1. Carrying over the Beatles post from last Friday, here’s a flowchart of the lyrics to “Hey Jude” (click for big):
2. And because I can’t get enough of iconic bands from the 60’s, last night we watched Gimme Shelter. No, I don’t want to dress like Mick Jagger now, but the movie has the best version of “Love in Vain.” Enjoy.
October 2009
I Have A Cold
Turns out that a month with travel and lots of stress not only makes you unfocused and uninspired (and wanting to spend money), it also makes you really susceptible to the common cold. I am looking forward to the afternoon off and some Chinese food for dinner. And that’s all I got today.
#$%&! Snow
Yeah. It snowed. There’s snow on the ground and it’s cold. I happened across a blog about people who stay year-round at McMurdo station in Antarctica; the latest post is welcoming back the seasonal people, of which my uncle is one. Here’s the blog: frozensouth.com. I suppose we can read it and think that it’s not that cold here yet. Yet.
Tuesday Project Roundup: Ending Badly, Like All Twilght-Related Things In My Experience
I finished the “Bella” mittens, as inspired by the film Twilight, but they’re kind of a flop: Because I knit the first mitten while traveling, its cables weren’t even, which meant they didn’t match the second mitten. The first mitten’s top I had to extend to accommodate my fingers, but because of the cable length on the second one, that top worked OK–giving me mittens that are fraternal twins, not identical. But I’m not happy with my work on them, and overall, they’re a little snug.
Obviously, this is all my own fault, but it’s easy to blame Twilight itself. And the sort of “Was that it?” feeling I had when I finished these mittens is very, very similar to the feeling I had when I finished the book/movie. So I’m blaming Twilight.
Get With It, Birds
Last week the bird feeder I’d been using for 2.5 years here fell down somehow, which broke the glass and put it out of commission. So last weekend I comparison shopped and got a new, deluxe feeder, one that holds about a metric ton of seed and has a roof and drainage and even two baskets for suet cakes.
I thought the birds would be all over their upgraded feeder (and the suet), but no. In 8 days, no bird has landed on it. The sparrows’ consternation the first two days was almost funny–while I assumed they’d get over it. Now it’s just strange. I have taken to shaking all of that seed out of the feeder to the ground, where the birds will finally eat it.
I don’t think I’ve lost any bird visitors–and the quail are really happy about all that seed on the ground–but what should I do? Just wait it out? Enter into a contest of wills with the sparrows? It says something about my mental state lately that I think that’s a fine plan.
Friday Unrelated Information
1. I’ve had an unfocused, uninspired week, which is why the blog has suffered: I’m not interested in my latest projects and I’m only reading self-help books, so I don’t even have anything good to quote here.
2. But there’s always Salinger…in my opinion, Franny and Zooey IS a self-help book, just better written. Here’s Zooey at the end talking about detachment, the theme of the week:
You can say the Jesus Prayer from now till doomsday, but if you don’t realize that the only thing that counts in the religious life is detachment, I don’t see how you’ll ever even move an inch. Detachment, buddy, and only detachment. Desirelessness. “Cessation from all hankerings.”
3. And finally, I wish this t-shirt used a better font, because I really love the sentiment:
“I knit so I don’t kill people.” Amen.
Author Trivia
Did you know that Jean-Paul Sartre was a Nobel Prize winner, and he refused it? And that the Swedish Academy said, essentially, “Well, you’re still a Nobel Prize winner, even if you don’t accept the award.” Fun times in 1964. (Today’s post courtesy of The Writer’s Almanac. You can read more about why Sartre refused the award here.)
[Whenever I think of Sartre, I always think of “The Jean Paul Sartre Cookbook,” a satire that someone posted in the early days of the internet and my friends and I found in high school. Oh, we thought that was the cleverest thing. Satire! Sartre! Beginning French class! Good times.]
A Cartoon
Because I it’s the 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth this year. And I like ravens.
Tuesday Project Roundup: Some Sewing Again
As I finished this dress, it seemed like a long time since I had sewn something else. My short-term memory is really shot lately (I couldn’t remember what I did Saturday night when someone asked me yesterday) so the last sewing project before the quilt was a blur, but it turns out I was right: This is the first dress since the beginning of September.
Here’s a more detailed shot of the pattern, which I made in December, as well. This time I remembered to lengthen the sleeves and added a belt. The gingham makes it feel very French New-Wave to me…that, or The Womenfolk‘s album cover from 1964*
*I didn’t even know this group existed until two weeks ago, when I was going through my dad’s old (mint) vinyl looking for some new music.
Let’s Talk About Shoes
Instead of talking about our feelings today, let’s talk about brown shoes that aren’t too high-heeled. After watching Help! Thursday night, I did some major googling to find a pair of boots like they were wearing in that clip I posted Friday. While all the ankle boots for women this season seem stuck in 1986, I found some: They’re Florsheim, for men.
Sometimes I am happy to not have tiny ladylike feet, because a men’s size 7 is a women’s size 9. My only hesitation? A size 7 isn’t available from a site that offers free shipping and returns, so I’d be gambling a little that they’d work.
What do we think about these mod boots? They’d look great with jeans, but not so much with skirts or dresses. But they’re a decent price (unlike these $350 boots of magic from Sweden) and I had a pair of jodhpur boots in college that I loved. Also, I could pretend I was a Beatle.