Ever get the feeling you're being watched?

I do. I must also have been doing my Keir Dullea impression...

"What are you doing, Dave?"Apparently, twenty spare minutes for blog-reading is not acceptable to CAT-9000.

Just like  Kubrick's homicidal computer, he tried to asphyxiate me.  Only he did it with standing on my chest, demanding snuggles and suffocating me with orange fur.

I may have a hairball.  I definitely need a lint roller.  Maybe I can invent a big, black rectangular one and call it a Monolint.  No one knows where it came from....  (Haha, cracking myself up!)

Yes, I see sci-fi classic moments in everyday life.

Birth of the Life - 100

I disappeared for a while, lost amid the transitions.  I was hijacked, distracted, and more than a little intimidated by the idea of a hundredth post.   For 100,  I had no desire to write about the latest sweater (though I will), about gutting my closet like the victim of a Roman campaign, a fabulous little meal from a borrowed kitchen and the hands of student chefs (though I will), or relate another anecdote from my button story (but it's coming).  Nothing seemed right to me.  It's a milestone, albeit a somewhat arbitrary one, and I felt the need to mark it.  And after running into an extraordinary teacher today in one of my favourite art gallery/cafes, I had the moment where I figured it out.

There was a sessional lecturer in the Department of Drama that used to teach a theory on breaking down plays, scenes and monologues.  To absorb a piece, it needs to be broken into manageable chunks.  The Birth, The Life, and The Death.  Easily identifiable but still too large.  So you take it further and each chunk has its own Birth, Life, and Death.  The Birth of the Birth, The Life of the Death, and so on.

I'd been in a funk and now I find myself in a swirl of creation and transition, and running break-neck trying to catch up.
I am winding down at the best job I've ever had and winding up to a period of intensity and learning.
I am two weeks from 32.
I am 6 days from the first anniversary of CitricSugar.
I am 4 and a half months from becoming an aunt (and the word from the ultrasound today is Nephew!)
I am no longer who I was _____ (then, before, ago, earlier, once, yesterday).
I am a woman with curlers in her hair.

I am passing out of the Death of the Birth and into The Birth of the Life.

My life.  And I can't wait to get to it.  I had focussed too much on what was already behind me.  The conversation I'd had at the cafe sparked ideas in my brain and sitting in my car after on-campus errands, it struck me.  Time to redirect my attention and ABSORB.  Embrace the metamorphosis!  (Not to imply that I plan on waking up as a beetle tomorrow....  Kafka, anyone? No?)  This is a transformative time and like a photo taken in a mirror, it's tough to get the right perspective.  But it's possibilities that excite me.

I always become a little introspective and often maudlin around my birthday.  As odd as it is to say, one must always remember the future.

You never put curlers in your hair for the present.  :-)

Thank you for joining me for 100 posts of CitricSugar.  Soon, one hundred and one...
Much love, Carly

Absent. Minded.

I have been quiet.  So quiet radar couldn't have detected me.  I wasn't moving.  I wasn't lurking.  I wasn't even online.

And I missed it.

It's a treat to me to get a little bit of time to sit and read, to think and commiserate, to opine and admire, and to share, to be part of this delightfully weird and inspiring community connected by wi-fi and cable but joined by more than that, even if it's a laugh, a tear, an invisible hug for a stranger who shares a passion for the same obscure candy from childhood, or  a thank-you for a tidbit of advice or a heart-rending story, a powerful set of words, an incredible photograph, a project, a slice of life so very different and so very similar to your own.

 I wasn't absent-minded;  I was absent.  And I minded.

My world has been like a box of pieces.  Nothing's fallen to pieces;  it seems they've simply arrived that way.  It's exciting, the assembly, but pieces seem to take up far more room in their original state.  I can't wait to see what they become.

Distractions have been many. Anticipation of tiny, pudgy arms. (No, not from me. But I do get to knit with wild abandon and look forward to many squoodges and fat-belly kisses with the added bonus of relinquishing said fat-belly when it poops or starts to cry!  YAY!)

The wettest spring since 1874 complete with all the climatological consequences for migraneurs.  When my head hurts, it is far easier to knit  and block than to read and blog.

Registering for classes and applying for student loans - I've only been gone from university for seven years and EVERYTHING is different or being renovated.  (I've already cased the bookstore so I'm ready come August.  Me = Nerd.)

