I have to be really quick today, so here goes. First off...

This is from Tiffany, a swap for some mohair and some Touch Me. It was hard to part with the Touch Me, but the Lorna's Laces is beautiful and will find a home in something, I am sure. I love purple! :) The Kool Wool is going to be some gauntlets from The Weekend Knitter for me and my sister, and then maybe a beanie for me if I decide to go ahead and shave my hair off. (more on that later.)

And finally, as a precursor to an upcoming short:

My sister and I were talking about these a few days ago; back in those wonderfully hot, fresh cut grass smelling days of my childhood summers when it seemed as though I didn't have a care in the world beyond what I was going to to do and whether or not I could go swimming in our DoughBoy swimming pool, all of us in the neighborhood got bubblegum smokes from the ice cream man. Recently my sis started to stop smoking and we were thinking about the bubblegum smokes but figured that with all the rampant political correctness and health crazed people in the world, they were probably a thing of the past. Imagine my surprise this afternoon when I took my daughter to her first ice cream truck and he had a whole shelf of these puppies!! Being the insanely impulsive person I was, I bought some, and then proceeded to amaze the small clot of children and parents that were still around the ice cream truck and run, bubblegum cigs in one hand high above my head, daughter in tow, straight across the street shouting triumphantly at the top of my lungs, "Briggggggggggitttttttttte! Look what I scored!!" For a blissful second I was transported straight back to my childhood, and it was awesome. :)

Also, a friend of mine sent me a link to another blog, I went and was amused. The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns you will be amused.

Yay! I got my first Secret Pal present!! My SP from SP6 is like, my twin. Either that or she has magic powers. Without green even being one of my favorite colors she picked a handpainted roving colorway from HelloYarn that is not only gorgeous; but one I have looked at for myself as well! Yippee! Pictures below.

First, the roving and the nifty little postcard that let me know who it was from. :) The roving is gorgeous!

Next... I succumb (albeit briefly) to temptation and manage to actually spin some of it. I think it's gorgeous, but the husband thing thinks it looks "lumpy". Oh well. My daughter cried cuz I forgot to let her try the wheel again, so it comes out for longer tomorrow! Yay! (I think)

And finally... a beautiful picture of me! Well, my thumb anyways, care of SelfPortraitTuesday. I found this blog through Cheryl's blog, and being a fan of photographing random parts of my body, had to join in. ;) I am in the process of seasonalizing my blog and when I get that done, expect to see some sidebar links back to both of the aforementioned places (and many many more...)

And now for something completely different.

Hello David (if you found my blog that is)!! I really do appreciate everybody's opinion, but I am still stymied over how this has exploded, why it is happening, and who Anon. is. I think that will drive me more mad than anything...

Maybe there's a story in it. ;)

What should my next story be? I was thinking an insider's perspective of the gritty world of phonesex, or a travelogue of either my trip in 99 across country or in 98 across the UK. Let's get some feedback!

well who would have thunk it, but I actually have some knitting(ish) content on my knitting blog!! AMAZING! This is my fiber stash, for when I feel like living out my Miller's daughter fantasies. Clockwise from the bottom left; that's an itty bitty Ashford Niddy Noddy for making teensie skeins, some beautiful magenta corriedale roving, some undyed natural corriedale, some blended merino something, some of the blended stuff that has been spun and is still on the bobbin, my first disgusting yarn with my Kiwi (with handcarded by moi fluff, straight from the animal that grew it...) and in the center, shining like a sparkling jewel, some 50/50 merino/silk handpainted. Oooh how pretty. I still can't get over buying this stuff by the ounce. The white stuff is like $1 an ounce... the shiny pretty stuff... $7.50. But it's so pretty and when you compare it to the price of say, Touch Me which is $14-17 for 50 grams (1.75oz) it's more than affordable... besides... it's pretty!!

