Yesterday was the last day of E Street Radio on Sirius. For months I’ve been sitting at my computer listening to Bruce – and only Bruce – all day. The best part of the station was that somehow the Springsteen Powers That Be decided it was okay for Sirius to play “fan-based recordings” which means bootlegs. This is remarkable in that the SPTB have always been very, very ANTI-bootleg. Guess they were more against the money being made from the bootlegs as opposed to the creative control aspect of bootlegs. Anyway, it was great listening for the last three months and I thank Bruce, Sirius and my dad for letting me tap into his account. It’s small consolation, but I found this today. Rock on!

Cordelia tagged me for a music meme, even though she says I don’t do memes. Not true exactly – I’m never tagged! Maybe like two or three times, which isn’t a lot considering the amount of these things floating around. And given that I’m sad about E-Street Radio going off the air, I thought I’d answer it:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

While we were away I got to listen to G’s mp3 player (he’s very anti-IPOD – don’t ask). I think his is from Creative. Anyway, I’ve been listening to what he’s got going on and I thought I’d share a few of the songs we both enjoy. I’ll leave out the Bruce – even though it’s on there. Well, maybe one Bruce, but he only sings back up.

1. Lovely Day. Bill Withers. I’m reprinting the lyrics because this song has saved my life many a time.

When I wake up in the morning, love
And the sunlight hurts my eyes
And something without warning, love
Bears heavy on my mind

Then I look at you
And the world’s alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it’s gonna be
A lovely day
… lovely day, lovely day, lovely day …

When the day that lies ahead of me
Seems impossible to face
When someone else instead of me
Always seems to know the way

Then I look at you
And the world’s alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it’s gonna be
A lovely day…..

When the day that lies ahead of me
Seems impossible to face
When someone else instead of me
Always seems to know the way

Then I look at you
And the world’s alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it’s gonna be
A lovely day…

2. Cry Love. John Hiatt. I love this song. I like to play it really loud with head phones on so it fills my head and my heart.

3. Ride Wit Me. Nelly. When Max was a baby we used to dance with him all the time to this song. He loved it. This and Pacific Coast Party. We used to laugh that a time would come when he would be too old (and therefore too young) for these lyrics. Sadly, that time is now.

3. Valentine. Nils Lofgren. (with Bruce Springsteen) I love the mix of Nils’s and Bruce’s voices on this. It’s a very nice song.

[TWO THREES? Can’t count for shit.]

4. Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard. Paul Simon. This song has me jumping and dancing and whistling and when I saw S&G in concert a couple of winter’s ago I screamed Julio throughout the whole show. They didn’t play it.

5. Come and Get Your Love. Redbone. G’s also got the Real McCoy’s version – I like the original better.

6. New York Groove. Ace Frehley. C L A S S I C. ‘Nuff said.

7. This Woman’s Work. Kate Bush. This song always makes me cry. And think of Kevin Bacon. But that’s not necessarily why it makes me cry.

Fuck it. I’m going for TEN.

8. A Girl Like You. Edwyn Collins. G and I first heard this in Milan in Nov. ’96. Always makes me think of that trip. We thought it was David Bowie.

9. The Secret Garden. Quincy Jones. Featuring Al B. Sure, Barry White,
El DeBarge and James Ingram, this was one of our dating songs. You know, the ones I’d listen to late into the night on the days when we DIDN’T have a date. Do I need to spell it out for you?

10. Got to Give It Up. Thin Lizzy. Live Version. R.I.P. Phil Lynott.

Hey you. YES. YOU. Over there. Consider yourself tagged.

Scout tagged me (and I think everyone else) for her new meme – show your knitting space. Not so easy at Chez Une d’Janvier. I know that some people will have cleaned/straightened up their house, but well, frankly, I don’t have time for that these days. And really – why not let it all hang out! (And yes. G knows I’m posting pictures of our squalor on the Internet.)

We’ll start with the living room – where I do a lot of my knitting.

Numbers are counterclockwise from the far left:

1. This is where I usually sit when I knit. I put my feet up on the ottoman (currently covered with work contracts and invoices.) Note the lone size #1 DPN – I find it very helpful in moving stitches around on my two circulars and picking up stitches and stuff. I think there’s a sweat jacket there too. I get cold sometimes.

2. This is where G sits. His legs are on the ottoman too. He constantly yells at me to stop “sewing” and come snuggle. I usually tell him just let me finish the row.

