Thanks, blogger, but I can't read Japanese

I'm in Japan!
It's 9:47 am here, and I've been awake since six and up since seven, and neither of my roommates has stirred yet, unless they got up and left before six, which seems awfully early since we all went to bed at the same time, and the one has the day off and the other doesn't work til 1pm. So I'm tiptoeing around trying to be quiet, but the hardwood floors are creaky. My luggage should be delivered shortly, so I should put on some clothes to go down and get it, and then I can go out and start my day--I have to register for my alien registration card and find an adapter for my laptop power cord. The plugs/sockets are the same as in the U.S., but all the sockets in my apartment have two holes, and my laptop plug has three prongs.

I talked to a flight attendant, who coincidentally is from Rio Rancho, and who was knitting her first sock. I was knitting (yet another) Jaywalker. I started it Sunday night, just to have something on the needles when I went through security, and am already on the gusset decreases. Go, sleeplessness!

No pictures or amazing cultural insights or anything yet--most of the time I've spent in Japan so far it's been dark out, and I've either been sleeping, showering, or struggling vainly not to look like I'm struggling as I stagger from airport shuttle train to bullet train to local subway to apartment. My apt building is on a one-lane street along a canal. Our balcony overlooks something that's either a cemetery or a tombstone store. My room is tiny but I'll just have to become neat and organized and not buy a lot of unnecessary stuff. It has a window, through which, all night, I heard this bird that sounds like a person yelling. There's no screen, and we kept the balcony door open all night, so apparently flying insects are not a problem.

Oh, and Blogger and Google have translated everything handily into characters for me, so I have to go by memory which thing to click on... hope this is "submit"...

I'm published

Okay, it's only on my dad's website, but still: I reviewed the 2007 Suzuki Reno as a favor to him, and also to avoid driving my own car (on which I have greatly reduced the insurance coverage, since it's just going to be parked in my parents' garage while I'm in Japan, thus making me paranoid about getting into an accident right before I leave) to visit Katie in West Chester last weekend. (If this is the kind of thing that interests you, or someone you know, my dad has written a few books; his latest is 365 Cars You Must Drive, with Matt Stone.)

Oh, Katie and I discovered that, absent campfire, you can make smores over a candle.

yes.

I spent all day at the outlet mall, stocking up on (ugh) pantyhose and crap like that, so what's more natural than to come home and take an internet quiz on my last words? I swear, this afternoon, I figured they would be "Excuse me, there's a line."

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

"So, you're a cannibal."

What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

unintentional keyhole neck

unintentional keyhole neck
Originally uploaded by safety dance.

I don't think I've blogged about this project at all, although I did work on it my last night at ABQ SNB (sob). I saw that Andean Silk Twist was on sale (apparently because it's being discontinued) a few months ago, 1 ball for $1.99, so I ordered some. I wasn't sure I liked when I got it, but I dove in and started knitting. Well, I'm still not sure I like it, but here it is. Self-designed almost-an-FO, colorway sunset, which looks gorgeous close-up, but which from far away is just a muddle. (This is probably why Andean Silk Twist is being discontinued--the colorways were, um, not great. Good idea in theory, though. Maybe they'll come up with some new Twists!)

I've blocked the crap outta this mofo and still, when I pin it to mimic how I want the buttons to go, it's all gappy! So I'm going to leave it like this, find a really cool button or pin to put right at the top and a dark blue cami to wear underneath, and call it a keyhole neck. Totally on-purpose design element! Totally!

Charles Has A Licking Problem

Daily dose of pug.

FO post later today, maybe... I somehow wove in all ends but one, so I need to remedy that and get some buttons and make myself presentable for the camera. Like Charles.

quickly

I found out today where I'm being assigned--Sendai, City of Trees! I leave in less than two weeks. I can't believe I'm actually doing this, and I mean that in a good way.

this would have been a photograph

...but I'm a spaz. I heard a shuffling noise in the woods and looked out the window, and a lone wild turkey was meandering across my parents' backyard. I grabbed my camera and headed for the front door, since it looked like it was headed for the front yard via the driveway. Unfortunately, the camera's batteries were dead. I changed them quickly and went out to the front yard, all congratulating myself for saving the day with my speedy battery-action, and turned on the camera and the damn thing was in setup mode and I couldn't remember how to get it into picture-taking mode. The turkey, which had indeed crossed into the front yard, saw me out of the corner of its beady little eye and started "running." Despite how incredibly slowly a wild turkey runs, it was still out of range (by which I mean camouflaged with underbrush) by the time I got the camera sorted. Although actually I could still hear it. You wouldn't think something so slow and defenseless should be so noisy and, well, not extinct yet.