When I started this blog I figured that not very many people would read it. So far, I have exceeded my expectations and have come to find a place in the blogging community and have people who read my blog and people who's blogs I read etc... and it's great. Which would be why when I have problems I come on here and dutifully type them out to get feedback. I love feedback. It's awesome, and I love giving it to.

What I don't understand is why someone seems to have gotten upset with me. Offense was definitly not my goal or intended outcome; in fact, when I made my post the other day, the "backhanded New Delhi comment" would actually be my backhanded comment in my unpublished, first draft, for school, please give me your opinions essay.

At 9/26/2005 7:23 PM, Anonymous said...

I have a theory re. New Delhi. It may seem ticky tacky, however, think about something you care about.. a place, a job, a nationality and think of a time when someone got a key detail about it wrong. How did you feel? And how would you feel if you pointed out and were like "whatever" about it. BTW, Everyone understands they point that you are trying to make, pointing out an issue with it doesn't mean the point is not understood. Also, the "good" writers care about the details. At least that is my guess. Maybe I am getting that detail about good writers wrong. Whatever.

I am not sure when I ever said, "whatever" to your comment, and actually I took your comment to heart and asked for your feedback. That would be the part of my post when I said, "This is what I am trying to say, HOW DO YOU THINK I COULD SAY IT BETTER?" I don't mean to demean your opinion or anything about you, but at this point, I have to wonder just what it was that I did that has caused you to become so upset that you find the purpose and the need to come here and start trashing me? To me, it doesn't matter if it's Big Mac, Chicken Maharaja Mac, Filet-O-Fish, or a McChicken sandwich; it's all the same. And as far as "good" writers (and I am guessing by your quotations here you are implying that I am "not good") caring about details, I do care. Which would be why I turned around and asked what you thought would be a better thing, and for that matter, why when I started writing the essay I went to the McDonald'sIndia website.

Maybe I am being a little wierd about this, but I feel a little wierd about it. I figure that if you are going to be harshing on me the least you can do is sign your name or something---it's not like I am going to turn this into a shouting match.

Thank you all so much for your comments; I really appreciated them.

:) About the backhanded New Delhi comment, yes, I figured that the Big Mac would probably be veggie pattie stuff or something, but the point was that you can still walk in to a Mc Donald's in India. Should I change Big Mac to chicken mc nuggets maybe? I wasn't sure which would work best, so I went with the Big Mac because everybody gets what a Big Mac is. Argh, it's so hard to choose...

PLUS... right after I turned it in my teacher turned me on to Pico Iyer's essay, "Why We Travel" which you can find HERE if you are interested, and made me think maybe the McDonald's of the world would be worth the stop. Not sure. PLUS I am on pins and needles waiting for the critique of my story by my classmates. I appreciate what people have had to say thus far. :)

Angela

Ok, by now everyone is like, enough with the school already where the hell is your knitting?!

I promise, I will have tons of knitterly content soon.

But for now, would you please do me a huge favor and read this and telling me what you think; be honest. I hope my class gets to the review of my paper tomorrow because I hate waiting for critiques. :) Please say yay or nay and if you didn't like it say so, but please pretty pretty pretty please, read it.

Thank you and goodnite.

Angela

So we have some rain and thunderstorms, hooray! I love it. That is, of course, if I hadn't have seen the creepy as all get out "Exorcism of Emily Rose" earlier on in the day. So I ended up with nightmares and a pounding headache... ugh.

My scariest nightmare? I was in a creative writing class being taught by Stephen King... and he wouldn't let me leave.

So I had my second speech of the semester today and I aced it (hooray!) I got a 71 out of 75, so a 95% and I am happy!

One of the other speakers today had an interesting tidbit on fandom from wikipedia.com namely that "Keen aficionados of any phenomenon such as authors, hobbies, ideologies, genres or fashions can collectively manifest as fandom. Fans (or the plural fen) typically are interested in even minor details of the object of their fandom; this is what differentiates them from those with only casual interest."

Wow. That was like way cool. So it got me thinking; I am a big fan. I heart fandomy goodness. For instance authors in my top 4 favorite topics; knitting, cooking, travel, and books in general, I have extensive lists of favorites or would love to meets.

