Where Is My Accountabilibuddy?

So we had the baby shower. I stuck by my guns and refused to play any stupid shower games in which I had to taste or smell anything. It's the little victories that... well, some days the little victories are all you have. Here are the cupcakes:



I had a wild weekend (baby shower aside) -- at least a wild Saturday night -- in the shitstorm in my brain. I've tried for a good, long while now, but I can't make it interesting. At best, I get to histrionic. Apologies all 'round. Boys do that to me. The Boy does that to me.

I will tell you that the most dangerous thing about The Boy for your ol' AntiM is the chemistry. Sheer, pure chemistry. Kelly told me Saturday night that I was glowing (we were talking spa treatments, so it's not like I was just sitting their glowing like a pregnant woman. Just want to keep things real, here). I said, "It's from standing next to The Boy." We had a good laugh, but I swear to two things that speak miles for chemical reaction:

1) He smells amazing to me. He doesn't wear cologne or aftershave or any of that stuff, but he smells like burnt sugar and almonds and cedar. One night last summer, I was snorking on his neck like my cat snorks around a tuna can, damned close to taking a nibble, and -- realising it had gone beyond a discreet little sniff and was into full-on weird and maybe required an explanation of some kind -- I said, "You smell *so* good." I may have drooled in his ear a little right then.

"What? Ballpark and two beers and the walk to your house?"

Now, I've never had pure chemistry (not in the emotional way people talk about, but in the basic, raw pheromonal way that makes someone smell edible to me) with anyone but The Boy, so I don't have a lot to compare it to, but there's something primal there. And given the way we met, I'm guessing he has the same reaction, even if he doesn't put it into words whilst drooling into my ear.

See, that first night we met, I was paying my tab, he said hi and we tossed a couple of lines of small talk between us. About two steps away from him and I wanted to go back. Come to think of it, in the aftermath of my offering to stay if he'd get me back to my car, he spent a certain amount of time snorking around my neck. (Ha! Evidence!) And I was a fright that night, oh my friends: pudgy (read: fat), frumpy clothes, no war paint, legs unshaved, pedicure questionable, hair a wreck... in fact, I hadn't even showered that day because I'd been working at home and lost track of time until I had to haul ass to my massage appointment. I was NOT on the prowl that night. And yet... we managed to get pretty torrid, all personal hygiene issues aside.

2) When I'm around The Boy, other boys want me. Alone at the bar watching sports and some guy will usually talk to me about the game for a bit, but not to hit on me. However, every time I've ever been in public with The Boy, at least two other guys have wanted to buy me drinks, kissed me, asked for my digits, touched me in what I can only term proprietary ways, *competed* with other boys for my attention... it's not my normal life experience. It's insane.

I can almost claim to have conducted a double-blind, scientific-like experiment with this, because there is one boy who has hit on me TWICE (six months apart) when he's run into me when I'm out with The Boy, but sat right next to me on several nights without The Boy and never said more than, "Hey. How you doin'?" I'm like a prism to The Boy's light -- I cast pretty colours all over the walls and the furniture and the people around me and I fucking *glow*. Other boys start looking for the gold at the end of that rainbow. And when I'm around The Boy, other boys don't interest me at all. Insane. Darwin wants me to breed with The Boy. Darwin is trying to kill me.

[I'm not feeling the Greek Chorus thing so much. It looked better on paper than it turned out to be on, um... paper.

So we're back to... (reserving the right to occasionally talk about myself in third person)

SUMMARY: I'm still entirely obsessive about this Boy thing (nothing changed there over the weekend), but it's probably due solely to chemistry and natural selection and stuff. Not a personality defect on my part at all. Greek choruses are best left to Greeks. And Woody Allen.]

Now, The Boy fondled another girl. Kelly says they're just friends and she has a boyfriend, but it looked a little... fondlish... to me. Kelly says, "He talks about you." Kelly says, "Trust Kelly."

(Kelly also says she's the Real Kelly and all you Imaginary Kellys out there should note that. Don't worry. I love all my Kellys equally, though I certainly spend more time drinking with some than with others.)

Anyway... we left The Boy fondling (or not, if you trust Kelly) another girl at Other Favourite Bar, but only got a little way down the street before The Boy caught up to us. He took our (Kelly and Marin) picture a couple of times, and while I consider fondling another girl a bad sign, I consider his being the only person on the face of the planet to take two consecutive good pictures of me to be a good sign.

We went to Re-Favourite Bar where several things of note (in my shitstorm of a brain) happened:

1. Adorable DJ flirted like a fiend. Cute barback flirted like a fiend, bought me a shot (*so* very my new best friend!), kissed me twice. I was with The Boy, you know, and apparently his fondling another girl doesn't phase Darwin at all.
2. Male Lady was there. Kelly and I had gone outside to the patio to avoid the heat, the crowd and, of course, the Male Lady and she followed us out. Kelly said, "Have you met my friend Marin?" and the Male Lady looked right at me and said, "No."
3. I picked up the tab for The Boy and I (Kelly had stopped drinking like a very good designated driver. Is it any wonder we love Kelly?). He offered to pay or chip in, but, kinda like my accidental stalker nightmares, I don't ever want to get caught in a place where I feel like someone is one up on me. If I never see The Boy again, and he goes on to a long happy life of fondling other girls, I want to know I went out on the high road. Calvin and Darwin -- both trying to kill me. The Boy said, "OK, I'll get yours next time." Y'all have been there. You know there's a lunatic place where a boy says something like that and you perk up and file it under the concept of some sort of future.
4. As an extension of that lunatic place where vague mentions of future plans start looking like white picket fences, when Kelly and The Boy took me home, we were talking about an outdoor movie series that takes place in the summer across the street from my townhome (the night we met, he'd stopped to get a pizza next door to Favourite Bar on his way to said movie and spent the night with me instead. So there.) and about my large, friendly deck, and The Boy said, "We should come to your house before the movies." I said, "Yeah, hang out on the deck, grill something, have a beer, go to the movie..." I get a little fuzzy here, because the three of us went on to talk of many things we can do when the weather's nice (I may also be a little fuzzy because of the several beers because it was St. Patrick's Day) and I no longer remember where we were in the conversation or for what reason I'm supposed to call The Boy, but he told me to call him. I reminded him in a not un-pointed tone that I don't have his phone number anymore. He told me to get it from Kelly and call. "I'd give it to you right now, but I'm a little drunk to dial." I said, "Think hard -- do you really want me to have your phone number?" "Yeah, of course. Sure. Just call me."

It's this kind of minute attention to slippery details that makes it so hard for me to get over boys of all kinds, but Boys in particular. I weigh every nuance against every clue against every emotional possibility and I don't sleep for days. If I slept I wouldn't have nearly enough time to obsess properly.

[SUMMARY: I need help. I need The Boy's phone number. I really need help.]

Now, you may remember I was slated to take my father to the airport at 4:00 Sunday morning. When I got home at midnight, there was a message from my brother saying he'd be happy to do it. So I called to accept his generous offer and to drunk-dial-style ramble about my shitstorm of the evening, and the call waiting rang in.

"Oh my fucking god," I said, "it's the PNhead."

"Really?" said my brother (or something like that -- he may read this, so I don't dare misquote).

When I got off the phone a few minutes later, I decided (naturally) that since I didn't have to be sober and mobile at 4:00, I should maybe go back to Other Favourite Bar and wind down from all The Boy stuff. I got a block from home and saw the Male Lady's car heading toward Other Favourite Bar. She parked and walked about a block ahead of me right to Other Favourite Bar. When I got in and found a spot at the bar, she came up and said, "Didn't I just meet you?" (I wanted to say, "Didn't you just call me?")

