I laughed for, like, 15 minutes at this.

No joke.

Eavesdropped with my Pumpkin Spice latte YEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH.

Lady, to friend: I was talking to her and I noticed she had a book in her bag, so I pointed and asked if it was interesting. And y'know most people would say 'oh, it's not bad' or 'oh, i'm not too far into it yet' -- but she told me 'oh, I wouldn't read it if it wasn't.' What do you do with that?

...

What DO you do with that?

Elanor.

Since the steampunk swap is finishing up and my spoilee has received her package, I wanted to write up the pattern for the little cowl I made.



Supplies:

• Yarn: Rowan Purelife Organic Cotton, two skeins. 360 yards. I used colourway Chlorophyll.
• Needles: size 4 / 3.5mm.
• 8 buttons, the kind with little loops on the back, not holes through the center.
• Crochet hook with a small enough tip to put through the loops of the buttons.
• Tapestry needle.

Gauge: 

• Doesn't really matter for this project. It's knit longways so you can test out the length as you go. To increase the width,  add a multiple of 6 stitches.

Instructions:

1. Cast on 56 stitches.
2. (RS) K2, *p1, yo, k2tog through the back loop, p1, k2* to the end.
3. (WS) P2, *k1, p2* to the end.
4. K2, *p1, k2tog, yo, p1, k2* to the end.
5. P2, *k1, p2* to the end.
6. Repeat these four rows until you reach an agreeable length.
7. On a WS row, add your buttons: p2, k1, p2, k1, then on the next p, use your crochet hook to pull the loop off the left-hand needle and through the back of your button. Replace the loop on the left, make sure your button is facing the RS, and continue your p2, k1. Put a button on the first purl of every other 'p2, k1' segment. (Note, I didn't put buttons at the very corners.
8. As step 2 or 4, depending on which WS row you put the buttons on.
9. Cast off and sew in your ends!

And the clever thing is, the openings in the lace double as buttonholes. Keep this in mind when picking buttons, they'll need to squeeze through! I also left my cowl unblocked, as the cotton stays smooshier that way.

Conundrums.

So, this is definitely going to be a hat when it grows up.



Which hat, though, that's the real question.

SUSHI GIRL.

You'd probably never know it looking at me, but I like these sorts of grindhouse-y vibe crime films. Smokin' Aces. RocknRolla. Shoot 'Em Up. Hopefully Sushi Girl will make an appearance at the local indie cinema next year. But this one has added nerd bonus for me -- stars a fella whose last lead role was in by far the best (and certainly my favourite) iconic fantasy film of the 1980s.

Any guesses?






(Hint: fuck you, Labyrinth.)

Thoughts on an eReader.

I don't own an eReader. I don't want to own an eReader. Tom has a Kindle and he likes it well enough, despite the issues he has with the whole digital publishing industry. I've got nothing against the things, and I'm sure that people will agree pretty much universally that more reading in any form is a good thing.

That said, the new commercials for the Kindle are taking the 'proving books obsolete' route -- they made me laugh, and not in the funny ha-ha way. In the 'wow this is pitiful' way.

Exhibit A:


Wh-what? The page/screen visibility thing I get. But the superiority of the computerized place saver? Please. From the dawn of time, humans have been cringing at the thought of creasing their books, and for this neurotic population, the bookmark was invented. The bookmark is the unsung hero of literature. The bookmark is the book equivalent of an iPod skin or a keychain. I have a whole collection of great bookmarks, and none of them work with a Kindle. All of them, however, are as effective as a computerized place saver. Come to think of it, so is corner-folding, for all you barbarians.

Exhibit B:


We can already sit on our butts all day and get anything we could ever want or need with a credit card number and a click of a mouse. Heaven forbid we have to venture outside our caves for anything. Bookstores are awesome! Avid readers (who, I can only assume, given the nature of the product, are Kindle's target market) know the joy and relaxation that comes from browsing in a good bookstore for an hour. You walk in on a whim and come out with a whole new world. Or, like the lady in the commercial, you walk in on a specific hunt, and who knows? You find what you're looking for and buy it, or find what you're looking for, figure out you're not really interested anyway, and get something else, or maybe forget your first book entirely and get something different. Perhaps a local author is there for a signing. Then maybe you sit outside in a park and read.

Or you could download it in a minute from your armchair, and don't go anywhere for the rest of the day.

Exhibit C:


Okay, don't even try to convince me that people just can't carry all the reading material they wish they could. Who needs everything with them all the time? Nobody. And who switches between several books enough times per day to warrant carrying them all on your person? This is hardly a reason to ditch books in favour of Kindle.

