Pretty darned random

Does anyone else have the mid-winter blahs? I seem to just be doing the bare minimum that I must, then wasting a lot of time doing goodness-knows-what. I may be PMSing, too, so throw that into the mix. All in all -- blah.

It's not that I've been entirely unproductive, it's just that there's not a lot to show for it right now. Here's a short run-down of what I've been...

... Making:
I finally finished Gator's secret anniversary present and mailed it off yesterday. I can't show it to you until after he's received it. It took a lot longer to complete than I had anticipated but I lurve the results. Is it bad to be really jealous of your own husband for receiving a gift that you made for him?? That seems so wrong, somehow. And yet.

I have not worked any more on the Baby Christmas Stocking, but that should change this week. I've been puttering on another block for the experimental Ballband Afghan and I just ordered the yarn to make a baby afghan for my pregnant labmate. So things are a'brewin'.

... Listening To:
I'm seriously loving Ippy, my fabulous birthday / Christmas gift iPod. I've loaded all my music onto her and I happily listen all the time. I've been listening to some pretty random stuff, especially music from my collection that I haven't listened to in ages. The Church, Bela Fleck, Enya. It's a rockin' good time.

Also, I've just gotten turned on to the audiobooks available at Project Gutenberg. I knew they had a vast selection of E-books, but the audio versions are a godsend for long days in the lab when I have much to do, but none of it requires my entire brain. I've just downloaded all forty million chapters of Jane Eyre -- which I've never read! -- and I'm itching to get started today. Yay!

... Reading:
I just read one of the worst books I've ever had the displeasure to read. I'm a huge fan of Gone With the Wind and I really enjoyed the latter-day sequel Scarlett (NOT the horrible mini-series they made that bears little to NO resemblance to the book), so I was looking forward to reading the next authorized book based on GWTW, Rhett Butler's People.

It is supposed to tell the story of Rhett's upbringing -- how he became the man that appears in GWTW -- as well as what might have happened after Mitchell's novel. A version of the happy ending most of us yearn for. Even though both Scarlett and Rhett Butler's People are authorized companion novels to GWTW, they do not jibe with each other. They are two separate visions of "what happens next". While this apparently really messes with some peoples' heads, I don't really have a problem with it. But that's not to say I don't have plenty of problems other than that.

The author has previously written civil-war era fiction and has been highly praised for it. It apparently took him twelve years to finish Rhett Butler's People. He admits to only reading GWTW once and not liking it. He says he worked off his wife's notes on the novel. He admits he took the job for the money. It SO shows. Worse yet, I don't think anyone at the Mitchell estate or St. Martin's Press did any editing whatsoever. It's horrible. It is quite possibly the most unprofessional job I've ever seen, period.

There are many typos, to be sure. Ridiculous things that the lowliest of editors should have spotted. But worse than that are other errors. A one-legged man, who limps when he walks on his peg-leg, suddenly puts his cold feet into his shoes, "quickly" backs down a ladder, jogs in his stocking feet, and generally does things that a perfectly able-bodied man would have trouble with. Then there are the inconsistencies with the original Gone With the Wind. The timeline is disturbed (he states that Scarlett sold the lumber mills to Ashley before his birthday -- in opposition to the events of GWTW -- but then what excuse would Scarlett have had to go see him that fateful day and cause such scandal? The author offers no reason.), characters are decimated, and important events are left out completely. Then there's this novel's own storyline. It's all too pat and incestuous -- a small group of people seem to be the only people in the world; all their actions come around at the end to tie everything in a neat little horrible bow and nothing else influences anything. By the time I got to the last few chapters, I just wanted to get it over with so I could take the book back to the library. Thank God I got it from the library and didn't buy the ridiculous thing.

So now I'm going to re-read GWTW, just to cleanse my palate, so to speak.

Is it naptime yet? I just feel so... blah.

_____

Reasons

Why I'm not in the mood to blog:

• Classes and my TA assignment have started. I did get the assignment to TA Cell Biology, which is only going to involve leading discussion (recitation) sections, not teaching the entire class (they don't do that here), so it's not quite as bad as some of you may have thought, but it's still about 10 hours a week that I can't research, plus it breaks up my days in annoying ways so some research is even more difficult.
  
• My course meeting times (the courses I'm taking, as opposed to the one I'm TAing) have been changed so that one meets at 7:45 am and the other runs until 5:15 pm. Long-ass days.
  
