tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66176463419921845932024-02-18T23:56:18.714-06:00a microscopic cog in a catastrophic planwe can't all be the star of the showthe designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-28255211193387621012013-02-21T20:16:00.000-06:002013-02-21T20:19:10.538-06:00dry air in a sea of frozen water<br />
<img src="http://g-lvl3.nordstromimage.com/imagegallery/store/product/Large/11/_6602171.jpg" /><br />
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It is so incredibly cold here, which is fine by me, but it's playing havoc with my skin. This is something new to me; since losing over 80 pounds, I now seem to have dry skin issues and comparatively little fat to cushion the blow of subzero windchill and low relative humidity. So what's an itchy girl to do? Hydrate from within, and use some kind of skin oil. And because it's me, I'm here with way TMI on the latter, because maybe you care, or have a similar issue?<br />
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<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><b>Here beginneth the chronicle of this quest.</b> </span><br />
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Almond oil: great. Smells vaguely like cherries, which makes sense, since the two are from the same family. Absorbs with minimal effort. Not as cheap as some, but way less expensive than others, and applied right out of the shower, it's dandy.<br />
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Amla oil: also known as Indian gooseberry oil, which to my mind is not necessarily more explanatory. Smells good. Feels light. Absorbs well. Does nothing for my hands to speak of. Works great on dry hair. Not too heavy, not too light.<br />
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Avocado oil: smells strange, looks pretty, sits on top of the skin and feels, um, oily. Which it feels rather petty to gripe about. It's expensive, as salad oil goes. You can skip it.<br />
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Babassu oil: smells okay. A bit on the heavy side. Hard to find. You feel like a goof, asking for it.<br />
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Castor oil: terrible idea. Don't go there.<br />
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Coconut oil: smells like Hawaiian Tropic. A little goes a long way. Solidified at room temperature, but turns liquid right in your hands, like magic. Absorbs fairly quickly. Induces an overwhelming urge to eat popcorn. Perks your hair right up, if you have dry hair, but extremely difficult to wash out. Hint: rub shampoo into hair and scrunge it around in there before getting your hair wet. Then it will come out. Otherwise, you're kind of hosed.<br />
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Crisco oil: forget it. Useless. Attempted this in the name of completism.<br />
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Huile de Corps from Clarins: pretty good. Has an almost indescribable scent...a little like soybean oil, a little like lotus oil, has an undertone of vanilla, but not the vanilla of a gourmand perfume like Pink Sugar...more that almost burnt-rubber scent you get in the basenotes of Shalimar. Excellent on thin skin, like the neck and the tops of your legs.<br />
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Jojoba oil: not bad. Allegedly as close as you can come to your own natural skin oils. Smells a little hinky.<br />
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Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse: it's fine. More expensive than it needs to be. Smells like Neutrogena soap. Absorbs after 30 or 40 seconds of massage.<br />
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Rodin Olio Lusso: good. Spendy. Best in class w/r/t absorbency. Smells like jasmine, as in JASMINE, as in "like you repeatedly got hit in the side of the head with a bunch of jasmine." Those of you who are perfumery geeks like me may recall that this is not necessarily a good thing, since it's a massively indolic scent...which is to say, to those of you who are not, that it bears more than a passing resemblance to mothballs, a little like putrefaction, and is detectable in the odor of feces. Which is not to say that it smells like poo...it's more complicated than that. But it is a deep, vaguely rotting, almost beefy scent. Kind of like the scent you sometimes get in a kitchen in a dodgy French apartment: like something's gone off, but you can't quite tell what it is. So. That being said, if you like JASMINE being shouted at you and you have the cash, this is one outstanding oil.<br />
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Rosehip oil: a little bit more viscous than I'm happy with. Smells neutral. Doesn't have a lot of slip to it.<br />
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Safflower oil: okay. Cheap. Good slip. Takes a while to absorb. No discernable scent.<br />
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Santal oil from Clarins: terrific. Smells good, if you like sandalwood. Absorbs immediately, feels good, keeps things from cracking. Findable at TJMaxx if the bargain gods are with you.<br />
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Shea butter (liquified): not bad at all. Requires a lot of kneading and working into the skin. Lasts through multiple washes. <br />
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Vitamin E: terrible. Sticky. Never absorbs. Creepy, actually...tugs at your skin.<br />
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Wintergreen oil: horrible idea. Never do this. You will want to cut your hands off and run screaming into the night because they will burn like mad. Also, you will smell like Pepto-Bismol for a week.<br />
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So...there you go. Saved you a little time and a lot of heartache. Go with the almond for cheaps and the Olio Lusso for extravagance, and the Clarins Santal to split the difference. I wish you all smooth, undisastrously cracked sides of fingers, and a good night.<br />
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<span href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" property="dc:title" rel="dc:type" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">A Microscopic Cog in a Catastrophic Plan</span> by <a href="http://www.blogger.com/witheringexhaustion.blogspot.com" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL" xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#">Laura Lorson </a>is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License</a>.<br />
Based on a work at <a href="http://www.blogger.com/witheringexhaustion.blogspot.com" rel="dc:source" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">witheringexhaustion.blogspot.com</a>.<br />
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the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-19577065492339672952010-11-06T17:17:00.005-05:002010-11-06T18:30:52.898-05:00makeup for the cosmetically challengedSo I'm sitting here in my house, not particularly compelled to a)clean b)cook c)knit d)read e)watch football, so I have belatedly recalled that yes, I do have a blog...and no, I haven't written for it in something like a year, so I'm combining this chore with another: the annual winnowing-out of the appalling amount of makeup I collect. Thought I'd write some reviews, in case you are remotely like me, and strangely compelled to purchase such things without the faintest idea if they work. So allow me to edify you, allow me to save you some money, and allow me to tell you that there are, in fact, some things you can't live without. Men: you, too should pay some attention here. I have seen some pretty grim looks on people of the XY persuasion on TV recently. Like it would kill you guys to use some bronzer once in a while? Anyway, here we go.<br /><br />Primers: These are, without a doubt, the greatest advance in makeup technology in the last 20 years. But there are a zillion of them, and every single one...if you are to read the Interwebs...is the best. There actually are some differences and uses for some and not others. Basically, they are silicone-based goop that you put on prior to makeup application that makes the makeup stay put.