I said, "That was me. Are you following me?" striving for that playful tone most commonly used in phrases like, "Hot enough for you?"

She said, "No," in what I believe was a defensive way, fully indicative of her guilt in the matter, and disappeared to the back of the bar.

I had a beer. A boy hit on me (the Prism Effect lasts for up to an hour after I disengage from The Boy). I went home and slept.

[SUMMARY: Wow. I sure can make mountains out of molehills, but when the molehills are that close, they look so much bigger than they are. Objects in the mirror...]

I knit a LOT on Sunday. It was a good day for on-my-ass time. I'm almost done with Kelly's Branching Out, have made significant progress on Pink Magic, am trying hard not to ignore the Stupid Blanket and finished two repeats on the Heathers ("I love my dead, gay son!")

(Nope. Not over that yet.)

With any luck, I'll F a couple of Os this week and have pretty pictures to post soon. Because you know knitting pictures make everything better.

[SUMMARY: Despite the fact that this blog seems to have *nothing* to do with knitting, I am still knitting. Heathers quotes are still funny. To me.]

**FOOTNOTE (unasterisked): Do you watch South Park? I need an Accountabilibuddy. Someone who, like the posses of professional athletes, will not only keep me company, but will be around to keep my judgment within normal limits and provide a witness to the various shitstorms life has to offer. If Kobe Bryant had had an Accountabilibuddy, he never would have had to go through the shitstorm in Eagle County. I'm just sayin'.

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?

Boys Are Funny

KELLY CRISIS: DAY 5

So I went to Other Favourite Bar yesterday evening. It's a spiffy Irish pub just a few blocks from where I live, so I can drag myself home by my lips, should the need arise.

I walked in and Christopher (the cute bartender with the curly, dark hair -- as opposed to Jim, the cute bartender with the clean-shaven head) said, "Smithwick's?" and started drawing one before I'd really even said yes or fully parked at the bar. When the bartender has your drink ready before you even sit down, either you've arrived or you probably ought to leave (AntiM Public Service Announcement #1).

So I twiddled the foam on my beer and I glued my eyes to the Syracuse/S Alabama game. A guy sat down next to me. He asked the score. I told him. He told me he's a *huge* sports fan ("I even coach football!" he said, in much the same manic, bootlicking tone in which I say, "I'm your new best friend!") and asked if I'd joined my office pool. I told him I filled out a bracket on ESPN, but I'm going low-key this year.

BBall Boy: What teams did they give you?

(Imagine my blank look here)

Me: Well... you can choose a group to join...?

B: But you get to choose your own teams?

M: What kind of pools have you been in?

B: Oh. So it's not by lottery or something.

M: Nope. I got to fill out my own bracket.

B: Cool. Who do you have?

M: Kansas to win it.

B: Yeah, they always win it. Or at least down to the last game... [PLEASE don't ask me to translate that. I don't know either.] ...so, Kansas State?

M: No, Kansas State is out of the NCAA. They're playing the NIT this year.

B: Oh. So the Kansas...

B: ...

B: ...Bluebirds?

M: Rock Chalk Jayhawks (cheerfully)

He proceeded to tell me how every single year, some team NOBODY has EVER heard of wins the tournament (not remotely true. There are one-seeds for a reason).

"Remember Gonzaga?" he asked.

"Remember John Stockton?" I wanted to say.

"This is the first round of the NIT, right?" he asked, cleverly reading the big banner graphic on the TV that said "First Round, NIT."

"It is," I said.

"So is Syracuse pretty good?"

"Oh, yeah. They were on the bubble, so they're likely better than a lot of the teams in the NIT."

"See? So they don't belong here so they'll win the whole thing, just like I said. You wait and see."

"There's a good chance," I replied.

A few minutes later: "Hey, it says Syracuse is number 2. That's pretty high."

"Yeah, they didn't quite make the Big Dance, so they're pretty high at the high school prom that is the NIT."

"Oh."

I haven't even told you (in loving detail) the conversation in which I educated him on the fact that there are FOUR number one seeds in the Tournament.

Now, there are a lot of people who know more about sports than I. There are a lot of fifth graders (though I maintain that I *am* smarter than a fifth grader) who know more about sports than I. But I'd like to think the conversation didn't go too far before the guy figured out I knew way more than he did in this limited arena and maybe he should be asking help rather than spouting nonsense.

Poor BBall Boy. I make him sound like a complete dink. He was really a pretty nice guy, just chose the wrong venue to try to make a good impression. Then didn't know when to throw in the towel.

AntiM PSA #2 (courtesy of my father): Show 'em your warts. Nothing wrong with putting on a clean pair of jeans or a little war paint, but no point in pretending you know more than you do. Case in point, see above.

There is an outside chance (*ahem*) I just shared that little story with y'all 'cause it's the last time I'll feel superior to ANYONE this month over this tournament. Shit, I was having delusions of being Linda Cohn. It was such fun!

[GREEK CHORUS: AntiM knows more than a boyyyyyy, AntiM knows more than a boyyyyyy. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyahhhhh!]

Due to extreme basketball situations (the Syracuse game ended and the Mavs/Suns game came on. Love me some Steve Nash) knitting was brief and painful yesterday. Allow me to explain:

I was going to have one beer, maybe two, then head to the grocery store. Then the nice man with the basketball deficiency started talking to me and I finished the first beer and decided to go ahead with the second, just to be sociable (and possibly to see if I could get him to say more stuff to make me feel smart).

Then BBall Boy left just at the tip-off of the Mavs/Suns game and I thought to myself, "Self, this might be a pretty good game. Perhaps you should watch a little. Yes, Christopher, as a matter of fact, I would like another beer."

I did drink six glasses of water with my three beers, but I was still a little fuzzy around the edges (to match the hair) when I started home. I decided to knit a little on Pink Magic, seeing's how it's a really easy little pattern and mostly what you have to do is know how to count to five.

You know where this is going.

(One! One stitch! Two! Two stitches! Three... Nine! Nine beautiful... ah, fuck. *tink* *tink* *tink* *tink*)

And that soy stuff is soft and pretty, but man, when you tink it (since some random boy may be here under the dashed hopes that this is a basketball blog, tinking is undoing knitting backwards, one stitch at a time -- knit:tink -- get it? Knitters are funny!), it gets fluffier and fuzzier and bigger (Marin hair on the seashore big) and I finished a full two rows in a half-hour and that's almost as pathetic as my Tyra Banks-fueled turn on the Stupid Blanket last week.

AntiM PSA #3: Don't drink and tink.

*************

I almost forgot! I'm going to the Brown Palace Hotel (seriously, a big, fancy, historic hotel -- it's a little like saying you're going to the Ritz or the Waldorf-Astoria) for a reception tonight. They opened a spa a year ago, and apparently if you spend enough of your hard-earned dollars somewhere, sometimes you get an auxilliary version of Kharmic Green Stamps and people want to feed you pomegranate martinis (in fact, that's what the invitation said: Massage Therapy... Aromatherapy... Pomegranate Martini Therapy) and chocolates and give you rockstar gift bags and sign you up to possibly win stuff.

Annie and Tani are going with me. Of course, Tani's pregnant, so Oprah moments like the Pomegranate Martini are a distant dream for her. Maybe she can give me her Pomegranate Martinis...?


Actual images from the invitation


I'll take pictures.

[GREEK CHORUS: AntiM thought she was Linda Cohn, now she thinks she's a rock star. Imagine what she'll believe with a couple of Pomegranate Martinis in her!]