• Sunday, when coming home from the grocery store on the bus, my grocery cart-thingy rolled into my heel while I was taking a step and sliced open the back of my heel. It bled A LOT, right there on the bus, and the only thing I had to staunch the flow was my receipt from the grocery store. It was gross, uncomfortable (all those people sneering at my for having the incredibly poor manners to BLEED all over the bus -- and I mean there was A LOT of blood -- and of course none of them were at all interested in helping me), and a challenge to get home from the bus stop with my groceries while BLEEDING PROFUSELY, so much so that it was spattering out of my sandal with every step. It took forever to stop bleeding and it now pops open regularly due to heel flexion when I walk. I'm sure it needed a couple of stitches, but it's not going to get them, so I deal. But I don't feel much like doing anything -- even knitting or crocheting.
  
• Four big readings assigned yesterday, due tomorrow for intense discussion. Argh.
  
• General grumpiness.

_____

Blogging has made me a bi7ch

Happy Super Lucky Day! (07/07/07 -- all sevens, all the time!)

It is hot and oh so humid this morning. I have the air on and two fans blowing and I still just can't seem to feel dry. Sticky, icky. The sky is deceptively pretty:


I need to clean my apartment today, and I hate doing that when it's hot and sticky. I will sweat and fan myself with my shirt. I know that this is a normal response to this situation, but it still makes me feel like I'm turning into my mother.

Okay, now I'll explain the title of this post. I started this blog to record daily stuff for Gator, friends and family when I moved away to start grad school. I emailed the blog address to everyone. If anyone wants to know what's going on with me, it's on my blog. This is really as exciting as it gets. Some of my friends have blogs as well, and I keep up with them. And if I get behind, I go check it out before I email them. That way I don't ask them questions that are answered in their blog. Makes sense, right?

Now, I'm lazy as all get-out, I readily admit it. I also started this blog so that I could write stuff once and everyone could read it, rather than writing it in a dozen individual emails, which would be annoying (to me), or sending a page of mundane crap about myself as a mass mailing to everyone in my address book, which would also be annoying (to them).

So here's where I become a beyotch. It annoys me when sweet people that I love very much email me and ask me what I'm up to and if I'm in Missouri for the summer or if I have to take classes and stay in Wisconsin. I've given this person my blog addy several times. And if you read my blog at all, you know the answers to these questions. I don't want to re-write all my summer activities. Because I'm lazy and selfish. I also don't want to just respond with "It's all in my blog, go read it," because I don't want to appear lazy and selfish.

I don't like this about myself, mind you. But I know myself very well. If I tried to change it -- even if it was the best-intentioned attempt ever -- it wouldn't last. I'd give me about two weeks. Okay, I'm totally lying. I'd give myself three days before I got distracted by the rest of my life and just started being myself again. And myself has become an email bi7ch.

Sigh.

_____

Insane knitting!

And not as in, "Wow, look at all the knitting I've accomplished -- It's INSANE!"

No, not like that at all. In fact, just the opposite.

Now, granted, I've not been spending very much time knitting. I've gone to two day-long Brewers game events this week (we won both games and a BLAST was had by all!!!) and have been running around the lab like a madwoman trying to make up for the fact that I've gone to two day-long Brewers game events this week. But, during two hour-long phone calls to Gator, plus an episode of the X-Files on DVD, I have managed to successfully trim one third of the neckline of the Zodiac.



I have frogged this trim no less than six times. I told you this applied I-cord was my nemesis. The worst part is, I like making the I-cord. I just apparently suck at it. I lose my place and skip a step. I drop a stitch and pick it up incorrectly. It's really testing me.

But I shall persevere! I shall beat this silly I-cord! And then, I shall drink beer.

Fo' shizzle.

_____

I barely own anything pink, I swear, though you'd never know it from this post

Oh, Target Dollar Spot, thou hast forsaken me!

The last time I was there, they had four-packs of Panasonic AA batteries. I bought two packages, thrilled with the bargain and looking forward to a couple of months worth of digital camera powering.

Alas! Said batteries will not power my little digital picture-taker! Brand new, from an unopened package, AA batteries that immediately caused my camera to shut down and warn, "Shutting Down! Insufficient Battery!" All eight of the new batteries.

Do I have the receipt? Of course not. Do I have any recourse? Just this: Dear Readers, do not buy Panasonic batteries, from the Target Dollar Spot or anywhere else. They are crap! Dear Panasonic battery people, may the power of my intense bloginess poop all over your inferior product!

