Ooooh! Another SP10 Contest!

And I don't really have a story that fits.

See, the theme is sort of "How far have you gone for yarn," and it's instigated by Charming Hostess Robin's husband, who I suspect has been involved (at least chauffeured [sp?]) some interesting yarn treks in his day.

So I'm suspecting his vision has to do with climbing the mountains in Tibet for the much-fabled Yeti Yarn, or a quest to the whitest north for a qiviut-alpaca blend (yeah, me neither. But now that I've said it, dontcha wanna fondle it?).

I've never gone way out of my way because I had to have THAT yarn. Usually, I work backwards from a pattern or what's at my LYS. I do have a story of angst, most of which you've read before:

I want to make a sweater. I picked the Dark Horse Fantasy Shaped Ribbed Sweater (everafter dubbed "Trojan Sweater" for the ribbing and the bad joke) from the December 2006 Knit'n'Style and went in search of the YARN CALLED FOR BY THE PATTERN. I know how narrow-minded that is, but I figured I could screw with the details on a project where I was comfortable enough with the process to feel I could make informed decisions. First sweater? Not poking the yarn gods with a stick.

Of course, in the Age of the Internet, the first thing I did was Google the yarn. I came across a place called the Yarn Barn that had a myriad of colours and seemed reasonable, so I put my order in. You may remember this part of the story too: evil yarn store owner says she'll have to special order, it'll be a week before I see my yarn, fine... two weeks later, she's pissy with me because I want to know if I'm ever going to see my yarn and if her store is prone to denying fibre geeks their heart's blood...

I cancelled the order, confident that I could get the yarn since they were now carrying it at A Knitted Peace. Of course, they didn't have the obnoxious shocking pink I craved, so I had to special order it. They told me it would be in the end of the next week. I was in the store that Thursday, right before the Yarn Harlot, asking if -- by chance, by any luck -- my yarn had come in.

It had! Yippee!

"But we can't give it to you."

*gasp*

The computer was down and they couldn't check it in. I could hear the yarn vibrating in the back room. I could SMELL it. I wanted to beg they take a ball band, take notes on what they needed and LET ME HAVE MY YARN.

But she said she wouldn't be able to until the computer was up. In fact, probably not even on Friday.

You can imagine the pain. I was beginning to wonder if this was God's way of telling me the Trojan Sweater was the devil's work and not meant for my idle hands.

I happened to be down in Littleton Friday and stopped in again. Just to check (read: be a pain in the ass and hope for the best). Two different women were there, and apparently hadn't gotten the Marin Yarn Moratorium memo and let me have the yarn, even though they couldn't check it in. They took notes. I hope they didn't get in trouble.

Of course, I have way too many things on the needles to start on the Trojan Sweater, but at least I have. my. yarn.



Y'all know.

[SUMMARY: I sure talk a lot, don't I?]

TOMORROW (or the next day -- taxes and all): Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of shitstorm...

Digging Those Shins!

KELLY CRISIS: OVER... and I was *so* looking forward to an Iran Hostage-style daily count

Kelly (the one who lives in the 'hood, as opposed to the thousands of Kellys apparently reading this blog and becoming my new best Kellys**) called last night, making me a happy and relieved new-best-friend, but ruining the great scheme to turn her absence into a bit that would rival the Heathers schtick for sheer blogdorkness. Sometimes ya gotta give a little to get a little.

[GREEK CHORUS: Kelly's back!]

Meanwhile...

When the Brown Palace shindigs, they really dig their shins in.

Fabulous food, free drinks (good ones! not box wines and Miller Genuine Dreck!), free massages, 50% off a spa service booked at the event (and that makes some of their very expensive stuff -- like the $85 signature pedicure -- absolutely reasonable).

The manager of the hotel, Marcel Patin (and I have no idea if his last name is close to right. That's what I heard. He's French, so use an accent when you say it to yourself) even stopped to talk to us, and when he found I'm a regular at the spa, he was genuinely interested in whether I was getting good service or had any suggestions. I'm such a geek for customer service, even if it was all a front, I dig that kind of stuff. Almost as much as I dig shins.

Funny side story: When Marcel (and we are on a first-name basis. If only because I'm not remotely sure about his last name. And because he's my new best friend) first approached us, both Annie and I thought he was going to hit on us. Is it a French guy thing or is it a 40-something chick thing?

