Things I learned recently.

- Nallbinding is something that looks like knitting at first glance, but is actually done with yarn threaded into a needle and it is pulled all the way through each stitch.
- The first computers were jacquard weaving looms.
- When the nation's economy is in the toilet (by that I mean everyone's broke), the lipstick business does really well.
- It is unadvisable to use powdered sugar to sweeten one's tea (or coffee) because it has corn starch in it.
- Our dog Ace panics anytime we park and sit (like at the bank or at PG&E) anywhere on Forbes Street in Lakeport. Supposedly this was where animal control had picked him up and he'd been living on the street in this area for some months.
- That NaBloPoMo thing was a silly idea. After three weeks I hated it. Could you tell?

Happy birthday Billy Anderson!

November 27

I was going to put off posting until tomorrow, but this day has too much significance. It is the birthdays of Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, and my boyfriend Andrew Dees. We made a special dinner of his favorite: breaded pork chops and peas.

And I baked a cake.

November 27 is the day my house at Haight and Pierce burned down in 1993. It is also the birthday of one of my neighbors at the time, Joe Curcio, whose house also burned. He and his bandmates (they had a band called Mars Bonfire) had just loaded all of their equipment into the basement the night before. The whole corner burned, taking out at least 5 buildings, displacing around 150 people. There was one human fatality. Not sure about other animals. I do know that even though Henny Penny was severely barbecued, both of our cats survived. HP made an amazing recovery, thanks to the kind people at Pets Unlimited.

November 27 is the day that San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed in their offices at city hall by Supervisor Dan White. I remember when it happened. I was eight years old. Dan White was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder because of something having to do with his over-consumption of sugary foods (this became known as "the Twinkie defense"). I remember Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys running for mayor after that, and one of his proposed plans was to erect statues of Dan White around town for people to throw eggs, stones, and tomatoes at. You can read more funny stuff about his mayoral candidacy here.

I hear there is a movie in production about Harvey Milk with Sean Penn in the leading role. Um, ok. If you want to see a really beautiful movie about Harvey Milk and some important San Francisco history, see the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk.

My friend Matty Luv (now deceased) wrote this great lyric and very clever rhyme:
The only lesbian in Tulsa,
Oklahoma is lonely,
She's never even kissed a girl,
She's never heard of George Moscone.
When she drives a car,
She pretends she's an astronaut
shooting through the stars,
waiting for the world to catch up.

Dan White committed suicide in his wife's garage by running the carbon monoxide from his exhaust pipe into his car with a garden hose on October 21, 1985. I remember this day as well, I was 15 years old and was hanging out at Just Desserts on Church Street with a girl named Laurel Johnson, whose birthday was that day. I may have fried a zillion brain cells, but I still remember all kinds of stuff.

At midnight tonight San Francisco will be the first city in the US to have a ban on plastic grocery bags. I can tell you based on having worked in grocery stores there that people are going to flip out. I think it's cool though.

This is that thing I started on Saturday night

WTF?: I saw the scariest commercial on TV today. It was for something that I think was called a Pedi-egg. It's like a cheese grater with a container attached to the back of it that is for sanding your feet. It even showed its most special feature which is that it collects all of the dead skin shavings, and it showed someone emptying it out into a garbage can! Like tablespoons full! Fucking gross! Nobody wants to see that!

I don't feel like

blogging today. My brain is tired and I'm on someone else's computer. I started this Balsam yesterday and I'd rather be working on it than sitting here typing. I guess I'm a little cranky. Oh yeah I finished all the knitting of the shetland triangle last night and it just needs to be blocked

swatch

Did the swatch for the mystery knit along. I think I'll like the project, but am considering doing it on a larger scale, like for a bedspread or something.

