I HAS ALWAYS DEPENDD ON TEH KINDNES OV STRANGERS

Remember this picture? Well, I had to lolcat it. And now, back to you in the studio.

Best Quote I Heard All Day

We of the craft are all crazy. - Lord Byron

Well, your devoted writer is undeniably nuts. And fucking proud of it, too.

A childhood friend of mine, one whose friendship I cut off because she turned into a miserable, angry, self-absorbed alcoholic floating down the River Denial, once said to me:

"Mar, you and I have sinfully underachieved. We could have been brain surgeons and look at us now. Pathetic."

My answer to her was: "Speak for yourself. I'm fine with what I do."

With the 40th high school reunion in six days, I can hold my own with the fucking brain surgeons of our class of '68.

Las Vegas Brights...again

Well, this is what I work on that I can show you because you ain't getting any pictures of the Rock Sox until the book is done and published. (That's moving along nicely, by the way. It's gonna take a while but I keep eating away at it.)

When will this madness stop? When I've knitted up the entire ball, probably. What will I do with it? I dunno, drape Cleo's toidy with it. Or perhaps wear it. For now, it's a relatively mindless project. Yes, the pattern stitch is pretty easy once you've done a repeat. The key to this lace pattern are the delayed decreases.

Huh? What she say? Delayed decreases? WTF?

The decreases are not done at the same time as their corresponding yo's. You know how you get the ole "yo, k2 tog"? That's not always the case, nor can it be for specific lace designs. Ducks ain't always in a row. Sometimes in the next row.

Gonzo Knitting

More and more lately, I've been realizing that some bizarre concept of journalism exists perhaps only in the minds of journalism majors, whose career goals are likely to be the next Katie Couric, God forbid. The real thing is ebbing away. With the awful loss of Tim Russert this week, a true journalist of the Morrow caliber, the breed is becoming extinct. If anything happens to Keith Olbermann, I don't know who we'll turn to for a sane voice, a journalist who fights for what's right, rather than for a cushy network job mouthing platitudes and doing stories about eco-friendly bikinis.

In the face of Russert's death, I am reminded of how small a microcosm knitting is in the world and how inconsequential writing about knitting and fiberart is, as well as writing about mobile asset management software. As much as I love this blog, arguably the writing I do on Swing Time is harder, more evocative, and hopefully more helpful to my readers.

Longtime Tontant Weaders know who my literary heros are. Dorothy Parker. John Lennon. Hunter S. Thompson. Duke lately more than the others because the older I get, the more I'm ready to kick the establishment, knitting or otherwise, in the ass.

So where do I go from here? A good, responsible writer always asks that question at frequent intervals. With a reprieve from my crushing work schedule, I've been thinking and rethinking. And came up with the thought of doing the occasional podcast or video, since Blogger now allows you to upload videos.

Neal will walk me through this because he is, after all, Super Jeenyus. And Super Audio Engineer. It could either be disastrous or a hell of a lot of fun. Me in person on the blog? An odd concept. But perhaps a rare and handy one.

Kthxbye.

If U Cn Rd Ths, U Cn b an Edtr n Wrtr

Best Quote I Heard All Day

Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, ''How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?'' and avoid ''How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?'—James Thurber

De Emendator non est Disputandum

At various times in my life, from a number of people, I’ve heard:

“You were born to be an editor.”

“You’re a born writer.”

It is true, since I am certainly ill-suited to be your server for this evening. I know how to write. It’s in my blood. And I know how to edit without trying to be the writer’s voice. Thurber’s quote really hits home, this week especially, since my irritation about being summarily edited without the courtesy of seeing the edits has been festering like a suppurating sore.

It’s often said, to paraphrase the well-known quote about teachers, “Those who can’t write, edit.” There is some truth to this, although as an editor for small specialty magazines, I had to wear many hats: editor, writer, art director, layout artist, marketing manager, even accountant (well, I had to deal with budgets). But first and foremost, I have always been a writer. That came first, at age eight, when I learned to knit and learned that I could take words that rhymed and make little poems that expressed my young thoughts and feelings.

Being a good editor means that you do not silence the writer’s voice, ever. It means that you form a partnership with the writer. It’s the difference between helping a writer to tune their voice so that it rings true to them, not to you, so that they communicate with clarity without sacrificing their tone. Nurture. Suggest. Pure and simple. It’s not just the grammar and the spelling. It’s respecting the writer’s essence. Sometimes grammar has to be tossed out the window in favor of soul.

I will not allow my voice to be muffled again. By any amateur editor. And any analogies to music are strictly intentional. Tone, voice, meter—as I was once also a musician, I can only apply musicality to my opera. OK, no more bad Latin.

LOLCAT IZ TEH LANGUAGE OV TEH FUCHUR

I may write my next article in LOLCAT—like Carol, I’m a big fan.

I LUV TEH ABSURD AN KATS R ABSURD. MI KAT CLEO DOEZ NOT SPEEK LOLCAT. SHEZ MOAR BLANCHE DUBOIS. "I HAS ALWAYS DEPENDD ON TEH KINDNES OV STRANGERS."