**FOOTNOTE (unasterisked): Hey! Where are the footnotes? I mean, my toenails are green and I could probably tie that into the Flavor Flav/$600 toenail clippings discussion from yesterday, but that's not the footnote y'all are used to. Hell, mix it up. Keep 'em on their toes.

*************

In all fairness to BBall Boy, my brother tells me there are actually pools where you DON'T get to pick your own brackets. So he wasn't completely lost. However, the fact that he made it to the age of 41 without, apparently, knowing there are pools where you DO get to pick your own bracket keeps me a little suspicious of his true sports fan nature.

New AntiM! Now 95% Funny-Free!

Good News: I found that cool Haloscan comment/trackback thing I've admired so much on other blogs. Now people can leave email addys with their comments (all those comments... um, yeah... like Calico Cat and my Secret Pal) so I can answer them via email, should I wish, instead of carrying on the running public conversation in the Comments. I like that.

Bad News: Installing the cool Haloscan comment/trackback thing erased all previous comments. So it looks like nobody's ever commented on anything.

(So, Secret Pal? I got your comment, the goat was scary (thanks for liking me enough not to make me one) and I did approve your comment. And answered. And got eaten alive by Haloscan. So don't hate me 'cause I'm technologically challenged. And don't make a goat. Thanks!)

And that (the loss of comment, not the goat) is harshing my buzz. And it's taking my funny away. I hate that.

Let me take you through my thought process (oh, you're gonna love this):

Did you ever take Econ, probably in college? The concept of "worth" is different in economic application than it is in colloquial denotation. Worth is exactly what someone will pay for an item. It has nothing to do with perceived value. So if you say, "$600 for the toenail clippings of Flavor Flav? No toenail clippings are worth $600!" you may very well be right in the everyday, people-on-the-street way. But economically, if someone pays $600 for Flav's toenail clippings, they are WORTH $600.

This is all background to a very unpopular idea I'm about to lay on you: I am only worth what other people will "pay" for me, emotionally, temporally, physically, cold hard cash (it's never happened, but I'm still dreaming of the day I can be a kept woman).

I know in a self-help aisle, touchy-feely, new age world, I shouldn't base my worth on number of blogcomments, number of men, volume of phone calls and fabulous party invitations, the love of a cat (for fuck's sake)... but I kinda have to.

Now, self-worth is its own separate entity. I'm a hell of a chick. Cute, funny (remember: *I* think I'm funny), brighter than a searchlight (dorkdom and Calvin tendencies don't count against that), EXCELLENT taste in cars... but that has to be averaged in overall with the idea that if nobody else thinks good stuff about your dear ol' AntiM, her net worth goes down.

To bring it all 'round, full circle-like, I feel worth slightly less with all my comments gone.

To take it even elsewhere, I take a serious hit to my worth when a nice someone whom I like shuts me out of his/her life. It hasn't happened all that often, but it feels like it's happened a lot lately.

See, Kelly has disappeared. She kinda blew me off for going out Saturday, told me she'd call Sunday... and that's the last I've ever heard. And, yes, I can do the math. It's only about four Kelly-free days, big deal, but remember what her best friend did. And keep in mind her best friend (The Boy, for those of you scoring at home) may or may not be OK with her hanging out with me at all, and may put the kibosh (I've never written that word before... did I spell it right?) on all Kelly/Marin contact. In my head (and it's a little dark in here, so I'm not seeing all that clearly), I'm sensitive and I have reason to be.

Link that to those old issues with The Boy... added to the fact that I had large, sweeping, epic dreams about The Boy last night (I almost never dream about people in my life. Sometimes about people I haven't seen forever, mostly about people I don't even know, but almost never about my real peeps)...

My brain wants to kill me.

Who do you think is going to win that battle?

[SUMMARY: Marin had disturbing dreams last night and now she's gone off the fucking deep end, imagining very personal attacks in everyday stuff. She may be down one new best friend! (and only 237 to go!) She's not funny at all. Except maybe that Flavor Flav thing.]

Good News: I got ESPN radio streaming on my computer at my client's office. I have been trying for WEEKS to figure out how to listen to Colin Cowherd and Dan Patrick and NOW I CAN! It's like the March Madness gods are smiling on me.

Bad News: Duke still sucks.

Good News: I knit a little something on *every single UFO in my collection* last night.

Bad News: I knit one row on the right side of the Stupid Blanket and headed back the wrong side row to complete a round and got way more than halfway down the wrong side when I realised I'd screwed up the right side. I looked at it for a good five minutes, trying to justify leaving the error. With one side being so dependent on the other side for the stitch pattern... well, it looked awful.

Unlike other OCD knitters, I have no trouble leaving very small errors that a non-knitter would probably not notice.** Apparently my O is pretty lenient under some circumstances. Is it the C that makes me clean around the kitchen faucet with a toothbrush for two hours, trying to get every bit of gunk, visible and in-, out?

Anyway, this was weird and lumpy and had that shit-in-the-punchbowl quality I generally try to avoid (both in knitting and in life). Realising I was looking at the ripping and re-doing of a couple hundred stitches, I had a little conversation in my head wherein I explained to everybody at a random, imaginary baby shower how I'd purposely put in an error (kinda like the rugweavers of Kabul do) so as not to anger the gods and bring the wrath of perfection down on the head of some poor, unsuspecting infant.

I finally tinked the whole thing out and just did it right.

Good News: I didn't check the validity of this, so just go with me: there is apparently a bill in congress that would mandate women who have mastectomies be able to stay in the hospital for two days, rather than being treated as outpatients.

Funny News: The email under which I got this information had the subject "Mastectomy Bill in Congress," which I read before I had coffee, thus seeing it as Mastectomy Bill -- like "Buffalo Bill," only with more boobs -- a Congressman. I figured it might be a cartoon or something. In my head, it got funnier the more I thought about it (both in terms of my own dorkitude and in terms of the concept of "Mastectomy Bill, Congressman").

I'm sure that's wrong, but I'm already going to hell for laughing during the Lord's Prayer so I might as well relax and revel in my own special wrongness.

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): Non-knitters may not *see* the tiny little errors, but you can be damned sure I point them out. I don't know if that's sheer dork or if the O rears its ugly head.

**FOOTNOTE WITHIN A FOOTNOTE (unasterisked): How often do you think you'd hear a woman say "...the O rears its ugly head"?

[SUMMARY: AntiM** is apparently a sports fan. Also, she's a little funny again. And a pervert.]

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): When did I start talking about myself in the third person? I may just stick with it -- it's kinda like having my own Greek chorus.

Are You Getting Enough Fibre?

Come, children, we have much knitting to discuss.

Remember how Kelly was going to "con" me out of a scarf? Well, she's one persuasive chica, 'cause I caved after SECONDS of heated discussion ("What colour would you like? Long? Short? Functional and warm or decorative? Can I make you two in case you don't like the first one?" The answers, for those who need to know, were blue ["Light or dark?" "Medium."] and "I don't care. Whatever you want to do, I'll wear it.").

I went on a serious knitty.com rampage Tuesday last and Kelly is (probably -- that may be another story for another day) going to be the proud recipient of the Branching Out scarf, thus:

Branching Out in blue


I'm using the yarn (one of them) suggested in the pattern (Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool -- 65% wool, 35% silk, colour: um... blue. Medium blue), which is almost unheard of, since I don't usually use patterns.

This is a late revelation for me. Like two minutes ago. I'm not sure how I made it this far not *knowing* I almost never use patterns. I'm a dork.

I have my sock software for knitting socks so I'm pretty much queen bee when it comes to the sock thing. I choose the yarn and I get my guage and I tell the software, "Software! Make me a pattern that is to my liking!" and it does. Sometimes? When it tells me to do a k2p2 rib? I do a k1p1 rib. 'Cause I'm HKIC (Head Knitta in Charge) when it comes to the sock software.

