January 2008 Archives

"Take me now, Subcreature."

If you need me to identify the source of that line for you, you clearly weren't enough of a geek during the '80s.

Anyway.... Home again. Had an unexpectedly nice time, even though I was there to be a temporary wife for my sister and her hubby, while she was laid a bit low. I got to play with my extremely adorable and funny niece, who has a special nickname for me, which she says in her tiny girl's voice. And I got the kind of magical, just-hanging-out time with my sister that I almost never get these days. It was lovely to just drive her around to do her errands, and keep her company, and read stories to the niece while she laid her little head against my chest and put her little hand against each page.

And now I am back on my couch, watching TV and listening to a rumbling purr in my ear (she's perched over my left shoulder) and IMing with Miz Fury about yarn and knitting and how I've completely hooked her on both of those (insert maniacal cackle here), and that is basically the story.

I am back to my life here, and I'm a mixture of blue and relieved. It was, in some way, a break to just be away and be focused on someone else's needs for a few days. Especially since these are all people I love. My life is mostly very self-centered, and there are good reasons for that, and I mostly do need it to be that way, but once in a while it is good to get out of my head, and not think very much at all about the work I have and the work I need but don't yet have, or the boys I don't really have but would like to have, or the money I don't have but really kind of need pretty soon, and so on.

Poem #2:

In the dark that heart
beats into your ear
its voice the other voice
you hear sometimes in sleep

its hands the hands at your throat
when, silent on the grass,
you drink of the night-veil
and sleep the sleep of the drugged.

***
In its answer the voice
never calls to you
only whispers
-- pieces of styrofoam
clogging your sight
with their soft white hands

-- his heart the beat in the dark
an ancient drum
or a landmine.

copyright 2008 Lizbon Grav. All rights reserved.

Spending time in someone else's house is always a strange thing. One feels rather displaced, as if you're floating just above the ground instead of standing on it. It's weird the way that our material things, no matter how little we may think we need or care about them, seem to anchor us in our daily lives.

It's people who anchor us in our larger lives - family, best friends, pets, and so on. But in the day-to-day geography that settles our psyches into place and makes us feel truly ourselves, I think the things we have accumulated are what comfort us, even though we usually aren't aware of them performing that role.

In my case, the details of my "daily" are those of a ragged, dirty, loud, sometimes confusing and/or confounding city. And yet, I do find it comforting. It feels like my landscape, somehow, which is very weird in one sense because I am a nature-lover. You might not realize it to look at me, all togged up in weird hats and jazzy sneakers, slamming by in a blur of brightly colored handknits, but I've always been fairly outdoorsy. I get calm walking in the woods, and I can charm wild animals into sticking around if I happen upon them in a glade.

Why, then, choose this landscape for myself? I can't really tell you, except that I feel in my bones that it is home. And when I am away from it, I do feel fish-out-of-water, and I look round, gasping slightly and hoping that I'll be able to make it back to my bowl (or my ocean) in one piece fairly soon.

And yet, when my sister tells me that she loves having me here, that it actually makes her feel even more at home than she does otherwise, I am happy to hear it. More than that. Touched. That is the people thing at work. The circumstances of her life, the surroundings, the schedule and the lifestyle are alien, do not fit me at all. But she herself is Big Important People to me. So puttering around in her kitchen also makes sense in some way, wherever her kitchen might be.

I got no conclusion to draw from this, mind. Just noticing.

And so beginneth Dispatches From Suburbia, first in a series - hopefully a short series, since they will most likely be photoless, unless I decide to dig through my old pics and look for something good that I haven't posted yet. I am not, in fact, in the lavender room, which is otherwise occupied. I am in the pink room, which happens to be my two-year-old niece's, so it's me and a lot of baby furniture and blocked electrical outlets which I cannot for the life of me figure out how to unblock. Really. It would take a rocket scientist. Or a two-year-old.

You can imagine how comfortable I am with all that. I wouldn't do it for anybody but my sister. But I have to say, it is always nice to see her, even when she is feeling shitty and wants her mommy. Actually, she's really cute when she is feeling shitty and wants her mommy; I look at her and catch glimpses of her when she was a little girl, and feel all fond of her in a way I really didn't when we were kids.

Funny how that happens, isn't it?

So I am in this weird limbo, where it's like I have a secret adult life; everyone else went to bed at 9pm. Here I sit, stashed in a pink room with my iPod, Madeleine Peyroux singing slinky songs at me (for my ears only), this laptop full of pr0n (okay, not really, but I am thinking maybe I should download some for good measure), pointy knitting needles (which have to be kept under lock and key), sexy Malabrigo yarn, and a head full of naughty boy thoughts. (And you ask: naughty thoughts about boys or thoughts about naughty boys? And I answer: yes.)

I finished the yellow birthday scarf for my pal Special J while in transit, put on the fringe after the baby went to bed (scissors), and I'm super-happy with it - ridiculously so, for a simple-ass garter st scarf. I guess it's just because the colors knitted up so nicely. But since my cameras are all at home I can't show you. Which I suppose is okay - I might get mocking comments for doing such candy-way knitting. Remember the candy way and the Ranger way, by the way? Anybody else grow up in National Parks? Bueller?