3. This bag contains the yarn I just bought from Purl on Saturday with the girls.

4. Here we have the infamous scale. The broken swift. The ball winder. Some wound up yarn. If you look on the floor right below the table you can see the yarn scraps used to tie up skeins.

5. My Diamond Fantasy Shawl

6. Assorted yarns. The Koigu is here, but you can’t really see it. Some package wrappings from the mail. All the Rhinebeck yarn is here and on the floor in front of couch. Most of it’s in bags. Oh and the Curious Georges all live here.

7. My Flower Basket Shawl and behind that is my first project – a 5’x6′ four color slip stitch afghan. Yeah. I’m ambitious.

8. All of my Rhinebeck receipts.

9. Socks That Rock. ‘Nuff said.

10. Here we find a bunch of notions: tapestry needle, Obsidian to fix the Carbon sock, Nancie Wiseman’s The Knitter’s Book of Finishing Techniques. A million different cuticle scissors that I can never find when I need them.

11. This is the great leather basket I have that holds all the abandoned projects. Right on top – Short Rows. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.

My house is a mess, obviously. But I do clean! Or I used to sort of. The last time I cleaned was when Vicki was here and that was half assed at best. Once I’m done with my work, I’m going to get the house in order enough so I can hire someone to clean. We used to have someone, but we had to fire her like two years ago. It’s been a mess ever since.

Okay. Here’s another picture. This is the yarn/knitting photography staging area. It’s in the dining room on the other side of the living room (it’s an open floor plan.)

I get good light by the silding glass door out to the balcony and I usually use that big (heavy too) slab of wood to take the pictures on. When it’s nice I take the slab out onto the deck and shoot. See the big green thing – that’s our beloved Patio Bistro. This thing rocks – and it’s electric! We can’t have gas on our balconies. Also, the wind here is very bad – our chairs literally blow around. That’s why the grill is in the house – G wants to protect it. Once, a bird built a nest under the grill. The cover was longer and it gave her shelter I guess. Her name was Fotula. She laid two eggs and in a tragic accident, the whole freaking nest blew around the balcony and the little eggs were left abandoned. The whole thing was very, very sad for us.

Last knitting space: the bedroom:

This is my side of the bed. Notice my blanket on my pillow? On the floor we have a ton of knitting books, yarn, needles, patterns, the last K1R2 book I was reading, head phones for watching TV late at night while G’s asleep, the abandoned Sunshine Sock. There’s my January One bag I made for Maryland. Sometimes I get really paranoid about all the crap on the side of my bed because it’s right in front of the heating/cooling unit (see the door?) which at any given time has a couple tons of water running through it. These things break apparently. You’re always seeing/hearing about floods around the building because people don’t check their hoses. We do. These units are old, but sometimes I have daydreams about the pipes bursting and ruining everything I have on the floor next to the bed. Guess it doesn’t scare me enough to do anything about it though.

So there you have it! That’s where I knit! Kind of scary, I know, but somehow we manage to live here. It’s all getting on my nerves a lot lately, but I’m stuck in the office all day and barely come up for air. But I’m starting to not be able to find things and that’s such a time waster running around the house cursing and screaming because I can’t find what I need at that particular moment.

Consider yourself tagged.

I’ve been nothing if not a broken record…I’VE GOT WORK COMING OUT MY ASS! So, why do you people insist on putting these things out there? Things that by all account are a time suck. Things that if you DON’T put them on your blog, it seems like maybe you don’t really care who reads you. Maybe you’re not all that interested in the people that take all that precious time out of their day to read the meandering blatherings that we so narcissistically post on the Internets. I mean, these gentle readers take the time to lovingly comment, show support, cheer you on…I SHOULD CARE. And I do care, I really do.

But I need a little bit back from you. If you love me, YOU WON’T PUT YOUR INFORMATION UP! Don’t show me how much you love me – or show me, but do it by leaving your name out. I don’t have the time to check my map obsessively. I’m already obsessed with this blogging stuff enough. Thank you for helping me.

Oh who am I kidding! Fire away! 😉

PS – See Kay for all your Frappr Guru needs.

Michael Jackson, who has had enough plastic surgery to be defined as a personality disorder, not to mention thinks it’s okay to have young boys spend the night in his bed, or shroud his children in public while dangling them over balconies?*

Or the fanatic woman who was releasing one dove for every not guilty verdict?

