Tentacles & blood. It always ends in tentacles & blood.

Been nearly two years since I last posted? Inconceivable! I'm back, at the request of a girl over on www.ravelry.com. One of our mods (Glee Norto, into Cthulu & all things be-tentacled) was trying to reference old school rap & menstruation @ the same time. Yes, I know it's a knitting website. We're a little special. Any route, I mentioned that I'd thought it was about old school rap, myself & she confirmed my thinking. I was struck, gobsmacked with a vision. Here's what happened.

Kotex check, 1-2, 1-2
Yo, yo; listen up, Diva cup
I'm Glee Norto
Come check my flow
Got a bunch of tentacles
A multitude, identical

Let them caress you
Impress you
While I test you
And your ears' capability
To thrill to me
I gots a gory tale, you see

It's about that time
To bust a rhyme
About my redheaded friend
Every month, yo
My cunt's flow
Goes right around the bend

We don't need no stinkin' babies
So I go mad like rabies
Whining
Cuz my uterine lining
Done come out
Gone walkabout

Gimme the chocolate
Reach deep into you wallet
Run get that Midol, fleet
Or I'll bring about your downfall, tout suite

Nod & smile when I be ranty
Cuz there's a battle in my panties
Ain't nobody gonna win
Enjoy the fun, son
Cuz next month,
We gonna do this shit again

The Party's Over Now

So. I've been given a month to get out of my place. The little tiny room I've lived in for fifteen years, no longer even nominally mine. After a panic attack I have that weird ringing calm you get after an accident, where everything is brighter & clearer than you've ever seen it before. It's adrenaline, I know, but I'm going to surf the crashing blue green wave of panic before it closes over me.


So much has happened here in fifteen years. Everyday happenings and big deals. Snow storms bringing that perfect silence while painting the landscape white. Holidays and workdays, rainy days with soup in the pot and a new book. Learning to crochet, then knit, then spin yarn itself. Days where I lounged with the sun coming in the window. Breezes just as lazy as I, toying with my little wind chime, playing soft little notes to a song millions of years old and new as the morning. And now it's time for me to leave my little home. It isn't much a little one room bed-sit & it obviously isn't now & never really was mine. But it became home, my one little safe nest. Cluttered with books and yarn and everything that makes me me. And now I have to go. I'd love to prate on about my memories, what's happened here, good neighbors and bad, lovers lost and the simple joy of coming home to a secure place. But I can't cling to the past, not now and not anymore.

Problem is, I'm skint. Bust flat broke, and it's my own fault, I make no excuses. I'm already lining up what needs doing and of course my landlords will give me glowing references for fifteen years of minding my own business and paying on the barrel head.

But I need help. Not only do I need to move, I need to fix my car to move with. I simply can't do it alone especially not with this time frame, & my pride is going to have sit back & shut up. The DONATE button is right on this page, the yellow button to the upper right. Please donate if you can, repost if you can't. Also if you could please pray for me, light a candle, sacrifice marshmellow Peeps in the microwave, Boil a pot of linguini to FSM or just send good vibes, I need them more than ever before. My heart is sore within me and I hope and pray for any help that anyone can give. Holy Twelve Bless you and Keep you, everyone. I thank you from the very bottom of my broken heart.

For people allergic to wool, one's heart can only bleed

I have so many ideas for new knitting designs to sell, mostly shawls. Which if you'd known me growing up, would never have believed of my butch-ass self.

1. Tarot card bag - The idea for this will be knit on 000 needles (000 = reallyfreakinsmall, lol). Otherwise the bag will be able to fit a fairly healthy pony *and* one's tarot cards, rectangular
2. Tarot card Shawl - Of the Tarot suits, obvy, square
3. Tattoo shawl - Picking several of the classic tattoo images to make a square &/or semicircular shawl
4. Pennsylvania Dutch Hexen Shawl - To be named Yuscht For Schee or 'just for nice' in the Pennsylvania Dutch Dialect. The design came to me in a dream & has been pestering me ever since
5. Bat Shawl - No I'm not a Batman nut. I got it from a Chinese good luck symbol (just typo'd 'luck' as 'lick', it's been a while *shifty eyes*. This will be a short-row project so I can either a) Become proficient in short-row shaping once & for all, or b) Finally go truly bull-goose batshit (hah, see what I did there?) bargain basement crazy
6. A hat with cabled skull motifs - This idea is truly aces & the name of it is SO KEWL I don't even want to divulge it so it can't be nicked. No, I'm not paranoid, why? *Grabs you by the lapels* WHY? WHAT? WHAT HAVE YOU HEARD?!...*ahem*
7. Several varations on a Steampunk Shawl that I am working on including a Lovecraftian subgenre one (now with more Tentacles! *snork*) These will include gears (cogs), wrenches, lightning bolts, goggles & trilobites. So excited about these.

Anyway. I also have another idea And I'm somewhat reluctant to post it, because people might get spitty about it. Not that I think I'm anywhere famous enough that people will even notice or it'll make local let alone national news or something, really. But it only takes one pebble to start an avalanche, ya know?

I want to design knitted veils. Not wedding veils, veils like harem or Moslem veils. my fae was HELLA cold last winter & I thought a pretty laceweight wool veil, with a silk cord tie or even a fine silver, gold or copper chain would be prettier, downright sexy, honestly, & more breath-permeable than a big chunky scarf. Not that I don't love me a big-ass scarf. I just think that the veils would be interesting to design & wear, & totally available for cosplay as well. BTW, research cosplay further @ your own risk & probably with Safesearch ON. There's some pix out there that would make Caligula blink, lol.

I don't have a fear of controversy, controversy usually means people are kicking against a change that is usualy going to happen whether people damn well like it or not. I do have a bullshit level that's nadir is WELL below sea level & listening to someone's rant about me 'stealing' someone else's cultural artifacts for my financial benefit, &c, will make me eyeroll myself into a migraine. I get it, I do. I would guess Irish people visiting an "Irish" bar decorated in Early Leprechaun Kitsch probably want to gag on their Guinness. The inspiration is indeed from that culture & those items, but I feel the need to create my variations of it & yes make money off the idea.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just having preemptive hypersensitivity about the whole thing.

