Today I Learned...

...that even though shitty things happen, I can still smile and have fun (well, as much as I can at work anyway).

...that I'm not as terrible at making new friends as I thought.

...that I am witty and delightful.

...how much I really hate it when people touch my hair when not invited to do so (well, I already knew this, so today's incident was really just an affirmation of that previous knowledge).

...that I'm pretty good at finding roundabout ways to say things.

...how much more comfortable my fingertips are with short nails than long nails.

...that even though I often talk a lot, I can be frustrated to the point where words fail me (I hate it when that happens).

...that when in doubt, I should just make a list so I'll have blog fodder.

Chit-Chat

Lacking anything significant to say, I give you a snippet of a conversation I recently had with my brother after he'd trimmed his facial hair:

Mike: Does my facial hair look white trash to you?
Minx: No...it looks kind of douche-y, if that helps.
Mike: Damn, I wanted it to look white trash. What about the side-burns?
Minx: I don't know. But it is a little douche-y looking.
Mike: No, douche-y is bad...white trash isn't.

After learning the finer points of what exactly he did to his facial hair in order to appear white trash, I couldn't stop from asking any longer:

Minx: Why do you want to look like white trash anyway?
Mike: Oh, I just kinda wanted to look a little white trash for awhile. Sounded like a good idea...

He trailed off and said something else, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. And yes, some of this is a little paraphrased, but I can remember that we did say the words "white trash" and "douche-y" that much.

Glad It Ended Before the Pain of Prom

Choosing to abandon my previously mentioned preference for blogging at night, I had to write this morning so I wouldn't lose the rather odd dream I had last night. I was dreaming about school. For some reason I was still in high school, yet taking college courses in this dream, making me a student who is nearly 30 and still in high school. I went to my homeroom twice and was late both times, so my teacher (who was, like, 3 years younger than I am) gave me tardy slips and told me I had to go to the office because I was going to get detention for being late two times in a row and all I wanted to do was finish the math homework I hadn't done the night before. I was trying to bargain with her about the detention thing and was getting somewhere when my alarm clock went off, cutting the strange dream off. I'm rather thankful for the alarm because I was starting to feel the awkwardness of being a high school student, with the added awkwardness of being an adult among children who looked at me as if I were stupid for being in high school at my age. And I just noticed that the look and feel of the word "awkward" is rather fitting, as it is an odd word to both look at and type.

Mini

This going to be painfully short tonight, for I am tired and do not feel too hot right now. I started knitting the sock yarn I showed in yesterday's post. The stripes look rather subtle so far, however I've only knitted an inch, so perhaps the striping effect will be a little more dramatic as I knit more of the sock. I will say that it does look very nice and the yarn is just lovely to work with. I'm excited to see how the socks turn out. Aside from a new knitting project, the day was a usual Sunday...I got up, did little, showered around 2:00 and went to Troy to have a drink with my friend Bonnie. Now I'm home in my jammies and contemplating starting a crossword. Mine is such an exciting life.

Beauty

Yesterday was a fantastic day. I went with my friend, Erik, to Ithaca and we had so much fun. Walking outside in natural light with cold, fresh air was both mentally and physically refreshing. We ate delicious subs and looked at books and music and yarn. That's my new sock yarn. It's Ja Woll Aktion sock yarn from Lang Yarns. It's a self-striping yarn and I just love the colors. Brown, two blue-gray shades and a lighter tan...it's very unlike the colorways I usually lean toward. The colors are rather understated, very beautiful and more masculine than I typically look for in a yarn. I'm a girly-girl with my yarn and tend toward pinks, purples, reds, and combinations that evoke more of a feminine feel. Something about this one, though, just caught my eye and said to me "Pick me! Pick me!" and who am I to ignore the call of the yarn? It was speaking to me and I had to listen.

I wasn't the only one who made a yarn purchase. Erik's yarn is Malabrigo Kettle-Dyed Merino. The camera didn't want to capture the colors quite the way they actually look. The yarn has olive green, brown and rust tones. The camera decided it wanted to make the colors a little more pink-ish looking instead. Either way, though, it's a lovely one-ply yarn that's working very well for my new knitting student. I'm pleased to say that every single one of those stitches are Erik's and he made very few mistakes (all of which were common for a novice knitter, very minor and easily fixed). His stitches are so lovely and even, I daresay he's a natural.

