revolutions, I think, Heather

I cringe when I think how I overdid it this year. These were my revolutions:

• master's degree – only half a course to finish and thesis revisions and binding
• writing – master’s degree and patient messages in all shapes and colors took care of this and then some; between work and degree, I’ve never written so much in my life
• eat more real food, less processed food – I've been off and on with this one
• see a nutritionist for food advice - did this, my liver is still messed up, but my spleen isn't slippery anymore
• use slow cooker at least once a week – I'm all over this, even if some of my cauldron experiments end in disaster
• walk every day – off and on with this one too; the indoor treadmill just doesn't have the appeal it once had
• start cognitive behavior therapy for the panic attacks – did this, not very helpful, did find out my enneagram number
• go to bed at a decent hour – I usually try to be in bed by 10, but there are nights when I'm up past one, wide awake
• get to work earlier – oddly, I found doing grad homework in the morning was easier, so worked out a schedule to go in around 10
• yarn projects - got completely derailed with this due to grad school, and succumbed to yarn ADD so a lot of other projects got mixed in with the ones I intended to do
• start dollhouse – got dollhouse, decided on colors for repainting outside and wallpaper for inside, but have yet to actually get going on it
• de-clutter condo – did a lot of this with help of auricular acupuncture; got rid of bags and bags of stuff and discovered freecycle
• go to UU services on a regular basis – did this intermittently; I can read the sermons online now though
• host tea party for girlfriends in March – did this and included honorary guys
• spend less, save more - managed to do this so I could pay for grad school directly and not have to take out a student loan

I will post 2009 revolutions soon.

I fudged it

My intuition about the peppermint fudge was correct:

• I used 1/2 tsp of peppermint extract instead of a whole teaspoon


• I didn't add the vanilla extract


• I used soy milk instead of coconut milk


• I stirred the milk mixture into the dry ingredients/chocolate chips mixture immediately to completely melt the chocolate chips and avoid lumps of chocolate, none of this "let everything sit for a couple of minutes" business (Jane-the-gardener told me she let hers sit, as instructed, and ended up with lumpy fudge, and no amount of "vigorous stirring" helped)


• I only put the smashed candy cane pieces on top of the fudge, rather than mixing it into the fudge

I often cook, bake, knit, crochet, and paint this way. I am a deviator. Rarely do I stick to the original design or recipe or instructions for anything I make. If a recipe calls for milk or potatoes, I automatically use soy milk and sweet potatoes. I don't much care for onions, so I rarely add them to dishes. My mother almost always uses golden delicious apples for her apple crisp recipe, but lately I've been using granny smith apples, and not adding any flour for the crumble topping but doubling the oatmeal instead, and I've a mind to try it with peaches too and I've already tried it with sweet potatoes too. If a pattern says make the scarf four feet long, I make it at least six, and I always change the colors and usually the yarn recommended and sometimes even the stitch combination if I'm feeling brave. It never fails - I just get ideas...

mmm, minty

So one of my co-workers gave me a juicy big candy cane today. It's at least half an inch thick. I love mint, so I definitely wanted to find some way to make use of it.

Then I came across Amy's blog entry about peppermint fudge, which had a link to another blog entry about adapting a coconut fudge recipe in a newsletter (scroll to the bottom).

So dilemma solved already thanks to the Interwebtube. That must be a record!

I wonder how minty the fudge is. I may decrease the amount of peppermint extract, as I only want a hint of mint coming through rather than an eye-watering, mouth-drooling, throat-choking minty wallop. Oops, sorry, thinking on the keyboard again.

I'm going to have too much fun smashing the candy cane.

Grandma Rita's nut roll

"Hello?"

"Hi, Grandma. It's Cathy. How are you?"

"I'm like a fat cat sitting in the sun."

"Good for you."

"It's really cold here today. It's going to be about eight degrees tonight."

"No wonder you're sitting in the sun. So, I was calling to ask for your nut roll recipe."

"Sure, I've got it right here. How's your shorthand?"

"Pretty good."

"Okay. This recipe makes three rolls. You start with two cakes of yeast, or the powdered equivalent. I usually use the powdered. Pour a cup of warm milk over the yeast. Make sure it's warm and not hot, or you'll destroy the yeast. Then mix in a half-pound of butter and six tablespoons of sugar. Add four cups of flour, one cup at a time, and then two egg yolks. Save the whites to whip up and add to your nut mixture. Also add a teaspoon of salt. Let the dough rise for an hour. Divide it into three sections. You can always freeze sections to use later if you don't want to make all of it at once. Sprinkle sugar and flour on your rolling surface and roll out your dough, make sure it's not too thin or it will break when you try to roll it up. Whip the egg white and add the nuts to it. Or you can use poppy seeds or dried fruit or fruit spread. You can also add honey or caro syrup to the mixture - anything to make it spreadable. You don't want to scratch the dough too much. Roll up the dough carefully and put the logs on a sheet or a dish with sides and let it rise again for forty-five minutes. Bake the rolls for twenty-five minutes at three fifty and then turn down the heat to three twenty-five and bake for another fifteen minutes. Let them cool a bit, and then invert the sheet onto a cooling rack. That's the easiest way to get the rolls off the sheet."

"That sounds easy enough."

"It's an easy recipe. I'm sure you can do it."

"Thanks, Grandma."

Mom and I experimented and made a gluten-free, dairy-free version today (darn those food allergies anyway). The dough was a bit too crumbly, so next time, I'd probably add the whole eggs, and just use honey to mix with the nuts or rice syrup or maybe even molasses. We made one with walnuts, one with pecans, and one with dried cranberries. They came out a bit crumbly, but they taste good.

Mom, Emily (my sister), me, Grandma Rita (April 2007)

*This is the same grandmother who had an 80th birthday party several weeks ago.

you give me a book, I give you a tie...

So I made a hat for Julia, Joe-the office-roomie's baby girl. Joe's wife, Steph, asked if I'd make her one too. So I'm now working on that, which conveniently fuels my current seed stitch obsession. Steph will be getting something in addition to the hat (although probably not at the same time as the hat because Cate Time is about two weeks behind real time this holiday season), because that's just how bad my seed stitch obsession is. Completely out of control, I tell you! I also have a budding obsession with moss stitch. But you know, I can stop any time I want to.

As it happens, Steph makes the neatest jewelry! She offered to make me something in return. I broke down and confessed to my silver pendant addiction, which she enthusiastically said she could feed, er, use for inspiration. So this was in my desk drawer today:


It's a yarn pendant! Is that cute or what?

*blog title comes from the sermon scene at the end of the original version of The Bishop's Wife. Great flick for this time of year. (starts at about 7:00)

nod to the needles

This cold has really knocked me flat. I've been coughing and sneezing so frequently that my neck and shoulders were getting really sore.

I'm not supposed to take ibuprofen while I'm on the Lexapro, and I've come to see how feeble Tylenol is in comparison. It barely does anything for my headaches. Still, I was a good girl and opted for Tylenol Cold & Sinus. Big mistake. Did nothing, and so I didn't sleep for two days for all the hacking and sniffling.

Yesterday, I couldn't take it anymore, so I dragged myself to the grocery store to get the Advil version. Most stores keep it behind the pharmacy counter these days, and the first store I went to had it on back order, as did the second. The third had one box left. So I didn't take the Lexapro yesterday in favor of the Advil C&S. If I start panicking again, it's Tylenol's fault.

I managed to get an appointment with Karen-the-acupuncturist this morning. I got there at 10 and didn't leave until 11:45! She put two needles in my knees, two in my forearms, and one on the right side of my rib cage and left me to cook for 40 minutes. Immediately after she put the ones in my knees, my nose started to get unstuffy. After the full 40 minutes, I could breathe more easily through my nose, and I felt a lot less run down and feverish.

She also did that spooky thing where she asks me something out of the blue because she read it in my pulses. She asked if I had been mad or annoyed about anything last week. There were several things getting on my nerves, so I told her about them (she also serves as counselor, rather like hair stylists do). Amazing how she picks up on that stuff just in your pulses.

This is why I use Eastern medicine before Western. The average time for a visit with a primary care doctor is SEVEN MINUTES. They can only get cursory, symptomatic information before prescribing anything. If what they prescribe doesn't work, you go back for another seven minutes. This isn't their fault. It's how the system is set up. They have to do the best they can within that seven minutes. My doctor is good, she really knows her stuff, but how much more effective might she be if she could have more time with her patients?

When I visit my acupuncturist, I get a minimum of an hour of her time, so she gets a far more detailed picture of me and gives me a treatment right there. I get up on the treatment table, she reads my pulses, she marks points and puts needles in, reads my pulses again, adjusts the needles if she needs to, reads my pulses again, leaves me to relax and cook for 10 minutes or more, comes back and reads my pulses again, takes the needles out, and reads my pulses one more time. Real-time feedback in action.

