Recently in Flotsam Category

Okay, okay, okay. I'm doing that thing again where I start writing a post, get distracted before I finish, and it never goes up. So I swear that tonight, whatever happens, I will post whatever comes of this. Kitwich may set the house on fire (she's been playing with matches), and I will still post photos of burning cinders for you.

I might as well; there's shit on TV.

Just to be on the safe side, I think I'd better resort to list format. Because, you know, that is the best way to present a random series of thoughts that aren't likely to lead anywhere except yawnsville.

Okay, so.

1. I watched the Oscars last night, and as always it was about the dresses. And as usual, I spent my time mentally redressing them in what they ought to have worn instead of what their apparently hallucinating stylists put them in. I can just hear those stylists, between snorts of cocaine laced with peyote, in Edna Mode's voice: "But you look FABulous dahling. No, you must believe me. It is chic."

2. My hair is growing at an astonishingly slow rate, now that I've been trying to grow it into a different shape, and I'm on the point of racing into the salon and begging my darling gay stylist (dahling) to shear it all off into its usual form. Somebody pass the peyote-laced barrette.

3. Hmmn, I'm hungry.

4. I'd planned to take advantage of the not-snowing, not-frigid weather to ride to my favorite bike-accessible beach this weekend but blew my wad on Saturday, sprinting about town, and hadn't the legs for a 40-miler on Sunday. Alas.

5. I've been knitting as if it's going out of style - which, given that spring is almost upon us, it basically is. For those who haven't been reading very long (or don't bother remembering such trivia), I lose the knitting muse completely every summer. Some years I make a flimsy gesture in the neighborhood of a bamboo bikini top or something, but it never comes to anything.

6. I am dying for a new nose stud, but to say that I am too broke to afford the one I want doesn't even begin to cover it.

7. Still hungry, and damn I wish my hair would just grow itself into the desired length and shape, pronto!

8. Kissed a boy on the way home, and no, I'm not going to give you further details. It was just a kiss. Some days that's exactly right.

9. Found myself out in a very photogenic neighborhood yesterday just at the right hour when the sun is slanting low and golden, pulled over, dug in my bag, and realized...I'd left the camera at home. Damn. There was good graffiti, too.

10. I had a funny dream about looking through an exotic wardrobe for an outfit to dance in, and all I could find that I wanted to try on were hats. They were marvelous hats.

Wow, that was a mess.

For those of you who didn't notice, the blog was down for about 10 days due to a minor catastrophe at the hardware level. It's all fixed now, and there doesn't seem to be anything missing, and anyway, it's just a blog, not somebody's lifeblood or my novel or anything.

But still, I missed it.

Which kind of surprised me since I've been finding it hard to blog, and I've been posting more intermittently than I did for the first - oh - 6 years of this thing. (Yes, I know the archives don't go back that far; Boywich has the early years saved somewhere safe-ish, and one day he'll get around to revamping this place and adding in all those files, but that has to be done manually and it's a big job, and he's a busy boy)

All of which is to say, hey, sorry girlwich was a blank white page for 10 days. I had things I wanted to say, too - things which would not have fit into 140 characters and so did not appear in the twitter stream. And while I don't remember those would-be essays, I have a minor amount of faith that if there were important ideas in there, they will percolate through my consciousness and reappear.

For now, what I will give you is a random series of thoughts (as opposed to the elegant triumph of organization that's the rule in blogland?).

It snowed again. Fuck. 20 inches. The roads are shite, as they say in Ireland, where it rarely snows at all.

I rode my rollers in the hallway tonight, for a scant fifteen minutes. It's hard riding rollers, and it's only about the third or fourth time I've ever done it.

I also walked, clad in waterproof garments and a certain amount goose down (bad vegan!) and several knitted items, to a pal's house to watch Carl Sagan tell me about Mars. I love Carl Sagan. We're on a first-name basis. I call him Carl and try to remind myself that: a) he was married, and b) he's no longer with us (so sad!). Such a dreamboat, that Carl. Shut up, I'm in earnest.

I am knitting the most brilliant sweater ever devised by mankind (forgive me; I've been thinking in hyperbole all day - watching Carl will do that to you), but I have reached a point of confusion. It's a hazard of seat-of-the-pants design. Yes, I'm calling myself a designer. No, I'm not proposing to make a career of it. But almost every successful piece of knitting I've ever done had its origins in a little drawing on an envelope. That's how my brain works. I'm creative and I don't follow directions very well.

During the last big snow (what, like a week ago?) I happened to walk by a mosque during evening prayer, and the chanting was being piped into the street through a loudspeaker. I stood under the streetlight for several minutes looking up at the falling snow and listening to that haunting melody.

This time, I walked past the mosque again but there was no music, and I was sad.