It’s so much more elegant a populist language than, say, Pig Latin, or for those of my age from the NY Metro area, Me-a-surry, created by the late, great Murray the K.

GEEK WARNING: If you don’t do computers, skip this bit.

Along with being a writer, I’m a frustrated junior programmer, who can edit but not write pure code. Those of you who are geeks will know what I mean when I say that well-written code can be a beautiful thing. LOLCAT has metamorphosed into a programming language. One that enthralls me far more than Java, Perl, C#, .NET, or even SQL. Here’s a wonderful example, GIMMEH, found on the LOLCODE site:

HAI

CAN HAS STDIO?

I HAS A VAR

GIMMEH VAR

VISIBLE "You said " N VAR N " !!"

KTHXBYE

You gotta love the start block delimiter, HAI, and the closer, KTHXBYE. And yes, people are using LOLCODE on legit platforms.

So Yeah, This is a Knitting Blog, More or Less

And so much more, no? Yes, I’ve been knitting, socks and a shawl. In fact, after playing footsie with writing a book for the past three years, I finally realized that my original book idea was indeed the most viable. No, it’s not the book I began writing two years ago and dropped because I didn’t want to produce yet another “My Speshul Knitting Encyclopedia According to Me” kind of tome. This time, it’s happening. And I will publish it myself because I’m not going to have no steenkin’ publisher fuck it up.

The book that has been in my head for almost four years now is pretty much roughed out. Are ya ready?

Rock Sox.

That’s right, socks inspired by rock ‘n’ roll. Not just the designs, but background on the songs and the artists, too, along with my twisted prose. I’ve begun the first design already, Chantilly Lace, and the prototype is looking pretty good. Because I’ll own the material, I’ll print pictures as I go along, and I would expect my Tontant Weaders to give their unadulterated opinions. That's presuming that you skanks have learned something from reading me.

It seemed to me that I have managed to knit quite a few pairs of socks recently. If that’s what I can manage, why not turn it into a fun book to design and write. Here are my raw notes:

50s

· Chantilly Lace (Big Bopper)—lace pattern—black lace with pink eyelet ruffle

· Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini (Brian Hylan)—Fair Isle dots on yellow

· Jailhouse Rock (Elvis)—mosaic stripes?

60s

· Eleanor Rigby (Beatles)—mauve plain sock with a lace cuff?

· Get Off of My Cloud (Stones)

· Purple Haze (Hendrix)—Kidsilk Haze with fine cotton binder?

70s

· Tangled Up in Blue (Dylan)

· Pinball Wizard (The Who)—Large silver beads annoyingly placed

· Stairway to Heaven (Led Zep)

80s

· Born in the USA (Springsteen)—something with red/white/blue, tri-colored cables?

· Cheap Sunglasses (ZZ Top)—intarsia sunglasses

· Burning Down the House (Talking Heads) flame pattern?

90s

· Tears In Heaven (Eric Clapton)

· Heart-shaped Box (Nirvana)

· Wilbury Twist (The Traveling Wilburys)—rocking cable?

The New Millenium

· Good Charlotte

· Green Day

· Blink 182

As you can see, this is not yet fully formed. It's mostly plug and play, if you get my drift. I’ll be checking with Liz as to what songs will be apropos from the New Millenium artists. I fully admit, I know little about these bands. And I’ll listen to her advice.

OK, gang, this has been more than I’ve written in a long time. Thanks for missing me. I missed you, too. The rare and handy hiatus is over. I'm back. Back in the New York groove. Or whatever.

KTHXBYE

Snippy? Me? You Bet Your Sweet Ass.

Best Quote I Heard All Day
The advocates for either side are under enormous pressure, and, of course, they're being pretty snippy with each other from time to time.--Bill Clinton

So yes, I'm following all the snippiness going on in the political cesspool. Even though I generally don't use the blog for my political views, I gotta say just this to all the candidates:

Shut the fuck up if you have nothing worthwhile to say. And I haven't heard anything that qualifies, so far.

Can you imagine politically incorrect me running for office? Ye gods and little fishes. I'd give 'em good sound bites. And probably some substance.

The Long Way Home
It's been brutal, these past couple of weeks, but then, I knew it would be. Six hours a day to commute, get home at 8, get fed by Neal (he usually is home before me), and then it's el crasho grande and back up at 4:30, coffee chez Neal at 5, and we're both out the door at 6 a.m.

The train is for sleeping and knitting Neal his heavy-weight Jarbo socks. I have to say, I'm settling in now and I'm about to attempt something more pithy than stoopid socks. But I highly recommend the Jarbo. Loopy has used it for awhile and she got me hooked on the stuff. Neal is about to wear his first pair out, I swear. So now I have another pair almost done for him so he can put one set in the wash. Before they walk out the door.

This weekend will be another whirlwind. But with Mammy in the hospital this week for an overnight scare (she has diverticulitis but no pain and will be OK), I haven't had one minute to write the blog.