I usually knit blankets and scarves out of my head or from stitch dictionaries. Rarely does anyone tell me what sort of yarn I *should* be using or exactly how to use it. It's actually kind of cool (the using a pattern thing, I mean) -- less thinking that way. Thinking never led to any good in my experience. Yes, it's patterns and suggested fibres from now on for this little black duck! I'm a new woman!

(Philosophical question: What do you call it if your Branching Out takes you right to the root of the matter?)

[SUMMARY: There is much knitting to be had, and it will involve patterns and the yarns suggested in them. Free at last, free at at last, sweet Jesus I'm free at at last!]

I also got Cascade Indulgence (part angora, part superfine alpaca. Does that not sound like a cheesy, anthemic line from a blaxploitation movie? "Baby, I'm part angora, part superfine alpaca. Supafine!" cue that funky music, white boy) in this lovely green to make a Branching Out:

Supafine! Supabargain!


It was in the sale bin at A Knitted Peace. Half price! And I realise it isn't the yarn called for in the Branching Out pattern! Pay no attention to the chick behind the curtain! So I'm not *all* about the pattern and suggested fibre, but I'm *mostly* about the pattern and the suggested fibre!

Except when Cascade Indulgences is half price and I realise just how perfect it would be for the Yorick scarf from knitty.com:

Alas, poor Yorick. I knew his pattern.


(Heh. I like how it looks like a black & white picture but it's really colour.)

Switch up! Now I'm knitting a scarf for Annie OFF A PATTERN, OF THE SUGGESTED YARN. I'm so tricky.

[SUMMARY: Psych!]

For some reason, my camera doesn't do well with purples. Every time I snap something purple, it comes out blue. So I doctored the second one to approximate the actual purplocity of the yarn in question. This is Wavy from knitty.com in Cascade 220: the Heathers ("This isn't just a spoke in my menstrual cycle."). It's a deep, glowing purple with a very subtle heather ("What is your damage, Heather?") of dark, bright shocking pink.

Heathers ("Dear Diary: my teen-angst bullshit now has a body count.")


(How long do you think it's going to be before I get tired of the Heathers schtick?)

Now, this last new project... well, I may just be knitting something for myself. See, I got the Wool Silk for Kelly's Branching Out and I cast on to my Denise needles, of which I'm not particularly fond because, while I love knowing if I get a knitting itch at midnight I'll have the right size needle, I don't like how sticky they are. So the Wool Silk was sticking something fierce and it was Saturday at 7:00 and all the LYSs were closed and most weren't going to be open again until fucking TUESDAY and you know that simply isn't acceptable so I ran to Michael's for some aluminum or bamboo (got bamboo, in case you were wondering) and right across from the knitting needles (those marketing fiends at Michael's!) was this lovely Patons SWS (soy wool stripes). It's very, very soft and a little fuzzy. It isn't plied, so it's hard to tink (not that I ever lost count and purled an entire row that was supposed to be p5k5 due to thinking about potential dirty lyrics for Barney songs) but it has a nice sheen and gorgeous colours and I think this scarf will be mine when it's done.

(Hang on a sec. Dizzy. Need to breathe.)

I am using a sort of pattern: Crazy Aunt Purl's (that'd be Laurie *with* a link) Magic Scarf. I added four stitches to make a two-stitch knit border. I also knit five rows of garter at the beginning (and plan on doing the same at the end!). Hopefully, it will lie flat once blocked.** I love me some stockinette, but hate how it curls on me (you try scrubbing it, you try soaking it...). Anyway, here it is:

Awww... pink! And that's all I have to say about that.


And, just for the record, the progress on the Stupid Blanket. I took two pictures, one in natural light, one in flash. I couldn't decide which was better, so I posted them both. Besides, I was fascinated with the differences between the two pictures. If you haven't figure out by now, the world fascinates me. I'm kinda like a cat that way. The world is my kitty toy, imaginary bugs and all.

Natural light... and... flash


And cat for scale.

[SUMMARY: AntiM is knitting for herself! A cat may be involved! Or AntiM may be a cat! We still haven't quite figured out what the hell she's talking about!]

*************

OK, one thing that kept my spirits up through the wretched, Momless holiday season was knowing that 2007 HAS to be better than 2006. In 2006, Mom died, Lucy (my other cat) died, Brad and Tehya divorced, Bonnie and Mar divorced, Michelle died, Nancy died, Diane got more cancer in the other breast... 2007 HAD to be better.

What happens minutes into the new year? Darrent Williams (one of my beloved Broncos, even though I spent all season yelling at him for shoulder tackling when he's 5'10 and way smaller than the rhinos he was trying to take down) is killed. Anna Nicole Smith died (which doesn't really affect me in a personal way, but it felt like one in a series). Damien Nash (another Bronco) died doing a charity event. Jeanne got cancer. Now Richard Jeni kills himself. I loved Richard Jeni. He was better live than any other comedian I've ever seen, and I've seen a gaggle of comedians in my day.**

Look, I'm not sure how much more sick and dying my heart can take, so could we all please eat our vegetables and get enough sunlight (use sunblock!) and stay well?

Thanks.

[**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): Confession: I've never blocked anything (at least not properly) in my whole knitting life. I once made a scarf for my sis-in-law that curled into a tube and could have been mistaken for a drinking straw cozy, so I got it wet and rolled it flat in a towel. I didn't pin. I don't think I really knew about pinning. I thought maybe if it dried in a forced-flat position it would *stay* in a forced-flat position (STICK, DAMNIT! STICK!). Not so much. Both Pink Magic and Branching Out *clearly* need blocking.

I must buy pins.

[**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): I didn't put it in there, 'cause it's maybe not as... well, DIRE as the other stuff, but Duke sucking rocks doesn't help my frame of mind. Just sayin'.]

Giggity

I put more than 1200 miles on the Cutest Little Car in the Whole Wide World last week. In fact, she turned over to 10,000 miles on the Douglas Highway, halfway to Gillete, Wyoming. Well, halfway as far as the Douglas Highway portion of the trip. Not so much halfway from home. Anyway, we celebrated by visiting a pumpjack and chasing rabbits.

The pumpjack. The rabbits are long gone.

Note the level of filth on Cutest Little Car. I wish you could see the back -- you can't even see where the window is or what the license plate says. She wants to be a Jeep when she grows up.

(I know, I know. I'll get stuck like a mosquito in amber if I produce any more sap. I'll stop.)

So I worked in Gillette, where I probably should have taken more pictures because Gillette has a lot to offer, photo-op-wise. There's an enormous amount of outdoor art in Gillette. In fact, in the "downtown" portion of Gillette, there is a sculpture of some sort on every single street corner. We're talking upwards of 20 street corners, plus some random non-streetcorner art. Most are cowboys or eagles or what you might expect from a relatively small western mining/ranching city, but there's a handful of abstract modern sculpture and -- for reasons unknown -- a panda mommy cradling a panda baby while eating a bamboo frond that dribbles out of her mouth almost to the ground. I love that sculpture. There's something weird about the proportions or something, so it looks odd. Besides, it's so out of place. It's right in front of a Savings & Loan.

There's also a liquor store with one of those adjustable signs that said, "Adult Day Care." Now, that could just be funny, but in smallish cities like Gillette, buildings are often shared by odd bedfellows (as in there could potentially actually be an adult day care centre sharing the building with the liquor store... probably not IN the actual liquor store, but guess where I'd want to go when I need adult day care if it is). I really, really wanted a picture of that to post here, but I forgot about it until I was halfway to Basin (see below). It should tell you something about my level of commitment (read: insanity) that I seriously contemplated going back to Gillette just for that image.

