lengths of comfy verdure

Pardon us

2011-03-25T15:17:00.002-04:00

while we figure out google photos.

Not that we are blogging right now anyway. Mom and Babe and Dad are fine.

walter update

2009-10-30T17:45:00.009-04:00

video

purdy baby

2009-08-12T10:18:00.003-04:00

yeah, i'll say it: most beautiful baby ever.

DIY baby wrap

2009-08-10T07:35:00.006-04:00

i made a baby wrap:

it really works.

here's the basic instructions for making your own. i didn't use fancy fabric, though. i just used some muslin i had lying around to make patterns with. people pay hundreds of dollars for these things. don't. all you have to do is hem a parallelogram.

first minutes

2009-08-07T07:58:00.002-04:00

here is a video of walter's first few minutes of life. (the stuff on his eyes is an ointment required by new york state.) (future dads, don't tell moms who haven't seen their babies yet that their babies look like yoda without elaborating immediately.)

home

2009-08-03T19:16:00.007-04:00

just a driveby to say that walter paul radford and i are home from the hospital and doing great.

i went in for my OB appointment on tuesday and was told to walk over to the hospital to be induced that evening because walter might be 9 pounds, and they, all of a sudden, "never allow GD moms to go past their due date", even though they had said the opposite the whole time leading up to this. anyway, they tried for a while but i developed severe preeclampsia and had to have a c section. it was not ideal, but it did not spoil all the fun. i will write the full birth story as soon as i can. right now i'm in survival mode trying to breastfeed and get enough sleep. thank god mr V is being a champ dad so far. plus, my blood pressure is still crazy high, so i also have to try to do the absolute minimum moving around. tough when i never really got done setting up the apartment.

oh, and walter ended up weighing only 6 pounds 11 ounces.

baby stuff

2009-07-27T15:30:00.004-04:00

here we are this week. due on friday. hum dee dum.

i'm making a lot of baby stuff. most of it is boring and not worth photographing, but here is some of it.

movie

2009-07-15T21:48:00.002-04:00

i thought i was going to be blogging this pregnancy, profusion of mommy-blogs be damned. but working and dealing with the gestational diabetes and hypnobabies has just taken up all of my time. maybe i will be able to blog the baby. my last day of work for ONE WHOLE YEAR is friday!

i'm 38 weeks (out of 40, for those unfamiliar with this kind of stuff) on friday, and they are talking about maybe inducing me on tuesday. the baby is quite large with a classic GD big belly which could cause him to get stuck if he gets bigger. so they say.

don't worry, i will let you all know what happens.

in the meantime, enjoy this out of focus video of the baby moving his maybe leg.

mother's day

2009-05-13T10:25:00.006-04:00

happy belated mother's day. everyone kept insisting that i be wished happy mother's day, but for some reason, i do not consider myself a mother yet.

nevertheless, we celebrated by spending a day in the park with some friends and their nine year old.

it would have been happier times for me if i could have had ice cream too, but i've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which is a temporary kind of diabetes that disappears after you give birth. it's not serious unless it goes unmanaged, but it is a huge pain in the ass, especially when what i am allowed to eat is so limited already. plus, i have to do math every time i eat. and test my blood seven times a day.

i am saving the notebook with all of the numbers in it and foods i ate to show this kid when he wants to get a motorcycle. which he probably won't, thank god; he'll probably be a nerd like us.

i had to drag warren away from this. it was past the nine year old's bedtime, and his mom was not pleased about that, but warren didn't notice. hmm.

making stuff

2009-04-20T22:44:00.004-04:00

behold! the father of my child.

and i made a maternity dress out of a sheet.

and look at the teensy sweater! that i also made.

and this is how large i have become so far.

and, why yes, i have become one of those people who only talks about babies. who woulda thought?

(i finished the sweater out of the ball of wool pictured below a long time ago; i just don't have any good pictures of me in it yet.)

folks i've been busy

2009-03-28T16:45:00.003-04:00

december

2008-12-18T18:53:00.015-05:00

winter bums me out.

i grew up in the tropics and am programmed for sunshine all the time.

i am managing to get stuff done though. like, a lot of stuff.

like deciding what stitch i should use for the sweater i will knit with the yarn i am spinning. i've decided not to do cables. i will be experimenting with lace next. maybe frost flowers?

i made a dress.

the ubiquitous built by wendy 3835. universally flattering. believe me, i am a lot more stout than i look in this dress. the stripes are a little not great, but this is really a wearable muslin out of fabric i bought for pajama pants that ended up not being enough for pajama pants. i plan to make a jillion of these dresses and tops. i have a new theory about raglan sleeves: raglan sleeves are to big boobs what A-line skirts are to big hips.

i saw a hawk today in union square park.

and these guys making a sidewalk.

huh. so that's how they do it.

november

2008-11-17T14:09:00.005-05:00

here it is november, and i owe you many pictures, blog.

well, lessee, i went on a honeymoon.

i designed and knitted some stuff.

and i am spinning a pound of wool into enough yarn for a sweater.

it's a lovely tweed.

it's going to knit up like this:

oh dear

2008-09-25T13:22:00.002-04:00

i loved how bush in his address to the nation last night referred to a global economic meltdown as a "distressing scenario". also, i think he should blush when he uses the phrase "hard-earned money." that having been said, i must admit that i think that was the best speech qua speech i have ever heard him give, in that he seemed actually to have understood what he was saying.

register to vote online

2008-09-22T21:16:00.001-04:00

hey lazy people!

especially young virginians!

you can register to vote online!

click here

pass it on....

east river park

2008-09-22T19:30:00.004-04:00

you can finally sit by the water in the east river park. it must have happened at some point this summer; i had stopped going.

we had shaved ice. (i asked this gentleman's permission to take his picture.)

tamarindo.

on the way home, we stopped and got a burger, even though we had some lovely local fish in the fridge for dinner. we're bad, but we spied this new place, black iron burger shop, on e. 5th st between avenues A and B, and had to try it. warren, newly carnivorous, aspires to be a burger connoisseur.

decent.

i'm just sayin'

2008-09-22T18:47:00.004-04:00

this study, reported in the washington post, shows that republicans are even more likely to believe political misinformation when they have been shown evidence that it is wrong than they were before the misinformation was corrected.

"Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration's prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation -- the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration's claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse."

link to actual duke university paper

this study, cited in newsweek, shows that conservatives are more likely to be afraid of pictures of threatening things, like spiders, than liberals.

fire island lighthouse

2008-08-27T21:01:00.004-04:00

climbed to the top of a lighthouse on sunday.

damn.

wouldn't'a wanted to have to get up there in a hurry.

i thought it would be a good short film each person's reaction, "wow!" as they emerged out of the tiny door.

we hung out on the beach afterwards.

zaragoza grocery

2008-08-21T19:52:00.007-04:00

on avenue a at 13th st

has authentic mexican groceries.

so many different kinds of chiles!

but they also have cooked food. it's different every day. tacos, burritos, a lot of stewed meat.

not for the faint of heart, but warren, who gets food poisoning at the drop of a hat, has never gotten sick here.

there are a few tables in the store but it's a little cramped. so we took our food to the 6bc garden.

burrito

here is warren fanning his mouth dramatically as usual even though he asked for the hot sauce. what is up with that?
oh, and they had guava and mango jarritos, which i had never seen before.

