I bought an ipod this week. I'm having digital music related growing pains. I spent most of the morning uploading cds to my ipod, then accidentally erased most of them later (I thought that I was just taking the files off of my laptop, but the changes tracked into the ipod as well). Well, at least now I know how not to do that. Most discoveries in A/V seem to occur that way. This is not to say that I am unhappy with my purchase--I am happily eating ramen noodles to afford it. So, I'm learning new things about itunes.
Things are a bit stressful at work, mostly due to the imminent opening of the season. I overheard a coworker make a wildly unflattering remark about me, but never confronted him on the matter. For one thing, I'd have to admit that I was eavesdropping (a little unavoidable under the circumstances). Also, I have no idea what I could possibly say. "It really hurt me when you said..." or "I heard you say this and fuck you too"? Neither is a workable solution. I have to work with this person for the rest of the summer. So, things have been awkward. And undoubtedly solely awkward for me, as I do not think that he knows that I overheard him. The women in my family have long memories when it comes to perceived wrongs and slights, so this feeling may last a while.
I don't have many other things going on in my life in the moment. I go to work, I go home, sometimes I listen to a little music or watch fuzzy television, reread one of my books for the third time, etc. It's not as exciting as other people might think, largely because everything closes so early. I have been to two dance concerts here, which is more than I'd been to in ages. I don't think I've ever gone to a dance concert in Chicago....I've also been to one of the swankiest flea markets known to mankind, where I purchased a nifty ring reminiscent of NTSC colorbars. What can I say, I'm a nerd. So it's not as bad as all that, just incredibly wearying at times.
My knitting is going slowly, since I rarely work on it. I'm still working on the sleeves of my camel and crimson raglan sweater. I decided to start with the sleeves, as I have a lousy track record of completing garments with sleeves. In my defense, I will say that they are long sleeves worked in a relatively small gauge. And the project doesn't travel because it's being worked off of a giant cone. So I'm working on a pair of socks at work, when we have downtime. It's a bit frustrating to make so little progress on my projects, but that is usually the case when there are several ongoing.

You may have noticed that I changed my blog template. It was time for a new look, I think we can all agree. Sadly, I lost all of the personalization that I made in my old template, like a link to my email, my top ten lists, links, et al. I made them so long ago that I can't remember the tags. Sigh.
Maybe I'll be in artist mode tonight and not worry about it. I can work on my camel and crimson sweater (so far, only part of one raglan sleeve done. Sleeves seem to be my bete noire) and watch the Tonys on my scrambly television. I've taken to keeping a plastic bag atop the set, so that I can sheath my hand in it before touching the antennae. I am sick of shocking myself!
Suggestions for blog improvement are welcome. Suggestions of increased frequency are not.

Living for the Weekend
I am now perched in a laid-back cafe in Santa Fe, nursing a drink and taking advantage of their free wifi service. Free! And they don't seem likely to give me the bum's rush for staying too long. This cafe is just minutes, walking distance, from my apartment.
I had the weekend off. This is unprecedented. This is unlikely to happen again for the rest of my contract. It was heaven. Many, if not most, places are closed on Sundays here, as it is a heavily catholic town. So my usual day off is not terribly useful to me. I tried to make the most of my precious Saturday. I checked out the local yarn stores (one is phenomenal, casual, and artistic, all in one), window shopped in the cathedral district, and went to see a movie at the mall. That was a bit of a let-down. I often go to art films (that is not a euphemism!), where one is unlikely to see many babes-in-arms. It was babies-a-go-go at Shrek 2 yesterday. Yes, it's a cartoon, but how much enjoyment can an infant really get out of a movie? Later, one of my pals from work came over and we headed out to a very chill little party. Again, I forgot that I am ten times higher here than I am used to at home, and therefore can really only drink Shirley Temples.
I was very pleased to discover the quality of one of the LYSs. The proprietor was incredibly helpful and kind. She even told me that she could order things for me and ship them (all the way across town), as it is unlikely I'll be able to return. Very, very cool. I bought some lovely blue Peruvian cotton that was hand-dyed in giant copper kettles, as well as a pattern book of natty modular patterns. Not the scary ones that you find in the back of the Vogue book, more like a choose-your-own-adventure of knitting.
I haven't blogged in a while. It doesn't seem like something that I can get away with at work. So I was a little surprised and confused to find that my blogging interface looks completely different than the last time I visited. Whoops. Apparently, there are new improved features, which I have yet to explore. Maybe things will look different the next time you visit this page.

