I'm giving up an indierock forum for Lent this year (or maybe forever, who can tell?) My problem is that Mason & I are passionate about music in which none of our friends are interested. So when I look for a peer group, I have to take what's available. It's…not been a positive experience. There are some nice, funny, smart people but it's the Internet. You know what that means.

This week we've been squabbling over the press release for the new BSS album, specifically whether or not Lisa Lobsinger "deserves" to be on it. There's been a lot of Caps Lock and insults and patronizing in the space of arguing, and I figure I'm through before I get really mad. We've been given this wonderful art, and all we can do is squabble over it. It's a feast of infinite variety, and I don't want to be in the position of defending the cook's choice to serve lamb rather than veal. Can't we just go back to feeling superior to everyone else rather than each other?

I mean, I'm starting to resent Emily Haines, simply because my antagonists worship her, and I don't want to be maneuvered into that space. "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans."

Speaking of peer groups…

Friday was not only the opening of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, it was also the Return of The Knitting Olympics! Four years ago, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee had a dream. It was a dream of excellence. It was a dream of community. It was a dream of going full-out and committing ourselves to a massive undertaking that most people would not recognize, understand or care about.

And, like many improbable ideas hatched in that marvelous head, it caught on. I was not a part of the first KO, though I watched it from afar. When the first one convened, I was barely a year into the craft. I had never been at a knitting circle, let alone a pub full of nutty crafters. I was pretty sure that Stephanie was far too famous and talented to really want to include everyone in the call. So I watched. It wasn't until the month after, when a regular pub night had been established, that I jumped in and never looked back.

This Friday, then, was not only the return of the Knitting Olympics, it was several people's anniversary. And it was the actual Olympics, so there was a lot of energy bouncing around. I have never had so much fun watching a sporting event, and it had nothing to do with the one beer I allowed myself. We stood for the anthem, but did not put down the needles. We heckled Bryan Adams and Wayne Gretzky mercilessly. We cheered for countries we liked, and sometimes at random because we liked their outfits. We were overwhelmed by the beauty of kd lang singing Leonard Cohen. And we howled with derision as the cauldron lighting turned into an epic fail.

The only thing missing was a t-shirt. I want a t-shirt, organizers. Don't make me ruin an undershirt with a laundry marker.

And my final note on peer groups: I seem to have become a Nerdfighter, or rather, I finally have a name for what I've been all along.

Labels: drunken knitters, knit, music

I showed this to my class on Friday, and I heard a voice pipe up, "ooh! xkcd! I love that strip!"

To which I, of course responded, "you're such a nerd. [pause] Have you seen the video?"

I'm pretty sure that I'm using the wrong needles for my Knitting Olympics event. Yeah. This realization comes after 1. realizing that I needed to learn a new and complicated cast-on, and deciding to go with the old standard cable CO instead, and 2. realizing that I had the wrong size needles for the cuff and 3. realizing that crowdsourcing the colour combo gave me the wrong one, and then ripping back 4 rows.

I feel like I showed up at the arena during the ice dancing event with my skates over my shoulder, and saying "yeah, I can probably do that. I can skate."

Is it worth it to rip back? Let's see how well the second one turns out. I figure I can compete and fail. Thousands do.

"What time is it? It's Valentimes!" – tgs

Today was pretty low-key, what with the small people and the church and all. Mason made a wonderful dinner for the four of us, which we ate in candle-lit style. I finished two Vamlumtines project (one for Blake, one for Mason) and continued to move stuff around to accommodate what started as a simple time- and money-saving project (i.e. let's get a unique space for Sage so we don't have to haul a playpen up the stairs every weekend he sleeps over, and let's move the 6 items out of the storage locker) and has turned into a massive re-organization of my house. Office furniture has migrated downwards, while couches have migrated upwards. Hand-me-down furniture has gone on to the next kharmic cycle at the Goodwill, there to be some one else's (literal) pain in the ass. Bookshelves are waiting to receive the crated treasures of the crawlspace. Blake's drumset is continually on the move.

The current state of affairs is baskets of office supplies everywhere, interspersed with extra furniture. One day I will reclaim my dining room, which currently holds all of my massive circa 1970's dining set and an 8 foot couch. But today I just concentrated on the love.*

* And on reducing the yelping and screaming with joy. Two small boys + extra couch = shenanigans.

Labels: blake, comics, drunken knitters, house rich, knit, mason

Taking advantage of a short breather to write. I am insanely busy for someone who's not supposed to be working. Although I can't afford to pay my brother for daily workouts, I'm still seeing him about once a week and I'm starting to use my new gym membership. Mason & I have developed a passionate dislike of one of the fitness teachers, which always adds interest and excitement. I need that; working out with my brother is not only good for me, it's so much fun. He pushes me like crazy, and he makes me laugh while I'm trying to do one of his insane sets. He brought my plank up to a full minute in a week, which is just ridiculous. And he doesn't smell as much as his room would suggest. I highly recommend his services.

