Update #4

rachmakesstuff:

Honestly, I haven’t made a huge amount of progress since my last update, but that’s kind of semi-on purpose.  Apparently, my mom (Hi, Mom!) has been very vocal about my project at church.  Also apparently, they loved the idea so much that it’s now become an actual Thing that people besides me are participating in.  Also also apparently, other people have been much more productive in their knitting than I have been.  My mom sent me a photo of all the things a lady from my church made in one single month, and I am nothing if not impressed by her turnout:

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[ONE MONTH.]

All these things are really great, since it means there’s just more things for the kids to choose from!  Thankfully, it also means that I don’t have to worry nearly as much about the quantity of my production, so I can put a lot more emphasis on making things that I think are challenging and beautiful.  I’d been worried that I might wind up having to churn out a bunch of the same thing just to have something made, or if I didn’t, that I just wouldn’t make enough to go around.  So, it’s really a blessing that other people are working on this with me. :) 

Regardless, I have been working on a couple new things!  I started on another pair of those knit mittens, but I’m trying to incorporate the same ombre pattern as in the lovely hat I made in my last update.  Couple concerns, though.  Since the last pair were huge and ridiculous, I used the next size down in the pattern.  Now, it’s so super tiny that I think it might wind up even smaller than my hands - which, by the way, are soooooo super tiny.  I don’t know what I’m doing wrong here.  Also, I’m not sure if I have enough of the pretty fancy yarn left to do a whole other mitten!  I actually started this probably a week ago, and I’ve just been too nervous about running out of the yarn to work on it any more.  So here it sits.  I’ll have to pick it up again soon, though, so expect another update on these eventually.

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[Gosh do I still love this yarn, though.]

I’d been getting a tiny bit tired of fiddling around with all these complicated patterns that I hadn’t tried before, so in an effort to return to my roots as a n00b, I started a scarf!  I’m thinking it’ll just be a short infinity scarf - probably not even long enough to wrap around - so I won’t have to spend a bajillion years knitting it.  I really love this color combination, and I think the stripe pattern is going to be super pretty once it’s done.  I do have a few new patterns in the wings for me to try once I’m finished with this guy, but this is a nice break from even having to use one.  It’s nice to just mindlessly knit every once in a while, don’t you think?

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[I’m just now realizing I’ve been using exclusively fall colors for literally everything I’ve made so far.  I may have a slight bias going here.]

P.S. I might have been…just a tad overzealous in my yarn purchases.  I had intended to keep The Stash confined to the basket, which as you can see here is now hidden behind a wall of yarn cakes.  They were on sale at Michael’s, though! What was I supposed to do, just leave ‘em there?  Ridiculous.  I regret nothing.  All those cakes were like $20, and what better pleasure is there in life than a good steal on some yarn?

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[Oops?]

I love that the project is now in the wind, out of your control! 

Also … http://www.twistcollective.com/collection/107-articles/2571-let-it-go

Update #2

rachmakesstuff:

I have started to dream about yarnwork.  I get antsy in class when I can’t work on it.  I carry it with me everywhere, as evidenced here by this little gem from my boyfriend’s Snapchat:

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[This was on our Valentine’s Day date, too…Sorry, honey!]

Despite this, I didn’t actually finish any of the projects I meant to over the weekend.  I definitely started a bunch, though, with varying degrees of success.  I am unfortunately still working on those knit mittens.  Still to be determined if they’re actually huge or not.  Additionally, I think I’ve gotten really attached to white for some reason because I have now started two different projects - one smack in the middle of the other - with the same skein of pearly white yarn.  I’m regretting that a little bit since I think I might run out of it in the middle of at least one project, if not both, but I guess we’ll just have to see.  One of them is a very pretty, lacy fingerless glove that I doubt would provide any real warmth but is definitely very pretty and lacy.  The other is…well, possibly a mistake.  Pros: I got to practice colorwork, transferring a knitting pattern into crochet, and sizing increases for a beanie.  That was nice!  Cons: I don’t think I got the pattern conversion right, so it’s bizarrely large and flat at the top, and the color pattern is just plain wrong.  I’ll need to frog at least a row and a half, if not simply the whole thing.  I’m probably just going to give in and buy some circular needles from Michael’s.  I heard they’re having a sale anyway, so I might as well.

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[Knit Mitt Part II]

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[I know the filter might be a little cringy, but doesn’t it just look like it was crocheted by an angel?]

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[How desperately I wanted this to work out.]

