Word Police

Check out this sentence from yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune article, astonishing in both its construction and in what it reveals:

"Hinckley, after all, has been called the first 'rock star' Mormon prophet for having appeared before tens of thousands of Mormon youths--from Brazil to Nigeria to Radio City Music Hall--in entertainment-oriented stadium events on the eve of temple dedications in those locations."

Wow! Who knew there was a Mormon temple in Radio City Music Hall? They're certainly branching out.

Speaking Of Dressing Seasonally

Posting about wearing a dress in the middle of winter yesterday made me think about this section of a Robert Hass poem, "Santa Barbara Road," from Human Wishes:

Everything rises from the dead in June.
There is some treasure hidden in the heart of summer
everyone remembers now, and they can't be sure
the lives they live in will discover it.
They remember the smells of childhood vacations.
The men buy maps, raffish hats. Some women
pray to it by wearing blouses
with small buttons you have to button patiently,
as if to say, this is not winter, not
the cold shudder of dressing in the dark.

Yeah, I'm getting pretty tired of that cold shudder in the mornings.

Tuesday Project Roundup Episode VI: Return Of The Dress

I am so very tired of winter. So I decided to ignore the last brutal weeks of cold and snow and make a dress. Of course, it is a dress that can be worn now, with boots, because as you may have guessed I lack the patience to sew a dress and not wear it until the weather permits, and I hate being cold too much to wear it weather un-permitting. Anyway, the dress:
"I can't stop staring at these boots! I love them so much it makes me blurry!"

Here is a detail of the yoke and its little inset thing, un-blurred by boot love: I think my pattern taste is moving up through the decades, because these smock-y hippie dresses are a far cry from the 50's housedresses from last summer. This particular dress was from a modern pattern, but look at what I have planned next--1970's GOLD! Check out view B there. I think I have the same hair--I know I have the same boots.

"Looks Like Someone Has A Case Of The Mondays!"

Now that the couch is ordered, I have boots, and I escaped the layoffs, I'm feeling the end-of-January slump. It's hard to be excited at either job, so I'll just have to remind myself:
Of course, I don't know what that target is, but at least it involves a cat picture.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. OMGPONIES!!!!!111!!NO,WAIT, BOOTS!!!!!!11!!!! My boots arrived yesterday. I haven't bought good shoes in over a year...oh, I loved this feeling. (Don't worry; I didn't charge them.) Here they are, with a modeled shot coming next week:
2. The blogs I read had some good quotes this week. The winners: "The finished work is called a manuscript, if you are the editor and publisher, and 'My Precious', if you are the author." (YarnHarlot) and "He looks like a cross between the mayor of Whoville and an angry Viking." (Agency Tart)

3. Have you been wondering what's going on with the alpacas? There's a lot of snow! They're furry! Here is Ziggy Marley, saying hello!

Picutres Of, And Poems About, Rocks

Some Roethke to go with the pictures, from "O Thou Opening, Thou," published in The Waking, 1953:

"The dark has its own light.
A son has many fathers.
Stand by a slow stream:
Hear the sigh of what is.
Be a pleased rock
On a plain day.
Waking's
Kissing.
Yes."

The "pleased rocks"--
The "slow stream"--

And, um, something else. But it also has bighorn sheep in the background! (I couldn't find a poem that worked for this one.)

More Zion Tomorrow

I didn't mention that the agency had a round of layoffs (!) and a re-organization last week. The good news is I still have a job with some new accounts. The bad news is those new accounts have a daily status meeting at 9:30, so so much for those long morning posts.

I was going to put up some more pictures from our trip, but Blogger is giving me trouble and it's time to get dressed like I'm a creative at an ad agency (smocks!), so check back tomorrow.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Car Knitting Edition

Mr. Isbell and I got out of town and down to Zion (or "Ziens," as they say here) for the weekend. We had just a few days so there wasn't much planned--just a few hikes and probably finding some appropriate quotes from Ed Abbey to blog about. And I was very excited about the prospect of car knitting (while a passenger, of course) on the drive there and back. I did get some in on the drive down, but then our plans had to change:Oh noes!

So I got to take us on scenic drives around the park, through the tunnel, and back home:

Fortunately, Mr. Isbell will recover, AND the hotel had a great view form the balcony:
It was a good trip.

Thursday Unrelated Information

1. I'll be taking a few days away from the computer and will report how that went on Tuesday. There will be craftiness. There will be adventure. There may even be pictures.

2. Last night I dreamed I was at a party at Martha Stewart's house with my mother and my sewing friend from work. Martha was serving champagne and when I told her it was delicious, she said, "Thanks, that bottle was ten thousand dollars." What can it mean?!
3. Today = The Day of Ordering The Couch. Hurray for a tangible benefit to two months of a second job! (Speaking of, I figured out that if I kept working two extra weeks in February, I could buy boots...must..get...shoes....)

I Don't Know If This Makes It Better Or Worse

I don't remember faces well. People who do remember faces don't quite get this:

Face Rememberer: "Oh, I'm bad at remembering names, too. Terrible."
Me: "No, I can't remember faces. I don't realize I've met the person talking to me."
FR: "I know, it's awful to not remember their name."
Me: [Sigh.]

But if someone's not in front of me, I can't pull up a clear mental image of them--even loved ones. So random acquaintances or classmates from long ago are even more of a crap shoot, because there's nothing to pull up to help me remember them. I always dread hearing "Karen! Hi!" from a stranger, because it's really not a stranger, just someone I don't recall seeing despite having been in three years of classes together.

So my post from a week ago about a long-lost classmate who's now the poet laureate with published books and a doctorate? Yeah, my classmate isn't that woman. She had the same name--I'm not crazy, just bad with faces--and similar dark hair and she looked poetic, so I just assumed it was she. It took Mr. Isbell pointing out that she got her B.A. in 1980 to make me realize last night that all that angst and lyrics and the "sad little blog post" were spent on the wrong person.