Obviously, if I break a bone or have a heart attack or something like that, I'm sensible enough that I'd to go the ER and the doctor, but for pretty much everything else, Eastern medicine does a much better job. Karen says Western medicine can save your life, but Eastern medicine can save your health.

As far as cost goes, I have a flexible spending account through work, so what I pay out to her, I get back from my FSA. And the cost per appointment is still less than the full charge for seven minutes with the doctor (ie, if you were paying the full amount, rather than just the co-pay).

By the way, Karen says to avoid sugar and bread when you have a cold, and eat lots of proteins and greens and take vitamin C and drink a lot of fluids and keep warm and cover your head and neck when outside. None of which I'd been doing in the past two weeks. Just had an extra-large helping of broccoli with tofu on the side and huge mug of green tea.

Such a relief to start feeling like me again.

hi, mom!

The coldish, coughish thing turned more coldish yesterday. Just as well, really. The coughing was getting on my nerves, as well as everyone else's.

Being sick at all right now is super irritating because my mom and my stepdad are here for the holidays. This is a big deal, because they flew all the way over here from Australia, which is a minimum of 19 hours in planes if you make only one stop in California. They had a second stop in Dallas.

My sister and I didn't know they were coming. I went out to lunch on Thursday with two co-workers. This is in no way unusual, so I suspected nothing (Jane-the-gardener and Joe-the-office-roomie were in on it). We'd been in the restaurant all of five minutes when I noticed people walking in. At first, I only saw the backs of their heads, but I thought, "Gee, that lady looks a lot like my mom." And then she turned the corner, and it WAS my mom. And I said the most completely original thing I could think of, "OMG, it's my mom!" And Steve (my stepdad) was right behind her.

I had talked to my mom earlier in the week, and she said they were "going away for the holiday." She even came up with the elaborate explanation that they were driving to Melbourne and then going to New Zealand.

They're here through the 27th. Mom will be back for a conference in Florida at the beginning of January. To anyone with a sane mind and a drop of Christmas spirit, it would make more sense if she just stayed here through part of January, but her boss isn't letting her do that, since he wants to take all of January off (I don't see the connection either). Can anyone say "Grinch?"

Alice, anyone?

Has anyone read anything by Frank Beddor? Joe-the-office-roomie mentioned his re-telling of the Alice in Wonderland stories, but neither of us has read them yet.

It started out as a discussion of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie project (really, we do manage to get tons of work done despite these discussions; possibly because of them). Alan Rickman is the caterpiller. Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter. There's some controversy over who is really playing the Cheshire Cat. The actor listed for the part has denied it.

Anyway, Joe had heard of these books. They sound intriguing, but then again, so did Gregory Maguire's Oz books, and only the first one was any good, in my opinion.

Frank Beddor looks to have some graphic novels as well - Hatter M looks interesting. Angel and Gwen, know anything about that? You are my graphic novel advisors, after all.

yes, neil - now we ARE sick

I've been avoiding a cold for about a month now. I've neatly sidestepped it and procrastinated on it with a lot of writing and day job stuff and travel and begging. However, it got sneaky today, and is going to win this round. It was waiting for me when I woke up, which is so not fair as I hadn't had my morning tea yet.

I just ate a double-helping of spicy lemongrass and rice noodle soup with garlic. I also found a recipe for ginger chicken noodle soup, which I'm going to put in the slow cooker tomorrow morning to simmer while I'm at work.

I'm also watching Neverwhere while inhaling anything spicy and chicken soupy I can find. For a low-budget BBC mini-series, it's not half-bad. The only disappointment really is the shaggy bull that's supposed to be the Great Beast of London Below. Completely not what I saw in my head when I read the book (I LOVE the book; I'm sure I've mentioned that before). At least the shaggy bull in the sewers is at the end of the series.

I think I've got zinc lozenges somewhere...

blimey

I was advised to book my hotel early for my London trip next October, so I did.

The Lime Tree Hotel is nice and central in Belgravia and a five-minute walk from Victoria Station. It's a bit of a hike from Heathrow Airport, but I can live with that, especially since I can take the tube all the way from Heathrow to Victoria for a little over 3 pounds (I think that's something like $4).

I'm hoping to divide my time between the touristy and less touristy stuff. Definitely want to see Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey, the British Museum and Library, Oscar's house in Tite Street, Yeats' and Plath's houses in Fitzroy Road, maybe some theater, the gardens, and a whirl on the London Eye. If anyone has any other recommendations, let me know. I'll be there for a little over a week.

A friend of my mom's who works at Oxford University has offered a personal tour around the college and the city. How nice a person is that? Can't turn that down - Oscar and T.S. Eliot studied there, C.S. Lewis taught there, a ton of prime ministers and Nobel laureates and kings and saints studied there. Oxford is about an hour bus ride from London.

I'm so grateful to finally have resources and curiosity and bravery and energy and time to get out and see a bit more of the world. I'm already thinking of a two-week trip to Ireland in 2010. Gotta see where the fam comes from, you know? (Mom's side is British and Irish, among other things.)

And next year is my fun year, after all. I did way too much academic and work stuff this year, and my health is suffering for it. I need far more play next year. Everybody needs a fun year from time to time, don't you think?

why I love reading craft blogs

Not only do I get to see and read about craft projects that people are working on, but I also learn all kinds of things about all kinds of things. Like how the Canadian government works.

Who knew?

that reminds me...

I've done way too much mind mapping lately. This is because the only way I was able to layer and connect the three stories in my novel/thesis was to hold them in my head as a web of things connecting to other things. Remember those web diagrams from grade school? Apparently, it's now the latest fashion in the business world.

Anyway, here's how it's showing up these days (warning: what follows is link-heavy, and Oscar figures in the first example; consider yourself warned - you may want to go make some tea or something):

Two of the texts on my thesis reading list were by Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost and The Picture of Dorian Gray. These two stories in particular are his unique contribution to the gothic tradition. The Canterville Ghost was one of my favorite stories as a kid, and reading Dorian Gray is like indulging in chocolate.

As if I didn't have enough to read at the time, I came across two novels by Gyles Brandreth that feature Oscar as a kind of detective solving murders. They remind me of the Jane Austen mysteries by Stephanie Barron. While it may sound far-fetched, Oscar was a shrewd observer of humanity (as was Jane Austen), and he was great friends with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who has had his Sherlock Holmes resurrected by Laurie King. These Oscar Wilde mysteries (and the Jane Austen ones and the Sherlock Holmes ones, for that matter) may not be high literature, but they're fun reads (and rather a nice break from high literature).

I also discovered that Oscar's letters have been published in various editions. I was keen to get the Complete Letters (more than 1500 of them!), but it was nearly impossible to find. I eventually located a used copy at Powell's. I immediately opened the box when it came in the mail, and I was surprised to find that tucked inside the front cover was an e-mail and a Smithsonian article about Oscar's photo session with Napoleon Sarony in 1882 when Oscar was on a lecture tour in the US.

One of Sarony's portraits of Oscar was the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case. Sarony sued Burrow-Giles after they used unauthorized lithographs of Oscar Wilde No. 18 in an ad. He won $610 (today, that would be about $12,000). Burrow-Giles appealed twice, but the original decision was upheld, and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of copyright protection for photographs. Sarony photographed the Supreme Court justices in 1890.

I'm surmising the article was tucked into the book as it pertains to the photo that is the same one on the book cover. It's not every day you see a 6' 3"-tall man in knee breeches.

The e-mail looks to be addressed to the previous owner of the book. It's quoting a section of De Profundis about Christ. I can never get through a reading of De Profundis without crying. Oscar wrote it while he was in prison, convicted for homosexual acts and sentenced to two years of hard labor. He converted to Catholicism on his death bed.

These discoveries in my precious copy of Oscar's letters reminded me of Roland Mitchell finding documents in Randolph Henry Ash's copy of Giambattista Vico's Scienzia Nuova in Possession by A.S. Byatt, another book on my thesis reading list (and one of my favorite novels - don't bother with the film version; it doesn't do the least bit of justice to the novel).

Here is the non-Oscar example for those of you who needed to go away and make tea:

This past weekend, I received a print from the estate of my grandmother's long-time neighbor, Mrs. Abbie Swain. Mrs. Swain was a lovely lady who was tiny, sharp as a whip, finger-waved her hair, and lived to be 100-something. She read a lot of books, which was likely a part of her secret formula for a long life.

The sign above the librarian's head in the print reads "Metaphysics." (Metaphysics seeks to explain the ultimate nature of being and of the world.)