Okay, yeah, the pink walls are making me a little punchy. Or all this secretiveness. Or something. Maybe it's the fact that I rode my fucking bike yesterday. Yes, my ass hurts. No, I do not give a good god damn. Yes, I am swearing a lot. You know why? Because I am in a baby room. Makes me want to go all George Carlin on your ass.

The ride was cool, but I think doing the mechanical work beforehand was even cooler. There was a moment where, shortly after I'd woken up, I found myself changing a tire in my underwear, levers in one hand, naked rim (that would be wheel rim, for those who really have their minds in the gutter) in the other, when I thought: this has to be some boy's fantasy. And I think I know which one, but he had to work all weekend and didn't see it.

See? Adult room. Don't let all that pink fool you. I have pedal grease and I know how to use it.

Oh, and the new pedals are swell. Flash, yet old skool. I know school doesn't have a "k" in it. Fucc off. Smooch. Buybye!

PS. Poem tomorrow, I promise. As long as I don't get sucked into this 9pm bedtime thing. But really, what are the odds?

What is it about opposites that seem to bring out the deepest flavor in one another? In baking, always one adds a little salt to sweet things, and in cooking often a little sugar to salty or savory things. A drop of vanilla in the hot chocolate is what it was missing.

You see this everywhere. In the tiny woman with the 6 ft.-plus man scenario, which I know infuriates tall women everywhere, but is somehow irresistible to both parties. Don't get me wrong, I don't invariably go for tall men (just usually), but when I date guys who are closer to my own height, there is always some other opposite factor about them - usually their personalities.

Sweet and spicy work well together, too, though I am not certain they are opposites, exactly. That particular combination was brought to mind by my having baked a gingerbread tonight for a friend's birthday. It's cooling on the counter right now, making the joint smell like something out of fairy tales. The witch's house in Hansel and Gretel, I expect. Which would make me a witch who eats children? No, I suppose not. I am not so big on meat, these days.

But anyway, that exceedingly spicy gingerbread will be iced with a cloyingly sweet (and brandy-drenched) glaze, and the result, I assure you, sends it into a higher realm of existence.

Yin yang bright dark blonde black old young and yes, I suppose, life death, which may, after all, have something to do with why we are as a species so very drawn to our opposite numbers.

I was watching Harold and Maude tonight. If you've never seen it, well, I can't make you, but I will tell you this: a lot of what I would like to say about life is in that movie, and it comes out of Dame Maude's mouth. In fact, if you add a few decades to me, that is probably approximately what you will get, if I am lucky, and minus her plan for her 80th birthday celebration.

There are a lot of these sorts of juxtapositions in that film, which is itself both bright and dark, and it always gives me to think. And there is one scene that always, but always, makes me cry. See if you can guess which one (hint: it's not the obvious).

Is it wrong to kiss one's camera on its forehead? Some days when I am getting dressed I happen upon a combination of colors or fabrics or textures or shapes (or any combination of these) that makes my heart do a little zing! as I look in the mirror. It's like painting oneself in the most beautiful colors - or becoming a living Bonnard painting.

Today I was all flame-colored, dipped in small suns, or sealing wax. My favorite new orange corduroy pants and an old pale orange t-shirt, and knitting this glorious tawny yellow yarn. Immediately after I woke up and put it all on, I also put on some Clash, and danced around the apartment while my tea was brewing.

Every day should begin like that.

Of course, as the day went on, and I ran, and hurt my other side while doing it, and went to PT, where the therapist practically begged me to hold the running down to one day a week while we're working on building up my strength and flexibility, some of that glow wore off a bit.

He did say I could ride, though, and so I will try to get my needed bike maintenance (tire changes, chain cleaning, new pedals - and yes, I can do all of those by myself, thank you) done by Saturday and give myself an inaugural ride up the west side path. Or in the park. Or something. Maybe the blonde would come with me. He would match the yarn so very well.

Postscript. I think that instead of imitating Cari's fiction fragments, I will do something slightly different that's in a similar spirit. Once a weekish (or whenever I want to) I will put up a little poem or scraplet from my notebook. The rules are these: it will not have appeared anywhere in print, and it will be straight from the first handwritten draft, with little or no messing about. In other words, raw. We'll just see how it works out. I may decide I don't want to put so much of me "out there" and withdraw them. Or people may hate them and I may cave to that (though I doubt it. I am stubborn.). Or it may be a short-lived phenomenon. Or who knows what else. But here is #1.

Sun setting over hot water
The colors melt into the sea

as the girls play marbles on shore
tossing coin after coin
to the giant fish's mouth

He swallows, belches their fortunes
their wide warm futures at them
puffing little clouds above their heads

When the bubbles pop, the girls
are wearing crowns.

copyright 2008 Lizbon Grav. All rights reserved. And furthermore, my flesh-eating intellectual property lawyer ex-boyfriend (no, not Boywich; a different one) will come after you with knives, sticks, and the long arm of the law.