Anyway, there would've been some authentic PA wildlife to accompany my official announcement that two weeks from today, I will be on a plane to Japan. Well, first to Detroit. But then, Japan.

CPHoenix: ashes reconstructed

The Central Park Hoodie is dead. Long live the Phoenix!

When I finished this sweater in February and tried it on, I was crushed to find that through some mysterious quirk of gauge it was both too short and too tight. One or the other might be bearable, or both if it were 100% natural fiber. But I used Woolease, so obviously blocking it larger wasn't a solution. Fortunately for me, rather than rip this yarn from its second sweaterly incarnation, I have a shorter, slimmer sister to whom I owe a sweater (see Skully, Christmas '05).

It's somewhat self-designed, as in, I took someone else's shaping and sizing and modified it heavily. This is based on my old friend, the Hourglass Sweater from LMKG, with embossed twining leaf leace from Vogue Knitting on the sleeves. I added ribbing with baby cables to the hem and just plain ribbing (because baby cables are too fussy to keep making) to the neckline, which if I'm totally honest I think is too big, but I actually really like with a t-shirt, tank, or button-down underneath.

I used the embossed twining vine leaf lace pattern from Vogue Knitting. I also originally wanted to make the raglan lines stand out, but couldn't figure out how to do it; I wanted the appearance of a seam, to make the stockinette body and reverse-stockinette sleeves look like they'd been sewn together from other sweaters. But I like the little purl channel I made instead. Instead of decreasing ssk, k1, k2tg, I did ssk, p1, k2tog. I'll definitely be using that again.

Now to go outside and enjoy the last sunshine before this 20-year storm they're predicting...

Huh? The circus is where?

Finally finished my circus-freak jays.

Pattern: Grumperina's Jaywalkers, of course

Yarn: Regia Something. I've lost the ball band. Whatever this stuff is, though, it's awfully splitty. I won't be using it again. If, uh, I can remember what it is before I buy it.

Mods: Made them shorty-socks because I felt lazy. Only 2 or 3 inches above the heel instead of 7.

Started/Completed: March 2006/April 2007. The longest-running UFO I had. And I finished it! Now I'm going to tackle my Picovoli.

back in PA

...where it is still not spring yet. Right after I took this picture, it started snowing. I squealed with glee.

My drive cross-country was, well, long. I stopped in St. Louis to see my aunt and her family, saw her photos from her honeymoon in Japan, attended my first-ever Boy Scout meeting, and got some Japanese culture tips. I thought I would be able to do the next leg all in one day, and should have been able to, really, but I got up late, lingered over coffee with my aunt, got stuck in traffic outside St. Lou, got a speeding ticket in rural Illinois, and then drove through a violent storm the entire width of Indiana. I had to wait part of it out at a gas station, under the roof, because it was starting to hail and I had my snowboard on the roof and my bike on the back. By the time I passed Columbus, OH, I was done. I checked into a hotel, assisted by two extremely perky ladies named Mary Lou and Mary Kay, like they were hired as a matched set, then dragged myself to Cracker Barrel for a lovely greasy, fattening dinner. The next day I had a nice nostalgia attack as I drove across PA; having gone to college in western PA, I drove I-80 countless times during those 4 years and have a bunch of silly rituals to perform at certain landmarks--singing a song I made up about Dubois, only stopping for gas at Snowshoe, yelling "we're all gonna die!" at the first sight of the cooling towers of the Berwick nuclear power plant, etc. (You have to understand, most of those countless times I was alone, and had to entertain myself somehow.)

So now I'm marking time here until May. I had dinner with my niece and nephew the other day, and tonight my sister Katie is coming up for the weekend, and my parents have threatened to put me to work in the garden if it ever gets warm enough, so I'll have plenty to do. Besides unpacking and repacking everything I brought/sent home as I try to figure out exactly what I can't live without in Japan.

So far, this move has required 14 trips to Goodwill, 5 trips to the post office, 1 oil change, 2 trips to the attitude-laced used book store, 1 argument with a lady at the bank, and 2 edge-of-a-nervous-breakdown phone calls to my mom. Because I can't get anything more done until I can get to Target for more trash bags, and because I live near a major intersection that's always hell at rush hour, I'm taking some time out to do a meme, seen at Gee You Knit. If you're reading, consider yourself tagged.