6bc garden

2008-08-11T21:29:00.010-04:00

the 6bc garden is not only my favorite garden because of the variety of plants in it.

the stonework is amazing.

i can't wait to have space to do this in.

even the buildings adjacent to it are lovely.

oh, and i designed and knitted a shrug.

shrug photos by the wza, hence inclusion of background mess

slow news day

2008-08-07T18:42:00.006-04:00

ok, i know i'm not that cool, and i didn't look at every single one of the 454 bloggers who list the matrix revolutions as one of their favorite movies, but i think i can safely say that i am the least dorky looking of all of them.

random images

2008-07-30T19:22:00.004-04:00

this is my second tomato of 2008.

the first was harvested in the second week of july. very tasty for an early, as advertised. it's a stupice.

we visited my parents over the weekend, and i watched the master choose tomatoes. he made a salad with fresh herbs from the neighbor's garden.

we took my 12 year old niece to every sight there is to see in DC.

panda

live butterfly exhibit

her fave, library of congress.

a sunday

2008-07-22T20:27:00.002-04:00

one morning warren and i remembered that we live in new york.

so we went to the met.

i felt guilty dashing past the turner exhibit. i know it's important, but i found it boring. warren always gravitates to the medieval stuff. i always gravitate to mary magdalen. anyway, we always end up exhausted and grouchy.

we walked up past the reservoir to the conservatory garden.

it's not that well known because it's so far north, 105th st, on the east side, but it's my second favorite garden in the city, after the 6bc.

i suggest planning a visit and then having ethiopian food on amsterdam afterwards. there is nowhere to eat on the upper east side.

the queen anne's lace was enormous. mine has finally bloomed but is only about 2 inches high. WTF?

bbq chicken on st. mark's

2008-07-10T20:56:00.004-04:00

and now for our guest blogger, mr champion, with a review of tonight's dinner:

hi. tonight we had bbq chicken, a new chicken place on st. mark's place. i think they're korean or chinese, who can tell the difference? anyway, i've always loved fried chicken, even though i was raised a vegetarian. my grandma would sneak me off to chik-fil-a or kfc whenever she could, but never popeye's (my favorite) because that was in the black neighborhood in cleveland. by the way, despite the name, bbq chicken is a fried chicken place, they don't even have barbeque chicken. but like i said, they're asian, so don't hold it against them.

back to business-- we ordered the five piece sweet spice chicken combo with mac and cheese, cole slaw, mashed potatoes, and biscuits. all for $12.95! not a bad deal. it was in one word: AWESOME! so greasy and crunchy and juicy, not very spicy though. i think they use corn flakes in the batter and they fry only using extra virgin olive oil. i'll try the hot wings next time and see if they're chinese hot or white people hot. the sides were also really good. one bad thing- our order took over 40 minutes for some reason. but they made up for it by giving us ANOTHER FIVE PIECES! it was so crunchy, i'll bet it still is when i have it for breakfast tomorrow.

so, to sum things up, bbq chicken fried chicken brought out the champion in me and made me feel like i could accomplish any task i set out to do. this is truly a chicken for winners, made by winners. with them behind me, i will conquer the galaxy!

nb- after briefly looking at their website, it seems they're korean, but they have restaurants in china too. very confusing.

thank you, mr champion. i hope we get to read more reviews from you in the future. i guess only if the food actually makes you feel like a champion, though, because otherwise you won't be mr champion.

here they are

2008-07-06T10:01:00.001-04:00

garden update

2008-06-29T17:45:00.002-04:00

we went to the 6bc garden after brunch this morning and were awed as usual by its beauty. i was somewhat irritated to discover, however, full grown blooming queen anne's lace. my seedlings are all quite miniscule, and i was starting to think that even though they are native to new york that maybe this was too far south for them and that's why you never see them in the city. nope. eh, they probably started them inside.

anyway, my poppies are getting ready to bloom.

and, look, tomatoes.

so there.

guerrilla garden update

2008-06-07T09:26:00.005-04:00

the poppy seeds i sprinkled are coming up in the tree beds on 4th avenue just north of astor place.

they take a long time to germinate, and i fear that these are the only ones that managed. these trees have an irrigation system which has made the difference.

the queen anne's lace is coming up in more places, though.

mimi

2008-05-29T16:01:00.009-04:00

we had to put mimi down on sunday. she was in too much pain. she let out a huge sigh of relief when the surge of sedative hit, and then she died in my arms.

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if anyone deserved a long life it was she.

the house is sorely empty. and now i have to believe in heaven.

plants

2008-05-09T22:22:00.006-04:00

and we have our first rose!

the purple columbines have graced us with their presence.

some jive-ass turkey picked the allium a couple days ago. my fury has abated somewhat since, thanks.

my upstairs garden is not big enough, and we can't put any more plants out there or else we'll get in trouble and i won't have any tomatoes this summer.

counterclockwise starting from lower left: poinsettia, cactus, basil, poppy seeds, cilantro sprouts, hiding tomato, mother of thousands, strawberries, morning glory.

since it is going to rain all week, i decided it was the perfect opportunity to guerrilla garden my leftover poppy and queen anne's lace seeds. wild poppy seeds are super tiny, so i had like a hundred thousand. i sprinkled them in all the neglected tree beds to and from my way to work so i can see how they are coming along every day and not despair or anything like that. so if you see red poppies or queen anne's lace in the east village this summer, you'll know who did it! i can't take credit for all the grass, although i already see a bunch coming up!

still spring

2008-04-29T16:23:00.008-04:00

it's still spring!

my tomato is already flowering!

i went uptown and saw the darger exhibit at the american folk art museum. even though his paintings are truly divinely inspired, i was most impressed by the manually typed manuscript of The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. perfect and maniacal. even more impressive to me though was robyn o'neil, whom i'd never heard of. huge, evocative, extremely detailed pencil drawings. they can't really even be called drawings because of the range of effects she manages with the graphite. one of those things you can only appreciate in person, so go if you can.

they wouldn't let me take pictures in there, so i took a picture of this nearby. she's watering.

i guerrilla-gardened today on my way to the bookstore. i've decided to carry grass seed around with me and sprinkle it in all the unoccupied dirt i encounter. i have a big lawn-sized bag left over from a friend's garden i helped with last year. it sprouts really quickly. this is the "lawn" i sowed last week.

plus, i made a blouse out of an old sheet with a free downloaded pattern.

more spring 2008

2008-04-21T12:30:00.007-04:00

i've said before that to me spring is the time of ubiquitous ornamental pear blossoms.

but my favorite is the rarer redbud.

i've mostly been spending my time squirrel hunting with mimi. she actually got one last week. i feel both guilty and proud.

it's just been so gorgeous out.

these fellows are horrified at what's happening to the 'hood.

i made a slip out of a pillowcase and a scrap of cotton voile.

oh! they finally took down bob's boston ivy. tragedy.

but i've been planting a little in his garden. things that don't need to be watered since i'm on the 4th floor.

the paperwhites are in their prime, and the cosmos are coming up.

this alium is going to be huge.

the 6b garden is my favorite though. ah! just look at it! when we move our garden is going to be spectacular.

east village spring

2008-04-10T13:22:00.005-04:00

these paperwhites are done blooming now. we're just letting the bulbs recharge for next year. i got the bulbs at the seminar mentioned in the previous post. i put two of them outside in front of our building and those are still sprouting. today i planted some seeds out there too: cosmos and wildflowers.

i got strawberries in a couple days ago. i'm trying not to use plastic, even though it would have been so much cheaper. oh well, this hanging basket contraption is gonna last forever and will be super handy for tons of stuff.

which of these neighbors would you rather know?

spring is why chartreuse is my favorite color.

i'm gonna wait till night temperatures are a little warmer to start these suckers in the window box. my tomato seedling still has not arrived.

quilt update coming soon...

spring 2008

2008-04-05T17:47:00.005-04:00

The magnolias I photographed a couple days ago are in full bloom today. I may have made a mini-scene climbing the fence to smell them.
But Spring is finally here. Every year I forget how badly the lack of sun affects me. Until I suddenly start to feel better as the equinox nears. My friend, Tom, a gardener, hangs out in a greenhouse as much as he can in winter, and Warren and I visited him in CT a few weeks ago and sure enough felt the restorative effects.