WTF?: So today a woman and her daughter were shopping for beads in the store where I work. They're really pleasant customers and are excited about doing their craft together and it's really cute. Anyway, I was knitting and they were watching me. The little girl was curiousand I asked her if she knows how to knit. They told me that there is a knitting group at her school, but that she's not allowed to be in it because to be in it you have to have a boyfriend! This girl is seven years old! How fucked up is that? I looked at her and said "Whatever with those girls. They're giving knitters a bad name and should be ashamed of themselves". I also was wondering aloud with her mom (who of course is just as disgusted by this as I am) what happens if one of these girls are in the middle of a project and they "break up" with their "boyfriend". It's not like little kids have long relationships. The whole thing really grossed me out.

Mystery object and other knick knacks and junk

The mystery object is what is called an "eye cap". It is inserted under the eyelid by a mortician to keep the eye closed. You know how in the movies when a person dies, someone (the hero, usually) will go over and close the eyes? Well it doesn't work, they just open right back up again. Apparently so does the mouth, and they make something similar for that, too. I got my eye caps from my friend Craig Featherstone who is a mortician. He has stuff like that just lying around on his coffee table.

For some reason I love Kewpie dolls. I love their hands and their sideways glance and, of course, their dimples. I have a small collection of them somewhere in my storage unit. I also have a collection of Princess Phone keychains. I can't wait til I can have my own place someday and it will be a museum of very cute useless stuff. Actually it's not totally useless in that it makes me happy to look at it.

I am reminded of a restaurant I used to eat at in SF around 1990 or so. It was called New Dawn and it was on 16th Street. On the weekends at breakfast was great because it was crowded with all the same people from the bars or the rock shows you were at the night before, many still in the same clothes. There was a refrigerated dessert case at the front counter that said "We have many knick-knacks and junk in this case". There was a section in the back where it said on the wall in magic marker "employee smokeing lounge" (this was before the smoking ban in SF restaurants). Then a few feet away it said "visit our new speling lounge". I loved that place. There was also an incredible burrito place right across the street called Chapalita that hardly anyone remembers.

P.U.

The weather was beautiful here and the air felt so nice today, then I went to three places in Lakeport that all smelled horrible. First it was the animal shelter to renew Ace's licence. The dog piss was foul and heavy and a couple of times I thought I was going to hurl. Then it was K-Mart. I think it was the Little Ceasar's Pizza that stunk up the place. Then Bruno's (supermarket) deli department. This one was special because it had the visuals to go along with it. Imagine the only thing even remotely close to the olives you're looking for, with some kind of icky fruity salad-y thing with bright pink dressing spilled in it. Funny thing is, after all this, I realized that I'm not congested anymore! This is what it must be like when heavy cigarette smokers quit. I smoked for many years, and do still occasionally, but never just halted. I think that if there is a hell it will smell like old dog urine, old frying grease, an ashtray, and cheap perfume. Might as well throw some Mennen Speed Stick into the mix too.

I hope I haven't lost those of you who are reading this blog for the knitting content. Here are some nice fuzzy felted bowls. They are ideal for collecting change, keys, jewelry, marbles, cuff links, stitch markers, and other small objects. Also perfect if you like collecting junk on a surface of, say, an antique dresser with a finish that you don't want to mar. And you can use up all your zillions of little scraps.

I joined a knit along a little while back, it's a mystery shawl type thing called Sring Shawl Surprise. We just got our first swatch today. I'm almost done with it. It sounds like it's going to require extra attention -apparently there will be some pattern stitch work on the purl rows. We'll see.

Happy birthday, Mary Albanese!

Most of sweater

So I've reached the point with sweater where I'm now waiting to get a hold of a 47" needle. But here's most of it. You can't tell by this picture that it's much darker (like black and almost black grey heather).

In the meantime it's a mindless linen dishcloth. I love these Colonial rosewood needles, but I think metal is more suitable for this fiber.

Some funnies from Trailer Park Boys season 1 episode 4:

-"Hey Lahey, knock knock!"
-"Who's there?"
-"Mr. Stupidyhead fuckin pissin me off right now, thinks he's the captain of the shitliner and by the way, your fishsticks suck so fuck off!"
-"Oh that's real smart, Ricky!"

