being sick sucks. Why can I not learn this?

Why do I persist in thinking, "Man, if I had to stay home sick, I'd get all kinds of knitting time in!"? No. When I am sick I feel far too crappy to do anything other than lie there in a little ball of misery until the illness gives up in boredom and goes to find someone else to torment.
I woke up yesterday morning feeling like I'd been beaten all night with a sack of oranges. I asked my sweetie, "Why, WHY did you beat me all night with a sack of oranges?" He said, "Well, you've gotta tenderize 'em somehow."
Turns out I was coming down with a nasty little stomach virus that has left me fetal on the couch for almost two days straight. It's been awesome. I'm mostly vertical now, which is new and exciting.
All this illness has given me time to ponder the great mysteries of our world. For instance: why do they make thermometers shaped like that? You have to hold them in place with your hand or they squirt violently from your mouth and hit your reflection in the bathroom mirror. They should make some sort of flange or grippy part that you can hold with your teeth so you can do something useful while finding out if you have an actual reason for feeling like death. I complained about this to my sweetie, who helpfully explained, "That's so they fit better in your butt."
Um, no. "This is an ORAL thermometer."
"That's what you think!"
"It's an ORAL THERMOMETER, dammit!"
"Oh, no! Have I been using it wrong? I'm so sorry!" Then he collapsed into giggles while I glared and told him, "I don't love you enough to lick your butthole." He's still giggling now.
One day my revenge will come. One day . . .

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

What do you do when you find that the place you fought so hard to reach is a dead end?

After much flailing and bitterness, I'm finally coming to terms with what I've been slowly realizing for several years now. My job has hit a wall, and in spite of all my efforts, there's no way for me to fix it. There's no chance of promotion unless someone dies (don't tempt me), no ability to move laterally within the company, and no possibility of getting another job in the same field unless I want to move to a different city.

I've been exploring my options, applying for jobs and debating going back to school. I really really don't want to have to go back to school (I did that already! I worked really really hard!), but I've found I've really painted myself into a corner by becoming so specialized. Hence the flailing and the bitterness.
And in this economy, I hate to complain about my job, because at least I have one. It pays me small but adequate amounts of money and gives me health insurance. But I need new experiences and new things to learn. I need new ideas and new challenges. I need things for my hungry little brain to munch on so it doesn't shrivel like a raisin and crawl out of my ear to find someplace more interesting.
I had a job interview last week. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

don't be a jerk if you are crock-pot-sized and taste good with ketchup

Common wisdom would suggest that if one is conveniently crock-pot-sized, then one should not be a jerk and go around destroying the property of wrathful crock-pot owners.

Who, me? No! I would never.

Exhibit A: My new bathroom rug.


Nothing too spectacular, but soft and cushy and absorbent and doesn't show cat hair and (thank god) cheap. I love this rug, and THIS:

is what the black fluffy buttmonkey did to the rug this morning, while I was standing there brushing my teeth. What is it about cats, when you yell at them for doing something they KNOW is bad? Dogs at least have the decency to look guilty. Cats look at you like, "What?" or "Yeah, yeah, in a minute. Lemme finish eating this rug first." Misbegotten ungrateful brat.

And no, of course I didn't slow roast the kitty, although I haven't ruled it out. Instead, I let both of them up into the linen cupboard to sleep on our towels and coat them with cat hair.


Yep. I'm a sucker.

cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

I was entering receipts into my Anal Retentive Spreadsheet (tm) over the weekend, when I realized I spent FIFTY-FIVE DOLLARS on NAIL POLISH this month. *headdesk* Being an adult: FAIL.


On the other hand (hee!), my nails look fantastic.

Mother-! Finger!

Well, you remember how two weeks ago, I was trying to kill myself? Yeah, that seems to be the theme lately: Injury Tuesdays. This week, a coworker slammed my fingers in a car door. (He felt really bad.) It hurts like hell. Pics and gory details at the bottom of the post, but first, let's look at some yarn.

Araucania Ruca Multy, from Needlenook, also for my birthday. I, um, went a little crazy. It is going to become this.

ALSO! Primrose Path is finished! Here's a pic I took while picking up stitches for the neckband. Real, actual, finished FO pics to follow when I find someone else to play camerawoman and capture this sweater in all its sexy glory.