And who are we kidding about concern over carrying lots of stuff? If I made my book thinner and a little lighter, I would just see that as an opportunity to cram more things into my giant bag (knitting!).

Headdesk, headdesk, long live the paperback, etc, etc. Paper books aren't going anywhere for a good long time (which is more than can be said for the digital copies of them, even after you've bought them -- but that's a whole 'nother issue ;) ).

Like I needed an excuse to knit another dice bag.

Since the garden/nature themed swap ended, I signed up for another -- the steampunk swap, since it's obviously going to be FUCKING AWESOME. Got a note from the swap mod the other day saying that I still had the 'no readers allowed' sign on my blog (I was doing some tweaking, okay?), but now the shields are down and Red Group, Gold Group, all fighters follow... whoever my spoiler is. HI SPOILER!

And speaking of steampunk, I found these whilst trawling Amazon the other day:



WHAT.

what what what what what

Whyyyyy did I spend my gift certificate!?






...oh, right. DARI CDs.

I got spoilt indeed.

I'm participating in a garden/nature themed swap over on Ravelry and I got my package yesterday! Carol, my spoil-er, sent me an awesome box, and she included some photographs she took of a grouchy-looking little owl. I loooove owls, and couldn't resist sharing some of them here.














(PS, look at all these swap goodies I got!)

OH, ROSE CITYYYYY.

Going to my VERY FIRST professional soccer game on Wednesday and I am SO EXCITED. Tom says we have to be Portland Timbers fans now that we live in Oregon, which I'm okay with...








...so long as it doesn't interfere with my first loves, the Gunners. ;)

An awful lot has changed... again.

New everything. New city, new Casa Casa Mia, new neighbours, new everything.

Oh! And newly unemployed.

But one thing I definitely can say for Oregon: the flowers here are like nothing I've ever seen.

OH HO HO WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?

A dARI music video I haven't SEEN?



...

I have the tinglies in some special places and I don't know if I should be uncomfortable or not.

HNNG.

Buddha Beach.

Last weekend, Tom and I took a little trip over to Sedona to stay with a couple friends of his. They took us hiking on Saturday and to the most amazing park called Buddha Beach. It was... the most amazing thing. I'll just post the pictures already.



























The path to the creek and the entire beach was just covered in these little stacked rock towers, like wee creatures had been building for ages and ages. The whole place was like a scene out of a Miyazaki film. Beautiful.


...Well, that's the last of my adventures in Arizona. Next stop: Oregon! And not a second too late, as I hear Sarah Palin will be visiting AZ soon. Dodged that one!

Part 3!

Letter 2, page 2:

God. Girl, you know I talked many times of my disapproval of married women who were not true to their marriage vows and said many times that I did not like what we were doing (this was all said before there was any wrong doing between us) but always you talked me into believing, in this case that we were some-what justified and you must admit that you did a lot of that talking before I gave in.

I told you my age and that I was sick and had been so for over a year, on that account and your youth (although you would not and did not tell me your age untill later) I was afraid we would not get along to-gether, I told you that i had very little money and classed myself as a bum and told you that I was none to good morally, but you told me to forget it, you seemed so affectionate and talked against every argument I put up about our not getting on together.

At all these meetings at the Park. you kept urging me to rent a house or go to Los Angeles. and rent a room so we could meet, or in other words, so we could go to bed. I was falling and I fell hard, Girl, I worshiped you, I could think of nothing else but you after the first few meetings.

You told about your "Pal" Mrs. Letha Y. how she and your Uncle. Mr. Charles E. were intimate, and that Letha was also intimate with Mr. Chas B. and gave me to understand that she would Step-out most any time with most anybody and offered to make me acquainted when she got back from her Eastern trip, but I said "No." Many times you have said, "Well, if you think I am bad you should know my 'Pal, Letha."

This is amazing. This whole affair just plays out for record all through this letter... if I had something like this from one of my ancestors a hundred years ago, I would frame it and hang it in the living room.

Part 2 of the Lela G. saga.

Lela? Via j/k_lolz.

I know you all have been waiting for this... the now infamous SECOND LETTER. I might have to post it in sections, since it's pretty long. Here's the first page, all funny punctuation and Random Capitals included.

Santa Monica, Calif.
June. 24-1923

Mrs. Lela G.