The point of this, of course (other than starting my own personal Better Business Bureau), is that I could not take pictures of my crafty progress this morning when I wanted to. Since I had to go into the lab today anyway, I stopped at Walgreen's and got some handy dandy Duracells -- on sale to boot! I guess this was a sign from the battery commerce gods.

So, now, sufficiently powered up, I present pictures of the recently completed Parfait Purse that I totally like, but do not totally lurve.


I sort of even accomplished photographing it in natural light (which would have been much better this morning but, you know, the battery thing). Oh, and pay no attention to that mess in the background -- I managed to pull a drawer clean out of my desk and I haven't gotten it picked up yet, what with the earnest crafting and battery-buying!

I lined it with a fabric that I'd had for awhile but had never really found a use for. I got it in a 99-cent remnant roll, and originally thought it just had high-heeled shoes and pithy little sayings on it. However, when I unrolled it, I realized that, while it did depict both of those things, it primarily contained the designer's name and "Winter '98" all over it. So, probably not a skirt. But for lining a stash-buster purse, it will totally do.


So, yay! I have a new purse! I trotted it out for my jaunt to the lab and Walgreen's (for Duracell batteries, let's not forget), and it seems to fulfill all my purse-carrying needs. Huzzah!

Next project, much less labor intensive: As New Friend Veronica can attest, I've tried to find a pair of skimmers that are cute (no problem! So many of them are sooo cute!), and stay on my feet (huge problem). What V doesn't know is that I actually already own a pair of skimmers which fit me. I got them to wear as part of my costume in Honky Tonk Angels last spring. The problem? They are kind of a putrid pink and are covered with sequins which, frankly, makes them look a little "straight out the trailer".


No, really, see the sequins??



But I've been thinking quite a bit about them lately and finally decided to just remove the freakin' sequins and see if they aren't just cute as a button without them. So that's what I did:


And, I was right, they are perfectly cute little crocheted skimmers once those pesky sequins came off. Which leaves only one small gripe. Have you ever wondered how the poor sweat-shop workers know where to place all the tacky sequins on something so that they are symmetrical and match the other shoe? Well, wonder no more. The answer is: They mark the shoe with a Sharpie.



At first, I was ticked as all get-out that my newly cute shoes were marred by annoying black dots. Then I decided that if anyone was looking at my feet that closely, then I didn't want them to be impressed with my shoes, because I've known those kind of people and, really, it ain't all fun and games.

So happy feet, happy purse, happy all around! What a wonderful day in the neighborhood!

Now I'm researching nearby Mongolian barbecue places for V and I to try tonight. She just got back from Cali and she's going to tell me all about it! If I remember to, I'll take pictures (but no promises, because I totally suck at that)!!

Ooh, and tomorrow I'll have a flake and everything!!

_____

Knit and basketball

I attend a "basketball school". Marquette has put itself on the map due to its inclusion in the NCAA men's basketball tournament over the past several years, and the subsequent success of Dwayne Wade in the NBA. So, when Marquette plays in the NCAA tournament, they throw a big party at the Union Annex. And because I want to get the most out of my Marquette experience, last night I attended this party.

We played Michigan State in the first round of the tournament and, how to put this delicately, we stunk it up big time. Michigan State whomped us. Although, I think we established the title of only team to ever score all of their first half baskets from the 3-point range. I think we only had about a half dozen two-pointers in the whole game. It was crazy. That, and we didn't score at all in the first 8 1/2 minutes. It was brutal. But! I got free pom poms out of the deal! There's always gotta be a bright side.

On an unrelated topic (yet sort of related, purely by chance), I have to rant for a bit about a certain type of fellow knitter. You see, I took knitting with me to the party. Just a plain cotton dishcloth, the kind I can knit without looking at it at all; the kind I always knit while watching sporting events or award shows. While we were waiting for our food, an older woman came around asking if we'd like our faces painted. When she saw me knitting, she immediately said, "Oh, you throw". Now, to the non-knitters out there, "throwing", also called "American" technique, means you knit by controlling the yarn with your right hand, and actively wrap the yarn around the needle during each stitch. It's the way most Americans learn to knit. The other main technique is called "Continental" and means that you control the yarn with your left hand and basically use the needle itself to wrap the yarn around for each stitch. There's a little waggling of the index finger for purling, but you get the general idea. Now, it may just be me, but it seems that many times it is implied that only novice dumbasses "throw", and experienced, or "real", knitters knit Continental. The face-painter was one of these. She went on and on about how Continental was so much better and I would never want to throw again once I learned it. I tried to be gracious while trying to get her to shut up -- I wasn't in the mood for a knitting lecture and tried to inform her that I just wanted to knit as I could without looking -- the whole point of bringing the dishcloth to knit while watching the game -- and that I could knit Continental, just not without looking. She finally gave up and moved on. But I was rankled.

