I've had a tumultuous couple of weeks since my last post. I used to be so faithful about updating my blog.
While I haven't been updating this page, I've been up to the following: packing up all of my personal belongings and driving halfway across the continent; knitting four hats (thank god for worsted weight yarn!); starting on a rowan script bag in a bulky lavender wool, then discovering that I was 40 meters short; making a fabulous modern tweed scarf with an intentional hole in it to be given as an xmas present. I was pretty irked at the authors of the pattern for the scarf. The photo had a big hole to pull the end of the scarf through, yet the pattern called for a single yarnover hole! Luckily, my mother was on hand to advise alternate methods. I proceeded to make the hole "too big". Pretty strong talk from a woman who just made a hat large enough to fit Mush Mouth on Fat Albert! She plans to felt it down to human size soon.

Eleanor and I went to the Knit Out in Union Square today. Eleanor is currently knitting a striped hat on retro colored metal dps. I took my spiral ribbed sock (in progress), which was fussed over by several people. It is cute, but I haven't internalized the pattern yet. I think that the variegation makes it look trickier than it is, which is fine as far as I am concerned. I've also used yarn that is printed to make a fair isle pattern. I'm shameless. My objective in going to this free event (other than sussing out the NY knitting community) was to learn to knit backwards. Luckily, there was a slightly intimidating European woman working the sweater doctor table who taught me the technique. It's still difficult for me, since I just learned it. Also, I hold the yarn in my right hand, which I gather is kind of goofy for american knitters, which makes it tricky. Not as tricky as relearning to knit, though. So, I came home and tried it out on my sweater in progress and almost did a dance of joy. This is much better than turning the sweater around and around again!
Oh, that. I've decided to stop marinating my New Age shell while I still have some hope of wearing sleeveless garments this year. I finished the back piece and have begun working on the front. It still looks like a muppet, but if you squint, you can sort of see a sweater. After this, and all of my other current projects (spiral socks, bias scarf, my other fair isle sock, the long linger lined socks), I may tackle a sweater with sleeves. But that won't happen for a while

Well, I've joined the ranks of the unemployed. Half of the people that I know are currently out of work. It's not a good situation. So I'm combing the trades trying to find another job, one that might even pay enough to live on. What a novelty! In the meantime, I will also make an attempt to get unemployment. The worst they can say is no, I suppose.

It's been two weeks since my last post. Sorry. Things have been quite busy. In that time, I've had a visit from a good friend from Chicago, been on a couple of interviews, and finished my contract with the theatre. I also found a cute lavalier microphone in the Full Compass catalog for a ridiculously low price---one I could actually afford! Now, I impatiently await its arrival in my mailbox so that I can begin recording essays and letters to my other av nerd friends.
The theatre finally looks like a working theater. In a few days, it will even have its first show. So, I'm glad that the open house was so close to my last day. It was a wonderful party, a great change of pace from the stress in the office. I even ran into a few people that I hadn't seen in years.
My boss didn't say anything about my last day. In fact, I am not sure that he realized that it was my last day. I didn't want or need a big fuss. One of the wonderful stagehands took me out to lunch and I received many offers of coffee, drinks, etc. from my coworkers. Still, it was odd not to receive any sort of acknowledgement from the boss. I wonder if he'll call on Monday asking where I am!
I finished knitting the Kroy socks that I designed for a friend. Ideally, they would have been finished while he was in town, but alas... I had problems with fiber splitting while finishing the toe of the second sock. It looks "homemade" in the derogatory sense of the word, but it was too damn hard to take out and fix. So I'm already working on another pair of socks with a spiral rib pattern, out of beautiful variegated pink and red soft wool.
My good pal Amy and I went out after my last day of work to take in a screening of Mulholland Drive in the Village. The acting and art direction were incredible, though I think that it requires repeat viewings to discern its nuanced clues. It was quite a mind bending experience. I've had "Crying" stuck in my head since I left the theatre, though not in Spanish as it appears in the film. At least they didn't sing "Oklahoma!".

I found a great website devoted to the charming medium of the minidisc. Yes, the minidisc, spelled with a c, not a k. It drives my spellcheck crazy. The website is , which has many resources for the minidisc user or afficionado. Some of the people involved are a bit more...fervent about it than I am. It was nice to stumble upon a community of other MDers.
I've used my minidisc player almost exclusively since I bought it. It skips far less than my discman (I won't jinx it by saying never, but it has yet to happen), and also has more economic battery usage. I haven't burned many of my cds to md, so it's been a restricted playlist, but I have no complaints. Now, I have only to get a microphone for it, so that I can make field recordings and personal voiceovers a la Felicity to send to my friend Willie in Iowa.
Which reminds me--I've figured out why all of the big Broadway sound designers are hard of hearing. It's not from work. The subway here is so damned loud, I'm surprised that anyone can hear. Though years of ringing out the house, etc. probably has something to do with it as well.

Oh, I forgot to mention my latest adventure in things technical. My boss's ancient mac died, possibly due to the move. He refused to give it up for dead, I suspect because he probably hadn't backed it up. So, he pried it open and pulled out the hard drives to install in his "new" computer. His "new" computer is at least six years old and has different protocol than the previous one. You know you're in trouble when you have to upgrade to a machine that the tech support people call a doorstop! So, he had me carry it over to Tekserve in a big box, where I waited patiently for service. Tekserve is an interesting place. Their waiting area looks like a lounge at the airport and features an old coke machine that dispense little glass bottles for ten cents. I drank several in my hour long wait, while watching early video art projected onto a giant screen. It was a piece that I'd seen before at MassMoCA featuring complicated chain reactions, all done in a single take. The service estimate was predictable. They promised nothing, which is what I suspect will be received.
When I returned to the office, I told a couple of the tech staff about it. This sort of thing is typical behavior for my boss. The head of IT told me that he has a brand new Dell that my boss refuses to use because it isn't a mac. He prefers to try to revive a machine that was state of the art while I was in grade school.