I have recently come to the conclusion that I am funny and rather brilliant and a mostly delightful companion, and I feel that I deserve an equally delightful boyfriend, and I am somewhat perplexed as to why one hasn't materialized yet. Maybe it's the funny hats.

When you ride the rollers and it is going well, you reach this state where you are floating in mid-air, scarcely aware that you're pedaling at all. It's quite remarkable, but I wish my glasses wouldn't fog up just at that moment. It kind of kills the mood.

Oh my dears, you know what happens when you have a brilliant blog post rambling around in your head while you're folding the laundry, and you think about stopping to write it down, but then you think, oh I'll remember, and anyway, if I leave this pile of laundry unguarded, on top of the bed, the cat will nest in it, and it'll not be so much clean as downy-fresh but full of cat hair.

And then you get it all put away, and all the can't-be-dried stuff hung out (of which there is a considerable amount, me being a cyclist, and American Apparel being given to not edge-finishing their short little skirts so that they shrink to the size of post-it notes if you dry them), you can't for the life of you remember the Big Blog Idea (much less where this sentence was going before that tremendous parenthetical interruption).

All I know is it had something to do with longing, which, you know, is rather a theme of mine.

When I die, my gravestone might just as well say, "Here lies Lizbon. She longed." Though I'd be happier if it said "Here flies Lizbon."

Anyway. The time has come for a new male playmate to enter my life. The only trouble is, no one seems to have alerted the men to this. And then I make the mistake of reading things like this, with all its depressing stats, and its even more depressing (and often barely literate) comments.

But at least Target is offering the Waiting for Your Bangs to Grow Out Collection. So there's that. Plenty of useful implements to tame my growing-out mop.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. - Mr. Rogers

Everybody's friendly when it snows. The people shoveling, the lone guy on a mountain bike (I take my hat off to you, brother), the parents out playing with their kids, whose tiny legs barely crest the top of the snowfall.

I go out with my camera (pocketcam, because it fits in the pocket of my coat) and walk, a big red hat on my head and a big smile on my face. I think I must have been smiling, because everyone I passed said hi to me as if I'd been smiling at them.

"Lemme know if you need help getting out." - one shoveling guy to another shoveling guy.

"Hey, take my picture!" - friendly man with a very large snowblower, to me.

I've always walked in snowstorms. It's a habit and an instinct, and by now, a kind of ritual. It snows and I walk in it. I was sick the last time it snowed, and I walked anyway.

I once walked in a bonafide blizzard, where the snow was coming down so fast, and the wind swirling so hard that I had to turn back at the end of my street because I was uncertain as to whether I'd make it home if I went farther.

Today was milder. Only about 10 inches. I waited till the wind had calmed down and then out I went.

I bounced around in the drifts and snapped pictures and thought about how it would be to ride tomorrow in the half-plowed streets. I watched the plows go by, chains on their giant tires. I watched SUV drivers, timid, uncertain how to get started. Then the car service drivers, flashing by too fast. The buses, stolid and unconcerned, neither too fast nor too slow.

Two boys walked by carrying snowboards. I wanted to snap their picture but they were gone. Lots of small children in brightly colored snowsuits, their moms looking surprised by the snow, a little worried that the kids were getting tired from walking thigh-deep.

One little boy flung himself face first into it, laughing. I knew just how he felt.
I leapt and jogged through it, backed into big drifts to take pictures.

I wore Gore Tex pants and hiking boots, nice big ski gloves. I was comfortable. Snow is something I understand.

It was just weird to see it in the city, where everything is ash-grey and blocky-looking. Suddenly my country life invaded, and everything wore icing.

Yep, it's one of those weeks where I keep making drafts and more drafts, sitting next to my (you guessed it) drafty window, where the cat bravely offers to keep me company on the adjacent big fluffy pillow.

I guess when you have fur, drafts don't scare you.

And then I get distracted by the fact that my lunch is ready, or my second dinner, or I need another cup of coffee, or this chair hurts my butt, or the outdoors exists, and so on, and I don't post the thing, because really I am not so sure about that draft, and there it languishes next to the three other drafts I wrote this week, and the hundred-and-something other ones I wrote that will never see the light of -er- cathrode ray tubing.

Yes, I know, hardly anyone has CRT monitors anymore. Shut up and let me have my literary devices, willya?

Anyway. At the risk of injecting yet another unpublished draft into my Folder of Oblivion, I am going to set forth a list, in hopes that my beloved list format will put me at ease about publishing the damn thing.

1. They have promised us 8 inches of snow, and so far all we've got are flurries.
2. I rode around with snow tires and a fender all ready like a badass boy scout, and I hardly even got flaked on.
3. I had a little talk with my hairdresser, and we agreed that growing my hair out is an awesome idea. Then he cut it so that the right bits will grow out in (it is hoped) a non-driving-me-crazy sort of way. It was a big step. I've had the same haircut for years.