<br />Category I: face primers. Best whole-face primer: Spackle, by Laura Geller cosmetics. This stuff is great. Smooths out the lines, fills in the creases, makes your foundation stay put, kills shine dead. Now, people are pretty much evangelical about Smashbox PhotoFinish primer, but I think it's too thin and too silicone-y. The Laura Mercier primer is kind of meh, and overpriced. Spackle ain't cheap, but it lasts forever and it comes in a nifty pump. And it works. I kid you not. I tend to only use this, though, for when I need to do a full-metal-jacket whole-face TV-oriented or "big deal evening out" makeup. It's sort of overkill for every day.<br /><br />Category II: trouble spot primers. Best in class: Primed and Poreless by Too Faced cosmetics. Lightly tinted, sucks up oil, looks natural if you don't want to wear a full-scale, buffed-out foundation+powder over it. Also, it's fairly cheap for what you get. You only need about a pea-sized amount to do what you need to. No, seriously, you'll be tempted to use more because it's awesome, but if you use too much it will clump up and look kind of...well, like you have some sort of communicable disease. Runner-up: Jemma Kidd mannequin skin complexion enhancer. Kind of pearlized, but not too much. Stays put, mattifies, and is available at Target. A little pricey for what you get. But it's pretty good. Second runner-up: "that gal" brightening face primer by Benefit. Does what it is supposed to do, is a pale pink, looks okay but is better for people who are 1)vampire pale and 2) under 40. You look a little goofy trying to be all dewy-skinned and such when you are toting 40-ish years of disappointments, hangovers and sundry unfortunate incidents under your belt.<br /><br />Category III: eyelid primers. Make your eye shadow stay on and render it crease-proof. Laura's choice: not a primer at all, actually, but gets the job done: MAC Paint Pot eyeshadow in the shade "Painterly." Put it on first, smooth it out, brightens up the eye, eyeshadow sticks to it like nobody's business and you never get creases. You can just put it on by itself and instantly look like you have had about 5 hours more sleep than you got. Now, I need to throw in here that my sister Amy, whose experience with eye makeup makes me look like a rank amateur, is all about Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion. I tried it once and it made my eyelids itch...which is about par for the course with me. I have insanely sensitive eyes. But she swears by the UDEPP, and really, you'll have to take my word for this, she knows what she's talking about. So if you don't have super-sensitive eyes, this stuff is very good, according to someone who knows. My runner up in this category is Shadow Insurance from Too Faced, which I like but seems to run out of gas after about 6 hours. On the other hand, it does not make my eyelids itch, so there's that.<br /><br />Category IV: eyelash primers. For years, I wondered what the heck was up with me and my strange, impermeable and apparently Teflon-coated eyelashes. I couldn't make any mascara stay put. Waterproof mascara was no match for my eyes. The mascaras that you put on and they turn into little tubes of goo on your lashes? Nope. Slid right off. So I was not much of a mascara-wearer, until I got this TV gig and I had to tell the makeup people that this mascara business? wasn't gonna work on me. And they said, "oh, that happens to everyone. Here, use this." And they gave me some eyelash primer. And the rest, as they say, is history. Best in class: Blinc Lash Primer. You can get it at Beauty Brands or Sephora or Ulta. Big beauty stores tend to have it. Cheap, works great, cute packaging. Done deal. Runner-up: Lorac lash primer. Harder to find, slightly more expensive. Still works great. Forget anything you find in CVS of Walgreens claiming to be a lash primer. Never works. Never.<br /><br />Well, I could go on like this all day, but I'll cut to the chase, basically letting you know what I'm keeping, out of this mountain of products, because it works. Everything else? Buh-bye. I don't want to end up on an episode of "Hoarders," having collapsed under a mountain of old cosmetics.<br /><br />Best undereye moisturizer: La Prairie cellular contour eye cream. Upside: actually works to make your wrinkles less crepey and firms up the skin under your eyes. This, I find, makes LPCCEC unique amongst eye creams. Lasts 2 or 3 months, as a little goes a very long way. Downside: costs as much as a good king-size down comforter. Doesn't come in a pump, which is more sanitary and all. Second choice: Avalon Organics Coenzyme Q10 Cellular Renewing Wrinkle Defense. Upside: works okay, moisturizes well, though it's no LPCCEC. Comes in a pump, doesn't make my horribly sensitive eyes sting at all, smells like lavender, is under 20 bucks (!) and you can get it at either your co-op or an grocery store with a good health-foods section. Downside: is not LPCECC. Not particularly good at reducing wrinkles, but at least you're making an effort.<br />Undereye moisturizers that sting my eyes and/or do not appear to either reduce wrinkles or moisturize? Olay Pro-X. Garnier Nutritioniste. ROC Retinol Undereye Cream. Neutrogena Wrinkle Defense. Clarins Eye Serum. Lancome Eye Serum. Elizabeth Arden Eye Serum. La Mer. Clinique Repairwear Undereye. Estee Lauder Eye Serum. Aveda Tourmaline Eye Cream. Lumene Undereye Cream. Seriously, you get the picture. I've tried about every drugstore cream and a lot of dept. store brands. If you have a question about one, call me -- I've probably tried it at some point. The two I recommended are the only two that ever didn't make my try to claw my eyes out or induce horrible red puffiness (or, for those of you new to cosmetics: "do the diametric opposite of what undereye cream is supposed to do").<br />Best expensive foundation: Chanel. People go on and on about the Laura Mercier but I am not a fan...I think it's too sticky and never really sets well. If you have 50 bucks to blow on foundation, go with the Chanel Teinte Illumineé.<br />Best midrange foundation: MakeUp For Ever Mat Velvet. Looks great. Stays put. Good range of colors...I think if you are male and have been asked to appear on TV, you should consider getting some of this stuff. Really blends well.<br />Best drugstore foundation: The late, lamented Revlon Skinlights. It was discontinued. Revlon PhotoFinish is pretty good, as is Sally Hansen Inspired by Carmindy liquid foundation. I'm really pale, and they both have pale enough shades that don't turn out yellow on my skin. Most other drugstore foundations' palest shades are too dark for me.<br />Best loose translucent powder: Laura Mercier.<br />Concealer: Amazing Cosmetics Amazing Concealer. Best I've ever used, by a mile. Expensive, but lasts forever. 2nd-best: Benefit's Erase Paste in shade No.1. Under no circumstances should you ever use CoverGirl or Almay concealers. They do not, in a word, conceal. Plus, they have that dopey doe's-foot applicator. Don't use it. Put on the concealer and then repeatedly tap it into your skin, don't smear. It won't stay put very well, but if you're in a bind (i.e., on your way to the prom, need something right now for under five bucks, and you happen to be at Wal-Mart), it will do for an hour or so.<br />Best pressed powder: Chantecaille, in Very Light. Hard to find, but is great.<br />Best bronzer: Trish McEvoy. Go with Bronze #1. If you don't like this, try the St. Tropez Mousse Bronzer in the lightest shade. Bonus: has SPF 15 in it. <br />Best powder blush: Trish McEvoy in Barely There.<br />Best creme blush: Dream Mousse by Maybelline in Soft Plum. Stays put all day!<br />Best lip stain: BeneTint original (don't be suckered into the PosieTint! It is way too pale -- I gave it to a friend for her daughters to play with. )<br />Best lip balm: well, this is embarrassing but I make it myself. It's a shea-butter lip balm. If you want some, ask me. I don't like commercial lip balms at all.