Tuesday Project Roundup In Action

Not only did I finish the dress in time for the first wedding Saturday, I actually got a picture of me in it (one that includes not only my head, but someone else's, too!). It's not a full-length shot, but let's not ask for too much at once. 

Goals? What Goals?

Hey, remember the 3+2 Things I wanted to accomplish for my 32nd year? Yeah, I do, too (vaguely). How about a halfway report? 

The first two of the three quantitative goals were:

1. Take a fiction writing class

2. Write 3 short stories

Earlier this year I signed up for a class on plots (not the evil villain kind; the novelistic kind) but it was canceled due to lack of registrants. I still want to see what's offered in the fall and try to make this happen.

I thought the third thing would be the easiest:

3. Read a new book a month

But it's been seven months and as far as new fiction goes, I've read parts of Brideshead Revisited and 1984 and two Jeeves & Wooster short stories. I'm still hopeful that I can get some more reading time in by the pool this summer.

 As for the "+2" qualitative goals

+1. Be happier in my work

Um, this is coming along, kinda sorta maybe. I have to remind myself of this hippie quote. 

+2. Less judgment, more compassion

Finally, something I feel like I've actually been working on for the year. I won't say I've "accomplished" this, as there are moments every day with people or traffic or any other trigger, but I've found that repeating this saying from The Dharma Bums really helps: 

I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without entertaining any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I say, like, "Equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha."

(I think it also helps I've been around someone pretty regularly for a few months--nothing like having someone to be nice to to show you the ways you're not.)

So that's where the goals for the year stand. As my inner hippie says, it's all about the journey, right?

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I was really excited to hear about a new Oz movie in the works, since I'm pretty sure between the ages of 7 and 10 I read every word Baum wrote about it, but the trailer is a disappointment. If you have 14 books to pull from, why make up a plot?

2. I'm still not done with the long dress, but the two parts are sewn together now and I did get the zipper in last night. Baby steps...

Old Rock Stars

The Writer's Almanac tells me that 50 years ago today, the Rolling Stones played their first gig. (I have no idea what this news has to do with writers. I think it has more to do with that site's demographic.)

My parents were always in the Beatles camp and so I was, too, but when I saw Gimme Shelter in my 20s I suddenly got what all the excitement over Jagger was about. And any band who loves and promotes the blues is ok by me (even if they are awfully old to be rock stars). 

Here's an early performance of "Little Red Rooster":

Is This Why Hippies Are Mellow?

This is the latest quote I'm trying to adopt during the Summer of Uncertainty, via Mystic Mamma (of course).

"...the search for security and certainty is actually an attachment to the known. And what’s the known? The known is our past. The known is nothing other than the prison of past conditioning. There’s no evolution in that.

When you experience uncertainty, you are on the right path – so don’t give it up. You don’t need to have a complete and rigid idea of what you’ll be doing next week or next year, because if you have a very clear idea of what’s going to happen and you get rigidly attached to it, then you shut out the whole range of possibilities.”

Tuesday Project Roundup: Coming Together

There's nothing like sewing under a deadline--I haven't made this much progress on a project in a week in I don't know when.

Of course, I'm going to have to make a lot more progress in the next few days if I expect to wear this Saturday. I might be skipping yoga tonight...

"When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing."

Saturday's hike was Gobbler's Knob via Alexander Basin in Millcreek Canyon--also known as The Steepest Hike In Millcreek, or Remind Me Why I Wanted To Challenge Myself?, or Oh God Oh God Thirty Percent Grade On A Scree Field.

The Knob is at the top right of this picture, I believe. The infamous scree field is below it, and I recommend finding the trail that goes through the patch of trees in the center of the picture rather than trying to scramble up the bare rocks. You may have a Kerouac moment on the slope: 

I looked back and like Lot's wife that did it... Supposing I'd start to slip back for good, these screes might start sliding any time anyway [...] Finally I came to a kind of ledge where I could sit at a level angle instead of having to cling not to slip, and I nudged my whole body inside the ledge just to hold me there tight, so the wind would not dislodge me, and I looked down and around and I had had it. 

It's hard to convey how steep this is, but here's the view back down from the saddle. (I didn't make the top of the Knob. My legs still had to get back down everything and I was proud enough about getting to this point.)

On the saddle facing the other way, still looking a little freaked out.

Looking into Big Cottonwood Canyon. 

This view inspired me to start singing hits from The Sound of Music. My hiking companion was not amused.