The print reminds me of Lucien the librarian in Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics. Lucien is librarian of all the books ever dreamt of that remain unwritten. (I haven't found a good drawing of him to show you, but if you go read the comics, you'll find him.) Imagine reading in THAT library.

somebody bring me another audio book

I sent off the next-to-final draft of my novel/thesis to my beta readers and my advisor around 2 this morning. Once I get feedback, then I will do a final copyedit and send the manuscript off to be bound.

Remember that verse from Apologia that I mentioned a number of posts ago when I was struggling for a title? I went back and read the entire poem again and was a little spooked to see that either my story fits the poem or the poem fits my story, so I scattered the poem throughout my thesis. I hope Oscar won't mind.

An apologia is a defense of what you say, think or do. That's Oscar all over. Read about his life, you'll see what I mean. My characters do this a lot. It's not so much about regret as it is about the consequences of decisions being worth it in the end. That's Oscar all over, too.

Yesterday, Stephen Fry unofficially declared it Oscar Wilde Day since he was releasing his audio version of some of Oscar's fairy tales. Oscar actually died in Paris on November 30, 1900, but publishing new audio versions of his fairy tales on his death date seems a bit creepy, so it was probably a good thing to wait a day. It was also World AIDS Day yesterday, wasn't it?

I downloaded these and also these from audible after releasing my pile of words to the world, and I fell asleep listening to The Happy Prince. This is a good thing.

If a girl has regular bouts of insomnia and nighttime anxiety (which I do), and if said girl worked on her thesis until 2 am (which I did), and if she was too wound up to sleep (which I was), and if she didn’t have anyone around to read her to sleep as she did when she was a kid (which I don’t), then her best option is to employ the tools of the modern day and find an audio book to put on her iPod.

Stephen Fry does a wonderful narration, as expected. Highly satisfying additions to the playlist. Especially considering that I have his version of the Paddington Bear stories practically memorized, and I needed something new to listen to.

twitter-like post

Cranberry relish went over swimmingly with co-workers last week, so now forc-, er, making it for family.

We're having cajun turkey this year, too.

Also going to attempt a new recipe for yorkshire pudding with gluten-free flour. I may regret this...

Happy Day to all!

various and sundry

I went to the nutritionist on Thursday. I've lost 6 pounds! It may not seem like much, but until I get off the Lexapro and my metabolism normalizes again, it's a miracle. Losing weight while taking SSRIs is nearly impossible. I've researched it. It's depressing (no pun intended). Karen-the-acupuncturist's protein and greens suggestion appears to be working.

I'm still chipping away at the novel/thesis. I lost more writing time than I was expecting during the last few weeks of travel, so I'm trying to catch up. I have learned to write wherever I am, though. I wrote in the airports to and from Kentucky, and I wrote in the hotel room in Wadsworth, Ohio (even after six hours of driving). I couldn't hole up and type in either place, though. Workshops to attend, family to gab with, you know.

However, I have a title finally! I'm not revealing it until I poll the beta readers, but I like it. Hints at several aspects of the story, short, easy to remember, and contains a neat-sounding/looking word. Thank you to Joe-the-office roomie for pointing me in the right direction.



I've no craft news to report. I've gotten a few rows knitted and crocheted on various projects. How sad - I consider it an accomplishment if I get a complete row done on a project every day.


I ran across these two images on a flickr site - knitting on TV. How wonderful to see two of my favorite actors with a pair of sticks and some yarn:

"your grandmother is so young!"

My grandmother was quite surprised at her surprise 80th birthday party. As in, was so stunned she started to cry. Major kudos to David-the-uncle for planning and organizing the whole thing. He told her he was receiving a Boy Scout award (he's a troop leader). When she arrived at the dining hall, he was at the podium thanking everyone for being there. My grandmother walks in, David reproaches her for being late, she counters with "But you said 2:30!" And then all was revealed.

Good turnout of family and friends, and great food, especially the stuffed cabbage and chicken. Joe D-another-uncle had copied a bunch of my grandmother's old '78s to CDs, complete with scratchy, popping sounds, and played them all during dinner. I sat with two elderly women - one has known my grandmother since high school ("We used to run around together with two other girls, both named Margie."); the other met my grandmother through the Red Cross ("Ten years ago this week, your grandmother was driving us through Provence!")

I'd never seen my grandmother's baby pictures until this past weekend. Let alone a lot of the ones from her high school days. She could have been a model. She had it all - height, hair, clothes, and the "certain something." She looked fabulous with the short hair flipped out on the ends and the tea length skirt with blouse and wide belt and heels. She still looks good - still tall, skin as smooth as anything, hair sleekly coiffed. I noticed she looked better and moved more actively than other elderly people there who weren't even as old as she is. I hope I have those genes.

questions, questions

Amazing crowd at the polls today. I am usually in and out of my polling place in under 20 minutes. Today, I was there for an hour. Making history can be time-consuming.

I actually laughed out loud reading Question 2, and the voting monitor person gave me a "voting is serious" look. I've been hearing about Q2 for awhile, but just seeing it on the ballot really made me giggle; even just the headline:

Question 2 - Constitutional Amendment - Revised 9/11/2008

(Chapter 5, Acts of 2007 Special Session)

Authorizing Video Lottery Terminals (Slot Machines) to Fund Education

Authorizes the State to issue up to five video lottery licenses for the primary purpose of raising revenue for education of children in public schools, prekindergarten through grade 12, public school construction and improvements, and construction of capital projects at community colleges and higher education institutions. No more than a total number of 15,000 video lottery terminals may be authorized in the State, and only one license may be issued for each specified location in Anne Arundel, Cecil, Worcester, and Allegany Counties, and Baltimore City. Any additional forms or expansion of commercial gaming in Maryland is prohibited, unless approved by a voter referendum.

(Enacts new Article XIX of the Maryland Constitution)

Yes, it will bring revenue into the state. However, gambling money and education strike me as the oddest of bedfellows, let alone words in the same sentence. Just hopping onto the soapbox for a sec, isn't it the responsibility of citizens to fund education anyway? Do you really want to tell people "oh yes, we fund our schools with slot machines?" Okay, down from the box now. And this article points out the interesting proximities. Even funnier.

Karen-the-acupuncturist sent me this:

food report

Yesterday, I made a chicken/potato/asparagus casserole in the crock pot. (I'd provide the link to the recipe, but the cooking Web site is being fussy.) It actually looked more like a stew than a casserole.

Anyway, it smelled good. It tasted good. However, it didn't look at all appetizing. I blame it on the cream of mushroom soup. I found one that uses soy milk instead of regular milk. It's a smooth milky brown color, which on its own, looks lovely. Unfortunately, mixed with all the other ingredients, it looked awful. I don't think a regular-milk version of the soup would have done any better. They tend to look horribly gloopy even on their own.

At least the carrots and sweet potatoes and asparagus brightened it up. The recipe called for white potatoes, which I don't particularly care for, so I substituted.

Should I decide to make this recipe again, I'll use a different soup - maybe butternut squash or something? And I'd just use onion powder, rather than bothering with chopped onions, as they didn't really add anything to the dish.

In happier news, I got a fresh bag of Kinnell's Mackintosh's Fancy tea in the mail. This is my absolute favorite tea ever. It has the most divine smell just in the bag. The blue and yellow you see in the picture are cornflower and marigold petals, which apparently make more of a difference to the flavor than you'd think they should. It's also incredibly strong. One tea bag can easily make two sizeable cups of tea. I generally get the loose tea version of this.

The Silver Plume Tea Room is the only place in the country that sells it, as far as I know - meaning I have to order it and have it mailed to me. I came across it at the tea shop at Montpelier Mansion in Laurel several years ago, but they don't carry it anymore. Sixteen bucks for 4 ounces! So worth it, though.

very nearly full circle

While running errands tonight, I happened to drive by the house that inspired the story for my novel/thesis. It still looks dark and spooky and moody.

Also realized that three years ago today, I spent an evening outlining the story, and embarked on my first NaNo experience the next day. Amazing how much this novel/thesis has changed since then. On many occasions I put it aside to write other things, but I always came back to it. Now, I'm heading into the final days of fiddling with it before passing it along to beta readers.

Also today, I had a chat with my thesis advisor. I got a mini-lecture/pep talk on how I shouldn't "just sit on the MFA" once I've completed the program. I'm to do a final polish on the manuscript, start sending it out to editors and agents, attend writing conferences (four were suggested), and start the next novel. That's the writing life for you.

coffee water

My usual mid-morning ritual is to make a strong cup of black tea. Joe-the-office-roomie knows what I'm talking about - you can almost set your watch by the boiling water in my electric tea kettle in the office. Weekends, holidays, and vacation days are no different at home.