Sometimes you just have to cast on.

Dub T3h Efffffff....

So. I come into the library to check the intarwebs, because I didn't feel like toting my laptop around. It's crowded but there's a station with cleaning supplies in its chair. Now I go to the library all. the. time. It's shouting distance away from my house. Everyone that works there knows me. I know full well those cleaning supplies are the library's to clean the computer keyboards when there's a moment free. So I ask the guy @ the computer next to the cleaning supplies if they're cleaning it.

"Oh, no. Someone's sitting there." he hastily assures me. I KNOW full well the freezedried wackaloon is lying. but I'm not in the fucking mood. So I sit down to wait. Behind him. He turned & said something about 'ten minutes' yackity smackity blahblahblah. I looked him in his beady eyes & firmly told him I was waiting where I was supposed to to be next in line for the computers & went back to ignoring him.

Well.

He promptly became Chary McSuspicious, photo evidence ->here<-. Because wearing cardigans on your body is SO fuckin' passe, haven't you heard? Nahhh, it's all about the thriftstore sweater flung ever so nonchalantly over your greasy combover while you do everything short of monkeyhump the computer monitor so noone can see your flavor of kink. You are SO subtle, sir. No one would EVER think you might be looking at something illicit, oh, say, gay asian teen midget bestiality snuff porn or anything. Noooo. Because NOTHING says 'casual' like A SWEATER OVER YOUR HEAD while you surf the internet in public, while fidgeting & casting terrified glances over your shoulder every 1.34 minutes and/or whenever someone walks behind you.

Sure enough, once he got done looking at long lost nude pix of Minnie Pearl or joining the GOP or whatever, he takes the sweater off his head, takes the cleaning supplies out of the chair next to him & scampers off nonchalantly.

I cannot make this shit up, I can only display it to prove that I am NOT the batshitcrazyloon in this scene...

Your Daily Dose of Fiber In One Sitting

Hey kids. Sorry I've been so lax about babbling random nonsense at you. Grab a snack & a drink, hit the bathroom, then let's get right down to it, shall we?

I made it to 39 years old with only minor damage, thanks for asking. My birthday was nice & quiet & the cake was NOT a lie. My friend Paul who is an awesome cook, made Pork Florentine for my birthday dinner, as I am a slave to the swineflesh. It was, of course, delicious, with asparagus & wild rice. Mom made me lemon bars & Paul bought a Carvel strawberry ice cream cake that was quite good.

Writing: I am thinking of rifling through my older blogs & picking out OBG's (Oldies But Goodies) editing & reposting them. I think it will give me practice in editing, obviously, but also trying to have a less tangential way of writing. Maybe not, as the old saw is that you should write what you know & there are very few people who know more about rambling on about nothing much like I do. But to tell stories to a bunch of strangers over the intarwebs, I need to be less scattered so I don't get a Greek Chorus of “WTF?” & accompanying baroo faces.

Onto the Fiber Nerdery!

Embroidery is going slow, as I've only been doing it for a few months & nature of the beast. Working on a steampunk sampler, just a cog with some varied stitches circling it. I'm working from the outside in. If I should be working from the inside out,don't tell me, my illusions are all I have right now. No, seriously, once I finish the outer twiddly bits I shall work from center outward on the actual cog itself as it's obviously the central motif. Varying shades of brown, gold & copper with a little kicka-POW of electric blue.

Knitting; I so love it, but I need more focus, definitely. I need to throw down some stash-busting basic knits, finish some secret prezzies (shifty eyes) and hammer out some designs so I can start pimping them online, as this 'broke while doing something I'm right tired of insteada broke doing something I love' schtick is working my last nerve. I have a brief fingerless glove-hat recipe here, cause I'm original like that. Yer mileage may vary:

Sandy's Basic Recipe for Hats & Fingerless Gloves

• 
  Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted Weight (85% wool 15% mohair) color of your choice and/or yarn that you like that swatches up the same. I knit from tight to on gauge, loose knitting makes me all spitty
  #7 circulars in 16” & 8” or DNPs

Hat (fits my 23” squash head snugly):

• CO 72, join for round, PM to denote begin/end of round making sure not to twist your stitches
• 1”-2” k2, p2 ribbing, depending on whether you want to roll this up for extra ear-warmth
• 4”-5” stockinette or until you narc out from boredom
• k6, k2tog to PM, then k5, k2tog next row &c.
• BO when you get to 8 or less stitches, thread tail through final stitches & pull tight, weaving in ends

• Gloves (make 2 unless you only have 1 hand for whatever reason, fits my 8-9” paws/man hands snugly)
• CO 28 join for round, PM to denote begin/end of round making sure not to twist your stitches
• 6 rows k2, p2
• 7-8 rows stockinette
• This is where it gets a little hinky:
  Now knit/purl back and forth for the thumb hole, slipping the first stitch of each row, 9-11 rows in all, thumb size depending
• on the last row k2tog to join back into the round & KFB (knit front & back of next stitch to get back to 28 stitches.
• 2 more rows stockinette, then 5 rows k2, p2, binding off in pattern, weaving in stitches, &c

Spinning: So, Paul was @ the local Saturday Arts' Market recently (overpriced tchotchkes galore). He texted me to let me know there was a woman there with her spinning wheel. I am learning to spin on a Spindolyn & enjoy it immensely. It's one of the only spinning options available to me due to space/financial restraints & with a little patience (stop laughing) I can actually spin quite a bit on it before it has to be unloaded off the shaft. So I shimmied down there to see her in action, stopping here & there to pat people's dogs & kvetch about the heat. The spinning lady (I'm sorry her name escapes me but the company/LLC/whathaveyou is called Canterbury Spinning. After chatting her up a bit & throwing some of the Gordon charm at her, she dug briefly in a Rubbermaid container & handed me a big fistful of mohair wool. SCORE! Thinks I, & giggling maniacally I crammed it in a ziplock bag I had handy & scampered home. While I am not a mom, I do have several 'mom' purses which, as I have theorized before is probably the D&D basis for the item 'Bag of Holding' in which people can store up to a ton of equipment & suchlike & pull it out as needed.