 

 A moose! On the loose! Seen on the way back down.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Oh, that mid-week break was hard. I was really excited for two Fridays--until I realized that the week also contained two Mondays. 

2. Have you heard about the news from CERN? Scientists have announced the discovery of a particle that is "consistent with" what they expect the Higgs-Boson particle to look like. Bad Astronomy has great background and a roundup of news.

Belated 4th Poem

I meant to post this poem from the Writer's Almanac yesterday, but I ended up camping out in a backyard to test the sleeping bag I bought and you know how camping out in backyards can get away from you. (For the record, my sleeping bag is really warm.)

I hope we all had a good holiday and didn't set any more fires. Here's the poem: 

At Gettysburg

by Linda Pastan

These fields can never be
simply themselves. Their green
seems such a tender green,
their contours so significant
to the tourists who stare

towards the far range of mountains
as if they are listening
to the page of history tearing
or to what they know themselves of warfare
between brothers. In this scenery

cows and cannons stand side by side
and motionless, as if they had grown here.
The cannons on their simple wheels
resemble farm carts, children
climb them. Thus function disappears almost entirely

into form, and what is left under
the impartial blue of the sky is a landscape
where dandelions lie in the tall grass
like so many spent cartridges, turning
at last to the smoke

of puffballs; where the only red
visible comes at sunset;
where the earth has grown so lovely
it seems to forgive us even as we are learning
to forgive ourselves.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Making It Happen

I decided I did indeed dare to make a long dress for the summer. After I posted about my debate I was invited to another wedding and I thought, "Perfect! Two out of the three times I'll ever wear this are covered!"

What fabric am I using? Um, maybe some Liberty of London (from a new source). The pattern is a Cynthia Rowley and I don't have the best track record with her, but I mocked up the bodice before I cut into the good fabric, never fear. 

I have 1.5 weeks until wedding #1 so I'm happy for a day off tomorrow. Time to get sewing!

It's Monday

Sit on a chair and just delight everyone:

Friday Unrelated Information

1. It's been a while since we had a LOLcat. I have this one hanging up at my desk:

2. Enjoy the Hokey Pokey as written by William Shakespeare. "Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about."

Two Videos

Here is a video "trailer" for the Mars Curiosity rover landing on August 5, found via Bad Astronomy. It is worth the five minutes to watch it because in five minutes you can have your mind blown and your faith in humanity reaffirmed:

I usually dislike taglines but "Dare mighty things" at the end kind of made me tear up a little.

And here is a video created by the European Commission as part of the “Science: It’s a Girl Thing!” campaign to encourage girls to study science (it's now been pulled from the campaign).  This also blows the mind and brings you close to tears--but not in a good way:

To quote Elwood Blues, "Jesus H. Tap Dancing Christ." To quote the article in The Atlantic where I found this, "...science sells itself. It needs no polish or varnish or manufactured appeal to be attractive to women. To imply otherwise is an insult. To science and to women."

Wednesday Poem

This one rhymes! And is by Tennessee Williams (!). Who knew?

Clover

These are fragrant acres where
Evening comes long hours late
And the still unmoving air
Cools the fevered hands of Fate.

Meadows where the afternoon
Hangs suspended in a flower
And the moments of our doom
Drift upon a weightless hour.

And we who thought that surely night
Would bring us triumph or defeat
Only find the stars are white
Clover at our naked feet.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Less Doing, More Planning

The last thing I knit and finished was those legwarmers for my yoga teacher in February. (The knit tie was knitting up way too thick to actually tie in a knot, so that's been shelved.) I just realized this lack of knitting may be contributing to feeling like I need hippie affirmations all the time. 

But what to knit? Sure, I could finish the two sweaters for me lying around, but I think I need a new project. And I think Skyler needs a little hooded sweater for the fall. 

Construction-wise, I think this pattern ("Duck Soup") wins (knit in one piece, plus the cuffs and hood edges can  be rolled back to accommodate him growing):

But I love the Christopher-Robin-ness of "Roo" (and the real toggle closures, vs. knitted ones):

So planning has begun. I just hope this kid doesn't grow too fast between now and the end of the year--look how big he's getting!

It's Monday

Sit in it like it's a drawer organizer and look dubious.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I didn't see this in time for the actual date, but last Friday the 14th was photographer Margaret Bourke-White's birthday. Life Magazine (where she was one of four original staff photographers) has a really great feature up in honor of her.

