Tuesdays are for Self Portraits

I will never understand. How can something so small be so loud? How can it be the source of so much misunderstanding? Why does sound matter so much? Why is every little last bit of hearing so important to have? Why is it supposed to be a good thing to have sounds in your ears at the 120+ dB range as a matter of course? Did it never occur to anyone that even a deaf person’s ears can really hurt with loud noises? How does my life change for the better because I hear clattering dishes? What talismanic secrets do I discern as I realize going to the bathroom with a hearing aid on is the most second annoying sound on the planet? How can anyone survive all day every day listening to the infernal click clack spronk tappity tap tap blonk thronk of the keyboard? Does anyone know that I have never once woken up in the morning wishing I had it on? Do the people who paid for this thing realize how silly it was to buy this expensive of a toy for someone as deaf as I? Should I confess that it lives in a little container in a drawer in my closet 99.9% of the time? Do most hearing people realize that using hearing aids make most deaf people deafer, due to all that loud noise blasting in their ears? Does anyone but me see the profound irony in having children wear hearing aids for the “every little bit of hearing helps” reason when in the end, these children will hear less as adults than they did as children? Will anyone care if I confess that the only thing I ever wanted to hear with the infernal thing, I never will? What is a meow meow meow meow like? Does it make me a bad person if I confess that I see nothing in life worth wearing the hearing aid all day every day for? Do people realize that understanding sounds is different from hearing them? Has it ever occured to anyone that they could listen to their mother’s voice for decades with this thing, and yet have it be possible that they would never be able to identify said voice anyway? Would it seem strange if I confessed that I didn’t think music was a part of the infernal racket of life? What would you do if I told you that I loved Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde so much I wrote a 20 page paper on it for grad school? Would it surprise you if you learned that the only time I make sure I pack the hearing aid in my bag is when I’m going to watch a movie in the theatre? Would you find it weird that I have more than 50 CDs? What do people think the pratical application for hearing aids are? What would you say if I told you that in junior high I had to have permission to take off one of the two hearing aids I wore at that time? Can you envision never having understood words in your entire life? Can you wrap your mind around the notion that if you try really really hard, are well rested, and actually, for some strange reason, care, you can only see inflections, emotions, stresses in sounds when people speak, and that’s only if you can hear their voices anyway? Do you see that my ears, let alone this hearing aid, have absolutely nothing to do with my writing? Do you see why it would be possible for someone to find more meaning in a single song than in a lifetime of all the random everyday noises that seem so normal to everyone else? Do you realize I would be living my life exactly the same way if this thing melted into a pile of plastic goo tomorrow?

Lame, lame, lame

No new pictures. Progress at a snail’s pace. Up to row 41 of 120 at this point, just barely past 1/3. The hell!?!? Oh well. Note to self: Addi Turbos in 12″ 5.5mms next time I knit this. THAT IS ALL.

Wednesdays are for Wish Lists

Do you remember the days of knit-only content? Me neither. But I am knitting. Slowly. I finally feel pretty good today, I took out the trash last night! That’s a big deal, honestly… I’ve done 29 of the 120 rows I need for the second legwarmer, so let’s ignore the paltry paltry sad sad pathetic progress and pretend there’s time to knit everything I ever want to knit. So!

Second to my love of scarves is definitely bags. Do not ask how many bags I have. Further: do not ask how many bags I have that are exactly the same bag, but a different color. There might be eight. Or ten. But I will never admit to that. Nope.

I haven’t yet fallen into the whole knit the same bag 38 times with different colors, but there’s time yet for me, I’m guessing here.

I like this bag very much because I absolutely love messenger bags, but usually they’re way too bulky and too big and too long and too too too. The smaller version of the bag is exactly like one messger bag I used to have and absolutely loved. Well, except for the fact it was canvas and was $5 from the Gap and was tan and was pulverized with love. Other than that? Exactly the same. I don’t like the suggested stripes in the pictures but either gifted yarn or a random inspiration one day might do me. Wouldn’t it be cute with a felted flower pin on it? Perhaps a beautiful variegated white-grey with a red/pink felted flower on it?

