What are you doing?

May 28, 2014tempestpilot

A few years ago, finishing up story time, a co-worker said, “Oh, I could hear your heavenly voice, soaring through the library!” I had been singing 5 Little Ducks, the chorus of which goes, “QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK.” I suspected she was making fun of me, but she was a sweetheart and had love in her eyes, so I just said “thank you”. I can carry a tune, but I sound like a man with a reedy voice. I can sing along to Black Sabbath, the Decemberists, and the Muppets. I’m fine with this, it gets me through storytime and bedtime songs. Then last week, it happened again. I quacked along to 5 Little Ducks, and one of the adorable young moms in my toddler group said, “Oh, you have such a lovely voice! I got chills.” What is happening? Maybe I am some sort of barnyard song siren. Then the nice woman came back to the library yesterday and said, “These painkillers I’ve been on are making me kind of loopy.” AH HA. MYSTERY SOLVED. It was not love in my co-worker’s eyes all those years ago, it was drugs. Damn.

On Memorial Day I saw a man peeing in the grocery store parking lot – just holding his flabby pale penis over the top of his surf shorts, cool as could be, next to his fancy truck full of kids. I honked my horn and gestured in a manner that I hope conveyed disgust, and not applause. Gross.

Treasure

May 19, 2014tempestpilot

The condo association has been on the prowl for whoever has been leaving bulky items out on the curb before Bulky Item Pickup Day, which results in a $200 fine for management, and they have promised to hunt down the guilty party and bill them. This month, however, the scoundrels are going to go undetected, because they chucked a TREASURE CHEST into the garbage pickup, and I drove by it before the garbage men got there. “MIKE,” I said, slamming into the house after dropping off the kids at school, “TREASURE CHEST.” I took the baby away from him, plopped her in the stroller, and ran out the door. He hurried after us, as any sensible person who has been yelled at about treasure would. We got to the curb, pulled the pieces off of the garbage pile, and where delighted to discover that it was solid cedar with brass hardware. Someone had thrown the lid back and broken the hinges, which is easy enough to fix, and there were only a couple of maggots from the nearby garbage, so we knocked them out and ran away with the chest, hooting in excitement. “POWER OF THE SEEEECRET,” I hollered in a mystical manner, figuring that since everybody probably wants to find treasure, the manifestation principle applies here. Once again, my power of the secret moment comes with the reminder to BE MORE SPECIFIC. While there are worse things to find in a treasure chest than a handful of confused maggots (such as: the corpse they came from), they’re pretty low on the list of desirable booty. Still, it doesn’t seem to be haunted or cursed, so I count it as a win.

We have no room for new furniture, so now it’s cleaned up and sitting in the living room.

The cats tried to claim my treasure chest as a gargoyle perch.

The boys tried to claim my treasure chest as a toy box.

My mother tried to claim my treasure chest as beer brewing storage.

Somehow I did not anticipate this obvious problem: I NEED TO HIDE MY TREASURE CHEST.

May have been hasty in declaring the item to be non-cursed. In the meantime, am redoubling my manifestation efforts, with focus on the specific. Trying to direct that at house-hunting activities, and not lose my focus, because if a treasure chest has made its way to me, there is a chance other things might start showing up, as well.

Wishful thinking, people.

Kcbw day 7 – then and now

May 18, 2014tempestpilot

If you took part in last year’s Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, look back on your Day Seven post. Did any of the techniques, ideas and hopes for the last 12 months that you wrote about at that time ever make it onto the hook or needles? Did anyone cast on and complete the project researched in last year’s Day 2 post?

I did this thing! Kind of! Last year, I announced that I would have my career back, and wear retro librarian cardigans and industrial undergarments. The first has been achieved, the second is underway, and the third is not going to happen. I go shopping for rockabilly, and leave with hippy. Comfort before girdles.

I didn’t think they would try to hold us to our white whale project from last year. 

So… NO. No, I did not accomplish that this year. Maybe as a 5-year plan.

kcbw day 6: views of others, views of yourself

May 17, 2014tempestpilot

Write about another knitter or crocheter that you admire. Next, think about if anyone has ever told you how they feel about your knitting, positive or negative. 