Wednesday was particularly busy. In the morning we joined a fitness class (see above, re: dislike) and in the evening I went to my first troupe practice in months. Since it was just Jessamyn & myself, we did a couple verses, ate dinner & then I took a bunch of pictures of the jewelry she's selling on Saturday. This would have been enough for me on a normal day, but since I've been full of summery ants in my pants, Mason & I decided to go out to see the Zeus show. I took my camera this time, and I have many lovely shots in that buttery Dakota light that makes everything look both cozy & epic at the same time. We had to leave early, which is probably just as well, since I managed to avoid the tinnitus this week.

write this down: z.e.u.s. zeus, bitches.

Yesterday I worked on recovering from the stupid exercise class of Wednesday and assembling my submission package for the Sock Museum. It's a little obsessive; I included 28 pictures, and that's after culling. Amy promised to take them with her to the Summit, so I said I'd meet her at the Purple Purl for what I thought was knit night. Well. Need I say that Mason & I stumbled into a yarn tasting? There were last minute cancellations, so we were able to stay the night. It was Mason's first tasting, and the lucky guy walked away with a skein of handpainted 80/20 baby suri alpaca/silk. I was no less blessed, as I managed to win a skein of new sock yarn that will be perfect for at least one of the baby berets I need to make this summer.

Honestly. I went there so that a knitting teacher could do me a big favour and deliver my socks personally, and I planned to buy the yarn for at least three projects. I walked into a sampling night with complimentary shortbread and a lovely discount for participants, during which I won yarn. Have I mentioned that the socks I delivered were knit from a donated pattern, from top-shelf yarn at a deep discount? My knitting life is so extraordinarily blessed that I can barely believe it. It's so very past time for a karma-balancing donation to KWB.

I spent almost three hours sorting through picture files this morning, and I'm still not anywhere close to completed. Here are some photos of the summer so far:

Labels: health, knit, music, outings, photos

Who would have thought that it would be harder to find writing time during summer vacation than when I was immersed in my job? It's a curious fact about teachers that we save up our tasks for what others consider our abundant leisure, storing jobs to last us through the slack time. Truth is, I've been busier in the last two weeks than I ever am at work. I work all day now, from the time I get up until I drop, exhausted & sore, into bed. I don't take my evenings off like I used with school on. The only difference is that if I want to spend the day in my cut offs, or if I want to spend a scant few minutes on knitting, I can. I'm happier.

I'm also much more sore. I've been struggling with my weight this year, and it got a lot worse this spring. I investigated the summer boot camp classes, figuring I could use the time off to reinvent myself (c. Burn After Reading), but they're all booked. I suppose I'm not the first teacher to have this idea. During our Canada Day bbq of the last entry, I looked at my brother, newly returned from tree planting in BC.

"Hey Nic. You're a personal trainer. Want to do a boot camp with me next week?"

"Sure. Fifty bones an hour."

Eep. There was some bargaining, some mention of the truck I rented on his behalf Easter Monday and the rental fee owed. The family card was played. I got him down to a hundred bucks for the week, and forgiveness of the U-Haul debt. Sweet. I wasn't sure that it would work, and there's something creepy about employing my brother as my trainer, but it's the cheapest option going while I'm between gyms.

I flaked out on Monday's session, as a visit to Palaver in the hospital entailed a 45 minute wait before we could bust him off the floor. (It was a wait both boring and funny: Schereazade, Mason & I played six games of Connect Four, we experimented with a Battleship game that was missing an astounding number of pieces, and we were in the middle of an inept dominoes tourney when Palaver was given permission to leave. Also, Scherezade & I were hit on by another patient. Good times.) Tuesday was my first session at O Brother, Where Art Thou Boot Camp.

It. Hurt.

It hurt to do, and it hurt to recover. My brother believes in old school Russian style exercises that use free weights to purge the decadence. The two things working in my favour are I enjoy spending time in my backyard, and I've been cleaning my house for three days in preparation for tonight* and thus I haven't had time to sit down and seize up. Yesterday hurt less, but it was more extreme and I sweat more. Today I got a reprieve when Nic called in sick. I sort of miss the endorphins.

Blake has been spending the week at the Humber Arboretum, a nature camp both my brother and I attended when we were the age for day camp. It's a pretty fantastic place to go, learn about Nature, sing songs, water fight and get incredibly, spectacularly dirty. Blake is already giving me the guilt trip about not having him in for longer than a week. I'm pretty sure that he likes camp better than school, and I can't say I blame him. It looks so fun from the outside that I'm wondering if I should exploit my Dorian Grey-like appearance of youth and sign up to be a teenaged camp counselor. I'm pretty sure that my cynicism will lead to my unmasking, but it will be a good ride while it lasts.

My brother also has positive memories of the place. We took him with us yesterday to pick up Blake, and the two of them ended up jogging through the woods like a couple of size-mismatched dogs while Mason & I picked our way gingerly through the paths, cursing our impractical/disintegrating footware. Those two dogs have a ridiculous amount of fun together.

And Blake has never been so happy, so tired, or returned to me so filthy, in his life. Yesterday his shirt, a casualty of raspberry snacks, looked eerily like the t-shirt his Uncle Nic wore to the GWAR show in the early nineties. Gross and triumphant, all at the same time.