Directions: If your life was a movie, what would the soundtrack be?
1. Open your mp3 library
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press Play.
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the Next button.
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool. (no worries here, as I'm extremely uncool.)
7. Don’t skip songs.
My Movie:
1. Opening credits: Serenade #13 in G/Mozart
2. Waking up: Gerbil/Filter
3. First day of school: The Movement of a Hand/Bright Eyes
4. Fight song: My England/Lady Sovereign
5. Breaking up: Ten Minutes/The Get-up Kids
6. Happiness: Mine's Not a High Horse/The Shins (who will be in town April 10th, and I won't be here! Dammit!!)
7. Life’s okay: Bridge Over Troubled Water/Johnny Cash with Fiona Apple
8. Mental breakdown: Candy/Morphine
9. Driving: Voices Carry/Til Tuesday
10. Flashback: Don't Make Me Ill/A.F.I.
11. Getting back together: Silver and Gold/Dolly Parton (yes, really. LOVE her, been to Dollywood.)
12. Wedding song: Once Again/Slick Shoes
13. Birth of first child: Jesus Walking on the Water/Violent Femmes
14. Final battle scene: Go!/Long Shot Hero (my sister's band! what what!)
15. Death scene: The Company Dime/The Get-up Kids
16. Funeral song: Two Crooks/American Steel
17. End credits: The Difference in the Shades/Bright Eyes

It's almost 5:30 now, so I suppose by the time I'm ready to walk out the door, traffic will be bearable. I better stop killing time and actually get things done.

Tuesday randomness

1. One of the hardest things about packing for a big move is deciding which of your short-sleeve v-neck black t-shirts is the definitive short-sleeve v-neck black t-shirt, and which of your many pairs of pajama pants are the only pair you really need.

2. I can't stand when people take your clothes out of the washing machine because they just can't wait the additional minute and a half for you to get there and they're just too lazy to walk down to the other laundry room.

3. I really, really hate the word "gal." To me it's the verbal equivalent of not taking off your hat indoors. I don't suppose that makes sense to anyone else, but whenever I hear that word I see that guy in the cowboy hat from the old Smuckers All-fruit commercial bellowing, "couldya please pass the JELLY?"

tent ROCKS!

As part of my farewell tour of New Mexico, I went hiking at Tent Rocks today with my friend Wendy. Too tired to say anything interesting about it, but I took a lot of photos.

A Very Merry I Quit My Job Day to You!

Japan here I come! Well, my departure date is May 8th, so not yet, actually. But at least I don't ever have to go back there! Well, except for Monday when I go in to sign and fax my last time sheet. But I'm done! I'm finished! I'm unemployed and loving it!

I think I'm going to treat myself to Coldstone and then sit outside and work on my dad's cycling aran--new and improved on smaller needles!

I can't think of a clever title

So I didn't get tagged, but I'm doing this meme anyway, seen at Ramona's: Describe your life in five-year intervals counting backward from 2007. So that means every year ending in 2 or 7.

1982: I was three. We lived in Reisterstown, Maryland; we had a long-haired cat named Fuzzy; my mom was pregnant with my sister Katie. My older sister and the boy down the street cut off my pigtails. I think we were co-flower girls in a wedding. I went to pre-school and learned to swim this year. The parents in my playgroup nicknamed me Bubbling White Sugar, which if you ask me is not much of a nickname since it's longer than my actual name.

1987: I was eight. Fuzzy died when I was seven and we got a new cat, Heather, who was a one-person cat. And I was her person. She slept on my bed every night and came when I called her and even met me at the bus-stop after school. Heather died when I was sixteen and I still get all choked up about her. My teacher this year was Mrs. Gede, who is my favorite teacher ever. She had to teach us a health unit and said that she could choose between teaching us about nutrition or about drugs. She chose drugs, because her teenaged son had been an addict and killed himself. It was pretty heavy stuff to tell third-graders, but I liked that she did it. As a teenager, whenever I misbehaved, I felt like I was letting down Mrs. Gede as well as my parents. So I didn't misbehave much.

1992: I was thirteen. Yuck. I played field hockey and read a lot.

1997: Like Ramona, I had a car with a name. Mine was Frankie the Ford Festiva, named after Frankie Avalon. I took a notoriously bad curve a little too wide one day, hit gravel, overcorrected, and shot across the road and off the other side and into a garage owned by, as luck would have it, my fifth grade math teacher. Frankie was totaled. Because I hit a building.