2. This gif is pretty much the best thing ever if you've ever worked with clients.

Two Things To Make You Happy Today

1. Space always does the trick for me. I'm sure you've heard by now that Voyager 1, launched in 1977 with the famous golden record of Earth sounds, is nearing the very edge of our solar system. I think the Daily Mail put this fact in context really well:

With absolutely no attempt at hyperbole at all, it is fair to say that this is one of--if not the--biggest achievement of the human race. For, as we speak, an object conceived in the human mind, and built by our tools, and launched from our planet, is sailing out of the further depths of our solar system--and will be the first object made by man to sail out into interstellar space."

2. And in further news of humans living up to the name, here's something that's been making the rounds: 21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity. I just had to think of the end of the second Lord of the Rings movie and Sam saying, "There's still some good in this world, Mr. Frodo."

Summer Solstice

Happy Summer Solstice! I still struggle with seeing this as a moment of fullness and celebration and not just the beginning of the long slide into winter, but a year of steady yoga and the Mystic Mamma site have really helped. Here's a quote posted there in honor of the day:

And as we watch the field baking in the heat-–as we feel the sun's power to burn as well as to bless--we can feel our own gifts, our own special abilities as they ripen and swell, and know that we, too, have the power to make a difference for growth or for destruction in the world.

It is a time to mark peak moments, moments of warmth and growth [...], (it) is a time to invite fire into our lives-–fire to burn away all that we have outgrown and all that no longer serves us; fire that makes the wild things grow in us, for which our inner selves have longed. 

Cait Johnson and Maura D. Shaw from Celebrating the Great Mother

Tuesday Pending Project: Dare I?

It's summer, my inner hippie is running free on eight-mile hikes, and I have a co-worker's mountain wedding to attend next month, so I'm playing with the idea of making a long dress.

Never mind the fact that I made a long skirt circa 2004 (inspired by this one from Kill Bill 2), wore it about three times, and then felt really self-conscious--look how "effortlessly glamorous" the fashion world tells us the long dress is:

Wear it lounging in a mod chair!

Wear it on the streets of a big city!

Wear it on a mountain top!

If you've seen my Pinterest project board in the last week, you can tell I'm trying to hunt down the right fabric for it. Because I think I need a long dress to wear three times and feel really self-conscious in to wear effortlessly and glamorously for the Summer of the Hippie.

(All images via Google. The search term "anthropologie maxi dress" gives you a veritable explosion of bohemia.)

Outdoorsy

I spent Saturday being outdoorsy and going to White Pine Lake in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Look at all the gear we had--that must mean we're really Outdoor Types, right?

 Nature is hilarious

Yes, that's an ice axe.

Still partially frozen...

...but starting to thaw. 

On the way back down.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. This has been making the rounds, but it's good: a list of tips from a Pixar story artist. A few highlights:

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

2. Enjoy perusing The Worst Things For Sale.

3. Happy Father's Day to my dad and brother!  

That Time of Year

The light in June leading up to the solstice is so lovely in the foothills. Predictably, I think of this part in Out of Africa:

The sky was rarely more than pale blue or violet, with a profusion of mighty, weightless, ever-changing clouds towering up and sailing on it, but it has a blue vigor to it, and at a short distance it painted the ranges of hills and the woods a fresh deep blue. [...] Up in this high air, you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.
 

Two Quotes

I found the first quote on Mystic Mamma and thought, "What a nice and reassuring thought to re-post, wild horse picture and all." So here it is: 

“Make a pact with yourself today to not be defined by your past. Sometimes the greatest thing to come out of all your hard work isn’t what you get for it, but what you become for it.” 

Meanwhile, my brother sent me today's second quote, from American Beauty: 

Lester Burnham: "Brad, for 14 years I've been a whore for the advertising industry. The only way I could save myself now is if I start firebombing. " 

I guess the moral of these two quotes is that sometimes it's nice to give your inner hippie options (quotation-wise, that is; don't firebomb things).

Tuesday Project Roundup: Flat Pack Rodeo

How about some furniture instead of fabric this week? I decided it was time to upgrade my bedroom dresser to something bigger. Here's the setup before:

And here's the after, courtesy of IKEA (the Malm dresser and Hemnes mirror) and these lasercut fretwork panels:

I'm not 100% sold on how much contrast there is (maybe the drawer fronts need to be all white?) but I'm completely happy with the capacity: 

Many, many thanks to my dad for pickup, delivery, and assembly over the course of four hours. As the IKEA instructions tell us, one person assembling this is a frowny face. But two people is a great big smile!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Here's an inspiring comic about the power of science. 