And I completely need to buy this back issue of Interweave Knits ASAP. Because, hello, MARY POPPINS! I love the idea of making my own luggage. It’d be fun to try to make a smaller matching bag too. I’d have to make this in Wool of the Andes, though, to keep down costs… even with that, that’s $60. But it’s so pretty!

Now this is the most inspired way to use up leftover yarn that I’ve seen! I don’t really like this as a backpack, but I can definitely see it as a regular bag with handles. It would be a fun way to use up Cascade 220 or Wool of the Andes leftovers. Or, actually, to justify buying recieving 20 different colored balls of Wool of the Andes because I could totally use them for the red flowered hat I mentioned in last week’s Wish List, and then use the massive leftovers for this bag! And then use any leftover yarns from the Mary Poppins bag. YEAH! I am so smart.

Tuesdays are for Self Portraits

This is a hand. My hand. My right hand. No happy endings, no happily ever after, no insipid articles in the newspaper about how I overcame my obstacles in order to become a more buff me. There is only me and there is only my hand. See it. Really see it. Look close, and run your eyes over every groove, every bump, every scar, every ridge. Tell me you notice it. Tell me you know it matters to me. Tell me you imagine its rigidity, its inability to swivel. Tell me it is awful, because of course it is. Feel every A and every B and every J and every W I will say with that hand for the rest of my life. See how it has shaped who I am. Tell me it is okay that it has redirected my psyche, even if it is not. Watch my signature, and how I learned to write with my fingers and not my wrist. Observe me typing, and note without my having to tell you how I do not type with the thumb at all. Do not give me a hard time if I ask you to cut something for me, or if I ask you to move something that does not seem all that heavy. See the loss of fatty tissue on top of the hand between the thumb joint and the wrist. Pretend to be interested when I point out the muscle wasting. Bring your eyes close, and look at the scar. Notice it is not just one white groove, it is three large cuts on top of each other with three smaller cuts perpendicular to them. Feel the otherworldy sensation of the thumb, really feel it. Know that it forever feels like your thumb and yet…. it is an entity of its own. It looks attached securely to the hand does it not? But it feels akin what a pair of too tight shoes or a new pair of high heels feels like. It is your body, all your parts, and yet you feel awkward, uncomfortable, within it. And this thumb is yours. It is your too tight shoes. It is your too tight shoes that you will never ever ever get to take off. Tell me you know that I know that it is not the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. But tell me you understand anyway the profound loss that I feel. Tell me you understand that the worst part of the whole thing is not that it happened, and you are not as you were. Tell me you know, you see, you feel the truth. That the worst thing is that it does not change. It does not go back. There is the time before, and here is the time after. Listen to me tell you the old story again and again. Listen to the hand, hold it close, and tell it you love it for what it is. Thank it for having the grace to have four usable fingers. Cherish that it endures knitting with grace.

Then wrap your hands around my left hand and tell me you take all of me as I am.

Amazingly enough, I’m still alive.

This was me, last Monday. I don’t even remember taking the picture. That’s me with Kahlo, for anyone who’s doing the Who’s The Catchen Wearing Fraro game. Just a bit of free advice from me to you: don’t get sick. It sucks monkey rocks, and then sucks some more. If you can’t avoid getting sick, given that’s the popular thing to do and all the cool kids are doing it, then by all means avoid Biaxin. I love that it’s curing my sinus infunktion, I hate the side effects. I hate the nightmares and the hallucinations and throwing up and the tummyaches and the bad mouth taste and the overtiredness and the weepiness and the missingworkness. Not to mention that one 36 hour stretch of sleeping/living/gameboying/sidekicking/being licked by cats in the bathtub. Sinus infections? Suck. I have never had one before. I hope to never have one again.