-"What're you, from the department of 'know what I'm sayin'?"
J-Roc to Tyrone T

WTF?:A news item about a fly resting on Joe Biden's hair for eight minutes during a televised presidential debate? Come on.

I had a frustrating day with my sweater but am back on track now. I'm working on the top part of it and was forgetting to do the neck shaping (a V to pick up and knit a shawl collar around) because, I'm ashamed to admit, I didn't read the pattern all the way through beforehand. So I felt like an idiot for a minute. People, don't make that mistake! Some may not have the patience I was able to muster today. Pictures will have to wait another day.

We just watched a movie called The Lineup on TCM. It has murders and heroin smuggling and stars Eli Wallach. I wouldn't say it was a terrific movie (maybe because I never use the word terrific). But I loved watching it because it featured one of favorite movie stars - San Francisco. We got a great tour of the city in 1958. Also caught a funny glitch in the dialogue: a guy giving the address 9020 Jackson Street and we decided that it doesn't exist. Then later they say 2090 Jackson Street which does. It's at Laguna, and the drive past Lafayette Park when they leave.

Distractions

Check out this video my friend Arlene sent me a link to today. I was speechless. I guess the song is called Apache.

And if you look at Cute Overload you've probably seen this. It's worth seeing more than once.

Before anything else I must say that I am so upset about the 58,000 gallon oil spill in San Francisco Bay that I am both preoccupied by it and unable to speak about it at the same time.

Happy birthday:

George Crawford
Mike Cornwall
Genifer Yoshimoto
Erica Stolz
wherever you are!

It is also the birthdays of Kurt Vonnegut, Jonathan Winters, Stanley Tucci, Leonardo DiCaprio, and queer eye guy Carson Kressley. And it's Independence Day in Poland.

The body and sleeves of the sweater are one piece now! I'll post a photo when I can actually try it on. Soon, I hope. Like probably tomorrow or Tuesday.

Can you guess

what this is? A hint: it is pictured larger than actual size. It's about the size of a US quarter.

Um...

I don't have much to blog about at the moment (there's not a hell of a lot going on around here), but since I've committed to posting every day I'll at least give you this. It's a very incomplete list of incredibly heinous cover songs. Plenty more have been recorded since I compiled it, but they're not here. I just dug it out of my basement, ok?

Love Machine Wham
Taxman Rockwell - yeah that same guy who did "Somebody's Watching Me"
1984 Tina Turner
Dancin In The Streets Mick Jagger & David Bowie - watching this video is painful, especially if you really like both of these artists
Tell It Like It Is Don Johnson - dude, why?
I Only Have Eyes For You Art Garfunkel
And Then [She] Kissed Me Kiss
Tossin & Turnin Peter Criss
Can't Explain The Scorpions
In The Air Tonight Henry Mancini & The Boston Pops
Let's Spend The Night Together Charo
Be My Baby Shaun Cassidy
Baby I Love Your Way & Freebird Will To Power - the video for this one is really foul.
I Saw [Him] Standing There Tiffany
I Believe When I Fall In Love With You (It Will Be Forever) Frampton's Camel
Ticket To Ride The Carpenters
Do You Wanna Dance The Mamas & The Papas - I think they must've been wasted on demerol or morphine or something when they recorded this one
Rock & Roll (the Velvet Underground song, not the Led Zeppelin song) The Runaways
Stayin' Alive Ozzy Osbourne & Dweezil Zappa
American Pie Madonna
Bringin' On The Heartbreak Mariah Carey & Dave Navarro - WTF? Dude, you used to be in Jane's Addiction.

Thank you very much! Goodnight!

Sorry no pictures today

I'm making great progress on that sweater. I cast on the waistband yesterday and it is now 6" high. You won't see it again until I can photograph it in the daytime. I tried to get a shot of it tonight but it just doesn't even show up. Instead I will give you a selection of "fun facts" I heard on a rerun of David Letterman last night. They made me laugh. I hope they do the same for you.

