Project Spectrum February and March

My goals were simple. A neckwarmer, a pair of gloves, four pairs of socks. Maybe a sweater. And maybe a hat. And of course, whatever else I felt like doing. All in Project Spectrum blue, grey, and/or white.

How did I do?

Two pairs of socks, a neckwarmer, a hat, four balls of sock yarn that were meant to be Hedera and Roza’s socks, and a skein of Classic Elite Lush that need to be Fetchings, but not today.

And a Veste Everest that’s almost finished, and has been for two months now. Pathetic!

Just the tip of the iceberg on all I wanted to do…

Right now? I’m trying valiantly to finish gramma’s headscarf by Tuesday. I’m on ball five of six. The good news with that is that once the six balls are up, it’s done whether or not it’s done. The bad news with that is the rows just get longer and longer and the scarf gets heavier and heavier… and I feel like I’m still at the beginning.

But I think gramma would like it.

Benkei VI

Last Monday, among other things, was a Truly Craptastic Day. Over the weekend, Benkei V had been acting up, crashing several times in a row, and to make bad worse, was having issues with the whole “charging and why that’s a good idea” thing.

There is little more frustrating than having a Benkei that doesn’t want to work. When I switched back to Benkei IV on Sunday night, all seemed ok. Benkei IV still worked, just had a schizophrenic scroll button. Just, because in comparision to charging issues….

And that was okay.

Except.

I woke up Monday morning to a very very very very very very very dead Benkei IV. He’d died at precisely 8:24 am. This I know because that was the only thing that worked ever again on poor Benkei IV, the time display at the time of death. He did not respond to hard boots or soft boots or sock threatening.

No problem. There’s Benkei V. Benkei V will have seen the error of his ways, right? And I’d hold him just so in order to have him charge baby charge. And that worked pretty well until about oh, 1237 pm.

When Benkei V died.

That possibly was the longest *twitch twitch twitch* hour of my life, the hour during which Benkei V was unresponsive to everything I tried… not that I stopped trying. He wasn’t dead frozen like poor Benkei IV was, he was just blank. Nothing. Wouldn’t charge, wouldn’t say boo.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

At 1:45, as I grimly watched a judge show with my sinus in one hand and the dead Benkeis in the other, Benkei V suddenly sprang back to life. With a loud beep.

Just enough life in him to make a phone call to the gramma to arrange for an emergency Benkei-ectomy and new antibiotics for me. Benkei first, antibiotics second. Was that ever in doubt?

Boy howdy, I’d been resisting buying the new sidekick3 for months and months… it’s a lot of money, even with paying half the street price for being a longtime customer. I didn’t ever intend to buy a new sidekick until what I had died. I’m sort of glad it happened finally, though, because Benkei VI is amazing. He holds 260 pictures at the medium size, as opposed to Benkei V who held 36 pictures no matter what size. The really neat thing is that Benkei VI has a removable memory card, and I can swap it out for an even bigger capacity one, but I don’t see myself doing that, truthfully.

Both hold 500 bookmarks only, which annoys me.

Yes, this means I’m at 498 bookmarks, do you have a problem with that?

Benkei VI also can read haloscan, make comments on blogger, and generally not hork on blogs requiring you to input a verification code to comment. Enormous progress! Love! Love! Ahhhh! Happy.

Of course, I still fall (fell) asleep with a Benkei in my hands, without meaning to. But that’s the way things should be.

six

Six. Six months is a long time. Isn’t it? I miss her intensely at times still, even to the point of tears. She was a good soul, a good cat, a very good baba. The best baba I knew.

Gone.

I don’t know if the decision was perfectly timed or if I went about things the right way. It doesn’t matter. It was what it was. She was my little girl, and she wasn’t going to let go easily, even as sick as she was.

She was seventeen. I wish I could only remember her as we lived life together, and not think of her last few weeks. Of our last few weeks.

She was my little girl. And I was her human.

And when I miss her most, I think of her and I nestled together in bed.

It never felt more right than in these moments, as she pressed into me and as I held onto her and drank in her presence, the sensation of her soft warm wildly purring body pressing against mine.

This picture was of us together in my first apartment, in 1998. I can’t believe that was nine years ago already.

I just… I wish it had been more. That she had been my little girl for ninety years.

I would not trade a moment of our lives together for anything. She was my best friend when I was small, and she was my roommate as an adult. I am still finding ways in which she had had a part in my life. A thousand little opportunities to feel the loneliness, to feel the loss. To feel what she meant to me.

To feel the ache.

But still I hold the emptiness to my heart and cherish it, because that is the price.

I love her as intensely as I did six months ago. The tears fall as freely. I know how lucky I am. How so lucky I am.

To love like that.

once more with feeling

You know the drill. I’m sick. One year one month two weeks one day. Only this time, I’ve completely failed the 30 day run of antibiotics I was on, and on day 22, two days ago, I was placed on stronger antibiotics and given narcotics for the head that wished it could implode. Would implode.

Tired of it. Tired of being sick. Tired of telling people I am not well. Tired of thinking about being sick. Tired of getting sicker.

Tired of the infunktion spreading, this time to my ears, as well as habitating in my right sinus and plate and whatnot. Almost as if the whole thing was a cancer, if that makes sense.

I marvel at modern medicine and know that I’m less sick because of it, because of antibiotics, than I would be otherwise. But it’s cold comfort when you know, and are told, that your bacterial infection is increasingly antibiotic resistant.

A small part of me wonders if I traded the fast short illness for the slow protracted one.

I miss my brain, I miss thinking, I miss feeling well.

I don’t remember the sensation of feeling well.

I feel the presence, the pressure. Congealed globbles of infection plugging swelling pressing. At times, mercifully escaping from my head.