I did manage to finish one! one! legwarmer yesterday. Someone, give me a medal. I didn’t put up a picture of the whole thing because it’s pretty sad to pose for a picture with one legwarmer. Makes me feel all ghetto thinking about it. So coo at the texture, and pretend you can envision the legwarmers. They will be plural. SOMEDAY. Really soon. I hope. It’s kind of hard to knit in the bathtub, after all. Especially when you sit there in the dark, the way I do. Seven rows down, 113 more to go. MYOI.

It’s been sort of a crappy week.

Wednesdays are for Wish Lists and Book Clubbing

Memo to self and to anyone who ever listens to me say “I have a cold” again: I am not known to have colds. I have no idea when the last time I had a cold was. If EVER. So if I ever again say that I have a cold, it is a signal that I should go to the doctor and get antibiotics ASAP because hello, the odds are against it being a cold. I am grateful to whoever invented Biaxin and hope to never again experience a virulently sucky sinus infection. I’m just saying.

On to more fun things…

My readers probably wonder why I engage in the copout that is Wish Listing on Wednesdays. Even if readers is a too lofty word to use. But I’ll tell you anyway. Hee.

See, Wednesdays are the busiest day of the week for me. I’m on campus working from 9 AM to 8 PM and have one hour “off”, where I am engaged as a faciliator for my book group. This semester, the book is Deaf Like Me. Yes, at Gallaudet you can pick from lots of different books, usually centering on multiculturalism and multiracialism focused books that are not deaf-specific, but I am an admitted deafophile who has presented at deaf history conferences and did a minor in deafness as a socially constructed disease for my history MA. So I find deaf books endlessly interesting and like poring over them with other people. And! I get free lunch, usually California sushi and a vanilla soy milk jug!

And! I have a hour to knit! At least when other people are talking. Since I can’t talk and knit at the same time, I usually bring with me a very simple project that I can knit on and off without having to look at it, because I can’t look down at the knitting if I’m listening to other people talk. Hence bringing with me the textured throw I blogged about 100 years ago, or the dead muppet scarf, or something else ridiculously simple.

I have been knitting the throw off and on for a long time not because I have knitting ADD like some knitters do, hee, but because of a couple of reasons, 1) the catchen? Like the blanket WAY TOO MUCH and knitting it at home became 90% shooing the catchen off of the blanket so I can flip it around to knit and then them re-establishing their presences on the other side of the blanket before I can knit a row and 2) while Addi Turbos US 19s are light and easy to maneuver, the size makes it difficult for me to knit it all day and night without a smaller project in between bouts because of shoulder and elbow pain. O well. But I’m on 4 of 7 balls, so hopefully it will be finished. Hee. When I do take the throw to work I seem to do about an entire ball a day, which is great.

The only pesky thing about ever establishing a deafie Stitch n Bitch thing, which I sort of would like to do, is that you can’t knit and speak ASL concurrently unless you knit with your feet or have four arms or something. But I digress.

Wish List! Lest you get the impression that all I care about is hats, not so! I love love love Alison Hansel’s sweater designs.

Rosebud seems terribly graceful to me, and I can definitely see myself wearing this, particiularly if it was sleeveless, red or deep pink, and I wore it with a denim jacket. Tank tops are tough for me to buy at all due to my chestal/armhole issues (ie, too tight in the chest yet with too big armholes), so it seems like a great investment. And I love the ribbing!

Nothing but a tshirt! Isn’t that shirt too too cute? I love it! I have always wanted a tshirt or sweater I could wear on its own, instead of burying a tshirt under a blouse and/or a sweater because hello, who wants to walk around advertising I HAVE A CHEST. I can see this in blue, or blue-green, or purply-pink, or pink, or red. Never yellow, orange, or g-d forbid, black. I love black, but I don’t love it enough to knit something that would be furred in about .0000000001 seconds.