While traveling in Australia, I had the luxury of decent morning tea because the hotels provide you with a tea kettle in your room. Not so in the States. While there is a coffee maker in which one could conceivably heat up water, one would not want to drink the result because of all the coffee that has been sent through said coffee maker.

The carafes set out on the buffet tables at conferences aren't any better. While hotel staff at least give thought to the fact that some people might want tea, the carafes of hot water almost certainly held coffee at some point in the past. Unfortunately, you can't tell until you taste the tea and immediately notice the coffee aftertaste.

Room service is no better. Often the pot of tea brought to you also had coffee in it previously. The only exception I've ever encountered was at a hotel in San Francisco (I have to look back in my blogs and journals to find out the name of it) that provided excellent tea and a polite knock at your door as your morning wake-up call, and an even more polite phone call from the front desk about 10 minutes later to make sure your tea had arrived. That is what I call an alarm clock.

I realize US hotels don't care one jot about tea drinkers because most people in this country drink coffee. I also realize Republic of Tea has a traveler's tea kettle that I could buy to take with me that would alleviate my suffering. While I like this concept, the tea kettle will take up room in a suitcase, and given how suitcases are banged around during travel, it has a good chance of being damaged on a trip.

Other than the tea issue and ho-hum food at the hotel, the workshops I attended were worth it. I had the same instructor for two workshops on plain language and patient education, and she really knew her stuff. I also liked her Canadian accent. I took an additional workshop on lab tests. That one was a little over my head, but interesting nonetheless. I also ran into some former co-workers and had an impromptu reunion.

I didn't have a chance to get outside and walk around to see something of Louisville. From my suite window, I did have a bit of a view of the Ohio River and a soon-to-be-retired riverboat that tooted in the evenings.

I even managed to get some more work done on my thesis, both at the hotel and at the airports (there are no direct flights to Louisville from Maryland). I got stuck in a few scenes and didn't get as much written this past week as I would've liked, but progress has been made.

Still, I'm glad to be home. The kitties aren't too mad at me for leaving them, and I have a recovery day before going back to work tomorrow. I think I need more tea.

fiber enthusiasm

A box of yarn arrived yesterday - the stuff I bought on sale. Actually, this is box one. Box two is en route. I'm still amazed at how seeing a box of yarn on my doorstep after working all day has such power to delight me. This box had four skeins each of a rich burgundy and a deep navy. The navy is for Jane-the-gardener's shawl. Still trying to decide between the possibilities for the burgundy. I found a lovely fair isle scarf knit pattern, and I was going to incorporate the burgundy into that, and then I realized, after I bought the yarn of course, that the pattern is done on circular needles, so it's a short scarf, lengthwise. I prefer long scarves, and I'm not sure how to modify the pattern so I can knit it on straight needles with the width on the needles and make it as long as I like. I may try to adapt the pattern for crochet, since I wouldn't be limited by a lengthwise pattern. And on the knit side, I'm really liking seed stitch these days (I think there's a way to do it with crochet too). Such a nice change from the usual ribbing pattern.

I couldn't resist. I should've been working on my thesis, or at the very least, one of my many other yarn works-in-progress, but I just had to try a row of the shawl with the navy. "Just to see how it looks," I told myself. "Just a swatch." That's how all addictions start, isn't it?

Speaking of my thesis, I'm finally satisfied with the first chapter. In the various iterations of this novel, I've really struggled with the first chapter and switched things around and back again. And then my advisor made a suggestion, and it worked! Now it has just the right balance of introduction, hints, and establishment of tension and conflict. Finally! Although whether my beta readers will think so is another story...

Back to yarn. A number of posts ago, I mentioned some yarn blogs that I've been following. Perusing those has led to other yarn blogs, which have led to others. It's now my lunchtime ritual to read them while eating. Good for the waistline - reading about yarn and seeing gorgeous yarn pictures (yarn porn!) makes one crave yarn, and craving yarn is better than craving food. Also good for the brain - craving yarn also makes me want to be creative, so it's a natural mood enhancer. And speaking of natural, it's amazing what yarn is made of these days - hemp, soy, bamboo, even corn!

I know you can read about anything on the Internet, but the yarn blogs in particular - it's amazing what people are doing. Not only making scarves, hats, mittens, socks (oh the socks! I've found a pattern for funky thigh-high socks that I'm dying to try), blankets, shawls, sweaters, jewelry, pillows, laptop and ipod cases, and pretty much anything else you can think of, but making, spinning, and dying the yarn itself. I love the fiber community attitude, the yarn swaps, and the resurgence of handmade crafts (what did we ever do before etsy and personal Web sites?). Fiber enthusiasts are legion! Even guys are getting into it.

Fiber enthusiasts also tend to be animal lovers, primarily cat fanciers, although I have seen some dogs and rabbits. The animal pics are just as good as the yarn pics.

The only thing that intimidates me about these blogs is that they're using the fancy, expensive yarn mostly - Koigu, Noro, et al. How do you people afford that stuff? The best I can do is an occasional shopping trip to Joann's with a coupon and/or when they have yarn on sale. Still, I'm seriously coveting some of Regia's Kaffe Fassett yarn.

Now that I've got my own daily craft blog reading list organized, I decided to add to the list on my sidebar. You'll notice it's significantly expanded now, and will likely continue to expand as I find more fun yarn reads. If your yarn blog isn't on here, don' t be offended. I've probably not found it yet.

As for my own yarn endeavors, I get to them when I can. Actually, it's amazing I've been able to do any crocheting or knitting this year while working on my grad degree. I'll be able to post project pictures after the holidays, once the items are given to their intendeds.

Next year will hopefully be a fun year - I need a fun year. I've already informed my boss that I'm not doing any "professional development" next year. I'll be full up from this year (not only a grad degree, but also a medical writing certificate). Next year is cello lessons, massive pleasure reading catch-up, yarn indulgence, and a trip to London in the fall.

is it soup yet?

I needed a break. All this writing is making my carpel tunnel act up. Fortunately, I have an acupuncture appointment on Monday.

Anyway, the crock pot chicken soup recipe I mentioned a few posts ago turned out well. If you're used to the Campbell's overly salty chicken soup (ah, childhood), you'll find this quite a change. It's much earthier tasting and far less salty. I halved the amount of chicken and doubled the amount of vegetables. I also cooked it for less time than the recipe called for so the chicken wouldn't dry out.

Today, I made beans and greens soup. I'm not a beet fan, so I used spinach instead, and it worked just fine. I wanted the soup to be chunky, so I didn't puree it to death. Just be careful pureeing hot soup with an immersion blender - flying green drops everywhere. The spices make it smell divine - I may even increase the amounts next time. I might also try using vegetable broth, rather than bouillon, and maybe add some soy milk. Toasted sprouted grain bread with garlic parmesan butter goes great with it.

blog action day

Today is Blog Action Day. Bloggers around the world are writing about a single topic today. This year's topic is poverty.

I've spent weeks pondering what to write about. And then I saw a little interview last Saturday morning on a craft program (yes, really), and the words appeared like magic.

So first, let's work from the practical definition that poverty is a lack of basic necessities that can affect quality of life. These necessities include food, clothing, shelter, sanitation, clean water, and health care. Furthermore, they can include opportunities to learn, to work, and to live in such a way as to have some dignity and self-worth.

It's not enough to simply give people money. They may not know what to do with it. They may spend it on the wrong things. Most important, they may not use it in a way that creates a self-sustaining cycle that not only gets them out of poverty, but also keeps them out of it.

Enter microloans and microfinance. With normal loans and financing, you have to have something spiffy to show to the lender, who wants to know what's in it for them should they loan you lots of money. Usually, you need some kind of collateral or good credit history or a seemingly no-fail business idea. Microfinance works differently.

Microloans are literally very small loans, sometimes as little as $25, given to people who are unemployed, entrepreneurs who have no money at all, and people who would otherwise not meet the basic criteria to get a regular loan or any kind of credit. In return, the lendee uses that money to start their own business, however small. It might be making pies or jewelry or something to sell at a roadside stand. These people likely will not make millions, but they will make a decent, dignified living and be able to eat regularly and have a place to live.

Microfinance seems like a new buzzword, but it's actually been around for centuries. Jonathan Swift (he of Gulliver's Travels) is sometimes called the Father of Microcredit for helping to establish the Irish Loan Funds in the 1700s to help the poor in Dublin. In the 1800s, the colorful Lysander Spooner encouraged small loans for the poor so they could start their own businesses. Microcredit was also helpful during World War II. Bangladesh made popular use of it starting in the 1970s.