This tropical tree only blooms in the winter.

And then I attended a seminar at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden on growing food in the city just recently and took the opportunity to sneak into their fantastic greenhouses.

This is vanilla.

My heirloom tomato plant is due to arrive on Monday, and I will make room on the fire escape, amidst all of Warren's houseplants, for some strawberries too. Next year I plan to raise chickens.

quilt progress

2008-02-28T21:47:00.002-05:00

recycled sweater

2008-02-26T16:02:00.008-05:00

now that there are rumblings of impending work, i feel i am justified in staying home to craft rather than rushing off to the gym. of course it's cloudy out by the time i get around to blogging this, so my pictures are not awesome, but i just made a cute vest dress thingie out of a j crew sweater!

what i did was unravel it down to the armpits.

and then i sewed the two remaining pieces of fabric together sideways.

you can see the ribbing from the bottom of the sweater in the side seam.

and then i used some of the yarn to make this awesome neckline that utilizes the principle of the mitered square. i saw it in vogue knitting spring/summer 2005 (23 "lace-up camisole") and have been wanting to do it ever since. (the ribbed top and the straps are all one piece; they're not sewn together.)

ta-freaking-da! i plan to have an entire wardrobe made out of garbage before i go back to work.

quilt!

2008-02-22T14:32:00.001-05:00

ok, i'm a dork. i am making a quilt. let's get that out of the way.

here is a pile of stuff i got at the salvation army that will become little hexagons for the quilt.

here is my first block.
it's dorky that this is thrilling, right?

first dress

2008-02-11T19:40:00.002-05:00

i made it! i made the dress. note sister in law studying in the background and naughty dog and destroyed toy. imagine the dress more ironed.

next i want to make a quilt for my parents' 40th wedding anniversary coming up in april, but i don't have any fabric. i have been sick for the past 2 days and haven't been able to make it out to get some. arrgh.

mimi

2008-02-06T17:18:00.000-05:00

i'm on another break from work now, so i have time to blog. mimi, my dog, just had her last chemotherapy treatment, of five. for those who don't know, she had her back left leg amputated in october. she's fine for now. i have decided to behave as if she will always be fine until informed that she is not fine. she is doing very well, and her mobility has been affected very little. she does occasionally lose her balance and fall when playing or leaping, which she still does plenty as she's still very energetic and friendly. i'm glad that living in new york city so many people see her and can see that dogs get along very well with just three legs, in case they ever have to make that decision about their own dog. maybe fewer dogs will be put down prematurely because of her.

here she is at thanksgiving:

gorgeosity

2008-02-04T17:17:00.000-05:00

here are some things i finished making this week.

i also just opened an interest bearing checking account and checked my credit rating and made a job phone call. i'm going to start making this dress today when i get home from the gym. if i get dinner started quickly enough.

soon i plan to start making a quilt like this after i sew a few dresses with my brand new sewing machine. and i also plan to become really good at playing certain songs on the guitar. and i'm going to make a short film. all the while eating entirely home-cooked meals.
what, you don't think i can?

my hats

2008-01-26T13:11:00.000-05:00

here is the promised picture of a group picture of some of my knitwear. sorry, anne, but this was the best picture. i have since purchased a better camera.

aunt bill's brown candy

2008-01-14T20:31:00.001-05:00

now that i am somewhat mobile, i have been cooking a lot. below are pictures of me making aunt bill's brown candy with my parents when i was home for christmas. there many recipes online, but, essentially, you melt sugar in a skillet, and it caramelizes, which takes a long time, whilst warming some sugar and milk in a big pot, and when the sugar is caramelized, you pour it into the hot milk/sugar and reduce it for a very long time, and then add baking soda, vanilla and pecans and beat it for a very long time. teamwork is recommended.

i discovered upon researching the recipe that this candy is an oklahoma tradition, which was fun because the reason i wanted to make it was because my aunt, no longer with us, used to make it every christmas. and she was oklahoman, as is my dad, whose sister she was. it was kind of like resurrecting a tiny part of her experiencing one of the things she used to do to prepare for our visit.

actually, there are microwave versions, and i vaguely remember she told me she made it in the microwave. next time! and there sure as heck's gonna be a next time; it was fantastic, and just as addictive as i remembered.

may i recommend?

2007-11-07T14:04:00.000-05:00

an awesome show this thursday:

Calling All Dudes!
Reverend Jen Presents:
The Ninth Annual
Mr. Lower East Side Pageant
Thursday, November 15th, 10:00 P.M.
Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery)
take the 'F' to 2nd Ave. or the '6' to Bleecker
SEVEN DOLLARS

since my foot has been broken i have missed a friend's : 1. wedding, 2. moving day 3. mom's funeral 4. baby shower. (not all the same friend.)

but i am going to try to make it to the annual mr. lower east side now that the doctor has ordered me to work through the pain.

It’s a beauty pageant for men. Women and gay men in the audience are the judges.

sigh

2007-10-03T20:48:00.000-04:00

i have been knitting up a storm, but i can't show you anything yet because the camera is not charged, and getting all the crap together to do that and then upload the pictures is just too much to ask right now, folks.

sorry about being so whiny and going on and on about my foot, but it really is the reason for a lot of things.

i hate blogging without pictures.

all i can do right now is watch tv and knit. cuz you can do that on your back. (we STILL don't have a tv; we watch tv on the computer, which doesn't count as watching tv.)

(it doesn't!)

plus i want to get a bunch of people together and have them model my new stuff all in one picture. that's not going to happen anytime soon. but wouldn't that be cool?!

even though i have a job now, i still want to get a "collection" together to sell for the winter. but i am actually out of yarn! for those of you who are not knitters and do not read knitting blogs, this is a HUGE accomplishment. it's called "stash busting". it is impressive because knitters like to buy yarn even if they don't know what they are going to make out of it and don't have time to make anything. and so they end up with mounds and mounds of it. see, what they need to do is break their foot. or any bone below the belly button, really.

i am going to take a cab three blocks to the yarn store on avenue a on saturday and just go nuts buying yarn. and then i'm going to watch the entirety of season four of the wire while i churn out at least two more hats.

you guys, i can't wait to show you the hat i just finished. it's called "the oddball hat" because it's made out of all the leftover yarn i had. little balls of yarn leftover from multiple projects are called "oddballs". i think i'm onto something here; it's beautiful! i'm going to make a bunch of them. even though i don't have any more oddballs, what with my stash being busted and all. i'm just going to get a whole bunch of different colors. and tv shows.

another study proves liberals smarter than conservatives

2007-09-25T15:17:00.000-04:00

The LA times reported on a study:

"Participants['] ... politics ranged from 'very liberal' to 'very conservative.' [This was according to their own descriptions of themselves.] They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W.

