Les Affaires de Coeur: February 2009 Archives

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.

Oh wow am I tired. It's been two days of windy windy riding (I took a rest day in between them, but it didn't exactly make me feel rested), and I feel like I've ridden 40 miles today instead of 20. Lordy.

It was fun as hell, don't get me wrong. I growled at the wind coming over the bridge. I gripped the bars like I was holding a shotgun and hurled myself bodily at the headwind.

And I made it just fine, and then flopped down on a stool, and ordered a macchiato purely by giving the coffeeman a look. I love that. He looks a question; I look an answer; two minutes later there is a strong, gorgeous little cup of coffee in front of me. Delightful.

Really, I could have wished for a nap in a glass, but you do what you can.

So here I am, at home, and it's too late to have more coffee, even though I'd dearly love some. I made soup. It's yummy. I ate some things. And some other things. And still more things. And somehow it all made me even sleepier, and yet I know when I finally get in bed, I won't be able to sleep.

Why?

Well, apart from my inherently nocturnal disposition, I've been highly sleep-resistant lately, due to being incredibly, incredibly distracted by thoughts of a particular boy. Let's call him Thing One, shall we?

I try to sleep and all I can think about it is what I'd do to Thing One, were he at that moment (or any moment) next to me.

And then, when I give myself leave to just dwell and fantasize and go crazy over it, Thing Two intrudes, because, you know, I kissed him the other night.

And then, as if that weren't enough, I start thinking about Blondie (you remember Blondie, right?), who tends to come up in my head for the simple and powerful reason that he's the best kisser I ever had. Sigh.

Upon hearing about the little carnival that is my head lately, my friend Miz Fury says it sounds like a circus. And then, because this is how my brain works, I think, hmmmn. Maybe I should just recruit myself a little harem.

And you wonder why I need all that exercise?

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.

"I just want to testify what your love has done for me." - Parliament

On the other hand, enh, who cares? I have a date.

When the going gets tough, the tough make a date with a cowboy and dye their hair black. Oh wait, it was already black. Well, you get the picture.

In short, while I am disappointed that the boy does not love me, I love me, and that is enough.

Also, I am knitting these mittens. A trifle bulky for fingerless but I love the colors so much I don't care. Plus, maybe fingerless will be good for bulky mittens - a little built-in air conditioning. A safety valve.

Did you know that 95.4% of the universe is made up of dark matter and dark energy, neither of which have ever been measured, observed, or perceived? In other words, the entire universe is constructed as 95.4% mystery. Makes life make a lot more sense, doesn't it? The fact that we can never quite tell what is going on around us - not for certain - is simply in keeping with the design of the universe.

Either that or humans are really thick.

Sometimes I am so happy with the simple things. I'm almost surprised to find myself saying this, but at the moment, I feel very content.

Making myself a giant vat of soup (lentil-tomato, because it's what I've been wanting all winter long), got a bunch of beautiful yarn I'd ordered in the mail today, and the colours are so lovely, all of them. Made some important phone calls that I'd been putting off for weeks. I don't know why I was able, suddenly, to get things done; I just woke up willing.

Could be that the smell of soup is inherently soothing. Or the process of mixing and cutting and sprinkling. I've written about how I like that before. Though tonight I was in a hurry with it, because I was hungry, so it's not like it was a leisurely thing.

Maybe it's because I think I know what I want to do about that situation that I'm not telling you about. And maybe it's because the thing I want to do is so simple and direct, so honest.

Neither kind nor unkind. Well, actually I think it is kind because I think people deserve to hear when they've hurt you, so that they can understand and maybe do better the next time. I think it's kind to give someone the benefit of the doubt, to assume that they aren't trying to hurt you, but also not to let them go on thinking that they've done nothing wrong, either.

So I think I will just tell him. I will give him a chance to be my friend, rather than chilling him out, or pretending it didn't matter to me, or any of those more drama-laden postures that seem more appropriate to middle school than to adulthood. They don't lead to understanding, and they never really make me feel any better, either.

