I try not to cry over spilt beer

I'm back in Maine, and it feels great. I bought things I didn't need today. I now have my first full-length record that I don't have in digital form. It was one of those things that just catches your eye, the limited edition of "When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold" by Atmosphere on yellow vinyl. So it's been a vinyl listening day today. I also picked up "Tallahassee" by The Mountain Goats, and on my first visit to the record store in Orono, I got "Tourists" by A Prairie Home Companion and "6 and 12-string Guitar" and "Timesteps" by Leo Kottke. Totally unnecessary, but totally worth it.

All the same to you

Michigan. Great Lakes, great times. 70 mph highway speed limits. Bell's Oberon. Wishing I had enough time to take I-75 North, across the bridge.

I will remember your name and face

I had a nice talk with my mother earlier this week. I found out the things that make life fantastic, the stuff you always want to know but don't necessarily ever find out. Like how my parents didn't use the upstairs of their house when they first got it. How my crib was in what is now the dining room. How their furniture consisted of lawn chairs until my dad's birthday when my mom got him a recliner as a present. That their kitchen table was a wooden plank picnic table. This is the stuff that makes me smile, the history that I care about.

I bet going home next week will feel a little bit different now.

But before that happens, I will be attending my first ever knitting class this Saturday at Fiberphilia! We'll be spending the day knitting and felting to create Lovikka mittens. I'm really hoping that we make it all the way through to the embroidered cuff. At any rate I'll end the day with some wonderfully warm mittens for this upcoming winter for either myself or someone with similarly sized hands.

Immediate action

I feel like I've been knitting up a storm lately. I finally broke down and took some pictures this evening. First up is "Francie" from Rebekkah Kerner at Bowerbird Knits. I saw this on the Yarn Harlot blog and just had to do it myself. These knit fairly quickly and was plenty enough to keep my attention. This was my first time using bamboo needles and I think they really helped me with my gauge. I knit terribly tight, so much that when I'm using metal needles small enough I bend them. Bamboo doesn't bend though, it breaks, and I did manage to make it through without breaking a needle. A success then!




I then started another Rebekkah Kerner design, "Salto". I had been working on the Gentlemen's Socks With Lozenge Pattern from "Knitting Vintage Socks" in the Noro Kureyon Sock yarn but the purl pattern was boring me to shreds. I had been working on the one sock for months, on size zero needles, and couldn't imagine finishing the one, let alone getting through a second sock. And then there was the solution, CABLES! And "Salto" is full of them. Noro sock yarn is my favorite yarn to knit with, how it goes thick and thin, and of course the colors. I'm nearly through with the first sock, and after this many cables, I really would like to go back and knit the Koolhaas hat again now that I have a better idea of how cables work.

Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?

Marie and I were discussing the fact that neither of us has written anything in quite a while, so we set ourselves a poetry assignment. I dug out my copy of "The Practice Of Poetry" and picked out the task of "letter poems". We are giving ourselves one week to complete this. Feel free to try it yourself.

Letter poems instruction - page 1
page 2
page 3

And we will become a happy ending

I feel totally ruled by entertainment lately. I've watched the season finale of Doctor Who once a day since it aired on Saturday. I made it through the first three seasons of Scrubs again. I did my eMusic thing and got an album from Deastro. I felt ready to declare this the summer of Page France, but now my musical mood is shifting towards David Thomas Broughton. I bought physical copies of two Songs: Ohia cds that I previously could only listen to on my computer thanks to the iTunes store. "Person Pitch" by Panda Bear joined my vinyl collection. Knitting has gone by the wayside, but I've been playing tennis, so I guess that's something. Oh, and the Fourth was all beer and burgers and friends and fireworks! Like this:

I gotta get down

I did one of those things that probably spells doom for all the other books I'm reading right now. I listened to "Workingman's Dead" by the Grateful Dead, and now I have to start reading "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe. I suppose I'm okay with this, even though I'm mostly through rereading "Dharma Bums" by Kerouac right now and got "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson in the mail just a little bit ago...