Blog Post 101

So that last, angst-filled post was my 100th post? Man, that sucks. This one's going to be SO much better. Thank you guys for the sympathy. It perked me right up.

Batty, no yarn therapy for me. I'm sitting on an enormous stash, and there are so many bundles of yarn in there with potential to be beautiful, that the one thing I'm NOT thinking about doing is buying more. I've replaced yarn therapy with extravagant clothing and shoe purchases at Ann Taylor Loft, where they very kindly made all of their clothes in exactly the right sizes and proportions this season, and even more kindly gave me a stylish new credit card with which to purchase said clothes. Dammit.

Jo, those crows are diving down the side of a strip mall holding a Starbucks, a sandwich place and a bank. Obviously, the artist hasn't ever been menaced by a flock of seagulls after dropping a bag of Fritos on the beach in Cayucos. That kind of thing'll scar you for life, man. Twenty-two years, and I'm still not over it. I still hear their ravenous cries and feel the frenzied beating of their wings against my neck. Sometimes, just the smell of corn chips brings it all back to me. I throw my arms up over my head and whimper. It makes team lunches at Quiznos interesting and emotionally perilous. But I digress.

Bobbi, thanks for the tag. Of course I'll answer it, because there's nothing I love more than talking about myself.

Seven Random Things About Me:

1. Every time I watch 'Independence Day', I cry during the scene where Jasmine and Dylan are running into the side chamber of that tunnel and their dog Boomer is still by their car. I don't know why, seeing as how I know Boomer lives and I've seen the scene several dozen times. When Jasmine calls, "Boomer!" and Boomer turns his doggy head in slo-mo, I get that lump in my throat, and I feel my face getting hot. "Dude! Are you really crying?" Daisy thinks it's funny.

2. I can cross my eyes and, while holding one of them in place, roll the other one around in all different directions. I can do this with either eye.

3. I'm a Coke drinker, and will go without a beverage if the only one offered is a Pepsi.

4. I dream in full, cinematic color. My dreams have panning shots and close-ups, cut scenes, and occasionally have original musical scores.

5. I don't have a middle name. When I was a little girl, I used to wish that my middle name was Michelle.

6. I have a celebrity crush on Makoto Nagano, the second man to achieve total victory by reaching the top of Mount Midoriyama and earning the title of Ninja Warrior.

7. I love 'COPS', especially episodes where the perps say, "I got no reason to lie to you, sir. I admit I was just lyin' to you. I'm bein' truthfull about that. Why're you handcuffin' me? SIR?!?" Oh, perps. How your drug-addled capers amuse me.

I'm tagging KnottyGnome, Jo, Ceallach, Batty and Ruth. If any of you have either already been tagged or just want to bow out, no hard feelings.


In knitting news, here's the back of Cobweb. I'm working on the sleeves now. It's amazing how much better this is going now that I've figured out what the hell is going on with the lace. As with Starsky, I had to take the instructions and translate them into a pattern that maybe only makes sense to me. Cobweb's charted lace pattern became "this is the row where I close up all the triangles" and "this is the row where everything stays the same". It also occured to me, post-ripping last week, that the increases and decreases had to be paired, and that on "close up the triangles" row", the closed triangle had to be flanked by two yarnovers to keep the stitch count even. Prior to realizing that, I'd knit along until I got to the end of the row, and if I didn't have enough stitches left to do the full increase/decrease pair, I'd do half of it. Then stitches would go askew, and I'd spend an hour trying to figure out why. Much better now that I've learned how to read my knitting.

"Yeah, that's great and all, but what about Bay to Breakers? Did you sleep through it, like you slept through the Bridge to Bridge Run last year?"

As a matter of fact, we did it, and we finished. More on that later.