M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter.

Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M."

link

Both liberals and conservatives have made the same mistake in interpreting the study, saying that this explains why conservatives want to maintain the status quo and why liberals want change. In addition some have argued that the study, rather than demonstrating an advantage that liberals have, shows that liberals are apt to be more rash than conservatives in decision-making. These misinterpretations demonstrate substantial ignorance of neuroscience (which happens to be a hobby of mine.) The study only examines a very specific neural pathway. It compares the recognition of new information, and has nothing to do with the kind of thinking that goes into, say, opinions about public policy. Abstract reasoning is done with the cerebral cortex, which was completely bypassed in the task the subjects were asked to do. What the study does show is liberals are more likely to notice a new datum, to go "hmmm", and then send the information to the cortex to analyse it. The conservative is more likely to ignore it.

Conservative William Saletan, in his four point essay in Slate, begins by correctly arguing that the idea that the study proves that conservatives "have more habitual ways of thinking" is wrong. He is right for the same reason I discussed above: the study does not study thinking. But his beef with the author of the study he cited is really just semantic. The author probably meant "thinking" as any activity that happens in the brain; he probably knows the difference between instinct and cognitive thought, being a neuroscientist and all.

Point Number Two: He asks if a W flashed for a millisecond is "information". Why, yes it is, actually.

Point Number Three: He responds to "Liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty" with, "Complexity and ambiguity weren't tested." "Participants were shown an M or a W. No complexity, no ambiguity." Does he know what "informational complexity and ambiguity" are to a neurobiologist (emphasis mine)?

Point Number Four: He thinks that the scientists designed the study on purpose to make conservatives look dumb (the essay is subtitled "Rigging a Study to Make Conservatives Look Stupid"--talk about a conspiracy theory!) He gets all confused when the scientists said that liberals were better at "detecting when a habitual response is not appropriate for a new situation" and "detecting conflict between an ongoing pattern of behavior and a signal that says that something's wrong with that behavior and you need to change it." He thinks that the scientists skewed the study on purpose, by inventing a study that "presume[d] that the habitual response was wrong," since conservatives, I guess he guesses one would guess, being more likely to stick to the stauts quo, would be more likely to do badly on a test designed to reward change. That's a whole lot of guessing. Isn't guessing precisely what we are trying to avoid by doing science? He goes on to make the mistake I discussed above. He asks what if the old way of doing things was better and the new information is irrelevant?

When the scientist say that liberals are better at detecting that "something's wrong with that behavior and you need to change it", they're not talking about, for example, the second ammendment or the secret bombing of Cambodia, they are talking about a specific, measurable behavior that the study defines as "wrong", here, pressing a key. The study shows that liberals are better at reacting to novel information, not by, for example, advocating gun control laws, but by not pressing the key. Being able to not press the key indicates that the subject is more capable of perceiving information and sending it on for further processing, as opposed to ignoring it.

Saletan asserts, "Maybe what you saw—what you think you saw—will turn out to require a different response from the one that has hitherto served you well. Maybe it won't. Maybe, on average, extra sensitivity to such conflicting cues will lead to better decisions. Maybe it won't. Extra CM sensitivity does make you more likely to depart from your habit. But that doesn't prove it's more adaptive." He is assuming that liberals will always opt for change, which is not what the study shows. The study shows that liberals are more likely to be able to change if change is needed.

The study does not show that liberals always do the right thing. It just shows a very specific thing that liberals are able to do better than conservatives. Period. That thing is very narrowly defined. Cuz that's what they do in science.

Saletan becomes unhinged toward the end of the essay, switching to second person, addressing the scientists, "You've manufactured a tiny world of letters, half-seconds, and button-pushing, so you can catch us in clear errors and keep out the part of life where our tendencies correct yours. And now you feel great about yourselves. Congratulations. You haven't told us much about our way of thinking. But you've told us a lot about yours." Ooohkay.... I'm going to guess that that's not his cerebral cortex speaking.

muh foot

2007-09-24T20:46:00.000-04:00

i didn't my cast off today after all. they found 2 additional fractures on a whole nother bone. i have to stay completely off the foot for 3 more weeks.

pros: my biceps are getting enormous, and my triceps no longer waggle; tons of attention--i have a whole new understanding of munchausen syndrome.

cons: no cooking, shopping or dog walking.

stuff

2007-09-20T19:12:00.000-04:00

i just started a new job, and my cast will probably come off on monday. i'm getting kind of sick of not being able to do anything. good thing my job pretty much just entails watching tv. just eating at nomad* last night around the corner, which was delicious and therefore totally worth it, was exhausting because of the hobble home. i am developing pecs and one asscheek of steel. but worst of all is having to tell everyone "what happened".

*it's an egyptian restaurant. we had the crabcakes, foul, and couscous. they make the foul with fresh fava beans, which are the most luxurious thing ever since they have to be shelled twice, since each bean has a skin. i could not make out the ingredients of the sauce, which usually never happens. warren said, and i agreed, that it probably contained totally commonplace ingredients, but the technique was likely some ancient mysterious spell that rendered everything unrecognizable. the crabcakes were fantastic, albeit probably not traditional, served with a kind of pesto-y sauce and a cucumber salad, equally mysterious as the foul. the couscous was fluffy as all get out, and was served with a stew whose stock probably contained the flavor of ten whole chickens. the chicken was so juicy and tender that warren actually ate some breast meat which he had previously sworn off of because it doesn't have enough fat. all this to say: i highly recommend nomad on 2nd ave between 4th and 5th streets.

vacation

2007-09-10T15:06:00.000-04:00

i am fine, though, surprisingly, to me, immobilized. i had no idea how heavy casts were and how difficult it is to get around on just one foot. industrious as i am, i have spent the past week lying around in bed, and lying around in bed. it's just too much effort to do pretty much anything. warren is going to wash my hair today, so i'm resting up for that. i guess i'm kind of getting used to doing nothing. i'm really ok with it. huh. so, strangely, this is the best vacation i could have had this summer. i haven't even taken any of my percocet yet.