<br />Best lipstick: True Red - Chanel's Star Red, with MAC Russian Red getting an honorable mention. Pink - MAC Petals and Peacocks (English rose pink), MAC Girl About Town (magenta-ish) or American Beauty Very Pink (true pink, blue undertone). Coral-pink: La Prairie Rose Bronze (beware! $$$$) or Maybelline Sweet Nectar (like, about 300% cheaper, looks about the same). Mauve: Aveda Nourish-Mint Lipstick in Sugar Apple.<br />Best eyeliner: Bobbi Brown gel eyeliner in Cobalt or Plum.<br />Best drugstore eyeliner: LÓreal Telescopic in Waterproof Ultra-Black.<br />Best mascara: Maybelline Lash Discovery. Here's the thing about mascara -- you really ought to throw it away every 3 months or so, so it makes no sense to buy expensive mascara. If you use primer, any kind really will get the job done. Runner up: Physician's Formula Lash Enhancer. <br />Totally useless? Neutrogena Lashtint. Totally overrated? Great Lash. That stuff looks horrible on me and is gloppy and goes all over the place. But if you love it, good on ya. Let me know, 'cause I keep buying it and then throwing it away, and I might as well give it to you.<br />Best expensive mascara that I will use if I win the lottery? Fresh Cosmetics Firebird Mascara in Charcoal Grey. Best free sample mascara ever? Fresh Cosmetics Supernova Mascara in Jet Black. They frequently will give you samples of this at Macy's. Just sayin'.<br /><br />Well, that's all I have the energy for at the moment. More cosmetic trivia anon, plus a discussion of perfume. In the meantime, happy November. Talk to you soon.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0pt;" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/88x31.png" /></a><br /><span dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" property="dc:title" rel="dc:type">A Microscopic Cog in a Catastrophic Plan</span> by <a cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="http://www.blogger.com/witheringexhaustion.blogspot.com" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">Laura Lorson </a> is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License</a>.<br />Based on a work at <a dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" href="http://www.blogger.com/witheringexhaustion.blogspot.com" rel="dc:source">witheringexhaustion.blogspot.com</a>.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-60852621576890088982009-10-22T08:47:00.003-05:002009-10-22T08:54:51.158-05:00the military-industrial-entertainment complex<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/88x31.png" /></a><div><br /></div><div>hey there, hi there, ho there -- I just realized that I have been HORRIBLY lax about updating this, so here's the short version. </div><div><br /></div><div>The store moved. </div><div>Kelly broke some bones by falling off a ladder. </div><div>I had a terrible case of poison ivy. </div><div>I broke a toe. </div><div>There was one day where Finnegan would not stop barfing. The solution, according to a vet, was to feed him some cough medicine. This led to Finnegan not stopping barfing, and now barfing in a vivid, Technicolor red. We are still working on getting the carpets back to normal. </div><div>My sister had a baby. It is a girl. Her name is Emerson. </div><div>I am going to enter the Pillsbury Bake-Off. </div><div>I got the flu. I think it was H1N1, but that may just be wishful thinking, because it seems more daring. </div><div>I recovered from the flu. </div><div>I made apple butter, pumpkin butter, elderberry tincture, and Danish. (These were not all part of the same recipe.) </div><div>People were apparently tortured during the Bush Administration by being forced to listen to music including Metallica, Britney Spears and the BeeGees. In short -- the Bush Administration would have apparently saved money and time by locking their detainees at my house. There would have been no waterboarding, and I could have tried out my Pillsbury BakeOff recipes on them. </div><div>I continue to be mystified by pretty much everything. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/"></a><br /><span dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" property="dc:title" rel="dc:type">A Microscopic Cog in a Catastrophic Plan</span> by <a cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="http://www.blogger.com/witheringexhaustion.blogspot.com" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">Laura Lorson </a> is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License</a>.<br />Based on a work at <a dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" href="http://www.blogger.com/witheringexhaustion.blogspot.com" rel="dc:source">witheringexhaustion.blogspot.com</a>.</div>the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-42760408270570731962009-08-03T20:13:00.003-05:002009-08-04T16:47:09.871-05:00the quiet summer symphony of cicadas and tree frogsIt's hot here in Jefferson County, which is actually a phrase that any number of people in pretty much any state in the union could be writing right now. I've been feeling kind of beaten-down by life lately, and keep hanging on to the idea that come autumn, things will be better. I'm not much of a fan of summer. I have never liked the humid heat, which is unfortunate, given that I have never lived anywhere that the two don't go hand-in-hand. Still, I get a little nostalgic for my childhood when the temperatures rise and I find myself in a room that's just a little too hot to be comfortable. When I was a kid, I would sit in my (generally sweltering) room and read, or listen to the radio, and convince myself that if I could just lay as still as possible, the heat wouldn't be so bad. Another thing that conjures up "heat" for me is hearing any song by Little Willie John, or anything from the series of records called "Oldies But Goodies," of which my father had about 10. So in short, anything on Ace or Roulette or Chess, old rock and roll of the Huey "Piano" Smith school -- all of this conjures up maddening, stifling heat and the orange-gold light of early-evening, the kind that cinematographers wait for all day and is flattering to everyone, even when you're caked with sweat and grime and one more day's failures to be brilliant, world-altering, and compassionate.<br />I've been playing with the dogs this evening, who are also not summertime fans, and this makes me feel better. It makes me think that it is not the fault of the hyper-critical, rational mindset I have always had that makes me hate the weather. I made some peach tea, and took a book outside to read, where it's just this side of stifling, listening to the sun set. Autumn will come soon enough, I suppose, and then winter, then spring. These things that seem awful now will eventually become stories filled with asides about my own intemperance and foible, and I will forget that it was as bad as it currently seems. When I come inside, I can hear the tree frogs singing in four-part counterpoint, and I forget that just minutes ago, I was outside and couldn't hear them at all over the noise of my own brain. Distance and time are gifts.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-57479607208615420502009-07-01T06:24:00.004-05:002009-07-01T06:40:41.541-05:00enough already with the confessing! freundlaven!Unquestionably, this will mean more to those of you who were fans of Animaniacs. "Commence with the screaming and running and the hair-pulling and the freundlaven!" being the signature of the Animaniacs' Jerry Lewis auteur-like feller. "Freundlaven! Flamiel! HOYL! How'd you...with the going...you were there...but here now...you are...for me to see...how'd you do..."<br /><br />Anyway, seriously, Mark Sanford? You were just kind of sadly, weirdly pathetic the other day (what with the hubris and the talking and the schlockiness ...freundlaven!) but now you are squicking me out. Enough with the Argentina and the mistress and the Harlequin Romance-inspired monologues. HOYL! You make me want to put my fingers in my ears and chant "lalalalalalalala"until you go. Away.