Now for horrible slammed-finger pictures. Avert your eyes if you're squeamish.

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Yeah. Ouch. My finger is not happy. Oh, and notice the little black dot in the center of the bruise/blood under the nail?

Yeah, that's where I drilled a hole in my nail with a hot needle to let the blood out and release some of the pressure. (Because it makes it hurt less, heal faster, and I really don't want to lose the nail.) I am hard-core. Let my hard-core awesome toughness never again be doubted. I performed bush surgery on myself. (Bush as in Australian outback. Get your minds out of the gutter. You know who you are.)

things I've learned

If I look at my to-do list and it seems short and easily achievable, that means I'm forgetting like twelve things. Sigh.

what the crap is this???

It is 30 degrees. And SNOWING. (Flurries, but still, flurries count!) In Atlanta. In APRIL!!! This is not ok! Weather, I am putting you on notice. You have been warned. Straighten up, or else!

in which I am tired of winter

Dear Winter:
Things just haven't been the same between us. When you first arrived, everything was exciting and new. We did so many fun things together. Remember cuddling in front of the fire and knitting warm socks, making soup, and snuggling under the blankets at night? You even pulled out all the stops and gave me that big exciting snowfall last month. But things have changed. We're on different paths. We want different things, and I'm tired of being cold. I made this supercute cropped sweater, and I want to wear it without my bellybutton icing over, but you won't let me.



I've tried to make things work between us, but I'm just not feeling it anymore. We need to go our separate ways. It's not you, it's me.

Sincerely,
Kim

PS: I lied. It's you. It's all you.

we need a better word for this

I took off my Monkey socks the other evening, beginning the soothing process of my nightly rituals, preparing me for slumber.

And noticed this.

The squeamish among you will want to avert your eyes.

It isn't pretty.

Consider yourself warned.




And all thoughts of sleep were indefinitely postponed as I flailed about the room, swearing with impressive vigor and enthusiasm. My rational mind, bless its little heart, put forth a number of completely rational suggestions, like, "OK, there's a hole in your handknit sock. It's not the end of the world."
The rest of my mind, the part that was vacillating wildly between flailing and passing out, shrieked, "Screw you, rational mind! It is a giant *&%ing HOLE IN MY HANDKNIT SOCK!!!"
Rational mind: "Yes, but you can fix that."
Flailing mind: "Screw you, rational mind! It is a giant *&%ing HOLE IN MY HANDKNIT SOCK!!!"
Rational mind: "Calm down. I can totally fix it. All you need is the leftovers of the yarn, a few size 0 sock needles, and I will handle everything."
Flailing mind: "Screw you, rational mind! It is a giant *&%ing HOLE IN MY HANDKNIT SOCK!!! Also, this is a completely rational and proportional response to finding a giant *&%ing HOLE IN MY HANDKNIT SOCK!!! I will calm down when I am good and ready!"

Eventually, we all reached a compromise, and my flailing mind settled down to hyperventilate quietly while my rational mind began to pick up stitches and begin the repair.

I know they're called "darns", but let's be honest, they should be called "*&%%^#$ (*&^ (*& ^$#@ $#!!^".

reflection

It's that time of year again. The winter solstice, the darkest night of the year, has come and gone. The sun creeps out earlier and sets a little later each day, but the weather turns increasingly cold. All sensible creatures hunker down and hibernate until spring. It's a time to reflect, repent, revise and resolve.

A friend's recent breakup of a five-year relationship has led to many deep discussions and ponderings about the nature of love. This recent comic also struck a chord of recognition with me. It depicts, with eerie accuracy, the course of um, all of my relationships. Because when I think back on them and on my exes, I don't miss them. I don't miss our relationship.
I do get lonely. I miss very much being special to someone. And I have a loving family and many friends who shower me with affection, and I try to soak up as much of that as I can to fend off the lonelies. But I miss having someone who thinks that I am special and wants to be with me and make me happy. Boys can be very cute when they want you to like them back. And I am both very cheap and very hermit-y, so a boyfriend is good for getting me out of the house and forcing me to try new stuff. The only time I ever go to movies is with a boy, and though I go out to restaurants weekly with friends, I don't eat. I am so tight, I squeak.
So I miss that. But I know (oh how I know), that the only thing worse than no boyfriend is the wrong boyfriend, and I would rather be lonely by myself than lonely with someone. Because there is no worse feeling in the world than being lonely with someone laying in bed next to you.