I'm supposed to leave in a week. I feel like a kid waiting for christmas. If I could wake up tomorrow and have that be the 16th, I'd be so relieved. I'd like to get this travelling thing over and done with. Twenty-four hours on a train isn't my idea of a laugh, but it was compellingly cheap.
That being said, I'm not packed at all. Not only have I not packed anything, I have heaps of laundry to do. And I need to know what to take. I haven't heard anything about company housing, other than that they have some. This is all terribly frustrating to me. I was really spoiled by the company management at the Pillow, who sent out a massive binder full of info on the company, the area, and all other useful facts. I've not encountered such a thing since.
The biggest conundrum of packing is deciding what I'll knit for the next roughly four months. Very, very hard to predict. I'm on a real knitting roll now, finishing off a couple of UFOs and whipping through a pair of jacquard socks. It's gratifying, but a mere drop in the bucket. I have loads of socks (literally, loads when it comes time to do the handwashing), and I want to tackle bigger projects. Do not interpret this as a desire to make anything for you. If I want to make you something, I probably already have. I have so many wonderful things hidden away in my stash that I don't know where to begin. This calls for copious list-making.
I had lunch with my beloved ex-boyfriend this past week. He's the only one of my friends that will go to the noodle shop with me. This time I remembered to order without the carrots, as to avoid disastrous allergic reactions. He just lost his job and is surprisingly blase about the whole thing. He's usually a very lucky fellow, and I'm sure that things will work out well for him. He's intelligent, articulate, well-liked, etc. Someone is bound to hire him. In the meantime, he's lazing around and wearing purple metallic nail polish. It was strangely attractive.
Other things that are going on... I got my hair cut. I made swedish meatballs with Lewis. I still haven't listened to that Richard Feynmann lecture series and suspect that I won't have time. I went to the post office to pick up passport applications and discovered that I can get one cheap and quick, since I've already had one. I think it's funny that they want to know what your plans are, as though people don't get passports on a whim, or to insure that they could take that spur of the moment flight to Paris if they wanted. I don't have any plans, but I want to be able to get up and go later. That doesn't fit into the tiny box on the form though.
I was supposed to go back to Iowa to see one of my friend's directorial efforts in the New Works Festival. I chickened out. Things are always a little heavy when I have to pack up my life and go away for months on end. And I have a lot of loose ends to tie up. And I just couldn't get excited about that four hour drive through monotonous farm country. I guess I'm not a very good friend.

I googled myself today. What a disappointment. There were six pages of results, and none of them were about me. Who knew that there were so many people with my name out there in the world. Of course, my last name is incredibly common, but my first name isn't. There was even another person with my name working in theatre. Luckily, we work in different areas of theatre, so I doubt that there will ever be any confusion. At least, I hope there won't ever be any confusion.

I read a book about historic English-language autograph manuscripts. Well, I mostly looked at the photographs and read the detail-rich captions. It was very interesting. I discovered that there was one almost universal characteristic to great English-language authors: none of them had nice penmanship.

What an old-fashioned concept, I know, but I'm old-fashioned in an odd way. I am a liberal politically, but a conservative grammatically. I hate when people use apostrophes to make nouns plural. I dislike finding grammatical errors in publications (though I was once thrilled to find one in the New York Times several years ago). Hell, my school paper in college often had typos and errors in the headlines. I still think of language as prescriptive rather than descriptive, even though I doubt many schools still promote that idea. I'm in love with the printed word. I'm in love with words, full stop. I learned the word in French for "the clap" this week, and it gives me a little intellectual thrill. The beauty of collecting words or ideas or knowledge is that they don't clutter up your house. There is a seemingly infinite supply.

I've decided to engage in more intellectual endeavors. To that end, I have checked out a collection of recording of Richard Feynman's famous "Six Easy Pieces" lectures. He only delivered them once at Caltech in the early sixties. My physics TA in college called Feynman the only great native American physicist. By this, I think he meant that he was the only genius that we didn't import.

I read a biography of Ted Hughes that one of my friends in New York lent me. It was a little dry, but interesting. It concentrated on his intellectual and romantic involvement with Sylvia Plath. The author really flogged this to death. Hughes outlived her by decades and went on to do a great many things after her death, but their marriage is usually in the first paragraph of any article about him. The book reminded me of an honors seminar that I took in college that examined the intellectual exchange between Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. It was fascinating.

I've also decided that I would like to improve my French. I've basically neglected it since college and fear that I may lose all comprehension of the language if I do not act. I took an online test and scored in the intermediate range. I suppose I should be thrilled by that, since I haven't had to speak French every day since 1998. However, I did put in the equivalent of six years of study of the language. I've been chatting with some francophones online and pondering the old Berlitz tapes at the public library. I should give my old instructor a call to see what kind of maintenance/refresher she suggests.

The new Sigur Ros EP is amazing. Amazing! It sounds like the soundtrack to a dark, sophisticated, sexy foreign film. Not surprising, considering that it was composed in collaboration with Merce Cunningham. I highly recommend the EP to any soundtrack, ambient, or Scandi fans out there. I recommend buying it from iTunes instead of going out and buying the disc, if you can. It cost me less than three dollars online, after I saw it for eight bucks at Borders! I am discovering that a lot of albums are cheaper online, though I am still torn about digital music vs. physical recordings. I still get a thrill out of going to the store and buying an album and taking it home to listen to it for the first time. Of course, I occasionally still slip and call them records, so that should give you an idea of my tastes.

I listened to some amazing music by Jobim Gilberto's daughter online today. Naturally, it was bossa nova. I would be very surprised, what with her parental influences and all, if she put out a rap album. Warm days call for sunny music like the bossa nova. Today was a lovely, lovely day. The cherry blossom trees outside the public library are in full bloom and very fragrant. I happened to glance at one out the window of the reading room and was transfixed by its technicolor pink against an equally vibrant blue sky. Ah, spring! I was also giving the Yeah Yeah Yeahs a spin on my MD at the time. That is a really great album. Not at all like the aforementioned Gilberto recording, but very strong in its own right.

I made my friend Bob Marcus a hat out of lovely variegated cotton and merino blend yarn. It's my usual little rolled-brim stoner hat, but in cotton instead of wool. I love it. He and I have the same size head (which is funny, when you think about it), so I've been wearing it for quality-control purposes. I don't want to give it away now and will probably end up making another one.