Speaking of ridiculous amounts of fun, I started my Sock Museum contribution yesterday after picking up the pattern and yarn from Lettuce Knit. Ususally 2x2 ribbing rots my nuts after awhile, but this yarn (Socks that Rock, Treehugger) is so beautiful that I'm kept happy by the colour changes. That, and I don't get a lot of time to sit down with it, so it's always fresh to me. Can I finish two socks in two weeks? Maybe. I choose not to do the math to find out what I have to accomplish each day. Instead, I'm just giving'r. Zimmerman would be proud.

* Tonight I will be billeting high school students from Texas, who are coming to my church to perform Godspell. I figure that with my spare bed and working familiarity with today's modern teenager, I would have been a cad not to volunteer. This is why I've been cleaning the house for days, doing the deep down scrubbing that I've been avoiding since the change of the year. My house is/was messy. And now it's less so.

Labels: blake, church, family, health, house rich, knit

Today dawned so sunny & lovely that I was sorely tempted to skip work and spent the day taking pictures. I didn't. But I really really wanted to.

I've finally come back up to speed on the crafting I dropped this spring. I was so deep in a hole from February onward that I not only didn't craft, I didn't want to. Yarn hung around patiently, waiting for me to notice. I left all of my unfinished objects alone, deciding to focus on anything but the sense of guilt and obligation. I waited, too.

Last week I started knitting again. This weekend, I almost ran out of projects. Truly, I am back.

Labels: knit, photos

Since we're off-site today, I've decided to knit. And, of course, as soon as I decide to buck the system, I run out of knitting. That's the problem with a scarf that's been on the go forever: you stop believing that you'll finish it. Starting to wonder if I have time to go home and get more.

Labels: bat masterson, knit

Took the night off and devoted it to pizza, beer and the second half of My Own Private Idaho. In bed by 8. Still exhausted; sapped by the February blahs.

Today is my first PD day without knitting. It makes it harder that one of the facilitators saw me knitting at Hogsboro and today immediately asked me what I was working on [but much more awkward two weeks from then when the facilitator was the Boy's mother and asked me the same question – far-seeing ed.] Waaah.

I feel a bit like a recovering addict, in that I suddenly need to reframe my entire professional life. Trying to remember how this used to work, this whole not-filling-my-hands-with-yarn. How I used to work. My uncle had to give up coffee to give up smoking for real. Maybe I just need to give up teaching.

I've wondered why I'm bothering to comply. Surely the punk rock part of my personality will kick in at any minute, and I'll be using my dpns to flip the bird.

Part of it may be just a mild Stockholm Syndrome, a desire for my new overlords to praise me (or at least not punish me anymore). But I think it's more likely that my masochistic streak has been uncovered by their drilling. I tend to think of myself as soft, decadent, luxury-loving and generally corrupted by bourgeois comforts. This self-contempt makes me take risks: hike Cape Split, take a bellydance class, join strangers in a downtown bar for a knitting circle, carrying my baby and my groceries home slung about my person, and so forth. Part of me is curious to plumb the depths of my fixation on knitting. I want to find the limits of my desire, if they can be found. Much like a voluntary fast, I'm hoping that the suffering will be instructive.

But I'll still keep a close eye on the job postings. I may know myself to be a bottom, but I also know that eventually I'll need a safe word and my new overlords are unlikely to heed it.

Also, She Who Must Be Obeyed may think that continual writing is less rude than knitting, but I have to assume that when I'm writing during a conversation that clearly doesn't call for note-taking, that I'm giving the impression writing down what people are saying. Yeah. That's not weird or impolite at all.

Labels: angst, bat masterson, knit

In the ranking of the schools where I have worked (all two of them) Bat Masterson has officially left the Shangri-la category. Today I was called down to the office after class. As I walked down the steps, I readied my opening line. Look, I don't know what that student told you, but it was consensual.

Heh. No, I kid. Opening with an inappropriate joke about pederasty in a school office is about as inflammatory as joshing about bombs to airport security. It may be funny in my head, but I'm still going to get tackled. So there was no opener, just a look of polite interest.

The problem: me, knitting. The (new world) order: no more knitting in meetings or (gulp) the classroom. Even Goneril, my previous principal, never thought to prohibit knitting in the classroom. And, unless I want another after-school meeting (and I don't), I suppose I should assume that I'm not to knit on my supervisions anymore.

Caf duty with no knitting. Can my irritability be contained? I think someone's gonna get suspended.

The bright side is that I've been told to substitute with writing. This may increase my journaling frequency, but at the cost of all y'all having to read a lot of ill-tempered rants and sniveling pleas for just one more row. That, or I'm going to be hiding in the bathroom with a secret stash more often than I'm seen in public.

Fabulous class last night. Valizan worked us until my arms screamed for mercy, and I had a maniacal grin on my face the whole time. This is the first exercise class in my entire life in which the ending came as a surprise. I'm a classic clock-watcher, and the order to turn in our tassel belts came through as noise at first. What? Aren't we going to dance some more?

I love this. I LOVE this. I LOVE this.

Too bad I can't knit and dance.

