weeks now (a few months?!?) and I've caught on to the top-down, increase 4 stitches every other row, centered-spine triangle shawl construction method.

I have seen a few patterns around that I like, such as Daybreak, but none have been exactly what I wanted. So, I improvised. I love the look of the stripes alternating solids and a color changing yarn - it's a great way to stretch pricier color changing yarns and avoid pooling (I'm not a fan). On a triangle shawl, the diagonal, downward pointing lines are pretty flattering, regardless of where the shawl is work (back or front). I looked up the technique and noticed that twisting the yarns at changes is recommended; it creates a nicer edge.

I had these two skeins of yarn set aside for this particular type of project. Most of the shawls that I have made recently have been of fingering/sock weight yarn, but I wanted to create a sturdier shawl, something nice enough to wear in public but also warm and cozy (perhaps could double as a little chair blanket during a stolen lunchtime nap?). These yarns are slightly different in weight but it doesn't create a major problem - the stripes have different textures due to the differences in fiber content.

I did a garter tab cast-on in my solid color for 6 rows, picked up three in the garter bumps and two on the cast-on edge, and began to work in stockinette. I did a two-stitch garter border, increasing one on each edge end on every knit row. I did a yo/k1/yo for the center on every knit row, and placed stitch markers on either side of my k1 center stitch. I did 1 knit row and 1 purl row for each color, twisting them as I changed at the beginning of every other knit row. I worked in this way until I finished the last full row of Boku that I could manage with my remaining yarn (ended up w/ appx 3 yards of yarn left over).
I then finished in [Scalloped Edges border][1] in my gorgeous solid color. It is a ten-stitch repeat, so I did a row of stockinette before starting the edging to get the appropriate number of stitches - I'm thinking I ended up with 190 stitches? 180? and increased somehow to get the right stitch count because I maintained my center spine st and my garter edging throughout (which accounts for 5 stitches per row).




[1]: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/scalloped-edges

my bucket of brain bleach, or: thoughts on reading Atwood's The Year of the Flood

this is the afore-mentioned bucket of brain bleach which i was so heartily craving just earlier this week.

after much consternation at a corporate bookstore (corpbook? bookcorps?) yesterday, i gleaned a book by a classic favorite of mine, Margaret Atwood. i wasn't aware that she had a new book out; i also did not know that there would be more than one work set in the oryx & crake -verse. needless to say, bookcorps got some of my hard-earned e bucks and i have been reading since, except for when i'm driving, which i'm doing as little as possible in order to read this book.

but like taking huge gulps of very cold water, i must stop in the middle of my refreshment to share exactly how good it is, lest i choke.

she opens with a reference to one of her poems. she uses an image that i've always loved: the rising sun as egg. it's stuck in my head ever since i read it, in a book, i think, that Nick gave me. at this point i leaned back and smiled, under the care of a master, like the veil of consecration that the perfectly strung chord settles around in silence.

clever wordplay, of course, as usual, abounds. Atwood's puns and references are sharp; Atwood's neologisms and doublespeak blush the cheek of even Our Dear Orwell. this technical, wordchoice and word creation stuff is where i see most telling evidence of Atwood's poetic artistry.

many a story has suffered, however, perhaps in some part due to an author's poetic proficiency. poetic proficiency may well be the reason that 90% of the amazing things that have been written languish without denouement or any real story at all, off in a drawer or dusty unused notebook. naturally, such is not Atwood's case. if anything, her poetic sensibility is a rocket jetpack to the story, compelling it forward. motifs and repetitions frame out a rhythm, as well as create reference to the prior work, Oryx & Crake. the secretive private military/intelligence company, the CorpSecCorps, returns in TYOTF. please, take a moment, and if you've not, read that out loud. Atwood knows what she's doing, here, reader. the name of this particular company comes at punctuated intervals throughout the text, creating a rhythm of crunch thudding tactical boots. i'm going to have to re-read to determine it, but i'm thinking it's quite possible that Atwood creates some conditioning scenarios through her stories to elicit a Pavlovian-style response in her readers - mentions of the CorpSecCorps in this book about make my heart jump out of my chest. (What I am currently puzzling is whether Atwood means us to have the same reaction about our current setting's counterpart - Blackwater, turned Ze. Xe? Something like that.)