2. And in other science news, here's a rare image of the transit of Venus you may not have seen:

What an event.

Goodbye, Ray

You've probably heard by now that Ray Bradbury, one of my very favorite authors forever and ever, died yesterday at the age of 91. 

From raybradbury.com: 

He is survived by his four daughters, Susan Nixon, Ramona Ostergren, Bettina Karapetian, and Alexandra Bradbury, and eight grandchildren. His wife, Marguerite, predeceased him in 2003, after fifty-seven years of marriage.

Throughout his life, Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932. At the end of his performance Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, Live forever! Bradbury later said, I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped.

Wednesday Poem

If I were still memorizing poems, this would be a good one to have in my head while hiking. Let's be like the water in it. 

Passage

by John Brehm

In all the woods that day I was
the only living thing
fretful, exhausted, or unsure.
Giant fir and spruce and cedar trees
that had stood their ground
three hundred years
stretched in sunlight calmly
unimpressed by whatever
it was that held me
hunched and tense above the stream,
biting my nails, calculating all
my impossibilities.
Nor did the water pause
to reflect or enter into
my considerations.
It found its way
over and around a crowd
of rocks in easy flourishes,
in laughing evasions and
shifts in direction.
Nothing could slow it down for long.
It even made a little song
out of all the things
that got in its way,
a music against the hard edges
of whatever might interrupt its going.

No Projects, Just Natural Stuff

This is what I'm doing instead of sewing lately:

(That's a frozen lower Red Pine Lake in Little Cottonwood canyon.)

And did you save your eclipse viewing glasses from a few weeks ago? Tonight you can use them to see the transit of Venus across the sun, which won't happen again for 117 years. So you probably don't want to miss it.

Sunday Night Conversations, Part Whatever: The Zombie Apocalypse

My best friend and I were discussing current events and the rash of gruesome "zombie-like" attacks fueled by the drug "bath salts" came up. And he said:

 "As a purveyor of beautiful bath salts, I have to think, 'Is this something else for me to worry about?'"

I tried to explain that the drug in question was not made of actual bath salts and that people were using the term with quotation marks around it, and he came back with: 

"Zombies are not scrupulous in their use of quotation marks, Karen."

 And those are words to live by. 

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Last year's Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan is publishing a new short story. Over Twitter. I rolled my eyes too but then I got sucked in--the voice and the pacing really work. She's posting new installments 140 characters at time on the @NYerFiction account, or you can read the whole thing here (updated every evening).

2. If you love to hate fashion blogs such as The Sartorialist, you'll love to love Sartorial Zoo. It features the dreaded "street style" shot,  paired with its animal equivalent: 

New Music

I found a couple of music-related links yesterday, so let's make it Music Thursday:

1. There's a new recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations out, recorded under a Creative Commons license--which means you can download everything for free (including the score), or just listen online at opengoldbergvariations.org.

2. I  read about Nick Waterhouse in my round of blogs, and listened to nothing else for the rest of the workday (sorry, Bach).  He's a young kid who's found a horn section and is doing his best to channel 50's and 60's R&B, down to recording and editing everything on analog and overdriving the mics. I know it sounds like it could be hipster-ironic, but it's just really great music--plus, his blog has so many clips of forgotten 45s.

Here's the "official" video  from his first album, Time's All Gone, but you can find more of him on YouTube or Spotify.

Living With Ideas

My favorite singer Neko Case is working on a new album, and NPR is tracking the progress of it through some interviews. In the first interview (that you can read here), she talks about living with unfinished songs and what it's like:

"Because when they're not done, the songs, they're like little nuclear reactors that are throbbing in your suitcase. And you're like, 'When's that thing gonna go off? Is it just gonna die out? Is it just gonna poison the groundwater? What is that thing doing in there?'"

I think that description's pretty right on for living with anything creative/life-shaping that isn't ready to become something yet.

Still Hiking

"As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I’ll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.”

John Muir from Journal, 1871.

(The view from as far up Thaynes Canyon as I got yesterday. I still sometimes sing this song to myself when I have to turn around.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. It's a long weekend, hooray!

2. Have you been following the launch of the Dragon capsule from SpaceX? Something American-made is back in space, and it's been successfully captured by the ISS! I've been getting my news from Bad Astronomy. 

3. From the creator of last week's hit, "Lazy Harp Seal," I give you "Cat Licking a Hamster."

Colonies in space!

Happy Birthday, Bob

Bob Dylan and his magnificent haircut turns 71 today.  I was going to pick a favorite video to share, but I really can't--and with Bob, you either like him and you know the song or you're not going to listen to one in the first place.