I am kind of a solitary knitter and everything I know about it I have taught myself from books or articles on the internet and I like it that way. For the record, Continental does offer an economy of movement and speed over throwing, and I would like to become proficient at it, if only to have an alternate technique in my repertoire. But I'm not yet proficient at it, and I feel clumsy and awkward when I do it. Mastering it will require practice, and when I'm trying to watch a game while knitting is not the time for it. If I do master it, it may very well be that I prefer it to throwing. But as it is, I am a very proficient knitter and turn out some lovely items using my lowly little technique. And if I do switch to primarily knitting Continental and come across some other knitter who is throwing, I shall ask about her project, compliment her stitches, and generally have a nice chat with her (or him). I will not mention what technique she is using because who the F*** cares????? Knitting is a hobby, a form of relaxation, and a means to and end -- lovely handmade items to keep or give as gifts. It is not a competitive sport. I will not become a party to making it such.

Yarn snobs and technique snobs. I daresay the community would be better off without them. But then, I'm just a novice dumbass -- what would I know??

_____

You would think...

...that I would be a swirling fury of studying, what with the beginning of the semester and all. But my heart's just not in it. Not that too much has been expected of me so far. I love being in the lab, I love doing research -- I just hate the classes. Can I skip strait to quals and do my dissertation research, please? I really didn't ever think I'd be burned out on school in the classic sense, but boyo am I. This semester is going to be a trial, I fear. I know I have to take the classes in order to do the research. I know all the things I'm supposed to know about how this process works. I don't need plucky platitudes -- I know them all. But when one professor assigns eight (8) articles for one class, and you know he's not going to actually cover them all, or ask any questions, and pretty much tell you what he wants you to know about them, the motivation to actually read the freakin' mountain o' papers gets pretty low. So I crochet. It's just my way.

Oh, look! A snowflake!



Okay, I guess I'll go print the articles at least.

Oh, and I'm starting my new rotation today! Wohoo! (see? I'm totally excited about some aspects of this program!!)

Irrelevant, but so sad

This:


has become this:


I must go weep now.

Parisian peeves by the hundreds

I may have just heard it all.

I just heard a commentator on NPR use the phrase "Paris Hiltonian". WTF?? It was used to describe the media coverage of another event. Granted, the event involved Terrell Owens, so it couldn't be considered an earth-shattering news story, but still. I have an idea! Let's express our contempt for certain media coverage not by invoking one pathetic name to describe another, but by completely ignoring the pathetic altogether. Murrow is spinning, kids.

This is just the latest in a small series of things about broadcast journalism that have rankled me lately. Since I don't have a TV, I listen to the radio a lot. That means a lot of NPR, but I also listen to the local news because one of the network affiliates in town broadcasts their entire day on the radio as well as TV. My most hated thing right now is the use of the word "hunnerd".

Now, it's one thing for Joe Shmoe on the corner to use the word "hunnerd" during an on-the-spot interview, most especially when something traumatic has just happened. It also has comedy use out the yin yang. But it's an entirely different issue when Carl Kasell says something like, "Today in Iraq, a roadside bomb killed two hunnerd Iraqi civilians." It makes me want. To. Scream.

IT'S HUNDRED, PEOPLE. IF YOU CAN'T PRONOUNCE IT CORRECTLY, YOU'RE SPEAKING TOO QUICKLY. OR YOU'RE FREAKIN' LAZY. IT'S NOT THAT TRICKY.

I'm not a broadcast journalist. But I sing (which requires diction) and I was a student orator back in the day. Enunciation is important, especially if it's a big part of your job -- say, if you're a broadcast journalist. If I can do it, you can do it, Renee Montagne.

The thing of it is, once you hear it, you hear it everywhere. It's like libary and picher (those things that you hang on the wall). And it slowly drives you mad. You know, in that Paris Hiltonian kind of way.