of course, mentioning either the fictional or real companies in print/text is not something that many of the characters in TYOTF would do. any instance of a fictional work discussing text, writing, meaning, and words is worth closer consideration. this is another part of the work that will bear revisiting but the characters in TYOTF have peculiar relationships with the written word - and above all, so far, it would seem that words/writing are to be taken as a body of evidence. text is proof of something - whether in the environment (in TYOTF, graffiti covers public/lower class spaces, while it is conspicuously absent in the corporate compounds) or proof of one's transgressions. characters reiterate the idea that one's enemies can/will/do use one's written communications as proof of wrongdoing, and of course the powers that be have set people against each other/themselves in order to dominate more successfully. in broader terms, communication is problematic, at best. at worst, it invites torture or includes the possibility of betraying friends or family. when Atwood, the writer, asks the reader what it means when the reader can use the work of the writer against the writer, what does this mean? In part, it is an acknowledgement that the written word is both more persistent and just as fragile/mutable as the flesh. Atwood's story also intimates that there is a certain type of authority that will burn both, according to its purposes.

concepts of an authoritarian power structure repeat from prior works, as in The Handmaid's Tale. However, the religious authority in TYOTF is, for now, a sort of refuge; certainly it is not the source of power. the authority approach to religions is explained fairly succintly - there are a couple of consumption-oriented, feel-good materialist sects for those elites who wish to have them, most people are secular and then the poverty stricken fringe includes those who work with the establishment (though in the shadows), those who are ignored by it and those who have resources the establishment covets - these last are the only ones labeled terrorist.

(i found that last point to be so sharp that i do not wish to comment further upon it. it stands alone.)


this is not a book that can be examined well in a blog posting, or perhaps not on a blog at all. several of these ideas require examination and there are others i'd like to explore, particularly that of the question of the unreliable narrator/media.

venerating/hating hestia

hestia (who she was, what stood for)
my d'auliare's on her says not much

she didn't get around a lot.

saddled with her tasks, many of which are hot, tiresome and drudgingly necessary. and despite all of our time, since hestia, it really does fall as a burden on one half of many couples.

the "mundane tasks" (that in quotes from some pompous assbag in the New York Times recently) without which the gears of society would grind to a halt. laundry. cleaning. meals. maintenance of the most quotidian functions of humanity.

we clean up shitandpiss and blood and mucus and semen and orange juice - all the emissions to which our flesh is so heir.

and so much dear flesh, too. partners: sexual and social. offspring, as they occur or do not. animals as they occur or do not. the unglorified, unglamorized, unpaid labor that goes into this strict machine.

at times I implore Hestia, my brow usually sweaty, my shirt evidence of the wrestle with laundry in a too small, too hot space - one of the few places in residence that does not have a low heat compact bulb. the old fashioned globe would roast any insects on contact. the fan wheezes along, an asthmatic bagpiper.

I implore this effort to be worth it, on some grand scale, and realize it's at Hestia's altar I should prostrate myself; I seek her her none-too-cool, none-too-soft hand caressing my brow, I beg her to glorify my works, see them in her name, and to build my strength and grace.

I have become more spiritual lately, and it has much to do with the mundane. Basil sprouts, the birdhouse gourds first pair of leaves, toddler-sturdy and naiive in their oaken shade: my inspiration.

I'm skeptical, and I don't think, really, in the really really scheme of things, that it matters at all that I do any of what I do. But on a domestic level, sure, put my domocile on a stage, and we do a very nice scene. Enjoyable in the moment, sure. But not without an exhausting cost. Two voices where there was only one, plus the cat, and also I talk to myself. The signal to noise ratio is low. Is that right? The signal is like at a 3 and the noise is at a larger number, say 367. That ratio would be 3:367 and thus seems like a low number.
[I'm also studying for the graduate school exam. Math practice.]

On top of pondering the questions of everything and finding myself seeing god in the steam over a pot on the stove, I seek out sentence fragments and repair them. More easy work.

love letters to punctuation marks

inspiration, courtesy utne, via others ad infinitum.

i do better in shorter distances tho, so, here, my extremely brief and charged
love letter to a semicolon

semicolon, you allow me rapid changes in direction; behind your shield i zig and zag.