4. See? I need a whole extra space between paragraphs after that.
5. Lemon ice cream. Lemon ice cream, I tell you!
6. I am 1.5 hats through my 3 hats of gift knitting that must be accomplished before I get to cast on for the Incredibly Cool Sweater Design I drew on an envelope.
7. I deleted my online profile and then when I went to resurrect it, thinking, what if Mr. Fabulous is looking for me there? the site first wouldn't let me log in, telling me I must've typed in the wrong username (I know my own name, you bastards), and then when I finally got in through a backdoor, it chided me for having disabled the account. "You will now not be able to disable your account again for a period of...one week." Whoop-de-fracking-doo.
8. I haven't written about boys in a while, I know. It might be because I haven't met anyone of interest, or anyone who seems interested in me. And there's been less strife in the former-boys department. I seem to be able to be around the ex-lovers without feeling sad or needing to drag them home by the hair.
9. In point of fact, I had dinner with summerboy this evening and had a pretty darn good time, laughing and joking around. I was only slightly annoyed at him for still looking cute. Don't boys know they should immediately go to pot after you cease to be involved with them? Really, it would be just great if he'd get horribly ugly. How about some gooseturd-colored contact lenses? Try, really try, to gain a hundred pounds (he's skinny, so it would take a hundred). Take up smoking! That's an instant turn-off. No? Oh well, it was fun hanging with you anyway, cutie.
10. Squirrel!

* In cycling, drafting means following another cyclist very closely to take advantage of the reduction in wind drag.

I went shopping. Yes, it's pouring cold rain out. Yes, the bridge was full of broken beer bottles (I have some choice words for whoever put them there). Yes, it's Sunday and I was up late last night.

But I had a quest.

And the weird thing was, the shopping kinda cheered me up. Which wouldn't be weird to someone else, but given my general hatred of all things shopping-related and my lack of patriotic consumerist joy in overspending, it was a bit surprising.

Maybe it was the colors of what I bought. There comes a point in winter when I long to be bathed in a molten pool of Crayola. Well, minus the burns from all that hot wax, but you know what I mean.

The city has its charms - checking out what color they've lit the Empire State as you go over the bridge (it's currently green-and-white). The mind-blowing profusion of fresh flowers lined up outside practically any deli in Manhattan. The charm of sitting down at your favorite haunts, where they automatically bring your ice cream in the long dish because they know you don't like the scoops melting into each other.

The particular delight of rolling up to a bar with a bicycle posse, and seeing other friends roll up, and ye shall know them by their bicycles and the particular brands of helmets they wear and how they look in winter gear or summer gear. "Oh, you haven't met him before? Well, let me introduce you." (then a few minutes later...) "Yes, he does look like George Clooney. He likes younger women; I'm too old for him. You should totally go for it!"

Where was I? Oh yes, the need for color in midwinter. Well, I guess there are various forms of color - literal and metaphorical, maybe even metaphysical.

I needed all of those, and I think I got some. Along with a pretty good dose of silliness. ("Oh crap, there is that guy who always hits on me. I will hang out with my ex-lover who will run interference. Shit, this guy just will not take a hint. Maybe he will think I'm going home with my ex-lover if we walk out together. Oh but wait, then the guy I have a crush on will think that, too. Damn.")

Oh well, it's all good.

Some days the contents of my head are extra-jumbled, and this has been a week of those sorts of days. I've tried to blog a few times and end up realizing that I am Just So Not in the Mood that the results languish in the ever-growing drafts pile. Good thing it's an electronic pile, because I'm not sure my apt has room for any more piles.

I took out my toaster to be recycled on the curb. Either the trash collectors will pick it up (it's mostly metal) or some random person will walk by, like the look of it, and take it, a phenomenon we call urban recycling. Sadly, if it's the latter, when they get it home and plug it in and try to make toast with it, they will find out it gives off a disturbing burnt-wire smell, which is why I suddenly had the urge to reclaim the counter space it was taking up.

Anyway. One less Thing I don't need. If I really, really, really want toast, there is always the oven.

I haven't had a microwave in years, and darlings, I don't want one.

What I do want is a more structurally sound bedframe. If a bed makes horrible rickety noises every time the 11-pound cat jumps onto it, it's time to start thinking about a visit to IKEA. I just would like to earn some money first.

What else don't I want? Let's see. I don't want a fancy coffeemaker. I am happy - make that very happy - with my little silver espresso pot. It sits on the stove, it makes an appealing noise when it's finished. I get to screw parts together (which is vaguely satisfying). I wash it and put it away for next time. Perfect little ritual.

