Recently in Knitting Category

I smelled burning leaves tonight, and made a second hot chocolate when I got home. Last night it was windy, and there were crinkled leaves swirling in tight curves around my head. A bat flew formation with me for a while. It's the first stirrings of fall, and I find that I'm delighted to see/hear/smell/feel it. I want apples. I want new perfumes. I want more of those tall socks I buy at American Apparel, even though they're so expensive for what they are.

I want to make an excursion, soon, when my ankle's ready for the traffic, to Chinatown, to pump up my stores of tea. I'm thinking Jasmine.

I want to buy this movie, and this one.

I want to find a way to get out of town for a while, to be in a forest, to look up at the leaves and listen.

I want to find a man who makes me feel the way my spring-summer lover does, but who wants more of me, and of whom I can handle wanting more, myself. I think it's time, or nearly.

I want this yarn. Isn't it the loveliest color? I'm knitting a simple little rolled-edge hat, to get in the mood. And it only just occurred to me that my new hairstyle is the perfect thing for hats. I tried one on yesterday and nearly fell into the proverbial pool looking at my reflection.

Hello fall.

Someone offered me a ride home tonight (in a car, with space for my bike in the back), and I said no, though it was rainy and cold and I was on the fence.

Then I got on the bike and had the most glorious time. Well, maybe glorious is too strong a word. But I heard myself say, at the foot of the bridge, "Oh it's lovely out." I wasn't talking to anyone in particular - just the imaginary companion who hears all my best stuff. Maybe I was talking to my bike. I do that a lot, and I know I'm not the only one because I once ran into a fellow who was arriving by bicycle from British Columbia.

I felt so lucky to run into him. I got to ask him about his journey. I've wanted to do bicycle touring for quite some time, and I haven't managed to get out there yet, and he was encouraging and open about it.

He asked how long a trip I was planning, and I said 5 days, and he said that was the perfect length for a first journey. His exact words were something like, "It's just the right amount of time to have no one but the bike to talk to."

I loved that. I remember, too, that when I said I'd been looking forward all winter to the reward of summer weather (which we got very little of that year - it rained a lot), he said, "No, winter's the real reward."

In the brief little spell of mild sunny weather we had last week, I remembered again the curse of spring cycling: crowds.

The streets were suddenly clogged with fair-weather riders. The pedestrians were out in foolish droves, jumping out in front of me and waving their arms as if they thought that was a game. Drivers were distracted by the promise of summer, and perhaps by the fact that short skirts had suddenly resurfaced on some of the pedestrians.

And then it turned rainy and cold, and once again I had my privacy. A small handful of cyclists on one bridge, and a lone cyclist towing a trailer on the other.

I really did feel that it was a beautiful evening. The rain was refreshing on my face. It was quiet for a Friday night. I like the sound of tires, theirs (4) and mine (2), on wet pavement. I like the way everything shines.

And then I like being finally warm and dry and having the cat come over to curl and purr.

PS. Yes, those are bike wrenches weighing down the yarn. I had unraveled a project I wasn't happy with and then washed the skeins to straighten out the ripples. I was so tickled by the usefulness of tools from one love/obsession for another that I took a pic.

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.

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 have a habit of looking at pretty things when I am having a hard time, and I've been thinking that I'm not the only one for whom beauty is nutritious.

I wrote here a while back about making something beautiful for someone who's dealing with illness, and recently another friend whose family is going through a difficult time asked me to knit something for her.

It's a practical object that fills a specific need, but I think there's more to it than that. I think she wants me to make her something pretty and soft. I think she knows that I will knit it with a lot of love, and I hope she knows how happy I am that she asked, that I'm glad there's something I can do for her - even if it's just a seemingly small thing.

I will have to remember to tell her that, when I give it to her.

I swear that these little things are what keeps our heads above the dark water when it starts to close in around us. That, and soup.

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.

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.

I'd say that this is going to be the saddest news in the world, but honestly, given the state of things, it's not even close to the bottom of the heap. I mean, I have three bicycles, an adorable cat, and friends who love me - what more could a girl want?

I don't think I can ride to Rhinebeck this year. What's more, I don't think I can even go to Rhinebeck this year. I sat down and did the math, and poked around on the Internets and found, as Juno had warned me, that the hotels in and near Rhinebeck are already brimful of knitters who planned earlier out than a month. (side note: holy shit, in what weird world is a month ahead of time not enough advance planning for a weekend excursion?)