Oh! And The Goings. The Goings may be a sort of nightclub in the Chop House restaurant (I've never been. I'm making up my own stories about what goes on in the backrooms and barrooms of Gillette). On the side of the building is this enormous, spooky, black-n-white painting of a train COMING RIGHT AT YOU. It's onimous (or even ominous) and very gothy (which has to do with vampires and moping and Bauhaus and stuff, as opposed to "gothic" which is a lovely type of novel or architecture), though I'm guessing that's not what the artist or proprietors were going for.

So you can just imagine all those pictures I *didn't* take. Um... and add antelope to that little photo album in your head. Wyoming is lousy with antelope. There may be more antelope than ants in Wyoming, but I managed to get not a single antelope picture.

(Going through my head right now: "...where the beer and the canteloupe play...la la la")

[SUMMARY: a thousand words hopefully paint a picture, since I didn't get actual photos of stuff I'm willing to describe at great length.]

After Gillette, I headed to Basin, county seat of Big Horn County.

Three things I truly love about my work:

1. It's very project-oriented and I do lots of different things for lots of different clients, which is really good for everybody involved because I have a short attention span and tend to get petulant and recalcitrant if hemmed in by too many daily-weekly-monthly-quarterly tasks.
2. I get to deal with families and people all over the west. Sometimes I just run their mineral title through county records (I frequently run records from US Patent -- some time in the late 1800s -- to present) and I get to make up stories about what happened through the years. There are places where I can see women having illegitimate children on the prairie (certainly a no-no in 1896), men having illegitimate children and their wives and legitimate children probably not finding out until the will is read, sex changes (more than you may think in rural Wyoming, Utah and Colorado), large families, small families, single families that have owned the same lands and ranches for more than a hundred years... it's fascinating.
3. I get to drive right into beauty like this:

Heading to the Big Horn Mountains

How could you not love that? Of course, there can be weather issues. For instance, just west of Ranchester (really), this is where I came from:

Cloudy, but dry

And this is where I'm going (in the north loop of the Big Horn Mountains).

That's snow in them thar hills

I had a spiffy photo of the blizzard I braved (right off the dash of the car, only about 100 feet of visibility), but it somehow didn't make it off the camera or something, so you'll have to imagine that along with all of Gillette.

I got to Basin about 4:30, just early enough to get a taste of what I was up against, but not long enough to do actual work.

Basin County Courthouse

I asked a nice lady in the courthouse if she could recommend a place to stay. The fact that she said, "In BASIN?" with such naked shock did not bode well for the tourist prospects of one Basin, Wyoming. She sent me back to Greybull (you can check a Wyoming map if it's really important to you to see exactly where I've been) and recommended I stay at the Greybull Motel, definitely the nicest place in town. "If you can't get into the Greybull... um... I guess the Antlers is your next best bet."

On the drive betwixt Basin and Greybull (all eight miles of it), I had misgivings. What if the Greybull Motel was some fancy place that was $120 a night and I'd somehow given the impression I was accustomed to (or in the market for) a Waldorf-Astoria experience right there in northern Wyoming? I needn't have worried.

This is the beadspread in Room 104 of the Greybull Motel... Cowboys AND Indians!

These are the two chairs in Room 104 of the Greybull Motel

This is the ducky valance in Room 104 of the Greybull Motel

This is the ACTUAL ROPE glued to the ceiling (over the festive and thematic wallpaper border) in the bathroom of Room 104 of the Greybull Motel

I loved the Greybull Motel. It was $44 a night, spotless to the point of antiseptic and the proprietor was as nice as nice could be. And kitsch like this deserves a little blogphoto space. If you're ever in Greybull (how many times in your life do you think you'll hear/see a sentence that begins "If you're ever in Greybull..."?) I definitely recommend the Greybull Motel.

Side note: I wandered to one of the (near as I can tell) two restaurants in Greybull that are not Subway and ordered a salad. When the little waitress girl with all the eyeliner brought my "salad," I almost, was *this far* (fingers nearly touching) from saying, "I didn't order a hamburger." See, the "salad" consisted of several large iceberg lettuce leaves (the sort normally associated with hamburger garnish), several rings of onion (the sort normally associated with hamburger garnish), two slices of tomato (the sort normally... you get it by now) and four dill chips. The small tub of dressing on the side was the only concession to the concept of salad. Sometimes it's hard to get good food in small towns. Next time, I'll try the Subway.

[SUMMARY: The Greybull Motel would make Martha Stewart stroke out, but it's the kitschy coolest best. Don't eat at Ernesto's in Greybull.]

Actual work was accomplished on Friday. Slow work. I had to make 168 pages of copies off microfiche, which is usually a fairly quick and easy task, but Big Horn County has the world's strangest microfiche printing system. I don't know if you've ever printed off microfiche before, but you usually line up your doc in the MF reader, press the giant orange (or green) button and voila! Seconds later, a copy!

With this one, you have to line it up, shut a cover (like a copy machine, but on the screen. Never seen anything like it), press "enter" on the computer to which it is hooked up, wait 45 seconds for the computer to process, wait 30 seconds for the scan to go down -- mysteriously, behind closed doors -- on the scanner, wait 30 seconds for it to get to the (slow) printer, wait 15 seconds for the paper to make its way all the way from the paper tray to the output tray.

The lifecycle of the Big Horn microfiche printer, ladies and gentlemen.

After about ten pages of this, I went to the car and got my knitting (it should be noted, for illustration, that my car was roughly one block -- part of which includes the stairs you see in the photo of the courthouse -- from the microfiche machine, and I hit "enter" just before I went to the car and it was just finishing printing when I returned. I did not run). I knitted TEN ROWS (For those of you scoring at home, that's five times the rows knitted during four hours of "America's Next Top Model, the Marathon" over the previous weekend) on the Stupid Blanket.

Big Horn workspace, plus MF reader and the Stupid Blanket at work

As you can see, I had a fascinating few days. Y'all are fascinated. Y'all are contemplating a career in landmanning. Y'all only wish you could work with MF machines all day (and believe me, MF takes on its darker meaning pretty quick when you waste... um, SPEND... four-plus hours printing documents on a slow-ass machine).

At least I got some knitting done.

[SUMMARY: Despite the fact that I worked with a slow MF machine all frickin' day Friday, land work is FASCINATING. Everybody wants to be a landman 'cause you get so much knitting time.]

Tomorrow: our heroine reveals the THREE new scarves she's already knitting, along with the TWO scarves she's going to knit and ONE pair of socks for which she just bought yarn. (Three! THREE BEAUTIFUL UFOs! And three! THREE BEAUTIFUL USO's!** MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! lightning... bats...**)

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): USO = UnStarted Object, in case that's not already common knitting parlance.

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): That's The Count from Sesame Street, in case you couldn't get it through the narrative sound effects.

**FOOTNOTE (unasterisked): Male Lady alert! Upon return from the wilds of Wyoming, I had a message from Kelly from Thursday night saying, "Wyoming girl! Where are you? When are you coming home? The Boy** was doing laundry next door to Re-Favourite Bar** and Male Lady** sent her son in and then she called my cell phone and said he'd never cared for me and..." (then my VM cut her off and I had to wait HOURS until Saturday afternoon before I could find out what happened)

For the record? Call from PNhead at 6:42 Thursday evening, about the time Male Lady sent her son into Re-Favourite Bar after Kelly and The Boy. I'm telling you, it's enough to make me want a taser for my purse.