O to the MG. This was an uncarded clot of wool, straight off the goat. Lovely shine & beautiful crimp, but...It was tangled. It had random foliage in it. The goat it came from coulda done with a Selsen Blue dip, as there is a lot of dander in it. But I forged onward. Using my own hairbrush I began plucking & twitiching & prying this mess apart. Being one of life's 'Pickers' this was actually quite fun for me. And before you ask, no, I'm not using that hairbrush for myself again, I never really used it in the first place, which is why I commandeered it for duty.

This fistful of wool turned into a cookie tin about 3” deep & 7” across full of shiny white floof, like milkweed seed tufts, silky & dainty. Spinning it has been completely different from spinning the Colonial top I've been working with. First off, no one will tell me what sheep it comes from, so I'm as clueless as you. But the Colonial spins up with at least an arm's length of draft before I have to wind on. It's easy to see that the Mohair comes from a goat because it's STUBBORN & FUZZY, SRSLY. It's a short draft and even with all the pre-drafting it's a bit of a struggle. I'm assuming the minimal processing (koff) is the issue & a commercial/professionally prepared top will go a lot smoother. But, oh, it's shiny & foofy & coming up from a flat white in the tin to a pretty creamy white in a laceweight 'S' twist. & I still have about a 1/3 of a handful to clean & draft.

All right. I'm off to do arty things & write. That is all.

Before I Sputter Out

Hi kids. Here's the washed swatch. It grew about an inch wider, call it 7". But because I'm a twit I have no idea how much longer it got, but it's currentlehhh 4.75". I know, i need to be more exact in my measurements, because it's going to be the difference between a garment fitted for me or for the late great Andre the Giant. Either way, riveting, I'm sure. I am glad that I seem to be a very even knitter, as I read Recently in Stephanie Pearl-McFee's blog that 'rowing out' winds her up, & frankly it does me too, vis a vis my OCD perfectionist issues. So I'm happy with the cogwheel lace except for a few minor points:

1. Even one repeat is too long to use for the collar, because my neck is approximately 4x thick than it is long. Genetics, feh.
2. If I tack in another repeat on the wrist it's going to be baggy which defeats the purpose of lace, which, like insecure celebrities, is to be seen. I'm thinking about tacking the daisy lace if the repeat slots in because then i could put in buttons as a neat little design feature. Only problem with that idea it that the YO's in this yarn/gauge is that the holes are nearly big enough to put my pinkie through, so hm...

So I shall jack with more swatching, this time with the idea of the sleeve caps. Which if things go like they do in my head, will be brimming over with W1N. There might even be tuck pleating. Of course things in my head also progress with me being waited on with stern devotion by giant bald twins, so don't put too much money on my psyche.

For all my extempore knitting, I need to let go of the idea that something can only be constructed in one direction and only of one fiber art (only knitting, only crochet, &c). It literally makes me queasy to think about making part of this sideways, as I *insert jazz hands HERE* envisioned as necessary for the construction. There are times when my gut is sright & other times when I'm fairly sure it rides the short bus.

I need to get some rechargeable batteries for my camera. It's a perfectly decent, actually quite nice camera other than its rampaging case of gluttony. It was given to me by my darling Best Friend (International Division) Crystal, due to the fact that most Canadians are sweet like that unless you give them a hockey stick or take away their poutine.

Ok I need to go swatch & get in a little drawing & plan out a secret friend project. SO secret I can't even hint, as the recipient will totally twig to its making with even one of the factors *tiptoes away giggling*

Steamshrug Sketches

Okidoki then. My first swatch came out ok. Little short even after washing, I'll post links to those later, but first I shall post the sketches for the idea, thusly:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8188160@N08/4612098988/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8188160@N08/4612099094/in/set-72157624071815140/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8188160@N08/4611487993/in/set-72157624071815140/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8188160@N08/4611488171/in/set-72157624071815140/

I like the swatch, though after washing it's short about an inch for going around my wrist, so I'm going to tinker with tacking in a single skinny lace repeat to make up that inch & see how that works out. The length is good though. For the fiber geeks who like the technical side of things, it's Lion's Pride Fisherman's Wool in 'natural' & 'nature's brown'. That might only be for the swatching progress if I find something nicer & it doesn't cost a metric-ass ton of shekels. But LB is way cheap for a pretty standard, solid yarn. I think I'm just grexing over it because my ODC perfectionist thing makes me frog the everliving shit out of swatches, let alone actual projects to *grind teeth in perfectionist existential histronics HERE* make sure it's right the 1st time even though:

• It's a goddam SWATCH, it's supposed to be all eff'd up
• I have, oh, FIVE MILES of this friggin yarn, I can spare 1/10th of a mile for swatching
• They makin' that shit eeeeveryday. Both wool & the sheep it comes off of

I was worried @ first about people nicking the idea, or 'bitin' my steez' as the hip kids say. But where

1. I'm winging it
2. It might likely be a one-off
3. The pretty solid assumption that about 10 people read this blog

I'm not losing much of the miniscule amount of sleep I already get.