<br /><br />Not romantic. Gross. If I were that Jenny Sanford (re: Mark Sanford:"I'm going to try to fall back in love with my wife"), I'd say, "wow, that's really big of you, but please don't put yourself out. You derivative, soap-opera watchin', two-timin', tango-dancin' self-consciously self-serving piecea poo."the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-24284000151015606952009-06-25T18:12:00.003-05:002009-06-25T18:48:58.266-05:00you've got to get it right while you've got the timeTonight, the world's all agog with the news about Michael Jackson, and I myself am not sure how to feel about it. I think this is a watershed moment, actually, kind of like when Elvis died. A hinge moment, I think they call it. A tipping point. I mean, Elvis was about the dawn of a new kind of youth culture, an engineered kind of celebrity, a tale of promise gone to success gone to seed. He started out as a marginally talented kid who got rounded up by some hucksters who realized that the time was ripe for something new, something different, a little bit dangerous and ultimately all about sex...and the denial of its power, even as it was being flaunted in this sort of creepy, underage way. Elvis and his crack team of handlers went about it by merging black and white music, and that was also the genius of Quincy Jones and MJ, successfully emasculating and white-ifying funk on the dance floor...though I will unkindly point out that while Elvis was about a figurative merger of black and white, MJ took things a little farther than people were comfortable with, given the whole "gradually becoming white"/"maybe it's vitiligo"/ "plastic surgery addiction" thing.<br /><br />Anyway. Elvis dying was an end of an era, and a moment when people about the age I am now stopped for a moment and thought, "oh, I really liked him when I was a kid." It got to be one big mortality-check for people just on the cusp of middle age. But you know, the Elvis death stopped everyone for a moment, and people all rushed to Graceland and started this whole (to my mind) odd thing where you leave candles and teddy bears and flowers and such to rot in front of some random place, as though the places themselves are magical and mystical and somehow imbued with the dearly-departed's spirit. I myself think that there was more of the spirit of Elvis embedded in the walls of Sun Studios. Anyhow, I see this kind of continuum, this kind of arc of the Cult of Celebrity, maybe beginning with Elvis, reaching its apogee with Princess Diana, and then, perhaps, just perhaps, ending here, with the sad news today about this poor kid from Gary who was turned into a moneymaking machine, who never got the chance to really create any kind of self outside what the public decided he was supposed to be. I think the weirdness displayed by MJ in the last 10 years fed on itself -- that was how he got publicity, it was how he stayed in the public eye, and being used to the star-maker machinery of the 70s and 80s, that was all he really knew how to do. The new, faster, frankly more vicious celebrity machine of the here and now was something he didn't know how to cope with, I think.<br />But maybe this will be the thing that changes the paradigm. I mean, I'm not holding my breath, but you never know. The death of Elvis marked the end of the beginning of the whole created, bought-and-paid-for, mass-marketed celebrity culture. Maybe the death of Michael Jackson will mark some kind of ending of the end. Maybe now is when we've finally reached critical mass, now that the tabloid poster child for The Sickly Fascinating Odd has passed to his great reward, whatever that may be. Maybe now is the time that people quite caring about random pretty people doing random things, being famous for fame's sake. Between Jon & Kate, Spencer & Heidi, Robert & Kristen, LiLo, Paris...maybe now is the time when we're all so sick and tired of ourselves and our apparently limitless voyeurism (and our fellow-travellers' apparently limitless exhibitionism) that we can't stand it any more. Though probably not.<br /><br />I was reading my friend Doug's observation that he was someplace, as the news about Michael Jackson was unfolding, and everyone was staring down at their communication devices, thumbs flying across the keys. I find this unbearably compelling, and unbearably sad. No one wants to look each other in the eyes any more at a time of startle and shock. We want to look at the screen, which is looking back into us, just like the abyss. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it. Wouldn't be the first time. We want to know everything, we want to know it now, we're feeding the beast to the point of bursting and we still want more. We are making things worse, just when we thought that *more, more, more information* would make things all better. Someone asked me about an hour before the official death announcement came what was going on, and I went to TMZ.com for the latest news. Then I went to Twitter. What does this say? When did this happen? What's the next step? Who are we becoming?<br /><br />He was a guy in over his head. He made some good records. Every time he'd go to Japan, I'd think of Don DeLillo's book "Mao II," which opens with the thought that the face of the future is the face of the frenzied mob. Ordinarily rational people started wearing red leather jackets with too many zippers so they could be more like him. He was driven mad by having the world at his feet -- a common enough tale. Like Ozymandias, King of Kings (no, not the Watchmen character). Look upon his works, ye mighty, and despair.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-61380762273905222982009-06-08T13:03:00.002-05:002009-06-08T13:13:50.098-05:00Antoinette Perry, we salute you (with glittery hats and jazz hands)I love the Tony Awards. I like them much better than the Oscars, which I also watch every year. The Tony Awards actually seem to matter to the theatre community...much more so than the Academy Awards do to Hollywood. Anyway, I have been a regular viewer of the Tonys (Tonies?) since my childhood. I remember<br /><br />--the year the Tony Awards were broadcast from the point-of-view of Bonnie Franklin<br />-- learning who Bob Fosse was from the Tony Awards<br />-- learning who Stephen Sondheim was from the Tony Awards<br />-- being stunned to learn that Boyd Gaines was actually a Broadway actor more than a bit-part TV actor<br />--figuring out who Harold Prince is<br />--seeing Bernadette Peters sing with a voice like a foghorn while skipping around doing a number from "Sunday in the Park with George"<br />--learning that whatever it was, Broadway was something fundamentally different and more immediate than a movie<br /><br />and so, for all their faults, I love the Tony Awards, and will faithfully watch, every year, just because I think this is the kind of awards show that actually OUGHT to be televised, if just to see the warmth and good humor of the Broadway community.<br /><br />That is all.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-17963496750326561982009-05-27T20:27:00.003-05:002009-05-27T21:40:30.722-05:00to dream the impossible dream. to drive the undriveable car. to do the impossible job. to open the unopenable jar.This week feels like it is never going to end. I am not, not, resolutely not going to discuss my job on this page, but basically, I feel like I have aged ten years in the last ten days. I am not having a good time.<br /><br />Elsewhere, though, I find myself in one of those almost obsessive-compulsive feedback loops, wherein everything is going through this Man of La Mancha "impossible dream" filter. Which is to say, for those of you who are uninitiated, that mentally, everything is "the un-__________-able _______." I am drinking the undrinkable Coke Zero. I am washing the unwashable dishes. I am wearing the unwearable shoes, writing the unwritable piece, sleeping in the un-sleep-on-able bed, petting the unpettable dog. Whatever, I get on these kicks. Every now and again, one of these will strike me as completely hilarious and I'll burst out laughing. I get looks indicating that perhaps I'd be better off in a home of some kind.