(bow)

fingersnapping, cappuccino in little white cups and smart people in hats ensue.

ace

many are touched
when a humble dionysus
falls

cast on, cast off

so, since July, I have cast on and finished:
1 Undine
1 Crow Prints

I have cast on right now another Undine (such a simple knit but so beautiful if done correctly!), a Helleborus in some hand-dyed. Both of these projects are going to rub off as I knit them - Red Number 3 difficulties in my hand dyed (or just too much dye - I need to practice patience, if I really want the layered colors that I say I want) and the Malabrigo SW sock that I'm using for the Undine (for gift purposes) is shedding a lot of blue. I'm assuming that the Malabrigo folks use neither drink mix nor food dyes for their color, so I have to wonder what I'm getting on my needles and probably my hands. Eek. Not to cast aspersions. The yarn feels amazing, but so do my favorite jeans, and the process for dyeing those is hardly environmentally neutral or beneficial.

Yep that's what I do. Knit a lot, grade papers and worry about the dye in my commercial yarns.

upon further cogitation

we're all just singing into the darkness anyway.

Lavalette - Sekku

The title of this post probably makes no sense to most of the people in the world. I'm good with that. Whatever. But for what it means to, well, also not most of the people in the world is that the handsome knitter haz an achievement! Momo looks on in feline admiration. Which is to say that she hasn't eaten me. Yet.


I just knit Kristen Kapur's small shawl pattern, Lavalette. Or, be you not a Raveler, try Lavalette. Either way, the pattern is super adorable, the perfect thing even in this pervasive moist heat. Plus, when I wear it frontways, my front looks way awesome, as noted here:


I mean. KA-POW, right? Boom! Boobs! Or maybe I'm looking too hard into this. The pattern was nice and easy, a good coaxing into the world of triangle shawl manufacture. I think I'm getting the point - centered spine, garter stitch border, yarn over, do something spiffy, yarn over, knit the centered spine, yarn over, do something spiffy, yarn over, k2. Turn and k2, yo, p to last two stitches, k2. It's just those spiffy inbetween bits that designers seem to keep coming up with, and Kapur's is a nice combination of some things done by knitting things together, and clever yarn overs, with nice stretches of stockinette. Nothing too lacy, yet the openwork section really bloomed with some blocking. I will knit this again, and it's rare for me to revisit a pattern - this is just such a good one for self-stripey yarn. We won't go there just yet. I want to say something nice about Kapur's suggestion to donate to Alzheimer's research - what an awesome designer to offer her work for free, and suggest a worthy cause as the recipient of contributions.


OOOOkay. The yarn. Noro Sekku and I'm not even going to post a link to it because I'm mad at it. But it's the yarn that I used in the shawl in the picture of the ba-daows above. Noro. I can't quit you, my Japanese friend. My Japanese friend that is colorful and charming and occasionally feels nice to the touch. My Japanese friend who should stop worrying about diet so much and go ahead and never get down to lace weight again. This yarn makes me crazy and would set a perfectionist to much rending of teeth and gnashing of garments. It's skiiiiiiiiiiiinny and then it's thick. Like real thick. Like a tuba milkshake and then back to piccolo vinaigrette. Okay. I can roll with that - this adorable pattern can take that and run with it; I think it looks charming. But. But. A knot. A knot just before a particularly cute color transition and then they SKIPPED the BEST COLOR in the WHOLE DAMN SKEIN. Okay besides the totally acidic viper green, because I adore that color, but OMG WTF happened to my indigo?
See this?


That tiny little snippet of electric violet up there beneath the orange and before the teal? That's ALL of that color in the WHOLE DAMN SKEIN. I normally do not fuss about my Japanese friend, cute and funky and quirky. Noro helped me see colors together that I'd never put together and I've worn some bright-ass accessories made of Kureyon that I probably wouldn't wear otherwise. But. I would have been okay if it were orange and brown and yellow and green and teal. I would have been okay with that. However, I know Noro well enough to gently pry into the secrets each skein of their multicolored yarns to get some idea of what I'll be getting and I swear I saw more ultra-purple than just that bitty little stripe. Plus a knot. So no. I am not going to be able to recommend the yarn to any of the knitters I know who bother to take care with our work just to pay good money for pretty yarn that leaves two ends for me to weave in and made me do color fixing in the middle of a project. Not that my Japanese friend cares. She's got enough color freaks wrapped in her spell that she won't miss me at all. But I'll miss her.

Lavalette? Knit it!
Sekku? Don't bother!

a little weather music

the county and the town currently under a flash flood warning, good for the next couple of days. we're between clouds at the moment, where i work but the dark green oak leaves against the dark blue/grey clouds off to the west look beautiful and a little menacing.

some weather inspired music...

too curious

my brain is too curious for the number of hours in a day.

