Photographs: October 2008 Archives

I've had a lot of ebbs and flows of energy this week. I keep trying to post, but whenever I have the time to do it, I'm too cranky. Or I write something and just don't like it.

There's still the ragged edge of a cold wilfully hanging around in my system, and I expect that's why. It's annoying, and I'm inclined to complain about it every time I sit down to post, and then those posts don't make it past my filter.

Anyway. Blah.

The weather turned suddenly radically colder today, and I quite enjoyed it (apart from having cold knees on the way home because I forgot to put on my legwarmers, and didn't want to stop and take off my shoes to put them on en route). I'd forgotten about the unique beauties of winter cycling in the city - chief among them the simple fact that there are fewer people out, which means more road for me.

Also, there's something refreshing about riding in cold air, especially air that's hovering somewhere in the 40s. It's not so cold that your extremities get numb, and a little judicious layering has you quite comfortable while you're underway (you get cold as hell when you stop, of course, because you're less heavily bundled than the folks in street clothes), and there's a sense of adventure about it. I like it. Actually, I love it. And I'd forgotten how it felt.

Another thing I'm loving lately is (drumroll please) knitting. Who knew? After this summer's pathetic trailing away of interest I thought maybe I'd finally killed the yarn muse.

Nope. Just needed it to get cold enough.

See the theme here? I like the cold, just not having a cold. Cough.

Anyway, I also like pumpkins and gingerbread and making soup. In fact, I had a little list going the other day, Simple Things I Like:

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap (lavender or rose hemp)
Really good apples that grew on a tree nearby
Ink (the kind that comes in little bottles)
Wooden building blocks
Bread
Soup
Rosebud Salve and/or Badger Balm
The colour grey (both of those words must be spelled in British fashion)
Milk cooking in a small white pot
Carving a pumpkin
Bandanas
Violets (the kind that grow wild on your lawn)
Crayons (that smell)
Vanilla
Single-speed bicycles
Sturdy shoes
Campfires
Wearing things I've made myself
Looking at the stars
Really good hugs.

While we're at it, Complicated Things I Like:

Philosophy
Champagne
Curry
Cake
Music
Peonies
Dancing
Tailored velvet jackets
That $500 long purple silk parachute dress I tried on
Fancy train cars
Luxe hotel rooms
Handmade quilts
Outlandish hats
Cameras
Chocolate
Gore-Tex
Astronomy

Care to chime in? What simple (or complex) things do you like?

Day four of isolation, and my mind starts to lose the distinction between fiction and reality. Okay, some of that is due to having read The Subtle Knife until five in the morning, a book that deals with multiple worlds linked by thin slices that the characters can walk through. It's something to do with dark matter, but don't anybody tell me, because I'm only a little ways into it, and I don't want to hear the punchline prematurely.

Really, I think the hardest part of being sick, for me, has to be being stuck in my house all alone for days on end. I've called both mom and Boywich (the two people I always wish for when I don't feel well). I guess that tells you something about the people I'm okay with acting like a two-year-old around. Not necessarily nice for them.

My cat has been annoying, demanding attention in an ever louder and more insistent whine. Lovely. Shut up, dear.

I am drinking the good coffee. The one that looks like you-know-who. He even checked out the beans, rubbing a few between his fingers to assess their oiliness, because I ran into him the day I'd bought it. Haven't seen him in an age, which is causing that particular crush to fade a bit, that and the fact that it didn't look to be leading to anywhere in particular (other than frustration). Also, it seems that when I'm really feeling shitty, I don't care so much about boys. Something about being full of snot tending to make me feel less than spectacularly attractive.

Also, I was dumb and took a couple of self-portraits yesterday. "Whoa! I look old. Am I always that pale?"

See? Dumbass.

Apart from the brief burst of fevered activity on the essay (which I'll no doubt have to revise when I'm thinking clearly), I've done nothing I needed to get done around the house. Okay, I cleaned the bathroom a bit, but that took five minutes.