Or me, who spent all morning writing up this amazing post about an important experience in my life that (almost) no one will read because BLOGLINES DECIDED TO STOP UPDATING MY FEEDS AGAIN!!!!! (Although I’m totally blaming Colleen for this one….;-) )

It’s truly a toss-up. Lots of frustration at January One.

*What’s the matter with his family? Are they so dependent they can’t tell him that what he’s doing is dangerous – to himself if nothing else? Or is there something inherently wrong with all of them? A prosecuter who was interviewed by some all day all night news channel said that predators purposefully pick weak victims. To wit, the boy who accused Jackson in this trial was damaged way before Jackson got his hands on him. And he’s a perfect victim – his family was so screwed up they’d never be believed in court.

I told him, she’s a woman. And it was all about money.

UPDATE: I emailed Bloglines and suprisingly enough they emailed me back very quickly. They say they’ve reset the feed and it should update soon. They also apologized for any inconvenience. So we’ll see. I’m giving the benefit of the doubt for the minute.

Thank you all for reading me! Such validation! 😉

Bloglines is still not updating my atom feed. Which of course is the one that everyone (well, not everyone – hi index feed readers!) is subscribed to.

This makes me sad.

So maybe you want to switch? (Of course, that would mean you’d have to read this – which you won’t if you’re subscribed to my atom feed. The internet is vicious.) Anyway, if you want to subscribe to the feed that seems to update right away – you can do it here:

Tomorrow I’ve got something I’m extra proud of to show you and I don’t want anyone to miss it! Who knows though – maybe tomorrow the atom one will be updating right away and the index won’t update at all. Just putting it out there.

Oh and JenLa – I’m not cancelling my subscription! I’m actually kind of enjoying the hit or miss of your updates. I check it every time, just in case! 😉

I know I’m not the only one, so I’m not feeling persecuted or anything, but bloglines isn’t updating ALL of my feeds. Only like one. Or two. And not the one everyone reads. What’s up with that?

And then you have poor JenLa – who update every time one of them blinks. 😉

Craziness I tell you. Crazy, crazy.

or What Do You Care What Other People Think?*

There’s been lots of talk in this wonderful world of knitblogs about inclusion, exclusion, friendships, tensions – it’s palpable. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was thinking about it the whole time I was in Maryland.

Who did I want to meet? Who wanted to meet me? What if those lists didn’t match? What if I wanted to meet someone that my companion didn’t want to meet – was I obligated to stay with her? Would she ditch me for someone better? (Thank god for Jen – she’s a confident as she is generous – she could’ve cared less that we split up here and there – now that’s someone I want to spend time with! 😉 )

In the past four months I’ve been fortunate to have met a significant number of knitbloggers – in person – between my trip to Boston, The Yarn Harlot’s visit to New York, Maryland – and every time it was exciting, and I believe I forged, or cemented, real, lasting TRUE LIFE, friendships. What more could I ask for in this blog world?

On the other hand, in every instance I had a nagging feeling of what am I doing here? That wallflower feeling so prevalent in high school – maybe you don’t know it? Where everyone is talking to someone else and your stuck in the middle of a large room, club soda in hand, trying to look like you’re thinking some great earth-shattering thought when really I’m just standing there alone feeling left out? How about those nagging thoughts like I KNOW everyone’s going out afterwards – where’s my invitation? They don’t want me to come – they don’t like me – blah, blah, blah.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not looking for people to stop in and leave me comments – we love you, we wanted you, you’re the greatest girl in the world. I don’t need it. Really. I don’t want it this way either. I’m actually very confident and know exactly what my life is about. It’s about loving and caring for my husband, my family. It’s about being a generous and sympathetic friend. I’m a perfectionist in the worst way. I panic. I have anxiety. I am extremely goofy. I’ve lived for a long time thinking that if I’ve been hugged, laughed, and told that someone loves me, it’s a good day – no matter how horrible it was otherwise. I love knitting and writing and taking pictures – sometimes in that order, and sometimes not. All in all, I’m a human being and human beings, no matter how much we endure, are emotionally frail. There’s a reason we stop believing our mothers when they’ve told us eight million times how beautiful and wonderful we are.

I’ve also recently found out that I love my blog. It’s given me something, frankly, I never really thought about. A community.