M-F-er!

I just got a bill from Dekalb Medical center for almost $900 for a procedure that was done in JANUARY. The letter says something like "it has been 30 days since we billed your insurance provider . . . " Well, NO FREAKING KIDDING, JERKS! If you'll excuse me, I have to go invent new curse words, since my current stock is woefully inadequate. Any suggestions?

a year in socks

Happy Thanksgiving, all ye of American persuasion! I was reminiscing the other day about this time last year, when I was working on the RPM socks and taking them for a little jaunt in the mountains of north Georgia. Which led to my wondering how many socks I had completed since them, which led to a little impromptu photo session on my new living-room rug.

Six pair, not counting the socks I finished for my Mom's Christmas present, or the socks I'm working on for BRE. Not bad. I'm no Quiddity, but I'm pretty pleased with myself. (How that woman can turn out so many socks so fast is a constant source of wonder and befuddlement to me. It's truly amazing. I would be jealous, but she's such a delightful person that I just can't. And she has the cutest cats ever.)

The house is coming along at a good, steady pace. Every day there's a tiny bit less chaos. Of course, Jaymie is helping as only he can.

I think we're ready for a housewarming party, which I'm tentatively scheduling for Saturday, December 6th, early afternoon-ish. Consider yourself invited! Email me for address and/or directions.

Last year I put together a really great Thanksgiving post, and while this year's will not be as full of deep thoughts and ponderings, I think it's important to be thankful and remind yourself of the good things in your life. So, in no particular order, I'm thankful for:

• my parents, who have basically given up their lives and all their spare time to fix up this house. This would absolutely not have been possible without them.
• the Best Roommate Ever, who proved herself even more awesome than I would have thought possible with all the renovation and moving chaos.
• my knitting friends, who keep demanding to know when I'm going to let them come over and paint my house for me. You can't get better friends than that.
• all of my extended family, whom I got to see this year for a big wedding, and whom I'll get to see again next year for another wedding. And for never asking me, "When is your turn?" because then I'd have to hurt them and that would ruin everyone's fun.
• the kittenbeasts, to whom I am the sole mommy for Thanksgiving week, as BRE is out of town visiting family. I promised her that if I sold them to the gypsies in her absence, I'd get a good price for them.
  

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Dear sweet, loveable kitten babies . . .

Dear sweet, lovable kitten babies,
If you do not stop whining for food, I am going to sell you to the gypsies to be made into hats. Lunch happens at 4. You have been squeaking at me since 1. Just because I am home does not mean we have food on demand. You are not starving and dying, and you do not need to eat until you are spherical. You can make it one more hour. Auntie Kim will not forget to feed you. I promise.

Love,
your faithful human slave

One cat, free to a bad home.

This sinister little mutant kitten beast


woke me up at 5:44 this morning (my day off) by puking up a hairball on my home inspection report. Free to a bad home.

. . . and it's a long way to Tallahassee and back . . .

Almost as soon as I got to Tallahassee, I had to turn right back around and scamper home, because there are only two of us who work on Sunday, and management's solution to this problem is that neither of us can ever have a Sunday off. Good thinking, management. So 9 AM on Saturday saw me leaving town again, approximately 36 hours after my arrival.
I was told that the kitties missed me while I was gone.

Can't you tell?

I hadn't seen any of my Tally folks for five years, and I missed them more than I realized. It was so good to spend some time with people who know me and know that I'm crazy and love me anyway. Working with the guys I do is very wearing on the ego (especially considering that THREE of them have told me that my tummy is too fat. Creeps.) It was nice to just soak up the love for a while. Sometimes life is harder than it should be, and I'm against it. I feel bad that I let people get so out of touch, but I guess the take-home lesson is to do better in the future.

There's nothing like looking at your own history in the faces of your friends . . .