(Although in my search for a tune I remembered him getting "Soy Bomb"-ed at the 1998 Grammys. Soy Bomb!)

Re-Reading The Dharma Bums

I'm not doing so well on my goal to read a new book a month, but I'm hoping to catch up by the pool when it's full summer. In the meantime, there's The Dharma Bums to re-read. This is from their backpacking trip to the Sierra Nevadas: 

Now the mountains were getting that pink tinge, I mean the rocks, they were just solid rock covered with the atoms of dust accumulated there since beginningless time. In fact I was afraid of those jagged monstrosities all around and over our heads. 

"They're so silent!" I said. 

"Yeah man, you know to me a mountain is a Buddha. Think of the patience, hundreds of thousands of years just sittin there bein perfectly perfectly silent and like praying for all living creatures in that silence and just waitin for us to stop all our frettin and foolin."

Tuesday Project Roundup: Done!

I finished the tunic! I'm pretty happy with it: there's a big Liberty print, the sleeves are really well cut, the collar looks kind of 60s retro, and it's DONE

Fabric:  Liberty of London seasonal print lawn from Purl

Pattern: Wiksten "Tova" tunic

Level of completion: DONE! 

(I talk a lot about my productivity going to hell, but I looked back at the "sewing" tag and I've been getting one project a month done for 2012. So I guess it's not too shabby.)

Shelves!

It took over a year for me to get it done, but I now have shelves in the garage. (I feel like Elwood in my favorite clip.) Look at the storage capacity--a cat and a bucket!

Just kidding, I started filing it up:

If you're thinking this looks similar to the other custom, well-built shelving unit my dad put in the basement last year, that's because he built this one too, and did a similarly excellent job. Thanks, dad!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. From the ever-wonderful Letters of Note blog (check out Steinbeck writing to his former professor, too),  here's Noel Coward giving relationship advice to Marlene Dietrich:

Do please try to work out for yourself a little personal philosophy and DO NOT, repeat DO NOT be so bloody vulnerable. To hell with God damned "L'Amour." It always causes far more trouble than it is worth. Don't run after it. Don't court it. Keep it waiting off stage until you're good and ready for it and even then treat it with the suspicious disdain that it deserves. 

"Gay husbands" give the best advice, don't they? 

2. Here is a song about a lazy harp seal, who has neither a job, nor money, nor camera, nor jacket. It pretty much made my week.

Skyler

He continues to be the cutest baby in the world:

That is all.

Goodbye, Duck

Did you hear that bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn died in his sleep Monday at the age of 70? He was, of course, the long-time bassist for Booker T and the MGs; but I got to know him from The Blues Brothers (of course). Here he is in the white t-shirt, with the pipe:

You can hear more clips from his most famous performances here. 

Tuesday Project Roundup: Look!!

I think the title deserves two exclamation points, because the fact that I had a few hours to work on this tunic is nothing short of amazing. 

It's not quite done yet--it needs a collar and a hem and some topstitching--but I'd forgotten how much I can get done when I have the Fortress of Solitude back to myself.

Happy Birthday, Arthur Sullivan

Yesterday was the birthday of Arthur Sullivan, the second half of Gilbert and Sullivan and the one responsible for the music. Or, in other words, I now have an excuse to post this:  

Also: This.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Depressed Copywriter is pretty much perfect, especially if you know of or happen to be a depressed copywriter. Some examples: 

2. On a less cynical note, I hope all the moms out there have a Happy Mother's Day. If you need a card for your own badass mother, you can download a printable PDF of this one here. 

What Camping As A Vegetarian Is Often Like

Hippie Poem Wednesday

This hippie poem appeared on The Writer's Almanac today, which gives it far more poetical credibility than coming from, say,  a site with the name of Mystic Mamma. It's by Joy Harjo, whose birthday is today.

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear
Can't know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon, within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Car Knitting

Before the camping trip I realized that 1.) I would probably not be driving and 2.) if so, then I could knit in the car. So I looked around for a small accessory-type project and landed on a knitted tie (using this pattern). 

No, it is not for me. But it's not a sweater, so I'm hoping to avoid any "sweater curses."  And no, I haven't worked on it since the car ride home.

Sunday Night Conversations: The Right Word

Here's some advice about word choice, as given out by my best friend last night: 

I watched The Universe last night and they were describing things like the scale of our solar system and the speed of light. And that's the time to use the word "awesome"--not when someone refills the ice in your water.