There's a phenomenon among people of my generation that's been described as "tribe formation." In simple terms, it means that people my age (roughly members of Generation X, for those who are wondering) have a tendency to form strong bonds with their friends, and to view them in a way that previous generations might have reserved for biological relatives.

There are plenty of reasons for this, some sociological, some to do with individual personalities. In my case, it's largely a function of my innate longing for solitude, combined with a desire to spend my time mostly with the few humans whom I feel understand me - or at least part of me. It's not so much likeminded souls, as that implies that I only want to be around people who share my opinions on everything, and really, I often find it more interesting when my friends have different ideas, because then we can discuss.

But to put it more succinctly than I have in the past two paragraphs, I have tended to choose friends over family whenever I had a choice. That's changed a bit in recent years, as I've developed different, more interesting, richer relationships with everyone in my immediate family, but I still really, really dig my friends. I choose them carefully, and I tend to have a few close ones rather than a passel of arm's length pals.

Anyway, several things occurred today that put my friends front and center in my mind. And funnily enough, they coincided with a bunch of crazy things happening in my family that are gonna require my immediate attention and a significant expenditure of energy.

#1: (yeah, you knew there was some kind of list coming, didn't you? even though I hadn't necessarily foreseen it myself): This post of Shannon's. Yes, that was me, and it was a secret Rhinebeck gift I'd been sitting on for a few months waiting till I'd finished her friend's cap and finally, finally got to send.

#2: This post of Cari's, which I think is just an incredibly neat idea, and a swell piece of writing to boot. I may have to do that sincerest form of flattery thing at some point and start posting little tidbits of my own, because the concept rocks.

#3: I started some zippity knitting on the Welcome Back scarf (cue the Mr. Kotter theme for those of you who are old enough and/or nerdy enough to remember it; the blonde could sing all the words, I am sure - not so much because he is nerdy [he isn't] but because he has a weird talent for knowing the words to television songs), having realized that Friday is the recipient's birthday, and would be an appropriate time to present her with said present.

#4: I have recently realized that most of my closest friends now live in the city, following several years of diasporic tendencies. This is a very hopeful feeling, especially since one of the things I used to find hard about being here was the random loneliness that would hit and hit hard. It still does, to be honest, but it's less of a strain when there are things like birthday parties and dinners at friends' apts and movie nights and wine nights and so on to look forward to.

#5: My sister needs my help, and I have to go help her. I would honestly rather stay home, but she is scared, and I would be, too. And I love her. So there will be late-night posts from the lavender room in her pretty house.

It's weird, the ways of friends and families, and maybe it doesn't matter where the people who enter your heart come from. It's more important that they're there, isn't it? (That goes for rambunctious, affectionate, darling, demented little cats, too.)

PS. Oh gad, how could I forget today's most important detail! I ordered this for Snow White, and many thanks to Shan (she of #1, above) for lending me her Ravelry account so I could do research! So helpful. And so much frickin' fun that I put myself on the waiting list, at last.

PS2. A couple of longtime readers (bless your hearts; I love you) have asked what happened to my nearly two years' worth of old posts (yikes; time flies and all that). They do still exist (um, I think) somewhere on my messy server, and they will eventually reappear properly archived right here on our stage, but I have to cut-and-paste them all in by hand, for reasons best known to Movable Type and best quietly ignored by the rest of us, lest they waken the sleeping tiger in my breast and I go on rampage against the vagaries of technology and generally just tear up the joint.

PS3. The subtext of items 1 and 2, is, of course, that I have been noticing that some blog friends can turn into real-world ones, and I find that both remarkable and lovely.

Really. I walked so far that the little nubbly treads on the bottom of my left shoe had worn down by about 1/2 inch by the end of it. When I got to my spa appointment (nothing luxurious, I assure you), and the technician asked me if I'd done my run today (she knows my ways), and I told her, no, but that I'd walked 140 blocks, her eyes just about fell out of her face.

Then she told me, merrily, about her clients who'd complained about having to walk 7 blocks from the subway. I guess she's been beautifying a fleet of suburbanites lately. We had a lovely little chat while she inflicted a little pain on me (as gently as possible; she is really, really nice), and then I went home on slightly tired legs.

Earlier today I found the very perfect yarn (yes, I know, perfect can't be modified, but I am being creative) for a friend's Welcome Back to NYC - We Missed You Honey! scarf. But still no Snow White yarn. I went to three yarn shops, looked at Cascade 220 (nice-ish colors but maybe not soft enough for against the skin), Pear Tree Merino (drab colors and too inclined to pill), Cashmerino (trop cher), Manos (not soft enough, and the handpainted is probably wrong for this project, as much as I adore watching colors shift as I knit), various pretty Italian merinos that would bankrupt me, and so on.