Labels: bat masterson, dancing, knit

I have just taken my once-yearly tour of all things Blogger and I am very excited about the idea that I can consolodate my knitting blog into this one. What's that? You've never seen my knitting blog? Well...I don't really care. It's not a good blog as these things go. It's a project journal more than anything else, and my last entry is from March Break. Now that Ravelry has come into my life, all of the detailed scrapbooking I felt compelled to do fits neatly into their searchable database. I may even move my projects over, as I'm doing with this. Or, not. So, you won't notice anything much on this end, unless you're seriously into my archives or you're a knitting person who's come here out of desperation and wants to know where the other blog went.

The other thing I want to do is add a Twitter feed, which is a new thing I started to do because of Ravelry (of course). I can be a sheep, but it usually takes me a year or two to pull my head up and figure out where the rest of the herd has wandered off to. And in this case, the sheep wants to tweet.

Heading into my last full week of the first semester. This year has gone the fastest I can remember. St. Stephen used to say something about how time goes faster the older we get because of its relation to our total age. All I know is that it's never been this easy to get through a season. I think that being busy every night of the week helps. Tonight is the first American Tribal Style class - it's expensive and far, but I'm doing it with Jessamyn & Juuki and we're pumped. I expect to be bewildered, sore and exhausted when I get home tonight. Here's hoping.

Also, knitting like mad. I haven't really slowed down since Christmas deadline, and since I'm gearing up for my yearly finish-athon, I'm not trying to slow down. I don't get to start anything in February until I clear out my old projects, so I might as well rip through as many hats as possible in the meantime.

Labels: bat masterson, dancing, knit, on-line diaries

I've been reaping the benefits of friendship this week. On the Saturday between Christmas and New Year (a.k.a. during The Good Week of my Holidays) Zub & Stacy held a Media Purge party. Stacy has always been extraordinarily generous with her stuff, and purges her collections regularly for her overall sanity. This time, they held a party with an open invitation to add stuff to the pile and to compete with peers for hot items. I brought Mason and had a brilliant time - I must admit, I enjoyed the competition more than the items - and I scored a tonne of stuff for my classroom.

When I got my first job at Hogsboro High, I would take anything people gave me: travel photography, dusty compendiums of Irish mythology, "Orlando Futuroso." Having seen how well those books connect to my students, I have thrown a lot of ballast overboard in the change from one school to another. Now when I browse the perpetual church booksale, I look for books that someone may actually want to read. This means that I sometimes walk in with "The Fountainhead" and "Shopaholic Takes Manhatten," but both of those books move.

I've been bringing in the Purged books this week, as many as I can comfortably carry at a time. Every day I announce the new arrivals to excited faces. No, really, there are at least two classes who are excited. Yesterday was "The Scarlet Letter" and "Song of Solomon," and the students getting irate about the way Hester was treated. Today is three Sandman collections, two dictionaries, "Sense and Sensibility," two YA fantasy novels and an uncorrected proof of "Castle Waiting." It was a sweet day.

What has fallen by the wayside? The Lawyer's baby, definitely, my grandmother's stroke and the Last Night at Savage Garden. Baby first.

On Friday we went downtown for a doctor's appointment, meaning that I got to kill time in Lettuce Knit with Blake. (Oh, the hardship!!) There's a new bakery in Kensington Market, and they sell brie sandwiches. This is a big deal for me; I haven't had a good brie sandwich since the Netherlands. So I ate and chatted with Alexis and tried to convince Blake to come in from outside (he was waiting for Mason, who had promised to bring him a smoothie). And I bought expensive yarn and buttons, because with a car in the shop I certainly have extra cash for expensive alpaca. (Needs head examined.) Made a nice hat for Blake, though.

We were almost an hour late to see the new baby, which didn't prove to be a problem. They're in a new family holding pattern, which means a lot of sitting on the couch. Leo (the baby) is smaller than Blake ever was, and I wanted to keep him. I fell hard. There's not much else to say, except that the Lawyer's appreciation for the cardigan I knit Leo more than made up for my dad's churlishness on Christmas. And also, that I'm so happy for all three of them. They're a gorgeous family.

After baby bliss, Mason dropped Blake & I at my grandparents' house so that my dad could drive us to see my Grandmother. In brief: she is/was a heavy smoker who wasn't taking her blood pressure medication. She appears to have had two strokes in short order. She's reasonably responsive and mobile on both sides of her face. She's speaking very rarely. She yawns a lot, and looks a lot like a newborn herself. When I'm there, I help my mom change her diaper which is kind of awful but I'm always glad that I helped when it's done. For the first few days I was subject to guilt-induced panic attacks that included psychosomatic diaper smells (see yesterday's entry), but they seem to have passed. Most of the guilt seems to be over, now that I did the speech. That was one of the hardest things I've ever done. And it didn't get any easier as it went; it got harder. But I'm glad to be facing up to my feelings instead of wallpapering over them.

Labels: bat masterson, books, family, friends, knit, outings

Closer and closer to my public dancing debut. Last night Jessamyn and Keeral came over for a drill session that became an impromptu henna party. I can't get over how profoundly my social life has changed since I started taking belly dance lessons. When I moved to Brampton shortly before Blake was born, I was more or less content with the assumption that I would never have any local friends to match my Toronto pals. Or, any at all. And now, 5 years on, I have local friends, local activities and even local parties. The only thing I lack is a local boyfriend, but I'd rather have a commuting Mason than no Mason.