How can I tell if I’m getting a case of knitter’s fatigue or if I’m just accumulating too many patterns that I really want to try all at once? All I know is that my unofficial knitting tote is getting very, very full.  I’m also realizing that I might need to get a more appropriate vessel to carry my stuff around in.  It’s too small first of all, so all my yarn gets smushed and caught in things, and my patterns are barely readable for getting crumpled up at the bottom.  My poor yarn cake is much less attractive than it once was, let me tell you.  Second of all, it has this black felt-y lining that keeps sloughing little black nuggets of fiber onto my pretty white yarn! I certainly can’t be having that!  I’m thinking about buying a plain canvas tote bag and carving a nice knit-related design to print onto it (Thank you, Printmaking I).  I’ll sketch something out for it and see if the school’s print studio carries fabric ink.  

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[My patterns. :(  I think the one on top there even got rained on a bit, poor guy.]

P.S.  How are you actually supposed to pronounce the word “skein”?  I’ve always assumed it was skEEn, like lean, but my mom has been insisting that it’s skAIne, like stain.  Now I’m confused.  Please advise.

1. www.knitpicks.com for circular needles, ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES.

2. #teamSKAINE

3. have you seen this? 

Monday night’s poker

So Tobias and I were the only ones to show up for the weekly poker game. That tourney having been cancelled, I scooted into the next $5.50+.25 sit ‘n’ go. I play my usual tight game, hit a string of good hands right after the tables are combined, and with 5 players left I’ve got the big stack of $8000 and change. Blinds are up to $200-400.

I’m dealt QQ on the button. One limper, one fold to me. I raise $1200. Small blind folds. Big blind re-raises all in– that’s almost $5000. Defending his blind? This guy has been all in several times since I’ve been at this table. I’m not putting him on AA or KK. The limper folds. I call.

The re-raiser shows KJ offsuit. Looking good … 

… And the flop comes with two J’s. No Q to save me.

After that injustice I’m the next one out, no good hands to make a stand on, bubble popped. I’ve caught some rivers lately in our friendly tourney, so maybe it’s just gambler’s karma coming around. But I felt like Phil Hellmuth: That guy had no business re-raising with KJ. Sure, that one overcard once we showed means he had a legitimate shot at the hand, but it’s the betting before the flop that makes it infuriating.

From coasting into the money, and probably the win, to getting blinded down in just a few rounds to nothing. Worst beat I’ve endured in quite a while.

Also I spent my wakeful half-hour after CG’s 12:40 am feeding with that excruciating Carrie Underwood rendition of that horrendous “Inside Your Heaven” song ricocheting through my head. Was that song written by a computer programmed with the worst lyrical and melodic cliches of the last 10 years? It’s got angels, heaven, and that descending extra line in the chorus that doesn’t scan.

26 May

Frozen Robert Osborne

… is what has been on the TV screen for the last 15 minutes, while Archer read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish before his 7 pm bedtime. We have a complicated television plan: watching Mr. Arkadin on TiVo with American Idol in a tiny picture-in-picture just in case anything wacky happens during the live finale, then the last half-hour of Idol during which the winner will presumably be announced, then the season finale of Lost which we’re TiVoing all the while.

Most awesome web-read of this week: this computer-geeky explanation of how the THX trailer sound, “Deep Note,” was created – and why. Second most awesome: Francesco Marciuliano’s transcription of a tortuous conversation about dinner with his mother, father, and a voice recorder.

25 May

Easing into summer

Summer on an academic schedule: We all remember it fondly. My job changes from a mix of long-term projects (mostly administrative) and short-term preparation/response (mostly pedagogical), to a mix of long-term projects (mostly scholarly) and short-term preparation/response (mostly administrative).

Noel’s job changes very little, but his milieu does change, because Archer is out of school and on a break from speech therapy – meaning he’s at home and relatively unscheduled. This may contribute to a bit more idiosyncratic behavior than normal – including a volcanic eruption at the grocery store yesterday that resulted in repeated trips to the car and pity from checkout clerks.

Speech therapy (four times a week) will resume in early June. I’m working on getting him into some occupational therapy twice a week on my insurance. And I’ve got a bead on a couple of other programs, including a water introduction/swimming class at UCA – if the intramural person in charge would e-mail me back.

Meanwhile, Archer is reading everything he sees, including the TiVo display when Noel is playing his iTunes library through the TV: “Bright Eyes!” “The Rocket Summer!” “Hello, Good Friend!” “End of Love!” “He loves to make equations ("Make an equation!”) with his magnetic numbers. Imitating the way I first suggested equations to him, he’ll say, “How aboouuut … four times five?” If he doesn’t know what that equals, I tell him to count by fours five times. He counts while I keep track of how many fours he’s counted on my fingers. When we get to five times, he grins and concludes delightedly, “Four times five equals twenty!” He runs to get the appropriate numbers and symbols from his stash, and lays out the equation.