There is much that could be said regarding our first meetings and flirtation that took place at the shop where we first met, but I will skip that and start with our first meeting at the Park. One of the first things you said was that you were angry because I had not come into the Street Car the day before, as you were on your way home and I on my way to the Beach, some how that made a hit with me, It pleased me, yet I was sorry to think you felt hurt, your line of talk about your Husband's abuse of you and how hard you had worked most of your life, with everybody seemingly giving you the worst of it, worked on my sympathy and aroused in me an affection for you.

We met at the Park. several times in about as many days, you telling me over again about your husband, you called him a Son of a B---- and many other such names, you told me you did not love him and never could, you told of him coming back from the War. with a venereal disease and giving it to you and that you went first to one Doctor. then switching to Dr. H. you and Seth both going to him for treatments.

You wanted me to take you and run away from Home and I said, No I would not do that and advised you that if you could not get along with Seth to go to him and say so and tell him you were going to leave him and have an understanding with him, Although I did not know him I said with all his faults there must be some good in him as you had thought enough of him to marry him in the first place, and if you would talk to him he might straighten up and he and you get on nicely.

I talked so much against you leaving your home that finally you said, "Well, I am going to leave, and if not with you, it will be with someone else."

SUSPENSE.

...world hunger?

Middle-aged woman: That's my solution to world hunger and teen pregnancy -- duct tape.

This is why I love antique stores.

I was poking around an antique store last weekend -- the place was PACKED with stuff, some great, some not -- and I found a big cardboard box full of old papers. About half of it was newspapers and numismatist newsletters, but I persevered, searched the entire box -- and scored big.

I found three letters written by a guy called Elmer T., to a married woman with whom he was having an affair. As far as I can tell, all three were written after the affair took place, to serve as a record of events, for him, her, or possibly the lawyers (you'll see).

Anyhow, I can't resist sharing them. Here's letter number 1, that sets up Elmer's reason for writing and kept me in that antique store for hours looking for any other letters after it. (I typed this up exactly how it looks on this very old sheet of paper, hence all the errant periods and dashes -- although I am going to leave off full surnames in favour of initials, to protect identities and all, though it does seem kind of silly after almost a hundred years... does this sound like anyone's ancestors?)

June 24 -- 1923

Mrs. Lela G.

You have left me without any choice of action and driven me to this, for when a man is as square as I was with you and tried to give you as good advise as anyone could give and then a woman of your caliber, with the assistance of your friends, will run an undercurrent of rot against me to cause me grief and shame, that has shattered my mind and torn my very soul from my body, taken the last bit of foundation out from under me and left me nothing but jail and death to stare at, then it's time for retaliation.

I can stand lawful prosecution and jail better than I can unjust persecution from a Lustful Ingrate like you, I have begged, prayed and tried to hire you to have a talk with me but you would not listen.

The past ten (10) months I have paid for my sins with a torture of grief that only God. Almighty, knows and can understand, through the efforts of you and your friends the last five (5) months of the (10) you have added to my grief the wrath of man.

Wrath; that caused one of your friends to attempt Murder and succeed to the extent that I am left maimed and probably or eventually will cause my death,

You caused me to be followed and watched for weeks, also one of my friends was followed and molested, my statements will furnish you with what you were looking for and you can use them as you think best.

A short while back I would have let my soul burn in Hell for you but now it can burn in Hell against you, yet it shall not be fired with any untruthful statements from me, about you, for I will not give you that chance for consolement.

It's a nasty mess for others to read, but I used mostly words and expressions that were used and that flowed from your mouth as freely as from my own.

E. T.

WELL. Stay tuned for the next letter, which reads like a Savage Love column. Seriously.

Eavesdropped in the library. The elderly may have been involved.

Man: Did you ever drink abstinence? Abstinence? Is that what it's called?

Playing dress-up.

So I work at a little clothing boutique downtown, and recently I've been able to dress some of the mannequins. It's tricky sometimes, because I've got these specific styles that I like, but I can only use the things in the store, so sometimes I end up using different accessories or things I didn't expect.

These are two I'm particularly fond of. Steampunk Natasha from last week and Mori-girl Natasha from today (all our mannequins are called Natasha, lol). I'm not sure of all the brands of the items, but I'll share which ones I do know.









Hat: vintage
Top: Weston Wear
Skirt: Hard Tail
Belt: vintage
Boots: vintage









Skirt: Flax
Bag: Chinese Laundry

I really like all the Flax stuff that's in stock, but the looks on their website are kind of frump. Such adorable little smock dresses!

Anyway, I love my job. xD