<br /><br />Of course in my head, I hear it sung to the tune. "To eat...the uneatable pie! To pack...the unpackable box! To cook...the uncookable dinner! To mate....the unmateable socks! To feed! The! Un! Feed! A! Ble!.....DOGS!"<br /><br />Whatever, it's a game and it's funny and at the moment, it's what is keeping me (what passes for) sane.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-67842725650397881822009-05-13T14:21:00.002-05:002009-05-13T14:23:44.803-05:00I just think it will happen, soonI'm on a little bit of a Philip Larkin kick here, lately. Don't worry -- it will pass, and we will return you to your regularly-scheduled swooning over T.S. Eliot, William Stafford and Ted Koozer.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-14314072685109561202009-05-08T13:51:00.002-05:002009-05-08T13:55:07.359-05:00ods bodkinsWeird words of the day*:<br /><br />logy<br />pumpkin<br />misled<br />ragamuffin<br />saturnine<br />whiffle<br />avoirdupois<br />reify<br />mugwump<br /><br />* I know what they all mean. They just sound strange to me. It's weird that they wound up being English, if you know what I mean.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-33626715524633512882009-04-11T13:07:00.002-05:002009-04-11T13:33:53.148-05:00on watching 'willy wonka and the chocolate factory'Okay, so I saw this film maybe 15 times as a child, as it was the "Overboard" or "Under Siege"of its day -- constantly in reruns, constantly on television. I probably have not watched it in 15 years. I just watched the first 40 minutes. I submit herewith a list of things I do not understand.<br /><br />1) When exactly is this film happening? There's television, but Charlie's mother is still doing laundry in a giant cauldron with lye soap that she stirs with a giant wooden pole? No wonder they are starving to death. There's TV, there are live satellite feeds, and this woman is basing her livelihood on the odds that people somehow don't have washing machines? Or, alternatively, are lonesome for Victorian England and want to re-live the magic by sending out their laundry to her, rather than to a dry-cleaner or a commercial laundry?<br /><br />2) Who is paying for all this candy in the opening "candy man" candy store scene? Are all of these children running tabs? Do their parents pay at the end of the month? If the shopkeeper is throwing taffy all over the place in giant, swooping arcs, why would he care if Charlie scooped up a piece and then ran out the door? What is this guy's shrinkage cost per month?<br /><br />3) What exactly is the content of tomorrow? According to Bricusse and Newley, the songwriters, the candy man:<br />"can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream...separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream."<br />So I surmise that either tomorrow or dream is in fact at least partially dairy. The sentence implies that some component of tomorrow or a dream is sorrow, which at some point is separated, presumably because it does not taste particularly good. 100% sorrow-free cream sounds like a pretty good idea, but I'm not sure why a candy man is doing this. Is it some kind of sideline business? <br /><br />4) Grandpa Joe seems like a real son of a bitch. He says "one of these days I'm going to get out of this bed and help out," yet we learn from his daughter that he has not done so in more than 20 years. GJ then states that he would do so if the floor were not so cold, a not-so-thinly-veiled dig at the daughter, who cannot adequately heat the shack in which they live.<br /><br />5) The family lives in a shack, with a superannuated television, one 40-watt lightbulb, and a king-sized four-poster bed, apparently with bedlinens (which are not particularly inexpensive for king-size, but I digress). Four elderly people, two men and two women, sleep, eat, and god-knows-what-all in this bed. They never leave the bed. How exactly is there a child left in their custody? DCFS should have paid a call on these people by now.<br /><br />6) They are eating, fairly regularly, something described by Charlie as "cabbage water." There is apparently no money for spices or bread to accompany this meal. Yet the grandfather mentions that he smokes tobacco. Charlie offers to pay for the tobacco. The grandfather demurs, but then his (evil? stupid?) daughter protests: "It's only a pipe a day, Dad." So she is enabling the grandfather's tobacco addiction, and is not averse to her child working at an under-the-table cash-payment-only job delivering newspapers to facilitate this?<br /><br />7) Wouldn't Grandpa George, Grandma Georgina, Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine be drawing SSRI disability payments? Wouldn't Charlie's mother be drawing Social Security survivor benefits after her husband died? It seems there is some mismanagement of funds taking place here that may border on the criminal.<br /><br />8) Tinkers roam the streets, offering their knife-sharpening services. And this is taking place when?<br /><br />9) Grandpa Joe, far from being kindly and charming, decides that despite not working...nay, not GETTING OUT OF BED for twenty years...that he would like to go see the inside of the Chocolate Factory with his grandson. His legs, however, have not atrophied, so I am assuming that at night he is getting up and exercising, or sneakily going for walks or smoking or something. It turns out that despite an initial equilibrium problem, he is actually fine enough to go on a six-hour walking tour of a facility that must, to a starving child, seem like a cruel temptation and mockery of justice. Also, he has a very nice cane, which seems a little amiss in this landscape of poverty.<br /><br />10) The part about the musical lock? The woman says it's Rachmaninoff? It's not. It's Beethoven. It's the opening of Fidelio. <br /><br />10) WW&tCF was made in 1971. Amnesty International was founded in 1961. I am skeptical of their silence on the Oompa-Loompa question.<br /><br /> I had to quit watching then, because I was getting too annoyed. Also? Bricusse and Newley? Argh. Who thought this was a good idea?the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-48610665741468602602009-04-09T09:59:00.001-05:002009-04-09T09:59:54.793-05:00the peculiar comfort of lowered expectationsthank you Royals -- you're .500, that is all, repeat ALL, I ask of you.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-28891758664884713702009-04-08T09:57:00.002-05:002009-04-08T10:02:52.634-05:00kyle farnsworthwell, that was 4.5 million dollars well-spent. PHILO Farnsworth would have known better than to pitch Thome straight up the middle on 2-and-1 in the bottom of the eighth, and he died in 1971. <br /><br />Another fabulous season of Royals baseball awaits.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-87360923050955498962009-04-06T20:41:00.003-05:002009-04-06T21:06:54.350-05:00rule 6.05Okay, so another baseball season is upon us, for which I am profoundly, humbly grateful, and I'm the kind of person who actually DOES keep score at home, plays rotisserie-league baseball and loves the ever-lovin' heck out of the game, and I swear, I just don't get the infield fly rule. I have had it explained to me and it always makes sense at the time, and then I try later to remember what it is and it's beyond me. Kind of like general relativity, or Fermat's last theorem -- I get this quick flash of complete comprehension, like the green flash on the sea at sunset, and then it's gone.<br /><br />Anyway, the advent of baseball always makes me feel good, cozy and quiet inside, secure in the knowledge that on any given evening from April through September, I can hunker down with a radio and listen to a game, announced in a way that leaves room for daydreaming and breathing and seeing the whole game, all complete, just like Einstein field equations, now that I'm thinking of it. Maybe that's what I like about baseball -- the game of Euclid, the game of angles, the game of grassgreen and chalkwhite and stripes mown into the outfield -- it changes the way you see things, if just for a couple (or three or four or if it's an AL/NL matchup, five) hours.<br /><br />It's still not gonna reconcile me to the designated hitter, though.