Everything is hard.

Brax,

I am addressing this to you because it is a straight up rant, and I know you will understand when I tell you about my day. Goat: got.

I can't find my keys. They're nowhere.

I will retrace my steps for you: Last night, Matt and I walked up to our local hippie grocery store to buy fake meat products and organic cream because I wanted to make cream of carrot soup. I took only my keys and my phone, which I stuck in the canvas shopping bag. On the way back, I fished out my phone because I am literally physically addicted to it. So there my keys were, under our hippie groceries. We got home. We tried to go in the back door, but then I remembered I'd locked the screen door from the inside for reasons that made sense, at the time. So we went around to the front. Matt unlocked the door. We went straight to the kitchen and started dinner. Matt unpacked the groceries. He remembers seeing my keys in the grocery bag and removing them, but not what he did with them. Logically, he would have handed them to me or sat them somewhere like the kitchen table.

The keys are nowhere. Here are the places I looked, in the order I looked in them:

1. Kitchen table
2. Under the kitchen table
3. Kitchen Counter
4. Grocery bag, purse
5. Behind the coffee maker and all the flour-sugar-coffee canister things
6. Stove area
7. Coffee table
8. End tables
9. Mantle
10. Couch
11. Chair
12. Dining room table
13. Bookshelves
14. Nightstand
15. floor around nightstand
16. in the bed
17. In the laundry pile
18. Husband's desk, chair
19. bathroom window sill, shelf
20. medicine cabinet
21. pockets of my coat, Matt's coat
22. Kitchen window sill (I even opened the window to make sure the keys were not in between the screen and the glass.)
23. refrigerator, freezer, including the drawers and underneath frozen pizza
24. kitchen bookshelf, including behind the cookbook I used last night.
25. dishwasher
26. all kitchen drawers
27. under all cushions in living room
28. under all living room furniture
29. in purses which have not been carried in weeks.
30. inside washing machine.
31. inside dryer
32. underwear drawer
33. dishwasher
34. under apples in fruit bowl.
35. inside TV cabinet
36. mailbox
37. pockets of husband's pants
38. knitting bags
39. pile of clothes on bedroom floor
40. under bed
41. garbage can
42. dumpster. Yes. I went through the damn trash in the dumpster.
43. all of these places again and again. except the dumpster, I only did that one once.

When things like this happen, the lost object is always, always somewhere completely stupid, like underneath a hat you tossed down on the bed. But I didn't toss any hats on the bed. Where are my keys? Where? The kitten is too small to bat my big, heavy keyring very far, and I think I would have heard any key batting. Plus I looked under most things. Oh, balls.

So when I couldn't find the keys, I started calling Matt because I knew he was the last person to see the keys alive. But his phone does this THING. There is a button on the outside of the phone which turns off the ringer, and he puts the phone in his pocket and the button gets hit somehow, and his ringer is off. It always happens when I, like, really need to talk to him. Last time it happened I was supposed to be calling him when I got off work at the restaurant, so he could come get me. I was calling and calling and calling and calling, and he was just sitting at home watching TV, blissfully unaware. Meanwhile I'm sitting at the bar at work, after a long night, with no ride home, and all the boys at work (whom I adore. usually.) are saying things like "MAAAAAAAAAN, Matt is in the DOGHOUSE tonight!!!" and "Hey, Bruce, you gonna tear him up when you get home?" With a little bit of glee, because they love it when someone besides them is in trouble with their lady. I finally called Topher to get dressed and come get me.


So naturally, his phone was doing that thing this morning, when I was running around half hysterical and terribly late. I left him some excellent voice mails. (Eventually I did get ahold of him and he was very helpful.)

Anyway. So I'm making do with borrowed keys today, but I cannot drive anywhere, so don't ask me to. When I get home tonight I'm going to tear the house apart, but I cannot imagine where the keys could be that I haven't already looked. Probably in hiding with my white full slip, which went missing right about the time it got warm enough to wear dresses.