More where that came from.

And I think, how long is this going to go on? How long can it, really? What happens if (when) the new stronger antibiotics fail? And I get better for a little while, then get worse? Or what happens if (when) the antibiotics simply don’t make a difference?

I regret the initial sinus infection, as if I could have done anything to prevent that. I regret how it’s spread, how the titanium plates in my upper jawbone made it possible to become so sick for so long.

At times, I am dumbfounded by how the accident still alters the course of my life. If not for it, then not the jaw surgery, then not the plates. And then not this sick, this infected, with no foothold for the infection to spread.

It is never over.

a window onto white

The most important ingredient of white isn’t the color, or the textures, or the feel, or the combinations. It’s light. Without it, white cannot begin to meet its potential.

It’s a fortunate thing, then, that my bathroom has a window. A frosted one, perfect for admitting unfettered light without having to worry about what lies out there. To me, it’s the perfect complement to the plain whiteness of the room, where ambiance and feel are more important than labels and utilitarian purpose.

I absolutely love how there is a tree right outside the window, and I never see it, only its shadow as it sways and rustles with the wind. Shadow, I think, is just as important as light.

And this is never more true than at night, where a passel of solid handcarved onyx tea light holders stand ready to bathe the bathroom in wafts of light.

This is a bathroom where the electric overhead lamp is rarely turned on, for good reason. Nature has better things to offer.

possibilities

Two skeins of valentine Koigu from gramma, just waiting for the right idea to click. Wonderful rich cobalt blue, the kind that gramma terms cheerful.

What will they be? What should they be? Lovely simple Mata Hari socks, with picot hem and eye of partridge heel and star toe? A small Shetland Triangle scarf? A pair of Queen of Cups socks? An Icarus scarf?

So many possiblities. I’m almost sorry that March is coming to a close, because I know that these two skeins of Koigu will marinate in the stash… Waiting for Socktoberfest, or perhaps Laceuary…. Or next year’s incarnation of Project Spectrum.

Or for a strong whim, a sudden vision of such rightness, that I cannot help but to cast on.

What is their destiny? I shall have to wait to find out.

In the meantime, what possibilities do you see?

happiness is being three

The Picasso, he is three years old today! He had to give himself his birthday present this year, but he was very happy with his selection of Cascade 220 superwash in perwinkle.

Because his catstaff was a little too busy snorfling and being stuffed up, the Picasso threw himself a little party as well, meepmeepmeeping at birdies and bunnies that were tantalizing him on the other side of the window.

The Matisse, when reached for comment, said, “bowl!”

The Picasso was also treated to catstaff kissies and tummy rubs, and supplied with barely adequate amounts of kibble. Treats to be provided with dinner. Oooh!

Here’s to many more, zaiyde.

shades of white

Even more amazing to me, I think, than the myraid textures of white, are the shades of white. While white light is the absence of color altogether, white as a pigment is far more complicated. After all, there’s no such thing as the absence of pigment.

Unalike many (all?) other colors, I truly believe that all whites go with each other. For me, it is endlessly fascinating to examine the juxaposition of different whites, and I can’t say I’ve ever seen a bad combination.

Cool whites, warm whites, chalky whites, translucent whites, pearlescent whites, they are all good.

And not a single one of them are like another. White. It’s got so many layers of depth, I wish my words were as good as all the combinations of white I see in my design books, in my surroundings, in my imagination.

Because in the midst of everything, in all the color I am immersed into, my thoughts shift to white. I see white and all its incarnations as I shift colors next to them, as I place them side by side, as I consider new color combinations and plan different ways of arranging color.

Perhaps what I love most about white is that it is always right. It is always what I want to see, what I need to see. I never wish it were another color, or immediately imagine it in combination with anything else.

I see it for what it is, and love it for what it is.

the texture of white

It may be strange, but it’s definitely true: white is my very favorite color. How boring! How plain! I hear that a lot.

Well, and also disbelief that white could be my favorite color considering how much I plotz for pink, but I digress.

White. White is my favorite color. White is the predominant color of my apartment, turning my bedroom into a light box, and providing a counterpoint for all the color I have in my life, through my yarn, my dyes, my markers, my crayons, my paints, my threads, my buttons.

White never bores me. White is what I come back to, again and again.

White fascinates me.

Plain and simple.

With white, you’re left with the textures. Shadows and pattern and feel and materials and light all become acutely important, and I love how each white plays against its surroundings.

And against other whites.

Smooth, shiny, hard. Soft, bumpy, matte. Loopy. Circles. Striped. Waffles. They all go together, and each different texture is its own joy. With white, how can you go wrong? There’s never an odd one out.

It’s never boring. This is my bathroom. It’s simple, yes, and it’s deceptively plain. But I think that it’s worth it, to go the extra mile and make sure everything here is white. In a world that never slows down, here is my little corner that asks you, stay a moment. Examine each little piece, and see how it adds to the whole. Feel your body be soothed by the white, the simplicity, the variety.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

the era of socks

Where did the week run off to, anyway? Have you seen it? Should I call in a missing person report?

There were two grammafests (two!) and a lot of antibiotics, boxes, yarn, and food. Messes were made and messes were unmade. Containers and drawers were carefully labelled with the labelmaker. For the first time since I moved in, the sheets were put away in their very own drawer.

And there were socks. Lots and lots of socks. Socks like these, lovely for Project Spectrum.

A perfect antidote for the gloom and wind that is March, with blues and greens and diagonal pooling and short bursts of striping, endlessly entertaining!

Claudia sportweight, in the Caribbean colorway. I want more. Moremoremoremoremore. And also? More. Squooshy. Soft. Bouncy. Sooooft. Colorful.

Want? No. I need more.