Yeah, yeah, I changed the name. I figure I should make my blog title more about knitting and less like a soap opera – even though And the World Turns still feels technically correct & often things in my life take on a soap opera-esque magnitude – though I have yet to discover I’ve got a mysterious twin sister, or that my husband is plotting to have me kidnapped, or that my dogs are actually searching for their birth bitches because they have a rare blood disease.

I also fiddled with the sidebar, and copied the mood monitor cartoon smack offa Leslie’s site, because I thought it was cute. I doubt I’ll be able to keep up on my moods (hell, James will tell you he certainly can’t), so I thought a coffee-related mood would work well. Who knows. I’m hungry and I want something I haven’t eaten in the past three days: in other words, I’m done with American Down Home Cookin’ Country Comfort Food. I hit the big mashed-potato-veggie-casserole-turkey-more-turkey-want-some-pie wall, and all I can crave is Thai food. Waah. I don’t want to get dressed & go get any, so I’m stuck with what I can scrounge up around here. Looks like the forecast is callin’ for rice.

I’m about to go park myself in front of the DVR and watch all the crime shows I’ve taped for a week-plus, while knitting on the Fabu Holiday Shardigan. Unfortunately, I did not consume enough caffeine in the past couple of days & woke up with a humdinger of a headache. (It’s a bitch being an addict.) But I took three Target-brand Excederin, and I’ll have a Diet Coke or two & stability will be restored. It’s much easier to maintain this habit than, say, oh, black tar heroin! I’d venture a guess that it’s also a smidgen healthier.

We had a really nice evening last night, with some of our favorite people in the world stopping by to nosh & visit: Shelley & Kurt, Kristin and her Mom and Dad (the one and only JET), Angela, Julie & Randy & the spankin’ new Lily, who was even more gorgeous than she was on Day One in the world – it was so nice to see her eyes OPEN! There was way too much food, as we always go overboard, but not having a ton of people really allowed us to chat more and relax. Oh, and I probably drank an entire bottle of wine when it was all said and done and the little light bulb just went off in my head that perhaps THAT also contributed to the headache? Well, I’m sticking to the caffeine story, no matter what.

I’m also going to go brunette this weekend. I feel like I’m kinda done with the varying shades of shocking red, and red is also the fastest haircolor to fade, studies say. It has gotten to the point where I feel like I need to color my hair every two weeks to obliterate the ever-marching forward root line. I think it’d be kind of interesting, one day, to actually NOT have to dye my hair to cover up my roots – and, GASP, discover if I have any gray hairs yet! I’m naturally a mousy brown, and it’s really challenging to find that specific color on the boxes, because “mousy” is not really a selling adjective in the cosmetic & haircolor industry. So as we phase out the red and into a new era of hair color, “French Roast” will be the first step in a new direction. Mmm. Sounds tasty. Maybe in a few months Feria’ll have a “French Mouse”. Madame! Portez-vous la Souris Française? Très bon. Mousse? I’d love some.

I’m in a very U2 space what with having listened to the new album & being reminded of old albums in the past 24 hours. I just love ’em & the new album is awesome! Today is beautiful, especially because we don’t have any tree branches down in our yard. The heavy wet snow is de-gorgeous, and even better because I didn’t have to go to work today! WA-HOO. James set his alarm for 2:25 a.m. so he could call and get OUT of goose hunting today (knitters don’t engage in such craziness, but I also know that if the best sales on Noro or Colinette happened at 3 a.m., the entire hobby/sport would change, literally, overnight.) So he gets up, I wake up, we’re both looking at the snow & Polly wakes up and freaks out that she’s once again starring in the left-behind series of Polly, and might actually miss out on something spectacular, like, free bacon. So with the hunter staying home, he “got” to spoil me. A big omelette with turkey bacon, salsa & sour cream, orange rolls, hot coffee – yum. Then he drove us (4-wheel drive engaged) to meet Shelley for coffee, and James showed off how well four-wheel drive works in snow in the parking lot, plowing through huge snowplow piles of snow and careening about, while the entire time I laughed very loudly and nervously, because similar actions in a Honda Civic would result in certain death. After five minutes we stopped behaving like we were 16 years old & went in to Starbucks, where we sipped on chai tea lattes, and I read James the book “Hello, Sweetie-Pie” starring Lola the chipmunk (we think she’s a chipmunk, it’s nicer than if she’s a rat.) It was the cutest book ever, and one page made us laugh so hard because it was like a page out of my life: Lola’s friend Lulu initially teased her for her parents’ nicknames for her, but then realized she was just sad that she didn’t have one herself. So Lulu got her parents to call her the SAME EXACT NICKNAMES that Lola’s parents called her, and there’s this great drawing of Lola all pouting and HOPPIN’ MAD with books standing up on either side of her so she can be by herself, and she’s saying, “But I am the only princess sweetie pie!” And then Shelley got there and we made her read it, too, and when we were done we went to Costco & bought oodles of yummy things and ogled television sets that would make our living room feel very, very small.

One last observation about U2. It’s obvious they continue to evolve & grow as people and as a super-band. The music and lyrics have grown, and as I was listening to the second song, “Miracle Drug”, for the first time yesterday driving to work, I was having these flashes of times in my life I’ve listened to U2, and each image is like this texturally rich photo, with sounds & smells: Sunday Bloody Sunday, in the Main dorm, the window’s partway open & I can hear the B&G mower and smell the fresh cut grass – and I realize as I look back at that snapshot how much I didn’t know or how far I would need to grow to feel how I do today. And when I flash to “Beautiful Day” I see James & I in that awful apartment, waiting to get married and needing more space and thinking that I could never need to love him more than I did then & now discovering that I love him twice as deeply in only half the time I’ve known him. And the love and the music just feels explosive, like the rings that shoot out from Ground Zero and ripple under the surface of the earth, never stopping, and it feels like I’m going to explode myself, but how would I explain to the officer that I’m speeding and crying and happy, all at once?