We had our dress rehersal last Saturday, and I felt the magic of costuming for the first time. I had no idea what a profound difference it would make to run through the choreography in full shimmying, sparkling glory. Juuki was overwhelmed with pride in her girls. I was pretty pleased myself. Since last week's practice was punctuated by long bouts of crouching on the floor, coughing helplessly, this couldn't help but be an improvement.

Yesterday was Blake's fifth birthday blow-out. For obvious reasons, I took a year off from the party thing, but somehow I managed to make the house look great without filling it with people. My secret is dollar store streamers in orange and hot pink, and helium balloon bouquets left-over from the semi-formal I supervised on Friday (tarted up with Buzz Lightyear stickers from last year's birthday). Total expenditures: $2. This is so typical of me; if I pour tonnes of money and effort into something, results are decent but if I slap a bunch of dispirate elements together, I somehow make something amazing.

Blake was spinning with glee all day long. (His first question when I picked him up from Casa Nova in the morning was, "Daddy gave me Iron Man; what did you get me for my birthday?"*) My parents showered him with Backyardigan merch, Uncle Nic bought him his first drumset and promised to give him lessons, I made him an Arthur Mothman doll...he even got a small box of chocolates from Jessamyn. Dinner was ham, scalloped potatoes, peas and coleslaw. My mom made the Iron Man cake of his dreams; he was served the head at his request and I let him eat it any way he wanted. He got to stay up late with the ladies and sing snippets of lusty pirate songs. It was pretty much the perfect day.

just in case you forgot what he looks like.

I even got a present: there was a fair chance that Mason would have to stay in the hospital after his doctor's appointment yesterday, and he didn't have to after all. So my gift was not loading a sleepy and sugar-crazed Blake into his carseat for an evening in the ward. Not that I wouldn't have done it if he'd called, but it's nice not to have to add a depressing asterisk to this year's birthday celebration.

The only downside for me was that I was up till forever o'clock finishing Arthur - it took me a full half-hour to realize that the wings weren't going to work - and I was pretty tired. It was a weird kind of tired, though; I didn't feel tired but my patience was at absolute rock-bottom. I snapped at more than a few kids with very little provocation. I called it my rage-bubble. I'm just glad I didn't do it to my classes.

Tonight I'm hiding out from the oppressive sleet and trying to finish my choli. I had an appointment to eat food for money, but when I arrived I discovered that they were overbooked. Easiest $15 I ever made, and it's nice to be back in my found money/yarn money loop. If only I could let myself knit something that wasn't a gift and required foolish squandering. I'm sure I'll find some reason to blow it.

* "A pancake," I responded. "I hope you didn't get one already."

Labels: blake, dancing, friends, home town, knit, mason

I had an extraordinarily satisfying dream last night. I don't usually like my dreams; they're not nightmares but they seem filled with the sort of low-grade anxiety and general confusion I have in my waking life (albeit with more bizarre ingredients). I usually wake up feeling cheated: it's my chance to change everything so why can't I be dating Stephen Fry? Or fly around as a bumblebee?

Last night I was on a subway car with a large group of young cool knitters. There were heaps of cool club clothes and incomplete projects all around the car, making me feel at home right away. I complained about this year's winner of the Polaris Prize and they all agreed. I found some cool unfinished objects I didn't remember starting. There were cute guys flirting with me. It was pretty wonderful.

Of course, upon waking I realized that once again, this dream wasn't anything to brag about. Sure, I woke up happy, but how could I explain it to muggles?

So I'm telling you.

Labels: dreams, knit

Things I Should Be Doing this Weekend:

1. marking the work that was handed in three weeks ago
2. cleaning the frying pan. I made those eggs on Thursday.
3. marking the crummy Catcher in the Rye essays that have been trickling in all week
4. putting away all of the yarn that has migrated to the main floor
5. folding and putting away the laundry that's been lying in the basement hallway since...God, I don't know.
6. going to see Pixie & Kelpie at the bike courier races, so I can give her her birthday present
7. cleaning my toilets. Because the frying pan isn't gross enough
8. marking! Goddamn, exams start on Monday!

Things I Did Instead:

1. ordered a pizza and ate it in the backyard with Blake and without the benefits of plates or napkins
2. took Blake to visit the twins up the street for a playdate/bbq. No bbq, so we played in the back yard until Blake got into it with another kid and I dragged him away.
3. bundled my reprobate into the car seat and went downtown to Lettuce Knit for the Yarn Harlot's birthday a.k.a. Worldwide Knit in Public Day a.k.a. the Toronto branch of the 1000 Knitters Shoot. Even arriving hungry and wondering what I would do with Blake during the party couldn't dent my happy anticipation. Whee! Blake, however, was disappointed when his favourite kid Obi left with his family to go "to Space Island." "Better wear your helmet," I cautioned. Space is rough that way.
4. went to KOS for brunch and a bellini; found Jendricks, Fenner, Tapeheads and Zoe. All the mamas had booze. Blake was happy with his baconface.
5. came back to LK in time to hear Mason's Amazing True Stories of How He Learned About Lapdances to the Detriment of Sage's University Fund. Was totally charmed by his tales of drunken ineptitude, especially as he was unshaven and wearing a new snappy hat, like a character out of Small Change. Blake takes advantage of my distraction to start shovelling sweets into his mouth. Everyone thinks he is the cutest thing ever. They're right, but wait until the sugar crash, friends. It gets real ugly real fast.
6. got my photo taken by Franklin. He is awesome and I just wish I'd had more time to hang out after the shoot when he wasn't working his butt off.
7. left at around 4 o'clock: Blake sticky, Mason hungover, myself sad that I couldn't celebrate WWKiP day with more than a few seconds' knitting. I did start a new project, but I didn't even finish the cast on that day.
8. arrived at Juuki's house for the double-header birthday: her husband and the cat. As the first guests, we had the run of the place, and the adults were able to go up to the balcony while Blake and Paisley splashed around in the inflatable pool. Tranquility interrupted with the news of a missing child.
9. spent the next hour walking around with Blake (who was wearing his underwear and a pair of shoes) and looking for the lost boy. Not as much fun as I'd anticipated. Came home to find that everything was resolved. Ate a slice of meat cake (the frosting is mashed potatoes!) and drove Mason home.
10. fell asleep almost as soon as we got back to our house.
11. went to church. Dragged Blake off the refreshment table after 3 brownies too many and hauled his protesting self home.
12. drove to Mo & Brand's condo for a house-cooling party. Watched Blake run with the herd for 2 1/2 hours before scooping him up and taking him home.
13. watched Blake dump orange juice on the floor in a temper, carried him to the bath and got him to bed without further incident. He was clearly suffering from Too Many Parties.

There is no completed marking, or housework, or crafting to report. I am going into tomorrow the least prepared I have been in years. And yet, the weekend was fantastic. Wouldn't have traded it for anything. Even those sugar-fuelled temper tantrums and the anxious hour of child-searching were a decent price to pay for pizza in the backyard, bellinis with knitmommies and photos with some of my favourite craftistas.

Labels: bat masterson, festivals, friends, knit, outings

Spider Update, because I know you're keeping track of my kill-rate at home: as of last night, 55. The last one was a gift from another spider, who rushed the poor unfortunate on the ceiling, causing it to tumble down to the floor, where I stepped on it. I told Blake that it was an accident, but it wasn't an accident. At that point, watching 5 spiders on my bathroom ceiling try to figure out how best to kill each other, I would have killed them by any means necessary. I even broke my vacuum protocol and sucked up three victims yesterday, after cleaning up the baking soda on Blake's bed. Choke on pee-impregnated dust, spider bitches!

On Saturday I took Blake to Queen West for some shopping and frolicing in place of the official DKC yarn frolic. We hit Mac Fab (where he refused to get out of his stroller), Fresh Collective (where I picked up my new cupcake t-shirt and exchanged friendly greetings with the clerk, who has seen me every weekend for the past three), Magic Pony (which we had to leave, as Blake couldn't be trusted to stay out of the window display), Kol Kid (where Blake had to be coaxed out of the stroller to play with the jacks-in-the-box), Romni (where Blake refused to leave his stroller), and finally Trinity-Bellwoods Park (where Blake got sandy for the better part of an hour). I made things awkward by toting around my new gorgeous cast iron tea pot, which I needed for my first stop but which quickly became a ghastly millstone as Blake tried to escape and we wore out every welcome we were given. By the time we met Mason at La Ha for dinner, I couldn't speak without gasping and clutching at my shoulder. Since he was the one to give me the teapot, I don't suppose that I looked all that grateful. But I remain in love with it, especially now that it's safely on my bookshelf awaiting a crop of accessories. Like the rug in the Big Lebowski, it's going to tie my whole room together.

After chasing Blake around all of the tables for almost two hours, we loaded him into the car and went to Lettuce Knit for the Big Girl Knit 2 Book Launch (or, as I typed in my photo files, the "Bi Girls Knit Launch." We don't judge). I would have been there anyway, but I was extra excited because

1. my name is on the acknowledgements page
2. there were tiny cupcakes
3. I had a chance to use up the last bottle of my wedding champagne
4. I'm always proud of my knitsibs' outstanding achievements in the field of authorship
5. cupcakes? Did I mention cupcakes?
6. door-prizes! I won Soak.
7. Blake reuniting with Meghan's kids, whom he loved at Christmas
8. the chance to use the assembled knittas as models of Mason's completed wrap sweater

And that was just what I was looking forward to before I got there. Once I got there, I discovered the all-lady folk band, sushi, cool knittas previously unknown to me, and, well, everything. Mason & I took turns chasing Blake, which gave each of us a few minutes to have fun before going back to warning him away from messes and dangers. He had three cupcakes, which is one more than I did, and I suppose I should have been happy that there was no property damage, yarn damage or friendship damage thanks to my sugared-up wildling.

click through for the whole set, including everybody in the world modelling mason's completed wrap sweater

When it was finally time to go home, I said my goodbyes, took Blake's hand, and walked away from the light toward our car. It was only when we were next to the Blue Ruin that I realized I couldn't find my keys. I sat down on the dark curb and emptied out my bag to no avail. There was only one thing for it: take up Blake's hand and lead him back to the party. I could only hope that Michelle had Mason's cell number, as I figured he'd pocketed the keys when he went to the car to get the champagne. When we got back to Lettuce, we were greeted with the expected, "didn't you leave?" I asked if anyone had found keys, and was totally floored when someone described my Wolfvegas key fob. A Big Girl Knits miracle! I went home happy.