I need to make myself some little zippered pouches to go in my bike bag, one for tools and one for condoms (hey, you asked) (oh, you didn't? well, since this is my blog, we're going to pretend like you did, anyway. see? two years old. apart from the fact that two-year-olds don't have much need for condoms. of course, neither do I, of late. okay, exiting parentheses now). Haven't done that.

Haven't made those old jeans into a nifty jean skirt, either. Which wouldn't matter, except that the jeans are sprawled across the top of the sewing machine, discouraging me from making the zippered pouches, which I really do rather need.

What is it about this particular cold that makes me choke on coffee? Every morning for the last four. I never normally choke on coffee. It's gotten so that I get a cup of water ready at the same time, without even thinking about the reason why. Though of course I don't put the cup of water within easy reach, so I always have to get up....

Really, you're thinking, she'd better get well soon or we're all going to keel over from boredom. Yeah, me too.

Plus, the bikes are looking very, very lonely. I miss them. It's like they and the outdoors are one, and I miss it all. I miss being a human being, instead of an invalid. That last is pronounced the way they did in Gattaca, invalid.

I have been knitting up a (small) storm, though. Progress on the 2nd mitten of J-ness. Also, this. Is it not super-awesome? Just like the label said.

The interesting thing about being sick, for me, is that it makes me realize just how much I don't stop, in the ordinary course of my days. I don't sit still. Boywich said to me once, sometime in the past year, "You're like your dad, not a little. You go-go-go!"

And at the time, I think, "No, no no. Look at all these pics of roses I've taken over the years. I stop, I think, I contemplate, I..."

No, he's totally right.

I don't really stop much, unless forced to do so. Heck, I've been wanting for months to take a pic of the way the city gets very golden, lit up like someone's tinfoiled it, at the bottom edge of day, and I haven't done it yet, because I just don't want to stop, pull over, and take out my camera.

I was reading this lovely post, and thinking how right she is, that a huge part of the reason to go on vacation is because it's so conducive to letting one's mind wander, to seeing buildings and people and trees and window displays and gardens like art.

I managed, suddenly, on my second day off (translation: confined to the indoors because of illness), to write my graduate school essay. Yes, I'd been brewing ideas about it in my head, mostly when I'm falling asleep, for weeks.

I'd made an abortive attempt a while ago and decided I wasn't ready yet, that things had to crystallize. Yesterday afternoon, in the midst of knitting and watching TV, I found myself making notes for it in grey Crayola marker, and wishing I'd thought of writing with that colour before; it's so evocative, it seems just right.

"Notes for essay"

Blueprints
Tacking
Telling myself stories

Sometimes ideas spring to life fully formed, and other times they get built like Legos. You get a brick at a time, not really knowing how they'll all connect, but trusting that your inner self knows, and that when you finally sit down with all your pieces, you'll be able to just hum and build, hum and build, the way you sat and built imaginary cities as a child.

It always works, my friends.

Mostly writing stories and making art involves acquiring some faith. Faith in the process, faith in instinct, faith that one's self knows where to go. If I could just get the art of living my life exactly as I write, I think I'd do very well indeed.

Tea and a walk now. Can't sit still forever, after all.

When preparing a Rhinebeck debrief, I often feel like I've been assigned to write a "what I did over the summer" essay. It's the kind of situation where everybody probably had a similar day.

In my case, I came home from it with a sudden, and rather strong, head cold. As did one of my companions. It was odd. One minute I was fine, if a bit sleep deprived.
The next minute I was sick.

Apart from that, it was a sensory-overload kind of day. Lots of slightly hysterical chatting with friends. Lots of color, everywhere. Yarn. Yarn like a four-letter word. So much yarn, in so many brilliant and subtle and overwhelming shades and textures, that you could hardly take it in.

I overheard one woman (while standing in line to pay for my first batch of purchases) remark that she ought to have brought her daughter with her, since she had a school project that required her to take pics of various textures.

