Unrelated Information Again!

Yesterday’s post got me thinking that maybe I have some traits that could be a little, um, addictive. That may explain why I finished a dress last week, have one cut out to sew this weekend, and found fabric for the next one last night. And why I’ve made 7 tops, 2 other dresses, and one failed pair of pants in the last four months. It’s a good thing I’ve never tried cocaine.

Here’s an article from the NY Times about liking your mom. Well, duh—it’s your mom!

I only work Monday and Tuesday next week, then have some vacation. I’ll be sewing (of course) and enjoying being outside. Just like this kitten.

Cure For A Book Hangover

I've been thinking about how much sewing I've been doing lately, and I tried to remember what I used to do with my time before. And I remembered that I used to read. Growing up, I would read to the exclusion of everything else, read instead of playing with my brother, read at night until I would hear my mother shout-whisper "Go to bed!" from across the hall. I remembered all that, and I couldn't remember the last new book I had read from start to finish.

So I picked up some Cormac McCarthy, thinking I should start with something good, and he's so good he's made me despair of having any goals. But The Crossing is as bleak and sad as it is well-written. I would read a paragraph and have to pause to absorb both how astonishing the prose was and how god-awfully depressing the events were. At that rate, I realized it would take me years to read it. And it was a library book.

So on Monday I returned The Crossing and picked out the exact opposite: a science fiction book about crystal miners in outer space, and (cringe) a Judith Krantz book. Something also made me get a Dashiell Hammett detective novel. By Wednesday morning, I had read both the outer space crystal book and the Judith Krantz. I had stayed up nearly all night both nights, not because I liked the books, oh no, but because I am incapable of not seeing what happens next. (That sentence explains a lot of my personal life over the years.) (And that is also why I will happily re-read books--I'm able to put them down.)

Anyway, due to lack of sleep and the literary equivalent of sugar-coated speed, I felt like I had a book hangover. I was dubious about reading anything more than the cooking time on the linguine box last night, but I peeked at the first page of the detective novel. (The Dain Curse), which begins, "It was a diamond all right, shining in the grass half a dozen feet from the blue brick wall." I kept reading. I didn't hate myself for not being able to stop and sleep. I didn't hate Hammett for lacking things like characterization, or vocabulary, or a point, becaus he had all those things. (Along with about twelve bodies, three suspects, and a pretty young morphine addict.) It was delightful. I went to bed happy--and yes, I finished it.

More Fun Online

This was posted on the Dress a Day blog this week, and I agree with it completely. (Dress a Day is really great--not only do you get vintage patterns and lots of talk about sewing, she uses words like "aleatory".)

My take is that people who wear clothes on airplanes that are better suited to washing a series of strangers' cars at $5/pop have essentially given up all hope that they will ever be the recipient of happy chance. They've decided serendipity is not for them, so they've forsaken the notion that perhaps one day they may need to make a good first impression on a stranger. (They've also decided that they don't ever need to be upgraded to business class, never mind first.)

Last night I saw clothes that said "I model for Frederick's of Hollywood, Lamé Division" and clothes that said "my favorite Saturday morning cartoon and a bowl of chocolate-frosted sugar bombs are what I REALLY need right now. " None of those clothes said "Take me seriously, please."

I'm not against comfort -- but there's a line between 'comfortable' and 'raggedy-ass lazy' and the airport is not the place to cross that line. An airplane is a confined space, and, like any confined space, demands MORE civility and regard for others, not less.

Tuesday Project Roundup: 1950's Housewife Edition

The loudly striped orange fabric from last Tuesday's roundup turned into this dress. It didn't get any quieter, either. I used a reproduction pattern from 1952 and nearly five yards of fabric. The skirt is a full bias circle, meaning if I twirled in it, it would flare out into a perfect circle. (Not that I've tried it or anything.) It reminds me of Lucy on vacation with Ricky in Florida, or of what a housewife would wear for her Wednesday errands.

And here's a little cardigan I finished a couple of weeks ago. It's like something the housewife would change into when the errands were done and dinner was ready and "the Mister" was due to arrive home any minute. And while that scenario made my skin crawl a little, I like the cardigan.

Monday Unrelated Information

1. This was me this morning. Spots and everything.

2. Ray Bradbury writes a story a week. Why don’t I do that? I stay up late enough to write a story a night.

3. Tomorrow: A project roundup, including some knitting I never photographed and some dresses. (Yet it took me ten minutes to find something to wear this morning. Why?! I’ve been making things to wear for three months now.)

Happy Summer Solstice, Here's A Poem

So today is the longest day of the year, a day that I've always wanted to celebrate--because it means no snow for a few months--but that I always end up feeling sad about--because it's all downhill from the longest day of the year.

But I've been going to the Gallivan Center at lunch for a couple of weeks now, and while that doesn't make me more reconciled to the inevitable shortening of days again, the Mark Strand poem carved above the stream-fountain thing there does.

