Karen

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Posts by Karen Kaminski:

Can I Knit Yet?

By in knitting No Comments

After a few months of modifications and no knitting, my tennis elbow doesn’t bother me at all at the gym now. I always assumed the gym was the culprit and not the knitting, but I picked up February’s abandoned sock two nights ago and only got two rows done before I could feel that I’d regret it if I kept going.

So…I guess I don’t knit now? It’s one thing to not have anywhere to wear the clothes I sew, but it’s a million times more frustrating to not be able to physically do the other hobby I enjoy. Do I wear a brace? Do I learn how to knit Continental? (It’s my right elbow; I think the yarn “throwing” is what’s doing it.) Any knitters out there have tips?

Yarn from local dyer Llama Lovejoy that I would love to knit but is just sitting in the stash. 🙁

High Elevation

By in nature No Comments

We did our traditional July “go up to the lake at 10,000 feet and cool off” day trip yesterday. Doc is on more meds (but we finally know what’s wrong, whew) so we took it easy and just did 0.7 miles to Scout Lake.

We caught the end of wildflower season…

…but we were also out in the smoke from wildfire season (which is kind of all summer now in the West).

But it was a cool 70 degrees and it was good to get out and see the world a bit.

Friday Links

By in Friday Unrelated Information No Comments

1. This was fascinating but I have to take issue with The Atlantic‘s title–I kind of expect anything from a giant lizard, you know?  No One Imagined Giant Lizard Nests Would Be This Weird

2. This is definitely not safe for work and has adult language but it’s the best skewering (sorry) of the billionaire space race yet.

3. From the good old Dank Dune Memes account, in honor of the new! Dune movie!! trailer!!! (it looks incredible).

(my kind of flag)

For My Fellow 80s Kids

By in Uncategorized No Comments

This was the biggest dopamine hit of nostalgia I’ve gotten since I looked up the 1983 My Little Pony Movie on YouTube: A recreation of The Print Shop software from 1988. We had the MS-DOS version and I would spend hours making cards for random reasons–I still remember one I made with the greeting, “MOM, CAN I GET UP EARLY AND DRINK COFFEE WITH YOU?”

Anyway, someone has put a version of it online and you can relive all your childhood card-making adventures, down to what (now) feels like an extraordinarily long lag time between steps. Give it a try here. (I did, of course.)

Wednesday Poem

By in poems No Comments

Originally written in 1970 as a spoken word piece, Gil Scott-Heron’s poem has gone viral this week. I love the thought of a poem going viral; I just wish it weren’t for a d*ck-measuring contest between billionaires who could take just a fraction of their money and actually help people, rather than pretending to be astronauts.

 

Whitey On The Moon
Gil Scott-Heron

A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey’s on the moon)
I can’t pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
Ten years from now I’ll be paying still.
(while Whitey’s on the moon)
The man just upped my rent last night.
(’cause Whitey’s on the moon)
No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
I wonder why he’s upping me?
(’cause Whitey’s on the moon?)
I wuz already paying him fifty a week.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Taxes taking my whole damn check,
Junkies making me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is going up,
An’ as if all that shit was’t enough:
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arm began to swell.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
Was all that money I made last year
(for Whitey on the moon?)
How come there ain’t no money here?
(Hmm! Whitey’s on the moon)
Y’know I just about had my fill
(of Whitey on the moon)
I think I’ll send these doctor bills,
Airmail special
(to Whitey on the moon)

Where Is My Sewjo?

By in sewing No Comments

I have so much wonderful fabric, boxes of patterns, and even ideas about how to combine them, but absolutely no desire to do anything about it.

I think part of the problem is everything feels like it’s in limbo: there’s midsummer limbo, where you want the heat to break but it’s too soon to think about jackets and fall sewing; the “am I going to keep working from home 100%?” limbo, where you don’t need fancy jackets or dresses to wear to the office; and the “am I going to keep working with dudes who wear whatever jeans are clean, or am I going to change industries?” limbo.

So maybe that’s where my sewjo is. I do keep looking at knit pencil skirts, and big dresses, and knit easy dresses, so maybe I just give in and make a dress and that will get things going again?  I can always wear it with sneakers to match the dudes in jeans.

(images from my sewing inspiration Pinterest; they’re old enough that the links are all broken so I can’t credit anyway)

It’s Monday

By in Toby No Comments

Do you feel like you’re in the driver’s seat?

Or are you a passenger today?