This week I had the great good fortune to go down to Tallahassee to see my freshman college roommate get married and hang with a whole slew of people I haven't seen in five years. (I'm trying hard not to think about the "five years" thing too much. It's making me feel old. Aging is happening to me! My youth and cuteness are passing me by! But not my coolness. Because, as any of my friends will tell you, I've never been cool.) Anyway. Wedding pictures!


The bride being walked down the aisle by her mom and dad. Very sweet. And a very bad picture. She's much prettier than this picture would suggest. (Sorry, Em!)

Taking the vows. It was a very simple, low-key sort of ceremony, which was fantastic. Also good for the group of us, because none of us have ever really been able to behave properly in public for any stretch of time. To get this picture, I had to lean WAAAAY over into the lap of my "date" (we both came alone, and we matched. And may I just say that I think he's one of very few straight men who look good in purple pinstripes.) So as I'm trying to take this picture between the heads of those in front of me, he's whispering in my ear, "Hey, 1997 called; they want their camera back." Shut up.

And the bride and groom, happily united in wedded bliss, until they DIE. Good luck to you, my dears. Your babies will be heart-breakingly cute.

It was so good to see everybody. Tallahassee is a butt-numbingly long drive for me and I'm a really bad penpal, so I have had absolutely no contact with almost everybody for like, half a decade. (Not thinking about it, not thinking about it . . . ) Everybody is pretty much . . . exactly the same. All the married couples seem so happy, and those that have reproduced have the most astoundingly precious and well-behaved kids. And everybody who has been stricken with cancer since graduation is doing well, although having three friends get cancer in their early twenties is definitely making me worried that there was something in the water. I've never been a hypochondriac, but I'm thinking a full-body-scan is in order here. Although, I have to say, the one guy I thought would be doing something bizarre like a counter-terrorism agent in the special forces or god knows what? He's a librarian. Weird.

real life is stupid and I'm against it.

Real life has been conspiring again to make everything No Fun. Between being busy with stupid boring (but necessary) crap, doctor's appointments, and work-related drama, I've been too busy and overwhelmed and exhausted to even think about blogging. Or do much of anything, really. Why is it that when you most need fun and a little R&R is when you're least able to have it? I'm sensing a conspiracy. (Doctor's appointments were not for any specific problem (unlike last time; ahem). I just had one of those weird convergences where all my regularly scheduled checkups fell into the same 10-day period. I feel like I'm ready to be shot into space.)
So, to break up the monotony of the whining a little, here's a cat picture. (Tactic shamelessly stolen from the Yarn Harlot.)


Work-related drama has made everything very fun and exciting around here. I've been stressed-out and nauseous for about a solid week. The problems seemed to arise from my steadfast refusal to read my coworker(s) minds, and my dogged insistence on coming in on time, instead of 20 minutes early. (Hey, I have to be at work early enough. Unless my boss tells me to, I am not coming in one second earlier. That's madness.) I know. I am a bad person and a worse employee. The storm seems to have passed for now; I'm still deciding whether or not I hate everyone I work with. Let's keep our fingers crossed that everything stays calm for a while. (And no, Oscar was entirely innocent in all this madness.) Here's another cat picture.


On the knitting front, I have accomplished absolutely nothing since blocking Patty's scarf, due to the above crap/drama, and pain in my hands due to overdoing it with Patty's scarf. I usually keep a range of projects in different sizes, gauges and materials on hand to prevent just this sort of thing, but I could not put this scarf down. It was absolutely addictive. I knit at red lights on this one; I just couldn't stop. It was a fascinating little knit and I'm extremely pleased with the results. My hands, however: not so much with the pleased. To make things worse, it was made from worsted-weight cotton knit to a tighter-than-normal gauge to make the cables stand out, so it's like tendonitis in scarf form. I'm sure I'll be fine; my hands are just kind of cranky right now.


Of course, not all the distracting things in my life sucked. My life has recently been consumed by rereading this


in preparation for this.


I finished it last night, and I could not be more pleased. Best books EVER.

philosophizing

A while back, Gotta Knit tagged me for a meme. And I said some very bad words, because it was not one of those easy ones, like "what's your favorite color and favorite flavor of toothpaste?" Oh, no. It was a hard one: summarize your life philosophy in six words. Not five. Not seven. Six. Dammit. So I did a lot of thinking. And counting. And cussing. And more thinking. I finally came up with something , although there were several honorable mentions which didn't fit the word count that I'll list first.