It was hugely crowded - more so than when I went last year (though perhaps that was a Saturday vs. Sunday difference) - and at first I wasn't sure I could handle the crush in the yarn barns.

But then I started to get the hang of it. I realized it was like looking at art in a crowded gallery - you can't see it all, so you just go to the ones that you are drawn to, and let the rest be.

I also decided not to try and see the whole range of things before purchasing, since I'd never be able to find a particular yarn again after I'd left it. The result of this strategy was, of course, that I bought too much.

On the other hand, it's all special. Handmade, locally made, with these delicious little labels, like "Super-Awesome Hand-Dyed Yarn by Melody." How could I resist? And for the record, it is, indeed, super-awesome.

Trying to describe the fair to a neophyte, I said something along the lines of "It's like a state fair crossed with the world's biggest and best yarn store." What I neglected to mention is that it's also a parade of handknitted things being worn by their makers. I saw a lot of pretty sweaters. A lot of pretty shawls. A lot of inventive headcoverings and a lot of handknit mittens.

I saw a mom and daughter walk up to a woman spinning some technicolor roving and get an impromptu lesson in how a drop spindle works.

I saw wooly little goats in a row being judged on their - er - woolyness, I imagine. I saw sheep being sheared by people whose own locks had a similarly tousled quality. I saw people running into friends they don't see very often. Heck, I even ran into one of my own - or rather, was run into, since she was the one who spied me, miraculously, five minutes after I'd walked through the gate, and scooped me into a hug.

I ate too much kettle corn, and rum cookies that my friend Batman had made (yum), and thought about drinking beer but then thought about the bathroom line.

And then I packed it all up into my bike bags and rode it all home (from a friend's place in a nearby 'hood, mind you), giggling a bit maniacally about the weird silhouette I made, with a bag of yarn strapped against the outside of the pannier, which was itself full of yarn.

PS. Yes, I'm going to show you what I bought. But like the event itself, there's so much going on in pics of Rhinebeck that it seems best to mete them out in small doses.

Either kiss him or grow some patience. - Boywich
Mreeeeoooooo. - Kitwich

I went for two bike rides yesterday - once with my dad, who was visiting and had brought his folding bike in the trunk of his car for the express purpose of taking a ride (must pause to interject: how cool is that!), and another to go get some Proper Apples at the farmer's market in Tompkins Sq. Park.

Okay, to be honest, the second ride was because I needed a real ride after the slow cruise.

I've been better about taking pocketcam with me everywhere I go, and sometimes I even manage to stop and use it, so here's a little outdoor sculpture and industrial waterfront for you. Look! There were even waves yesterday - okay, boat wake waves, but still, there was a little froth. And I like a little froth.

Speaking of visitors who are wise enough to bring bikes, Boywich is indeed coming to visit. In the good old days - or bad old days; I can never figure out which - he and I used to ride everywhere together. I got him hooked on cycling, but he got me hooked on urban cycling, so it was a fair trade.

I foresee a certain amount of pizza and hummus in our future. Carbo-loading, baby.

And soon, so very very soon, there is Rhinebeck. I've got a positive gaggle of friends going this year, and I am hoping to manage to run into a couple of peeps whom I know only in the blogosphere (hey Claudia, I'll be the short one with the cyclist's ass). Of course, what is likely to happen is that I'll be so overwhelmed by wool and those flirtatious alpacas (I swear they were batting their eyelashes at me) that I'll forget to look for familiar faces.

I am not knitting anything special for it, 'cause I don't do that. My knitting is purely idiosyncratic, as is so much else of my life, and planning something would take the fun out of it. Also, Special J would like to have her gloves before Novemberness hits, so that is the priority, woolwise. I am almost done with the first one, but I keep getting distracted. No, not by that. Though that would certainly be welcome.

Today's nonsequitur (not that this whole post hasn't been a celebration of nonsequiturial grandeur): Am I allowed to buy the cycling gloves with the carbon knuckles (the better for punching, should the situation require that) just because I want them?