Example: Knitting. Who would I love to meet for knitting? This is easy. Nicky Epstien, Erica Knight, Debbie Bliss, and Adrienne Vittadini. Oh yeah, and Melanie Falick and maybe Jean Greenhowe.

For cooking: Alton Brown, Anthony Bourdain, and Paula Deen. I can think of some others, but one that wouldn't be there would be Delia Smith (grrr). Martha Stewart just for the hell of it. Mostly Bourdain and Brown. I don't think you can find 2 people as different as they are from eachother but each is wowsa! hot in his own way. ;)

Travel: Jeff Greenwald, Tim Cahill, Sean Condon, and Anthony Bourdain. Definitly. I was thinking about this the other day in the car. I could picture it like it was real. Me, Jeff, Tim and Sean all packed into a nice whale-sized convertible, taking to the open road somewhere, anywhere. Jeff would be taking us to all the interesting and spiritually enlightening places, Tim would be the driver and he would keep us safe in the case of oh, I don't know, wolverines attacking or running into guerilla warfare. Sean would be in the back seat next to me, narrating, singing, and sleeping off a hangover wondering where the f*&k Dave was.

Books in general, that's a hard one. Garth Nix, JK Rowling, Elaine Cunningham, Troy Denning, DAVID SEDARIS, and Sophie Kinsella are a few that I'd love to meet.

Enough muttering.

I'm off to bed.

Tomorrow I will be posting a link to my first piece of creative nonfiction. I hope you people out here will read it and tell me what you think :)

Angela

Man, I feel like a jackass. I have recieved a few roaks and haven't said thank you. well. THANK YOU! I got a couple of e-cards the other week and they made me happy. I can't remember who they are from, and my inbox gobbled them up. This makes me sad. :( I'm sorry.

Also, as soon as I get back to my house I will post with who dunnit and a pic, but some extremely talented person sent me the most adorable origami seahorse ever and made me smile and turn green with envy. This was soooooo beautiful. A buncha thank yous for that. :)

I have a bunch of halloween raks to go out at the end of the month; we've been hard at work on them and made some cute things. Now here's the problem. I'd like to be able to send something to everyone, but obviously I can't (maybe if I were donald trump...). So how bad would it be if some people got a thing and some got cards and some e-cards? would that be truly awful?

And, how does one go about being completely random? I was thinking about using a random table thingy from the back of my statistics book, and doing it that way...

:)

take care, dreamy

My Secret Pal responded to me, how cool is that? Honestly, I wasn't worried about me... more about her. I hope everything is going great.

Her comment sounded very... CIA. "My contact will be sporadic for awhile" So now I am off with visions of a secret pal who leads a secret double life... crime fighter by day... knitter by night! lol. Just kidding. :)

Thank you for responding secret pal!!!

1. Are you a yarn snob (do you prefer higher quality and/or natural fibers)? Do you avoid Red Heart and Lion Brand? Or is it all the same to you? My favorite yarn is anything. I am not a big fan of old squeaky acrylic and unfortunately I seem to be a teensy bit allergic to mohair. I like to knit with anything knittable, so in addition to 'Walmart yarn' and 'designer yarn' or 'shi shi expensive yarn' I have also knit with wire, lanyard string, fabric, crepe paper streamers, paper, satin ribbon, raffia, and curly ribbon. I am always up for new experiences.

2. Do you spin? Crochet? I just bought an Ashford Kiwi spinning wheel, what fun! I can't crochet to save my life

3. Do you have any allergies? PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME ANYTHING WITH JASMINE OR SIMILAR SCENTS. It triggers awful awful migraines.

4. How long have you been knitting? About 13/14 years. Since the 7th grade... you know even then they confiscated my needles and told me they could be used as weapons?

5. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? not just yet

6. What's your favorite scent? pumpkin pie, chocolate, buttercream, um... for bath stuff I like musky flowery stuff.

7. Do you have a sweet tooth? yes. I prefer Cadbury's to Hersheys, love the peanut butter/chocolate combination, and love love love maple flavored yummy ness.

8. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? I have been doing some beading lately, I like making Christmas stuff, and can't help myself with kits. I don't have a specific craft other than knitting though.

9. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? I like pretty much everything. I can go from Michael Buble to Insane Clown Posse without blinking. MP3s are no problem.

10. What's your favorite color? Or--do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can't stand? Favorite colors are purple, black, pink, silver, and jewel tones. I love Autumn and Winter colors. I am not a huge fan of vomit or muddy colors and I am even less of a fan of "ice cream" colors or baby pastels.

11. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I am married to a wonderful man and have a 5 year old who thinks she is the Queen of England. I have 2 dogs, Ozzy a shi-zhu/terrier/poodle mutt and Roadkill, a dobie/border collie/lab mix. They are both boys. Roadkill is so named because we got him on location while making a movie called "Roadkill" and Ozzy is named after the indomitable Ozzy Osbourne because when he was rescued by his former owners he was matted and tangled and looked like an aging rockstar. While he likes to chew the heads of stuffed toys he has not been found to be swearing incessantly while I am in earshot.

12. What are your life dreams? well for now I want to get through college without killing myself... I'd love to be a highschool english teacher. If we were going for extreme dreaming that would be: I want to have a chance to travel world wide and write about it, I want to write fiction, I want to own my own bed and breakfast somewhere with loads of acreage that we can use for... raising sheep and at least one dairy cow, so that I could spin and make my own cheese, but it would have to have loads of acreage so that when I wasn't hosting knitting/spinning getaway weekends my husband could be leasing the area out to live action roleplayers and filmmakers.

13. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? anything. Although at the moment, I am totally in love with Touch Me. Who cares if it's expensive? It's like knitting a hug for your hands...

14. What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? squeaky acrylic. oooh and kitchen cotton.

15. What is/are your current knitting obsession/s? knitting pumpkins and textural scarf kits.

16. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? objects/stuffed toys

17. What are you knitting right now? right now? a scarf for me and some pumpkins and I am about to cast on Oblivion for my sister.

18. What do you think about ponchos? they should only be worn by emergency personnel in inclement weather, people on the Maiden of the Mists, or extremely skinny women. Ladies, if you are hefty (like myself) a poncho just makes it look like you decided to take your couch cover to work with you...

19. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? circulars and teeny dpns. I love 4-5 inch dpns.

20. Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? I hate plastic. I love aluminum and wood is nice too, but I hate plastic, it bends waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too easy.

21. Are you a sock knitter? yes.

22. How did you learn to knit? I took a class in school to keep away from a jackass teacher. Mr. O, being a jackass to me was maybe one of the best things you ever do, so I salute you. PS we still talk about being able to see your day-glo spandex jockey shorts under your white pants... what the hell were you thinking?

23. How old is your oldest UFO? um. Do I have to admit it? I have an entrelac pillow from 2001 somewhere around here, unless I threw it away. Otherwise, Rogue which I started this time last year for a present last Christmas... I better get knitting.

24. What is your favorite animated character or a favorite animal/bird? Online? FOAMY (www.illwillpress.com) offline like on tv? Strawberry Shortcake, Jem, Rainbow Bright, or She-Ra. Favorite animal would be sheep at the moment or a cappibarra, a giant rodent that lives in south america, or penguins. I love penguins.

25. What is your favorite holiday? Halloween and Christmas. I love them both with a scary passion. I have already been buying stuff for each for crafty goodness.

26. Is there anything that you collect? men! (just kidding) Yes, I collect pins with witty sayings on them or like characters, etc. I just got one that says "your pin may say 'princess' but your face says 'troll'. They are a way of letting out my inner bitch without being truly evil. I also collect yarn, sheep and penguins, christmas ornaments, postcards, and throw blankets.

27. What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? right now just cast-on, but I buy IK alot and also Knit 1.