Other than that, nothing much new, posting this from the bagel joint, where apparently their hiring guidelines include somewhere near the top:

1. Hire the most miserable, pissy, overprivileged, currently societal accepted standard of pretty TWATS for public customer service
2. Insist that they make NO attempt to be personable at all whatsoever

K, I'm off for an espresso bean frappe & some more swatching. Talk amongst yerselves

Getting my fecal matter conglomerated

Alternate title: Yeah, That's Right, I Said It



OK. Confession time: I have been a slacker punk ass bitch & I need to cut it out. I spent ALL of last Sunday in bed & That Will Not Do. I am a world class-black belt-high test-you betcha-no joke-straight up procrastinatrix & all around asshat @ tripping myself up & I'm making a list to hammer out exactly what needs doing. Go get a drink, snack, hit the bathroom this is gonna be a compendium, no lie:

1. Embroidery/Sewing - Mom's eyeglass case, my favorite skirt, a secret project for a friend *shifty eyes*, decorating a favorite jacket, various 'sampler' ideas, fake fur wrap with embroidered satin lining, contemplating making my own skirts


2. Knitting - 3 secret friend projects *again with the shifty eyes, don't trust me as far as you can throw me. Just because I'm generally polite doesn't mean I'm not a blackhearted weasel who'll sell you to Mos Eisley slave traders for your weight in lace weight alpaca yarn given the chance* Anyway. Swatching & designing for steampunk lace shawl & steampunk knitted shrug. knitting decorative apron to get rid of some ack-rylic yarn, because I dasn't set it aflame since the burn test *terrified squealing @ flash-flare & horrible bubbling stench*. Meh, it'll be easy to clean & give me practice @ seaming & short rows. Final tweaking the Fin & Haddie Pattern & finally posting it for sale.


3. Spinning - Finish the length of green I have on the spindolyn, wash & set the twist before plying it with the black already done. Practice finer weight yarn with the variegated I have as well as making yarn with two colors IE: blackredblackred, repeat as needed. Sigh wistfully at ridiculously priced spinning wheels, including secondhand ones. You'd think the effin things were made from the crosses @ Golgotha for fucksake. Chew lip thoughtfully & narrow eyes @ kick spindle online pointed out to me by friend Moonie who wants one as well & apparently misheard 'misery loves company' as 'ENVY loves company', lol...


4. Drawing - Swear furiously @ Gimp for eating several key pieces of art. Work on redrawing key scenes from first 3 chapters of Nonesuch Papers while contemplating the kind of unholy pain that would make Mengele's eyes water on Gimp's creators. Try different techniques for digital drawing & actual styles of drawing.
5. Writing - Blog more regularly if nothing more than updating that I spent yackitysmackity hours on whatever above I pick up on whatever day. Redo Chapters 1-3 of The Nonesuch Papers as they are utter puerile crap & need paring. Work on idea spoofing the supernatural detective/cop chick lit glut, tentative title: Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

I will try taking update pix, as it will encourage *kofguilttripkof* me into actually getting off my copious caboose to get this shite done. The camera stone cold SNARFS batteries, but it's currently cheaper than buying one.

Love you, & it's years past time I started loving myself.

Good Morning, Goddamit!

Hi there I've been awake since 3am waiting for the rest of you to get the hell up so I can get things done SIX HOURS WASTED ZOMG, so I got breakfast at the overpriced bagel place because the place that just has good coffee which is really all I wanted didn't open until NINE WTF, I mean like, yunno? They're losing 3 hours worth of MONEY, so I had to settle for substandard coffee and FLOCKS, HERDS, PODS of yuppies all BELLOWING their dominance calls at one another & completely invading my personal space & one of the runner lesbians who was like the LOUDEST was really sweet and complemented my tattoos because chicks DIG me, *dance* Doncha wish yer girfren was WRONG like ME & I REALLY SHOULDNA had that coffee because now I can hear YOUR hair growing & the good coffee shop didn't have an internet connection today so I hadda walk alla way over to the library with all the skeevy street people (aka garbage blanc) bellowing THEIR dominance calls, but I'm just checking my email to let you know on the way to the library I saw a squirrel that scored a WHOLE GRANOLA bar & he was eating it like a fat man in a fur coat eating a whole rack of ribs & it was so flipping funny & I hafta go knit now kthxbailuvlol

OMG I almost totally forgot I got to return the dark yarn for lighter yarn even though they shook their fingers at me & I batted my eyelashes at them & solemnly promised not to ball up the yarn again until I was SURE I was gonna use it. HEE! You cannot resist me, you can only hope to contain me!

I Wish To Register A Complaint

Alternate Title: Caveat Fucking Emptor

So. I knit, as most of you know. I figure with the economy being what it is that I would knit my gifts for my parents, & show my love with my hands insteada my wallet.

Well. I went out & bought Cascade 128 Superwash wool yarn (128 yard, decent variety of colors, but I be GADDAM if I will provide a link for you to go purchase any. You're on yer own there. I bought it in (ugh) yellow for my mother & blue for my father, to match a scarf I'd made him last year. My mother's love of yellow, usually with purple is a personality quirk that I put up with her only, due to the facts:

1. I love my mother above all others & I would kill or be killed for her
2. Those 2 colors, especially together makes my fashion sense feel dizzy. & I figured superwash wool would be easier for her in that she could just bung both items in the washer instead of having to jack around with regular wool, in which (perform all actions below GENTLY):

• Put article in a sink with cool water
• Swish or let soak for 10-15 minutes
• Squeeze water from article
• Lay flat to dry

It would basically take longer to cleanse the frickin things than it did to make it. Anyway.

So, like an idiot, I read the ball band & it said the suggest needle size for knitting this craptastic trainwreck of a yarn is #10. I didn't have #10's in circular needles & figured that it was an investment & bought them, then trundled home to make with the knitting.

I made mom's neckwarmer 1st, very generic idea, k2p2, join in the round & zip through the entire ball right quick. It knitted up nice, if a bit loose, but I'm a loose/average knitter & didn't think much of it. The yarn itself, I must admit feels soft & cushy & the yellow wasn't sickly or searing. So I toted into the bathroom to wash/block it (insert ominous music of your choice here)

It hit that water and GREW. I mean like, SRS. It was no longer a neckwarmer, it was a friggin' cummerbund for a HIPPO, no lie. & to make matters worse, the sumbitch had opened up from KNIT to NET. Well, ain't this a raggedy BITCH, thinks I, drying it on my bailing hot radiator & reskeining it.