I did take my camera, but both the pictures I came home with had to be taken before my hands were full of martini and food plates. I was already in dire straits about how to pick up the hors d'oeuvres (are you supposed to use an S for the plural on that?) that were circulating without spilling my drink, so photo ops were limited. To two. Here they are:

The friends (Annie and Tani, respectively) and the drinks (pomegranate martini, blueberry martini and mango mojito in the background, respectively) that made it all worthwhile


Tani (or that bump in her belly) is the future recipient of the Stupid Blanket and Annie is the future recipient of the Heathers ("It's your turn Heather." "No, Heather, it's Heather's turn. Heather?" "Sorry Heather. " Nope, not old yet).

So this weekend finds me trying to smash St. Patrick's Day in with the following:

1) Baking and decorating four dozen carrot cupcakes for Tani's baby shower
2) Tani's baby shower
3) NCAA Tournament watchage
4) Taking Dad to the airport at (get this) 4:00 Sunday morning. MORNING. 4:00. I volunteered. I'm not as smart as I look.

I may sleep some on Sunday. I may not sleep at all *until* Sunday.

Oh! And because I threatened this, and I generally keep my word, I did some business (then cancelled some business) with a yarn place and I want to let y'all know what a small and irritating clusterfuck it was, just in case.

Remember the Trojan Sweater? That I kept saying the yarn would come any day? I ordered the yarn from the Yarn Barn on February 26. I ordered it there because it was one of the few places that came up when I Googled "Dark Horse Fantasy" that actually had anything to do with yarn. Y'all know what I mean.

Anyway, the next day, Pat Kirtland, owner of the Yarn Barn emailed to say thanks for the order, I don't have the seven balls you want [side note: with all this talk of fantasies and balls, I'm either going to start getting hits from Cinderella enthusiasts or... well, you know], I only have six, I'll have to order more. I asked how long it would take for me to get the yarn. She said about a week, because she had to order it from Colorado Springs. I mentioned that I live in Colorado and perhaps they could drop-ship my order directly from the Springs. She said she didn't know if they'd drop ship partial lots, but she'd check and let me know.

Never heard from her again.

Yesterday I called to ask what the status of the order was. I'm still not convinced she even ordered the right colour, since she kept talking about "reddish orange" and I ordered shocking pink (I shouldn't make fun. She may be handicapped. A colour-blind yarn purveyor. How horrifying is that?). She said she'd gotten the order in today (that would be yesterday now. Tense can be a little tense in blogworld). She didn't mention when she'd ship it or how long it would take, nor did she express any sorrow or concern over my complete lack of sweater yarn.

"Is this common with your shop?" I asked, "because my inclination is not to order again if I have to wait three weeks for yarn that I can get other places much quicker."

"Well," she said, in a defensive and snotty tone, "this wasn't in my control. There's nothing I can do about it if the yarn company doesn't send me the yarn."

I was tempted to say, "You could have written, you could have called. You could have apologised. You could have -- at bare minimum -- acknowledged my concern and answered it like you actually want to have customers." I decided not to engage. I just said, "Then please cancel my order. I can get the yarn at my local yarn store."

(I know we love and support our LYSs, but at the time I went looking for the yarn, none of them showed it on their websites as available. Then I was in A Knitted Peace one day and -- ta-daaaaa -- there it was)

"FINE!" she said. You know the tone of voice.

So I sent her an email reiterating the cancellation of the order and told her that her reaction to my inquiry earned her both a one-way-ticket away from my yarn-friendly bank account and as much bad publicity as was reasonable in my purview. So here I am, making good on the bad publicity thing. Do with it what you will.

[GREEK CHORUS: AntiM complains a lot, mostly about high class problems like too many cool social events, but at least French guys talk to her. Don't shop at Yarn Barn. And don't fuck with the HKIC.]