Next day I realized that sometime during that long wandery Saturday I had lost a new ball of yarn, the last one I need to finish a striped vest. I checked every place I could think of, but when I remembered the eccentric path we'd followed up and down Queen Street, I despaired of ever finding my last ball. Realizing that I had the same colourway knit up in my stash, I immediately unravelled it and soaked out the kinks, thinking that I was going to finish this damned vest one way or another. Yesterday I decided to check with Lettuce, and was rewarded beyond measure when Meghan confirmed that yes, they had my yarn. A knitter had picked it up from the sidewalk in the dark, and brought it back to the store. She was all ready to keep it, but Meghan decided to hang on to it and give it a chance to be found. So there we have the second Big Girl Knits Miracle! One more and I can break ground on the chapel.

The only other thing of note was my Church Fashion Show. It wasn't as embarassing as I'd feared (although I almost ran away when I saw that Mason had made good on his promise to capture my modeling debut). No, there will be no pictures, as even if I'd liked the way they turned out, they are far too blurry to share. You'll just have to wait for my dance troupe to start performing to see my exhibitionist side.

Labels: blake, friends, house rich, knit, outings

Spider Update: I killed two more before going to bed last night, and six more this morning (including two that tried kamakazes run on Blake in the bath and ended up floating in the water). I did battle with a further three while Blake was in the bath, but they proved wily adversaries and all three escaped. When Blake got out of the tub and flushed the spiders in the toilet, I saw three there, which is one more than I remember. So I'm going to say that my new total score is 20, with a possible but unconfirmed 21st kill. The war continues.

Apparently today was my day for being asked personal questions. Every time I tried to draw an analogy to a common experience, one kid would ask me if that happened to me. The first example was date rape, and the second was retail therapy. Gah. Like I need to experience something to know about it...although I must say that I have done a full course of retail therapy in my time. Anyone remember last spring's TTC knitalong? My credit card company sure does.

Conversation last night:

Blake: Nic has a conference.
Me: What?
B: Nic has a conference.
Me: Honey, I have no idea what you're talking about.
B: Nic has a conference. Like Daddy has a B---- Conference.*
M: Um. I think you mean girlfriend. Nic has a girlfriend.
B: Conference!
M: If you say so.
B: (jumping up and down on the couch) B---- Conference! B---- Conference!

* According to Blake, a "B---- Conference" happens on the computer, so it's either a video phone call or B---- is an AI. I'm not sure which I'd prefer.

Labels: bat masterson, house rich, knit, separation

Spring has sprung, and with it comes the arrival of Mean Girl politics. Mason's co-workers don't like the fact that he was the lucky man to volunteer for a chunk of my marking, so they have complained to him and to his department head. See, Mean Girls don't want any other girls taking advantage of their Nice Boy, because then he might not be free to do favours for them. They want him to stop being a sucker, as long as he shows the proper amount of gratitude to them by continuing to be their sucker. I'm torn between the desire to burn them to the ground and salt the earth, and the urge to sit as close to them as possible, sweetly and obliviously intruding on all of their conversations as if I had suddenly decided to be their BFF. I would love for them to lose patience, snap and show their hand to me instead of behind my back. I would love it.

Because even if I were to trade sexual favours for marking (which I'm not, but bear with me), it's none of their goddamn business. Bitches.

Speaking of sex, yesterday's yarn tasting quickly devolved into one of those all-female nights in which smuttiness becomes the conversation. As soon as I noticed the new Handmaiden, Amy warned me not to have an immediate orgasm. Yeah. It was good yarn, but.

Then there was the casual darts conversation. On Friday night, when Juuki expressed an interest in accompanying NotAnArtist and myself on the Unemployed Girls' Newfoundland Road Trip this July, Artist needed to make sure that the trip wouldn't involve babies now that two moms were going. "No," I said, "but do you mind if I get knocked up while we're in Newfoundland?" And of course she had no objection. How could she object?

Elizabeth was there on Friday, and she mentioned the pregnancy plan again last night at the yarn tasting. Since our entire plan for the road trip can be broken down into

1. go to Newfoundland
2. buy yarn
3. get tattoos,

And thus, casual sex immediately morphed into casual darts. Artist shared the fact that she used to be a professional casual dart player for many years, prompting me to remark that she was a Private Dart Player. "And any old dartboard will do," I added, as we all started spraying the table with laughter.