Now I have a jumble of needles. I pondered, pondered like the very wind, as Xmas was breathing down my neck like a rabid reindeer. I finally chose #7 THREE SIZES SMALLER, as they were the next 16” circulars that I have. Flailing away I tore it off again & it went off without a hitch, even after washing/blocking. There was a smidge left over & I swatched it so I could get my father's hat right the first time. That last sentence is, I believe, filed under the heading: 'Famous Last Words'

There, ya squirrely shit, thinks I. I've got the number & the measure of ya and you WILL do what I tell you, god damn your strands!

Yeahhh, not so much. I'm not so good @ the maths, which I freely admit. As previously mentioned, I need to take off my shoes AND my shirt to count to 22. But if you give me a basic formula like, oh, say swatching/washing/blocking, it's not exactly rocket surgery. & I knitted that bitch tight enough to make my pinkies go numb.

That hat was BIG. I mean like, the aforementioned hippo coulda used it for a hammock. & the gapping in that hat was even bigger than the neckwarmer debacle. Well, WHAT the everloving moaning azure festering hell ass balls is up with THIS? At this point I'm on the verge of taking up smoking again in the form of sticking an entire pack of smokes in my mouth, still wrapped & lighting it on fire.

By now it was 10p Xmas Eve's Eve (12/23) & I was doing the gift swap Xmas Eve with my mom @ Friendlys. No pressure, you understand. After 20 healthy minutes of swearing myself black in the face, I flung the still damp knitted BUCKET onto my radiator & laid down for a power nap. I thank every god I can think of that I have insomnia or I would NEVER get anything done.

So, 2a came around & chased me out of bed to cast on with the mental revisions I'd gnashed myself to sleep with & started thrashing. I got it done & by Athena, done properly, but by the end of this rediculous little exercise, the neckwarmer had been named The Yellow-Bellied Crapsucker & the hat, of course, named the Norwegian Blue (“BEAUTIFUL PLUMAGE!”).

The moral of this story: I don't often bitch about products I don't like. If I don't like something I usually review it in a little snit either mentally or to friends/family, then never touch it again. If anyone else wants the crappy item, then by gods, go grab it with both hands & keep it away from me. People: I didn't even keep the scraps of the yarn left over, I flung them out with malicious aforethought & I have scraps of yarn under 12” in length in my Yarn scrap drawer. I will NEVER touch Cascade 128 Superwash again, not even with a 14” straight needle & I would strongly suggest you don't either.

Working 9 To 5

OR: Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In The Office Part II

(click here for Part I).

I was speaking with someone recently *kofDonnaBarrkof* on my job history. I have spent 20+ years as an office assistant/receptionist/switchboard operator/dispatcher. I am DAMN good at it, though it can bore me to tears. But also, it's a relatively low responsibility job, go in tranfer info or people from one place to another & leave at 5p. It can be hard work, when people are cranky about their policy/account/whatever. It can be a serious bitch when you have a huge copy project for someone, especially when they change their mind repeatedly. Three ring punch, stapled, spiral bound, one sided, double-sided, oy, the decisions! Jobs that have to be done in three days, when they really are a week long project. Basically I shovel the shit that the CE-whatevers can't or won't do.

Donna said it best when she stated the maxim: “Don't fire the secretary.” And people just don't GET IT. They really don't. I was on craigslist & asking about job relocation & a guy said something along the lines of “It's not a job set that anyone would do that for.”
Now you tell me. Do you need ANOTHER six-figure-someone rolling in just long enough to shmooze with the other VIPs & jet off on 'business trips' to rack up unholy bills, fleece the company and/or throw around his/her weigh making enemies or knocking up his 'assistant' if you know what I mean, & I think you do. Or do you need someone who knows how to run the postage machine, tranfer all the calls correctly and make sure the coffee machine always runs? 500 words or less, single spaced answers, plskthxbai.

Some stories from my checkered past: I had one of the aforemented gigantic copy jobs to do, in color. Color copies are a BITCH to do. The paper is slippery AND sticky at the same time & just loves to jam. The toner runs out fast & as it runs out it dicks the color on the actual copies. You have to HOVER is what I'm saying. Now in this company there were two copiers for the entire company, which meant they were continually hopping. I fell up in the copy room to find a guy who I'd sat and listened to his bitching about how hard college was & all the money he owed. The woman with him was some sort of VIP, I don't remember which, but very high up. But both of them were standing by the color copier, him with his graduate hands in his khaki pockets and she with her blazer-clad arms crossed, standing next to the unresponsive copier.

“Ok, what's the situation? How are we doing? Why isn't it running? I got a big job going on here.” I said, all business. They looked at the copier then me and shrugged.

Here I give you one of the copier laws. Unless shit has changed drastically since I was last in an office setting, it is basic in all copiers *jazz hands* alllll over the world:

CHECK THE FUCKING PAPER TRAYS! So I asked if either one had a weird copy size & sure enough, our boy from Whatsamatta U had a 11”x14” job. So I CHECKED THE FUCKING PAPER TRAY.

And bigods, wouldn't you know it? That sumbitch was emptier than a bimbo's brainpan.

“How's that college degree workin' for ya?” I quizzed him as I slapped in the paper, giving it a little flip to get the paper 'aired', a little trick to keep it from jamming. And goddamn if that thing didn't start cranking out the copies. The she-VIP seemed a little touchy, so I kept the ragging to a minimum, but the Eyebrow of DOOM was 'in mad full effect' as the hip kids say. We had a fluffy little bimbo temp in at one time that pulled the same shit on the black & white copier.
“Nothing's coming out!” She whined. Glancing at the screen, I saw the BIG BLINKING RED LIGHT that showed the paper trays were empty. Both of them. That held three reams of paper EACH. She'd run through at least one thousand sheets of paper or up to SIX THOUSAND sheets & couldn't figure out that there is NO PAPER FAIRY. Well, she figured it out when I started flinging paper in, trying not to set it alight from the sparks off my grinding teeth.