- In China, Campbell's alphabet soup contains over 3,000 characters.
- Hardware stores in Utah have to keep male and female pipe couplings in separate aisles.
- A broken digital clock is right zero times per day.
- Despite his escape skills, Harry Houdini spent 12 years trapped in a bad marriage.

Happy birthday Anat!

Sleeve #2 done!

Today I cast on the waistband. I am very stoked about this sweater. I will make myself not stall at the point where I need to pick up a zillion stitches for the shawl collar. My only excuse will be if don't have a 47" needle to do the job. And since I work at a yarn store, that would be some lame excuse.

WTF?: This evening a girl in my French class told us that women use birth control so much that there is estrogen in our rain because it comes out in our urine.

Sleeve #1 done!

I've already started the second sleeve of that sweater I cast on yesterday. I'd join that NaKniSweMo thing but I haven't calculated whether this pattern has 50,000 stitches in it.

New things

Yesterday I made this hat. The pattern is Utopia from Smariek Knits. I was inspired by reading Deborah's blog.

The new Magknits came out yesterday and I got so excited about the Fibonacci Sweater that I cast it on today. This is the sweater design I've been looking for!

Yeah I know it's a lame picture, but it's the best I could do at night time.

Ack

Get this. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I started a group on Ravelry called Stripe Makers. There hasn't been a great deal of activity in the forums, maybe because I haven't started any interesting threads, and I'm not "perky". Whatever. Anyway, a strange thing happened there today. Someone started a new topic on the board with this post (keep in mind the theme of this group is stripe making):

"So I wanna know...what are your top ten, stand-by all-time slumber party movies? On my top ten: Breakfast Club (Duh), Princess Bride (double duh), Can't Buy Me Love (one of the all time best 80's movies!), Pretty in Pink (don't you just loooooove Ducky?), 10 Things I Hate About You, Anything Eddie Izzard, Hedwig and the Angey Inch, Mean Girls (LOOOOVE Tina Fey), Breakfast at Tiffany's, How to Marry a Millionaire (or anything Marilyn for that matter), and a guilty pleasure filck (which you are so totally allowed) is Xanadu. Anyone ever head of it? Double slumber party pionts if you have!"

Are you fucking kidding me? Where am I? This is disturbing to me for a number of reasons. I won't even start on my hatred for most things 80's (metal being an exeption). I feel like someone left a steaming turd in my mailbox. And the lame thing is I'm just going to let it go because people are loving it. I will keep my nasty sarcasm to myself. I wouldn't care if I weren't the group moderator. I guess it also wouldn't bug me nearly as much if the poster in question were a member of the group, but she is a guest! I have no idea what posessed her, but if I were a different kind of person (paranoid) I'd think she did it specifically to fuck with me. Fortunately I am not.

NaBloPoMo

Some more words and phrases I hate:

"at the end of the day" People on TV say it all the time. It really bugs the shit out of me, unless someone is actually talking about the end of the day. For some reason ball players, politicians, and police officers say it a lot.

"trifecta" This one is also totally over-used on TV. Is this word new or something? Recently discovered? For some reason I associate it with ads for Axe body spray. I also have a suspicion that it is being misused.

"copacetic" My friend Seth Maxwell Malice loves this word for some reason. I hate it.

"thrice" This one is just silly. I think there is a band with that name. If that were my band I'd be totally annoyed with myself all the time. It is, however, perfectly ridiculous in its use in this sketch:

I've decided to participate in NaBloPoMo. Yes I know it sounds creepy, but it stands for National Blog Posting Month. I missed November 1, but hopefully made up for it with my hearty November 2 entry, where I wrote about SF, Kelseyville, and knitting (a trifecta, if you will. heh heh.) I made my decision late because I didn't think I'd have the motivation to do it all, then I realized it was the perfect time to unleash all the silly shit I have stored in my head and scribbled on old bits of paper.