Either way, hit it!

(Someone likes to enjoy a hot car when it pulls back into the garage.)

Friday Links

By in Friday Unrelated Information

1. My favorite thing I read this week:

…even in the mundane ways we feel we are failing or are completely alone in our perceived deficits, this is never actually true. Our weaknesses and faults aren’t special. We allow them to loom large in our imaginations and our fears while, unbeknownst to us, someone else somewhere is doing the exact same thing.

2. Forget going gray, maybe I’ll go colorful: The Tweet That Launched A Thousand Dye Jobs

3. This is hilarious to me (click through to see all images):

Career Thoughts

By in advertising

Post-pandemic, I’m looking at what I want my life to look like and what I want to do to make money. And it might not be continuing to work in agencies–especially after reading this piece by Zoe Scaman about misogyny in the ad industry: Mad Men, Furious Women.

…how challenging it is to navigate the pervasive ‘bro culture’ which remains the dominant dogma in agencies today; the desperate need to ‘fit in’ or else risk being booted out, with women feeling that they MUST participate or else be penalised…

The energy it takes to play along, to pretend it’s all just ‘banter’, whilst also watching your every move and every word, in case you come across as too meek, too brash, too abrasive, too confident, not confident enough, too sensitive or just ‘too much’ requires superhuman strength.

And while we’re using up a huge chunk of our mental and emotional capacity on this stuff, day-in and day-out, we’re also expected to work at pace, to deadline, to dream up ideas, strategies, manage challenging clients and not fall over.

[…] trying to fit within agency culture seemed to not only impact women’s ability to rise within ad agencies, but also their desire to. Many had just had enough.

 

Reading this was way too familiar. Bosses that expect you to laugh at off-color “jokes”? Check. Men getting paid more than me because “they have a family”? Check. Management that allows clients to harass employees because “they’re our biggest client”? Fuck those guys, and check.

I haven’t had a female boss in fifteen years. I currently don’t even have a female team member. And I’m never going to be a boss at my current agency, either. Reading this made me realize why (beyond entrenched sexism and three levels of male bosses, of course): Women my age have had enough and get out, exactly like I’m considering.

Throughout my career, I’ve joked about using my powers for good instead of using them to sell people shit and grease the wheels of capitalism, but maybe now really is the time. “You didn’t just survive a pandemic to put up with this,” after all.

Wednesday Poem

By in poems

This showed up in the Poets.org newsletter a couple weeks ago and there’s a lot to love in it: I, too, own a drill I’m not great at using! I, too, want people to say, “damn that’s a nice house! But this part right in the middle is the best:

which tools repair/ the aging dog, the wilting snake plant, the crow’s feet/ under my eyes, the stiff knee or bad back./ & maybe this is how it is—how parts of our small universe/ dissolve like sugar cubes in water—a calling to ask us/ to slow our busy breathing so we can marvel/ at its magic.

 

Everything Needs Fixing

Karla Cordero

in your thirties everything needs fixing. i bought a toolbox
for this. filled it with equipment my father once owned
to keep our home from crumbling. i purchased tools with
names & functions unknown to me. how they sat there
on their shelf in plastic packaging with price tags screaming:
hey lady, you need this!  like one day i could give my home
& everything living inside it the gift of immortality, to be
a historical monument the neighbor’s would line up
to visit even after i’m gone & shout: damn that’s a nice house!
i own a drill now, with hundreds & hundreds of metal pieces
i probably won’t use or use in the wrong ways but what
i’m certain of, is still, the uncertainty of which tools repair
the aging dog, the wilting snake plant, the crow’s feet
under my eyes, the stiff knee or bad back.
& maybe this is how it is—how parts of our small universe
dissolve like sugar cubes in water—a calling to ask us
to slow our busy breathing so we can marvel
at its magic. because even the best box of nails are capable
of rust. because when i was a child i dropped
a cookie jar in the shape of noah’s ark,
a family heirloom that shattered to pieces.
the animals broke free, zebras ran under
the kitchen table, the fractured lion roared by
the front door & out of the tool cabinet
i snagged duck tape & ceramic glue. pieced each beast
back to their intended journey.  because that afternoon
when my father returned from work i confessed
& he sat the jar on the counter only to fill it with
pastries. how the cracks of imperfection mended by
my hands laid jagged. chipped paint sliced across a rhino’s neck.
every wild animal lined up against the boat—
& a flood of sweet confections waiting inside.

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