What else do I want? A really pretty handpainted vegan yarn that has some wool-like memory and warmth, but is not produced from animal products. I am not sure it exists, but I have several non-animal-fiber-wearing friends for whom I need to or would like to knit. One of whom is allergic to acrylic. Any suggestions? Also, it would be great if it wasn't too costly.

What else don't I want? flat tires, insomnia, pain, road dangers, financial stress, any other kind of stress, fungi, tummy aches, influenzas or other illnesses, kittens to get left in plastic bags on the street, anything bad to happen to me or anyone I love.

What else do I want? Daily chocolate, love from friends and family and beautiful boys who are nice and funny, bicycles that are in good shape and fit me well, income from an enjoyable source, to get into school, to make art, to open a restaurant that just sells homemade soup and bread (need to talk to that friend of mine who has similar ambitions), for my darling little cat to live very healthily to a very ripe old age with me, my mommy.

Happy 2010, gang. Let's see what we can put together for ourselves, eh?

Okay, okay, yes. I'm having difficulty posting. I've taken pictures for posting, I've written drafts and then been unaccountably dissatisfied with them. I've tried for holiday spirit, charming curmudgeonry, and several other tones. None of them work. It's all just a big jumble of flat-colored jellybeans here, and I don't know how to make an amusing anecdote out of it for you. A friend asked me today what I've been up to, and I had absolutely nothing to tell him, other than that I've been sick.

Sometimes I just don't feel like talking, or writing, or sometimes my head is just not a place I am able to discuss. And when one has little money one tends not to go out and do fancy things, so there isn't much to describe.

I've watched a bunch of movies on TV, including some enjoyable old ones that I hadn't seen before. I acquired a new crush on a TV actor, one which will make no sense to anyone but me, I expect. Which is fine. That way I can have him (imaginarily) to myself.

I received some cycling gear as gifts, and I'm glad to have it. I knitted some gifts from stash (plus one trip to the LYS because I had a dearth of "manly yarn"). Dad liked his Fair-Isle hat, which was nice, because I wasn't sure he would (not manly enough).

It's getting cold out, serious cold, the cold that separates the men from the boys and all that jazz, except that if last year is anything to go by, a lot of those selfsame men will be riding the subway to work, leaving me the little lone solitary cyclist slugging it out in the wind and snow.

That's fine with me. I like the quiet. I had company for the ride home tonight, and we went slow and easy, my preferred winter speed. I tend to ride at sunset this time of year, so I look west and see a lot of pink striped sky draped around the Statue of Liberty. Then I look east and there's the low sun blazing on the metalclad tops of the famous buildings: Empire, Chrysler.

Things are rough and beautiful these days, which seems fitting for winter.

Post, unpost, post, unpost. Or rather, start writing something, lose steam, start writing something else, decide I'd rather be knitting, cycling, collecting vegetables from chilly farmers, etc.

Maybe I can get through a simple list.

a) Have realized I like winter cycling better than summer cycling. Reasons: fewer people out, bracing weather, object is to stay warm rather than avoid melting under sweltering sun, whole experience is both mellow and challenging.

b) Winter knitting proceeds apace. Have vowed to make all holiday gifts from stash yarn. Not sure I have enough "manly" colors in stock.

c) Cat asleep on couch.

d) Jeremiah Johnson on TV. Hard to decide which is more glorious - open, beautiful western landscape or young Redford. I also like the fact that there's barely a single page of dialogue in the whole movie.

e) Bulgarian disco music is fun. Just in case you were wondering. Oh c'mon, you know you were.

f) I really need to get over my fear of shrink wrapping my windows with a blow dryer. It's cold in here, and I can't find one of my fingerless mittens.

g) Have been scratching my head wondering what people who don't knit do for clothing all winter. I find myself wearing at least two or three handmade objects every day. I suppose that is some kind of knitter's fashion don't, but the fashion police can bite me. My knits are beautiful, and they keep me warm. And by beautiful, I do not mean perfect. My favorite things are often full of mistakes. Yes, there's a metaphor in there.

Wow, what a week. Lots of late-night shenanigans (no, not that kind) and random weirdness. Highlights:

Found two kittens abandoned in a plastic bag. Found someone to take them home. Wondered about the mess that is human nature. Who the hell would do such a thing? My diagnosis: Lack of ability to put oneself into another creature's shoes (or in this case paws).

Finished the first small item of holiday knitting. Started next while at laundromat. Annoying little girl came over and bumped up against me and got right in my space while I was knitting. If I were a child-liking person, I would no doubt have chatted with her and showed her what I was making. Instead, I glared until her mother came and got her. Hey, she's no niece o' mine.