I leave you with this funny story from my friend Mick (who has a Blackberry and knows how to use it), who hypothesised that it's only funny if you were there, but I think it's pretty funny even though I was nowhere near the store in question at the time:

Anyway, here is a random event from my life. I went to the gas station, everyone has to pre-pay, I left my CC at home so went inside, long line I'm looking around. Next to the hotdogs are 3 pumps for condiments, one for Catsup, one for Mustard and the 3rd just says sauce. That's it just sauce. I get to counter and ask the guy, "what kind of sauce is that." He looks kinda pissed off. "Sauce!" He says. I ask for 20.00 in gas and 2 cans of Copenhagen, he rings it up. Before I pull out the cash, I ask "what kind of sauce, hot? Sour? Cheese? Just saying sauce tells me nothing." The guy isn't happy now. "30.92" he says. Now I want to play. "First tell me what's the sauce? I might like to have some. How can I buy it if I don't know what it is?" "Hot dog sauce, ok?" He says. Now the guy behind me who has been chuckling asks. "What kind of hotdog sauce?". At this point the 3 of us are only ones in store, and the counter guy figures out we are just messing with him. Anyway it was funny, probably a lot funnier if you were there.

[GREEK CHORUS: AntiM's friends are a little weird too. Figures.]

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): There aren't thousands of Kellys reading this. Who am I kidding? There are at least two, however, and that gives me the compulsion to exaggerate for the sake of drama, blogworthiness and personal ego boost.

**FOOTNOTE (unasterisked): Didja ever notice how all blue alcohol looks like Windex?

I'm Your New Best Friend!

Hey! I went to my first Stitch 'n' Bitch last night! Here! Right in my own neighbourhood!

It was kinda weird.

I liked it, don't get me wrong. Liked it a lot. But I walked in and there were eight or nine knitters drinking wine and eating cake and stuff (turns out they were celebrating the marriage of one of the regulars -- they don't always have lots of wine and cake. I don't plan on letting this be a factor in my attendance).

I sat down in the only available chair and... well, I'm pretty reserved in groups of strangers. If nothing else, I try to keep in mind how much I don't want to fuck everything up from the git-go by saying "fuck" or talking about sex toys or saying something accidentally anti-feminist (all things I seem prone to do in casual conversation).

I was brave, though. After a little stretch and a good warm-up, I jumped right in. Like I belonged. And they were very receptive. And one of the chicks is contemplating a second job in direct sale sex toys, so I was so off the hook on that potential mine field. So far so not-shit-in-the-punchbowl, right?

The weird: Only one person asked my name or introduced herself. When I was on my way out.

Yeah, I could have just bounded in and said, "Hi! I'm Marin! I'm your new best friend! Where do y'all keep the sex toys while you're cooking dinner for your fucking husbands?" But by the time I got over the reserved portion of the evening, it seemed even weirder to suddenly introduce myself than it did to continue to glean people's names by collecting them on the sly. And I probably talked to ten women last night. (Shouts to my new best friend, Mary Kay, who may be the only one who knows my name. Mary Kay, you wanna have drinks with Kelley and me and talk about The Boy? I'm your new best friend!).

Ooooh! Ooooh! Check this!

At one point, we were discussing TV (bleagh... another potential shit-in-the-punchbowl arena for me, since I watch waaayyyyy too much TV and not nearly enough of it is PBS and admitting that to some people is like saying you think Hitler had it right all along) and one nameless, unintroduced knitter asked another nameless, unintroduced knitter, "Well, do you TiVo it?" and the other person admitted not having TiVo and there were shocked exclamations... I said, "I love TiVo. TiVo changed my life. I didn't even own a TV for six years and now I watch, like, 90 hours of television a week. But good TV. TV I want to watch."

First, I'm very happy nice Nameless Ones didn't cast aspersion my way for my deplorable anti-intellectual practise. Second, this opened the gate for talk to turn to all the non-PBS television everybody watches. I can't tell you how liberating it is to be able to admit in public that, horrifying as it is, I can't keep off the crack pipe that is America's Next Top Model.

The conversation naturally turned (totally natural. If you were there, you'd agree) to how American Idol is screwing up the Bones and House schedule on Fox. I launched.

"I keep thinking my Comcast DVR is simply failing to record Bones and House. I looked yesterday. No Bones. No House. It's Wednesday, right? So there should be Bones! There should be House! I'm sure the nice little customer service people at Comcast don't understand why I can't check a TV schedule now and then. Now when I call, they don't even ask my name and account and all that. They just say, 'Marin, American Idol was on last night. Bones will be back next week. Thank you and please stop calling Comcast.' "

I thought I was really clever throwing my name out there as part of the story (and an integral part of the story! Not forced at all! See how funny it is that she calls Comcast so often they're all on a first-name basis with her? Ha ha!), yet nobody else seemed to pick up on it.