 Them

In my most immediate personal circle, I keep an eye on the Canadians. Parallel timestreams – I can glimpse the life I would have had if I had stayed with the sheep, foggy mountains, and endless snow. When I sit down in the man-chair to knit, I think about sarahapple with the Alex Baldwin quilt on her lap (heavy and sweaty), knitting an octopus or Tardis onto a pullover. I think about robotaday cramming wooly mittens onto small pink fists. More fists than there are finished mittens, I imagine. They probably hang on strings, strung damp on foyer hooks or stuffed into coat pockets for soggy morning surprises.

Farther off, I admire Kate Davies, stomping the Scottish countryside with her black dog and writing about textile history. I follow the seasons (windy and cold, green and cold, brown and cold, white and cold, wet and cold) and imagine my ancestors living and working among the hills and rocky beaches. I squint in petty jealousy at Amanda Blake Effing Soule, with her beautiful handmade life and her passion for homesteading that makes me feel defensive about my disposable diapers and store-bought eggs (and soap, and honey, and clothes). If she ever takes up shoe cobbling, I’m throwing it in.

Me

I try to knit in private around here, to avoid the inevitable, “Why do you knit in Hawaaaaiiiii?” and “Oh, what are you crocheting?” I once had a patron who checked out a stack of knitting books to learn from, looked disdainfully at my cardigan when I tried to engage with her, and then said, “Oh no, I don’t like all that cables and fancy stuff, you might as well just buy it. If it doesn’t look homemade, what’s the point?” My head exploded.* But even with my anti-social knitting habits,  I’ve been approached a few times at a Scottish function or at the beach by interested old ladies who examine my needles, feel my stitches, and then nod, “That’s good.” It is high praise. But the meat that feeds comes from my family; my sons still jump and hug when I give them an unseasonable hat, the man employs his kilt hose until there are holes in the toes, and my mother will only wear handknit socks when she rides her motorcycle, because they don’t slide down in her boots. They buy me yarn-shop gift certificates on holidays, and leave my knitting bag alone even without threats of hand amputation.

You have to practice being the person you want to grow into. Someone was run over by a car recently, and the headline in the paper read, “Killed woman, 55, liked dogs.” A whole life summed up in one brutal line. LIKED DOGS. It sent me into an urgent inventory of my life. Things made, places seen, books read, torches burned. I can’t go yet. I haven’t made the pacts;if I die, finish my queue. Send the letter I’ve been writing and discarding a hundred times. There are shins to be kicked and witty come-backs to finally deliver. I’m sitting and knitting the way a car roars in neutral.

So I don’t know what people think of my particular knitting, but they seem to like it being done in general, the way it is comforting to see someone banging around in the kitchen or crouched in the garden or laying under a jacked car. It shows that damns are being given, and the world is in order, and there might be a cookie in it for them at the end.

*This has become a household compliment when presented with finished projects. “Oh, that’s no good. It doesn’t look homemade at all, what’s the point?”

kcbw day 5: blog in a different way

May 16, 2014tempestpilot

a day in haiku

nothing to do with knitting

mostly hobo stuff

– – – – –

teenage boy, please stop

don’t hide Cosmo in the trash

masturbate at home

– – – – –

I am so sorry

our new chairs are too damn hard

for you to sleep on

– – – – –

this child is bonkers

who fed my baby pancakes

right before bed time

– – – –

Benedict my love

what have you done to your hair

tinker tailor NO

Kcbw day 4: oh no, more talking objects

May 15, 2014tempestpilot

Conversation between workers. Start by writing a few short paragraphs from the point of view of one of the tools you use for your craft. Then, write a dialogue between yourself and this item.

Well. We have established how I feel about anthropomorphism. I will try.

This is my cable needle.

Say, “I am a cable needle,” cable needle. SAY IT.

Ahem. Here we go.

CABLE NEEDLE. THERE YOU ARE.

(I probably don’t need to yell here, but I feel it may help to better communicate, owing to cable needle’s  lack of ears.)

CABLE NEEDLE. I have been picking cables out without a needle for two months now, because you are constantly missing. EXPLAIN YOURSELF.

silence

I just found you at the bottom of my Whole Foods bag. You are not fooling anyone.

silence

I DON’T NEED YOU, YOU KNOW.

silence

Ugh. Fine. I forgive you.

clatter

What was that? WHERE DID YOU GO?

silence

Damn it.

kcbw, Day 2: dating profile fail

May 13, 2014tempestpilot

Day Two (Tuesday 13th May): Dating Profile.
Write a dating profile for one of your past finished projects.