**FOOTNOTE WITHIN A FOOTNOTE (asterisked): Kelly uses their actual names.

*************

On a not even tangential note, Duke should NOT get a six seed in The Tournament. I am a long-time Duke fan when it comes to March Madness (read: not so much the lacrosse team), but even I know better. In fact, I may go so far to say Duke should have been benched in favour of bubble-y little Drexel, who probably deserves the slot more.

Please don't tell Coach K I said so.

No, Seriously -- Cows

And, for my beloved pal in Secret Pal 10 (new best friend! who will send PRESENTS!), here are the answers to the questionairre. Trust me, I like getting mail that doesn't come with a price tag (i.e. -- bills, catalogs, invitations to baby showers) so much, you can't go wrong.

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?

I love natural fibers, of course, but I don't turn my nose up entirely at synthetics -- just those that squeak when you rub them or give you rug burn just fondling them in the store. I don't like yarns that split a lot and I've had bad luck with cotton -- hard on the hands.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?

DPNs in a case, circulars all over the place, Denise needles in their Denise cases. I still have some straight needles, but they are best used for back scratching these days.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?

Mom taught me when I was 10, but it's not like I've been knitting non-stop since. Oh, heck, I never know what the categories mean. I knit socks. I've knitted lace and cables. I'm going to guess "intermediate."

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?

Nope.

5. What's your favorite scent?

Lime or Patchouli or Violet or Clove (I hate vanilla, however)

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?

Dark chocolate generally does it for me. 'Specially if it's mixed with something salty like pretzels or nuts or salt caramel.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?

I don't spin (yet). I don't really do a lot these days other than knitting, craft-wise. Anything else would eat into my knitting time. Which, frankly, already eats into my reading time and my drinking time.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)

I don't like most jazz, most country, most blues or most R&B. Oh, and most new age. I really like hard rock, 80s stuff, goth, folk, about half the rap out there and serious bimbo music (see: Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous" and anything by the Pussycat Dolls. I know, I know, but the girl likes what the girl likes).

I also like a lot of "alternative," but that's kinda like saying I like contemporary music. What the hell does it mean? I like Death Cab for Cutie, Franz Ferdinand, Fallout Boy, Modest Mouse, Margot and the Nuclear So and So's... I don't know if that helps narrow anything down.

AND (almost missed the key element) I'm fully equipped for whatever musical format anyone wants to send me. Probably in multiple places in various combinations and levels of portability... I'm kind of a gadget/electronics freak.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?

Favourites: Purple, Pink, Red, Chocolate Brown... I don't generally like pastels (darks and brights work best for me), yellow generally makes me look green, ditto orange that isn't pretty rusty/reddish or very yellowy greens. If I don't look good in the colour, I don't tend to like it very much out in the real world either.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?

I live alone with a cat and I'm so glad to be putting that out there like that. Woo-hoo! 40-year-old single girl with a cat! Who knits! Stock up on condoms!

I also do have a family (brother, sis-in-law, two nephews and father all live in this neighbourhood and much of my extended family lives in the general metro area), but not here in my house. I don't know what good that does you, but it's nice to think about all that wonderful, fuzzy family nearby. Makes me feel better after the single/cat revelation.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?

No ponchos, never ever yucch. OK, I've seen some cute ones, but I have too many memories of being six and poncho'd every time I wore a dress. It was like the early 70s Texas version of wearing white gloves or something. I don't wear hats much, but mostly because I don't have any. Ditto mittens. And (fancy that) ditto scarves.

I don't knit for myself, people. The cobbler doesn't have the pretty shoes and the therapist is totally bonkers, ya know?

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?

Socks and scarves.

13. What are you knitting right now?

Socks and scarves and a baby blanket... going to start that sweater any day now. The mailman will bring my yarn ANY DAY...

(if you were here, you'd hear me singing "Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman," even though I only know five words)

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?

Oh, yes, please! (see: don't knit for myself) And I'd be so easy -- I don't have hats or scarves or mittens and I have a black AND a brown jacket, so I could match anything and I don't have any fibre allergies at all and I'd be totally grateful! Of course, yarn in its natural state or chocolate (see: mail that I don't have to eventually pay for) would be fabulous. I don't want to give the impression I'd be disappointed if something not a handmade something showed up in my mailbox. I'm just happy to be here and happy you're my new best friend!

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?

CIRCULAR. Not plastic.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?

Both.

17. How old is your oldest UFO?

About a year -- it's getting ripped out soon so I can use the lovely, lovely yarn (Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in a staid and elegant cream) for something else. Other than that, everything's pretty new (like less than two months old). I been seriously F'n my O's.

18. What is your favorite holiday?

Halloween. I so wanted to say "Arbor Day," but I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be that much of a smartass. You're only trying to be nice.

19. Is there anything that you collect?

Psychos and vodka. Sorry. Back to that "being nice" thing: dragonflies, hedgehogs, orchids, people and books.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?

Knit 'n' Style is the only magazine to which I have a subscription. I know there are books I don't have, but I can't remember what they are offhand. If I come up with something, I'll happily post it. Watch this space (what a shameless way to get someone besides Marcia and my brother to read my blog. Secret Pal, it's you and me all the way! Best Friends Forever!)

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?

Sweaters. I just wanna learn how to knit sweaters. As broad as liking alternative music, no?

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?

Oh, yes. I don't know about measurements. I'm a size 9 shoe.

23. When is your birthday?

June 27

*************

My adventures in Wyoming... coming soon to a blogspace near you.

**FOOTNOTE (unasterisked): I don't know how to spell questionairre... quesstionaire... questionnaire... LIST.

Why Wyoming?

Because it's there. And last time I checked, there was oil and gas and pipelines and all kinds of Marin work there too.

I found out yesterday that I'm going to Wyoming tomorrow. The work should be pleasant and easy, but it's a lot of driving, which is OK, 'cause this is how I roll (literally):

A Mini Cooper in Autumn, a lovely sight to see.
Taken outside Ouray, Colorado October 1, 2006.

I can't tell you how excited I am to have a chance to show that off, finally. If I had to go too many more days, I was going to have to declare National Cutest Little Car Day and make y'all look at slide shows of my baby. And that would be over the top.

*happysigh* So cute, so fast, such fun. If your ol' AntiM were a car, she'd be a MiniCooper: cute and short with a low centre of gravity... but all James Bond inside (what with the fully digital stereo that carries XM and the iPod connect and the GPS thingy and all).

I should point out that the car neither knits, nor will it be your new best friend, but you can only push an analogy so far.

[SUMMARY: AntiM may be a little too involved with her car. To paraphrase: you can love your car, just don't love your car. Us. Them. Us. Them.]

I'm not sure what this does to me, blogwise (wasn't that one of the Hobbits from the Lord of the Rings movies? Sam Blogwise? I'm a hobbit! I'm your new best friend!) since I no longer have a portable computer.

See, a few years ago, I was carrying a full coffee mug at the tips of my fingers by its rim (handles are for pussies) and I dropped it right on my laptop. If you've never short-circuited a computer via cream and sugar, it's an experience you really should... well, you should see if you can get someone else to do it -- maybe that geek in your IT department or some variety of accountant -- so you can watch, 'cause it truly sucks to see such an expensive and useful piece of equipment go up in smoke when it's yours, but it's borderline spectacular to experience all that smoke on someone else's equipment. And sparks. And that ozoney electrical smell most often associated with lightning storms. I know my co-workers have never forgotten it.

Now, if Gillette, Wyoming (town motto: "We don't make the razors here!") has an internet cafe (how do you do accent marks on this thing?) of some sort, it's your lucky day! If not, I'll be back in a few days and I might even have pictures. Probably of cows. Or wide open spaces. 'Cause what Wyoming has to offer? That's it, that's the list. (I'm exaggerating, but it's funnier that way.)