[SUMMARY: Stitch'n'Bitch is cool, though nobody knows my name like I'm some ancient god or something (not that I'm granting myself godlike status, just the "O Nameless One" element), knitters may watch too much TV and be too involved with their sex toys. I am obsessed with my own cleverness.]

Still, it was soooo nice to discuss the merits of various needle materials, how well (or not) different brands of circular needles work, how easy it is to dork a k1p1 rib when you're switching from a linen stitch... and the girl beside me? Knitting a thank-you scarf? Asked my opinion. Now, I told her I liked it and she was ripping it out a couple of inches later for the not liking it herself, but I have the great good fortune of not having my ego bound up in someone else's scarf, so I was perfectly happy with both her decision and my original opinion. 'Specially since someone actually asked my opinion.

Hey, Thank You Scarf Girl! I'm your new best friend!

And they called the baby blanket "beautiful" and that makes me happy. And they fully understood why I've taken to calling it the Stupid Blanket. Because knitters understand the pain of 1500 stitches-to-the-inch of mind-numbing linen stitch that is made all the bitterer (yeah, I said it) through knowing the only reason you did the linen stitch was for the cool woven quality on variegated yarn and this yarn isn't so much variegated as long-repeat STRIPING, like changing colour every inch-and-a-half over 26 inches and you could have just used an easy garter stitch and it'd all be done (all 112 gazillion stitches of it) by now and... "But it's so pretty in the linen stitch. It's beautiful."

All in all, a group of funny, intelligent, personable, friendly women (and I expected no less) who didn't get upset when I talked about sex toys and television. Notice how I put "funny" first. Love the laugh thing.

I didn't take the camera because I wasn't quite sure how potentially not-knit-blog-friendly knitters might feel about the new chick pointing a camera at them and telling them she's going to put them on the Internet. Probably to illustrate a post in which she seems obsessed with how weird they are.

Knitters always have pointy objects. It's not good to piss them off.

So I'll do it next week. Not that the situation will have changed much, but at least we've all discussed our sex toys so we're not SO uninitiated.

[SUMMARY: I may not have taken your picture and you may not agree with with my taste in bulky, ribbed thank you scarves, but I'm your new best friend!]

Speaking of knitting, here is the sweater I'm going to knit.

I may call this the Trojan Sweater -- ribbed for my pleasure. Such an old joke, so not original. (Knit 'n' Style December 2006)




Note how it's done in a staid and elegant off-white colour that gleams softly in the available light and shows the rib pattern off to perfection? I'm doing it in shocking pink. Colour number 30, below.




Hey, they (Well, mostly my dad's sisters) tell me I look good in shocking pink. They may just be scared to tell me otherwise ("Back away slowly from the crazy lady in shocking pink sweater... say something nice... they can smell fear, you know... and they carry pointy things...")

Kelly news flash ('cause I know y'all were just wondering, and what's a blogday without Kelley?): she called yesterday. I didn't get to call her back, but I'm going to go do that next and we will have drinks tonight. Oh, yes, we will have the drinks.

[SUMMARY: Knitting? Check. Kelley? Check.]

What a sad little excuse for a post. As a reward for sticking with it, I'd like to present you this pretty picture I took my ownself. Everything is better with a frog.

Come on over to my pad, baby -- we'll get crazy on the flies and party 'til we croak!

**FOOTNOTE (unasterisked): Knitting news flash ('cause y'all are lucky): when I Googled for Dark Horse Fantasy to show off my level of shocking pink class and sophistication, I came upon this cool site. Now, it's all about crochet, but crocheters use yarn too, so there's some sense of comeraderie. I will be going to the cool site right after I hit "Publish" to see what's up in the world of yarn review.

[SUMMARY: Some footnotes aren't worth the blogpaper they're printed on, but frogs can make everything better.]

H to the O...

...to the A!