This is a passage I really like from a book I'm reading, Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre:

"Parlabane found the word 'pro-active' enormously useful, as it immediately exposed the speaker as an irredeemable arsehole, whatever previous impression might have been given. Once upon a time, he remembered, people and companies just did things. But that ceased to be impressive enough, and for a while they 'actively' did things. Now they 'pro-actively' did things, but it was still the same bloody things that they were doing when they just plain old did things. Meaningless wank-language."

Ahh. A man after my own heart.

I made this hat yesterday:

Happy birthday Mark Laramee! The hat is not for you.

San Francisco, etc.

This is something I wrote to myself during a recent visit to the city, September 26, 2007:

I stopped by my storage unit briefly, thinking I could maybe find my camera. It was depressing so I left before it ruined my day. There's so much crap in there I don't even know where to start. I walked back to Mission street, past the junkies crinkling in the harsh noon sun, and got on the 22 Fillmore. Saw a t-shirt that made me miss San Francisco. It was on a middle-aged bearded guy and it said "Dip me in honey and throw me to the bears!". Hee hee. Bears. We don't have those where I live now. That brightened a moment of my otherwise sucky busride. I was squished against the window on the hot side of the coach by a large Muni driver in his woolen uniform, and there was a drunken freak making a ruckus up front - whining loudly about getting a seat before literally falling into one. It's strange. I really can't tell if it's my city anymore, or if I even want it to be.

Funny things happen that make me realize that I will always be connected to San Francisco. Yes I weep everytime I hear "I Left my Heart...". It's really embarassing. And that thing they show on Channel 9 that's Tony Bennett crooning over all the footage of the city and [my old friend Pamela] hula dancing? Forget it - I'm a blubbering mess. But that's not even what I'm talking about. Sometimes it's as simple as picking up the newspaper. Like a couple weeks ago seeing my friend Bucky's face beaming from the cover of the pink section (10/21/07). Or this crazy thing here, a picture of a band I've never heard of (Wooden Shjips) with the very bass cabinet that I hauled around countless times while roadieing for the bands Bomb, Hickey, and Towel. You can read more of it's story on my friend Michael's blog stinkfight.

Halloween in the country is very cute. Sunday the 28th my mom and I went to an event on a farm where people and their horses were in costume. As I said in an earlier post, there is a parade in Kelseyville of little kids in costumes that comes down Main Street at 9am on the 31st. It was worth dragging myself out of bed for. The high school band led it off playing overtures from Star Wars. There were tons of those "Scream" masks, some with fake blood whooshing around on the surface. Total cop-out costume, like the multitudes of identical store bought fairy-princesses. I know that sounds harsh cause they're just little kids, but I was just as snobby and judgemental about the costumes when I was little. So there. My favorite costumes in Kelseyville were Angus Young, complete with real Gibson SG (sans strings and pickups though), and the cardboard box robot from Flight of the Conchords.

Then at 12:30 we have the same parade in Lakeport, but of only 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders. And the marching band is from Clearlake High School. They were playing the Addams Family theme song followed by an old marching band favorite, "Sir Duke", the Stevie Wonder hit. Some of their trombones were way off, but they did have the accompaniment of the escorting police car's chirping, which I thought was funny. Unfortunately I did not have the camera for the Kelseyville parade, but I did bring it to Lakeport and got a shot of the popcorn,

a tiny Elvis,

and a spectator who happened to be a teacup pomeranian puppy! I thought it was a kitten until I saw its face. Totally redonk. Yes, it was drinking water out of that bottlecap in the foreground. (No, those are not my fingernails!) I asked the person who had it if I could take a picture and she said "yeah, of couse, I just got it yesterday and that's all I've been doing!"

My favorite project update: I am at a standstill in the middle of segment #5 until I get some more yarn. I completed segment #4 and sewed it on, but I'm not going to show the whole thing again until it's done. In the meantime here are some previews:

Thanks, Sarah, for tracking me down and making my week!