The example I came across last Saturday puts a new twist on the idea. Krochet Kids started with three guys who learned to crochet in high school. They sold their hats to make some money for senior prom (check out the prom photo - hilarious!). In college, they traveled and saw that poverty was far more rampant than they thought. They started selling hats to raise money, and then had an even better idea. They went to Uganda, and taught some of the women there to crochet. These women can now crochet hats, which they send back to the States. The guys sell them, and send the money back to the women, who use it buy more materials and fund basic necessities, both for themselves and for their families and communities. Definitely one of those "teach a man to fish..." examples.

What can you do to fight poverty? You can buy hats from Krochet Kids. You can sell hats for them. You can lend money through kiva.org - even as little as $25. You can join lending teams through Kiva as well. You can teach your skills, crafting or otherwise, to someone less fortunate who may be able to use them to make a living. You can write your own blog post before the day is out.

I said in an earlier post no talking about money on this blog. I've just broken my own rule. I'm not sorry for it.

stuck for a title...

...both for this blog entry and for my thesis. I found a verse in a poem by Oscar Wilde that rather neatly sums up my novel's storyline, but somehow, Souls' House just doesn't have that ring I'm looking for in a book title. Still, here's the verse, from "Apologia":

Is it thy will – Love that I love so well –
That my Soul’s House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?

Love you, Oscar! Wish I were as clever as you with titles (and words in general). Send me ideas from the ether, k?

I had another chat with my advisor yesterday. He reviewed my latest draft. He said it showed more confidence and direction. He suggested I play around with dialogue to create more tension - be elliptical, show the difference between what characters say and what they're really thinking and feeling. I have to turn in another draft at the end of the month. I've lost count of the number of drafts I've done of this thing. Shameful. (the number of drafts, that is; not that I've lost count of them)

And the timing of the next draft neatly segues into a manuscript swap with Joe-the-office-roomie, who has written a science fiction novel. I love sci fi. My dad got me into it as a kid. I used to watch old Doctor Who episodes with him. Love the TARDIS! Often I couldn't quite follow the tech speak, and the vampires and snakes and spiders creeped me out, but who cares? It was father-daughter bonding and the one night of the week I was allowed to stay up late.

I have a time-travel/paradox idea for a novel, and it involves Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and a heroine who is doing her level best to absorb the situation and not lose her mind. The plot needs to simmer a bit more though. I don't have it all worked out yet. Is there such a thing as sci fi chick lit? I have two children's novels to finish writing first though.

Do you see a pattern here? Not only am I not monogamous with my yarn projects, I also cheat on my writing projects. It all started when I developed the habit of reading several books at once. I grew up in the era when multi-tasking was the thing, and look what it's done to us - attention spans the length of a Q-tip, possibly even just the width.

Right. Time to fire up the cauldron that is my slow-cooker and get chicken soup going, and then back to thesis.

good stuff only

Right. There will be no, I repeat, NO discussion about money, economy, stock market, etc on this blog. Talk. About. Overload. There are a scarily large number of articles online, on TV, and on the radio dissecting the minutiae of the issue, which is ironic because it makes people more scared, which might make them go and do more stupid things with whatever money they have left.

Now that we've got that out of the way...

BBC4 is broadcasting a radio version of Douglas Adams' Long Dark Teatime of the Soul. Their radio version of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was quite good, so glad to hear a second series. Peter Davison is in it. He played the pig that wants to be eaten in the BBC TV version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

This is the crochet version of cakewrecks.com, and explains why crochet has such a bad rep. Check out the lace gun holders.

Speaking of crochet, I've managed to do a bit every day - like maybe a row or a round here and there. I've got several projects going at once as usual (and that's not counting the knitting projects). I came across a wonderful description of this not-unusual phenomenon - it's referred to as "not being monogamous" with just one project. (Jeez. What does that say about me and relationships, then?)

A list:

• The yarn I got for Jane-the-gardener's shawl isn't quite working out. It's too fuzzy, so you can't see the pattern very well. I've ordered some different yarn (on sale!) and will try again. But what to do with the yarn I've got now?
• Most of the squares for Angel-the-art-teacher's blanket are done (hi Angel!). I'm hoping to finish them while I'm in Kentucky for a conference later this month, and then start sewing them together.
• Em asked for a sweater for Belle the yorkie, and I found a pattern that I think will work. Just got to find the right yarn - soft but durable. (Hi Em! Hi Belle!)
• Joe-the-office-roomie (hi!), I need your daughter's head measurement. Don't ask. Just measure.

Otherwise, I've completed several other quick crochet projects. I'd post pictures, but the items need to go to their recipients first. Heh heh, a few nights ago, I was crocheting a round on a blanket and watching V for Vendetta. How unnatural a combo is THAT?

This is just for the ladies. mon.thly.info helps you keep track of your cycle. It does all the math for you. The site is pretty. There's a lot of pink. There are stats. It e-mails you to remind you when Aunt Flo is due (I have a friend who refers to her monthly visitor as Brenda). It was designed by a woman. It's free. Try it.

Bach's second wife may have helped compose some of his most famous works, including the cello suites that I so love and want to learn to play. Go Anna!

Bram Stoker's great grand nephew is writing a sequel to Dracula, based on his famous ancestor's notes. Interesting name, Dacre.

Stephen Fry is a Friend of Jane. I hope they show his new documentary in the States.

Found a slow cooker recipe for chicken soup. I'm going to try it this weekend.

The cats want cuddling, and I need some tea. Good night.

grave matters

I had a free credit from Audible.com, so I downloaded Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book, which was released on Tuesday. (On the book tour, he'll be reading a chapter a stop, which will then be posted here to listen to.)

I listened to the audiobook while working on thesis revisions. It's got a kooky, comically dark atmosphere that reminds me of Roald Dahl and Edward Gorey, and oddly enough, the Addams family. I can totally see Tim Burton making a film of this story about ghosts who adopt a boy and give him the Freedom of the Graveyard. The Danse Macabre as performed on bango and cello is a nice touch.

It's done two things for my thesis. First, Neil Gaiman mentioned several times in his blog about how hard it was to write this book - it took him 25 years of stops and starts. I've had bits and pieces of my novel in my head for nearly 10, and only three years ago was able to put the majority of it down on paper. I don't feel so bad about that now (granted, he wrote a ton of other things in those 25 years, but let me have my moment of relief, okay?).

Second, it reminded me of something I had forgotten about the house I visited with my friend (I'm using her grandparents' house as the model for the interior scenes of my novel). One afternoon, we were bored, so my friend suggested a ramble. As I recall, she wouldn't tell me exactly where we were going. We walked down dirt paths and up hills, through dense trees and brush, and we finally emerged into a clearing...which turned out to be a forgotten graveyard. Unless you knew where you were going, you'd never find it. My friend called it "the pioneer cemetary." The dates on the headstones were quite old, some from the 1800s. Some of the headstones had sunk so low, you could barely see the tops of them in the tall grass and weeds. It was incredibly sunny and peaceful in that clearing, not one speck of the gloom one usually associates with graveyards.

It occurred to me that I've nothing in my story about where some of my characters are buried. Now I know where to put them, although how to get them there will be a challenge...

I fell asleep last night listening to the audiobook and dreamed of children running around headstones and hiding in hills that are really burial mounds and stone bowls with holes in the bottom that still magically fill with water and can be moved by cats, and my grandfather was sitting on a fallen tree looking on, amused.

weighty matters

Right. The apparent cause of my weight problems appears to be the Lexapro. I was told that Lexapro was fairly side effect-neutral; however, after some further digging (it really does pay to be a medical writer at times), I've discovered it does cause carb cravings and weight gain, mainly because it can make the metabolism slow down to a snail's crawl. SSRIs as a drug class tend to have this side effect. And I'm a textbook case - the amount of weight I've gained in the time period I've been on Lexapro is spot on.

You're possibly thinking, "Now Cate, you are over 30. Are you sure it's not that causing the weight gain?" Yes, I am over 30. Yes, my metabolism has slowed down some. Yes, I did start gaining weight, which for me wasn't actually a bad thing as I was underweight most of my life. However, before Lexapro, the weight was coming on rather slowly, nothing like the amount I've gained since being on the Lexapro. And my even-more-stringent diet and exercise routine, which is disgustingly healthy, hasn't budged the bathroom scale one bit.

The dilemma of course is that if I go off the Lexapro, there is a chance of a recurrence of the panic attacks. If I stay on the Lexapro, there's a chance I'll get big as a house. I know there are current studies that show that antidepressants may be as about effective as placebos. Perhaps they're right. Perhaps it's just the act of taking a pill that makes you feel better. The placebo effect isn't necessarily a bad thing. Mind over matter and all that.

I'm leaning toward getting off the Lexapro. The nutritionist has a supplement I could take. Karen-the-acupuncturist also recommends fish oil supplements while weaning off SSRIs. She also put magnets on my left ear on Thursday (can't go walking around with needles in my ear, now can I?), told me to eat greens and protein 3 times a day with veggie snacks in between, and to call on Monday.

