Trifling Matters

Small things can really get under your skin. Like running up two flights of stairs only to have the train doors slam shut in your face. Going to a strange Starbucks and having the barista really fuck up your drink order and forget to buzz you into the bathroom when you're dangerously close to doing the pee dance. Inaccurate yarn estimates in patterns. Some guy sitting next to you on the train with his knees a yarn apart, seriously cutting into your personal space. Yes, I know that people are dying in places like Darfur while I whine about this crap. That's exactly what it is. How can such petty matters be so irritating at the time?
I went to the opening night of my latest project. They hadn't put my name in the program. Maybe they couldn't spell it. Maybe it's a general reflection of their attitude towards me, since they were inclined to walk all over me, but not let me actually get any tech accomplished. Grr. The technical aspects of the show were very, very weak. Hell, it was Waiting for Guffman bad. The cues were all over the place. The stage manager makes the actors set their own props. Their one and only stagehand moved like Sasquatch during the scene changes. And really, the audience's attention should be elsewhere. The piece de resistance, really, was that they were apparently doing laundry backstage and left the alarm on for the dryer. It went off four times during the first act. I was about ready to look for it and turn it off! But still, they don't pay me enough to care. There is some strong acting in the show, and a lot of strange choices. One of my favorite actors is in it, and it was largely because he is in it that I even bothered to go to opening night. That and the free dinner to follow.
I don't have any other theatre gigs lined up. I don't know how I feel about that. It is nice to not be working three jobs at a time. Was I trying to work myself to death or something? Still, I miss it. Not crap like the above anecdote, but working with friends, doing a challenging mix, the social opportunities. It's a busy time of year, so I haven't been able to get a hold of my friends lately, which is lonely making.
I'm making some new friends, as my horoscope predicted for the year. Over the past few months, I've met some really fabulous ladies through work. Friends who've let me crash at their place, gotten me ridiculously drunk, fed me wonderful dinners. It's good to build a bigger network of friends here in town, since most of my friends are far away. Yes, you can imagine me listening to old Carole King records on a rainy afternoon as you read that sentence, though I'm more inclined to listened to Joni Mitchell.
Since the Colinette pullover has turned out to be The Project That Eats Yarn, it's idling on the needles now. I'm working on another version of the Classy Drug Rug, for me this time. As I was knitting away at it on the train, I noticed a lot of people smiling at me. Maybe they think it's a child's sweater, I thought, but it's probably the happy colors. It is a very cheerful colorway. So, I'm alternating that and the Cashmerino Cowl wonder, which is moving along nicely even though I can only work on it in short bursts. I'm also trying to resist the temptation to start yet another project, as my Blue Sky Cotton yarn arrived in the mail today. It's for another Wendy creation, the Something Red, but I think I need Something Finished first. That is one disadvantage to working more than one project at a time.

Protect Your Tools

I was knitting this morning, working on my "at home" project, when I had a sudden realization. The project in question, my top down raglan sweater, had gotten a bit too cumbersome for the commute. I'd finally reached the waistband ribbing, which required switching to size 4 needles. For those of you who don't knit, smaller numbers equal smaller needles, so that's tiny. I was knitting along when I got a pain in my forearm, that pain that made me remember the words of my drafting professor: "If you keep drafting like that, you're going to have carpal tunnel before you're thirty". Thanks a lot. I can't speed along on size four needles. I'll have to alternate this project with other, larger gauge projects. I'll never be able to knit a Rowan sweater. It's strange that these needles are causing me problems, since I've knit socks on smaller needles. Of course, socks are a smaller project. Oh well. I'd rather take an extra couple of months to finish this than cripple myself.
Later at work, I felt a pain in the big joint of my thumb on my right hand. What I imagined to be a vaguely arthritic twinge, as I am clearly a hypochondriac. Or the child of a hypochondriac. I looked down and realized that I was gripping my cheapo Bic pen as though my life depended on it. I grip that pen for a good five hours a day at work, so this was a distressing thought. I'd heard of people getting repetitive stress injuries from typing, but from writing?! So, I made a conscious effort to relax my grip on the pen and immediately felt better. My handwriting looked pretty spindly without that apparently crippling force behind it. Maybe I should start bringing my own pens or those dorky rubber grips favored by people who do a lot of crossword puzzles.
Fortunately, my other project is on larger needles. Yes, back to that. I'm back to work on the Colinette Giotto pullover, now that my extra skein has arrived from the UK. I really love the people at Colinette. The pattern for the sleeves has a right and a left. Most patterns don't. These designers clearly know what they're doing. Further advancing my theory that all Colinette books should feature a disclaimer at the front warning knitters of the addictive properties of their product. I've got to find some warm weather projects, once this one's off the needles. Almost all of the projects in the batting order at cold weather items. Of course, knitting them during the warmer months of the year would ensure that they would be ready and waiting on that first cold day of autumn, but it means missing out on that gratifying first wearing, still warm from the needles. Delayed gratification is not a favorite activity of mine. I think that I may tackle Wendy's Something Red next. It looks like a good cross-season garment, good for when they turn the AC on at work. I don't want to get caught wearing an Old Grandpa sweater in the middle of the summer, like so many office workers keep in their cubicles!