Tackling a massive to-do list that I am determined to conquer before September 1st, including a stack of actual printed-on-paper reading!  I am adding the odd 'easy-to-check-off' item to the list like Go For Coffee (or vodka) with So&So so that I can eat my coffee cake and check it off, too.  ( I add a very square check-box beside each entry on the list.  Me = Anal-Retentive Nerd.)

I've spent the last couple hours catching up on other people's lives.  I still have a few more to check in on. And some emails  to which I've wanted to reply. But I plan on adding my blog-reading and -writing respite onto the permanent list of things I want to do.  Insert very square check-box here.

Silliness. On all fronts.

Hey there, Thumbper. What's the matter?

Ooooooh. Ouch. Plastic bakeware-safe knife, you say? Because I didn't grease the brownie pan properly in haste to watch the hockey game? Because I was rushing to grab a brownie on my way back to the tv and slipped with the plastic bakeware-safe, good-for-lettuce, knife? And what's with the overly-dramatic lighting?

No, I don't think you need stitches. Yes, it's deep but that's what Superglue's for...

Walk it off, Thumbper. Walk it off.

Where to put the stitches...

Seems like a theme lately.

I've finished the top of what will be a protective runner along the top of an antique vanity. I've composed my pieces and seams in an arrangement that I like. I've selected my backing - part of an old sheet that has been in my family for years before it fell victim to my scissors as I try to make each thread of it new again. And I thought very carefully about what to put on the inside. You won't see it in the finished product but what's inside something always affects how the outside turns out. I've layered them all and now comes the question of how to stitch all the elements in place. It will either bring out the best in the top or highlight the flaws. But the stitches are what hold the whole thing together and I don't want to take that too lightly.

This isn't really about a runner. :-) It's about making my own pieces fit. About being choosy about who I am inside. About finding the right stitches to pull it all together. Or maybe I'm waxing poetic about quilting as a metaphor. A little pretension on a Saturday night hasn't killed me yet :-)

"Life has its ups and downs, " she sighed, staring at the fabric collage that had become her own existential dilemma. "What would Neitzsche say?"....

(Sorry, I just Kant help myself - heehee)

I think I've made some major life decisions this week. I'm not quite ready to share what they are yet so I'm leaving in the safety pins until I'm sure about the stitching. (Although, I can tell you right now that deciding to take pictures early enough in the day to catch natural light so my photos aren't so.... so.... what's a word that means "lame" but isn't "lame" because "lame" is a lame word?) :-)

In the world word war department, I used "disparaging" in conversation this week and was told to speak english. :-| (Please join me in a collective head shake.)

And in the small victories department, I had my first Etsy sale today. And that, like making major life decisions, feels pretty darn good.

Soothing Rhythms

Either we're expecting an insane amount of snow tomorrow or I'm (not-so) quietly losing my mind. :-)

Anxiety is not a word that enters my frame of reference often. But occasionally, that clutching feeling begins to grab in my chest. I've experienced it only a handful of times in last half dozen years... It lasts a day or two and almost always precludes a major storm system moving into the area. One of the many facets of aura in a migraneur. (I actually find it strangely fascinating ... )

It's a foreign sensation - knowing rationally that nothing is wrong and yet having your body tell you that danger is imminent, that doom is impending. To have almost no control over it. (I've heard some women describe moments in pregnancy this way, too.) Such an incredible feeling of disconnect, I want to laugh. It's as though someone has stripped my semi-logical, capable consciousness and stuffed it inside the instinctual bundle of nerves that is a skittish kitten. (Then vigorously chases said kitten with a vacuum! This is why I don't do drugs. Can you imagine? :-) And my brain goes at the incorrigible speed of anxious thought.

So I grab the cutter, plow through the fabric stash and begin to break something down to its basic elements. Cut. Sew. Cut again. Sew some more. All the little messy pieces become something else. They bond. They organize. They grow into one solid beautiful whole. Press out the wrinkles. Straighten the seams. Breathe. Feel the warm, flat, neat fabric beneath your fingers. Sensory pleasures subvert the misguided instincts to flee. Creation triumphant. Therapy in stitches.

Cut. Sew. Press. Repeat as needed.

I feel so much better now. :-)

As Random as the Crow Flies...

