Swampwater Debutante

Well, that title has nothing to do with the post. I’ve got the song stuck in my head after hearing it for the first time, is all.

Yes, the first time. In the aftermath of my sociopathic ex, I lost my taste for modern Broadway for a long while; still can’t listen to Rent at all. And even my beloved Sondheim and Lloyd-Webber classics were painful! But I’m inching back towards that music which I best love, and it helps that “Defying Gravity” was performed on Glee last night. Turns out I love it. Of course.

Aaaanyway. So they canceled Dollhouse. I can’t talk about it. Instead, I will answer questions! Finally. I hope.

Dana asks…

What about… dum dum dummmm… knitting? Sorry, guess I just miss you talking about what you’re making these days. Can’t think of anything more exciting.

Or, what about more Vegas pictures? I’m going next year and am interested in seeing what you thought.

I will get to the Vegas pictures here in a second! Which leaves us with knitting. I have been knitting quite a bit, but I’ve been lazy about documenting it. Here’s a few bits and bobs (forgive the photos, most of them are iPhone products):

Charade Socks, knit out of yarn I actually bought from Dana (did you all know she is a spectacular dyer? I have two skeins of her stuff, the other one is waiting for me to knit it up correctly). This is her self striping Harlequin yarn. I loved it to BITS and one day I will request a yarn done in the gold, blue and cream color flecks from it. I love knitting with this yarn, whatever base Dana uses to dye is the squooshiest EVER.

I finished those months ago, but didn’t have a camera at the time. I also did these –

Simple ribbed socks out of Filatura di Crosa Maxime. Not really my style, colorwise, and the yarn was incredibly splitty. Then I went and knit the socks about four stitches too small. I kept losing the socks while I was knitting them (once, I dropped one in the street and didn’t notice it was gone for two weeks. amazingly, it was returned to me – I’d dropped it by Kate’s house and after it got run over a few times, someone finally threw it into the yard, where it was retrieved and kept for me) and just didn’t enjoy the experience at all. But they’re done, and they work well enough.

I’ve also knit two pairs of Veyla mitts by Ysolda Teague.

The purple I dyed myself out of Kraemer Silk and Silver (sparkles!). The blue is MadelineTosh sock yarn in Baltic.

And I am knitting a doll.

He’s a story for later.

Corinna asks…

I always want to hear from you! And yes I agree I want Vegas pictures. Next time we should go together.

I TOTALLY AGREE. Corinna is awesome.

I did take many photos in Vegas, but my Flickr account is throttled because I’ve been too lazy/broke to renew my pro status. So while there are some in my photostream, there are more I need to add in and then make a set from. But this one amuses me.

I suspect I am going to do this every time I go out of town and stay in a nice hotel.

Kate says…

I vote that you talk about my lovely new child. I know I’m supposed to, but have you seen the lack of activity on my blog? Clearly I’m too busy to be bothered, so you should show my amazing bundle of cute off on your site for me!
*ducks at flying objects that are bound to be headed my way after that*

Kate needs to get off her ass and finish her birth story (I mean…we share a lot, but this is something she totally had to go on her own. my birthin’ area is inviolate, thanks, and likely to stay that way). But this is Anwyn –

She is adorable. Screams and eat in epic quantities, but cute all the same.

Melissa says…

I’m interested to see how things are going with Dr. Dana. If such goings-on still exist. Also, how are feeling in general about life these days?

Oh, life is pretty all right; things do get stressful, but it’s nothing I can’t handle, thanks to Dr. Dana of course. Not that I don’t go off the deep end when things go tits-up, I just don’t get suicidal anymore. Mostly just screechy. And then life goes on. So I’m better at, you know, life!

I’m getting bored with therapy, though, because I’M FINE. At least I think I am. The medical professional doesn’t, I guess, because we haven’t talked about tapering off sessions since earlier this year. I know I’ve had a few setbacks, but it’s getting annoying. I suspect this is actually due to the fact that I am admittedly reveling in complacency and not moving forward. If I were to stop farting around on my book, for example, and demonstrate that I am committed to that career path…or if I were to stick to a diet and exercise regime instead of tootling around getting bored with it…this would demonstrate that I am ready to move on. I am inherently lazy, though. It is a problem. I’ll have to sort it.

Ticia (and I will go back and put in the link when I’m not accessing my damn blog through a proxy) says…

I miss your twitter. If you’re not blogging I can at least keep up on your shenanigans that way.

I locked my Twitter for a few days while I had a minor freakout. Then I unlocked it. Now I can’t get my widget back up because of the whole locking myself out of my blog and my host is too busy to unblock me thing (I mentioned above I’m accessing via a proxy and I don’t even know that this will work). But it is open again. Sorry about that. Also, hi! I was just wondering where you were.

And the last question, from Marilyn, whom I have also missed –

How’s the novel coming along?

Aaaack. See above. I am still farting around with it. I am very slowly getting it done, but I don’t seem to have the motivation to just sit and write the damn thing.

Then there’s the whole bit where I just don’t really think I am a very good fiction writer. Or a good writer at all. That’s not a fishing for compliments thing; I think I am sort of boring. I’ve lasted as a blogger for almost a decade through sheer narcissism, and I’m getting tired of hearing myself talk.

I don’t feel that many others are interested, either.

So I am not sure of the point of writing a novel, and publishing is such an uphill battle that I could do all this work and it’ll never see the light of day…

…but some part of me still wants to tell Julia’s story, so I will keep slowly plugging away.

That was it! That’s all the questions I got. Hopefully I’ll get the blog issue sorted and I’ll maybe blog more in future. I think sometimes you have to take a break from sharing so much of yourself, and I guess that’s what I’ve done. I’ll never say I’ve run my blogging course because I know eventually I’ll always come back.

But right now things aren’t exciting or different, which in its own way is exciting and different, because for three years there things were exciting and horrible and that sort of, you know, made me crazy. Literally. As you know.

Having a more prosaic life is a relief, but it doesn’t make for good blog fodder. I’ve been feeling the need to explode out of my rut, though, so we shall see where that goes.