<br /><br />In other news: a woman I work with wears a perfume made with heliotrope. I mentioned it to her, saying how it was unusual, and she had no idea what I was talking about. She said she thought it smelled like roses. Which it most certainly does NOT. Whatever, if that's what she thinks it is, and she likes it, I suppose to her it does indeed smell as sweet, no matter the name. I just want to know how you get up past the age of 20 and have never smelled what a rose smells like. Which, for the record, is not like heliotrope, not at all.<br /><br />Oh, well. This is where complex, elegant rules like those in baseball would be useful in the workplace. I say, "nice heliotrope perfume, that's really unusual" and my co-worker says "it's not heliotrope, it's roses, what is wrong with you?" I could defer to the umpire, who in the absence of knowing the difference between roses, heliotrope, opoponax and stephanotis, would call it an infield fly: runners advance at their own risk, and everyone just rolls with it. Crisis averted. Now, if we could just figure out who keeps leaving their old, mold-encrusted coffee mugs in the sink. Maybe we could appeal to the 3rd base line judge on who keeps committing this outrage: we could rule it's Stephen Bartman, for lack of a better scapegoat, and the world will continue to spin on in its epicycles, apogee and perigee, steadfast and solemn.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-58081591323993238332009-02-28T16:03:00.004-06:002009-02-28T16:28:33.118-06:00stepping lightly, just like a ballerinaI know I have been bad about updating this, but I'm turning over a new leaf. Or, at least, things are just now starting to get interesting again.<br /><br />What is up with all the sudden rhapsodizing over 'Astral Weeks?' In the last 72 hours I have heard at least 5 people talking about Van Morrison and this record. Hmph. I love this record. I have loved it ever since I switched over from hating it, about 20 years ago. I thought it was strange in 1985, but it stuck with me. I realized that I loved it in about 1988, and all things being equal this mattered not at all, as it rarely came up. Now in the last three days, everyone's suddenly all enthusiastic about it. Ok, whatever. Where were you people when I was un-confident in my own musical tastes? Now that I don't need validation, they're everywhere. I will never, everever grow so old again. Hearing the 2 pieces on NPR, the one TV piece, seeing the three magazine articles, I will try not to feel smug and instead just suggest that yes, it would be a good idea to listen to 'Astral Weeks' again soon. An aside: I associate this music strongly with the beginning of spring. The songs are all shades of green and yellow, and they make me think of things growing in good black soil, stretching for the light of the sun.<br /><br />Here's something odd that happened today. I went to the pet store to purchase some dog food for the beasts, and as usual there were not enough cashiers, so I'm standing there with a 40-pound sack of Nutro Natural Choice Small Bites in Lamb and Rice Meal slung over my right shoulder as casually as only a 40-pound sack of Nutro Natural Choice Small Bites in Lamb and Rice Meal over one's right shoulder can be, and anyway this woman is taking an eternity up at the checkout stand, and she's just prattling away to the bored teenager who is waiting for her to finish writing out her check. Now, I'm aggravated because I'm waiting and holding this giant bag of dog food, and this nimrod is writing a check(!) and having to fish out her driver's license (!) and she's off on this tangent about, I don't know, switchgrass or something that she is growing for her skunks (!). Anyway, so she suddenly stops in this middle of this soliloquy and looks right. at. me. and says "I have seven cats. What do you say to that?" And I say, "um, me?" and she says "yes. I have seven cats, what do you say to that?" and I think okay, what am I going to say to this, and so what I say is this:<br />"Oh, wait, I know the answer to this one. The answer is one. I am the one going to St. Ives."<br />And the woman just *looks* at me. And takes her stuff and goes out the door. So the teenager is ringing my stuff up now and says: "You're weird." Okay, this woman was just talking at this kid for like 15 minutes at top speed and volume about having seven cats (which pretty much is game-set-match on the insanity question) and raising skunks and switchgrass, and I'm the one who's weird, huh?<br /><br />The world spins on, apace. Retail service-industry teenagers think I'm weird. Music reviewers can't get enough of a 40-year-old Van Morrison record. I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-44011370875558829312008-10-14T10:22:00.001-05:002008-10-14T10:23:10.590-05:00an anecdote that will probably interest precisely one reader of this blogSophia Hawthorne used to call Herman Melville "Mr. Omoo." I find this rather charming. That is all.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-91368990390889239282008-10-08T11:16:00.003-05:002008-10-08T11:34:16.898-05:00the radical scaling back of one's expectationsI was in the grocery store a couple of days ago, and was trying to purchase less and get more out of the whole experience. I went ahead and splurged on a very expensive (okay, comparatively speaking) Honeycrisp apple. It was exceptionally good. I'm not kidding around, this apple restored my faith in agriculture, median voters, and the American economic system. I kind of now want to tell everyone who's all tied up in knots over the current world situation: go eat a really good apple, and really concentrate* on it while you are eating it. This little Zen sort of moment will do you a world of good.<br /><br /><br /><br />* by concentrate on it, I mean really think about everything that has to do with this apple. Hold it in your hand, look at it, think about how it grew, and how you ended up getting it, and feel the heft and weight of it, then eat it slowly and think about the texture and the taste. Okay, fine, make fun of me -- I'll go sign up for an OCD support group now.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-76247545682500407882008-10-01T11:06:00.003-05:002008-10-01T11:20:10.273-05:00apocalypse postponed; what to read while you waitI have been reading a great deal (which sounds remarkably like "I have travelled a good deal in Concord...") and I can definitively recommend the following for a fine diversion, which might come in handy about now, if you are sick to death of politics and politicking and the Cassandrine wails of the media. Yes, I know that titles of books are to be underlined, but I'm on a clamshell terminal here and that is not working out.<br /><br />"Uncivil Seasons" by Michael Malone<br />"The Decameron" by Bocaccio<br />"The Persian Expedition" of Xenophon (I love the little snarky asides -- like the part where he describes the Syrians as very nice but oddly entranced by fish)<br />"The Red Book Mabinogion"<br />"The Normans in Sicily" by John Julius Norwich<br />"Girls on the Run" by John Ashbery<br />"Local Wonders" by Ted Kooser<br />"The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" by David Wroblewski (I know, it's an Oprah, but I started it before she signed off on it)<br />"Genie du christianisme" by Chateaubriand<br />"Hymn of the Universe" by Teilhard de Chardin<br />"Akt und Sein" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer<br />"Isis Unveiled" by Helena Blavatsky (I know, I kept meaning to get to it, and now I did)<br /><br />books you can skip, if you want:<br />"Special Topics in Calamity Physics" by Marissa Pessl<br />"Sweetheart" by Chelsea Cain<br /><br />This is for those of you keeping score at home. Just doin' my part to keep people reading, in the face of crushing indifference.