Let's hear it for my HOA. When Denver was suffocating under a foot-and-a-half of snow between Wednesday (Dec 20) and Thursday (Dec 21), nobody shovelled us out for three days, despite the facts that a) everybody knew the snow was coming and was going to be big and they should have been well prepared, and b) it stopped snowing Thursday morning and there was no excuse for leaving snow stagnating in clear weather. Now, I'm a bitcher (No, AntiM! Not you! Say it ain't so!). I bitched at the management company, who didn't even know the snow guys weren't doing their snow guy thing. The snow guys *told* the management company they were going out at noon... and at noon the next day they still hadn't so much as breathed heavy in the direction of our little covenant-controlled corner of the 'hood.

They had so many complaints that they went WAY too far the other direction: unnecessary 24-hour snow removal for the next snow a week later. We're talking big equipment, people. I wish you were here to hear my impression of middle-of-the-bloody night in my 'hood during those times:

*rrrrrrrrarrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhnnnnnn* *beepbeepbeepbeep* (that last one was the backup alarm. I hate the backup alarm.)

This bit of genius (the 24-hour snow removal genius) inspired snarky signs all over the 'hood warning residents to stop threatening violence and legal action (I am not making this up) against the snow guys or the snow guys would go home and... no snow removal for you!

They've since mellowed into a system wherein the snow guys come somewhere between 10:00 pm and 2:00 am, run a snowblower and a mini-cat with a plow for an hour (and I've watched a couple of times -- one or two swipes with motorised equipment seem to both clear all the snow and take only about 15 minutes), take a long break (in which I'm sure they partake of the ganja. I'm not judgin', I'm just sayin'), then start up again (waking up the finally-sleeping populace). Turns out they hired these guys to do overnight snow removal because it's cheaper than the daytime kind of snow removal.

How do I know this? I bitched at the snow guys at 2:00 one morning and they... um... *explained* it to me, as only two stoned perverts jousting with snow shovels in the freezing dark can do. Use your imagination.

Also, I can only assume they're being paid by the hour because it takes four guys with a snowblower, mini-cat and (at least) three snow shovels at their disposal four or five hours to clear three square blocks of sidewalk.

I could do it by myself with a garden trowel in less time.

I am covetous of sleep. I love my sleep. I was an insomniac for almost 30 years, so I'm picky about sleep. I can't sleep with backup alarms (I hate backup alarms) and snowblowers under my window.

In response to their ill-conceived snow removal system, I've developed my own system. I turn on a fan to create a volume of white noise sufficient to blot out the aural blight of snow blowers, snow shovels and stoned men yelling off-colour jokes to each other across the dark and empty streets. I woke up at 2:40 this morning, toddled off to pee (because it doesn't matter how little fluid is in my body or how many times I've peed in the last four hours, as soon as I wake up, my body needs to pee) and noticed how freakin' cold it was with the fan on. I peeked out the window to see clean, empty sidewalks and no snow guys, so I turned off the fan. An hour later? "Hey, Manny! What do you call a squid with a yeast infection?"

*rrrrrrrreeeernrnrnrnrnrhhhhhhhhnnnnnn* (snowblower -- sounds a lot like the heavy equipment, but whinier and with no backup alarm. I hate the backup alarm.)

I guess they came back from their smoke/toke break to... oh, who knows what they do? Admire their work? Do like I do when I wander into the kitchen and can't remember why? ("Huh. What do you suppose I came here for? Dang. I guess I'll shovel this snow...")

[SUMMARY: If I were running the world, snowblowers and backup alarms (I hate backup alarms) wouldn't keep me up all night, yet the snow would get removed. I think there's a vast middle ground between the two ends of that particular spectrum.]

I turned the fan back on. I'm tired this morning.

But I have knitting pictures, so it will all be better soon.

Here is a fine view of my knitting magazines. I ambitiously spent a weekend not too long ago culling magazines with no potential (which I gave to my friend Annie -- hey, one person's trash, another's lifetime supply of knitting patterns) and marking things I want to knit in the remainder. Note the festive tags, indicating things I want to knit.



This is the B&N Problem Sweater (as in "I have a Book Problem and a Knitting Problem) from the Vogue Knitting American Collection



I also have a picture of the lovely ribbed sweater from the Knit 'n' Style December 2006 issue that I'm going to knit BEFORE the Problem Dragonfly. It's lovely, in a lovely yarn (Dark Horse Fantasy -- isn't that a lovely name?), but I left the lovely picture on my lovely home computer, or possibly in my lovely camera, so you'll have to use your imagination for now.