I was, in fact, knitting mittens for my niece at the time. Yes, I know, that's horribly inconsistent, but what can I say? I'm a complicated woman. Also, I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one who dislikes children writ large but has special relationships with specific children who are related by blood or friendship.

Danced with handsome boy on Friday. That was fun. He lives far away.

Kissed different handsome boy yesterday. Nice, but you know, nothing doing there.

Had conversation with male friend that went like this:

He: "Hey, will you tell Summerboy XYZ?"

Me: "Um. I don't see him very...we're not...I don't..."

He: "Oh. Hey, you should just get a guy you can (less polite term for have sex with) on the DL."

Me: "No, I'm not built for that."

He: "You mean you want a BOYFRIEND?" (surprised)

Me: "I know you haven't heard that word come out of my mouth in a while (or ever), but yeah. I think it's time."

He: "Hey, if I wasn't doing so well with my girlfriend, you're totally my type."

Me: "Ack."

Later that night, I pondered. Lots of men say I'm their "type." And yet.

It gave me to think. And what I thought was this: I'm intimidating. I may look like someone they'd want, but get me in a conversation and within five minutes most guys are feeling kind of stupid. Or at least they're thinking, what the hell would she need me for?

And they're not wrong. I probably project self-sufficiency at a radius of 90 yards. I certainly don't like being approached by guys in clubs or bars, and I'm very adept at warding off all attempts. I tend to have a kneejerk reaction of, "I'm with my friends. Buzz off."

So how did I end up dancing with a handsome 20-something doctor? He was a friend of my friends, of course. And because of that, he had a chance where none of the other boys in the bar did.

I never used to get depressed at holidays, but if this last year is anything to go by, that's changed. There was nothing really wrong about today - I went to a friend's dinner party. The food was good; someone I know and usually like made a not-terribly-nice joke at my expense, but other than that, there wasn't anything especially wrong.

And yet, I left feeling vaguely grumpy and wishing for...

Well, I think I was wishing for Boywich. And maybe this is why holidays make me sad. I don't know if it's specifically him I am missing, or if it's just that feeling of belonging to somebody. Our house was a magnet for something, even though moving in with him wasn't the best idea I ever had.

Years later, gone from there a long time and living a completely different lifestyle, I feel like I'm on a magic carpet in mid-air, only not fun like that sounds. I feel like I'm dangling when I ought to be grounded.

It's not very comfortable.

Maybe it was because most of the people there today were married. My one single female friend left early - perhaps because she wasn't necessarily having the greatest time, either, though she made a good show of it if that was the case.

I kept falling asleep sitting up. I think I just wanted to be elsewhere, and my body was prepared to take me there, even before I left.

When I got home it was immediately apparent that wherever elsewhere was, it wasn't my apartment. So I got on my bike and took off. I rode through cool air and deserted streets, and thought, this might be my one true love. It might not be a person at all. It might be this simple, two-wheeled, me-powered machine.

While I was riding I was relatively happy, except for that one moment when the stupid men standing in the middle of the bike lane responded to my friendly "heads up" with a nasty retort, and I wanted to turn around and shove them, bodily, with my fist, out of the bike lane and then give them a lecture about being courteous to people who are simply trying to make sure they don't back into oncoming traffic and get hurt.

Instead of doing that, I took a different route home so I wouldn't have to see them again.

I came home and swatched some sportweight, and discovered that there really isn't enough of it to make a whole sweater (and it's not anything I can get more of), so I read Barbara Walker's thoughts on sleeveless sweaters that can have set-in sleeves added later and came up against the usual invisible/provisional cast-on barrier, and closed the book and put down the yarn and wondered how I could possibly rejigger the properties of matter so I can turn 750 yards into 1150.

Kitwich has no ideas on the subject. But you know, she's here.

When someone started to make noises about going around the table having everyone recite what they're thankful for, instead of falling back on my prepared speech about my cat, I flat-out refused. I said, Oh no, I'm not going to play that game.

I don't know if that killed the idea, or if it was only ever a joking suggestion, but in the end I didn't have to lie. I don't like being prodded to emote, especially to emote some kind of greeting-card tripe. It's all well and good to be able to appreciate the little things in your life, but it should be spontaneous, and if you're having a bad day, or a bad year for that matter, people at dinner parties should just let you be the way you are, and not try and force you to be something else because it makes them more comfortable.

I had just had an interesting conversation with my mom about this very thing - interesting because she agreed with me, and I wouldn't have expected her to. I liked being able to talk with her like that, honestly, and to have her respond in kind. It felt real. And we laughed, because for both of us, Thanksgiving is just a harvest feast, and trying to slap an emoticon on it takes the fun out of it.

It's just about the food. And by the way, I don't like pumpkin pie.