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-40929114560185618102008-09-30T09:34:00.002-05:002008-09-30T09:38:39.459-05:00where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?Well, things seem fairly dire at this point, so in that greatest of all American traditions, I've decided to just not think about it. I mean, I lay awake last night in a complete cold sweat thinking about global financial meltdown and was all panicked and upset...so at about 4 am, I got up and played with my dogs and decided to watch a DVD collection of Warner Bros. cartoons that a friend of mine gave me. I felt much better. Everyone else seems to have some kind of plan -- Henry Paulson, Newt Gingrich, innumerable bloggers -- mine is, as of right now, to eat chocolate pudding and play with my dogs. I believe that Congress should buy everyone a pony. It would improve the fundamentals of the livestock/equine breeding market, and the nation's hay-baling equipment manufacturers. Also, the construction industry -- we're all going to need barns. It's no stupider than other stuff I've heard in the last 72 hours.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-29095498790231810552008-09-10T10:20:00.002-05:002008-09-10T10:33:18.920-05:00...and the ambiance has that certain je ne sais quoiThis is the funniest thing I have read in weeks -- Camille Paglia, via Salon.<br /><br />"One reason I live in the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia and have never moved to New York or Washington is that, as a cultural analyst, I want to remain in touch with the mainstream of American life. I frequent fast-food restaurants, shop at the mall, and periodically visit Wal-Mart (its bird-seed section is nonpareil)." <br /><br />Its bird-seed section. Is. Nonpareil.<br /><br />I snorted sodapop out my nose. I'm trying to imagine Camille in all sorts of places she would consider plebeian, describing them in her own "you little people need an anthropologist to tell you what's what" sort of way.<br /><br />Camille Paglia at Burger King: their ground-beef patty sandwiches are exquisite. <br />Camille Paglia at Costco: the ready availability of 20-pound jars of mayonnaise and packages of frozen shrimp the size of peat-moss bags is toujours perdrix. <br />Camille Paglia at Kohl's: the 80%-off rack is sine qua non. <br />Camille Paglia at Kansas Speedway: the tailgating is a veritable Montmartre (immediately preceding the French Revolution).<br />Camille Paglia at Tractor Supply Company: its vast selection of bagged pet foods and John Deere-logoed outerwear reveals a Midwestern weltanschauung of thrift and practicality.<br /><br />Sheesh. Camille Paglia, everywoman. (slaps hand to forehead, rolling of eyes)the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-47759699831507269212008-08-27T13:49:00.003-05:002008-08-27T14:51:32.551-05:00a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigmaView halloo to one and all. I have been a little depressed, which I am chalking up to the election season (now 50% longer! with lemon-freshened enzymes!). I go home at the end of the day, looking forward to no electronic input of any kind. I have been reading a lot of Greeks and Romans and historians thereof, to remind myself that really, things were not exactly *better* as the Normans grew to power in Sicily. It occurs to me that the Fall of the Roman Empire might have been hastened had there been 24-hour cable news coverage of it.<br /><br />I have a question -- do we, as a country, now have on hand a quantity of portable trailers that outgas somewhat-less formaldehyde than previously? Because it appears that we may need them, in the same darn place we needed them before. Don't even get me started.<br /><br />I was given something called "Amish friendship bread" today, which appears to be a kind of sourdough starter for a kind of quickbread. If you can call something that takes ten days of mixing and adding stuff a quickbread. Not sure what this is supposed to be -- will I eat it and discard all my clothing with zippers? I'll have a slice and suddenly feel compelled to go to a barn-raising? I'll let you know.<br /><br />My perusal of Tacitus proceeds apace. My Latin, rusty from disuse, is getting progressively better. I find that the more I read in another language, the less time I have for reading political blogs and comments areas of newspapers, and the better I feel about the world. Here's the scorecard so far: Germanicus? Awesome. Agrippina? Not so much. Crispus? Thumbs up. Tiberius? Kind of a creep.<br /><br />I wish there were some sort of modern-day Tacitus. I suspect that if such a person exists, he/she is, in fact, a political blogger. It is thus with a kind of hope-tinged regret that I find myself reading many, many, many of these kinds of blogs. Mostly, it makes me exasperated that this great opportunity (i.e., the opening up of the great digital podium for all to speak) has attracted so many people who, quite frankly, cannot write. "You with your jejune little grammatical rules! How dare you tell me, The Chronicler of Our Age, that I need a better understanding of the subjunctive mood? How dare you! You are in thrall to the mainstream media! You are keeping me down, man! You're part of the problem! You don't want to hear the truth! You are threatened by the Glorious Coming Wave of Citizen Journalists! Spelling is patriarchal oppression! Oops, out of time -- gotta go feed my cats and watch teh Battlestar Galacticaz. 111000011010zz!!"<br /><br />Whatever. I blame the iPod for all of this. You somehow end up getting the idea that the world revolves around YOU and your playlist. It's all about customizing things for this big collective "you" out there. Like, heaven forfend that you should have to sit through a Journey song you don't like or something. Perish the thought that you might have to get along with people who don't agree with you. Horrors -- the idea of reading something that makes your blood boil with rage? Forget it, who needs that kind of stress? Just keep reading and listening and thinking about stuff that you already know you like. Slag off all the people who disagree with you, embrace those who seem to be just like you. No problem. To quote Aaron Sorkin (which I don't recommend as, say, a habit): "Hubris, yeah, that always turns out well."<br /><br />forecast for region: sunny, 20% ch t-strms, high of 87. mstly clear after 8, low in the upper 60s.<br />forecast for my house: shady, 40% ch mowing lawn, 20% ch baking Amish bread, 100% ch playing with dogs. extended forecast: reading, with a chance of housecleaning on Saturday. 30% ch of journeying Sunday to Leavenworth County to look at a sunflower farm. 0% ch of watching political commentary on television. It is remarkable how much better you feel about the world when you just. turn. it. off. Not to mention how much more time you find you have on your hands to knit, bake a pie, think a thought, look at the sky.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-8624905791206785712008-07-22T09:16:00.004-05:002008-07-22T09:34:13.014-05:00hot hot heat is bug bug bugging me.No, not the band, though I'm not wild about them either. It's hot, by which I mean HOT, which means that I am now exceedingly cranky and a little depressed, which is a mean trick when you're already taking boatloads of antidepressants. I have this theory that I have some kind of reverse SAD kind of disorder. Actually it might have to do with high barometric pressure. I am no biometeorologist (which I hold in a similar regard to homeopathy -- I guess it means something to some people, and if it works for you, go with it...but, seriously, I can't quite follow the logic. If infinitesimal concentrations of, say, arsenic are better for you than the largest -- something I can't really argue with -- shouldn't I be the picture of health because I am consuming the smallest concentration of arsenic possible, which is to say none?) but I think there may be something to this. Prairie high pressure is fierce and strong and unrelenting, much like our folk heroes of yore (Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Laura Ingalls Wilder). I just cheer up when we get rain and storms, which I think may have something to do with the lower barometric pressure. I actually have no idea, I just like rain and get sulky when we go a month or two without any. <br /><br />The dogs are unhappy, too, which makes some sense (I would be especially grumpy if I were to be stuck in a longhaired sweater