So, to the Utah Poet Laureate: I'm sorry I was making fun of your hair. And to the rest of the world: Why can't everyone just wear name tags?

Tuesday Project Roundup: Use Your Imagination Edition

No pictures today, but this week I did knit baby booties (for my cousin, thank you; if I were to announce my own need of baby booties to the internet you can be sure the post would be titled “Oh Shit”) and start a tunic for me from an early 60’s pattern. The tunic fabric is this:

I’m also going to order this fabric to make a smock-like dress:

I think I’m liking head scarves. And juvenile prints.

And Then I Was Like, “Whoa”

And then I realized I had forgotten to post anything this morning and that people might think the stomach flu had won. It didn’t; I’m just catching up after missing Thursday at job #1.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I ended up taking a sick day yesterday, so if you were wondering where another "sad little blog post" (to quote Mr. Isbell!) like Wednesday's was, that's what happened.

2. The Tribune this morning wrote about Ralph "O RLY?" Becker's plan to create a domestic partner registry and included the best quote from Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan: "I just have to be certain we're not coming in the back door of the Amendment 3 [ban on gay marriage and civil unions]". The back door, Buttars? O RLY?

3. ..and that's all I have, I guess. Enjoy the weekend not having stomach flu!

A Story In Two Parts, Ending With A Beatles Song

First part: I went into job #2 during December and saw a business card by the cash register. It was a U of U card for a professor with a doctorate, Katherine Coles. Katy Coles! I had an intermediate poetry class with her at the U, back when I wanted to get a double major. I never really talked to her but remember admiring and envying her poems, her gray pants, her songwriting skills, her poetic dark straight hair that did what she wanted it to. (I still had long curly hair then. Or rather, the hair had me.) I looked around my second job during Christmas in retail hell, had a little moment of “Huh. Wonder where I’d be if I had pursued English to a doctorate level” and forgot about it.

Second part: I was reading the coverage of Ralph “O RLY?” Becker’s swearing in yesterday in the Tribune, and noticed that he read a poem from Utah’s Poet Laureate. Guess who? Katherine Coles. She’s written two novels and four poetry collections; she’s been published in the Paris Review and the New Republic; she’s a Utah Poet Laureate who can actually write, unlike the last one. (Check out the poem—very Mark Strand.)

I can’t really express my feelings about these two stories. (I bet Katy could!) There’s some “That could be me,” some “But I scorn the idea of a state poet laureate,” some “I have a glamorous ad job,” some “Well, it isn’t really glamorous but I bet professors don’t earn lots of money, either” and all sorts of things in between. You know the medley that ends side two of Abbey Road, with You Never Give Me Your Money, Polythene Pam, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, and Carry That Weight (“a long time”)? Oddly, that’s exactly how I feel.

Tuesday Project Roundup: If I Make Spring Clothes, Will It Be Spring? Edition

Here is the first project of the year, a light blue smock-like blouse. (Yes, the SLB reappears; I think I'll rock the materninty look again for spring and summer.)
I'm happy with it, and especially proud that I added the collar myself--drafted a pattern for it from instructions online, and engineered it into the body on my own.

It's less maternity-looking when it's on, because the armholes and bodice in the pattern I used (Simplicity 3778) actually fit very well. I just couldn't get a decent modeled picture because it was so dark in the house last night. I guess it's not really spring at all.

Can Someone Adopt Wilbur So I Don’t Have To Cry Into My Pillow At Night?

Petfinder.com is a tricky site for me: It’s good because I can find a kitty to adopt but it’s bad because I can find a lot of kitties I can’t adopt—such as Wilbur here.

DO NOT click here if you don’t want to read a sad story. There’s a sad reason Wilbur is wearing a t-shirt and special collar. There’s an even more sad reason I can’t adopt him: He has FIV and I know I don’t have the savings to cover the vet trips he would need. But isn’t he a handsome boy? Doesn’t he look like a good kitty? I’m tempted to donate most of my pet savings towards his care anyway.

I don’t want to put up a sad post on a Monday, so let’s focus our positive energy and the power of the Internet and see if we can find Wilbur a home. I’m sure we can. (And I have to make a new rule: No looking for pets online when I’m feeling weepy.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. What a nice burthday! Thanks, family! We all love champagne.

2. Here's a quote from the knitting book I got for my birthday, Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears, talking about the benefits of wool:
"It is true that a synthetic sweater can be washed and dried in machines, but to me this rather reduces it to the level of a sweatshirt. Washing a real sweater is akin to bathing a baby, and brings the same satisfaction of producing a clean, pretty, sweet-smelling creature."
(I like how "real"=wool in her mind, too.)

3. And speaking of wool, I have BIRTHDAY YARN to plan a project for, alpaca yarn to knit into a scarf for a friend, a baby shower present to finish knitting, a blouse to finish sewing, and another two planned out. I think I'm reacting against only making gifts in December.

4. And here's to a late birthday present: Obama bama, bo-bama, banana fana bo-bama, mi my mo-mama--OBAMA!

On This Day In History...

1521: Martin Luther excommunicated
1924: Sarcophagus of Tutankhamem discovered
1959: Alaska admitted as the 49th state
1980: Me!

It's my birthday. I plan to eat seafood.

I Should List Some Goals Or Something

As part of a new year, I guess I should try to set some goals--even though I'm very bad at that. I suppose being a good cat parent (when I get a cat) and scraping together some emergency savings will do for now.

Happy New Year

"And now let us welcome the new year, full of things that have never been." --Rilke

(Funny I should have talked about feeling old yesterday, because I almost didn't make it to midnight and was asleep at 12:05. Sigh.)