At home, I got back on the Interweb and looked again at the Kathmandu Aran, the Elann Sierra Aran, the Peruvian Highland, the Swish (yeah, still not jazzed about those colors; I should offer to do color development for Knitpicks - they need me!), sidled on over to kpixie and eyed both the expensive and the less expensive options. It's a conundrum. If it's soft enough, it's too pilly or too expensive or both. If it's cheap enough and study enough, it isn't soft enough. If it manages to be soft enough and relatively sturdy and relatively affordable, the colors leave me cold.

Goodness me, I have really never had this much trouble choosing a yarn before. I know that phrasing sounds uncharacteristic (when have you ever heard me say "goodness"?), but I feel quite out of my depth, and it seems to call for language I'd never use. I suppose there isn't really a tremendous rush about it, but it would be nice to get this project underway while the weather is still cool enough to tangle with wool.

In the meantime, there are two scarves and a First Pair of Socks to get on with. Yes, I also bought sock needles.

PS. I am well aware that this is the largest number of knitting posts I have probably ever created in such a short span of days, and I have no idea why that is so, other than that I have grown weary of talking (or even thinking) about boys and am taking a break from all that for a while. In theory. Also, I suppose I had some sort of interesting thoughts as I walked and walked and walked, and there was a relaxing solitary dinner in my current favorite restaurant, in which I managed to order exactly what I wanted (I am not always capable of identifying it in the moment of ordering), and to sit for as long as I liked without feeling terribly awkward for being sans companion or book, and it all just Went Well for once.

When it comes to sexy yarns, Malabrigo may well be the rockstar to end all rockstars. Purely on touch alone, it would be among the top three, and I include cashmere in that running (if you ask me, sometimes a really velvety merino can feel better than cashmere). But if you add in the amazing colors (and their beautiful, often lyrical, names), well, there's almost no contest.

I have been hunting far and wide (well, as far and wide as the Internet will take me) for the right yarn for the fair Snow White. It is a challenge. It must be affordable, because I am not replete with cash, and because I shall need 740 yards of it. It must not be fussy to work with, because the pattern is going to intimidate me enough as it is. But above all, I think, it must be dreamy; it must have enough allure on its own to keep me encouraged and jazzed, because I have a feeling there will be fits and starts and bouts of discouragement involved, and I really, really, really want to finish this pattern.

Malabrigo is, of course, far too pilly and too dear to use for this. But an alternate merino might be the way to go. Alpaca is out, I think, because I may be slightly allergic to it. Last year, I made a scarf from a blend with just 20% alpaca, and I find that I don't wear it that often, because though it feels soft in my fingers, it also tends to prickle my neck. So merino or merino with a bit of silk in it (if I can find something affordable like that) would be ideal.

I considered Queensland Kathmandu Aran Tweed, but was dissuaded from it by Shan, who was skeptical of the suitability of a tweed for the sleek Snow White (and I think she's right). Also, I read a blogger's review of it, who noted that it has a tendency to stick to itself and be fussy. Not the right sort of behavior for a long-project yarn.

I also considered Knitpicks Swish Superwash Worsted, which is nicely springy to knit with, but I just can't get excited about any of the colors, and I think I need to be excited.

So tomorrow - or more likely Sunday, since my dad is visiting tomorrow - I am gonna do the rounds of the downtown yarn shops. Probably just here, here, and here, since these are the ones in my usual trajectory. Even though the prices are better online, I think I need to see the yarn to feel the love.

Wow, what a completely prosaic and knitting-centered post. Instant passport to Dullsville. And really, I meant to list some other sexy things, but I got all hung up on Malabrigo (and that is what a truly sexy yarn will do to you). But let's continue with the original program for a moment, just to diversify a bit.

Things That Are Sexy, According to Lizbon*

1. Malabrigo
2. Vin Diesel, particularly in Pitch Black
3. dark chocolate, especially in a liquid state
4. Beaujolais in a short round juice glass
5. The color orange, in the right light and circumstances
6. Hot boys on track bikes. Long-legged blonde boys on track bikes get rated extra super sexy and then I have to leave the room for several minutes.
7. Dusk
8. The smell of lavender
9. Cool rain on a warm day
10. Bare feet
11. The smell of sawdust
12. Deep voices, particularly those of men of African descent
13. trombones
14. The freedom to stay up late for no reason other than that I am not ready to be done with my day yet
15. The occasional scary, but not too scary, movie
16. oils
17. The color silver, again in the right lights and under the right circumstances
18. old, soft cotton sheets
19. old, worn leather coats
20. big black boots
21. campfires
22. a good pair of hands

*This is by no means an exhaustive list and is reflective only of what I am thinking at this very moment. Tune in for further installments at irregular intervals.

What makes your list of sexy things? Yarns (in both senses of the word) welcome, of course.

His name is (was) Chet, and he was unschooled, melancholic, difficult, frequently impoverished, and a heroin addict. But sometimes his music sounds like the feel of the water I swam through today, which in turn felt like the skin of the blonde (and you wonder why I have trouble not thinking about him?) - soft, so very, very liquid soft.

So we are having an all-Chet day. Contemplative, sad, your basic overdose of longing.

"When I was very young, the world was younger than I - as merry as a carousel."