"This too shall pass." This is a big favorite around my house. Mostly it's used when things are going bad, but I think it's also useful to keep in mind when things are going well. Nothing lasts forever, however much we may want it to. When I was younger, I would make the mistake of assuming during the happy times that I would be happy forever. Nuh-uh. Doesn't work that way. Remembering that happiness, like everything else, comes and goes, helps me keep things in perspective and not be crushed when Old Man Trouble comes around again.

"Sock yarn is good. Need more sock yarn." Well, this is pretty close to being my life philosophy. Hi, my name is Kim, and I have a sock yarn problem. But it's not really a real answer, is it? And a fair question deserves a fair answer.

What I finally decided on is "Treasure love in all its forms." One of my Eastern European coworkers (Oscar, of course) was telling me the other day, "Kim, you need a boyfriend." (Yes, again.) When I said, "No, I don't. What do I need a boyfriend for?", he responded, "You need someone to love you." And I told him, "I have LOTS of people who love me." And I realized it's true. I may not have (or want) a boyfriend, but I have very close ties with both my parents, an amazingly fun extended family, great coworkers (yes, even Oscar), dozens of friends who love me to bits, the Best Roommate Ever (my heterosexual life partner), and two obnoxious, adorable fuzzballs to squish and love on (because it is really hard to mope when you have a cat whining and meowing and rubbing on your face). Why should I feel bereft because I'm boyfriendless? I'm drowning in love over here. Just because it's not That Kind of love doesn't mean it shouldn't be treasured. Life usually doesn't turn out the way we've planned, and many of the people I've loved (romantically and platonically) I no longer talk to (what with break-ups, moving away, graduating, etc.) But that doesn't mean that those relationships were meaningless, or that I won't have more love come into my life. And I've learned to value it in whatever form, whether it's a boyfriend or a mentor or an obnoxious kittenbeast that wants to lay on my chest and knead my bladder.

It may look like they're snuggling, but they're not.

Kitties must maintain an inch of air between them at all times.

Oh, and no, I'm not going to tag anyone else. If you wanna do it, consider yourself tagged.

ugly is the new pretty

I went to Borders to decompress after a long day's work by reading the knitting books. I don't actually buy the books from Borders, I get those from my LYS's, but if I'm just looking to unwind and not socialize, the knitting section in Borders is pretty solitary. I was perusing the shelves, idly looking through a new release. The cover had some cute sweater pictures, so I flipped it open to find . . . a section on ponchos. Danger Will Robinson! Run away! Now, that book may have had some amazing stuff, but I will never know, because the first thing I saw when I opened it was fun-fur ponchos. I all but flung the book down and fled the premises. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Why, oh why have we not all gotten over the fun-fur poncho thing? Then again, tight-leg jeans and neon are making a comeback, which is further proof that ugly never dies.

say again?

I ran into someone from my knitting group at Borders the other day, a friend I hadn't seen in quite a while. (Aside: isn't it weird when you run into someone in a place that's not where you normally see them? It takes a few seconds for it to sink in. "Hi! . . . Oh, whoa, HI! What are you doing here?" I ran into Ms. Rereading Proust at the blood donor center one time and that was just bizarre. We still talk about it.) Anyway, my friend hadn't been to knit night in a while, and I remarked on that as we were chatting. She replied, "Oh, I don't knit in the summertime." There was a palpable thirty-second silence in which I stared at her blankly. I managed (just barely) to keep myself from asking, "What do you mean, you don't knit? What DO you do?" I can't even imagine. I'm so restless and fidgety, um, all the time, that if I didn't knit, I would go completely crazy. I would have the shiniest house in the world, and the spice rack would be alphebetized and I would probably pressure-wash the sidewalk every Saturday and give the cats exciting hairdo's and they would hate me. Knitting soaks up all of my crazy restless energy and gives it back as pretty socks. I'm not sure what I did before I knit, but I'm sure it drove people crazy, whatever it was.