[SUMMARY: Besides a tendency to make watches run backward, I am hard on electronics, thus unable to maintain a laptop in good working order for impromptu Wyoming trips such as the one on which I am about to embark. I think I'm funny! I may also be a Hobbit, and your new best friend!]

You knitters know that gassing up the car (cutest little car in the whole wide world!) and having clean underwear is not the hard part of travelling. The hard part of travelling is figuring out which and how many knitting projects you need to keep you happy and occupied on the road. Of course, travelling by road means I don't have to explain my needles to the TSA goons or worry about baggage limits, so I may just take all the knitting. A gym bag of clean underwear and sixteen boxes of books, magazines, stash, needles, hooks, markers...

I'll definitely have to take the Stupid Blanket.

I wonder if I can knit at 80 mph on I-25...? Those of y'all in this neck of the woods may want to stay off the road between 4:00 and 8:00 in the morning tomorrow.

[SUMMARY: Same knitting problem, different day.]

**FOOTNOTE (unasterisked, but wildly pissed): hey! Hey! HEYHEYHEY! Where's my comment from Marcia? I had a comment from Marcia! I swear to all that is purple and chocolate and knittable and MiniCooper, I HAD A COMMENT FROM MARCIA! I only have... had... two comments! That's fully 50% of my comments gone! And this was the comment that said I'm CUTE! I don't get that all that much unless it's from me! Aaaarrrgggghhh! Bring me the head of Willie the Bloggerboy!

*************
Ahem. OK. May have gone off half-cocked (ya think?). February is a different month. All on its own. On a different page. Hello, February. Oh, look, there's Marcia. I'm better now. Total dork, but a better total dork. Carry on.

Bleagh Blog

Yeah, I said it: Bleagh!

See, things have been so exciting (what with the Kelly and The Boy and the Male Lady and the drinking and all) here at Barfly Beach & Resort that the blog thing has been, for lack of a better term, depends on who you're talking to, maybe just a little... excessive.

Shut up.

Today? Today the bloggods have finally caught up and are sucking all the energy forceful, life-giving drama out of the world so I have VERY LITTLE TO SAY. There is a better-than-even chance I will still spew several thousand words, but right now, the mind is fuzzy. To match the head.

You know what the best thing from yesterday was? I mean AFTER the PNhead Call of 11:11 (really, don't forget to note that so we can all keep tabs on the Male Lady situation)? The most blogworthy? I got free fruit at Whole Foods.

I'm not knocking it, not a bit. This is fruit I was willing to buy, fruit that was coming home with me regardless, fruit I planned to pay for. But this fruit I got for free.

Let me give you a little background (yes, it's important. I'm going to lay some philosophy on you here shortly and you'll be happy I gave you the enlightening story to go with the enlightening theory):

A few months ago, I was in Whole Foods buying the very variety of tubbed fruit that I picked up yesterday (pineapple with mixed berries. I eat it with my fingers in front of the TiVi). The stuff is sold by weight, so I frequently rifle through the available stock to see if there's a tub with more... or less... and I came across a tub of fruit marked at $26/lb. It was the same pineapple and berries that was $4.99/lb or $5.99/lb or whatever it is I pay for it (I am the saddest budgeteer EVER), so I used my keen observational skills to determine something was not quite right in price gun land.

I took the offending fruit (well, not so much offending fruit as offending price tag) to the customer service desk so they could re-mark it. Good deed. Small deed, but basically good.

Fast forward to Sunday:

I get to the checkout and the guy runs the tub of fruit over the scanner (nothing)... runs it again (silence)... squints at the screen... squints at the tub. Guess what? I managed to find a completely unmarked tub of fruit. I think it clearly illustrates my lack of money sense that, in a place I had observered, first hand, a $26 tub of mixed berries the size of a softball (or, for those not sportually inclined, about the size of a ball of Takhi Filatura di Crosa yarn, slightly compressed**), I didn't bother to check the price tag.

"Oh, man, I'm sorry," I said to the checker. "I can go get another one -- with a tag -- while you ring the rest up."

"Nah," said the checker, "I think I'll just sample this out to you today."

"Free berries?"

"Free berries."

Guess who my new best friend is!

And I learned cool Whole Foods lingo that I would never, ever use for the side of evil ("Hey, the manager said to just sample this out to me... yes, all of it. Well, if you've never sampled out a side of beef before, you're not trying very hard.")! And that's the most exciting thing that happened yesterday afternoon!

[SUMMARY: Sunday wasn't script-worthy, unless you count free berries through the price tag exchange program, and I fully understand if you DON'T count free berries as blogworthy. I have a new best friend!]

THEORY: Kharma is like a sandwich card or Green Stamps (for those of us old enough to remember G&H Green Stamps): you do good things, you get a punch/stamp. When you have enough, you can cash them in for fabulous prizes, or at least free sandwiches. The defining difference with Kharma, though, is you have no say in when, for what or for how many of your Kharmic Green Stamps you get the Kharmic payback. I'd love to save up my Kharmic Green Stamps toward, say, a pony or a really good man or an adequate anti-Male Lady protection device. I'm not allowed. I probably just blew months of traffic-friendly, door-holding, nephew-sitting, dad-feeding, friend-helping, knit-gifting Kharma on a tub of fruit. That I would have paid for anyway.

If you get pissed of at Kharma, what are the repercussions?

[SUMMARY: I may need more Kharma. Or more drama.]

I knit a whopping TWO ROWS on the Stupid Blanket yesterday. I accomplished this monster task while watching FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS (let's see... aught times aught, carry the aught is aught...) of America's Next Top Model on MTV. Seriously, do the math. That's TWO HOURS PER ROW. At 150 stitches per row, it comes out to 2.5 stitches per minute. A beagle could knit faster. Stupid Blanket. (I bet blaming the Stupid Blanket for my own human frailty rips whole books of Kharmic Green Stamps right out of my clutching, sweaty little hands.)

What's more painful is that Top Model is a show I count on to be dumb enough that I can knit like a demon during any given episode. Sometimes I have to stop and watch with Rome or Studio 60, but I can knit fairly complex stuff during Top Model and my TiVi-watching experience doesn't suffer at all. But not this time. No, this time I sat, slack-jawed and drooling and *watched* Top Model. For four dumb episodes.

I'm pretty sure you don't get any Kharmic Green Stamps for Top Model.

[SUMMARY: I was an anti-intellectual slug Sunday, and I didn't even have the knitting to back it up. Tyra Banks made me, um... make myself look bad. Tyra Banks is NOT my new best friend!]

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): Wouldn't it be cool to start a movement where hail and other items it's important to convey size about (that may be the most awkard sentence ever. Go diagram it if you have to -- I'll be here when you get back) was not "the size of a golf ball" or "the size of a softball" or even "bigger than a breadbox," but "about the size of a hank of Interlacements Toasty Toes" or "slightly bigger than a ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran"? And I'm not even going for clever here, just exclusionary. The Knitting Underground would be the only constituency to speak the language. Others would have to come to us for translation. We could charge huge fees. I'm thinking this is how the legal profession was born.

Stalker McNutjob, the PNhead from Hell

My ex-boything's stalker is stalking me.

OK, I don't *know* this, but when The Boy and I were still an us, I left a note on his door one day and it had my home and cell numbers on the bottom. He never got it.