Nope. I can’t do it. I am supposed to write a first-person dating profile for one of my knitted garments, with a cute picture and pun-filled descriptors, but I JUST CAN’T. Dating is no longer relevant to my life, I don’t like reading posts pretending to be written by babies or by cats calling their owner “mom”, and I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T.  Trying to be a good sport, I pretended to be the sweater, and this is what I got:

sleazebag86: asl?

sweater: I am a sweater.

sleazebag86: lol r u hot

sweater: probably, because I am a sweater.

sleazebag86: whats ur prolbem

sweater: pills. And cockroach eggs. And cats.

sleazebag86: what

sweater: *logged off

Ugh.

knitting and crochet week, Day 1: A Day in the Life

May 11, 2014tempestpilot

5KCBWDAY1 A Day In The Life
Describe a day in the life of a project that you have made, or are in the process of making.

I’m doing this again.

Rise at 5:30am. The current project is a cardigan; green and cabled and as soft as an accursed synthetic can be. Before the commute, it is stuffed into the Whole Foods shopping bag that serves as my work purse, next to a copy of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a container of leftovers, and my much-abused sketchbook.

At lunch break the sweater is hauled out, and for 45 minutes it grows by a few inches while I frown into my book during the work-side rows (the easy ones). I have gotten it into my head that I need to decipher this book, even if it means reading every chapter twice and cross-referencing names, code names, operation names, slang words, and technological terms on a detective’s crime board covered with strings and push pins. I could be applying this effort to studying Hawking, or art history, or famous poets, but no. I’ve started this 1974 spy novel and I will finish it, with 120 minutes of Benedict Cumberbatch and
Colon Colin Firth as payoff for all my weeks of mental anguish. It’s no wonder this damned cardigan still isn’t finished.

At 8pm, I have tucked the smallest child into bed, the middlest child is being read to (currently Fantastic Mr. Fox), and the oldest child is covering the weenie birds’ cage for the night. For another 45 minutes, the sweater grows another inch. Then it is stuffed into my couch-side knitting bag, and by 9pm I am in bed with Terry Pratchett on my nook. (It’s best to have boundaries with authors like Le Carré.)

And repeat. Forever.

Fired. With lasers.

May 6, 2014tempestpilot

Beachy things have been happening. We have two seasons; hot/sunny and chilly/wet. It is suddenly hot again, and will be until November. I am happy with this.

—

Every Monday, something dramatic happens during school dropoff/pickup. Car accidents. Swarms of ambulances. Near misses.  “TODAY,” I said on this latest of Mondays, “TODAY, NOTHING STUPID IS GOING TO HAPPEN.”

And we came home with another rescued baby bird.

As bird hazards go, school children and tree trimmers are the worst. We gave it baby formula, tucked it up warm for the night, and then sneaked it back to its parents the next day. Those things you’ve heard about birds rejecting their babies if they smell like people are lies. Birds can’t smell any better than we can, and nobody is tossing their babies out of trees because they smell like birds.

—-

Getting tossed from this metaphoric tree, however, is a real estate agent. We have started looking at houses – in our price range, I used the term “house” loosely – and showed up for a look at a place next to a crowded, whizzing highway. The agent followed us around like a hopeful duckling while we looked at the hastily flipped house. The man and I exchanged a meaningful glance, then I said, “Well, it’s very nice, but too close to the road. Our cats and babies would get smooshed. This one’s just not right for us.” And then the realtor said, laughing and gesturing between the man and I, “Well, so who has the final say here?” The laugh suddenly slowed, and then became a rewinding noise.

When I was 14, we were walking back from PE when one of the girls in my class decided to throw a rock at the car of a boy she didn’t like. Only she had terrible aim, and instead of lobbing it through his windshield, she nailed me in the side of the head from two feet away. Fortunately for my brainpan, the rock was actually a clot of dried mud, and it broke instead of my skull. To onlookers, however, it looked like the new girl had just split a rock with her head and just said, “Ow. Dude.” This was a good enough reason for one of the cool boys to come slouching up, in the broken-hipped manner of cool boys through the ages, and put his arm around my shoulders while we were walking. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to accomplish with this, so I turned and looked at him. He tore his arm away and jumped. “WHOA. Ha. You looked at me and I thought you wanted to fucking kill me!”

I’m pretty sure this was the same expression the real estate lady saw. I haven’t ever seen it, since it has always been on the other side of my face, but I imagine it's something like this:

Major joint purchase I will be paying for for the next 30 years and raising my family in? BETTER LET THE MAN DECIDE, I AM A LAYDEE.

Out of the tree she goes.