2002: I was 23 and had lived in New Mexico for one year. I was in grad school and hating it. That summer I spent on an archaeological survey at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert, hottest place in the U.S. I got paid the best hourly rate I've ever gotten to hike and look for artifacts in temperatures upwards of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Needless to say, I was in the best shape of my life. And dammit, I have no pictures!

2007: I'll be 28 next month and I'm leaving for Japan May 8th. I'm sorting through all my belongings trying to figure out what I like enough to ship home to store at my parents, what I love enough to ship to Japan, and what I just don't care about and can give to Goodwill. I have a a 20 x 20 x 12 inch box of yarn and WIPs to be sent to Japan. And I'm still buying stuff--I found my 2006 birthday present from my friends Amy and Shamsi, a gift certificate to Village Wools, and I had to run up there and spend it. I spent wisely though--I got yarn for a Hello Yarn Cycling Aran for my dad and for Grumperina's Shifting Sands scarf for my brother-in-law-to-be. Because the more Christmas gifts I can finish before I go, the less I ultimately have to pay in shipping.

doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?

Well, I don't. In two weeks I'm leaving Albuquerque. It's been five and a half years. I hated it when I first moved here. I wasn't used to such a wide-open, treeless space, it was way too hot, and the eternal sunshine was frustrating. (I know that's weird, but I'd been living in the Great Lakes region, and each rare sunny day is like a holiday to the point that college girls will lay out in bikinis if the temperature rises above 50. So for me the sunshine was less "what a beautiful day!" and more "I can't believe I have to sit inside ALL DAY. What a waste.") Anyway, now I like it. (Well, most of it.) But I've been treading water the last two years or so, knowing that what I moved here (grad school/archaeology) is not the thing for me, and it feels good to have made the decision to move on to something else.

You may be asking yourself, what is that something else? Well, even if you aren't, I'll tell you. I'm moving to Japan for a year. I'm going to teach English and experience a new culture and eat a lot of vegetarian sushi. Before I go, I'll be spending about a month at my parents' house in PA, since I won't be coming home for the holidays. I'm very excited and a little scared. I've never lived in another country (or even been to one, besides Canada and Mexico), I don't speak any Japanese (well, I can count to five), and I'm allergic to fish. Plus, I hate moving. But still, I'm looking forward to it.

Anyway, in the spirit of closure, I give you Six Things I'll miss about New Mexico (in no particular order) (I tried to make it five or ten but six just felt right)
1. Green chile and cheese on everything, fantastic salsa, breakfast burritos... well, all the food really
2. the mountains--besides the hiking and the snowboarding and the amazing views while you're up there, it's so great to look up from a traffic jam and be reminded of the sublime.
3. the dry air. I hate humidity.
4. Albuquerque Stitch n Bitch, although it's not like I ever get a chance to go anymore
5. the relaxed dress code--I swear, dressing professionally is going to be harder than not speaking the native language, I've gotten so used to jeans being acceptable pretty much everywhere.
6. my friends. Good peeps. I hope I have visitors in Japan. (Although I'd rather they finish their dissertations first. Priorities, you know.)

feeling scottish

That's what my dad called it, and we can say that because we are Scottish. Well, part. I'm queasy because I just spent a ridiculous (for me) amount of money. I just ordered a new laptop, or notebook, as the kids are apparently callin' 'em these days, and because I'm going to use it to replace my desktop entirely I dropped a pretty solid chunk of change. I know it's (probably) worth what I'm paying, but I don't have it in my hands yet and can't play with it and haven't even tested the keyboard. So I feel like I basically just threw my money away. Ugh, I hate spending money. My dad's more-sympathetic-than-its-sounds response? "Wait 'til you buy a house."

I'm going to try to stop thinking about it now. The whole time I was clicking around the internet checking out notebooks (look, I can be taught!), I was working on a new project: an entrelac (look, I can be taught!) scarf. I'm really frustrated with the Phoenix (nee Central Park Hoodie) because I apparently stretched it out while measuring and it is at least two inches too short, hem-to-armpit, for me. It's also too tight, and since it's Wool-ease I don't know if I can block it big enough to be comfortable. I'm not a fan of short or tight, and definitely not short AND tight. So while I decide whether I want to try to undo the cast-on edge and knit down, or just give it to my slimmer, shorter little sister, I've started Knitty's Danica for my older sister's birthday. I'm fairly sure she doesn't read this, so I'm safe posting it here. Besides which, this may not be its final incarnation yet. I hate skinny scarves, I prefer fat, wide, almost-a-shawl scarves, so this just isn't enough scarf; I don't like scarves that have a wrong side, so I'm either going to have to line it (ugh) or rip it and knit it as a tube; I may have to buy more yarn, I may turn it into a Clapotis out of sheer laziness, etc.

