Run on Sentences...

Blogher

I'll be blog-celebrity watching at the Blogher conference tomorrow.  It's a pricey way to stalk people but I couldn't resist.  Other people flew across multiple states for this.  I just have to drive an hour.  on a saturday morning. at 7am.   well, i guess we all have to sacrifice.   If I could only find the charger for my camera I'd be set. 

I have an inferiority complex when I meet other bloggers.  I tend to introduce myself by saying... "yeah, well, I'm only a knit blogger".   And if I can't stop myself I may add....  "I don't even knit that much.   Crafty blogger, maybe."  or "they are some really popular knit bloggers.   not me, but they are out there"    Someone told me not to do that.  So I'm going to try my hardest tomorrow to have some self esteem.  And if that fails, I'll do what I did all through high school, I'll pretend I have confidence. 

Maybe I'll give myself a pep talk in the mirror before I go.   

Or maybe if I bring my knitting and knit through the conference then I won't feel the need to explain myself every 5 minutes.   What's the rule on knitting during a non-work conference anyway?  Is it allowed?   

Crafty Snargle

After years of being blog friends, I finally met Sarah face to face this week.  She was in town for a conference and we got together.  twice!   It was so much fun.

Monday we met at Art Fibers.  Can you believe it was my first time there?  I was amazed at the yummy yarns, but stuck to my yarn diet.   I must finish a few more things before I can justify the money for that kind of yarn.   Oh, but it is lovely yarn isn't it?    Then we killed some time at Noe Knit and grabbed a burrito and went to a stitch & bitch. 

Last night we met up again.   We spent a long time browsing through knitting & sewing books at Kinokuniya book store in Japantown.  I'd been there before but never bought anything because I thought the patterns were too hard to read. Sarah showed me the basics of reading the charts and thus empowered with knowledge, I bought a couple books. 

The one on the left is a 'Start Series' which is nice because almost every step has a picture so it's easy to follow along.  And look at the cute bunnies wearing all the sweaters from the book.

The book on the right is harder to read.   I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out why my pattern has two sleeves before Sarah told me the one sleeve was for another pattern.  Doh!   I'm going to be ambitious and try a cabled pattern.

I'm really excited to start that sweater, but I want to finish a few other little things up first.  Hopefully it'll be the motivation I need to plow through some finishing.   Thanks to Sarah and these websites I feel able to tackle the Japanese pattern.  However, I'm not totally on my own.  It's always helpful to have a friend who know Japanese just in case.    Especially if you know said friend can be bribed with chocolate and vodka.  (you know who you are!)

stay!

I'm staying in SF at least until the end of the year.  My boss and I came to a truce where he did nothing to change his position but I realized that I needed to be a grown up and at least stay until the end of the year when I'll get my  bonus and possibly the idea of running away won't seem so attractive.  I think that I wanted a grand dramatic decision to take place, but the most adult thing to do is wait and see.  Being a grown up is hard sometimes.   

So is seaming.  I spent all day yesterday seaming the orange sweater.  It's so close to being done, but damn, seaming takes a long time. 

Hot Tamale

Stacey has outed me as a world class enabler.  Want to buy yarn?  come shopping with me!  We went to Beverly's and I bought some cheap sock yarn.   Bernat's Sox in Hot Tamale.  I love the name!  I'm strangely attracted to the cute yet weird colors.  I like the colors better in the ball than how it knitted up, but for cheap house socks they'll be perfect.*  After shopping I said that I was going to go right home & start knitting.  I didn't.   I swatched and calculated but I didn't start knitting until Sunday.   But that's about all I did on Sunday and I've knit all the way up to the heel.   I'm using the straight laced pattern from knitty for the lace, I used the easy toe from the knitty tip top toe article (my new favorite toe) and I'm making the rest up as I go along.   

 

here's a pic of the bottom so you can see what the non-laced yarn looks like. The shot would be less awkward if a I were a contortionist. But I'm not. 

* the other pair of socks that I've made were wool and I find them itchy so I'm either going to remake them to ankle socks or complete recycle the yarn into mittens or gloves. 

equations

One of Anne Marie's coworkers wrote her a whole equation to help her lower her mandards (a.k.a. man standards) in this post.   I admit that I didn't read the whole equation.  (not to discourage you from reading it.... what I did read was funny!) 

What I like is the idea of transforming a emotional decision into black & white numbers.   Yes, I was an engineering major.  Yes, I work with numbers all day.  Numbers will never lie to you.  Unless of course it's relating to knitting gauge in which case they don't necessarily lie as much as they mislead.