"All you can count on is [sic] the raindrops that fall on little girl blue."

And yet, despite how that sounds, I'm enjoying it. Boywich would know what I meant; there is a certain languor about sitting there and letting that faint sadness and not-so-faint desire for something just lap at you, again and again, in waves. It's pleasure, but of a different order than the typical urge for fun and candy and cartoons, if you know what I mean.

I would someday like to teach a class - or maybe found a program - in synesthesia. The term is actually a medical condition wherein (there's that word again!) a person's senses get tangled together, so that they see music. I'm not saying I'd necessarily want to be (uncontrollably) miswired like that, but some of the most creative things I've ever done (and thoughts I've ever had) have come from ideas or images or experiences making the leap from one medium to another - just like synapses.

And now some of you are thinking: Whoa, what the hell is this all about? Days and days of silly boytalk and now this? Well, that is how my brain works. It bounces about sometimes like a popcorn popper full of thoughts, some trivial, some erotic, some mystical, some impossible to categorize in the time we have here.

Anyway....I've had a nice organic sort of thinking day, and the cat seems to know that and hasn't been crying hardly at all, as if she's trying not to interrupt the flow. Or maybe it's because I changed her litter last night.

Mother Nature has her ways of getting us to do what she thinks best for us. One way is through the use of happy brain chemicals - otherwise known as endorphins. Anyone who's ever run a mile, had a tattoo, or had an orgasm should be nodding their heads right now. Juicy, gleeful, blissful, floaty little things, aren't they?

Now, I am no Lance, but I do think I understand at least a small part of why he does what he does. Okay, maybe not why Lance does it - he's a pretty competitive guy, which is like saying that Robert Wadlow was rather a tall drink of H2O. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I feel that I have at least some understanding of why professional athletes do what they do. Not so much the competition part (though I partly get that, too - you should see me blowing by the boys in the pool some days), but why they'd have the drive to keep training and training and training.

Because after about half an hour, it feels really, really good.

All of which is a very (very) long-winded introduction to Thing One that made me happy today:

1. I went to the sports doc (long story which I won't get into here; suffice it to say, I've been in pain when I run) today, and not only did he tell me that I can keep running (thank god; the previous [non-specialist] doc had told me I'd have to stop) - okay, we must pause for a drumroll here....

He also said I can also start riding my bike again. WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Those of you who know me in the tangible world know what a fracking big deal that is, and some of you who know me only through the blog also know this. For anyone who didn't know, the short story is that I had an injury that's kept me off the bike for a good - make that bad - two years now. And apparently, it's improved enough that he thinks it's safe for me to try getting back on. Oh halle-freaking-lujah. My bikes are getting all excited in their dusty corner over there. They are winking at me. They are asking for Kevlar and electrical tape and new pedals.

OK, Item Number One took up way too much space, so let's get back to the list proper, shall we?

2. Closely related to Thing One (as befits a Thing Two): When I went for my run this evening, it did not in fact hurt like hell. Only mildly. Mildly enough that I got to sprint at the end, with that fat runner's grin on my face.

3. Yep. I bought Snow White. Now I have to decide whether to knit it out of the chocolate alpaca/wool I bought at Rhinebeck to make the wrap sweater, or whether to buy something else for it. I also have some pale purple merino, but it is handpainted (and quite variegated), and I think that sweater wants to be one solid color, so that the eye is not distracted from the amazing design.

4. I have pink sheepskin booties on my feet. Just had to mention that.

5. Shirley Horn rocks my world.

6. The way Miz Fury's mittens are knitting up fills me with glee.

7. I found myself unexpectedly in Whole Foods today and bought some of that fantastic honey-roasted peanut butter. You know, the kind that comes out of the big grinder right there in front of you? Dee-lightful.

Later PS. But now I am tired, and my nap made me cranky, and I have lost confidence in my ability to achieve and maintain a fabulous boy-harem, and I wish I had some yogurt.

Some of you who've been reading for a while (pardon me while I gawk at the improbability of having written that sentence in earnest. I really cannot believe that anybody actually reads this - despite a certain amount of evidence to the contrary) may recall that I suck - really, truly suck - at knitting from patterns. I know, you're thinking I'm just doing a toe-in-the-sand act or something, but I mean it. It's like I have a mental block about it.

Consequently, I have learned not to blow too much cash on patterns, however beautiful and admirable I may find them. And yet, I keep finding myself tempted - oh so sorely tempted - by this. I've loved it from afar ever since she came out with it, and I must have talked myself out of it at least a hundred times by now.

Okay, that is an exaggeration. Fifty.

But, oy, it's got a complicated tubular cast-on (anything other than the long-tail cast-on is complicated to me; see? I'm really not a very good knitter when all is said and done. I just talk about it a lot and have good taste in yarn), and it's on the all-rib, all-the-time, rib-till-your-fingers-cry network. (Cable channels are getting soooo specific these days, don'tcha think?)

(What is it with me and the parens tonight?)