Happy Day

Two packages arrived for me today: an Amazon shipment and that ball of yarn needed to finish my sweater. Yay! I bought a couple of cds from Amazon, which is kind of crazy considering that I have music that I bought a while ago and still haven't heard. I bought a couple of albums before my trip to Europe, figuring that it would be an excellent time to fall in love with new music. Except I barely listened to my ipod when I was over there. So, I have a few albums to listen to when the mood strikes me: Z, by My Morning Jacket, Oh Inverted World, by The Shins, the new Stereolab, Strangers Almanac, by Whiskeytown, and Garden Ruin by Calexico. Well, I've had an unfocussed listening to some of those. It's been a long time since I've been able to sit down and really listen to a new album. I used to read the New Yorker from cover to cover when it came in the mail, too. Sniff. So, today, my recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sir John in Love arrived. It's not exactly easy to find, so when I saw it on Amazon, I knew I had to snap it up. I also bought a Neko Case album. That combination whould work wonders on my recommendations page. I like to think that my taste is unpredictable, but the people at Amazon and iTunes like to think differently. Unfortunately, iTunes keeps recommending that I purchase albums that I already own. No, I don't expect them to be psychics at Apple, but it's music that I bought from them.
I got a new cellphone. It's a camera phone. Naturally, it is silver and a flip-phone, very Star Trekky. Suppose it was time that I join the 21st Century. The ring tones are atrocious, so I went with a Bach derived one. I'd buy a new ringtone, except I can't preview them on my Mac. And the Bach isn't bad.
Today, I got a call from a prestigious summer stock company for whom I would dearly love to work. They offered me a position for this summer. Small problem: it was an unpaid internship. Maybe if I had a sugar daddy, I'd take it, but I can't afford to quit my job and go work there for nothing. They did admit that I am overqualified for the position. Better than underqualified, I guess, considering that I've been out of school for five years.

So, a little bit of redesign here at Reciprocity Failure. I was looking for a change and tried a couple of different templates before settling on this one. Sorry to everyone on an update feed, you probably got a few emails on that one! Well, in the end, I've chosen a template virtually identical to the one that I used before. The background color is dark instead of cream now, but the dots and everything are the same. Not a bold change, friends, but I like it.
Things are a little easier at work. I've started actually making sales, after a week of nothing. That was very difficult, because I was used to being a total rock star in fundraising. Sales has a very different pace, and it has been hard adjusting to that. Still, I love my job. My boss is amazing, it's a very positive, fun environment, and my coworkers are really great. It feels good to get the swing of it now, because it was starting to look like I wouldn't!
On the knitting front: the amazing Colinette project is idling now, waiting for that additional skein of yarn. God only knows when it will show up. I have such a short attention span for mail order. Thank god I live in a city full of yarn shops, because it would be a big problem if I had to do everything from a catalog. Well, I don't mean to be a big pessimist, but I went back to look at the website whence I bought the yarn and found that they had the color/yarn I ordered listed as out of stock. So, I may have to wait a while. Or I might have just gotten under the wire. We'll see. I don't really want to get too far into the sleeves before it arrives, in case it's noticeably different from the yarn I have now. It's hard to double-strand if you run out! Instead, I've pulled the beautiful top-down raglan sweater from its back burner. I'd sort of forgotten how luscious the yarn is. Well, other knitters will roll their eyes: how could I forget what a great hand cashmere blend yarn has? Still, terrific. I didn't miss working with those tiny needles, which is why I can't do any marathon knitting sessions on this project. Large needles are great for (relatively) instant gratification, but how many bulky sweaters do I need? That said, I don't think I'll ever be able to switch over to the European school of thought on gauge. Why do so many Rowan and Phildar patterns feature such fine gauge yarn? Who wants to knit an entire sweater at nine stitches to the inch?! Sadly, that's not hyperbole.
Oh, I'm procrastinating. I should be doing paperwork for my show, but I'm resisting. I already have the paperwork generated, you see, I just have to fill in additional info that will undoubtedly be changed later. Sigh. I could have avoided this problem if I'd left the running cue sheets at the theatre, but instead I tucked them in my script and brought them home. That would make it very hard for the designer (whom I assist) to train the new board operator. So, I have to make a crib sheet of all the levels and get it off to him. I guess I'll go do that now...

