the thing itself and not the myth

First off, I’m getting ready to purge my friends list at Livejournal, and the last information gathering stage on that is this blog. If anyone reads this via a feedreader or bookmark or something else that is NOT Livejournal’s syndication feature, *and* has never commented here, please comment on this entry or email me at not the myth at gmail dot com (no spaces, etc.) You can go back to lurking, I promise. I just want to know who’s here.

Now, on to the business of blog. This weekend I took a much-needed trip out of the country …more or less. (I just went to Abbotsford, and from there you can practically spit and hit the States.) There are pictures, and, as always, click through to Flickr to embiggen.

The drive up on Friday was slow but pretty…

…and there was the reward of poutine at the end.

I had gone up for my friend’s birthday. Here she is introducing Harry Potter (by way of book 7 on CD) to her dog:

I gave her a Slytherin scarf. God willing I will never have to knit one of those things again. (This was my third.)

Sunday we went to sushi. Mine came on a bridge.

It was also exceedingly tasty, especially since they were kind enough to make it ‘nude’, that is, without seaweed, to which I am allergic. Basically, I go up to Canada to eat. I also may have bought some chocolate, but only enough to get me through til I go up again at Thanksgiving.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Spring Awakening & The Secret Garden lately. I think it’s out of winter denial. Last year when I went up for Thanksgiving it snowed, which is fine by me. I’d rather deal with snow than endless drizzle.

Oh, the perils of the Pacific Northwest!

This week I was okayed to add Ravelry progress bars to my sidebar. It has wee thumbnails of everything I’m actively working on — super cool! Ravelry’s not open to the public yet, but if you’re on it you can click through to project pages. It is pretty awesome.

I do need to go in and change the status on the Samus cardigan, though, because I have FINISHED THE KNITTING. Oh yes. There is still a lot of finishing work to do, but the knitting! It is done done done!

Now I’m carrying around socks (Cabletini & Jaywalker) until I get reorganized on my big crochet project. Also, I need to do some math so I can order yarn for NaKniSweMo. I am thinking of doing Alice, though not in those colors. For Ravelers, I am really in love with the colorway of the featured photo on the project page. And I like how another knitter reversed the wristbands, doing the detail in the secondary color.

It calls for Knitpicks Merino Style, but the Ravelers are complaining about it pilling, and so I am considering Swish, which sounds like it wears better, especially if washed inside-out. I’m thinking I will wind up copying that colorway — Moss as the main color and Nutmeg as the secondary. I considered Storm, but I’m trying to not buy everything blue. I’d like Cinnamon if it had more red in it. Maple Leaf is too orange, Terracotta too pink, and Hollyberry too the color I just did Samus in. I hate to be a copycat, but seriously. Moss & Nutmeg came out *gorgeous* together.

…now I have bored all non-knitters to death. Sorry! Here are three pictures-of-the-day, all from around Capitol Hill.

On the sidewalk on the corner of Roy & Belmont. Taken with my phone:

There are a few of these around the neighborhood. This one’s on the side of the trash can at the Bellevue & Republican bus stop:

Finally, it’s definitely autumn.

Autumn’s my favorite season, but every year the threat of winter gets worse. Wah.

Thursday afternoon I went to the Lake City Farmers Market to take pictures of the Zucchini Races. Our office generally has a table promoting the Center & literacy projects at the market, but Thursday there was no time for reading, only time for zucchini.

Making cars:

On your mark, get set, go!

The Family Center is the clear winner, creaming the Farmer’s Market!

Friday after work I went up to Third Place Books to see the Yarn Harlot. Because she is awesome. I got there a little (okay, a lot) early, on purpose. They have a nice little commons there with free wifi and a few restaurants. I hung out and knitted and watched some TV on the laptop, as all the knitters filtered in.

The Harlot is always funny, of course, but I tend to find her pretty empowering as well. I’m really a star at demeaning my own work, and she puts forth a pretty strong argument against that.

Speaking of my own work, I made it to the armholes on Samus last night. Here’s a shot from Saturday night:

And the other productive thing I did this weekend:

The package calls these “Danishes”, which is generous. If you take them as Danishes you’re in for disappointment, but if you call them scones they’re downright tasty. Oh, gluten free. It can be tough.

(Hey! Ben Lee has a new album coming out tomorrow! Score.)

The prompt for the everyday photo community this week is to take a photo of a photo. A lot of people are taking shots of things framed in their homes & offices… but I don’t have anything like that. I am unsure what that says about me. I have a few albums my mom put together for me, though, so I went through them last night. In a lot of ways it was a thoroughly depressing experience; especially in the older shots of me, I was so clearly unhappy. Some of the tiny shots are cute, though.

Me and my little brother, October 1979. He would be a few weeks old here, and I would be coming up on two years in January. I think this is a fairly typical shot: he is screaming his head off and I am very much “GET THIS THING AWAY FROM ME.”

More after the jump…

(more…)

I never write about September 11th. I didn’t write about Katrina either. When it happened, Katrina, I didn’t write, and I was scolded for this, indirectly. Just because I don’t write about something does not mean that I don’t care. Sometimes, oftentimes, it means I care too much.

There’s something about this year, though. Maybe because we’ve wound our way back to Tuesday. I don’t know.

I never listen to the radio in the morning, and in 2001 I was still on dial-up on a slow computer, so I never signed on before I went in to work. In Seattle, commuters are silent on the bus. I must not have stopped for coffee. I usually waited til break then, because I knew they’d save a strawberry jam scone for me anyway, and I didn’t want to be late. I got on the elevator, and a girl who worked on my floor, a girl I didn’t like, a girl who always had to be the first to know everything, said something about New York. And I was like… whatever. Everything she said was in one ear and out the other.