OH YEAH! Speaking of clothes, here is the other thing that happened to me this week. I got home from work at the restaurant on Friday night, and I undressed and found that I had a rash on my knees, ankles, elbows, armpits, and around my waist. I was pretty horrified. The next day I talked to my mom and she suggested that it was a detergent allergy, and when I thought about it I realized that the rash was all in places where my clothes were tight against my skin. Turns out I'm allergic to 7th generation liquid detergent. Sorry, environment, I'm going back to Tide. The rash is already mostly healed.

I guess that is enough bitching for today. Things have turned around. KT and the Science Pirate came to see me and brought me mexican food and a rice crispy treat, and now we're getting some lottery tickets so if we win, drinks are on me!

Luv,
Bruce

P.S. readers, Brax and Cabbage and I are doing an Owl Sweater Knit-Along. Exciting! Excited! Don't be grumpy.

New Knitty

I haven't liked an issue of Knitty this much for a long time. Very nice. Although, as Micah has pointed out, there's not much in this one for the boys.

Anyway, this is adorable. I know a certain bun in the oven who will be getting one, if I happen to get my druthers before the timer goes off.

Spring knitting! Not bad!

ETA: Hate weaving in ends? checkit out...Russian Join. (Sometimes I think we should rename this blog "let's all avoid finishing."

-Bruce

sometimes I want to talk about fashion.

A brief aside:

The fall '09 runway shows started a few weeks ago, and I've been watching, eagerly, hoping for somebody to blow my mind. I enjoy being a fashion spectator, and I want what's on the runway to be obviously unaffordable, impractical, inaccessible, a little bit scary, and completely fabulous. I want to have to look to find the wearable elements. I would like, please, for your models to look like aliens. I want your chief stylist to be a homeless conceptual artist from Prauge. YES. Please.

So I've been pretty disappointed so far. I don't know if you guys pay attention to this stuff, but you can view most of the collections here. Meh, mostly. BUT. Then. Finally, Alexander McQueen came along and saved the day. Look! Here is a summary. And here is the whole collection.

Prayers: answered.




Beautiful, distinctive designs. GENIUS styling. Alien models, scary makeup, weird things stuck on the models' heads. YES, PLEASE. I'm pretty much 100% behind everything he sent down the runway.

OK, back to your regularly scheduled knitting blog...

Bruce

February Flowers!

No, not those crappy potted tulips in the grocery store that mess with my head every year. (I love tulips. They're my favorite flower. Love them. I wanted to name my imaginary future daughter Tulip but Matt pretty much straight-up vetoed that. Yellow tulips are the best ones, but I also really love those dark blood-red ones. So every year February hits and the grocery store has a bunch of them in little pots, and I get all excited! But they are pitiful tulips, as flowers from the grocery store always are, and they die die die. It's no good!)

No, knitted flowers. Accompanied by some pretty interesting discussion. It's a research project! Check it out.

In other news, February is almost over, which means you will soon stop wanting to set your winter coat on fire and run out of the house in your underwear, screaming. Is that just me? I'm at that point, where I'm just miserable about day after day of jeans-sweater-boots-coat-hat-scarf, and tomorrow too, and the next day. Every day I go to get dressed and I look at all the pretty clothes in my wardrobe and then I turn away from them, and put on jeans-sweater-boots-coat-hat-scarf. Oh, February, just die already!

Oh yeah! Also, guys, look...



Book book book book. Pints and Purls! Me and Karida's names, right there on the cover. Wow! You can preorder it on Amazon! And you can even preorder it from Target, which I guess means we've got some mainstream appeal. Which is unexpected, but cool. The day I got my advance copy in the mail, I took it to karaoke with me, to show off. It was getting kind of handed around the bar, and this guy I know walked up to me, pointed at the back of the book, and said "ISBN NUMBER. It has an ISBN number. It's totally a real book!"

Yeah! It is. Neato!

