Month: January 2008

I don’t remember faces well. People who do remember faces don’t quite get this:

Face Rememberer: “Oh, I’m bad at remembering names, too. Terrible.”
Me: “No, I can’t remember faces. I don’t realize I’ve met the person talking to me.”
FR: “I know, it’s awful to not remember their name.”
Me: [Sigh.]

But if someone’s not in front of me, I can’t pull up a clear mental image of them–even loved ones. So random acquaintances or classmates from long ago are even more of a crap shoot, because there’s nothing to pull up to help me remember them. I always dread hearing “Karen! Hi!” from a stranger, because it’s really not a stranger, just someone I don’t recall seeing despite having been in three years of classes together.

So my post from a week ago about a long-lost classmate who’s now the poet laureate with published books and a doctorate? Yeah, my classmate isn’t that woman. She had the same name–I’m not crazy, just bad with faces–and similar dark hair and she looked poetic, so I just assumed it was she. It took Mr. Isbell pointing out that she got her B.A. in 1980 to make me realize last night that all that angst and lyrics and the “sad little blog post” were spent on the wrong person.

So, to the Utah Poet Laureate: I’m sorry I was making fun of your hair. And to the rest of the world: Why can’t everyone just wear name tags?

No pictures today, but this week I did knit baby booties (for my cousin, thank you; if I were to announce my own need of baby booties to the internet you can be sure the post would be titled “Oh Shit”) and start a tunic for me from an early 60’s pattern. The tunic fabric is this:

I’m also going to order this fabric to make a smock-like dress:

I think I’m liking head scarves. And juvenile prints.

And then I realized I had forgotten to post anything this morning and that people might think the stomach flu had won. It didn’t; I’m just catching up after missing Thursday at job #1.

1. I ended up taking a sick day yesterday, so if you were wondering where another “sad little blog post” (to quote Mr. Isbell!) like Wednesday’s was, that’s what happened.

2. The Tribune this morning wrote about Ralph “O RLY?” Becker’s plan to create a domestic partner registry and included the best quote from Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan: “I just have to be certain we’re not coming in the back door of the Amendment 3 [ban on gay marriage and civil unions]”. The back door, Buttars? O RLY?

3. ..and that’s all I have, I guess. Enjoy the weekend not having stomach flu!

First part: I went into job #2 during December and saw a business card by the cash register. It was a U of U card for a professor with a doctorate, Katherine Coles. Katy Coles! I had an intermediate poetry class with her at the U, back when I wanted to get a double major. I never really talked to her but remember admiring and envying her poems, her gray pants, her songwriting skills, her poetic dark straight hair that did what she wanted it to. (I still had long curly hair then. Or rather, the hair had me.) I looked around my second job during Christmas in retail hell, had a little moment of “Huh. Wonder where I’d be if I had pursued English to a doctorate level” and forgot about it.

Second part: I was reading the coverage of Ralph “O RLY?” Becker’s swearing in yesterday in the Tribune, and noticed that he read a poem from Utah’s Poet Laureate. Guess who? Katherine Coles. She’s written two novels and four poetry collections; she’s been published in the Paris Review and the New Republic; she’s a Utah Poet Laureate who can actually write, unlike the last one. (Check out the poem—very Mark Strand.)

I can’t really express my feelings about these two stories. (I bet Katy could!) There’s some “That could be me,” some “But I scorn the idea of a state poet laureate,” some “I have a glamorous ad job,” some “Well, it isn’t really glamorous but I bet professors don’t earn lots of money, either” and all sorts of things in between. You know the medley that ends side two of Abbey Road, with You Never Give Me Your Money, Polythene Pam, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, and Carry That Weight (“a long time”)? Oddly, that’s exactly how I feel.

Here is the first project of the year, a light blue smock-like blouse. (Yes, the SLB reappears; I think I’ll rock the materninty look again for spring and summer.)
I’m happy with it, and especially proud that I added the collar myself–drafted a pattern for it from instructions online, and engineered it into the body on my own.

It’s less maternity-looking when it’s on, because the armholes and bodice in the pattern I used (Simplicity 3778) actually fit very well. I just couldn’t get a decent modeled picture because it was so dark in the house last night. I guess it’s not really spring at all.

Petfinder.com is a tricky site for me: It’s good because I can find a kitty to adopt but it’s bad because I can find a lot of kitties I can’t adopt—such as Wilbur here.

DO NOT click here if you don’t want to read a sad story. There’s a sad reason Wilbur is wearing a t-shirt and special collar. There’s an even more sad reason I can’t adopt him: He has FIV and I know I don’t have the savings to cover the vet trips he would need. But isn’t he a handsome boy? Doesn’t he look like a good kitty? I’m tempted to donate most of my pet savings towards his care anyway.

I don’t want to put up a sad post on a Monday, so let’s focus our positive energy and the power of the Internet and see if we can find Wilbur a home. I’m sure we can. (And I have to make a new rule: No looking for pets online when I’m feeling weepy.)

1. What a nice burthday! Thanks, family! We all love champagne.

2. Here’s a quote from the knitting book I got for my birthday, Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting Without Tears, talking about the benefits of wool:
“It is true that a synthetic sweater can be washed and dried in machines, but to me this rather reduces it to the level of a sweatshirt. Washing a real sweater is akin to bathing a baby, and brings the same satisfaction of producing a clean, pretty, sweet-smelling creature.”
(I like how “real”=wool in her mind, too.)

3. And speaking of wool, I have BIRTHDAY YARN to plan a project for, alpaca yarn to knit into a scarf for a friend, a baby shower present to finish knitting, a blouse to finish sewing, and another two planned out. I think I’m reacting against only making gifts in December.

4. And here’s to a late birthday present: Obama bama, bo-bama, banana fana bo-bama, mi my mo-mama–OBAMA!

1521: Martin Luther excommunicated
1924: Sarcophagus of Tutankhamem discovered
1959: Alaska admitted as the 49th state
1980: Me!

It’s my birthday. I plan to eat seafood.

As part of a new year, I guess I should try to set some goals–even though I’m very bad at that. I suppose being a good cat parent (when I get a cat) and scraping together some emergency savings will do for now.