Any way I crunched the numbers, I came to the same conclusion: too expensive. If I could ride the whole way in one day, MAYBE. But I can't. My bike isn't even ready yet. I haven't trained on it. I haven't tested my legs on the big big hills of upstate NY. I haven't re-learned how to ride a geared road bike, and I've never used the kind of shifting/braking setup I am having made.

The long and the short of it is, I don't think I can go. I thought about taking the train up, riding from the station to the festival and back, but that's a big chunk of riding, and would take almost half the day, and then what's the point?

So I guess I am bagging it. I thought I'd be really really sad and let-down, and I find that I am not.

I will ride the road bike on some long hilly rides into the country, and I might even do an overnight here and there, and I will manage to see some leaves before they all fall to the ground and get snowed on. But the grand adventure will have to be put off for another, more solvent year. Plus, of course, there's the fact that if I went to Rhinebeck, I'd drop at least $100 on wool. I mean, ya have to. It's there.

So, y'all have fun, ya hear? I'm gonna knit from my very nice stash for a while. And maybe ride to the beach and look at the terns and gulls. The beach is nice in the fall. Quiet. Windy. Mmmm.

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.

"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.

Goodbye, summer. You sucked, by and large.

You presented very little in the way of good weather or vacations (haven't seen one of those since 2005). There was no grand summer romance. I was not filled with joy and mischief. I didn't lose weight. Quite the opposite in fact.

You rained and stormed and made me ill for the entire first month of you.

You sent me what I asked for, a playmate who'd want nothing more, and I wasn't at all sure, once I had it, that it was enough. I'm still not sure. I think it is what I want, but I want him to want me more often than he does.

You gave me some work when I desperately needed it, and I do appreciate that part.

But you didn't really feel like summer at all. I kept waiting and waiting for you to start, in earnest, and all you offered was a burst of hot weather and humidity, like a pressure cooker. And then rain. And now it's September, and I have knitted the rim of a little wool hat. I've an inch of ribbing already. And that means you're done. Gone.

Sure, I may have one last day to ride to the beach with one or the other boy (preferably the older one; he's more handsome, and I've never seen him in beach clothes). I may wear my tie-dyes a few more weeks.

I might want to smell like Delirium a ways into fall, and I might cut off a few more pairs of jeans - but they'll really be for the cold weather to come. It's going to rain again, and this time it'll be cold, and it'll be harder to leave the house. It'll snow, and I'll have to figure out how to seal these windows up. I'll think about having a friend over to bake bread, but it won't happen. He'll make jokes about it; bread will be an innuendo for the rising of other passions. And that won't happen either.

The leaves will fall and I'll wish I had an apple tree.

This has been the damnedest summer. Rain, rain every day, to the point where I just realized I am still waiting for it to be spring. I was sick for a whole month. The rain came down. It was still not spring. June came and went. I was sick. I stayed inside. It rained.

I started to think about that documentary I watched, twice, which talked about The Year Without A Summer, an ice-age year where summer simply didn't come. The snow came down. The animals starved. The wind howled.

I started to do winter things. I made lentil soup. I watched a lot of TV and re-read Agatha Christie. I knitted, for Pete's sake.

I'm forced to admit that I rather enjoyed the knitting. Which just goes to show you how NON-springish it's been around here. (Note to those who've been reading less than a year: I do not knit in spring and summer. It's not that I don't know about the existence of bamboo, and cotton, and linen, and hemp. It's just that I can't seem to give a good god damn about knitting when the weather is warm.)

But I just finished a scarf, which was started long ago, in early winter or fall. It's a cerulean blue hand-dyed wool that Shan sent me, and which really looks to me like the ocean, and I just love it. It got laid by the wayside whilst I knitted a bazillion gifts for people, and then while I knitted the cobweb scarf, and so on. And there it was sitting in my knitting basket calling to me one very rainy afternoon.

It's a short scarf, and a very useful item I think it will prove. Most of my scarves are long long long. Certainly too long to wear on a bike. I may try this one out as a cowl-alternative. I think I can tuck the ends into either side of a jacket and it will warm both neck and chest. And plus, it is blue, blues, bluesy, bluest. I held off posting this until I could get a daylit photo of it, just so you could see the true blues.