Luv,
Bruce

WOAH finishing tip

I just got my mind blown on Ravelry. They're having a conversation over there about "Tips that make you go "d'oh." Guess what I learned? This is so cool, you guys. And it actually kind of made me go "d'oh!" because it was a little obvious when I thought about it. This is why I love knitting. You think you know it, and then it turns out there is something so basic, like binding off, that you don't know crap about.

So anyway, did you know that you don't have to thread the tail through the last stitch when you bind off? You don't have to make that little knot. You can just BO to the final stitch, thusly.



Then you pull on your final loop, like you are loosening it up in order to thread the tail through it, like a sucker.

BUT YOU DON'T STOP!

You keep pulling. Pull it right the hell out. I know that you are thinking that if you don't tie it off, it will all unravel. But man, trust me, I just tested this out, and it works.

BAM. Finished edge, nice, pretty corner, no wonky, nubby bump where you threaded through your tail.

How cool is that?

I luv you, Ravelry!

Bruce

Oh my god, oh my god, eww, eww, eww

OH MY GOD THREE GUESSES WHAT THIS FELTED OBJECT IS. One, two, three, I know you didn't get it.


It's a UTERUS. WITH A FETUS IN IT. But it's not, like, anyone's womb, my womb, or your womb, it's not the general womb.

It is Bella's womb, you guys. With the bloodsucking demon fetus in it. That's a tiny bloodsucking demon fetus, lovingly rendered in wool, by a fan.

I love books, and I love crafting, and I love it when crafting and literature come together, especially in a wacky way. But no. No, no, no, this is not right.

While we're on the topic, I read the Twilight series with ravenous interest, I loved it, I couldn't put it down, I'll probably read it again, and me and all my girlfriends did, in fact, go to the midnight showing of the film, where we all squealed along with the 12 year olds when Edward walked on screen.

Spoilers ahead, nerds. Although if you haven't read it yet, where you been?

On the other hand, while I was still reading the books, I spent hours on writerly tirades about how Stephanie Meyer is kind of an awful writer, and hours more on feminist tirades with Cabbage and Brax about how the series is, in many ways, actually horrifyingly sexist and messed up. If I were a mom I'd have to have a very serious conversation with my daughter before I let her read these books, which enthusiastically reinforce unhealthy and actually insane ideas about love and romance. Like, for example, the boy you like when you're 17 is your soul mate for whom you would die, and he is your whole world and it's all so romantic, and you're soul mates just like Romeo and Juliet! (teenage suicide=true love.) Or Cathy and Heathcliff! (more obsessive "love," soul mate/ownership crap. Note to Meyer and other women who buy this crazy line--Bronte was not trying to paint a portrait of true love with Wuthering Heights. Oh my God, no. You people are messed up if you're looking for a Heathcliff-Cathy dynamic in your love life, Holy Monkeys you are SO MESSED UP, get therapy, please.) It all gets even better when he miraculously rescues you from a stranger gang rape in an alley! And when he breaks up with you your life ends and you jump off cliffs and stuff, for fun, but oh good, he came back so everything's fine again, whoopee, let's all be vampires! Because, at 17, you are totally positive that you will love this person not only for the rest of your life, but for the rest of eternity.

However. Meyer is surely doing something right, because despite all that (and more) I am still, totally, a fan. I am genuinely completely confused about why I loved these books so much. I kind of turned into a dumbass teenager while I was reading them, all giggly with the knowledge that Edward could show up at any second. Even though I knew that Jacob was totally a better choice, I was still in love with Edward, imaginary Edward, because if a real Edward showed up in my life I'd be all "co-dependent! red-flags!! RUN AWAY!!!"

Anyway. So that felted womb is pretty crazy, huh?

Bruce

Cascade Rustic...

...is completely gorgeous. I'm actually softening my hardline stance on linen, purely because of Cascade Rustic. I'm having trouble capturing the beauty in a photo, you'll just have to trust me.