Here are the WIPs:

Arrrgyle Socks in pink and brown, along with... the practise arrrgyle on which I taught myself intarsia. Yes, I forgot the nose holes on the practise arrrgyle, but that's what practise (and duplicate stitching) is all about.



I don't much care for variegated yarns because they so often look homemade in that not-so-good homemade way that evokes home perms and ballerina toilet paper cozies from the 70s, but I discovered (thanks to the magic of the Knitting Pattern a Day Calendar... thanks Aunt Chris!) that variegated yarn looks really cool in a linen stitch.


For example, linen stitch front... ... and back (it even looks really cool on the back. Love that).



...so I was very excited when my cousin picked a variegated yarn (it's Plymouth Encore -- she was looking at cashmere, but who needs a baby blanket that needs to be dry cleaned?) and figured I'd whip out the old linen stitch and really impress the not-knitters, but...

The baby blanket...




...and a closeup of the stitch (linen)... ...and a closeup of the edge (two leaves something from Nicky Epstein).



It turns out this yarn has REALLY long repeats (look at me, using the knitting lingo) and it stripes more than it linens. I probably would have gone with a nice, quick garter stitch if I'd known, but I feel I'm too far gone to frog it back now. Not to mention what a pain in the ass it would likely be to frog a linen stitch. In fact, it wouldn't go "rippit, rippit" in that smooth slip-stitch way we know and love. It'd be like riding a razor scooter on shudder bars: "Bam! Fuck! Bam! Fuck!"

Stupid Blanket.

Here's a tip from your ol' AntiM: if you're one of those people who has two (or three or twelve) projects going at a time (possibly because you have a short attention span, possibly because you're industrious, possibly because you want to knit all the yarn and all the patterns and this is the only way you see this happening), don't toggle between a linen stitch and a k1p1 rib. You may lose your ever-lovin' mind. You should see the tragic message I sent to the Yarn Harlot the day I did this. Nobody has time for that kind of whining, but I don't have knitty friends, so I had to piss and moan in the general direction of someone who might feel my pain.

[SUMMARY: I knit.]

Anyway...

Very little sock (plus cat for scale)... ...some yarn my nephew got me, kinda scarfy



That's "very little sock" as in "I have knit very little of this sock," rather than "This will be a teeny-tiny little fairy sock. Look! It's almost done!"

My nephew picked out the yarn all by himself. It think it was very brave of his mother to take him (a four-year-old at the time) to a yarn store that, while I love it, it doesn't love kids. That yarn has been sitting for two years while I try to figure out what to do with it. I don't know if you can see it, but it goes from thick to thin and back again -- I tried to do the linen stitch trick with it (since it's variegated, don't ya know), but it ends up looking like a six-fingered, mentally challenged person knit it at day camp. All uneven and lumpy and stuff. So I decided on a simple garter stitch scarf.

Those last two items have something in common: I took their pictures yesterday afternoon and frogged them all the way back to yarn balls before Book Club (yes, I finished the book, yes I provided snacks. Good ones. All is right with the world). I decided to do the Feather and Fan socks from "Socks Socks Socks" because I've seen some lovely results with the dreaded variegated yarn on that particular pattern. I decided to make fingerless gloves or gauntlets with the Nephew Yarn.

I've never frogged a project unless there was something to fix via the frogging. I heaved a deep sigh as I pulled the first of the needles, fear and loathing in my heart, but it turns out it's a lot of fun and kind of liberating to undo a whole whack of knitting. And the power! Oh, the power! "Ha ha, tiny knitting projects! Bend to my will! Quake before me for soon you may be nothing more than fibre in my hands!"

I'm a dork.

I'm a dork with clean sidewalks.

[SUMMARY: I am dork enough to think ripping several hours' worth of knitting back is worth blogging about.]

**FOOTNOTE (unasterisked): Have y'all noticed I have no idea how to punctuate around parentheses? And I'm not even consistent in the mistakes I make? I figure if I do everything I can think of at least once, I'll get it right at least once in every round. It's a good thing I don't knit that way. Besides, a friend once told me you can pretty much skip everything in parentheses when you're reading, so I figure you can pretty much skip good grammar practices. Parenthetically.

ALSO... I did a bunch of editing in HTML because stuff looked wrong and I couldn't un-wrong it from the Blog View for Dummies. I'm a genius. Still a dork.