Visions of the end may secretly seduce
our thoughts like water sinking
into water, air drifting into air;
clouds may form, when least expected,
darkening the glass of self,
canceling resemblances to what we are.
Even here, while summer sunlight
falling through the golden
folds of afternoon
brightens up the air, we mark
our progress by how much
we leave behind. And yet,
this vanishing is burnished
by a slow, melodious light,
as if our passage here
were beautiful because
no turning back is possible.
It is our knowledge of the end
that speaks for us, that has us weave,
as slowly as we can, an elegy
to all our walks. It is our way
of bending to the world's will
and giving thanks.

"..as if our passage here were beautiful because no turning back is possible." Yes, that makes me feel better about the Solstice. (I bet it makes the construction crew cleaning out the stream-fountain thing and the homeless guy watching them feel better, too.)

And as a bonus: my tomatoes. They're pretty summery.

In Trouble

Last night at the airport, I saw people in the “park and wait” pick-up lot parked and waiting in their cars—with the windows up and the air conditioning on. I’m afraid humanity is going to stupid itself to death.Yep.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Big Top Edition

The cotton lawn got sewn up into a Smock-Like Blouse (SLB) and finished Sunday, and I'm really pleased with it. Not only is the fabric nice and light, the print somehow reminds me of a circus. Send in the clowns! In their SLBs! Wait, they're already here!

This project went together well--I got the zipper right on the first try, didn't have to unpick anything, and even the gathers look nice.Gathers! Thrilling!

Here's another SLB. It's been finished for over a week, but I never got around to a picture until Friday, when I wore it going out. (Not shown: matching red shoes. I tell you, the movie theaters on 3300 South had never seen such shoes.)

Here's a pocket detail--remember, that's hand embroidery. I might need a hobby away from my hobby.
Finally, this is the next project (because if I don't have a project I go straight to the crack cocaine) which is going to be a full-skirted 50's sun dress. I considered gingham, then decided I would look as if I were wearing a tablecloth. So I went with "circus tent" instead: Trust me, it's even more orange and striped in person. It's either going to work very, very, well, or not at all.

Standing Alone

I had never heard all the lyrics to "Blue Moon," because people stop singing it after "..you saw me standing alone." Two different people did that Sunday, and then I heard the entire song on KRCL last night. (Sunday nights from 10:30 until 1:00 they play Big Band music.) And it's such a charming song! It's my new theme song!

Blue moon
You saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own

Blue moon
You know just what I was there for
You heard me saying a prayer for
Someone I really could care for

And then there suddenly appeared before me
The only one my arms will hold
I heard somebody whisper "please adore me"
And when I looked to the moon it turned to gold

Blue moon
Now I'm no longer alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own

Awwww....

Things To Do This Weekend

1. Go to the Deseret Peak Demolition Derby in Tooele tomorrow. (Fireworks! Cash! Prizes!) Starts at 5:00, tickets are $5.00. They have beer there, too, but if you’re drinking it you can’t sit in the family section. I highly recommend this one.

2. Hell, if you can go to the first demolition derby of the season, why would you want do anything else?

3. Watch out for Godzilla:

Not Long Now!

Really, aren't we all waiting for coconuts? I know I am.

I Have Nothing

I have no witty observations, no literary quotes, no poems, no pictures of finished sewing or knitting projects. But….

Meeting People

I met my upstairs neighbors last night. I’d been calling them Mr. and Mrs. Stompy, due to their penchant for stomping around. But their names are actually Kara and Clark. Kara and Clark Stompy. (Actually, they seem very nice--they admired my patio garden. And they don’t mind the cuckoo clock, which is loud enough to scare quail outside.)

Okay, Maybe It Is Just Like "Little House On The Prairie"

While I take offense at people thinking my hobbies are pioneer-like, I was cutting out the latest blouse Friday night and had a flash. And the flash had to do with Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I was working with very, very nice cotton lawn. Cotton lawn is lightweight, tightly woven, and very crisp. It's so lightweight it felt like I wasn't cutting through anything while I was cutting out pattern pieces. I was being careful to line up the pattern pieces, and enjoying the fabric, and admiring the print (pink and purple at the same time!) when I thought, "Wait a minute...something's familiar here--oh my God, I'm in a passage from a Little House on the Prairie book."

For Laura's summer dress they bought ten yards of delicate pink lawn...The lawn was so crisp and fresh, the colors so dainty, that Laura was afraid to cut it lest she made a mistake, but Ma had made so many dresses she did not hesitate. She took Laura's measurements; then, with her dressmaker chart, she made the pattern for the waist, and fearlessly cut the lawn.

So maybe I should just EMBRACE my inner Laura after all. At least the finished blouse will look more like a little girl's smock from 1968 than a shirtwaist from 1890. (I think that's a good thing.)

And did you catch the part in the quote about Ma MAKING the pattern? Not only were there no sewing machines in 1890, you had to know pattern drafting, too.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Check out this Time photo essay (via Boing Boing): Families from around the world posed with the food they eat in one week. Sobering: The family in the refugee camp in the first photo.