So fucking bite me. But I am truly snippy from lack of sleep, not lack of meds. That's what Neal calls me, when I'm crabby. You say snippy, I say crabby. Same diff.

Open Mic Thursday
Yeah, I finally found a topic that I think deserves your consideration. Actually, it's a product that I think is completely useless. So that's my opinion. But here we go:

What do you think of audio knitting books?

I know lots of people love those books on tape or whatever the fuck they're called. Moi, I prefer paper in hand and not some overpaid actor talking prose to me. If I have earphones on, it's strictly for music.

For the life of me, I cannot see the value of having Ann Feitelson's The Art of Fair Isle on any audio media. Gimme the book. Paper. No steenkin' e-book, either.

I realize it's late Thursday night, but it still counts. So go rip me a new asshole. I'm in that kind of mood. But you do know I lerves you all. And I will be writing more, now that I'm firmly ensconced in E'burg.

The New VK
While Mammy was in the hospital, I stopped by Stix-n-Stitches, my favorite yarn shop in NJ, and hung out with Sheila for a bit. She had the new VK. I was completely underwhelmed, as I am usually with Vague these years. However, Brandon Mably had a wonderful dress therein and if I were thin and under 30, I'd make it in a hot NY minute. There were a couple of OK things, and some seemingly good articles but I didn't read them all. I suspect that IK has done them previously, and frankly, better.

Sheila showed me some new sock yarn by Berroco, Comfort, completely acrylic but amazingly nice. And she had a few other Berroco yarns that were also half decent. I think that Norah Gaughan has made her mark on Berroco and hopefully the company will cease and desist producing hideous designs made with wretched yarn. So let's keep an eye on Berroco. And Classic Elite, too. I'm starting to see better ads and I know that's Pam Allen's influence.

So. It's off to bed with me. Cleo is happier than a pig in shit, these days. She has peace and quiet, no other cats to disturb her, and as she always says, "Hai, Mar. Wur u bin? Nidding? Werkin? Wat?" I depend on her Imperial Rare and Handiness to keep me on the straight and narrow.

Oh. Hai. Mar, Wur U Bin? Nidding?

Best Quote I Heard All Day
The trouble with cats is that they have no tact--Sir Phillip Sydney

While not strictly an lolcat, this picture is certainly indicative of my vast improvement over the past two days. And possibly indicative of how my brain perceives language. That's fine wid me. Hai. I'm back. Nidding.

Stoopid Scraf 101

I wasn't kidding. This is the best I've been able to do. There's something positively mind-numbing about garter stitch. Garter stitch + Seroquel = karmic bliss. Or some such shit.

In any case, if my whiny sister really wants it, she can have it. Never mind that my mother has already made her two of these. This is actually a very good pattern for Noro Silk Garden. It's free--you can find it here, if you're not already familiar with it. It's been around for a while, designed by Karen Baumer.

I used Silk Garden Lite, 2 balls of 2018, one ball of 2017. Sale shit that I found while trying to gather up all the odds and ends that I've planted around the house. (Have I mentioned that I find pseudo-words like "lite" and "nite" terminally offensive?)

Let's just say that I've been contemplating winding some Morehouse laceweight and working out a lace pattern on KnitVisualizer. Plus, I'm headed up to E'burg later. Camping out for a few days. I need to start acclimating myself. Neal's been on my case for weeks to do this but I didn't feel up to it until now. After having a nice conversation with Mammy yesterday, where she also pushed me to get up to the apartment for some of the coming week, I figured that was a powerful combo--Neal and Ma.

One Week to Tampa

This is the view from my bedroom. Great. Fucking snow. Neal says the roads are clear, so I guess I'll venture out to I80 and hit the road.

Next Sunday, at this time, I'll be airborne and on my way to sunnier climes, even though I'll be working. Nice digs at the Tampa airport Embassy Suites, two days with Susan to get stuff ready for the sales training. Home on Thursday. But I'll have the laptop with me, of course. And now that I have an air card, it's internet all the time.

I do have a love-hate relationship with this shit. On the one hand, there's nothing that thrills me more than opening up a new computer box, trying out a new app and learning it, getting a new gadget (next purchase, a jawbone to replace my Bluetooth earpiece). On the other, I find peace spinning and knitting, and an almost sexual thrill at starting a new project.

While it's true that I'm a geek girl, there are moments when I'd like to throw it all out the window.

Old Friends

That said, if it weren't for the internet, Marcia wouldn't have found me. Two days ago, on Classmates. com, I get an email from her. I have not seen Marcia since June 1968, yet we were good friends in high school. All of a sudden, here she is. My dear friend Peggy Carroll found me through Classmates two years ago.

Through a series of email, I found out that Marcia lives in the Poconos, not far from E'burg. We're going to get together. I still see her as she was at 18. Yikes. That's probably how she sees me, too.

Well, I don't look bad for 57 but it's been a long, hard road since 18. And we have almost 40 years to catch up on. Marcia was always a rare and handy person, and that has not changed.