Frogs and Ravens

Break

I think I'm reaching the point where brooding about my brooding isn't productive. (There's that word again.) I need to have a good long sleep, and some time out in the sun, and time away from the boringness. Good thing that in a few weeks I'll be going up to the sunny Pacific Northwest (ironies abound in that!). D. and I are also squeezing in a few plays here and there this summer. We saw one last night, that I quite liked, as did D. (though he had a few complaints about some of the staging decisions). Filling up time with activities that keep me from thinking too much is good.

Broody

I'm swinging in and out of one of my grey moods today. At the greyest, it's of the "I'm so tired and I'm getting old (pause for all over-34-year-olds to snort) and I'm stupid" variety.

The tired part is easy to understand; once again I am fighting June gloom in my efforts to get to work in a timely fashion. The bed is warm and soft, the light is dim and chill -- why am I trying to get up, again?

The old part comes from being too aware of the small signs of aging that creep up on one: white hairs appearing in strange places, observing fine wrinkles, feeling sore and creaky from a bout of yoga, and so on. (The yoga is particularly galling, as I realize that all the pain results from trying to do poses I used to do but am now too out of shape to attempt. The poses that were hard before don't trouble me; I'm used to them being difficult. But now a number of formerly easy poses are terribly challenging, and I don't know how to do them at a beginner's level. So I stress out my muscles and avoid going to class and the cycle spirals on downward.)

The stupid part is one that comes and goes; it usually manifests in response to situations where, as with the yoga, I remember being informed and able to hold my intellectual own, but now lack the knowledge or the passion to do so. Worse, I sometimes try to bluff my way through, or try to figure out an argument based on second-hand information, and end up looking like an idiot as well as merely ignorant. *sigh*

Plus there's the fact that I am basically lazy when it comes to providing my mind with information to work on; my mind is rather like a sharp knife that sits in the drawer unused -- it's capable of handling complicated information, but it seems like too much effort to do this purely for the sake of doing it. It's at times like this that I am amazed that I ever managed to get the doctorate; I love learning new things, and research can be great fun -- but I'm not great at sustaining focused attention on something (grasshopper mind!) and doing more than learning new stuff (such as using it as the basis for an argument) challenges my laziness. Now, in the absence of outside incentives to think hard, I am reluctant to do so. Why bother? And so I feel more and more ignorant each day, even as I grow more knowledgeable about the shape of knit stitches and how a tomato develops. It's interesting stuff, but more in the category of trivia than "useful" information -- at least according to the standards I've internalized.

I like feeling competent and useful. Too bad it doesn't happen more often.

Edit: This seems rather apropos.

I've closed comments here, as this post has been getting spammed.

Shut UP!

Does anyone know how far a Super Soaker reaches? I'm seriously thinking of attacking my neighbor's dog with one. It will Not. Shut. Up. And, even worse, it's not a barking dog. It's one of those ones that yodels. Grrr!

Photo Round-Up

We got tomatoes!
I'm astounded by how well they are growing.
Here's the pair of socks I had to frog. Now they fit!
And here's the latest pair. Comfy, basic socks. I like 'em.
And this is the sock I'm working on now, in feather-and-fan stitch.

The Sea in My Bones

My camera's batteries have run out. Grr...

Imagine for now:

New green tomatoes, bracketed by leaves and yellow flowers.

Feather and fan socks in purple-black-blue, looking a bit like a wrought iron trellis.

Two pairs of other socks, looking gorgeous. And they fit!

Currently I am lusting after fancy SLR digital cameras (why so expensive? sob!) and old used looms (hello, eBay). No immediate plans to acquire either -- I'm just coveting things I don't have.

Current book marathon is LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy-plus-one. I'd forgotten how good they are. I've also had to remember the trick to reading young adult literature is to read every sentence. Normally I skim over descriptive parts -- taking in enough to get a sense of things, but focused on the plot and characters. (Makes re-reading a year later possible.) And, again, I wonder if my ethnic heritage has a genetic component -- stories of coastal fisherfolk who raise sheep and spin and weave and practice herbal medicine have always appealed to me. I've never known why; it's a rather primal feeling of "this is good" that other descriptions of primitive societies don't offer. I've never really wanted to live on a tropical island, for example, or in a jungle, or out on the plains. (Other things that do appeal, though to a lesser degree, include an Alpine village (I adored Heidi as a child) or an exotic desert nomad community or Gypsy caravan). Certainly, a shared thread is the idea of semi-communal living coupled with life in a small house filled with handmade things, but that's more of an intellectual realization that came to me as an adult. The connection I describe is older and deeper than that. There must be something about cold grey seas and the smell of damp wool and firewood and the sound of waves rattling over stones and shells while birds cry thinly overhead that was inscribed deeper than memory, sharper than experience.

Typepad Thoughts

I've moved the discussion of Typepad and its (dis)contents to this post, as I'd rather keep the sea post talking about that.