So. Another time at the same place we had a 6 figure fella prodding away at the black & white copier, Rolex & gold ID bracelet twinkling in the flourescent lights. He was basically underfoot, MY foot to be exact, & I had what's know as 'shit to do'. So, tactfully I asked what the hell the problem was and he told me that he had a page in to be copied & blanks were coming out. Well. Another little copier law:

MAKE SURE THE FRIGGIN' PAPER IS FACEDOWN ON THE GLASS. The glass is a great big camera lens that takes the picture to print on the paper. Big juju. And when you put the paper face UP on the camera lens it only take a picture of the blank back. So again, tactfully, forehead vein THROBBING with indignation at the injustice in pay rates versus competency, I explained this & got him straightened out. Now I can kinda understand that top loading copiers can be misleading in that you put originals in face up, they feed through and then pop out again, face DOWN. It TWIRLS around, MAGICALLY, to go facedown over the lens to take the picture & comes out facedown so your originals are in correct order. Again, powerful juju.

Copiers are wild & magnificent creatures. And you betcher ASS they can smell fear. These creatures, when gentled to the hand can be very useful and make you the most powerful person in the office. When you figure them out, you are L33T in a way that is useful, insteada being a h4x0r that gets off on fucking up websites out of sexual frustration *eyeroll*. Which is why I'm NOT telling anyone about the biggest secret of all concerning them, tralala & teehee.

I know how to use pretty much all office equipment, folders, collators, postage machines, copiers, multiline phone systems, laminators, spiral binding machines. Any of them I don't know due to different makes, models, whatever, give me an ½ hour to tinker & they'll roll over & show their belly, never you worry. Now, I work 3rd shift weekends, which means that I have to make decisions that can be very important. And yet I make crap pay, as do so many others in the field that I am skilled in. Some people do make very good pay for very hard work, but they have to pony up for union dues *kofextortionkof*. How much longer is the world going to ignore the fact that the power pyramid is upside down?

Any road, they'd better hurry up & smell the coffee. The toner needs changing.

Ima take pics of a bunch of crocheted items that I did for a Christmas Fair last year that didn't sell but 1 item *shifty eyes* I'm quite sure it was due to the economy, because my friend who asked me to contribute said nothing much was selling. So stay tuned as I'm posting the items in 3 different places including here, my deviantart page: http://inkerbel.deviantart.com/ & also over @ myspace: http://www.myspace.com/inkerbel

Not only do I crochet, but I knit as well & I am available for commissions.Stay tuned!

Listening to Fastball, The Way

That Girl Ain't Right

So. Just a few little vignettes from my childhood to show I ain't forgot about you kids:

I was a very paranoid, very weird child. I thought that there were spies from Sears in JC Penny & McDonalds spies in Burger King & vice versa. There probably really were, but I thought that these spies were watching so that if you were caught in the competitor's store, you wouldn't be allowed in theirs. SO.

We were at JC Penny's, also known in the house as Jock Pennay (Pronounce in ler cornay Fronsh oxsent, lol). I caught a fellow's eye, whereupon he turned back to inspecting the latest clothes from Polly & Esther, the Synthetic Twins' 70's couture line.

I didn't want to get banned from Sears, as I loved the multilevel store, so I hid. Not only from the possible spy, but from my mother as well. Whereupon she promptly went beserk, running around the store. Well. This was going to blow my cover so when she came storming past the display I'd made my covert out of, I grabbed her pantleg. I got hauled out and questioned in a manner that would have made the Spanish Inquisition reach for their weapons-grade rosaries. The whole spy theory came out & my mother's discombobulation was so complete I didn't even get a beating, so that worked out pretty sweet.

And:

I had a sixth birthday, like you do. And we went for a ride from pokey little Canterbury into the big city of Concord, NH. This was back when you let your kids ride in the uncovered back of a pickup truck at 55 mph or more on the highway while they smoked a stogie and swilled bathtub gin. Freer times and all, ya know. Anyway, we rolled up to the bike store & clueless little me, ON MY BIRTHDAY, wondered what we were doing there.

We were there to pick me up a deeply righteous, royal blue metal-flake girl's bike. With serious ape-hanger handlebars. And a white banana seat with enough glitter in the plastic to make any drag queen gnash her lipstick-stained teeth in a froth of envy. It was, yea verily, a sweet ride.
We got it home and my father & maternal grandfather took a few minutes to put on the training wheels while I DANCED in a frenzy of anticipation. That paean display of anticipation apparently took all my balancing skills for that 24 hr period, because I then proceeded to take about a dozen serious nosers off that bike onto our dirt driveway, where I aimed for only the pointiest of rocks to lacerate my delicate skin with *eyeroll*

“Gil?” My grandfather mused out loud. “D'ya think maybe we could try this without the training wheels?”

“Couldn't hurt.” my father shrugged. Not much more than it already DOES, I added mentally. So ten minutes later they passed my rig back to me and, of course:

VROOM. Lance Armstrong is a stunned 3 year old on a Big Wheel with a missing pedal compared to me after that. I bailed (Mainer for “went really fast”) up & down our driveway, catching air from bumps & doing bootlegger's turns on that bike like I'd been born to it. I loved that bike & I'da taken it to bed at night if I thought I coulda got away with it.

Last, but oh, not least:

My immediate family consists of myself, my brother Greg (he's 1.5 yr older than me to the exact day, keep this in mind), Mom & Dad. We used to raise our own beef & pork as well as having a honking huge, way big, yo-mama enormous garden that mom would can veggies & make pickles that people still rave over & enough potatoes to keep 4 hearty eaters through a NH winter. It was BIG, savvy? But as for the meat end of things I don't mean we had vast thundering herds of cattle or anything like that. Just a little ramshackle demi-shack that we kept a pig or a beef cow until they were prime for waxed paper & a rest in the freezer til we were hungry.