my foot broke

2007-09-04T14:29:00.000-04:00

i was walking up second avenue with my dog, and all of a sudden, i felt a terrible pain. i looked down and realized that there was something on my foot. i started screaming because it hurt so much. the busboy, i'm assuming he was a busboy, picked the barrier off of my foot and continued to set the tables and put out chairs at the sidewalk cafe i had been passing by. apparently the barrier between the sidewalk tables and the sidewalk had fallen onto my foot. it was metal and probably very heavy. the busboy scolded me, i guess for walking by, as i cried immobilized by pain and frightened by the blood that had begun to ooze. i asked him for a napkin or paper towel. he yelled at me some more, and then i said maybe i should call the police and he took off running. i didn't get a good look at him because i was looking horrified at my foot which had developed bizarre purple streaks on it and was bleeding. a crowd formed and called the police and an ambulance. i screamed over and over that i didn't want the guy to get in trouble, that it was an accident. so the cops left. i also insisted that i did not want to go in the ambulance since i didn't have health insurance. i was just going to go in a cab to the hospital. i didn't think i would end up having an expensive hospital bill, so i didn't bother to gather any information. i heard one witness say to the police that he saw the guy run away, and he was wearing a white tank top. the ambulance ladies made me sit down in a chair and calm down because i was crying hysterically. they said it didn't look bad and that i probably didn't even need to go to the hospital. i started to try to walk home, which was just around the corner, but i couldn't walk on my foot. the ambulance gave me a ride home. i made it up the stairs to my apartment by using the railings and called my family. after a half hour, it still hadn't stopped bleeding, so i went to the hospital in a cab.

they said my foot was broken and put a cast on it. my husband had returned by then from CT, so i took the second half of my dose of oxycodone, learned how to use crutches, and we got a cab home.

i don't believe in god, but it is true that i am going to have to really take a break now and try not to do anything for a while. the doctors were going to put a splint on my foot at first, but i think i heard them say they wanted to put a cast on it instead to slow me down. the fucking thing is huge and heavy, and i am exhausted from washing myself in the tub with the hose we use for mimi.

i didn't even want to post this until i uploaded a picture of my cast, but since just getting across the room involves way too much effort unless it's to pee, i decided to just do this while i'm here at the desk getting the number for the hospital so i can find out how much this is going to cost. i had to have coffee delivered this morning! we have to hire a dog walker!

reconstructed sweater

2007-08-27T18:10:00.000-04:00

i found this sweater in front of my building this spring. it's 100 percent cashmere.

but it had the most hideous neckline. yuck!

so i undid it and redid it (using both knitting and crochet.)

i think i'll embroider it a little.

vegetation

2007-08-27T14:10:00.000-04:00

um, guys? some of you may know that i live a few doors down from the police station. look at what's growing out in front. i wish i could have gotten a shot of it with the station behind, but it's not tall enough. yet. stay tuned.

oh: and i didn't plant it. i swear.

blackle

2007-08-26T12:48:00.000-04:00

how exciting! an extremely easy way to make your life a little greener: blackle. it's google, but with a black background, so it saves energy! switch now!

productivity update

2007-08-20T14:28:00.000-04:00

the morning glories have really taken off! soon they will be all the way up to the upstairs neighbor's. i hope his enjoyment of them inspires him not to toss his cigarette butts into my pots.

the cilantro sprouted!

future salsa

my mother gave me some beautiful wide wale corduroy, so i made a skirt. no pattern, i didn't have the patience. i love it and will wear it a lot, but i kind of wish i hadn't done darts with this fabric. of course they don't lie flat.

i made a pillow with blue of the same fabric. well, actually, i covered an old pillow that had been stained, but had been covered in such a way that the cover could not be removed to be washed. i firmly believe that all furniture and furniture accessories should be covered in removable covers. anyways. it's not fancy, just functional.

unlike the pillow behind it, which was made for warren and me for our wedding by badecca. she even has a whole post about it on her blog. check out her awesome designs!

detail of the fabric. oh, so fall!

here's the labradorite necklace. i decided not to weigh it down with the big bead because it drapes nicely around the collarbone, having been individually knotted and all.

new job

2007-08-17T13:05:00.001-04:00

i have the day off from work today because we are waiting for the network to tell us if they like our episode. yay! then, most likely, i'm done with this job.

i have decided, and posting this here will help me stick to my decision, to knit some things to sell for the fall season until i get another editing job. i want to make something that i can sell right away to see whether i can make a tiny bit of a living at it. and then maybe i could knit instead of edit. not that i don't like editing, but i'd like to try something i feel more passionate about. clothes. i am very passionate about clothes.

i thought vests would be good. hats and scarves won't sell until it gets much colder. vests are very "back-to-school" looking and can be worn even if it's still not very cool in september, which it probably won't be.

i'm going to make them out of reclaimed yarn, that is, yarn that comes from unraveling a secondhand sweater. that way, my costs will be minimal, and it will be so eco!

i just won a set of knitting needles on ebay for an insanely reasonable price through my stealth method of only bidding at the very last second. this way, i have every size so that i don't have to run to the local yarn store every time i use a new kind of yarn.

there are all kinds of stores now in new york that offer items made by independent makers, and this one even specializes in repurposed and eco garments and jewelry. it's right around the corner from my apartment, and maybe they will want to sell my stuff. i'm going to make ten vests and then try to get a store to sell them. at the very least, i will sell them on etsy. (i love the idea of etsy; here are some of my favorite items.) if i am successful, i will make hats and scarves this winter. of course i will be blogging it all. i'll make a new blog for it. "tiaworks"?

until my needles arrive, however, i am going to finish my labradorite necklace and sew some more napkins.

continuing saga of the tomato

2007-08-11T15:20:00.000-04:00

i ate the first tomato today. it was totally amazing and lived up to all its hype. i made a salad out of it with basil i grew too.

guess who's next?

(oh, in case you're following along, i forgot all about the coriander, and it dried out. also, the morning glories have turned out to be pink.)

tomato update etc.

2007-08-04T15:12:00.000-04:00

i know you've been wondering how my tomatoes are doing. well, i'll tell you: they are just now starting to turn red.

my husband's coworker's father has a farm upstate, and he gave us some of his tomatoes. it was like eating heaven. i hadn't had goodness like that since high school, when my dad grew them on our back porch. i had forgotten they could be that good. so now i am getting even more impatient!

i have started to get more brazen about taking pictures of people. i know it's probably morally wrong, but i can't keep letting all of these sights go unshared.

garden update

2007-07-28T15:22:00.000-04:00

see how big my tomatoes are now?

i always tell people with enough sun to plant morning glories. they are so easy and grow like weeds. i put this one tiny seedling in late, a few weeks ago, and they are already budding, and being trained around the railing of the fire escape, out of strangling distance from the tomato plant. i can't wait to see what color they are going to be.

incidentally, i got the seedling from the front of our building where they are growing like crazy, having self-seeded, having been planted by bob, decades ago. no one even waters them now, but there are oodles of flowers, in all different colors. i remember he used to collect the seeds in the fall and plant them in the spring. but i guess that was unnecessary. strangely, though, there are none of the sky blue ones, or the night blooming white ones anymore. i guess they require special treatment.

this is where it comes out of the flower box that my friend keli gave me before she left new york.

the cilantro has long since gone to seed, which i discovered this year is not because i am a terrible gardener, but because it just naturally has a very short lifespan. one is meant to grow several crops each year.

so i am sprouting some seeds as an experiment. some are dried out already and some are not. i may even eat the sprouts as microgreens.

i will keep you posted.

saying hi!