in this weather). Though not all that much, as we go out of our way to let them out in the morning, when it's cooler, and then they get to stay inside the air-conditioned house all day, lounging about on our beds and couches, taking an occasional break from napping in order to bark at a squirrel or something outside the window. It's a rough life. <br /><br />I will probably always, the rest of my life, associate Lawrence with oppressive heat -- when I was in high school and then college, it always seemed as though it was 10 or more degrees hotter on any given day in Lawrence than it was in Olathe. Not that this is a bad thing. I just associate Lawrence summers with sweltering. Though nothing, nothing, I repeat NOTHING is as hot as an un-airconditioned summer in Washington, DC. I used to live in a beautiful old pre-WWI building with french doors and high ceilings, and no airconditioning. I ended up getting an airconditioner for the bedroom (I don't care how hot it is anywhere else in the house; you just have to be able to sleep) and I'd go in there at the end of the day and it would be like plunging into a swimming pool. As long as I live, I don't know that I will ever feel such unalloyed bliss as that first moment walking into that room after a long day of work and commuting with the lunatics on the bus and trudging up the 5 flights of stairs. Which just goes, I suppose, to show that sometimes innovations and the modern are not necessarily always better. I mean, really -- if you're in climate-controlled surroundings all the time, where's the absolute relief of walking into a room a full 35 degrees cooler than the ambient temperature of the house? If there's always call-waiting, how will you ever know the relief of hearing the phone actually ring after an hour straight of getting a busy signal?<br /> <br />In keeping with my general upsetted-ness, I have been reading John Kelly's "The Great Mortality," all about the Black Plague. This book is great. Just FYI -- I understand if you aren't keen on plunging into several hundred pages on the decimation of Europe -- but it's really good. Even if it does kind of make a person want to move a hundred miles away from her nearest neighbor (which in Kansas is actually a legitimate possibility, at least out west). <br /><br />Anyway. There's nothing to be done, really, about the heat, so go have a Fudgsicle and sit in front of a fan and read something good. I am reading the Venerable Bede, which is remarkable for many reasons, not the least of which is the wackadoo Angle, Saxon, and Jute(-ish?) names. If I get another dog, I'm naming him Ethelred.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-13451702621319703772008-07-04T09:56:00.002-05:002008-07-04T10:07:21.177-05:00when, in the course of human events, yo...Happy Independence Day. It's good not to be under the thumb of a detested regent suffering from mental illness. Or at least, so I am assured. Hee. <br />I stopped off at the grocery store last night. The 16-ish-year-old fellow hired to put my purchases into a sack had nothing to do, as I generally do not require sacks from the Hy-Vee, because I carry around a giant LL Bean Boat-n-Tote for just such an eventuality. Anyway. So this kid says, "what are you doing for the 4th of July?" and I, being me, say "celebrating our nation's independence from the yoke of British monarchy, how about you?" and this sends him into a fit of giggles. He then told me a story about how his neighbors across the street are British, and didn't know what the deal was with the 4th being a holiday. I was skeptical. Surely if you are in the USA, and you are British, you are clear on the fact that the USA (U-S-A! U-S-A!) has this deal about being ex-British. I mean, maybe you don't know that it falls on the 4th of July, but you probably know that we have, as a country, sort of got this vested and adamant interest in being independent, and that we generally take any opportunity at all to deck ourselves out in red, white and blue, and eat high-fat meats cooked over charcoal. Anyhow.<br /><br />The kid said his neighbors didn't see what the deal was. I suggested that maybe they were, as the British say, "having him on." I then proposed that if said British expats have a swimming pool, he and his friends go chuck a couple of boxes of teabags into it. Down with the King! Down with the tea tax! And the Stamp Tax! Whoo! Stupid Redcoats! Yankees rule, Tories drool! Kid looked confused. Oh, well. <br /><br />Stay safe. Don't stick sparklers in the ground and go running around barefoot. Remember: a significant number of maimings occur following the utterance of the following sentence: "Hey, watch this." A significant number of amputations tend to follow the addendum of "Hang on...hold my beer."the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-18979826491666454652008-07-03T13:37:00.002-05:002008-07-03T13:52:04.842-05:00home again, againOkay, so remember how I wasn't home because I went to Louisville? Well, then I was not home because of a burst pipe. Kelly and I are now back in Perry after 6 fun-filled nights and 5 sun-drenched days in glamourous, exotic Topeka. (Thanks, Corcorans! Y'all are aces! Thanks for the bed and the breakfasts!) Things we learned:<br /><br />1) gas is more expensive in Topeka<br />2) our commuting from Topeka to Lawrence on a regular basis would not be in anyone's best interest<br />3) you can turn off the water to your house with one of those vise-grip wrenches<br />4) ...but it is easier with the grabby iron pole thing that the water department uses<br />5) our cordless phones can serve as walkie-talkies<br />6) mysteriously, we had a pipe extend underneath and past the house that went to absolutely nowhere. I am considering displaying it as art, calling it "The Ted Stevens Memorial Water Pipe to Nowhere." (this funny, really -- google "Ketchikan Alaska" or possibly "Gravina Island Bridge" and see whatcha get)<br />7) it is apparently unwise to join copper pipe to steel pipe<br />8) those tall weedy things that you kind of sometimes just let grow near the perimeter of the house because, heck, they're not bothering anything? Cut 'em down. Seriously, no, cut them down now. <br /><br />But anyway, now we're home again. Again. Stop by, swap howdies. Have a glass of water, now that it's running again and is not the color of blood. * <br /><br /><br />* water not the color of blood is a potentially limited-time offer, based on outward worldwide apocalyptic indications. Requests for water not the color of blood after postmillennial or amillennial dispensation may not be honored by the management due to availability constraints. Colorless water availability improves in absence of locusts, hail, leprosy, Wormwood, celestial trumpet soundings, bowls being poured out upon the seas, and reconstructions of the Temple of Solomon. Tax, title and destination fee may apply.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617646341992184593.post-47839018839110627082008-06-17T11:58:00.002-05:002008-06-17T12:15:10.497-05:00home again home again jiggity-jigHowdy -- for those to whom it seemed like I vanished from the earth, that is not what happened. I went (on the spur-of-the-moment) to Louisville to see my family. So, that being said, I did not<br />-- get trapped underneath a collapsed pile of records<br />-- go see Lawrence of Arabia on a big screen for 72 hours straight<br />-- perish of langours<br />-- lock myself in a room to read all of the books in the "Twilight" saga<br />-- lock myself in a room to read all of the works of Epictetus<br />-- go on an all-5-season Wire-watching jag<br />-- finish my book<br />-- edit my book<br />-- make more notecards for organizing my book<br />-- clean my house<br />-- walk my dogs<br />-- whip up a Tournedos Rossini, accompanied by Pommes de Terre dauphinoise, with Souffle Rothschild for dessert<br /><br />That being said, I'm back from Louisville, we did not blow away in a storm, and I am no further along with anything than I was when I left. :-( More soon.the designated knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13587192044297208064noreply@blogger.com0