We got a bull once. His name was Billy, natch, & he was a big cream-colored fellow. Well, he and my brother Greg bonded, great minds and all that. Greg would tickle his poll & billy would bump the wall in front of him. Never hard, never maliciously, just BUMP. Billy was also quite good at escaping. Not to run free in the wilds of Canterbury, frankly he just seemed bored. He'd frolic & gambol about like a ¾ ton puppy, dodging my parents' efforts. He'd stop & give them that sideways look that dogs will give you when they're playing, like: “Ooo! Come on, you almost had me that time! You're getting so nearrrr...PYSCH!” & then romp off in another direction. He made it 2.5 miles downhill to the Canterbury Center once, & I'm sure my parents were THRILLED when the big box truck came to take Billy for a ride *ahem*.

“Where's Billy going?” Greg wailed as his friend was led into the truck.

My parents thought, & thought like the very wind.

“Camp!” They told him, and Greg, again, not the brightest candle on the abra, accepted this, as we'd gone to camp the previous year & it seemed feasible, and a thoughtfully non-speciesist sort of gesture on my parents' part.

Late fall that year we were eating dinner when Greg said wistfully: “I wonder when Billy's coming back from camp.”

I, at approximately 8 or 9 years old gave Greg what possibly was my first look of disbelieving scathe.

“Greg.” I intoned blankly. “It's October, and we're eating HAMBURGERS.”

“Isn't hamburger chopped ham?” he asked, eyes darting to his half finished burger.

(Insert Matrix-like slow motion shot of my mother turning from washing dishes in the sink in a vain attempt to shut my piehole in time to avoid the inevitable HERE.)

“NO! It's chopped BILLY!” I yelled in glee as my brother dissolved into a neon chartreuse grand mal hissy fit.

I don't even REMEMBER that ass beating.

Bless You My Child, For You Have Sneezed

Oh, SO unwell...

http://inkerbel.deviantart.com/art/Tissue-I-Dont-Even-Know-You-141517453

I'll be more use tomorrow, I swear *kofarghackawheeze*

Vamping it up & Putting On The Dog

2 new drawings, a vampire & a werewolf because I'm so cutting edge & whatnot, lol...

http://inkerbel.deviantart.com/art/Muggers-Nightmare-140989201 Another quote from Pete: "I don't drink...whiners." Done in a more old-school manga style
http://inkerbel.deviantart.com/art/Lunar-Lope-140921541
This werewolf's name is Burnfur. When it's a color piece, obvy, he'd be a gingery-red, lanky green eyed shy fellow who runs a second-hand store/antiques/pawn shop. Who's gonna steal from a werewolf, right?

Listening to Alice in Chains, Grind & amusingly enough caffinated to the gills *toothgnash*

The Goose/Gander Syndrome

First off, fellow Deviants: I get it. I know that most of you are there, posting your artwork for critiques/approval/sale/whatever. Some of you are posting stuff to share a common interest with others. Some of you are posting your personal porn, at its intrinistic value. I totally get it. We all have our tastes. Not all of us agree on them. I am completely against several sexual things & have a hatred in my heart for them, the most obvious being pedophilia. The others are, honestly, merely degrees of taste. I don't like it, I don't pursue looking for it. But on Deviantart, sometimes, it's hard not to get hit in the head with a lolita mpreg amputee furry anime boi.

And the boobs. Oh, my dainty baby Jesus in a magenta lace pushup wonderbra with matching tap pants: Ta-tas, gazongas, knockers, hooters, jugs, melons, chesticles, garbonzas, &c, ad nauseum. Again: I get it. The female figure is beautful & your picture is YOUR interpretation thereof. But after a while it's just another pair of nipples in an aureolic avalanche. There are pictures that are incredible, flawless: glossy hair, striking makeup, flattering outfit...aaaand top open and/or off, if not just naked. The objectifiation of women is already rampant throughout the internet. I already feel like a transportation unit for my tits on their daily tour about town, my bra upgraded to seatbelt status. And yes, I do wear a lot of cleavage-revealing clothing; I have huge dragon tattoos running over my shoulders and, yes, huge chest that I'm proud to have. And before my soapbox gets too high for me to climb off of; I am TOTALLY guilty of using my cleavage for discounts, a helping hand and extra fries. I own up to that; Me, a cup DD; me, a maxima cup DD, LOL.

And men are well represented in the objectifation game, don't get me wrong, I just drew this (CAUTION, NSFW or if you're an insecure male, lol) pic as a sarky visual shorthand of this blog, lol. And the GLBT artists on DA and elsewhere do their best to make their models look utterly delicious. And believe me I COMPLETELY appreciate that, particularly Bears being the hot hairy beasts that they are, WOOF! *a-hem* But the heterosexual artists, male and female don't really seem to see how prevalent the stereotype of the current sociatal approved female naked shape is, when it's not draped in clothes that place the artwork on the border of ersatz kiddie porn.

And it just reaches a state of saturation; a point of desensitization. Which makes a lot of people *koffmenkoff* see and present females as a prop, a thing for their use, not another human being with hopes and aspirations and desires. I am strongly against this, but how can anyone really sit down and say 'this picture is “good” & this picture is “bad”!'. You can't. It's artwork & as the old saw goes; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But when beauty becomes so ubiquitous, so disposable, it inures people to beauty itself?