2007-07-27T11:08:00.000-04:00

hey everybody! here's a request! (i've discovered that using exclamation points makes you seem nice when you're typing stuff to people. but i do feel bad about contributing to punctuation inflation. if people just use periods, you wonder if they're mad at you.) please stop telling me to say hi to warren! i know everybody likes him, and he's elusive, but it stresses me out! when i agree to tell him hi, i take it very seriously! i feel it is my duty to convey your message! by the time i get home, at least three people have told me to say hi to him! until i have successfully delivered your messages, i suffer from a vague sense of delinquency! i get all caught up in telling him all the stuff i want to tell him and forget about all of your all's messages! it makes me feel bad about myself! i don't know if you noticed, but i enjoy feeling good about myself! i discussed this with him last night, and he has agreed to assume that everyone i encounter wishes that they had encountered him too!

thanks!

bloomberg

2007-07-15T08:47:00.001-04:00

i don't follow local politics, mostly because i just assume that what is reported in the news is nowhere near what's actually going on. plus it's really complicated with years of backstory and feuds, and just always seems kind of petty.

but i do remember a couple months ago bloomberg said something about banning private cars from manhattan. or at least taxing the heck out of them. i am SO down with this idea--i love it on snow days when cars are banned. it's so forward-thinking! no one else is talking about stuff like that. and he's not afraid to just one day up and announce it's something he wants to do. everyone said he would never get smoking banned in the city, but he did. and he never hypes himself with huge abstract ideas, which i like too. he just quietly and concretely gets stuff done. the banning cars thing is almost enough for me to decide i'd like him as president, but i really don't know that much about him.

plus, just think about how cool it would be if he became president and then came out! c'mon. he's gay, right?

look at the size of these

2007-06-30T22:25:00.001-04:00

tomatoes!

ok. they're not that big, but they are definitely tomatoes. that i am gonna eat! in probably august!

the iphone

2007-06-30T22:05:00.000-04:00

who effing cares?! AARGH!

we already have the internet and ipods and phones. how is it such a big deal that they're altogether in one thing? with a bigger screen.

i hate it that my husband is funnier than i am, but he is. there, i said it. (and also called him "my husband".) very few people know that he is, because he is so quiet.

re the iphone: "weren't we trying to make phones smaller?" pretty soon people will be lugging around those huge military walkie talkie lookin' things we used to have. we are phone-regressing.

wedding

2007-06-28T15:48:00.000-04:00

folks. i've been trying to spare you from the ugly fact that i've been posting on a bulletin board called indiebride. i really didn't want to bore anyone here who wasn't planning a wedding, so i took my show on the road. plus, it really helped me to talk to other ladies who were doing exactly what i was doing at the time. i am sorry if i let you down by doing something so lame-sounding.

anyway. i'm still tired. i hope i don't have lyme disease. so check out my wedding recap over there.

me

2007-06-21T14:45:00.000-04:00

folks, and folkcitas, i am married. and tired. real tired. so i promise i will tell you all about it. just not right now. alright, alright, i will tell you that it was wonderful. the wedding. just. like. exactly what i wanted. and more. a little surreal even. in a good way. i'm still walking on air.

don't worry, there will be copious pictures, just not right now.

warren uploaded some photos this morning in a rush before work if you'd like to see some right this second.

what i've been up to

2007-05-19T12:02:00.000-04:00

i suggest you not ask.

job

2007-05-11T12:42:00.000-04:00

OMG! i just got a really awesome job! it's going to be a really intense schedule, like, crazy, but it's something i really wanted to work on, and it's going to be a huge media event. effing YAAYYUUHHH!

yeah

2007-05-10T12:51:00.000-04:00

now this is what i call civilization.

yesterday

2007-05-09T11:36:00.000-04:00

ok, ok, i guess planting basil and zinneas yesterday and finding a wedding band for warren wasn't tedious. actually, it was downright nice.

hey!

2007-05-09T11:29:00.000-04:00

do you guys want to hear all about tedious wedding planning details? like shopping for event liability insurance? didn't think so.

limaid

2007-04-23T16:55:00.000-04:00

made limaid because today made me excited about summer.

it's officially spring now

2007-04-20T20:33:00.000-04:00

i learned in high school english that it is incorrect to define something by saying, "so-and-so is when..." but i think that when it's a season, it's ok, or some other kind of time. so: spring is when the ornamental pears bloom. at least according to me. and that's right now! because they are everywhere. even mahattan.

the beautiful weather today was enjoyed by many.

i love it when spring is still mostly a pastel haze.

gramercy park was neon for about ten minutes.

in other news, i think i've got the dress thing figured out--ha! a pun!

so bye bye blousony jil sanders girls.

manhattan spring 2007

2007-04-10T14:37:00.000-04:00

spring, of course, marches on. i made quiche for my birthday party. briefly tempted by pheasant eggs at the union square green market, i regained sanity and settled for local leeks and chives. and bacon.

fantasizing about making my own dress...

more dress woes

2007-04-03T19:51:00.000-04:00

good thing i waited till this season to look for a cocktail dress, when potato sacks are all the rage.

i still refuse to go to a bridal shop, though.

dresses

2007-03-31T12:12:00.000-04:00

ok. i am officially crazy. feminist that i am, i just spent the entire day yesterday trying on every white dress in new york city. notice: i did not say "manhattan". initially, i was all, "oh, i'm not going to be one of those women who gets all nuts about what she looks like on her wedding day. i'll just get a cocktail dress off the rack at the last minute. this is so not going to be 'wow, look at the beautiful bride.'" ok. first of all, i'm totally vain anyway, even though i try really hard to keep it a secret--by not wearing make up or fancy clothes and stuff like that. but the more i think about everyone looking at me on june 16th, the fancier my idea of a dress gets.

anyway, i think i found the dress i want. that's what prompted the shopping day from hell yesterday. because i was like "i can't just buy the first dress i try on and like. i need to know that it is the best dress in town." there's only one of this dress in my size, and it could get bought at any minute. but no way could finding a dress be that easy, right? it has almost everything i want: it's short and not strapless. it's casual and fancy at the same time. it's beautifully made and comfortable. it's both cute and sophisticated. it's both tailored and flow-y. i just know that if i don't buy it before someone else does i'll never find one i like as much, and if i do get it, i'll see something that has all those qualities plus is satin like i wanted. like i said: crazy. i may actually break down and drag a girlfriend to the store to weigh in, which i said i'd never do. (the dress pictured is not the dress. i didn't have my camera with me when i saw it.)

today's spring update

2007-03-29T20:33:00.000-04:00

spring east village 2007

2007-03-23T15:10:00.000-04:00

i thought i'd let all you people with jobs know what's going on with nature around here. yesterday the lovely warm weather caught many by surprise. today was rainy and perfect for taking pictures.

not a lot is fully blooming yet, except for, of course, the crocus. some daffodils are blooming, but all of my pictures of them were too boring to post. if only every picture could include a charmingly misspelled sign.

i saw some funny yellow flowers that i've never noticed before and couldn't identify. their trees looked like cherry trees. are they japanese maples? i'll have to keep an eye on them and see what they become.

spring watch 2007

2007-03-18T19:03:00.000-04:00

i made a really boring hat for someone who would never wear the kind of hat i usually like to make for people. but he got me a job, and it's a korean custom to give someone a gift (PLEASE EVERYONE STOP USING "GIFT" AS A VERB) when they get you a job. there's a special term for it, but i've forgotten it. i like to do as many korean things as i can, since i don't even know of that many to do. a whole half of me is korean after all.

handspun yarn

2007-03-08T13:56:00.000-05:00

i really dislike unnecessary gadgets. and the people who have them. people who knit can be just as guilty as those ridiculous home cooks who have a different peeler or corer for every type of fruit, the hand blender and a food processor and a regular blender. why can't those people just donate some money to charity instead?