Labels: bat masterson, knit, outings

It occurs to me that I'm being a trifle hard on myself. Tonight, as I spent my first well evening cleaning up my house while my dad vacuumed, while rsvp'ing for a fundraising event and changing into work out clothes for my dance class tonight, I realized: dude, I got a lot on my plate. These days I am enjoying my life (mostly), which makes me feel guilty when I don't write down all of my adventures. Why, oh why, I think, can't I balance intellectually demanding work, single-motherhood, an obsessive hobby (knitting), a time-consuming new passion (belly dance), a thriving social life and my journalling duties? Maybe because I still sleep 8-9 hours a night. Clearly I need to start stacking up the Red Bull.

This week I have to get ready for a reporting cycle, and I'm a good 2 weeks behind in my marking. I had planned to knock it off last weekend, but you saw what happened. Between episodes of PDF (Public Display of Femininity), chaperoning the drunken knittas and hyperbolic crocheting, this sister spent all of her down time trying to get over what she strongly suspects is a mild case of strep throat. I'm still a little woozy. I think it's time to bring in a pinch-marker, a trick I've employed with great success in the past. I'll let you know who the lucky ringer will be. (Hint: it could be you! Get ready for a tear-soaked FedEx package arriving tomorrow!)

Speaking of knitting (and I always am, so roll with it), I utterly failed to make note of two momentous knit-victories this month. The first will stand for the ages, as I got name checked in the Yarn Harlot's new book, Things I Learned About Knitting (whether I wanted to or not). That's me on page 145, "teach[ing] high school English." Rachel H. gave me the tip-off at the Foxes Den following the April Fool's Scavenger Hunt. At that point, I was way too tired to squee as the news deserved.

Dude. I wasn't 100% sure that she even knew my name.

My second knit-victory was all thanks to my peeps. Thanks to your votes (and the Boy's good-sportsmanship), I squeaked into 3rd place in the My Ex is Full of Knit Contest. Two hundred dollars of yarn, loves. That's good news right now, as I just paid off my March Break credit card bill and fear that I will have to choose between yarn and food for the next month. (Who let me loose in H&M in the first place? Oh yeah, it was me.)

we are the champions…of the world!

Labels: bat masterson, knit, victory

I've been taking quite a few classes this month, trying to whip myself into shape no doubt. Besides the twice-weekly belly dance sessions, I took a photography course last Sunday and a hyperbolic crochet course this afternoon.

The photography course was hosted by Jacquie & NotAnArtist, so I immediately felt at home. These two clever ladies put together over two hours of photo phun. My photography has improved a great deal just by following their three important rules:

1. turn off the flash
2. read the manual
3. take tonnes of shots

Some of the nicer ones:

Today's hyperbolic crochet was an exercise in non-Euclidean geometry taught by Miss Sweetiepie Press. I was just in it for the cool shapes, but I also snuck in some math. Go, me!

Yesterday I had the girliest day out ever in the history of the world. Throw in a waxing and the world would have burst with the free-floating estrogen (so it's good that there was no waxing). At 11 I had a hair appointment with Destiny. (Hee! I love pulling out the 10 ½-year-old pseudonyms as if I dropped them yesterday. That one's for you, long-time readers. Er, reader.)

Back to the hair appointment with Destiny. She cut my hair during the semester break in January, and it was the longest, strongest hair cut of my life. It was only last week that I started to think about getting it cut again, and even when I woke up on Saturday I found myself wondering if I had a few more weeks in it. The haircut is that good. But a haircut means girliness, and girliness means girlfriends, and I always need more of that no matter what my hair looks like. Scherezade met me at the salon, where the three of us chatted through the appointment (Destiny is her highschool buddy, after all). Then the two of us set out for what I thought would be a short trip up and down the strip. I failed to realize that when I shop with Scherezade, I shop the hell out of an afternoon.

First we stopped in at Fresh Baked Goods, where I was seduced by a bright pink t-shirt and a blue-and-brown dress. Although I paid for both, one is being custom-made and the second is getting slight alterations to make it perfect. Laura Jean the Knitting Queen pinned me up, and we were able to chat about her designs as I have enough yarn to crochet two of her Cupcake sweaters but lack the courage to cast on. At least I can buy her handiwork with no more courage than a credit card inspires. I'm not sure that the world will survive how cute this dress will make me. We can only pray that I won't find co-ordinating shoes.

After Fresh Baked Goods, Scherezade hustled me into the next store, which sells art and art products. She bought a set of postcards that I later fell in love with to the point that we had to return. But that second stop was well after lunch, which was my first visit to the Red Tea Box. The girliness hiked itself up a couple notches over the April Bento Box Special and the Competition Monkey Picked Oolong tea, not to mention ogling the fabric cakes. (Delish!) Having secured the postcards in my grubby little paws, we then went to Victor Gallery for frames, where I bought 4 identical frames which each cost more than all 8 postcards. (Easy come, easy go…or, as my grandfather might say, I have more money than sense.) We also ducked into Bakka for a quick banter with the saleslady and a hunt for some crappy sf novels recommended by Scherezade's honey.

Our final stop was Mac Fab, where I spent the better part of an hour looking for metal-shank buttons for my coat and some pretty plastic buttons for my dad's birthday present. I also found some awesome fabric for Mason's new apartment, which I shall buy next week, when I return to the block for my new dress. Life is good.

Labels: friends, knit, outfits, outings