Not a Surprise

I'm a Ravenclaw!

c/o Nathania.

Anti-Bush Humor

For a while, the Bush-Cheney campaign folks had up a "make your own poster" site called the "Sloganator." Unfortunately for them, a bunch of anti-Bush visitors quickly subverted the original intent. Though the site has apparently been pulled, a slideshow (with music, be warned if you're surfing at work) of the posters has been compiled. Enjoy!

(Though as Andi (from whom I got the link) notes, these are funny only so long as you don't think about them too hard.)

Pro-Bush readers with a sense of humor may find this site funny too; those without probably will not.

Poorly Trained

I'm feeling tired today. I know that it is due to a lack of adequate sleep, but knowing that and doing something about it are different things. My on-going problem is that, while I am someone who very clearly needs at least 9 hours of sleep a night to be cheerful and sane, I am also a person who has trouble going to bed. It is such a persistent problem that I wonder if there is something biological behind it, like being programmed to wake at a certain time (and thus always struggling if I have to wake earlier) or under certain conditions (I recall wistfully how easy it was to get up with the Midwestern sun glaring at me in the morning). Perhaps I am programmed to be awake for more than 15 hours, meaning I will never get in sync.

Of course, it could be something similar to my issues with hunger -- similarly, the lack of food has emotional effects (lack of food makes me spacey and snappish while lack of sleep makes me spacey and depressed) -- and, similarly, I have had to consciously train myself to recognize when I am hungry. Yes, I know it sounds odd to not know when one is hungry. My mother has never understood this either. But the standard growling stomach signal is erratic in my case, and even when it's present, my stomach often gives up after a few minutes with no food immediately forthcoming. (Perhaps I should train it better, like an animal I want to beg for food.) But I think the same thing may operate when it comes to recognizing that I am sleepy. Drop dead sleepy is pretty clear; it's hard to read a book when the text blurs. But that point comes about three or four hours after I should have gone to sleep. And it's not like I'm an insomniac who can't fall asleep. If I turn out the light and put my head on the pillow, I sleep. It's realizing that I should make the effort that is difficult.

Now, of course, it is the middle of the day and I am both hungry and sleepy. Hrumph.

Projects

I have to say that, although I enjoy the lists memes, they take up too much space. I wish my version of Typepad had that "more" option so I could put them below the fold and not have to stare at them all day.

Today is again unexciting (hence the lists in the first place). Work is puttering along at about the right pace -- enough work to keep me busy, not so much that I can't surf the web. There are rumors that we are going to get a new database system, rumors which fill one of my bosses with delight (she hates the interface of the current system and the way it labels data). Me, they fill with dread. I'm confident that the new company would do fine transferring the easy data like name and address (data transfer is part of the package). What I am terribly afraid of is how they will handle the anomalous data -- that is, (a) the data that was placed in odd categories because the right ones didn't exist, and (b) the data that looks like one thing to human eyes but another to the computer. And this doesn't even begin to take into account the various subroutines and algorhythms that govern how the data interact. It gives me cold sweats just thinking about it, and I'm not even the person who will do the actual transfer -- just the person who will need to figure out how the chimaera that results "thinks." It doesn't bode well. But my boss is still blithely happy at the thought of dumping the current dinosaur. I wish I could agree.

My problem? I think too much.

And there is knitting to post about. I need to take some pictures and get them up, but that requires some work and daylight, so it'll probably have to wait until the weekend. I am wearing the latest pair of socks and they are perfect. I'm very pleased with myself!

Current knitting roster:
--Socks done in a feather-and-fan stitch, in a thin yarn with pale blue, purple and black plies. An experiment.
--Green "herb" sweater knit in the round with a textured body and a Fair Isle border in "maize." Currently being knit on #5 dpns that I wish were about 6" longer than they are. Too many points!
--Linen stole in ostrich pattern. Originally an experiment using yarn that D. didn't like. I've used up the ball he gave me and now want about five or six more so I can finish this!
--"Meadow Flowers" shawl. Knit in a weird "specialty" yarn obtained from the swap meet for about 50 cents a ball. It is off-white and cottony and is thick and thin. Very seventies, and annoying to knit. I'll probably quit when I run out of space on the needles and call it a shawl for a child.
--Brown and white Fair Isle endless scarf. Not really a WIP, this is something I knit on when I have nothing better to do. Think of it as a long swatch for testing two-color patterns.
--Socks for my mother. Waiting on arrival of stretchy sock yarn in the mail.*
--Socks for myself in denim-toned self-striping yarn. Waiting until other socks are done.*
--Fisherman's gansey for my brother. Promised Christmas gift of about 8 years ago. He's only now picking out the yarn.*
--Sweater of some sort for D. Waiting on appearance of desirable pattern and suitable yarn.*
--Large fancy knitted shawl of some sort. Will probably not be attempted until I can get over my dislike of circular needles and am more comfortable knitting lace. May bribe D. to knit it instead.*

* Not yet started.