i am really proud of my arm and magazine rack skein maker. and my mug-weighted drying method.

that having been said, i just received in the mail these hand cards i won on ebay (for six bucks, brand new ones are sixty)! (hint: they were so cheap because they were not in the "spinning" section, where there is much competition for these items. if you are looking for some carders, i recommend doing a search for "wool card", "carder", and "carding", and bidding on the ones that are not in the "spinning" category.)

non-spinners, in case you don't know, these objects are used to prepare wool to be spun. supposedly you can use a dog brush instead, but i have witnessed a comparison, and it is worth it to get the carders; the wool poofs up a lot more when it is carded, as opposed to dog-brushed. and i like my yarn poofy.

i plan to go to a sheep shearing day at a local farm this spring and pick out my own fleece. i'll card, dye, spin and knit something with it. i'm thinking maybe a hardcore tricky lace shawl.

here is the latest loveliness. made with some mystery fiber i got from sheep shed studio. i dyed it myself with various cake icing dyes i found at the new broadway panhandlers on 8th st.

knitted lace

2007-02-27T17:04:00.000-05:00

here is some lace i'm working on. i am starting a new job in a month and have decided to do exactly what i feel like doing when i feel like doing it the entire time until then, while still going to the gym every other day, cooking as much from scratch as possible and making gifts for people. the red lace is going to be a scarf for my mom for her birthday. the green lace is going to be for me. warren's aran sweater is going to have to wait till next year because there is no way i'll get it done in time for him to wear it while it's still cold.

i really should be working on wedding invitations and shopping for a dress, but june 16th seems so far away right now, and i am full on indulging myself. i'm thinking of taking a pottery class, or maybe sewing my own wedding dress.... i really want to go to the beach.... record a book for librivox.... watch some of the movies that were nominated for oscars....

it's amazing how much you don't have time to do when you have a job.

vegetarian meatloaf recipe

2007-02-13T12:14:00.000-05:00

my fiance is a vegetarian (actually he just started eating seafood) so i really don't cook meat at home that much. and anyway, i don't feel good about using mass produced meat and really shouldn't eat too much saturated fat, so i actually like making lots of fake meat dishes. every time someone tries my vegetarian meatloaf, they say it's really convincing--including my meat 'n' potatoes dad--and a friend just asked me for the recipe, so i thought i'd share what i just took the trouble to write down.

(the ingredients in parentheses are optional, but as many as you add the better.)

first get a package of gimme lean, which is extremely low in calories and has NO fat in it, out of the fridge so it starts warming and softening up.

sautee some onions (celery, mushrooms, garlic) that have been minced pretty fine--otherwise the loaf will fall apart when served--in some olive oil. let cool while you do the other stuff.

grease a bread pan or something like one--your hands will be all dirty later which makes it difficult to do it then.

put into a bowl:
one package of gimme lean
one cup of bread crumbs
one egg
worcestershire sauce *
(barbecue sauce
hoisin sauce
soy sauce
truffle oil).

mix everything--including the cooled veggies--together with your hands--take off your rings first. squeeze and let the mixture squirt through your fingers repeatedly. it's the only way to really get it all blended since the gimme lean is pretty dense.

shape into a loaf and put in pan.

bake at 400 for an hour.

voila!

p.s. we go to this store in chinatown for extremely convincing fake meat. it looks like they ship, too.

*edited to add: i just found out that worcestershire sauce has anchovies in it! but there is a vegetarian kind supposedly.

also: slather some barbecue sauce or ketchup on the top of the loaf before cooking. it caramelizes.

hat time!

2007-02-05T20:44:00.000-05:00

got it spun up,

wound up,

and knit up. yeah.

ta da!

2007-02-01T16:15:00.000-05:00

ok, now, here's some of the stuff i've made over the past two months.

first, the sweater i started months ago and kept undoing and redoing. finally it's done. (actually, at some point, i am going to redo the top of the sleeve a little because it's puckering in an unsightly manner, and i'm going to rethink the buttons. i don't know if i like that the sweater doesn't really close all the way. but i've been wearing it, which is close enough to "done".)

warren's mom and sister finally received their purses. warren designed this one, and did most of the sewing. i showed him how to realize his vision, and did the tricky, slippery silk lining.

you can see our logo inside.

this is the closure on the other bag, which i blithely photographed in front of a throw pillow with a hideous stain on it, so you will just have to imagine how gorgeous it is. we also made pajama pants for warren's stepdad and an apron for my dad. he wanted a manly one.

i dyed a pound of wool i got for six dollars.

color may be my favorite design element, but unfortunately i have discovered that dyeing is my least favorite crafting activity. between the simmering and the drying, it takes FOREVER! lots of waiting. i've been doing this for DAYS! no wonder dyed wool is like twice as expensive as natural. plus, i was experimenting with food coloring (because it's nontoxic), so i did hundreds of tiny batches. at least i figured out how to get what i like, so i won't ever have to do that again! ugh!

now i'm spinning it up. aahh! i love it. this is so going to be a hat.

this is a hat i made out of my second and third handspinning attempts. you can't see the huge lumps in the back. everyone says it's kind of cool, but i think i'm going to undo it and dye and reuse the yarn somehow. will keep you posted.

wool

2007-01-24T10:53:00.000-05:00

i just ordered a pound of wool to spin.

i was not kidding

2007-01-13T11:00:00.000-05:00

yeah, that's right

2007-01-12T18:42:00.000-05:00

i'm blogging yarn.
i just spent the entire day doing this.
i'm going to have my own sheep by next year.
i really, really need one.

spinning yarn

2007-01-12T15:26:00.000-05:00

behold my first ball of yarn. i spun it. guess what i've been doing ever since?
here are a couple pictures of warren sewing. not only is he a babe, but he does stuff with me. aww.

world of craftcraft

2007-01-07T11:33:00.000-05:00

i havent posted my sewing pictures yet because most of them are christmas gifts that we havent mailed yet, and i dont want the recipients to have their surprises spoiled.

in the meantime, i have been cranking away at the rust-colored cardigan pictured below. i keep having to unravel it and start over because i refuse to use a pattern even though i still want it to fit perfectly. that's right, i knit by trial and error. oh, also, i got done with a whole side of the front before i realised i had made the same side as i already had, so i had to do that all over again. i could have knit five sweaters by now. mwop, mwop.

ive been told by professional crafters that i should try to sell my patterns, but the whole reason i invent everything i make is that i dont like to pay attention to patterns. i would much rather eyeball than count. it would be such a pain to keep track of everything ive done on a project, and write it down, particularly since i undo and redo so much.

at this point i'd really rather be reading than knitting, not least because of the weather, or should i say "climate"? it was 70 degrees yesterday; am i ever gonna need to wear a sweater again? and i havent read a book in months. but i'm so close to finishing, and it's going to be really beautiful, and soft, it's baby alpaca, that i'm determined to finish as quickly as possible.