What I need is someone to make a formula for me to help me in my 'i may possibly be moving' decision.   In keeping with Anne Marie's theme, it also deals with men.   It needs to compare the available (straight) men in SF, the probability that I would actually find one that is the marrying kind, how easy it is to live here as a singleton and compare it to certain midwest cities on the same factors for those cities*  It's very easy to be single in SF, but come on what are my chance really of finding a nice little catholic boy here?   And while it may be easier to find the marrying kind in Detroit, if I don't find anyone, it could be painful to live there singally.   

Unless of course my sister stays single too in which case we will be the crazy sisters who live next door to each other into old age.  We'll share jumbo packs of toilet paper and buy one get one free specials, but not the cable.   We'll live separately so we can each have control over the remote.  And then we'll do what we do now.  Watch TV and call each other up and have conversations about what we're watching on TV. 

*Is this an equation or a ratio?   I may have studied a lot of math in college, but I promptly forgot it all.  Too bad the student loans didn't disappear as quickly.

bad idea

Online dating is a horrible thing to do when you’re already feeling badly about yourself.  I had some prodding to try it and thought maybe it would boost my confidence.   Ha!  Worst. Idea. Ever.

booty-sit-ous

Last night I worked until 8:30.  so i skipped the gym.  It's now 7:30 and I'm thinking about skipping tonight too.  This working hard stuff really eats into my exercise time and motivation.  The motivation is so little sometimes it really doesn't take much, but doesn't it sound so industrious?   'I'm working so hard that I don't even have time for the gym.'   CSI & Law & Order I have time for, but not the gym.  aren't priorities great?   If only a secretary spread butt was more desirable than J-LO's.   Between my flat ass* & my keyboard hunched shoulders I wouldn't have any trouble getting a date.   

*it's mostly genetics.  My parents just have backs that turn into legs.  I work hard just to have the little bump that I do.  My mother thinks I'm crazy, but if I'm going to have a big butt I want a little depth to balance out the width. 

stay vs go.

I still have not reached an agreement with my boss.*   I'm in this weird 'should I stay in SF or should I go back to the midwest' place.   Mentally, I've managed to push it in the back of my brain, mostly.  But it's coming to the surface in the weirdest ways.  Like I'm eating all the crap in my freezer that's been in there for months.  To clean it out in case I move?   I'm also looking at a whole new cookware set and last week I found myself stocking up on cleaning products to further pad my nest.  You know what I should buy before I (maybe) move across the country?  Heavy pans?   Spillable liquids?  Sure!   

*Since I can't make decisions, I'm kind of letting my boss chose for me based on what he offers me.   Not really the best way to choose, I know.   Maybe it'll have a Phoebe affect.   I find out one that I'm not pregnant and then I'm sad and realize I really wanted the baby so that when I find out *surprise* I really am pregnant I'll be exited.   Except no babies are involved.

i wish

I was completely charmed by JMB's comment about my shoe...

"C'mon own up. Your boss pissed you off and you lashed out with your shoe. Unfortunately his head turned out to harder that you initially suspected..."

Oh, how I wish that were true right now!  Let's just say that my boss & I have a difference of opinion on what I'm worth to the company.  It's been hanging in the air between us all week but it's been on my horizon for the past month and I just want to get it cleared up and either on with my job, or on with a job search.  I just found out that he won't have an answer for me today so I have to stew over it for the weekend too.   I wish it were as easy as taking a shoe to his head, maybe then I wouldn't feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest.

new favorite phrase

"They tried so hard.  So fucking hard ...."  It's become my new expression of the moment and it's surprisingly adaptive to most things.  I stole it from Wendy who uses it to refers to jeans in her book.  I use it for just about everything else. 

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Today at work the heel broke off my shoe.  I had no idea that this really happened to real people.  I though it was just a stunt used in chick flicks for the chick to get help/sympathy/laughter from the Object of her Affection.  Well, for me it wasn't a stunt and there is no OA to respond.  Only my female coworkers to laugh at/with me.  I was just walking down the hallway and all of a sudden I'm like "Whoa, why is there a hole in the floor?"  I look down and don't find a hole but instead find the 2" heel dangling from my shoe.   Oooops.    The were good work shoes but not very comfortable so it isn't a huge loss.  I thought about justifying an emergency shoe shopping trip, but I don't think my boss would've approved.  I'm just trying not to walk very much, and I use the term 'walk'  to describe my stilted half tiptoe gait very loosely.