And yet actually getting to KNOW someone has become even less of a priority than ever. We as a society are shallow, self centered children and we all get angry when mother's breast is refused us. Please people. I'm not asking anyone to go around censoring anyone else of legal age and consent to stop doing what they enjoy. But look around & see what this numbing down has done to us across the board. Meh, another hot chick/dude, they're a dime a dozen now that you can have a new chassis dropped in, and with payment plans, yet. Lying & general assholery, because, hey, the pretty celebrities get out of stuff because they're hot, so *I* can because *I'm hot*. The models in every walk of life that have to put up with utter shit from men AND women, because they posed nude so they must be 'easy'. People who have sex rammed down their throat every day & yet can't tell their partners what they enjoy with other consenting adults because they've been told by the mainstream that it's 'sick' or 'dirty'.

See the people around you. Each of them & yourself are individual, unique. Watch how they carry themselves, how they are so *real* when they laugh or cry. Listen to their voice when they tell you that they love you. You are the most beautiful person in the world to them.

Catpuccino

E! So happy with this pic! Available for sale!
http://www.deviantart.com/print/8668612/?utm_source=deviantART&utm_medium=messagecenter&utm_campaign=print_followup

Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory

YOU UTTER, UTTER SELF-SERVING BASTARDS. You make all the money. You have all of the comfortable clothes & you can be fat & people just call you 'teddy bear' & giggle. You can leave the house looking like you've been chased over the back porch with a broom, need a bra so bad Pammie Anderson is jealous, have butt-cleavage you could lose a badger in & no one calls you the hog-slob that you are.

But men of the world, I have found out your greatest evil, & I will NOT be SILENCED.

I had to use the facilities & went into the Ladies' room. Another woman was in the stall, apparently reading War & Peace in the original Russian. Now as I'm one of those people who waits until the last minute, i.e. my back teeth were floating, I HAD TO GO. Cometh the hour, cometh the piddle, as 'twere.

Well, fuck this, I'll just go use the Men's room, thinks I, & toddles into the (HAH) Gents'. And in there, no word of a lie:

FOUR Urinals
TWO toilets

Let's review. Women's bathroom: One toilet. Men's pissoir: FOUR urinals & TWO toilets. I don't think I need to add anything to that. Except: You dog-eating, puke-swilling, snot-sucking whoreson bastard prick motherfuckers. NO WONDER there's ALWAYS a line into the head. NO WONDER women have had to learn to 'hold it' to the point of injuring themselves. Fucksake, are women STILL such second class citizens even in this supposed society of (HAH) equality that we aren't even allowed to have enough TOILETS?

Fish have no word for 'water' as it is all around them & it is all they know. They don't understand the pollution, they only die from it, with no way to get away from it because they don't know any better. Ladies: See the little things. Notice that MEN expect you to get out of their way, take less food, space & money but put up with way more SHIT than they do. Notice & stand up for yourself.

Because if you don't stand up for yourself, you'll lay down for anyone.

So, women: If you're ever out & about & there's a line for the bathroom, just use the Men's. They can spare the room.

Pretty Prickleburr

New art!
http://inkerbel.deviantart.com/art/Acacia-Burdock-139804290
The unofficial prologue of The Nonesuch Papers is here:
http://thenonesuchpapers.blogspot.com/
I am scared, excited & proud in equal & giddy amounts. It's so much fun, but I want this to do well. Making a living off of this may or may not happen, but the 1st compliment I get on the story is just going to prostrate me in ecstacy.
Please regard me kindly.

I Don't See Your Name On It

This is a cautionary tale. Do not cross me, for I will find out what annoys the everliving PISS out of you and do it naked at the top of my lungs on Main Street at high noon.

Yesterday I was at the Concord Co-Op eating my lunch. This older guy walks up to me, calm as a summer's morning. He's in good shape for being aged, lean, maybe late fifties. Retired woodsman-looking guy with denim, flannel & boots. Not bed-worthy but tolerable enough to look at.

“I usually sit there.” he says to me with a depreciating chuckle, like he's doing the store a favor to even deign to come in.

Now, I'm not feeling good as it is. I'm feeling like I'm clinging to my own forehead, trying to steer this giant body when I'm about four inches high and clinging onto my own bangs to stay upright. So I give him The Eyebrow of DOOM, over my glasses' rim for maximum effect and narrow my eyes. The cup of coffee he's holding has no lid and with a hard enough slap, it'll go right in his face. This is really the way I think, folks. EVERYTHING is a weapon.

So he keeps staring. My already low bullshit tolerance level hit its nadir about 3 minutes after I woke up. This whoreson prick motherfucker actually expects I'm going to pack up my lunch and get up & move. Now, the Concord Co-Cop has OSSIM pork dishes there. And those of you who know me know how I worship the swineflesh. When I found out the entire world of Jewish & Muslim people don't touch it, I wept, for there was even MORE FOR ME. When I see on twitter that the co-op is having pork of any stripe you betcha bum I shimmy on over there tout de suite. This man has just walked into my personal temple and tells me he wantsta get crumbs on my altar? BLASPHEMER, THY NAME IS 'MUD'!

So. I show Captain Monomania how possible my moving for his tired ass without the immediate application of hundred dollar bills dipped in powdered chocolate will actually happen by upgrading from Eyebrow of DOOM to GLARE OF DOOM. He is now finally hip to the boiling rage he's lit the fire under & sees that I'm not going to giggle submissively and scamper out of his lordly way, deferring to his OBVIOUS superiority what with him being OLD and having a PENIS and all.

“Well, I guess I'm not sitting there today!” he huffs, planking down at the table next to me. He proceeds to tsk, hem, haw, fidget & sip LOUDLY at his coffee.

OH. HELL. NAW. You...are trying to annoy...ME? ME, who am the High Priestess of Snide, Madame Vitriol, She Who Will FUCK YOU UP? Are you really trying to intimidate me, herd me out of the store all because I'M SITTING IN “YOUR” SEAT?! And, my right hand to the theological divinity of your choice: Every time I move in my chair he twitches, wily as any jungle predator waiting for his chance to SPRING into action and reclaim his rightful throne when I *do*move.

So I did what needed to be done.

I pulled out my laptop, fired it up and started writing this down, tee-hee.