28. Any books out there you are dying to get your hands on? The Knitted Rug and anything by Jean Greenhowe except for the 2 Christmas books.

29. Any patterns you have been coveting, but haven't bought for one reason or another?? I really want the Kate Gilbert knitted bunny pattern, the wizard set, the unicorn, and this set from http://www.alphalink.com.au/~woodsy/miniwwtower.htm

ETA: 30. What are your foot measurements, and what kind of socks do you like? I don't do socks. I like to knit them but I am a barefoot kinda gal

Secret Pal, Secret Pal
Won't you talk to me?

Tempt me with some questions, girl
but don't leave me dangli---ing!

Yarns I like, the books I read
where I keep my stash

Don't be a stranger, any more
Please let me know you care. :)

**************************
Do I come off as needy? I just wanna get to know my Secret Pal... so I can guess who she is! mwahaha.

Vicki from www.kucrafter.blogspot.com sent me some cute butterfly stitchmarkers. Photos are imminent, as is yet another questionnaire for yet another secret pal (SP 6). Also, I am on pins and needles wondering how my SP 5 partner will react to her present.

ttfn

Dreams. My nickname's not Dreamy for nothing. I love dreaming (might be because I love sleeping... I am addicted to sleeping and dreaming... real and day dreaming). So believe me when I say HOLY CRAP. What a wierd dream.

I have wierd dreams alot, but this was wierd even for me.

I dreamt that I was naked at school. Ohh, talk about a dream prototype, a dream that we've (the collective we, the humanity we) been having since probably the dark ages. I can just see knights dreaming that they were on a battlefield and *poof* no armor. Of course the Scots were pretty much used to running around half naked, those wily highlanders. BUT this was different.

First, I was in creative writing class and we were watching my teacher perform not so amazing magic tricks for us. We were also awed by the sheer enormity of her book and bric a brac collection, which included shrunken heads, etc. Her knowledge of mytgological creatures was staggering. In short, she was amazing. Oh yeah, and I was naked. Wrapped up in a dark sheet or some sort of robe, I was conciously naked and yet instead of filling me with dread it made me feel comfortable. It was a wierd sort of existential "be one with the class" "have an experience" kind of way. I grokked naked. It was cool.

And then the unthinkable happened. I was in a different professer's class, one who intimidates the hell out of me. Nice. But I was still naked and we were still doing well. UNTIL... I started to fall asleep. Which put the teacher in a panic and as I was falling deeper and deeper asleep he was really trying hard to wake me up, he was terrified because he knew about my anemia and seemed to think if I fell asleep I would be in danger.

c'est la vie.

voulez vous un boire quelque chose?

I'm not a terribly huge Kathy Bates fan myself, nor am I a big watcher of Lifetime television, but after I saw a billboard for this movie, I decided to Tivo it. (mwahahaha I LOVE Tivo) I just got done watching it and I was amazed at how much I felt like her character.

Too many things are happening with me right now and I feel perpetually depressed and like my family is two steps away from crumbling. There are things I am terrified of and they keep me away at night. During the day I sleep from sheer exhaustion. Sometimes I feel as if life has no meaning anymore and I wish it was just all over.

How easy would it be? I wonder. But then I realize how much I have and how much more there is to learn, see, and do and I get on with it.

I am rambling.

pssst I hope my husband isn't reading this.

WildFiber in Santa Monica, you are both my favorite store and my wallet's enemy. 2 balls of Rowan Biggie Print, 3 balls of Touch Me, and one skein of Manos del Uraguay, some Brittany dpns (size 7), and some Lantern Moon project bags... sigh. How can that not add up to anything other than --- OUCH!??

excuse me while I go have some xrated down time with my yarn... seriously though, I cannot say enough about Touch Me. It's amazingly soft and gorgeous (even at $2.75 a ball more than my other fav. yarn store...)

so so nice

I love my couch with a passion that seems almost... indecent.