But here I am again, eyeing my credit card and bookmarking that pattern page and thinking about what yarn I might use for it. Dare I? Will it all end in tears and a pile of rippled, frogged yarn? Yeah, but the pattern is only about 7 bucks USD.

In other news, I know you are all waitin' to hear about the date last night, especially since Cari keeps popping in to check on whether I've met him yet. And while I am tempted to just withhold the information out of sheer mischievousness, I'll refrain from leaving you hanging.

It was a good date, my friends. A good, interesting conversation over a nice dinner (they gave us the best table, which is funny, because I once had a date with the blonde at that same restaurant wherein they gave us the worst table, and I have come to think that that restaurant is like a pet which tells you whether or not it approves of someone in no uncertain terms). I have to admit, I have yet to have a really bad date (famous last words - somebody knock on a tree trunk, quick!), but this was one of the better ones.

I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have a conversation with a male human who seems both male and human, if that makes any sense to you. Some boys are so obviously from Planet Boy that one needs a translator (wherein Boywich comes in handy). This one seemed to live on the planet of humans who think about things. You know, somewhere in the general vicinity of where I dwell. Nice.

PS. Sorry, no photos. I promise to start carrying my cameras again. Really. And at least you have lots of parenthetical asides and two uses of "wherein" (not counting that one) to keep you entertained.

What does it mean, I wonder, that I was so convinced that today was Friday that I actually told a client I'd stop by his office "early next week," when what I meant was "tomorrow or Wednesday"?

It's not that I didn't have a good weekend. I had a really quite swell weekend, in which the forecast changed from "blank grey horizon" to "it's raining men" in the blink of an eye.

Again, I am going to refrain from giving my usual obsessive (or obscene) level of detail because - well, it's private, and this forum ain't - but let's just say there was one point at which I found myself in a crowd of 50 or so men, about half of whom were cute, a quarter of whom were eyeing me in friendly fashion, and one of whom had his arms around me. Sigh. I think I want to live in that bar.

Then I came home to emails from three new guys, and I have a date tomorrow with a fourth who actually comes recommended by a friend. I am looking forward to that. He is really nice on the phone, and has a deep (translation: sexy) voice.

Everybody sing it with me: "It's raining men! Hallelujah, it's raining men!"

The feline princess, of course, is less than pleased with the situation, and is being fussy and demanding and clawing me right on my tattoo (long-ago healed, but I really don't want any claw-mark scars on it, thankyouverymuch). She's also refusing to pose for photos. So that blur up there was the best I could do. Pretty crappy, eh?

But I haven't got a finished knitted object to show you, and I have been very lax about toting cameras with me the last few months, so 'twill have to do. Must remedy that soon. After the date(s). And all that rain. ("Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven.")

There are times when I am overcome by the loveliness of the everyday objects that surround my little rituals. The process of making cocoa - so pleasurable, and not nearly just because the result is something warm and chocolatey.

There is the whole beauty of warming milk in a little pot on the white stove. There is the mug it goes into - my very favorite, a large, handmade purple one. There are the small, creamy bubbles that appear on the surface.

And then there is the whole blue-and-orange theme that appears in my kitchen in mid-winter when the fruits all run to clementines and oranges. Someone at the Darling Clementine factory is very astute in their packaging design, knowing how beautiful those little tangerines look against that particular, almost-lapis shade of blue. And the lettering is just perfect. I have been caving into my desire for those pretty little crates all winter, even though in previous years I usually chose the cheaper brands of them.

If it sounds like I am in a better, even dreamy mood, well, that is because I had a better, even dreamy day, following on the heels of a wonderful surprise last night. I am going to keep the details to myself for once. I think I need to hug it around my arms the way one does those delicious secrets when one is young.

But please enjoy these photographs of some of my favorite images from daily life. I always look at these things and think that I want to show them to you, and I hardly ever seem to want to draw the camera out and go through the motions of capturing and loading and sizing and so on. Tonight, though, the Nikon just jumped out of its shell and took them for me. Or so it seemed. (Okay, not really, but doesn't it sound more poetic that way?)

Oh look, I finished a hat. Again. It is a chemo cap for Shan's friend, who is in need of such things. I had to knit it twice, since the first time my guesstimate resulted in a cap fit for a Conehead. Yes, I swatched. Sometimes swatches lie.

This time, the result is a close-fitting little skullcap with ruffles. I hope it isn't too small. I used my own tiny head as a model, figuring that my hair is so freaking short (I am sporting the Auschwitz look, and yes, I know that is a horrible, awful, tasteless, terrible, dreadful joke. I am sorry. I had relatives who died in the Camps, too. What can I say? Sometimes I am rude and crude without meaning to be) that it might simulate the dimensions of a head denuded of hair by horrible chemo drugs. Oh god, that's an even worse statement. I am sorry. I should go be where people are not.

On the flip side, the blonde would probably laugh at both of those remarks, which maybe tells you something about my taste in men.

Where were we, before I'd alienated half the Western world? Not that half the Western world can be counted within my readership, but you know what I mean.