Yes, I am

Going to crochet a rag rug.

I want bright colors in my kitchen and can't afford to buy a lot of rugs. Plus, I love rag rugs. Let the rest of my domicile look as sophisticated as it wants; I'm putting a rag rug in the kitchen.

Can't decide between squares (which I'd have to join, ugh) or an oval (just the delightfully wrong shape for every situation, ha!). Oh well. It's not a bad excuse to buy those bright fabrics that I do so love to buy, and then do nothing with.

a trip to wisconsin

Planning a trip and it will not be complete unless we visit the farmers' market in Madison.
And this is one of many, many reasons that I'm excited about the trip.

two beautiful songs

I heard two of the most beautiful songs I'd ever heard today, back to back, on my way to work, courtesy of 88.7 KUHF. I do miss my radical Portland radio - especially the Africa show, with a dj named Dragonfly. But!
But I grew up on KUHF, it was kind of my bread and butter. I don't know why, but for some reason, when I was a kid, it seemed reasonable that a child should like classical music, and I obliged. There was another classical station at the time and I was willing to listen to either, though any talking usually drove me nuts. Now, I listen to KUHF for the talking, as it's either NPR or BBC. However, on occasion, they oblige with a completely amazing piece of music, and today, they gave me two.

The first was a Vivaldi piece. I've long been partial to Vivaldi, but this piece featured bassoon, which strikes me in so many ways. I was a brass player for a while (Okay, about 10 years, and it's mostly faded from my memory; much like my high school German. Save for that I've got no desire to play trumpet after a couple of hefeweizen bier but I'm still willing to try German/French/Spanish) but woodwinds always have had a fascination for me. Add to that the fact that the person with whom I was enamored from approximately first grade to my senior year in high school ended up playing the bassoon and I was heartily loving the piece. Below is the largo section only, but from my vague memory (before my mind was totally blown by the New York Polyphony piece) the concluding bit was rather jaunty. The concluding allegro is quite worth a listen but is being uncooperative at the moment.



This, though, from a group I actually heard discussed on NPR a few weeks ago: New York Polyphony. Nothing could do it justice save for the song. It was the most beautiful moment of the day. I didn't see the video and don't know that I will watch it now, but the sound is incredible.
Enjoy.

color links

In the Ravelry Kool Aid dyeing group, I got linked to the fabulous Colour Lovers site.
And then, I got to visit a textiles company's warehouse store and found a sweet little piece of fabric, but it's quilting cotton. More the shame to me - I don't quilt and may never do so.
The colors were perfect, though, for the upcoming move and the decoration of a young lady's bedroom. I love the print of the fabric and am still trying to come up with a way to use the material. In the meantime, though, the Colour Lovers site features a fun little tool called Photocopa, allowing one to build a color palette based on a photograph- which I was able to do after finding a photo swatch of the aforementioned cotton.

And, voila!


(Use of the Photocopa tool does require a sign-in, but it's a relatively painless process.)

stuck in my head

American/African American Books and Writing

African-American Milestones on Dipity.

Enjoy this beautiful infographic, and remember, just because it's Black American history, does not mean that it is not part of your history too. This is US history, part of all of us who live here. For those of us who do not, it's human history, outsider history, the history of the disenfranchised and abused. (Not to mention the enlightened, angry, happy, and confused.)

for now/ oh the kawaii!!!

I think I am just going to let this look the way it looks. Brown is not a displeasing color, and I would like to just go ahead and begin writing here.

I would like to disseminate various tidbits that I find around the internet, history, art, knitting miscellany, and all of the other things that constitute my eclectic passions.

Two of those interests are kittens and yarn. I also happen to fancy media in languages other than English, so this *ahem* ADORABLE video hit a trifecta for me.
(The children's voices, however, are a bit high and childish, so turn your volume down just a bit if you value your ears/sanity.)



This is from a children's show, made in Japan, that evidently purports to teach children something, using karaoke.
I feel much better, though, knowing the word for kitten in Japanese. Koneko. This has doubled my Japanese vocabulary, as my only other prior knowledge was KAWAII.

(more to come)

u.c.

this is what any reasonable person would call "underconstruction"

hard hats and all that but anyway welcome to it.

i chose the name because i feel somehow butch when i knit. i feel handsome. capable. admirable.

okay then. back to the part i don't like as much (making it look right).