I am loyal to my couch. No other couch loves me or will ever love me like this couch does. It cradles me when I am sick, soothes me when I am tired, and gently holds my hand at 3 in the morning when I am watching a movie all alone in the dark and I am scared s--tless.

Sometimes I feel more married to my couch than to my husband.

It wasn't always like this, I used to have a couch that is reminiscent of the kind of guy that is bad news. We picked it up from the side of the street and DH had to build the inner support structure. It was white-ish and it itched like crazy. Then a friend said she was selling her couches, would I like them? SURE! So, in preparation for getting the new couches (while DH was gone) I removed the old couch and basically tore it to shreds. Ahhh if only bonfires were legal inside the city limits... Well, as you can guess... my friend's husband changed her mind for her at the last minute and there I was sans couch. boo hoo! So it was off to Rent-A-Center with me... soo many couches to choose from. How could I make the decision? I finally opted for the beast that currently resides in my livingroom. A 8 seater sectional by Berkeliner. From their "cinema" series... so it came complete with cupholders and 2 recliners. Lovely. Did you know my uncle Clint (technically my great great uncle Clint) worked @ the Berkeliner factory and was one of the people who worked on the recliner thingamajiggit that makes their seats recline even if they are right up against a wall? (me neither)

Oh couch, how I love you, let me count the ways... It's big enough for both me and DH to sleep on at the same time (not side by side). It's comfy enough, wide enough, and smooth enough not to itch like the dickens. It has cupholders! It has recliners! And it is awesome.

Last September when I was recovering from my gallbladder removal surgery, I lived on my couch. It held me close and supported me when I was in dire pain. It's doing the same thing now... only I think in recent weeks it has become a greedy and jealous creature, always demanding my attention and devotion...

I've been gone too long. I've forgotten who I am. Does anybody remember?

I sit alone (or at least wish I did) and think or try not to think. My sister is dying, my body is growing beyond me, my daughter is maturing, my husband is leaving (spiritually if not physically), and I am stranded.

I want to write about Katrina. Such a pretty name, like Andrew. When I watch on the news I want to cry and ask everyone I know, "What the hell is going on?" How can we say that citizens firing guns is an absolute danger and so no personnel must be sent in to save American lives, and yet Afghans (Vietnamese, Japanese, German, etc over the last hundred or so years) firing upon eachother is a rally cry to defend some tenuous and vague dream called democracy, so let's toss all of our able bodied men and women sworn to protect OUR nation and OUR people, in front of foreign bullets and bombs to protect foreigners?

Where is God in this? Where is the "Christian" backbone of our country who blindly elected a man with a vendetta back into office and why aren't they screaming bloody murder about what's going on? (I am not saying all Christians are like this nor am I saying that people aren't upset... I know a great many people are upset)

My heart bleeds for New Orleans and her residents. When I see the devastation I can't help but recall walking the streets of the French Quarter on a balmy May night, hand in hand with my husband and oh so in love with the city and him. I can't help but think of the insanely mad scramble of a taxi drive out into New Orleans proper to go to the giant cineplex to see Star Wars Episode I, the smell of the bayou and the drive over a long, beautiful bridge. I can't help but wonder what how Armstrong park fared; a park that no less than five different people warned me and my husband not to go into, "See the statue?" said the taxi driver as we whizzed by, "Now you don't need to go in there." I think of all these things and then I think of how NOTHING happened. I want to scream. New York is devestated and we move in and begin to patch her together. London is rocked and order starts to reform near immediately. The ocean tries to swallow a nation and the people of the world rally back and reclaim the nation. But New Orleans sinks, wallows, saturates, and ultimately decays while the world United States watches on and does nothing.

It's almost enough to make me feel like an ass for being depressed over my own bullshit but then that just makes me feel even worse, so what the hell.

I have to say that I THINK I AM AN IDIOT. I stopped taking my prozac (like a dumbass) and only got worse (of course) so now I swear I am going to try to take it. The last day I took it was on Monday last week and I have gone downhill from there. What the hell am I going to do?!

angela