I updated the esty shop with a few items I knit over the weekend and some yarn I spun and set last week. I would've taken photos of it on Saturday but it was rainy and gross outside and the indoor lighting here just doesn't do the knitting goodness justice. The good news about rainy days is I get to wear my big pink raincoat. This is a big deal of course because one rarely feels justified in wearing a raincoat when one lives in the desert.
I did snap a few photos of my yarn drying method.
Old water bottles are perfect weights to tie to hangers for drying because I can add or pour out water to alter the weight so the more fragile yarns won't lose their springiness or get broken. And I have a perfect little doorway to hang them up to dry once they're not dripping in the bathtub anymore. I just have to hope no one rings the doorbell while they're hanging there.
I'm calling this yarn Morrissey's Moody Garden. I spun it from some painted Finn roving from Hello Yarn. It's incredibly soft and there's enough to make a small to medium sized sweater.
If it doesn't sell I'll just knit something cool out of it. If the knit stuff doesn't sell I'll give it to someone. My attitude is if someone else enjoys something I had fun making that's great. Who wouldn't want to get paid for doing something they enjoy? It'll help pay to buy more yarn or something anyway.
These were a few things I knit over the weekend.
I'm calling that a Color Fiesta Stole. Because I'm a smartass. It's a very bright rainbow of colors knit on US 50 needles. Nice and soft merino thick and thin handspun.
This was knit using the same concept as the Craaazy Scarf but this time I used a magic ball method of lots of different yarns tied together. A neat mixutre of handspun and commercially spun with all kinds of different materials. I knit this on US35s and dubbed it The Bird's Nest scarf. It's tres punk rock.
We went to the dog park before sunset tonight and I got into a bit of a political argument with one of the other dog owners. I know better than this. But there were two important things I want to point out: I didn't start it and I was honestly being non-partisan in the beginning.
Basically someone started talking about a Nova tv program about the results of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans that was on last night and started generally blaming Bush about being a lazy asshole. As much as I'd like to blame Bush for every single hangnail in the entire world I do think that the results were due a series of mistakes, certainly his included but not his alone. But the retired Marine whom I've heard bash the UN during previous visits (so I should've known better) started talking about how it was completely the fault of the state and the city and I just could not help myself.
I said (in what I thought was a really clever turn of phrase but it was totally lost on these folks), "Well, I don't mean to start a big argument here, but I think it was just a big Confederacy of Dunces. They were all at fault. Everyone made mistakes and unfortunately the results were disastrous. I love that city and it breaks my heart to see it that way. But it was a result of many officials being incompetent. Not just a few."
Well, this wasn't received as the moderate statement it was meant to be. And it quickly devolved into ugliness. The retired military guy started spewing his typical party rhetoric such as
You can imagine how this was going. Everyone else was standing around watching the dogs and being generally uncomfortable. So I tried to placate by saying "Ok, fine. You're absolutely right. It wasn't the federal government's fault at all. It was because of the State, City, feminists, and that damned ACLU. You're completely right and I'm wrong."
This didn't work. Probably because I was being totally sarcastic but I've found that one really fun way to completely piss off aggressive yankee assholes is to agree with them. (My personal favorite is to speak slower and more politely until their heads eventually explode)
I think the ACLU and feminism comment threw him off too. If he agreed he would totally come off as a crackpot. So, in the greatest misstep in attempting to thwart looking like a crackpot I've ever personally experienced, he started talking about how Louis Farrakhan's paranoid theories have been given actual credence. After asking him "By whom? The liberal media? I haven't seen any news media actually agree with his paranoiac theories on anything, they just give him airtime to say them. That isn't exactly agreeing with them."
I knew I'd won the battle by then. He'd totally shot any credibility as a rational, thinking person with me, and apparently everyone else there because by now they were rolling their eyes around after every sentence he would sputter - and he kept sputtering them. As I continued to say, "Yes, you're absolutely right. I completely agree." to everything he said until he just gave up and awkward silence ensued. Then people started talking about their dogs.
We weren't going to leave until after he left. And I continued to stand. Maybe it was a small alpha dog thing but I would not sit down so I would be taller than he was sitting there. It's sily, I know.
Eventually he left and I apologized for engaging that guy even though I knew better. To which everyone else pretty much said "Oh, it's ok we know he's a big reactionary asshole but otherwise he's a nice guy. It wasn't your fault."
I hate that kind of shit though. But sometimes, I just can't help myself and have to say something. I honestly thought I was being evenhanded at first. I just misjudged how completely unable that guy was to see anything in a moderate way. I should've known better with the completely polarized political climate here these days.
People in other countries have no idea that we really aren't all crazy warmongers here, it's just not usually very safe to say anything even vaguely against them in public right now without getting berated by people who think if they yell their crazy shit at you often and loud enough you'll start to actually agree with them. Or getting threatened to have your tires shot out. How scary is that?
In other news, October 19th has been declared Love Your Body Day by the National Organization for Women Foundation.
Here are a few ways I like to appreciate my body as it is, not as some advertising executive thinks it should be:
- paint or photograph an honest self-portrait
- wear clothes that are comfortable and expressive of my personality, not some fashion fad
- eat and drink healthfully and exercise to feel better but not because I need to lose weight and fit some stupid physical ideal
Shouldn't every day be Love Your Body Day? How do you celebrate your body exactly as it is?
(the Love your Body portion of this post has been crossposted at the Every Woman Is a Goddess blog)
Comments
Rock on with your intelligent, sexy progressive self!
And, if you ever get the urge to knit one of those supercute hedgehog toys and sell it on Etsy, I will totally kill myself with happiness (after, of course, I buy the toy). :)
Posted by: Whitters at October 22, 2005 9:53 PM
Posted by: Jack at April 29, 2006 3:52 AM
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