Also because lately every time I go to write something here, I end up feeling like I've either said too much or said nothing very interesting. It's been a weird summer so far, and I am not just talking about the weather - though it occurs to me to wonder about the degree to which people's behavior and moods (including mine) might be affected by such a long spell of the drearies.

As I look out my window now, there are again the gathering dark clouds, and the fan is pulling in air that feels oversaturated with moisture about to break into big drops. I still haven't unpacked my books. I think I am waiting for the skies to clear.

Hello, lovelies. When last we left our heroine in a huddled sad heap on the floor, things were looking bleak indeed. They're still looking bleak, but her mood has improved ever so slightly.

Put it down to a few uninterrupted days on the bike(s), or to a bit of judicious flirting, or to whatever you'd like.

I've been taking advantage of the still-pretty-fracking-chilly weather to keep knitting a few late-March items for self and friends. Ordinarily among spring's many gifts (hayfever, the nagging feeling that one ought always to be outdoors doing something fabulous, and that since one isn't, one is wasting one's life) is a sudden and total loss of interest in the knitterly arts.

I felt the first fingers of that beginning to take hold a couple of weeks ago, but then it got cold again (not that it ever really pushed fully into warm, mind you; there were just hints and vague promises), and so I kept knitting. And now I have a pretty pair of mittens that didn't photograph at all well in the incandescent lighting, but you may take my word on it - they are sweet.

And I am knitting another pair for a friend who massacred his first pair by the simple expedient of wearing them on the bike in a rainstorm. I am thinking that however pretty that Koigu stuff is, fabled in song and story, it doesn't hold up very well. I mean, one rainstorm, c'mon.

So the replacements will be in less-gorgeous but hopefully sturdier yarn that's already been road-tested by yours truly.

There's a whole thread on Rav about knitting for the bike, and I wonder if I ought to post some real-world feedback from my various knit-recipients. Enh. Too complicated.

I was telling my dad, finally, after 10 days of utter silence, about the various bad newses to which I have been subject lately, and he commented that any one of them would be enough to make a sane person's head spin.

Which would explain the impression of her I've been doing lately. I dunno. It seemed like I should just be able to handle it all.

Of course, that is how it always seems, with me. It's like a disease. I expect that nothing will ever break my back, and then what happens is that my body takes that challenge literally, and I end up with my back out for months and months.

Yes, the poking with needles seems to be doing something. I mean, something in addition to giving me strange bruises in even stranger places. It seems, thankfully, to be easing up my mobility a bit, and if I'd just stop doing laundry and twisting myself into unfortunate contortions in my sleep, the pain might even abate a bit.

Me: I hurt my back in my sleep.
He: Alone?

Sigh.

Unexpectedly laid up on the couch again. I hope I hope I hope (times 100) that it won't be for more than a day. Though I doubt it.

The ways of bad backs are mysterious and unpleasant. Made an appointment to get stuck with needles. At this point I will try (almost) anything.

I've been in a mitten-knitting frame of mind this winter, partly because a lot of people asked for them and partly because my one pair started to unravel and I needed to make myself some replacements. There is something cool about that, namely:

a) I've been knitting long enough to have a pair of mittens I made begin to unravel (they lasted several years, too - made 'em out of some leftover Mountain Colors Weavers Wool I'd bought for a gift project).

b) When I need a new knitted object, I can just -er- knit one. There's a measure of self-sufficiency and instant gratification there that's lacking in most of the rest of life. For the rest of life, you need to call upon fairy godcreatures and such. Which brings me to the following:

Top Three Wishes of Tonight

1. My back to stop hurting so I can go get my bicycle.
2. A delightful lover to appear out of nowhere and present himself for my continuing amusement. I have one in mind but perhaps it is pushing my luck to attempt such a specific request?
3. Something chocolate.

PS. Later addition: Damn. My laptop has just died a weird and jiggly death. Can I add a new or, better yet, cheaply repaired laptop to the list?

We've moved into that sketchy early-spring phase wherein the heat is on when you don't want it on and not on when you do, and so I have been pulling out some of the heavy knits that I normally can't wear in the overheated indoor climate of a NYC winter. (You expats know whereof I speak; steam heat + little control = windows open in winter)

Apparently Kitwich has been waiting to get her paws on them all winter.

Woke up feeling inexplicably decent this morning (I use that term loosely, as always). Could be that I've now had two days of 7 or 8 hours' sleep in a row. Could be that I needed to turn that air purifier off so the room would be quieter and not have a funny smell while I slept.