While he can count by any number 0 to 12, reciting in effect the multiplication tables through 12, it doesn’t seem that he has completely internalized the concept of multiplication. Sometimes he just makes mistakes for fun. But often he seems to forget what multiplying by 0 or 1 means, and other times he just proposes a seemingly random number for the solution, waiting for me to suggest counting-by to reach the real answer.

Summer means that I won’t have to work most evenings, which means that I have time to blog much more frequently. I’ve been reading the phonebook-collection of James Kochalka’s diary strips, and it makes me want to “diary blog,” recounting a tiny incident or bit of dialogue or thought-snippet from each day. But that square comic form is much more suited to the evocation of a moment. There’s a sense of temporal arrest and frame-capture in a comic strip. In prose – well, it takes more skill than I possess to transcribe and circumscribe particularities from my life. So while I’ll try to write every day, it may or may not be very diary-like.

Summer is also a time for more leisure reading and TV watching. A sampling of what I’m consuming in the media crossroads of our living room:

Newsradio seasons 1 and 2 on DVD (finally!)
Treasures from American Film Archives (Encore edition – Noel’s covering the rerelease of this box set for the Scene)
The Universal History of Numbers by Georges Ifrah (inspired by Archer’s intimate love of numbers)
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year by Anne Lamott (loaned by Ali)
Remedial Christianity by Paul Alan Laughlin (reacquainting myself with this one so I can make assignments on my fall syllabus)
The Loss of Leon Meed by Josh Emmons (pretty nifty ensemble novel – I’ll review it for the A.V. Club when it’s released in July)
Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham (Noel had claimed this to review, but since I’m out of books to review for the next few weeks, and I’ve read The Hours, he graciously ceded it to me – thanks, Bear)

Which reminds me of a few recent reviews: The Devil of Nanking by Mo Hayder, Job Hopper: The Checkered Career of a Downmarket Dilettante by Ayun Halliday, both for the A.V. Club; and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for the Scene.

Now playing: Pernice Brothers, Discover a Lovelier You (same great pop sense, a little more electronic and less swoony – one of my favorite bands, a beautiful pre-release treat)

24 May

American Idol blogging

All the cool kids … well, the total geeks … no … the painfully unhipsters are doing it!

  • Ugh, those first two “originals” were horrible. Bo put some of his flava into it, but it’s not his style attall. Carrie – she was flat, then sharp, then sounded like she couldn’t hear the backing singers. What a disappointing start.  
  • Bo sings “Vehicle” again, a song I didn’t know before that 70’s theme night. He’s almost slapping more hands than he is singing the song. There are better songs from this season that he could have picked, as Noel notes – “Spinning Wheel” or “Money.”  
  • Carrie rebounds with Martina McBride. What she’s learned to do over the course of the season is to emote with her eyes and face – we’re not getting any more of that chin-tucked, eyes-slightly-elevated-as-if-to-ask-permission look. That performance seemed truncated, and her belt has never seemed as effortless as it should be. She has the big voice, but she still seems to be trying, rather than just letting it flow.  
  • Oh god, these originals are awwwwfffffuuuuullll. Somebody set these singers free from these Diane Warren wannabes. Bo is giving this crap his all. It’s a little difficult for me to imagine Bo losing, because he’s different and memorable, whereas Carrie is standard-issue Nashville snakeskin boots. But despite the extra phone numbers, it will be a lines-jammed crapshoot just like it’s been since Clay and Ruben. As Marilyn vos Savant ably demonstrated back in ‘03, the determining factor in such a case is pure random chance.  
  • Carrie got two originals that are right in her kitchen – or at least a lot more so than Bo. Still, she only barely got through them, and here in that last one she was sharp much of the time. Both singers were intensely present to the occasion, emotional, not looking forward or backwards like it’s seemed everyone’s been for the whole show. The dynamic was different tonight. Not a great night musically, but an interesting one competitively. I’d like to see Bo win because I’d like to see what they do with him in the American Idol machine. Carrie – I think I know what they’ll do with her.
24 May

10 things that make me glad to be alive

Inspired by yesterday’s quick mention of dark chocolate M&M’s:

1. The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest. I am not known for my hi-larious knee-slappers, nor even for my chuckley witticisms. But I couldn’t resist submitting captions for the last two cartoons – pretty obvious ones, to my mind, but you never know.

2. Frozen Coke. The taste of summer, just a five minute walk to the store around the corner.

3. The monthly Booksense list.

4. Vegetable korma and saag paneer at Star of India.

5. BBC America is showing the Alan Partridge series. Aha!

6. According to Elizabeth Kolbert's devastating report on global warming, now is a lot better time to be alive than, say, 2105.