Okay, so, Shan's friend wanted some pretty things to put on her head during a difficult and unpretty time, and I was really very happy to oblige, and I even had some exquisitely soft Merino in my stash that I thought would suit. So I got to work, knitted it up, fracked it up, let it sit through the holiday-knitting-rush, picked it back up, ripped it out, knitted it up again, and voila. Kinda pretty, I think.

It's already on its way to the great white north, where the intended recipient dwells, and where, I imagine, winter will last long enough that she will still get some use out of it. Assuming that it fits, that is. See aforementioned in-poor-taste notes about the dimensions of my tiny head.

Anyhoo. On to other knitting. Miz Fury's mittens, and Then What? I have so much pretty new yarn I am almost choked with it, and it's going to be very hard to decide what to knit next.

As I mentioned yesterday, I am not replete with boy-toys, so I shall probably be doing more knitting in the next few months than I have done thus far this Woolly Season. Which means I have some choices to make. Here are the contenders:

From left to right, the yarns are:
1. Handpainted Yarn bulky merino (except it's really an aran-weight) in Noche Lunar, 2. Twist of Fate Spinnery 50/50 wool and alpaca worsted in natural chocolate brown, and 3. Malabrigo worsted crack -er- merino in Verde Esperanza.

The respective projects would be:

1. A narrow Clapotis
2. The long-awaited Wrap Sweater (from my own sketch of months ago)
3. A simple scarf (seed stitch or mistake rib or somethin' like that) or perhaps more fingerless mittens (pour moi, this time), though really I think I want a scarf out of this green, which is far more intense and teal-like in person than in the photo.

So...votes? What to do first?

I hate to post without a little eye-candy for you, but I haven't managed to get my camera out in the daylight in a while, and the cat refused to sit still for long enough to let the autofocus do its thang, so here we are. It's Tuesday night, I am washing woolens in the sink, I had dinner with friends, I watched a parade of cute boys walk and cycle down the streets outside the bar, I drank one Guinness. I came home.

I called Boywich and discovered he's off to vegas to meet with a woman he expects to sleep with. I suppose that is the proper place to do that, particularly since she will be cheating on a spouse. But it is a depressing sort of thing to hear about when one has spent the evening watching boys who are not particularly watching me - or if they are watching, are not doing anything other than look. And then there is the whole lack of boy email and nothing doing on the online profiles, and while it is all very good for knitting, it is not very good for the ego and general outlook on life.

And then I think, I oughtn't to complain, since some people have real problems on their plates at the moment. But there you have it - this is my blog, and that is what is on my mind.

My hands smell like Kookaburra, which I always want to call Eucalan because it is so redolent of eucalyptus.

I got an interesting email today from the fair Juno speculating that the older we get, the more flexible our possible relationships with people are. And though I wrote back to her that I think I was more flexible about such things when I was in college (when everybody seemed to sleep with friends and think nothing of it), I now think that maybe I was too hasty to brush that notion aside. I am certainly more willing to entertain a larger spectrum of involvement than I once used to.

I put it down to having developed my own notions of what I want from a man (in my case), rather than operating entirely on received expectations about what love is, means, and ought to give me.

I realize I am being exceptionally wordy, even for me, and I suppose it is because I am finding this hard to describe. Perhaps some specificity would help. I no longer expect - or even want - to find one true love whom I will marry and live Happily Ever After with. And yet, I used to imagine that was what I wanted - and perhaps would even find, eventually.

Of course, experience has shown me that men who are even approximate matches for me don't grow thick on the ground. Okay, they don't exist at all. Don't get that sad little pity face on, now. I am not bemoaning this, believe it or not. At the moment, all I really want is some chemistry, some fun, some playfulness, some exuberance, with someone who is trustworthy and yet daring enough to be the right sort of playmate for me. I have plenty of soulmates to keep me company, and they are called friends.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our heroine was making technicolor soup (that photo is completely unretouched), sitting on the couch with a sleeping kitten, and watching a lot of MASH reruns. Oh, that Alan Alda. I can never decide whether in his youth, in that role, he belongs on the list.

Carl Lumbly, though, he's a definite.

After two weeks off from work, I find that instead of feeling recharged, I am feeling like I need another two weeks. I recently met some Australians who were in the middle of a month-long tour (or maybe it was three weeks) of the US, and who have done similarly long trips to various corners of Europe in the past few years. And it made me realize how stupid I have been.

I quit my day job some years ago, in part, to have greater control over how I spend my time, and I've been completely squandering that control for the last year. I have gone nowhere and done nothing. Sure, I have been somewhat hemmed in by financial pressures and the fact that I haven't had a traveling buddy available when I did have the money and/or time. But really, there is no earthly reason why 2007 should have passed me by without my taking a single vacation. I am the boss of me, and I have not given myself the breaks I needed. Periods of unemployment (also called looking for new gigs) do not, unfortunately, have the same psychological effect as actual time off. I know that in theory, but I forgot to put it into practice.

Or rather, every time I considered doing so, a gig came up that was too good to turn down. For which I am duly grateful.