Anyway, that's my idea. We'll see how it goes.

It can be tough being a blogger, sometimes, having to balance the desire to vent or simply to discuss some element of human experience, with the need to have some semblance of a private life. To occasionally just draw the veil down when it needs to go down.

This is one of those latter times, and I'm sure if you've been peeking at the pickles (aka tweets) you've gathered there is something distressing going on in the boy department.

Well, I am closing up shop on that department, as of now. I may at some point reopen the subject of boys in general, or of other boys, or even of saying something about the boy to whom I've been referring the last few months, but for now, that subject is closed. Finito. And I'm not going to tell you why. I'm sorry, but it's personal.

I was gonna just wait until I felt better or different or something before blogging again, but then I thought, why? I don't need to stop talking, just to not talk about that. So.

Here is the cat looking very sarcastic, and I love the fact that her face so often mirrors what I myself am feeling. I love her for many other reasons, too, though not for her increasing tendency to meddle with my yarns.

I left a project on the table when I went out to meet Special J for our monthly pedicure date (my toes are my favorite pale blue again). I looked at it before I left, thought that it might be in danger of Kitwiching, and left it there anyway.

Came home to find that she'd knocked the ball of wool down and pulled it into a half-orbit around the coffee table.

"What do you think you are, a kitten?" I said, remembering how mad at her I'd been when, in her previous incarnation as a young ball of mischief, she'd run off and all the way down the long hallway with a giant skein of yarn, the unraveled tail trailing behind her.

She looked spectacularly pleased with herself tonight. Now, knowing her so much better, and having long ago acquired a larger degree of patience for the Way of Catness, I just laughed and told her, in a sweet voice, that she was a bad, bad girl. She yawned.

Yeah, I know. Cat stories. Watching paint dry is up next. But that's what I've got today. A nice half-hour walk in a huge gusty wind (hey, I like it like that), and a craving for summer fruits.

I do like this scarf I've begun knitting. It's ethereal. I don't feel ethereal myself; I feel like a solid red wall, and I'm cool with that, and with any torrent of fire that may rain out of me tomorrow afternoon if I run into him. It's been a long damn time since I struck another human being with my fist, and I may be due. See? Not talking about it. No, not talking about it at all.

I wanted to take pics of this last night, but decided the color (dropping the "u" today - what can I say? I'm mercurial) would never survive the incandescent light. Side note: I love the word incandescent.

I've been relying on these little earflap hats all winter long because they fit under my helmet and because they keep me from getting frostbitten, wind-rushed ears. And because they're rather cute, though that's at least a tertiary consideration, if not whatever comes after tertiary.

The yarn is hand-dyed handspun "bulky" wool (really more of an aran), from here, color: etereo. By the muted daylight that we've got this morning (yeah, I'm using morning in quotes, but that's a given), the Nikon captured the color so accurately I didn't have to fuss with it at all.

Sometimes that camera surprises me, nailing subtleties like this but then having trouble with simpler, clearer colours. (went for the "u" that time; told you - mercurial)

Anyway, I don't adore the colour on me quite as much as I expected to, but it's still nice, and I find it hypnotic to look at by itself. As does Kitwich, apparently, since she would not let me photograph it without some part of her body on it.

She's a girl who knows what she wants. I'd say I don't, but that would be a lie. I know exactly what I want. I just never seem to quite get offered it. I get offered a sideways version of it; if what I want is a direct look, I get a sideways glance, a wink.

I am being metaphorical, darling.

And cryptic, probably.

I look sometimes at a piece of jumble, the scattering of objects on my coffee table at any given moment, for example, and think: can I show anybody this? I mean, that's pretty much how my life is, not to mention my tragically unvacuumed apartment.

I know that's how everybody's is, really. Well, not everybody's apartment, but everybody's heads.

Still and all, it's hard to tell how any of it would go. You can't tell from a kiss, for example, how the rest of it would be.

PS. Go read this; it's beautiful.

May I just say that after one of the worst 24-hour periods on record, I deserved every minute of tonight's Mmmmmmmmmm.