Well, I am grumpy and exhausted and knitting something pretty. It's a present for a friend's sick mom. No occasion, other than a way to say, "I'm sorry you're so ill and I really like you and I wish I could make it go away but since I can't I am making you something very pretty and soft to wear in hopes it will cheer you up now and then in a small way."

I believe these sorts of gestures count. Both because I have to, and because I know that when I feel shitty a small kindness will often feel big. It will feel like the universe apologizing to me for things being so shitty.

Anyway.

I can hear Anthony Bourdain on the TV, and I am annoyed with him. His whole job is a frivolous, luxurious endeavor dedicated to showing off his rockstarness, and even though I don't usually feel that way about him, at the moment I am annoyed. I am annoyed by the fact that it's trivial, when there are big things to deal with, and the whole venture seems shallow to me.

I'm sorry, Tony. It's just a mood. I usually like you, and I usually think your intentions are good. I think you know your job is trivial, and you try to make up for your good fortune by showing off interesting cultures, etc. But tonight I just can't get it up for you or your silly little show. I am waiting for Sherlock Holmes to come on so I can look at that evil, ugly Moriarty.

There is deep loneliness at the heart of my life, and I usually just ignore it, and solider on, and often take a certain amount of pride in doing so.

Chalk it up to having watched a well-done version of Pride and Prejudice. Damn that Jane Austen. How dare she open up my heart like that? The bitch.

Riding over the bridge tonight on my way out to dinner, I looked across at the Empire State lit blue and white, at all the sparkling tinkertoy towers, and I thought, on the face of it, my life might be just a little bit glamorous.

The reality of it is no different than anyone else's daily drudgery, and I never usually think this way, but looking at the bare outlines, at the view I see as I cross the river, at the picture I must make weaving in and out of traffic, small person on an elegant bicycle with an angry, intent expression on her otherwise pretty face - well, if I were reading about me in a novel I might develop a little crush.

I never imagine what I look like from the outside, and maybe that's best, since I'd probably just focus on the imperfections, but that little glimpse of my life as a story fragment was interesting. It looked fetching, or intriguing, or something. Evocative.

Blue lights on the bridge. I'd like to record the sound of pedals and chain sometime, the sight of those bridge supports flashing by, the view as I turn my head north to look out over rippling water, that sudden glimpse of the Statue of Liberty in silhouette, almost blocked by a big digital clock on a billboard.

Not everybody sees this every day, I remembered. Look. There's a water taxi below you. A lot of them lately, running right underneath, white wakes billowing out behind.

After dinner I ate a very large soft-serve ice cream cone and laughed like a little kid - it was so tall.

Well that was knitterly of me.

I met a couple of girlfriends for a couple of hours with the avowed purpose of stashing ourselves somewhere (yes, I am aware of the pun) and knitting together. The trouble was, all the good places to knit had gone. As in shut down, out of business, vamoosed.

It struck a frightening note, working our way through the list and realizing that they were all extinct.

We ended up in a cafe where I often sit with my laptop, working. The people are very nice, and the coffee and tea are excellent, but it's not at all cozy, and one of our number commented, quietly, that she wasn't too impressed with the place.

It's been hard to have a conversation with any stranger that doesn't end in one or the other of you mentioning the economy, and mostly I'm with Bike Snob, who's taken to poking fun at everyone by creating an acronym for it ("ITTET," short for "in these trying economic times"), but there was something chilling about that list.

Anyway. We did knit. I, as the elder statesknitter of the group, got asked for a little advice, which was nice. I usually don't feel all that skilled, knittingwise. Don't worry, I don't need reassurance, and I'm not being modest. This is an honest assessment, and it's not that I couldn't learn to do more - I'm just not that into fancy stitches and stuff.

I knit recreationally. I make things that I or someone I know needs or wants to wear. I have an unusually good eye for color, and I like designing shapes. That's about it, and I'm fine with that. Someday Shan will come visit, and show me how to make a cable, or a sock, or both, and I'll have a big epiphany about it, and you'll have to listen to me jabber at length about how I can't believe I knitted all this time without knowing how to do those things.

It's all good. I like knitting, I really do. It's just not my main passion.

To be exact, I have more than one primary passion, as I was explaining at a party the other night.

It was a pleasant party; there were several people with similarly diverse interests, and I think we were all kinda glad to get to talk about it. In a low-key, non-intense, we're not soulmates, we're just chatting sort of way.

I met a guy I rather liked, but he lives too far away to even consider going on a date with. It was fine. My friend who was throwing the party got cutely drunk, and I gave myself a slight hangover on three glasses of wine, followed by water and food. (I'm a total lightweight; I rarely drink.)

I don't know why I'm telling you this, except that I've been in a very bad state for the last week or two, and I didn't expect this weekend to make any difference, and suddenly it did. I got off my bike today and met my friends and was suddenly bouncy again. Tigger's a wonderful thing, you know, especially when you haven't been him for a while.