2. Okay, that’s enough sober thought about world hunger. On to crafts! It may be a two-project weekend. I’m close to finishing the embroidered-pocket top and have a second blouse ready to go. We’ll see.

3. And more news off BoingBoing: I found this interview with Ray Bradbury from the Los Angeles Times this week, in which he says Fahrenheit 451 was never about censorship, but about TV taking over people's lives. And of all people, he would know what his book is about.

I Have No Goals. But I Have Books.

My newest find on the internet is personal finance sites. The advice they give is alternately inspirational (if I can save $20 a month now, I won't have to eat cat food when I retire!) and terrifying (oh my God, I have no emergency fund!). But the real blow was not this quote: "If you think it's hard to make ends meet now, try doing it when you're old and sick." No, sobering as that was, the real blow was being told in an article to make a life map.

The idea behind a life map is to start with long-term goals, then find shorter- and still shorter-term steps to reach them, so you have a meaning and purpose to your savings plan. The article suggests starting with your name and then attaching your biggest goals to it, working outwards in a sort of spiderweb, with the shortest-term goals on the outside leading into the main goals on the inside.

"Cool," I thought. "A life map. I'll do that." But then I discovered I have nothing to put on my map.

Seriously. Three things floated through my head. Three. They were, in order:
1. Own an alpaca ranch in a place that's kind of like Hawaii and kind of like Castle Valley.
2. Go to the Cook Islands.
3. Win the National Book Award before I'm sixty. (I only write if there's a deadline. Therefore, sixty.)

Now, you may argue that these are indeed goals. If I can save and invest, yes, I could get a ranch. And even go to the Cook Islands. (More about writing coming up.) But what about things like changing the world, spiritual growth, home ownership, even having a family? The life map example used "being a good parent" as one of the primary goals. I suppose it's a mercy that didn't cross my mind, because I suspect having a relationship last for more than three months should come before wanting to be a good parent, and I haven't even managed that yet.

As for being a writer, it's the one thing in my life I've always felt I could do. But then I go and read All The Pretty Horses (which won the National Book Award) again after realizing I have lame goals for my life map and think, "Just abandon all of them now, including the Book Award one. Because you will never, ever, be as good as this guy." Case in point:

"They rode out along the fencline and across the open pastureland. The leather creaked in the morning cold. They pushed the horses into a lope. The lights fell away behind them. They rode out on the high prairie where they slowed the horses to a walk and the stars swarmed around them out of the blackness. They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumpsect, like theives newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing."

Reading that passage, I can't imagine coming up with anything remotely as good, ever. But, reading that passage, I don't care about goals, or my own talent, or anything else. I just want to keep reading.

So if I end up homeless from not having parenting goals that would motivate me to make a savings plan, I'll hang out at the library.

Honeysuckle

I brought some home from my parents’ last night. Then I put it in a blue vase on my red nightstand. And then I took a picture of it. And put it on the internet. Of course.

Best Packaging Ever

A friend gave me a bag of Lion Coffee ("The King Of Coffees") on Sunday, which she had brought from Hawaii. I had no idea Hawaii had a fairly famous coffee brand, let alone a fairly famous coffee brand with awesome packaging!

Not only is there a lion wearing a sailor hat, the lion has EYEBROWS. And there are coffee beans in grass skirts DANCING THE HULA above him. Even better, the text, which you probably can't make out, says both "The cup that cheers" and "A Century of Wisdom In Every Roast!".

My own bag is of Kona Organic, which I had with pineapple rice pudding this morning, while admiring the delight that is the Lion Coffee packaging.

(Incidentally, I've been on a vaguely tropical food kick--the rice pudding, coconut cheesecake, pineapple salsa, sangria, etc. I think part of me is hoping that eating the food of sunny climates will help me get tan.)

Have You Any Wool?

Saturday was shearing day at Blue Moon Ranch!

It started with getting alpacas into the barn.

“Oh, shit, what’s going on?”

Then they were wrangled into the shearing station, where they couldn’t kick or squirm and get accidentally cut.

Alpacas spit when they’re mad or scared. Shearing makes them mad AND scared, so there was a lot of spitting. So much spitting, in fact, some of them got a sock as a temporary spit shield.

My job wasn’t so spitty: I got to label and bag the fleece after it was off the animal.

In spite of the spit and the scared alpaca noises, after it was done, they seemed fine. Just much smaller.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I finished what I was calling the Lincoln Green Robin Hood Tunic-y Thing this week. Its new name is the Green Tunic-y Thing That Disturbingly Reminds Me of The Jolly Green Giant. (There may or may not be pictures next week.)

2. Tomorrow is shearing day at Blue Moon Ranch! I'll be wrangling alpacas! And I'll get to see Ziggy Marley, the first cria (baby) of the season. (Click to see Ziggy Marley, but be prepared to shout, "Gaaaah!" due to his extreme cuteness.)