I want culture. I want to go to a ballet, or the opera, or a really great play. Well, I live in a major metropolitan area, so that should be easy, right? Well, a quick scan of the ads really doesn't inspire me. I should live in Europe, where there are heaps of ballet and opera companies, instead of one of each here. Well, one major company of each. Whine, whine, whine. Hell, even NYC would do it. It's that Sunday night feeling that creeps in when you're least expecting it. Maybe I'll go to the Art Institute this week. That's cultured, to say the least. I take so little advantage of all of the artistic opportunities available in the city. I've never been to the Goodman, for example, and I haven't been to a museum in town in years. I need something to recharge my artistic battery. Maybe I'll buy a copy of Einstein's Dreams and finally hang onto it for myself.
There's knitting, I suppose. I got bored on the train home the other day and actually read the general instructions at the front of one of my Colinette pattern books. It was very interesting. They advise going up a needle size for circular needles. Maybe I've been doing this unconsciously, since I generally swatch a size larger than the pattern specifies to start. I have a tight gauge, though nowhere near as tight as it used to be! Since I knit nearly all of my projects on circular needles these days, I'm surprised that I hadn't come across this bit of advice before. Maybe it's a Welsh knitting secret, or just so obvious to everyone but me that no one's mentioned it. Hmm. What the general advice should state is that Colinette yarns are dangerously addictive, especially to American knitters who are unfairly dependent upon the whims of the yarn's greedy importers. I've heard that it's hard to come by in the UK, since they export most of their stock, but I've resolved only to order it from there. I bought another Colinette pattern book (total now two) when I was at the young hip knitting shop. This was largely inspired by the shop model of a ribbed cardigan in Giotto, the yarn of my current project. As though I need another project in the lineup. Oh, about that current project. I detest knitting sleeves, but nearly all of my sweaters have them, so I am soldiering on through a pair of sleeves now. I had a little yardage freak-out and ordered another ball, but suspect that it may not be necessary. Well, better too much than too little.
Today, I was sitting at a high counter in the window of a coffee shop on Michigan Avenue. Yes, I've absorbed enough café culture to want to be near the window when possible. So, there I was, perched over a panini when a woman whizzed past on a Segway. Well, maybe whizzed isn't the correct word, since I think they move at a brisk walking pace at best. The Chicago Police Department has outfitted some of their beat cops with Segways, which amuses me to no end. Beat cops not actually walking their beat---blasphemy! Are they for low speed chases? It's just so absurd to see them scooting around dispensing parking tickets in the Loop. This woman, however, was not a cop, but wearing a tweed coat and carrying an expensive-looking purse. She was nonchalantly moving under borrowed power. I guess she caught my eye because she was at eye level with me as I sat at the counter. Very weird. Segways are the rickshaw of the 21st century, for rich people who are too damn lazy to walk anywhere. She was in her late twenties, too.
Chicago is a weird place somedays. Other days, fantastic. It's supposed to be spring now and the weather is almost coöperating. Lovely to look at today, but there was a sneaky cold wind blowing. I was fooled by that warm week at the beginning of March. There was even a warm day when the wind blew the sweet aroma of the chocolate factories of the Gallery District into the Loop. Such a warm, enticing scent.

LYS Envy

I was at the theatre yesterday, working on the interminable tech production that somehow doesn't do anything technical in its tech rehearsals, when one of my friends gave me a little card. There is a yarn shop a pleasant walking distance from the theatre. Naturally, I went there, even though I probably won't need anything from a yarn shop for a year. It was amazing. Hip, lovely, lots of space, great couches, great help, okay prices. It was very cute. I resisted the urge to buy all sorts of fabulous, unusual yarns from places like France and South Africa. I bought patterns and darning needles. You can never have too many darning needles. Hell, it feels like I can never have enough, as I keep losing them. As I was leaving, I thought, why can't this LYS be near my house? Why do I have to have the somewhat unhelpful, old lady LYS near my house? My actually local LYS doesn't have velvet couches or wine tasting nights or even an appealing layout. However, if the hip young knitter LYS was near my house, I would never have a cent. So, maybe these things happen for a reason.
My Indiana LYS (actually only 20 miles away, according to my trip odometer) is having a big sale, as I mentioned before. Well, I had to go see it for myself, and ended up leaving with another project. It was on sale, though, an excellent buy. That's how knitters justify these things. This really was a steal. I had previously salivated over the t-shirt sweater pattern in the Ella Rae book (currently being knit by the lovely lady of Blue Blog).It's knit in hand-dyed alpaca, in perfect Piscean shades of blue, teal, and aqua. It looked kind of strange in its skinny little hanks, but I can make that leap of faith. Look how lovely it is once it is wound up! Well, I'd thought long and hard about buying it at another LYS which I will call Markup Central. It was on sale there too, except it started off with a $10 markup. Shameless! Well, I didn't buy it them because I was planning to buy all sorts of fiber on my trip (which I did). Good decision, since I snapped it up for $4.50 a skein and $6 for the book of patterns instead of $14 a skein at Markup Central. That's a cheap project for such a fabulous fiber!
I also picked up the Chicago-based hand-dyed yarn that I wanted to make another Classy Drug Rug. The colors are a little outrageous, but I think that I will like the end result. It is a little hard to envision an entire sweater out of it, as you can see here. So much for my denying a love of the color pink. Really, I love blues and greens; I'm a total Pisces. But pink makes me happy. It can be very flattering to my rosy cheeks (or tired, hungover eyes). So, I own a lot of pink things, but I'm not a pink person. Maybe it's a phase. I'm really rediscovering color after so many years of black. I wasn't a Goth: it's a professional hazard in theatre. You may end up with a closet full of black clothing.