That's when I learned about Stalker McNutjob (how long do you think it's going to be before the Description McDescription name construct ceases to be funny AT ALL. It's my first attempt at the McFunnyname thing, but I'm generally sooooo out of touch... I imagine any eight-year-old, coke-bottle-glassed, computer nerdy playground fodder named "Percy" knows it's already passe. Hey, is there a way to do accent marks on this thing?), who is his freakin' POSTAL CARRIER (Kelly calls her the Mail Lady, which I hear as "Male Lady" and I giggle like someone said "penis" in gym class, 'specially since the Male Lady most closely resembles, in form, Ben Roethlisberger) and how Kelly and The Boy started out trying to be friendly but she started knocking on his door and calling him all hours of the day and night (even after he told her to fuck off, and remember, The Boy doesn't cuss AT ALL EVER, except in the extreme case of extremely persistent stalker Male Ladies) she stole Kelly's mail, threatened to tell people The Boy abused her if he reported her to the US Postal Service, texted him 40 times a day (what 42-year-old TEXTS, for fuck's sake?), probably stole my note... and I was sorely worried that she had my phone numbers. Y'all can imagine. For the record, nothing happened at the time. Least not so's I noticed.

Fast forward, Friday night:

Kelly and I went to Re-Favourite Bar Friday night at about 7:30 and Stalker was there. And she glared. The Boy showed up later (based on what you're about to read, I'm going to guess around 10:15) and sat with us and Stalker glared. And left. And came back. And Kelly and The Boy left at about midnight (I pitched a small, quiet, *ahem* ladylike fit about how The Boy wouldn't want to be stuck in the car with me -- martyr much? -- so they should go on without me and save themselves and I would just walk home, uphill, in the cold... I'm four). And Stalker watched Kelly's car, craning her neck to see the taillights disappear down 32nd Ave. And she moved a couple chairs closer to me at the bar and glared. And she brushed by me on the way to the bathroom (do evil demon-spawn stalkers have bladders? I would think being a minion of Satan, one of the perqs would be no need for bodily function) and said, "He doesn't want you around anymore?"

And I looked at her with what I hope was arch amusement (I've always wanted to be arch) and said, "Dunno. [*shrug*] But at least I don't go where I'm not wanted."

******TANGENT*******

THINGS I WISH I'D THOUGHT TO SAY WHEN THE MALE LADY SAID, "HE DOESN'T WANT YOU AROUND ANYMORE?":

"Who?"
"Um... are you hoping? I'm flattered, but I don't swing that way."
"Mom, you have to quit following me around like this."
"Ben? Ben Roethlisberger?"
"NO! DON'T TOUCH ME THERE!"

I'm four. I'm four and I'm a pervert.

******END TANGENT*******


Seriously, thought I was going to barf. The adrenaline rush about killed me. I didn't see her after that, and I figure she left shortly thereafter.

SO... I got home Friday night (technically Saturday morning) at about 1:00. The next morning on my way to a friend's, I saw a missed call on my cell from "Private Name/Private Number" at 10:24 pm Friday night**. No message.

When I got home later that afternoon, I flipped through my caller ID on the home line.

I know y'all can see this from a mile away. As oblivious as I am, that's how totally clear y'all are on where this is going. Believe you me, I had no thought at the time that this might be a stalking situation. I was just curious who might have called because I'm a weirdo who sees the message light blinking and, instead of checking messages like a normal human being, I flip through the CID for a PREVIEW of messages to come (I also look at mail and say, "Scranton? Do I know anyone in Scranton? It's clearly a fancy invite thingy, like a wedding invitation. Who would be inviting me to a wedding in Scranton? Did I know anyone in college from Scranton?..." instead of opening it to find out. I'm four AND I'm a dork. And possibly a pervert.)

Anyway...

Checked the home CID, PN/PN (I think I'll call her PNhead) called at 10:26 Friday night**. I felt a luscious little frisson at the drama of it all.

Last night, I took Kelly to bond with Laurie-without-a-link and the Suburban Sedation Crew (Robin, Amy and Angela), after which we decided to stop at Re-Favourite Bar and... yep. Stalker was there. Glaring. We left at 12:15, she left a little before us. This morning, it occurred to me to check the phone. *Honestly,* I *never* thought there would be a repeat. Quite frankly, I was pre-disappointed, figuring it would all be a fluke and what kind of blogfodder would that be? (I'm pretty sure I shouldn't use a weird word like "fodder" twice in one post. Maybe not twice in several months. But it's a good word. And it sounds funny. Go ahead, say it again... fodder**) PNhead showed up on the CID at 12:14 am. I grabbed my cellie -- no PNhead, but an unknown phone number at 2:01 pm yesterday. I reverse-directoried it to find it's an unlisted cell phone. Hmmmm.

AAAACCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!

Y'ALL... sitting here, not two minutes ago, PNhead called! (At 11:11! Ay-em! On Sunday, March 4, 2007! Make note so you can tell the police when they find my poor body in a shallow grave, the victim of a massive football-style tackling death). And when I answered ('cause, what... I wasn't going to answer?) *click*

I'm taking notes. All the call times, where Stalker was, where I was, where Kelly was, if there were appletinis involved. If I end up dead in a ditch, y'all can point the police to this site as evidence of Stalker activity.

Is it wrong that it's a little thrilling to be so much under the skin of someone you've never really met that they want to stalk you? I feel like Jodi Foster.

Am I obsessing?

*Shouldn't* one obsess about a stalker Male Lady?

[SUMMARY: I'm being stalked by my anti-stalker's stalker. Maybe. I'd even go so far as "probably." I'd definitely go so far as to use the word "fodder" twice in one story. I may also be four and a pervert.]

Now, about the knitting: Kelly asked last night what it would take to con me out of a handknit scarf. Now, do I leap on it like a duck on a junebug (an action I've never personally seen, but it's picturesque enough that I like to use the phrase. Besides, I like ducks) or do I play hard-to-get and make her feel I'M doing a favour for HER?

That's a moot point, and a question posed to make me sound cool enough, just for only a moment, that you might think I didn't fall all over her going, "Yes! Please! Scarf! How many?"

I'm actually already thinking of a nice, bulky-yarned cable scarf and Aunt Purl's Brangelina Hat to match. (remember here that I'm not over-sophisticated with this blogstuff, so that Brangelina Hat link is SUPPOSED to take you right to the hat itself, but if you just end up on Aunt Purl's home page and you have a desperate need to SEE the Brangelina Hat, it's on the 4/6/06 post)

[SUMMARY: The knitting? Serious dork addiction. But Kelly will probably benefit with the scarf she requested and a bonus, matching hat named after a People Magazine-style name combination (Brangelina).]

Did y'all see the OUTSTANDING comment Marcia made on my virgin voyage post? And I love her blog so, it's like a little celebrity endorsement all my own. I sent it to my brother with a long, highly exclamation pointed message about how someone READ MY BLOG! SOMEONE I LIKE AND ADMIRE! Oh, dear gods, I'm a dork. But apparently a cute dork and a dork Marcia reads. And if it's just Marcia and me from here on out, that's better than I may have hoped. Hi, Marcia! I'm your new best friend! (I'm pretty sure Marcia goes by Marcy, and I think I already referred to her once as such, but then I realised I'm might not be spelling Marcy right. Or Marcie right, as the case may be)

[SUMMARY: Marcia/Marcy/Marcie said really nice stuff and now she gets me as her new best friend!]

It's sunny outside (if you've seen the Denver weather over the last two or three months, you know what a rarity that is). I'm going to go play. Y'all have a nice Sunday, and if the police come knocking at your door, tell 'em the Male Lady did it.

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked and everything): Sorry... I know all these dates and times are boring in a way that is highly reminiscent of learning all the Civil War battles, but I think it builds my case. And leaves a good evidence trail. Hey, just because I'm paranoid...

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked the second!): "Hello mudder, hello fodder, here I am where stalkers bodder..."