Could be that my body senses that this interminable winter is nearing its end. Could be that I saw you know who yesterday and that just made me feel better, even though I got nothing tangible in the way of -er- nooky out of it. Some people's presence is just like sunshine, I guess.

This is my favorite finished object in a while. It's lush and warm, and the color is just on the edge of being no color at all. I feel a little (just a little) like Grace Kelly when I put it on, though I seriously doubt it looks that way to anyone else.

I've knitted so many things this winter, but they're all little biddy ones - neckwarmers and mittens and hats upon hats - mostly for other people. It seems weird that I haven't finished a single sweater for myself this year. Usually I knit one or two a season. I've got some on the needles: Ysolda's Snow White, and my own little V-neck in sport-weight handpainted yarn that's a lovely dark blue-green.

I dunno. It's been strangely satisfying to only knit items that can be finished in a few hours. There's so much variety involved in jumping from one project to the next - a different set of colors, yarn that feels different in the hands, a different problem to be solved.

I'm not much of a multitasker - not sure if I've ever said that before, here - but I do like being able to move from one thing to the next because it's completed and I'm ready for something new.

I'm not sure whether that makes me a process knitter or a product knitter. I think there may be a third way: perhaps I'm a project knitter.

I like the feeling of moving through each part of the whole: yarn choice, rolling into a ball, starting (though I honestly hate casting-on; it always feels so tenuous), increasing and decreasing, winnowing down to the end, binding off. Soaking in eucalyptus bath, putting on or giving away. Hoping it fits.

PS. It occurs to me that this scarf suits the way March feels to me; not quite spring, not quite winter.

Watching wolves leap through snow is so soothing when one has had a very bad day. They look to me a bit like this scarf; a lot of pale sunlight filtering through a white landscape. Not the same thing, obviously, since this was shot in interior light, but there's something about the color and pattern of this scarf that really does it for me. Evocative.

Some days I wish I could suddenly be riding in wilderness instead of on these streets. The jarring, rutted streets.

I cycled by a howling bloodhound standing at a corner yesterday, waiting (with its person) for the light to change so they could cross. I smiled and smiled at the pooch, and said hello to it, and the owner smiled back as I passed them. His voice was so plaintive and sweet. So out of place.

I had a fight today, with a stranger. I had an argument instead of a planned lovely encounter. I had a big fast ride that I hadn't planned on (but which I enjoyed). It was sunny, and still it was a terrible day.

I had enough to eat. I had water with me, and plenty of warm clothing, so it's not like those more desperate bases weren't covered. But you know, an emotionally bad day can still suck the beejezus out of you.

Kitwich is watching the howling wolves with focused attention.

I really have no idea what to tell you, but I feel that I've shorted this blog a bit in the last few days, and it's sunny out and I've had no sleep whatever, so I might as well ramble here a bit.

Quite happy with the way these mittens came out. I adapted my usual pattern a bit, and they fit so much better than most mittens I've made that I am wondering why it never occurred to me to tinker with it before.

A lack of knitterly confidence, I suppose. Which seems odd given that I have no issue with knitting something based on nothing but a sketch I drew on a scrap of notebook. But there you have it; I know I run into trouble knitting from patterns, so I am shy about departing from them.

Maybe I will be braver next time; these fit my long, narrow hands like - well, like the proverbial glove. Funny how one forgets that one's body is an individual, too.

I feel like there's a metaphor in there, but I am a little tired to chase it. Also, my brain is full, may I be excused?

Let us move on to a random list, in the grand tradition of such blogs as Cari's, and - er - mine. Because, you know, I like lists. I once, in fact, wrote a poem that was simply my grocery list. Hey, I didn't say it was my best work.

uno: New bike is delayed by three whole days. Not the worst setback ever, but I want my new pony.

dos: I am wearing striped socks. Tall striped socks. No, they are not handknitted. I still can't knit a sock. Would it be wrong to think I could learn here?

tres: Charles Mingus is giving me a headache. Or maybe it is the lack of sleep. Or maybe it is hormonal.

cuatro: I put my back out vacuuming yesterday. Then I got on my bike.

cinco: There is all sorts of boyness floating around in my head at the moment, none of which I can tell you about. It's all very Dr. Seuss. And yes, that's why I can't sleep. And no, it's not for that reason. (Yet.)

seis. This is a terrible post. Better luck next time.