I want to knit a hat for The Edge. How cool a thank-you would that be?

I am you and you are mine

Love makes nonsense of space

And time…will disappear

Love and logic keep us clear

Reason is on our side, love…

The songs are in your eyes

I see them when you smile

I’ve had enough of romantic love

I’d give it up, yeah, I’d give it up

For a miracle, a miracle drug, a miracle drug

God I need your help tonight

Beneath the noise

Below the din

I hear your voice

It’s whispering

In science and in medicine

“I was a stranger

You took me in”

You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting
and do it all the time. While finishing a piece
is the plan, you still love the process, and
can’t imagine a day going by without giving
some time to your yarn. Packing for vacation
involves leaving ample space for the stash and
supplies. It can be hard to tell where the yarn
ends and you begin.http://marniemaclean.com

What Kind of Knitter Are You?
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I’m sitting here watching Lenny’s new video “Lady” and of course, he is still an amazing musician, singer, rockstar, and his little sideways smiles ooze sexuality. He’s a hottie, and if you think that’s news, you need to get out a little more. His new haircut is shockingly handsome – I thought I’d always swoon for the dreds. I was thinking about how challenging it would be to be Lenny’s girlfriend (c’mon, indulge my fantasy. We’re only doing this for 5 minutes.) Seriously, you’d have to have an amazingly secure ego, because not only would unbelievably hot, beautiful women be throwing themselves at him all the time, you’d have to live in the shadow of Lisa Bonet, and Lenny LOVED that woman. So I think Lenny should date Annie Lennox. Because she is possibly the most intimidating & secure woman I’ve ever seen. She scares David Letterman. I first thought Halle Berry, because they have the same haircut now, and they’re both really beautiful, but I think Halle would be too insecure. Annie wouldn’t even ask Lenny where he’d been. Because she wouldn’t have to.

And kudos to Lenny for the women in his video. They obviously are amazing dancers, and they have -gasp- real thighs! Very muscular & not Paris Hilton pukey skinny. I love ya, Lenny. James is still is mad at you for cancelling your show here two years ago, but I say all is forgiven. Come on over to Kansas City, Lenny. And think about giving Annie a call, if she’s not taken.

I’m madly in love with James because (#749) every morning, after the school announcements are read and the new “daily meditation” has been spoken, he leads all the children in his class to say in unison, “Whooo-sahhhhhhh” like Joey Pantaliano’s character in Bad Boys II when he was trying to de-stress…..

(#922 is for finding an affordable cleaning lady who is scary good. I’m hiding from her upstairs because I can’t believe how filthy our house is & how unphased she seems to be about it.)

whooosaaaahhhhhh.

“What is cleaning like crazy in preparation for the cleaning person to arrive?”

An inner spring on the interior mechanism seems to have coiled out and sprung into an area in which it is not used, leaving behind a piece that needed it. I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. last night, playing some jewel shifter game on Yahoo that you can’t really even win, dammit, and then slept for 7 hours. Finished the felted mitten class, and told my students to admire their work more. The Dictator Cheerleader. That would be my action doll, if one were being made in my image. You will DO AS I SAY and you will GIVE YOURSELF PATS on the back!

I am making a frozen pizza because it seemed like a better alternative than chewing my arm off. Later it’s off to Roger & David’s for dinner & a (rented) movie, and knitting on their couch. Sitting down to check email made a big wave of exhaustion come up & over me though, and all I want to do is NAPPITY NAP NAP NAP! But I can’t. I’m starting the Holiday Shardigan, so I can wear it to the Holiday Shindig, where, hopefully, there will be Holiday Shenanigans!

And I have to de-clutter because tomorrow, for the first time EVER, I am paying someone else to clean my house. It’s funny to clean for the cleaning lady, but dammit, it will force me to do it, and she can have the joy of the brutal mopping and vacuuming & dusting because there is just no way I can do it all. My action figure is not perfect, by a long shot. But it sure can see the silver linings…..

This afternoon was a rock-um-sock-um kinda afternoon. It felt awesome. I don’t know if it was excessive amounts of sugar burning themselves into productivity neurons, but I got SO MUCH DONE it was almost frightening. It was terrific! I felt no guilt about leaving every bit of work right there, at work. Next weekend will be a little different, as I’ll need to haul some files home to do numbers, but it still won’t be Herculean.

After work, Kristin & I went to a Fiber Fair/Sale & I bought a sock kit & some yarn for a Xmas present. Then I came home & smooched my husband, we put together the new vacuum cleaner, he left for his hunting lodge & I am knitting, watching tv, and hanging with Polly, who has licked me more than she has all week. Ew, but still sweet.

I also feel like my conversation yesterday with Phil has helped me realize the foundation I am building is actually brick & mortar, not quicksand. I feel like my actions at work are doing good, and I do not care if they ruffle feathers because someone’s insecure or feels the need to compare themself to me. I am doing the right thing, and I am doing positive things. It does not have the power to fix the things that still need to be fixed, but if I can make some people feel like I value them, and to break some of the ice that seems to have frozen up around everyone, then I have gone “above & beyond”.

I am setting my own boundaries with my family & it feels healthy. It feels like I’ve finally made it to the top of that hill, and even though there are more hills out there in front of me, I’m making my decisions & owning the fears & sadness that sit within me still. I may even set down that baggage & leave it behind one day. At least I’ve taken a few rocks out of the backpack.

sock it to me sock it to me sock it to me sock it to me ….. re sp ect find out what it means to me….. to BE me…..