i have continued the cables, which border the insides of both sides of the front, past the shoulders to become a continuous trim around the back of the neck. i have never seen this before in a cardigan, and i did a lot of research, of course, before i started this project. usually the cable just kind of ends at the top of the side, and a ribbing is added to continue around the neck. sometimes it is rather wide and looks kind of like lapels. the ribbing is totally unnecessary, since the cable prevents the edges from curling up, which is usually the purpose of the ribbing. sometimes a hood is added to blend the front to the back. i am against unnecessary things. new motto: "frugality is beautiful". so i came up with this design. probably none of you have any idea of what i am talking about, but i dont want to post a picture until it's done.

i like to watch movies while i knit, but since we dont have a tv, and i can't hog the computer the entire day, i have listening to "geek farm life", an excellent podcast about a couple who left silicone valley to farm ten acres in indiana. they grow almost all of their own food and both have IT day jobs. the wife has two sheep which they shear, and she spins and knits the yarn. he makes cheese. i have listened to fifteen episodes since i discovered it three days ago.

sewing

2007-01-01T19:58:00.000-05:00

we have been sewing up a storm!
and by "we" i mean warren, my mom and i.

weird christmas

2006-12-24T12:54:00.000-05:00

i decided to get a tree this year, mainly because i felt sorry for it. it's about three feet high and perched precariously on a book shelf. it is adorned partially with the white fluffy stuffing that comes out of mimi's toys when she destroys them. (mimi is a dog.) i guess i'm feeling a little seasonal affective disorder-ish.

i usually buy a wreath instead of a tree because our apartment is so small, and warren and i are kind of grinches anyway, but this christmas has just been different. neither warren nor i are working at the mo', so we have been having fun on vacation at home. (copious crafting pictures to come.) plus, mimi got bitten by a vicious dog the other day, so we had to cancel our travel plans so we could stay home and monitor the infection and flush out her wound. it's like 60 degrees out. ho ho ho?

robbing the bunkbed

2006-12-15T13:50:00.000-05:00

i am no longer about to marry someone in their twenties. i feel a lot less perverted now. so i celebrated by making a huge pot of fantastic gumbo.

here's where i go all knit blog

2006-12-03T21:31:00.000-05:00

here's what i did with my rhinebeck yarn. one for warrie:

and one for me! matching hats!
this is how my signature crocheted earflap hats start out:

i keep going until:

this is going to be a cardigan:

here's where i go all dr. phil on you

2006-11-22T17:59:00.000-05:00

i was giving someone else relationship advice today, and since i spent time writing this down, i thought, "why not blog it"? not that i'm an authority. but i've figured out a few things.

1. when you are in a fight, never say "you always" or "you never". tell the other person what they have just done to hurt your feelings specifically. if it is something that happens a lot, try to keep track of specific examples. try to be constructive and focus on specific things that can be changed, as opposed to making broad statements about the flaws in the other person's personality.

2. choose your battles. fights can be draining. try to use your energy to make progress.

3. everybody has a right to their feelings. we can't help the way we feel. and we don't have to justify them. if someone cares about us, they will recognize this. we can, however, help the way we act on our feelings. try to fight about the exact thing that just happened that caused hurt feelings, not about whether each other's feelings are valid.

4. try to end every fight with a plan for the future. each pick something concrete that the other person can do to help avoid future fights. like: one person can agree to put their socks in the hamper more often, and the other person can agree to turn off the bathroom light more often. ideally, it should be related to the original issue that caused the fight, and both of you should offer to try to make a change in behavior. you will eventually see that the other person really is trying to get along. you may not both have the same instincts about what treating each other right consists of, but you can teach each other what is important to each of you.

5. warren brought home a book he found on the sidewalk--for those of you who do not live in the city: there are stacks of books people want to get rid of everywhere every day--about being a newlywed. i have to admit that this last piece of advice is from that book--not that the rest of them didn't come from some place cheesy, except for #3, i think i really did figure that out myself. anyway, here it is: everyone has a different fighting style. some of them very entrenched. try to discover what each others' are. [please comment if you know how to punctuate that last sentence. i don't have time for fowler's until after my wedding.] some people need more time to cool down after a fight is over. and some people are very articulate and expect everyone else to be so too. and those people really deserve sympathy.

okay! so, happy fighting!

allen effed it all up

2006-11-08T14:35:00.000-05:00

behold the power of words. i bet that guy really wishes he hadn't said "macaca" now.

on the way home tonight

2006-11-04T00:34:00.000-05:00

i overheard a guy yelling at a girl, not really yelling, but right up in her face and insistent, in a cockney accent, "you cannot," and the pauses are important, "live the rest of your fucking life," pause, "just fucking being," [i don't know how to punctuate two clauses uttered consecutively by the same person but still in separate quotations], "the way you're being." "you just caaahn't!"

i saw four luxury cars with chauffeurs in them waiting on 9th st btw 1st and 2nd.

what was the 3rd thing? oh yeah, have you ever found yourself in a conversation with someone and realized you're pretending that you haven't read their blog? the germans should come up with a word for that.

rhinebeck

2006-11-03T10:47:00.000-05:00

most blog entries about rhinebeck begin with, "finally, here's my rhinebeck post," or something like that, with profuse apologies. i am not sorry, ok? for those of you who do not know what rhinebeck is, those of you who do not regularly read knitting blogs, you freaks, rhinebeck is an annual festival that celebrates yarn and the animals and technology that surround it. (more later)

our trip

2006-10-08T18:26:00.000-04:00

we spent a lot of time in alabama shopping.

it's amazing how many things you can do with a pig.

warren's mom thought it funny that i found it exotic.

you really can buy a gun at walmart.

bruce and emilie

2006-09-21T20:47:00.000-04:00

my friends got married!

good luck, you guys!

(more pictures on flickr, just click one of the above)

my new sewing machine!

2006-09-01T20:50:00.000-04:00

there are a lot of things i don't like about my job, but i can't quit now; my boss just gave me a sewing machine! i told her all about the sewing class i took at make workshop--which i highly recommend, by the way. and, the next weekend, up in the berkshires, while exploring an old house her in-laws had just bought, she found this beauty in perfect working condition. it was made in the fifties and still had the manual and the light bulb even works. the lady was in her nineties when she died, at home. it's heavy as heck, but my boss carted it on the subway from brooklyn to work for me. that's just ridiculously nice--i would be an idiot to quit. i made a napkin as soon as i got home. and am shopping for a good a-line skirt pattern for my first project.

em's shower

2006-08-29T21:07:00.000-04:00

i seem to like taking portraits.

and drinking.

and dancing and being photographed.

and wishing people well who are to be married.

moon landing conspiracy

2006-08-15T18:39:00.000-04:00

theory has just been kicked up a few notches.

how come none of the stories i've seen today about the missing moon landing tapes, which is old news by the way, mention the fact that buzz aldrin recently claimed he saw a ufo on that mission and that nasa covered it up?

my ancestor

2006-08-12T18:35:00.000-04:00

my aunt recently asked my mom what she should bring me from korea for my wedding next summer. i told her to tell my aunt that i want a document my dad mentioned once that traces her family all the way back to this gentleman, choe chi won. i particularly want to see the black mark where my mom's name was. they scratched her name off when she married my dad, who is, not only not of noble birth, but white. choe chi won was a famous, some believe immortal, ninth century scholar, statesman and poet.

elizabeth

2006-08-11T21:03:00.000-04:00

this is the lady, elizabeth, who walks our dog, mimi. we are so lucky to know her.