I really am enjoying the entrelac though, and the Patons SWS I'm using is surprisingly lush and soft for yarn that came from Michaels. And when my laptop gets here, I can fashion it some fun plug-in devices like these. I saw someone on craftster make one out of a $1 bathtub toy from Target and some carefully-applied superglue.

this life one leaf

The ashes of the Central Park Hoodie continue to reassemble themselves. I'm finished with the body up to the armscyes (ahh, stockinette in the round, so boring, so restful) and am now trying to decide what I want to do with the sleeves. I've decided on this embossed twining vine leaf lace from Vogue Knitting. My first swatch attempt was in the round, based on instructions for knitting flat. I tried to mentally switch those odd-row k's to p's and vice versa, but damn, that's a lot to keep straight while Sayid's running around in a wifebeater, flexing and stuff. So I knit a flat swatch first, then once I'd decided I liked the results, I typed out an in-the-round version of the lace pattern. This is really my first lace. Exciting!

Also exciting? Hanging around at home on your day off because you've got a gash in the sidewall of your tire, and you've ordered new tires (online, that is, because it's so much better for the blood pressure than talking to car-parts salesguys--I may be a woman, but I know which tires I want, thanks) but they haven't arrived yet. At least I'll make some headway on the first sleeve. It's perfect porch-sitting, beer-drinking weather.

I'm a skullcatcher, actually

Only in New Mexico can you go shopping for a birthday present for your mom and find an assortment of animal skulls at reasonable prices. I'm not against hunting, being from Pennsylvania which has a massive deer overpopulation problem and all, but that's because the people I know who hunt deer eat deer. Venison sausage is a staple of the PA church brunch. But I can't imagine being a coyote trophy-skull hunter. (I texted my mom and asked if she wanted a coyote or an otter or maybe just a tiny weasel, but she seemed sort of... unexcited about the prospect.)



So I've given up on the Central Park Hoodie. I hate seams, and I was just too frustrated to try to fix the disaster I created when I snipped the wrong yarn trying to undo the bad shoulder seam in poor lighting. So it's becoming an in-the-round bottom-up raglan based on ye olde favorite, the Hourglass Sweater; the body is going to plain but I want to do either a lace panel or a cable panel on the sleeves, which I'm planning to make 3/4 length. I'm calling it the phoenix sweater, because I'm obvious like that. I'm already nearly through the body up to the armscyes because I've been Netflixing my way through Lost: Season 1. I didn't start watching it when it debuted in my usual, "oh God, that's like, so overhyped" fashion, but having seen a few episodes of season 3, I am now a) crazy to know what the hell's going on (not that I'll find much enlightment from watching back seasons, my sister tells me) and b) totally hot for Naveen Andrews, and stockinette in the round is the perfect accompaniment to drooling.

Doooooooooooooooooom.

So today I was determined to get back on the Central Park Hoodie horse. I've finished knitting the fronts, back, and sleeves and had already sewn the shoulder seams, and then procrastinated for four or five months because I hate seaming. So I just spent an hour sewing one of the side seams, because I'm slow like that, and because I was determined to make the neatest seam ever seen by human or animal. And then I realized I had twisted it. The crappy flash-in-mirror picture is the only one I took, but you can see what I mean--see the twist in the front?

I took a few minutes to calm down, and then decided to undo the shoulder seam, since it was shorter and messier. And somehow I snipped the wrong damn yarn and now look.

I am giving up.

I don't have the strength to fix or frog it right now, but I swear, I am never making a seamed sweater again. From now on I'm knitting only in the round. I was so close. So close!!! And now... Dooooooom.

My other project is sucking hardcore right now too--my maximized minisweater is not working out like I hoped it would. It may still be salvageable, since it's just that the shaping isn't working out, probably because my math was wrong. But I don't feel like working on it at all now. I was so close to finishing a project, I don't want to backtrack. I just want to finish something and hold it up and say, "Man, I rock!" But I can't, because I don't. All in all, I'm pretty much completely discouraged right now. Ugh. Maybe I'll take up woodworking.