I suddenly had the urge and energy to clean out my closet last night. I donated 7 grocery bags and 2 black trash bags full of clothes. I suspect the magnets may have something to do with it. Karen did say they manifest amazing changes in people. They may not be getting rid of weight, but they get rid of baggage in short order.

On a completely unrelated note, I've discovered a lovely series called Kingdom, starring your favorite polymath and mine. Just the right mix of humor and drama, and Tony Slattery is hilarious as Mr Snell. I wish they'd release the DVDs in the US.

book stuff

A book about Oscar Wilde's library - and is it me, or does that caricature look like Stephen Fry?

There's still time to read Neverwhere online.

The Graveyard Book will be released next Tuesday.

As of this Friday, I will officially be halfway done with my thesis.

he likes it!

I talked to my advisor this afternoon. He likes my story! He said the material was great, he likes that it's got more depth than a typical ghost story, and he's excited about it! This is a huge relief for me. I didn't know if in all its disjointed, ugly-teenage-phaseness it would be at all appealing.

He gave me some great advice, which I need just about now, as my enthusiasm for the story was starting to flag. He recommended just focusing on getting the order of scenes and the structure of the story as a whole hashed out by the end of the month. I think that's do-able, and it takes some pressure off me to have a more complete draft done in two weeks.

He also recommended moving a particular scene to the beginning, which I think makes a lot of things work better after that, and also helps with the "slow reveal" concept that is definitely coming forward in the story.

The funniest advice he gave me was to read Freud, specifically his essay, The Uncanny, because it deals with cognitive dissonance (things that are familiar yet foreign at the same time), which is a big thing for my main character. I've never been much for Freud, but in skimming over this piece, he may have his literary uses.

My advisor also picked up on the photography (the main character's career) and the letters. He pointed out that photos and letters have a bit of cognitive dissonance to them because they capture a particular moment in the past, when in fact things in the present may be (and often are) very different. That makes me wonder why I didn't think to do something with spirit photos, and I still don't have a darkroom scene.

My main character is reading Jane Eyre at one point, and my advisor said I could do a lot more with parallels not just with the story itself, but also with the ideas of past and present, especially my attic scenes. Check.

I've now got my enthusiasm back for this project. Everybody watch out! I've got ideas, and I'm not afraid to use them!

a little happy

It was a sunny and exasperating day at work.

First, my computer screen took on a sick yellow tint for about an hour. The nice IT people fixed it, but until they came around, I had to work with a yellow screen, which gave me a headache.

Second, a very important person asked for some sample documents by the end of the day, which required some scrambling, editing, layout, editing, rewriting, and editing, and we're still not convinced they're as good as they could be if we'd be given more time. This gave my boss a headache, and amped up my own.

Third, a large black-and-white utterly simple document that I sent to the printer in the morning didn't finish printing until 2 in the afternoon. However, Joe-the-office-roomie was way too kind and didn't complain at all about having to listen to the blasted printer all day long.

Finally, the document I worked on this weekend for the same very important person is still haunting me. It has been sent to the Mothership "for feedback," which likely means additional changes. However, I at least get to do a more thorough copyedit, and the same officemate helped me figure out how to add tables after references using section breaks so the tables show up in the table of contents automatically rather than having to be manually entered.

Arrived home with headache to find a box on my doorstep - a complete set of hardback editions of the Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen, purchased at a ridiculously reduced price (note: I didn't pay what the Web site is advertising) to replace my cheap, falling apart editions purchased 15 years ago. Gobbled up the first third of Northanger Abbey (which IS on my thesis guided reading list, after all) along with dinner.

Was also amused to read the Biographical Notice of the Author. "Of personal attractions, she possessed a considerable share. Her stature was that of true elegance. It could not have been increased without exceeding the middle height...Her features were separately good. Their assemblage produced an unrivalled expression of that cheerfulness, sensibility, and benevolence, which were her real characteristics....and she seldom changed her opinions either on books or men" (pp 5, 7). That's my girl.

This gave me enough energy and respite from headache to write a few scenes for my thesis, so now feeling slightly more accomplished.

Yes, everyone needs a little happy once in awhile.

mark your calendars...

Next Wednesday is Big Bang Day.

CERN will start testing the Large Hadron Collider to re-create the atmophere that occurred just after the Big Bang. Eventually, they'll be smashing proton beams into each other at nearly the speed of light in a 17-mile tunnel below ground. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

Not only will this provide a better idea about what the Universe was like right after the Big Bang, but physicists are also hoping to see evidence that their ideas about string theory and what comprises the Universe are on the right track. BBC Radio 4 and CERN itself will have all-day coverage, if you're interested.

Oddly there are critics who think the attention paid to this is dumbing it down for the masses. I don't get that. Why should scientific revelations be reserved for only a few people to know about? And since we all live in the Universe, I'd hope we'd all want to know more about it and its origins. That's why I like reading books by people like Brian Greene and Michio Kaku because they make an effort to explain this stuff to people like me who have no background in physics.

In case you're worried that the world will end as a result of this experiment, be not afraid. Although there's a possibility the experiment will produce microscopic black holes, they apparently will only exist for a "nano-nano-nanosecond" and cause no harm at all. Collisions like this are happening all the time in the Universe anyway, and on a much greater energy scale, so if they really were harmful, we'd be obliterated already. That's the story I'm believing, anyway. If you want to go for the "maybe we've been obliterated already and our reality is a collective illusion," carry on. I'm going to make tea.

thesis update

Right. Bit of a writing setback.

I posted my draft-in-progress to my advisor in mid-August, and I waited for feedback for two weeks. Last week, the advisor sent out an e-mail to the group to check in with everyone and to ask for drafts from those he hadn't received drafts from yet. I e-mailed back that I had posted my draft in the dropbox two weeks prior (which was the standard procedure for every class before this). He e-mailed me that he didn't realize I had done that and could I e-mail my draft to him directly, which I did. However, this means I've waited nearly three weeks for feedback. Part one of the thesis course ends at the end of the month, so I need to have a revised draft done by then, and it would be helpful to know how much revision I need to do ASAP. Especially since I'm not a fast writer when it comes to fiction.

I went to Karen-the-acupuncturist last week because I've been really tired lately, no matter how much sleep I get. She said that working full time and working on my thesis both before and after work is a hell of a lot of writing, so no wonder I feel drained all the time - all of me is being poured out on paper these days. I didn't have this fatigue while working on the other courses for this degree. However, the writing assignments for those courses were far smaller than the thesis.

Regardless of when I get advisor feedback, I'm still working on the draft I have. I'm actually glad Saturday will be yucky, weather-wise. I ran all my errands tonight, so I have the whole weekend to work on the gaps in the narrative. I still think it's getting smidgens better each time I work on it, which is really the only thing that keeps me working on it.

I'm also re-reading Stephen King's On Writing, which I think is one of the better writing books out there and is great inspiration.

I'm about halfway through the books on my guided reading list. Actually, you might say I'm overdosing on the list, possibly to pour something back into myself. I recently finished re-reading Jane Eyre and Rebecca (which is a more modern version of Jane Eyre), and now I'm reading Daphne by Justine Picardie, which is a fictional account of Daphne du Maurier's interest in the Brontes. She was a member of the Bronte Society, and she wrote a biography of Branwell Bronte (The Infernal World Of). Must pick up a copy of that eventually...

cake wrecks

My friend, Laura-the-editor, sent this blog link to me. She is also a master cake decorator, but she can still appreciate cake flubs.

Make sure to keep scrolling, and also make sure to click on "older posts" at the bottom right of the screen, because they get EVEN better! The commentary on each cake is worth reading too, as it is just as funny as the pictures. Brilliant blog!

Now I don't feel so bad that 12-year-old me forgot to put frosting between the layers of my mom's birthday cake. It could have been SO much worse.

really quite interesting...

Still waiting for feedback from my advisor. I hope he didn't croak from reading my story. That would be just my luck.

In the meantime, I've been working on bits of the novel to keep myself occupied and out of trouble. And just to keep working on it in general.

I've also discovered a wonderful thing to have on in the background while writing. QI on youtube. There are tons of clips available (although when you type "QI" into the search engine, you'll get a bunch of Asian film clips and Qi gong clips mixed in too, just so's you know), so I put a bunch in a playlist and let it roll while I'm working. It's funny and intelligent and comfy, and who else but Stephen Fry could host it? I mean, really!

There's even a petition to get it put on American television. And I can see why. It's far better than most of what's on now. I never thought I'd say THAT about a gameshow. Although it's a gameshow in the loosest definition of the term, as they go off on these tangent discussions almost from the start, and points are awarded more for interesting answers than correct ones.