I don’t remember how I found out what it meant. I remember being glued to Fruhead.com. I remember Josh setting up an alternate site for people to check in. I remember how everyone was scared, all over the country, how we couldn’t get enough information, how CNN had set up the most bare bones HTML site *ever*. In my memory it is only one page. There was no other news.

My office wouldn’t let us go home. We were in a key point of the payroll cycle. I don’t know how they expected us to work. I certainly didn’t. I was online, on email, on the Wall, waiting to hear about everyone we cared about. When I finally remembered I should be hungry, all the restaurants were closed. When 4:30 finally came, downtown was virtually empty. I went home. I watched television. I tried *not* to watch television. I listened to NPR. I hoped to God or whoever that it was *not* al-Qaeda. I remembered Oklahoma City and a white boy filled with hate and I knew not all terrorists were brown. I wished other people would remember this too.

I don’t write about it because I wasn’t there. I was about as far from New York as you can be and still be in the same country, and I know the things you’re not allowed to feel if you weren’t in New York. I wasn’t there. I didn’t lose anyone close to me. But I was scared, and hurt, and touched. And I remember.

On my first bus this morning I listened to the Maggies (which is basically aural sunshine), at Monorail it was Rap Thursday (the extended mix, apparently, since today is Friday so far as I know), and then on the second bus I switched to the Decemberists (hurrah for death and the sea!).

Then when I got into work, I had a whole thread of email discussing my upcoming trip to England. SO EXCITED. We bought plane tickets yesterday, and today’s chat was about going up to Scotland on the train, which sounds so awesome I can hardly stand it. Is it January yet? No? How about now?

Well, okay then. Here, have a few pictures after the jump.

(more…)

First off, I finished the body cable for the Samus cardigan yesterday, which means that as soon as I pick up a mile-long circular I can do the body itself. Which should fly, as it’s miles of stockinette. I can watch subtitled movies while I do it!

Also, the loot I got at Bumbershoot: a journal from Ex Libris Anonymous & a fork ring from the Spoonman.

I only went to the festival on Saturday, but I reckon I got my $25 out of it. A handful of pictures after the jump.

(more…)

This morning has been so exciting already! At my coffee shop, they draw once a month for free coffee cards, and I got to do the drawing today! And then at the bus stop, there was a fight! Just a little fight — lots of posturing, a few punches, and one dude falling down. And then a lot more posturing. And then one dude got on the bus. How anticlimactic.

Here, have some pictures!

The everyday photos community prompt this week is books. Most of mine are still in Spokane, so I took a shot of my current stack of library books. The top one is a week overdue. Oops. And before you ask, it’s the only one I’ve read so far (except for Charmed Knits, which I have already bought my own copy of, so I guess I should return that one.)

Last night I made progress on crafts. From this weekend, the base of the Reduction Tote:

As of last night I finished the bag itself and the top edging, so now I have the straps and the pocket left to do. I was too tired to make sense of the pocket instructions, so I finished off this terribly nerdy project:

Yes. An iPod case embroidered to resembled the Tardis. I blame the fact that I couldn’t use my computer on Sunday. It warped my brain. I *am* ridiculously pleased with it, though.

Tonight I am going to try to go to Shaun of the Dead at Rainier Square. (It’s a crazy building — one of my college professors described it as an architect’s pencil stabbed in the heart of downtown Seattle.) I would invite y’all to join me, but I don’t think anyone who reads this is local.

Yesterday I signed up for Facebook and spent too much money on tshirts. I am not taking responsibility for either of those things. Threadless is having one of their $10 sales. I picked up The Sound of Silents, The Young Explorers Society, and My Father Was A Sailor (hey, I need *something* to wear to that two-night Decemberists gig this winter.) This morning I got up to an email that they had already shipped. Now that’s service!

I also renewed my cell phone contract and hit the Apple store for a new adapter. Productive! Today I get my veggies & I need (yes, need!) to pick up “Heroes” on DVD. I was torn between editions, so I am going to let what’s actually in stock make my decision for me. I KNOW YOU ARE ALL FASCINATED. I really should stop buying DVDs. (Yeah, right.)

Later this week I plan to go to a rooftop showing of Shaun of the Dead & a series of short films. And maybe finish one of the bazillion craft projects I started this weekend. The pillows need one more form and a bunch of buttons, the tote needs edging, handles, and a pocket, and the iPod case needs more embroidery. And then there will be pictures. I know you can’t wait.

In other news, your bit of adorable for today: Neil Gaiman with a panda. Awww.

Now I am going to go back to obsessing over shelving options for my apartment. Ikea, I love you. I’m not gonna lie. But I wish your delivery charges were not more than the shelves I want.

ETA Gloss! Wordpress thought you were spam and I totally didn’t see until today! We are all good now, though.

More photos-of-the-day, click through to Flickr for larger sizes.

From the Egyptian theater. The Mel Brooks Joint in question is Young Frankenstein, probably because they’re premiering the musical just down the hill. (Which my oldest friend & I went to last night, by the way. It is good fun.)

(We all get why this is funny, right? Please?)

On the way home many days I go through an underpass in the U-district, which has been painted with an amazing mural. I took this shot out of the (moving) bus window. Nifty!

And a shot I took for a new community this morning. It’s focused on everyday photos, and the prompt for this week is “favourite thing on the way to work.” This, hands down, is mine:

Monorail Espresso! Where I get my coffee every morning. It is basically the best thing ever. I took this shot from line this morning, and the baristas were like “What are you *doing*?” This!