I was accused at work today of inserting a non-sequitur into conversation. Once I stopped to consider what was last spoken aloud and my most recent statement, I had to admit that it did, indeed, sound completely unrelated to the conversation. I am guilty of the non-sequitur (if it is a crime) frequently as I am frequently forgetful of the fact that not all people can follow the Train of Thought Schedule posted in my brain station. My trains move fast (and aren't always fully boarded....) once they head out and switch tracks with alarming rapidity. In fact, the more time passes in my life, the more likely I am to watch the zippy red light of a laser-pointer until I see something shiny. In my defense, today, the conversation was less a direct exchange and more of a running sidebar while each worked on their individual projects.

It was later tonight while making supper that I began to examine how one train of thought becomes another, or how one grain of thought becomes a tree with many branches and roots from a seed you can no longer recognize, or how a germ of an idea becomes a rampaging epidemic - a plague of notions - an infectious brainstorm. If you had been cooking with me, I might have remarked that escargot had been on my mind all day. And I could easily have followed that remark with "Are zombies a meat source or would eating udead zombie flesh (in the event of a zombie-related apocalypse where we were running out of protein sources) turn you into a zombie yourself, same as a zombie bite?"

If you haven't quit reading by now, humour me.

Escargot - thinking about how I would cook escargot, especially for company. What if my company liked to keep kosher? Are escargot kosher or do they fall in league with the lobster?

At this moment, I also had a thought about what to make for dinner on Sunday night and considered lasagna. Which wouldn't be kosher either because of meat and cheese together and you couldn't sub in pork, obviously, and I'm not sure on the rules with dairy and poultry.. So I decide if I invited company with dietary restrictions, it would have to be vegetarian lasagna.

Vegetarian lasagna could be cool, I guess but then I think I couldn't likely go vegetarian myself since I love beef and feel that if cows aren't eaten, then they don't have a purpose, would die in the wild and are creating methane, etc, polluting, without any gain except their actual existence..... (one of my half-empty trains)

And then I begin to wonder what if I had to go vegetarian by circumstance - say zombies (thanks, Richard) take over the earth, stewardship of livestock goes the way of the dodo and the only source of meat is other people. I don't think I could eat other people no matter how dire the circumstances. But zombies, on the other hand......

And all this happens in my brain in a matter of moments. I'm sure random track-jumping happens in your brain, too. (Please tell me I'm not the only one...) It can happen as fast as a fast-forward click on the iPod, affected by the associations made by our individual experiences. Each web of tracks looks different. Each train schedule has different departure times and destinations. And I'm really hoping I'm not the only one to get to the end, look down at my ticket and ask...

"How the hell did I get from there to here?"

And the photo above does have something to do with this post but I honestly can't remember exactly what it is... :-)

This is how addiction starts...

Every fall, it starts a little earlier. And this year, it was my fault.

I knit mittens. I give them as gifts. And I get requests for them. A friend of mine, (and I'm going to start using initials here to keep the story making any semblance of sense...) R, had trashed his mittens (though he calls them 'mitts' so they sound manlier, I guess) and had asked me for a new pair. This was last November and I was eyeballs deep in knitting insanity. I told him it was no problem for new mitts but that it would have to wait until January.

Well, that didn't happen. (here for the story) So, while watching a couple of movies in July, I picked up the needles to keep my hands busy and R had new mitts. Our schedules didn't connect for a while so I passed them over at a party, where they were seen by...

A. A requested a pair and since I adore A, I naturally agreed thinking that I'd get around to them sooner or later. But sooner was the case because the fifth season of House came out on DVD and I wanted to be caught up before the new season started, and again, needed to keep my hands busy. A & B live together and I'm even closer to B so I couldn't very well, not knit for B after knitting for A. So B got a pair, too.

Then I made the utter mistake of piling them by the door so I could grab them on my way out and I noticed: 1) that they looked like an unfinished sequence and 2)...

...that I, C, needed an new pair, too.

And all this happened while Hugh Laurie was popping vicodin and being snarky. The irony is not lost on me. Here is the ABC that reflects my OCD and ADD. At least now, the visual sequence is finished.

It reminds me of an anecdote about Handel, or Haydn - whichever had a bunch of kids, one of whom used to sneak down the stairs in the middle of the night to play the first 7 notes of a G scale and then sneak back up to bed. Handel/Haydn would be compelled to quit his own warm bed to trundle down the stairs to the piano to play the 8th and final note.

I'm really glad I didn't know of any D's needing mittens at the moment I set the needles down. It would have led to E, F'n' G, for sure.