And here's a lovely speech from Mr Fry to buck you up when you're not feeling your best:

commence cringing

Icky rough draft is now with thesis advisor. The syllabus says to send it in "in whatever state," so I take that to mean it can be icky right now. At least it's more organized and properly formatted. I've added in a lot of NB notes to myself about places where I could expand scenes or things I need to look up, so at least my advisor knows I know what needs work and revision. Right now, it's 186 pages. I expect to add another 100 pages or so before this endeavor is finished. I'm aiming for about a 300-page finished draft of this novel.

The more I work on it, the more it gets smidgens better. I think the overall story is solid, and my effort will be in the details to tell the whole thing. It's one thing to say a story idea is good. It's something else to lay it all out and prove that it is. That's where the cringing comes in - will others see it as a solid story too, or am I just delusional?

I'm also realizing that I'm not a fast writer when it comes to fiction. Science writing I can crank out at a faster pace, and I can see parts and whole pretty much at the same time. Fiction, however, requires me to slow down and break things down into really small chunks to work on individually to make them complete. I've started putting page breaks between scenes because if I don't, the story starts veering off or petering out, and I get lost and lose steam.

I'm getting a lot of my guided reading in audiobook format as well as paper format. I figure I can listen to the books while I work on my drafts and be efficient. Since I listen to so much radio and TV (rarely actually watch the screen these days), I may pick up things in the stories audibly that I don't catch when I read them. I still need the paper copies to feed my taking-notes-in-the-margins habit, though.

Time to get away from the laptop and crochet for an hour. I'm making a striped scarf out of Caron's Country yarn, which is made in Turkey. I've got four pretty colors of it (chocolate, spice, forest, and charcoal). It's a 12-ply yarn, and I'm using a smaller hook than I normally use. However, I like the drape and smoothness of it, and even though the skeins are small, I'm getting a lot of stitches out of them. It's turning out well so far.

books are good; bananas are good, too

I'm finally getting back into the habit of spending an evening Just Reading. There are about 20 books on my guided reading list that in some way relate to my thesis, and they are ALL fiction books. So I get to be re-acquainted with some old favorites - Rebecca, Jane Eyre, The Canterville Ghost, The Woman in White - and get into some new things I've not read yet - House of Leaves, Daphne.

Writing is such a wonderful excuse for reading. Even the thesis syllabus says "a writer who doesn't enjoy reading is a contradiction in terms." Right on.

My advisor asked me if I'd read the Twilight series yet. He said he hadn't gotten around to them, but he knew they were all over the place, and I may want to check them out to see if I'd want to add them to my reading list. As it happens, I bought the first one (finally!) at Target last Saturday since the paperback copies were on sale. I figured if I didn't like it, I'd only be out a few dollars, and I could donate it to the library or something.

It's five-hundred-some pages, and I got through it in an evening, which is pretty good, I think. I haven't had the luxury of reading like that in quite awhile. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. I didn't care for it or about it or the story or the characters. I got the revulsion-is-the-opposite-of-attraction theme. That made it easy to create the tension between the two main characters. However, Edward's treatment of Bella struck me as rather cold and manipulative and bossy, possibly even abusive. I never got the sense that he liked her as a person, just that he found her blood irresistable and thought of her as his "object" that he must protect, which isn't the same thing. It certainly didn't make me completely suspend my disbelief. Rather, I was in disbelief all the way through it. I can see the superficial attraction, but nothing beyond that. And teenage girls are reading this. This is going to be their impression of what a relationship is supposed to be, and they'll let men treat them this way? Scary thought.

I read just about all the Anne Rice vampire novels when I was in college, so that's immediately where my head went for comparison. Twilight had more of a gloomy atmosphere rather than a gothic one since the story takes place in an area that gets a lot of clouds and rain. Most of the other Twilight characters don't feel fully realized (AR is great at character development). Then again, it's a series, so that may not be a problem. They can come onstage again later.

I've heard the second and third book are decent, but if the writing is pretty much what it is in this one, I'm not really interested. I've also heard the last book is a disappointment, which I may read just to see how bad it really is - you can always learn something, even from bad writing). Apparently, there's going to be another book in the series that re-tells the story from the first book but from another character's point of view. That could be interesting, especially if he really does see her as an object, at least it would be spelled out. We'll see. Dunno if I'll go see the movie, other than the eye candy factor of the actor playing the main vampire. I can always wait until it's out on Netflix.

An added benefit of a reading binge like that is that it takes the place of a food binge, which is good for my middle. Therefore, it was a good enough book if it kept my attention and kept me from mindlessly eating.

Right. Back at it. On to Rebecca.

i'm a pro at 'crastination

Right. So I had planned to do some document clean-up on my novel-thesis today, and it never happened.

The grocery shopping got done. Some housecleaning got done. And there was an unexpected afternoon-of-beauty offer from my sister - hair trimmed, eyebrows waxed and colored, nails manicured (OPI's Shanghai Shimmer is an awesome color; and they come up with the neatest names for colors). I also attempted to install a DTV converter box, and made a mess of it, so I took it out and went back to my old set-up. I have until February to fix it anyway.

I made noodles for dinner, and I'm now lounging on the couch with the cats watching the Olympics and blogging. We've made a nice little nest for ourselves. The windows are open, and the A/C is off.

This means I've got a lot of work to do tomorrow. That's fine, though. Nice way to spend a Sunday.

I had a great chat with my advisor on Thursday. He said it would help both him and me if I was clear on what kind of novel I was writing and what I wanted it to do for readers. I did a re-skim, and I also put to a litmus test (namely, I sent a couple of chapters to my mom to read). I said before I was working on a modern gothic novel. Now that I've looked at my draft again, it's more accurate to say that I've got a mystery novel with gothic overtones and epistolary elements. I think that sounds more fun anyway.

I also had to make a choice between focusing on genre fiction or literary fiction. Frankly, I don't think I'm a strong enough writer yet to do literary fiction, so I'm sticking with genre for this one. Basically, I want it to be a juicy read for a rainy afternoon - I think that's a respectable goal for a first novel.

I think I'm procrastinating because sending a draft to my advisor makes me nervous. What will he think of it? I know it's a rough draft, and so does he. But still...

So, back to China on the parallel bars. And is it just me, or does the vault apparatus not look like it used to? I think it looks like a stubby surfboard.

spelling and voice

Joe-the-office-roomie pointed me to this great op ed piece about spelling.

Weren't dictionaries and spell checker created because variant spelling got too confusing? I mean, really!

And this was a neat article on writers' voices. It's perfectly true - sometimes the voice you hear isn't the one you expect. I've heard Dorothy Parker's voice, and it sounds a bit shrill and harsh to me. And Sylvia Plath's has an ever-so-slight warble-in-the-throat sound.

as the wrench turns

This is a cute show. It's Click and Clack animated - the Car Talk guys.

What I know about cars I learned mainly from this book. I have the home repair book too.

Anywho, pretty cool that you can make a cartoon about car repair.

thesis! (yes, really!)

I know you're all sick of me saying "when I start my thesis," and "I'm going to start my thesis soon." Well, now I really am - today is officially day 1.

I've looked at the syllabus for the thesis work, and it's already got me quaking in my red Mary Janes. There are three parts to it - the first is the thesis itself, which in my case is a novel. The second part is guided reading - 10 to 20 works chosen in conjunction with your advisor to inform, inspire, and challenge your own writing, to be read during the four-month thesis-writing period. Third is a 5- to 10-page writer's statement, which is a lot like an artist's statement and discusses how you approach writing, how your thesis evolved, your ideas on writing, and commentary on your guided reading.

We also have to have bound copies made of the final thesis - one for the university library and one for the department. (And I'll probably get an additional one for myself.)

I'm trying not to make myself sick by dwelling on how much work I have ahead of me through the end of the year. I'm supposed to have a conversation with my advisor sometime this week, so I shall ask him for advice on pacing myself so as not to lose my mind and/or burn out and/or end up hating writing.

On the bright side, this means I am tantilizingly close to a finished, polished, ready-to-be-sent-to-publishers novel. Next year will be my submission year in which I send my baby out to make her way in the world and see what publishers think of her while I start working on the next baby, and there's another one waiting in the wings behind baby #2.

For those who are interested, my thesis is a modern gothic novel. It takes place in an old house that is a composite of two houses from my past - one is a house I used to drive past when I went to visit my mom (this is for exterior scenes). The other is a house I stayed in for two weeks the summer before I entered high school (for interior scenes). Both are just asking to be settings for a juicy ghost story. Letters and journal entries comprise some of the story as well.