7. Two tickets to Chicago for Scott and Ali’s wedding, burning an electronic hole in my electronic pocket.

8. I still have some hope that Clean Sweep will show up and rescue me from the squalor in which I daily live.

9. Firefox at work, Safari at home: Tabbed browsing, baby.

10. Me, while putting on Archer’s shoes: “What's the important thing about love?”

Archer: (pause, then craning his neck to look me in the eye) “That you love me.”

14 May

The drought

I think I almost made it a whole month without blogging. How’m I doin’?

* While having his morning “potty time” after breakfast this past Wednesday, Archer could be faintly heard singing the following song to himself:

The numbers clean it up
The numbers clean it up
Hi ho the derrio
Archer made some pee

* I’m working on the concept for my fall Core III class, which I’ve ambitiously titled, “God 101: An Inquiry into Religious Living.” As with the “God” class that my mentor Norb has famously taught for years, the audience is those people “in the narthex” – either on their way out of the church, or on their way into it. With my version, I’m hoping to highlight some of the key modes and results of academic scholarship on religion: higher biblical criticism (the documentary hypothesis and Q), historical Jesus studies, religious history (the first Christian century, canon formation), science and religion dialogue (evolution), and philosophy of religion (the role of reason and faith). All of the books we’ll read attempt in some way to take seriously the implications of scholarship and the empirical traditions of modernity. But they also take religious faith seriously. What I’m asking students to do is come to their own appreciation, accommodation, or peace of some kind with what we find when we put religion under the academic lens.

Some books we’ll read: David Pechansky, The Betrayal of God: Ideological Conflict in Job (along with the Book of Job, our summer reading); Paul Laughlin, Remedial Christianity; Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief; John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism; Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin’s God; Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time; Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ; Anita Diamant,The Red Tent.

Two words and a registered trademark: Dark Chocolate M&M’s . The peanut variety isn’t doing much for me, but the regular ones make me want to put on a helmet and go over to the dark side.

* This is one time when coming in second isn’t too bad. Out of the three candidates for the job at Claremont, one was eliminated as not a good fit. They’ve offered the job to the other one, but asked me to remain a candidate. In the unlikely event that they won’t be able to work out a deal with their first choice, they would want to open negotiations with me. Maybe the best of all possible worlds: I’m hirable, but I can keep on enjoying my undisrupted life here.

13 May

Want to count by one hundred and twenties?

Latest Archer crazes:

“Counting by." Our entertainment on walks around the neighborhood recently has been to count by twos, fives, tens, and any other number that Archer requests. He picked up counting by tens by himself, perhaps coached by something on Noggin. I suggested counting by fives one day, and only had to prompt him with two numbers in the sequence before he took off with it. Counting by twos took about four numbers in the sequence for him to grasp the concept and take over. He can count by the odd numbers, too.

Lately the counting has gotten kind of crazy – he’ll name any number than comes into his head and ask, "Want to count by one hundred and fifties with Mommy?” He’s also all about the big numbers – he can recognize 10 million on his calculator (that’s as many zeroes as it will hold).

Spelling. I was away at a university function the other day when Archer started spelling with Noel – first saying what letter certain words started with, and then assaying their spelling. He spelled potty (“p-o-t-t-o-y”) and various numbers, then said, “what does ‘calculator’ start with?” (This signals that he wants us to ask him.) Noel complied: “What does 'calculator’ start with?” “C!” Archer said triumphantly; then, as night follows day, “want to spell it?” “OK,” Noel said tentatively.

Archer sat in his chair and began. “C … A … L … C …” He paused. “… Y … O … U …” Another pause. “ … W … A … T … R. Calcuwayter!”

Yep, makes sense to me. Did I mention that he’s 3 years, 8 months old?

It amazes me that he can keep the sequence in his head that way. But he does it both for counting and spelling. I know he does it for counting because he has no problem turning it around and counting backwards, and I can just see him referring to the sequence as it’s printed out in his mind’s eye, then just reading the other way.

Latest job news:

None. Is that good news?

19 Apr

Sermon for the third Sunday in Easter

I preached my first sermon at St. Peter’s last Sunday. The text was Acts 2:44-45: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” The sermon also references the gospel for the day, which is the appearance of the resurrected Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

The subject of the sermon is the role of tradition in our Christian lives. Sample paragraph:

Over the centuries, and especially in the last 500 years, hundreds of Christian groups have attempted to take Acts 2:44-45 as a model for their own life. All believers live together and have everything in common. They divest themselves of private property and use the proceeds to support anyone in need. Why don’t we do that?

Interested parties can read the rest of the sermon here.

17 Apr