I’m a solitary person by nature. I’m a writer, and a loner and there’s nothing I like better than sitting in my house and knitting. With Georgie in the next room – and if it wasn’t for my niece and nephews – I’d never have to leave the house. When I started knitting it was in a void. My grandmother taught me one rainy afternoon – she gave me shiny metal needles and some day-glo orange Red Heart yarn. Three weeks later I had a baby blanket. Occasionally I’d go to a knitting shop to ask for advice, or I’d look on the Internet, but really, I was going it alone. I met Jen online in a completely non-knitting capacity – and because of our proximity, we became real-life friends – we’ve never had an online relationship really – but she was the one who introduced me to the blogs. I’d been wanting to document my projects for awhile – and that was really the main reason for starting my blog. The blog has single handedly gotten me writing again. Not necessarily what I’m meant to write, but writing nonetheless. And that can’t be BAD.

Along with my perfectionism comes obsession (and really – find me a knitter who isn’t obsessed) and it wasn’t long before I was reading every knitting blog that I could find. Slowly I became a regular reader of many, and they started reading back and then I made friends. Real friends. Some I’ve met in real life, some I may never meet, but they are a comfort to me, they bring humor and fun into my life, and they support my knitting. This last one is really important because there is no one in my “real” life that knits. When I first met Jen, it was crazy. I’d call my sister and tell her – “She knits. And she doesn’t mind going to every yarn store within a 25 mile radius. All in one day! I’m in love!” My sister is VERY grateful for you Jen.

Knitting and knit-bloggers by extension have opened up my life for me. I’m not one who likes to travel – as I said – I’d rather stay home. But lately, whenever Georgie brings up a place he’d like us to visit, my first thought is that there will be yarn stores there, and no doubt – knit bloggers. And that thought makes me feel like I could be comfortable anywhere.

Back to the whole tension thing: I’ve now met a good number of “famous” bloggers – and let me tell you they’ve seemed as uncomfortable with their “fame” as the people approaching them. Blogging is a dichotomy – in many instances it’s an intensely private journal that just so happens to have a very public face. At least it is for me. I shouldn’t presume to talk for others. But I can say this, for the bloggers I’ve met in person it’s been true for me that if I like your blog, I can pretty much say that I like you as well.

What was especially nice about Maryland was that I met bloggers whose blogs I’d never really read before. It was because I got to spend time with them that I will now follow their blogs – they are friends. There were also hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people at the festival. It was impossible to meet everyone you wanted to meet – it was overwhelming in so many ways. I’m honestly worried about Rhinebeck. There are too many people I’d like to spend time with – and not all of these people will overlap, I’m afraid. You’ve all had this experience, I’m sure. Friends from different walks of life, different ages, different backgrounds, different sensibilities. The dinner party where you bring everyone together and after five minutes you want to crawl in a corner. Chemistry is like lightning – you can’t control where it strikes. I’m afraid that the only thing that really connects these groups is me. And knitting. Narcissistic and tenuous at the same time. How’s that for being bold? I’m feeling pressure already to please all of the people all of the time. What to do? I don’t know. I’ll figure it out later. Inevitably, someone will be hurt (I’m talking generally here.) And to that I say tough. That’s life. I try to keep in mind always – there’s always going to be someone better off than me, and someone worse off than me. Perspective is necessary.

This is a long rambling post and it’s late and I’m tired running around with the kids all day. But I wanted to get this stuff off my chest because I’ve been thinking a lot about it. And after all – it’s my blog. I can do what I want with it. You don’t have to read it. Heck, I don’t have to read it.

I will end with this: I am the same no matter where I am, or who I’m with. I’m one of those people incapable of lying, so I can’t put on a persona to save my life. If I’m enthusiastic, it’s true. If I’m sad, it’s true. If I don’t like you, well, I’ll become very polite and end the conversation as soon as possible. If I’m your friend, I’m like the loyalest of dogs. You will not get rid of me unless you beat me over the nose with a wet newspaper too many times to count. I mate for life. I’m a swan. This is me. This blog is me, and if you’ve met me in person I can tell you that what you see is what you get. Take it or leave it.

Self-Portrait, November 2002

* Richard Feynman never cared a stitch what other people thought of him. He’s a personal hero.

I don’t care what you’re doing, just stop. Redirect your browser to this. Jenifleur has single-handedly restored my faith in humanity. And for that, I thank her.

See you on the dark side….