Forgive me for again disappearing into the woodwork. I've been having a rough time of it. Things are ultraweird on several levels, and I'm exhausted, and I need to finish that sweater tout de suite because it is cold out.

I've been plying the new pocketcam with mixed results. Still learning its capabilities, which are sometimes pretty good and sometimes strangely bad. I seem to end up with unfocused shots more than I would expect to. Though perhaps the light hasn't been very good.

As usual, I have trouble stopping on the bridges to take those pics that I always want to show you. It's just so difficult, once I'm pedaling, to want to ever get off the bike.

I ended up riding around the park again tonight, and then taking a detour on my way home, after having already ridden 30 miles today, simply because I couldn't resist the lure of the cool fall night and perpetual motion. It's good, and it's a good thing, too, because when things are like they are now, it's about all I can stand to do. Booga booga.

Anyway, I really don't know what to tell you. I haven't got much fun stuff to report.

I met a guy I thought was interesting, and cute, but he was introduced to me as someone on whom a friend of mine has a crush, so there's not much I can do about following up on the possible interest. I mean, maybe eventually, but I have to sit back and watch things play out with the friend first.

He's not the same guy I mentioned in the last post. He's more suitable, at least in age, and possibly in other ways, though it's awfully difficult to tell in a first meeting like that. At least he is not from the Internet. We have sworn off that as a source of boy material. Yuck. It never works.

Things have been weird with the boy formerly known as boy number two. Sometimes it seems like we'll be friends again and sometimes I'm not so sure. It's part of the whole weirdness casserole I've got going on right now, but by no means the main ingredient.

Like a lot of people, I have been wanting to knit again, which is good, because my sweaters are getting very threadbare.

I'm starting to feel ever so slightly sorry for myself that I won't be at Rhinebeck this year. Though I've just remembered that a lot of people can't go to Rhinebeck because they live in Portland or some such place, so maybe I can pretend I live far away.

We apologize for the recent lack of posts. To make it up to you, the management offers this picture of surly chihuahuas. Enjoy.

This blog will resume regularly scheduled posting when and if the blogger thinks of anything to say that doesn't make her want to hurl herself out a window. It's not that she actually wishes to do such a foolish thing; it's just that she doesn't feel like talking about It. Whatever It might be. Laters!

His name is Seymour. He's going to be made into soup, so don't get too attached.

But you want to, don't you? Don't you just want to establish the Seymour Fan Club? Go around wearing buttons with his picture on them? Such is the life of the fall vegetable. So charming, so photogenic. So...delicious.

Big farmer's market day, even though I'd only planned to get a few things. Rode home with a giant juicy bunch of leeks hanging out the top of the bag. Kitwich went leek-crazy. Managed to tear off a green stalk and chased it around the house. I found it on the bedroom rug.

Last fall it was all about the apples. She'd climb right onto the kitchen table for them. Now she doesn't seem to give a hoot about apples. When she was little she used to chew on bits of kale or collard green that had fallen to the floor. I don't know what she's thinking. When she opens her mouth all you see is fangs - she has no teeth for eating these things.

I thought about my own teeth a few moments ago, how there are, in fact, a couple of stray canines there, which suggest a naturally omnivorous diet, but how I seem to only want to eat vegetable matter. The older I get, the less animal products appeal to me.

It came up last night because I was at a party, and the restaurant had nothing I could eat. I managed to cobble together a few side dishes, and the chef sent out a little bowl of mixed beans in a warm vinagrette as a sort of apology for having removed the only vegan item from the menu. But it was awkward, and wildly overpriced, and I thought some about the social prejudice against people who don't eat meat or dairy.

It's not one of those things that's intentional; it's just ingrained, as if there is a Normal way of eating, and it means meat, with side dishes of vegetables (usually cooked in butter). It isn't that way worldwide, of course, and this city is a lot easier to find vegan food in than most other places in the US. But it's weirdly polarized.

For the most part, there are vegan restaurants and there are meat restaurants. The meat restaurants will often have one vegetarian item on the menu, but it's always full of cheese.

I'm not militant in any way about food choices; I can happily dine with my steak-eating girls without batting an eyelash, and I'd never try and tell someone what they should or shouldn't eat. But last night was frustrating. In all honesty, it made me angry. I didn't have any say in where we were going because it wasn't my party, and I did check the menu online beforehand, and I was nervous about the fact that they had only one thing on the menu I could eat. And that's before we even get into the fact that this was an expensive restaurant, and I am scrambling for rent and grocery money, and then the people who chose the place wanted to split the bill evenly, essentially expecting me to help pay for their appetizers and wine and desserts. Ugh.