The story is told through several points of view of characters who lived in the house, which could get tricky, and is probably what I need the most help with. The other thing I need help with is pacing the storytelling so as not to give away too much too soon. I will be pestering my advisor with many questions about these things.

I'm happy with the two chapters I worked on (and worked on and worked on) in the workshop courses. I have a substantial (but REALLY rough) draft of the rest of the novel. There are definitely gaps and things out of order.

I suspect that the next four months are going to teach me a lot about what it takes to have an independent writing life. If I can get through it, which I'm fairly certain I can despite the quaking and the full-time job, however I feel about writing and producing a substantial work for publication at the end of the year will have a lot of influence on my career direction (and future writing, for that matter).

I don't know how much I'll be blogging (or crocheting) during the rest of the year. I hope to at least check in weekly so you know I'm still alive.

In the meantime, I leave you with this virtual philosophy Web site that is well worth perusing.

vampires should stay shuttered today

P.S.

I saw this truck on the way to the Karen-the-acupuncturist's this evening. Cute, eh?

spooooky

The trailer for the next Harry Potter film looks juicy:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809791044/video/9048692

did I mention I knit too?

Mostly, I get my yarn from Joann's in the Columbia Crossing shopping center. I do this for several reasons:

• they have a great selection of yarn (the local Michael's doesn't have as good a selection)

• they always have sales on yarn


• they have coupons in the paper and online all the time


• the yarn is on the inexpensive side


• sometimes they're out of or low on a particular yarn I'm looking for, and if I order yarn from them online through Amazon, I don't pay any shipping if my order is over $25


• Borders is right next door and Target is a short stroll across the road (this makes for a green habit instead of driving all over the place)

There are 3 other local yarn stores (hereinafter referred to as LYSs) within a reasonable driving distance - Celtic Knot Yarn Shop, All About Yarn, and Cloverhill Yarn Shop.

Now, I am all for supporting local businesses, but I can only venture into a LYS once in a pink moon because their yarns, although wondrously luscious and pretty, are far more expensive, and I am a single working girl on a budget.

Still, the pink moon was about due, and my friend Gwen-the-technical-writer wanted to learn to knit.

Celtic Knot was having a fundraiser for breast cancer patients. If you made a donation of $3 (in cash), they gave you a yarn kit, which consists of a skein of a pretty pink yarn in a large magenta Chinese takeout box, along with patterns for knit and crochet. You make a scarf out of the yarn and attach a tag to it, bring it back to Celtic Knot, and they give it to Survivors Offering Support. SOS then puts a care package together that includes your scarf, and the package is delivered to a cancer patient on the day of her surgery.

Gwen likes pink, so we decided this would be a great way for her to learn to knit, for us both to do some good, and to have an excuse to use pink yarn.

Yarn stores are like book stores for me - I can't get out of one without buying something, despite the stash I have at home. So in addition to the pink yarn, I got 2 skeins of slightly more expensive yarn than I usually buy, and 3 skeins from the bargain bin.

We took the yarn back to my place, ordered sushi, popped in a DVD of Jeeves and Wooster (I've mentioned before how much I love Stephen Fry), and had a stitching session. I showed Gwen the basics, and she quickly got good at the casting on and the knit stitch (a darn sight faster than I did when I learned), while I wrestled with the patterns the shop had provided.

I think there's a mistake in the crochet pattern because I got these huge loops on the sides that didn't look right, and the ruffle knit pattern doesn't tell you how many rows to knit before doing the second ruffle. I modified the crochet pattern a bit and finished the scarf that afternoon, but it didn't look long enough for a scarf, and I didn't think blocking would help much. I frogged it all (yep, I am insane) and started again with the intermediate knit pattern. I love the ruffle on the end, but I want to make sure I have enough yarn to do the second ruffle. I've sent an e-mail to the shop to ask for help with the patterns, and hopefully, I'll get it all figured out.

In the meantime, here's what the scarf looks like so far (is that a cute ruffle or what?):

Here's another scarf I started as well. This is the yarn from the bargain bin, and it's sooooo soft.:

so long, professor

I just read that Randy Pausch died today. Somehow, I thought through sheer will and good humor, he would have beaten the cancer.

I also hate the phrase "lost the battle with cancer." It sounds like it diminishes the person, somehow.

Apparently, he went to Oakland Mills High School, and I think his mother still lives here.

If you haven't seen his Last Lecture or read the book, it really is worth the time.

frisky's

My friend Jane-the-gardener sometimes finds injured baby animals on or near her property. She takes them to this sanctuary, where if possible, they are rehabilitated and re-released. If they can't be re-released, the sanctuary looks after them for the rest of their lives. Jane says the caretakers are wonderful.

They have a great Web site: http://www.friskys.org/index_rollover.htm, and quite a menagerie of animals.

Check it out and donate to it, if you are so inclined.

oscar's at it again

Shortly before my boss left, she gave me a note cube that has a photo of Oscar Wilde on the side. It's the famous photo of him taken in 1882 - he's got long hair, he's wearing a fur-lined jacket, and he's leaning his face on his hand. I've only used a few sheets from the cube because I find it comforting to have him at my desk at work. He has a "lighten up, Cate" look on his face.

I've mentioned before that I encounter him frequently. Just today, I found an Oscar Wilde quote widget for Facebook. I've also encountered Dorian Gray twice in the past week - BBC7 had a two-part dramatic presentation last week, and on Sunday, I stopped in at Daedalus and found an audio version read by Stephen Fry (who played Oscar Wilde, incidentally, and whose last podgram, Wallpaper, was about him).

I think Oscar's poking at me with his walking stick because I'm revising chapters for my grad class, and I'm starting to panic about my thesis. I've got four months to do a complete revision and polish on my novel. That seems like a lot of time, and it would be, if I were working on the revisions full time. But I'm not. I've got a full-time job, a possible conference in October, and the usual Life Stuff. So not really as much time as it might appear to be.

He would probably tell me to lighten up and not worry about it so much. I've got a scrappy draft done already, so it's not like I'm starting this thesis entirely from scratch. And after all, he wrote the original 50,000 word version of De Profundis (by hand, no computer or typewriter) while in prison doing hard labor. I have it easy compared to that.

art night

I was invited to an art night at The Other Barn last night. You bring whatever art you do, and you sit and work on it for a couple of hours and chat with everyone. How fun is that?

I brought my crochet to work on. Others were doing cross stitch, fabric painting, collage, japanese braiding, disco trophy making, and soapstone molds.

Being the new girl, and not quite yet having the hang of stitching while carrying on a conversation, I was amused to listen to the various discussions. Topics included Ireland, colleges, drugs (cocaine, heroin, and laudenum, specifically, all of which used to be legal, and one of which Bayer used to manufacture before they moved on to aspirin), spray paint and how not to use it indoors, food, archeological digs, collecting, grave robbing, and phobias (clowns and people in bird costumes, specifically).

I got quite a few rounds added on to my earthy colored blanket, and it was a great way to spend a Thursday evening.

an embarrassment of stitches

WiP pics, as promised, and a few completed projects as well:

blanket in earthy colors - round and round we go!



baby blanket in the usual pastel colors (though you may not be able to tell from the picture)

I find that textured or fuzzy yarn is harder to crochet with because it's harder to see the individual stitches. Bloody obvious, I'm sure, but I've only recently figured it out. It's not so bad to knit with, but the least stressful way to use it with a hook is to do squares.


a shawl complete with fringe in pretty watercolory blues and greens - I get a lot of compliments at work when I wear this, especially with a black turtleneck top.


beginnings of another blanket - this is boucle yarn in a raspberry color, which is much prettier than the picture shows; self-striping too; it's super soft and comes in huge skeins (I have 3 in my stash, plus 3 more in a turquoise/brown mix)


Lyra modeling the surf and turf blanket mentioned in an earlier post


Tristan modeling the latest in stripes - 11 colors from the Vanna's Choice line, with edging thankyouverymuch. My mom says my grandmothers would be proud of how even my stitches are. They might frown at my edging though - since you change colors every two rows there were a lot of ends to weave into the edging on one side, so that side looks a bit lumpy. I like the colors though, and the kitties love to lay on it.

I've been reading a lot of craft blogs lately. People are doing amazing things with yarn, and they're smart enough to blog about it. The ones I read most often:

The Crochet Dude - pretty much just what the title says; he's a designer out of Houston

Craft.Rock.Love - a designer out of Austin with really cool red hair

Modeknit/Knitting Heretic - Annie Modesitt, famous in the industry

Crazy Aunt Purl - if Bridget Jones were American and if Mark Darcy married her and then left her because he was having a mid-life crisis and she discovered knitting as a form of therapy, this is what she would have written. Start from the beginning. Seriously. Read it all.

And that's your yarn news for today.