Enh. What a boring-ass topic for a blog post. I have another one in mind, but it is one of those personal things, and it has to do with boys, and it was brought on by having gone on another date and ending up feeling lukewarm afterward.

Which all made me realize that there's a very good reason I have been hung up on the blonde. I felt passion for him. Actual real live impossible to resist or even think clearly about passion. And that, my friends, has not come along very often in my life. Really altogether rarely. So rarely that it makes me sad just thinking about it.

I think that I have, in the past, settled for something that seemed sort of nice at the time, or that I fell into. Like a hole. One should not be describing past loves as sinkholes. (Don't take that turn of phrase personally, Boywich, please. You know what we had, and there was a lot of it that was good.)

Anyway. Back to the passion. Having had an all-too-brief taste of that recently, I find myself unwilling to settle for anything other than a repeat. It's ineffable, and impossible to tell by looking at photos or reading online profiles, or exchanging emails, or even talking on the phone. And I wasn't even sure about the blonde when I first met him. After the first date, I thought, well that was fun, and I'd see him again. But I didn't know if there'd be chemistry. And then the second date, I felt like I'd been hit over the head by a flaming ton of bricks.

Yeah, that's what I want. Bring on the flaming ton of bricks. Stat!

My usually healthy lifestyle seems to have left me unprepared to handle a week of nefarious debauchery. In other words, I have been one hungover puppy, especially today. I went to a party last night, and after some ungodly quantity of wine, I barely made it home without making a public nuisance of myself. (No, I did not lose my dinner on the subway, but that was primarily through sheer force of will.)

Today I was supposed to swim. I was supposed to run some errands. I was supposed to do something fun with my remaining vacation day. Instead I spent the whole time moaning and groaning, holding my head, trying first one hangover remedy, then another, and wondering why in hell it was taking me so long to return to equilibrium. All I can say is, I am perhaps too old for this. Or too accustomed to taking good care of myself to tolerate its opposite for too long.

In any case, at 10pm, I still feel yucky.

On the other hand, I had a lovely time dining with my stepsister this evening, and I feel absolutely no pining for something more fabulous to do for the rest of the night other than what I am currently doing: watching Stargate Atlantis and knitting these here brighter-than-bright mittens for Miz Fury.

Stepsis and I had a nice, and rather helpful, conversation about the rigors of dating NYC men. There were some eerie parallels between her own recent experience and my time with the tantalizing, yet perplexing, blonde. It was, in truth, delightful to have someone to commiserate with. My other friends are either in long relationships or not currently wanting to date, which is, perhaps, why the subject ends up taking up so much space on the blog. I mean, it's not that I can't talk to my friends about it - I do and I can, and Annabelle is particularly sympathetic. But it's a different sort of conversation when you're both having the same kind of experience at the same time. You do more than sympathize; you relate.

So there was that.

In other news, I think I have some post-holiday blues going on. Chalk it up to a couple of recent letdowns in the boyz in the 'hood department, and the fact that I now have to scale back on all the irresponsible spending I've been enjoying for the past few months, and, oh I dunno, the fact that I haven't been able to run very much lately because one of my legs hurts, and when I went to the doctor, she said, "If your leg hurts when you run, stop running," just like that horrible old joke. Bitch, bitch, moan, complain. Here cometh the long slow slog into spring, in other words. Wish I had a fireplace to cheer up the joint.

Eleventy zillion glasses of champagne, a New Year's Day stroll through Chinatown, an impromptu birthday party, and a solitary sixty-block hike (I needed a walk after all that booze and food) later, here I am with Sex and the City and a floor-sprawling kitty.

It was all pretty fun. I called Boywich all drunk and flirty at about 5 am. I got a very good fortune at a Buddhist temple. I bought some pretty printed silk lipstick cases. I came home and marveled at the fact that, 4 hours later, I am still kind of tipsy. (It was really, really good champagne.)

I have to admit, though, that last night I kept looking around at every tallish male to see if the blonde had walked in. And I was disappointed not to see him.

I guess I miss having a playmate. And this dating thing takes some getting used to. I was talking to Miz Fury about it the other day, and she said she'd felt much the same way when she began dating again after a long absence from it: very up and down. One gets surprisingly discouraged, given that these are people one doesn't really know at all.

And one tends to go on and on about it on one's blog, until one's readers are ready to go off and read anything else: a fashionista blog, a straight-knitting-and-crocheting blog, a news blog. Anything.

So instead I'll tell you about the trees I saw on my walk. I don't think it was just the champagne bubbles still flitting around in my head that made it special...there was a small double-row of naked-limbed trees strung with little white lights (which always look yellow to me, in the dark), and I stood at one end of it, looking into them. I squinted and let my eyes blur, and they became an uneven sea of yellow stars, like sparks jumping out of a campfire.

And then I was looking into a galaxy, and hoping/feeling that maybe this is what I will see when I die. It was lovely, and I was aware of looking, perhaps, like a small poetic figure there on Third Ave., with no one around to see it. I guess what I would like is to have someone around to see those kinds of things. That's all I really want. And a (cholesterol-free) cookie.