I was starving, having ridden a fair amount that day and only having had a snack before dinner, and dinner not being until 9pm. Anyway, blah blah blah, complain complain. But I have to say, if I were asking a friend to join me for dinner at a restaurant where no meat was served, I'd warn them of that in advance, and I'd ask how they felt about it. I don't like being thrust into the role of high-maintenance dinner guest, who's being "difficult."

One of the many things I'm worried about, with bicycle touring, is being able to find food in the wilds of upstate. And last night made me realize I'd better make a lot of room in my panniers for peanut butter.

1. I cannot for the life of me get enough apples. I bought a bunch at the Saturday farmer's market, and today I had to go and buy a bunch more at the Wednesday one.
2. My bag contains, in addition to its usual complement of snacks and H2O and tools, 1 rain jacket, 1 merino wool sweater, 1 pair legwarmers, and 1 neckwarmer (tight-fitting cowl). Oh, and a change of (wool) socks.
3. I am knitting again(!) Every year I worry that I've simply lost the urge, and every year it comes right back with the first breath of cool air. I've made one hat and am two-thirds of the way done with another.
4. I have cut off two pairs of jeans in the last week. I know, that sounds like a sign of summer, but for me, making new cutoffs is paradoxically a sign of fall, because it means I am in need of heavyweight short pants for cool-weather cycling (see note about legwarmers, above).
5. The boys all look adorable to me again. Well, okay, that may have more to do with having given the one I was non-dating the boot recently, but I also think cool weather makes boy sports more appealing.

I suppose hats are my way of getting the knitting muscles warmed up. What I really need to manage to knit is a fine-gauge sweater to wear on the bike. I had one on needles somewhere, if only I could find it. Much of my knitting is still languishing in cardboard boxes, since I moved during warm weather and can't, as mentioned on many previous occasions, get it up for knitting in warm weather.

The cat would appreciate some knitted toys, I believe. Especially since I killed that very large insect she'd been playing with the other day.

You know, there are times when I'd really like to blog and just can't muster it up. I'm afraid there have been a lot of those lately.

It's usually because there's too much going on that's personal, that I don't want to talk about because it will be too much like prodding a bruise.

It's times like those when a list of random thoughts or observations is a girl's best friend.

1. I'd like to get a new nose-ring. I've looked and don't see any I like yet.
2. I broke up with that boy I wasn't dating.
3. As a gift to myself, I then went to see (flirt with) the other boy I also wasn't dating. It was nice to see him, but it didn't help much.
4. I feel sad about breaking up with the boy I wasn't dating.
5. I don't necessarily feel like it's the wrong decision, but it is not so easy. I mean, one clever little text does not really solve anything. There are still a tangle of raggedy edges in my chest with his name all over them.
6. Also, there is the lust, which will no doubt be a problem the next time I see him.
7. Oy.
8. See? Even when I set out to make a random list, it is anything but, and the true thing that's occupying my thoughts comes right out front. I might as well stop this list right now and lapse into paragraphy.
9. Though if I do that, I might be tempted into other lapses as well.
10. Consciousness. Employment. Judgment.

Also, I am thirsty, which seems like a metaphor somehow.

The funny thing is, as soon as I decide to lapse into paragraphy, I get all pithy and listlike.

I am a perverse creature. In more ways than (the obvious) one.

It seems to be setting out to be a week of making prudent decisions which I rapidly regret and then pine about. I had also decided not to spend some additional money on a bicycle I can't afford. And now I am sad about that, too.

I think I am still not ready to relinquish my extended adolescent funfest. Despite summer being patently on its way out. Appropriately enough, I am also nervous because my period is a little late. Dudes, that is taking teenage verisimilitude a little too far. Cramps and blood, please. Stat.

Note: Photo courtesy of cell phone cam.

"If it comes down to you or them, send flowers." - Robert Redford, as Nathan Muir

Oh goody, it's....still not Friday.

What a weird week this has been. Every day I think it's Friday - not just think, but am convinced, utterly and completely. And then I'm very frustrated.

I want Friday!

I want to play!

I want to ride to the beach!

I want! I want! I want!

I want to have not spent $4 on a single heirloom organic tomato at the damn grocery store, which then turns out to be all mushy and disgusting.

I want to ride my bike every day for hours, with no ill effects on knees or any other part of me.

I want something delicious. Preferably fruit or this dark chocolate.

I want that mouse under the stove to stay where it is and never come out. No wait. I want it to go away, far away.

I want pineapple.

I want some snuggling, with a cute boy, please. Nowish would be good. Or at least Friday.

I want all my bikes to be done and ready to ride soon soon soon yippeeeee.

I want to tell you a secret:

I am riding my bicycle to Rhinebeck this year. Yessiree. And ye shall know her by her wobbly legs and chain grease.