This vest is probably very much a pipe dream and will never happen if I wait to intentionally buy yarn in order to make a striped vest, because I have a consitutional inability to wear patterned tops, bourne of too many years of wearing plain tops in order to make sure a classroom or an audience could clearly see my signs. But I still love the design, and think it’s really inspired. I can definitely see making a cropped version and wearing a blouse underneath. Maybe if I wore it on weekends…

C is for cookie

Did you think this post would be about the holy goodness that is the One True Cookie, chocolate chip cookies?

PSYCH!

When I was little, in the dark ages before the ADA law, very few things were captioned and fewer yet were the caption boxes. Before every TV had to have a caption chip from 1993 on, the only place I could watch television was at home on my TV in my bedroom, with an analog caption decoder. And that was only in 1986, when I was eight years old.

One of my fondest memories is watching Sesame Street, one of the very first shows to have captions, and watching Cookie Monster sing:

Now what starts with the letter C?
Cookie starts with C
Let’s think of other things
That starts with C
Oh, who cares about the other things?

C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me
C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me
C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C

C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me
C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me
C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C

Hey you know what?
A round cookie with one bite out of it
Looks like a C
A round donut with one bite out of it
Also looks like a C
But it is not as good as a cookie
Oh and the moon sometimes looks like a C
But you can’t eat that, so

C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me, yeah!
C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me
C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C, yeah!
Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C, oh boy!
Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C!

Umm-umm-umm-umm-umm

I can’t remember where I put my glasses nine times out of ten, but I will always remember Cookie Monster.

Fingerless Gloves

Here we are! Only a week overdue, I present to you, the gloves!They’re a bit shapeless after having been put through a week’s hard usage, but I love them, they’re super warm, and I finally have the right balance between warmth and utility. Yay!


In other non-exciting knittage news, I continue to be quite kerchooey and am too sick to go all “Wow! I didn’t know I was sick until you mentioned it! Thanks for telling me!” at all the numbskulls who look at me and say wow you really are sick. Thanks for that memo. I would stay home but 1) I watched nearly all my Netflixes and have only one episode of Buffy left on the last disc and 2) perhaps more importantly, if I don’t show up to work, I don’t get paid.

Still knitting on the first legwarmer. O well. At least I love the fabric.

Sundays are for Catchen and Cold(s)

This would be what I woke up to. Lovely bright and definitely snowtastic!
Would you believe I live in the middle of downtown in a major city? It just happens that my apartment’s window looks out at a small grove of trees, so I get the TREE VIEW without the hassle of living out in the country. Go me. I love trees. Snowy trees are pretty! But I hate walking on ice. Doesn’t matter, I didn’t go anywhere today. Small matter of being sick with an achoo cold. O yay! Except not.
The catchen enjoyed the snow very much, particiularly Matisse and Kahlo.

Picasso, on the other hand? Was more interested in the legwarmer, thank you. I’m still working on the first legwarmer. Either I am a slackass, extremely slow, or maybe just maybe the time estimates were totally way off. At least I’m spot on for gauge.

Saturdays are (supposed to be) for Sockapaloooza

Today was supposed to be for Sockapaloooza industriousness. See? I even set up the whole kit, and decided I would have fun knitting the socks both two-circ in the class next month, and DPNs, since I have 4 balls of the same sock yarn, and my sockpal and I are roughly the same size. I chose a pattern to try, too.

But!

The only one who enjoyed the scenery was Matisse. The other three were sensibly hidden elsewhere. It was supposed to snow like a big snowing thing, but for most of Saturday it was mostly dreary dreary dreary with a side of wet.

So I ficklely decided to cheer myself up by knitting these. I chose hot pink Cascade 220 and a lovely matching shade in Rowan kidsilk haze.

And doesn’t that look like a great combination?

Matisse thinks so. I didn’t get the memo I was knitting him legwarmers, I guess.

If I had, these would have been done in the 2 to 4 hours advertised…. 2 to four hours MY LEG.