As I watched my friend carefully making stitch after stitch, I couldn't help but be moved by how beautiful it is to watch someone's hands performing an act of transformation. I've watched my own hands while knitting, and I've watched my other students' hands, but this was really the first time I've watched someone and found the movements so striking and amazing. I think it's due to the fact that he developed a basic competency level so quickly, so I was able to watch him make stitches, rather than watch in wait for mistake-fixing. Surely another factor was the quiet in which we were working. It was a learning experience for Erik and we had very few noise distractions and minimal conversation. My other knitterly friends have all been knitting for a long time and are at a skill level that allows them to chat and laugh while knitting, thereby distracting each other from watching hands make stitches. The quiet and the yarn and the stitching just put me in a bit of a Zen moment of beauty and I fell in love with knitting all over again.

It Ends Far From Where It Began...

So it's twice now this week that I've been forced to write in the morning because of the fact that I live with people and have to share the computer. I find this mildly annoying...not the living and sharing part, but the part about having to wait until the next morning to blog. It messes up the entire flow of it. I'm an evening blogger, not a morning blogger. If I want to keep up on writing my blog, I'd really like to be able to write when I normally prefer to write. Last night, I had so many good ideas for what I should put on here, but now they're all lost in dream land because I had to wait. I always have better ideas in the evening. I really need a laptop and a wireless connection, but I really can't afford one. Curse my wretched poorness!!! I have to look at something cute now...

To the right are my fine puppy-beasts, Josie and Chloe. Josie is the smaller dog and Chloe is the big one dangling her leg over the edge of the couch (she does that all the time). They are the most wonderful dogs in the whole world. They're loving, cuddly, happy dogs and my life is much better with them in it. They are dogs of the highest quality and they are the best people I know.

I just learned that my friend Shar just lost her sweet dog, Lucky. She'd had her dog for many years, I'd say at least 13, based on the fact that her sister, Jade, was just a baby when they got the dog and she's now a teenager. I met Lucky a couple of times and she was a very sweet and lovely dog. She was nice to me and I was nice to her. I feel badly for Shar because it hurts so much to lose a pet. It's one of the most heartbreaking experiences I've ever known and I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on anyone. I think it's because pets love you no matter what. Pets will still love you even if you yell at them to leave you alone. They love you even if you forget to feed them until hours after their normal dinner time. They even love abusive human parents (who should be shot in the knees and castrated in my opinion, but that's another blog entirely). The most important thing pets (especially dogs) know how to do is love and it's also the thing they do best. When a pet dies, all you have is the memory of that unconditional love. Just bittersweet memories...

Resolutions are STUPID

One thing I always hate about the turn of the new year is how everyone always asks what my resolutions are for the year. I personally think New Year's resolutions are a total crock of shit. All good intentions aside, putting off change for a certain time of year usually sets one up for failure and, subsequently, self-loathing. I say if you want to change something about yourself, just do it. Don't wait until a specified day where "everybody else is doing it so I should, too" is the general mentality about it. Nine times out of ten, resolutions consist of taking measures to improve one's health, such as dieting, quitting smoking and/or exercising. Since that is the case with most resolutions, don't wait. You'll be more likely to change your habits if you begin when you make the decision AND it will be better for you in the long run to begin early, rather than wait those few extra weeks or months 'til the calendar turns. OK, I'm done now.

I Skipped It

I so cheated and didn't post last night. I was planning on posting last night...instead I went to my aunt's usual New Year's Eve shindig, which was neither shin-y nor dig-y. It was as it always is: cousins, aunts, uncles, kids and food all wrapped up in a very noisy package. It wasn't a super-big party (we're not the big-partying type of folk). I tried to read, and I managed to read a bit. A friend of the family was there watching some of my cousins playing Guitar Hero (on a side note, I was impressed when I saw "Holiday in Cambodia" listed as a song to play on that game). He wondered aloud "Doesn't anybody read anymore?" to which I held up my book. He had an expression of thankfulness that at least someone still reads. I wanted to tell him that there are a lot of us readers in the world, just not a lot of them in my family. So I continued to read on the couch, read for awhile and fell asleep. I woke up a little before 11:00 and went home to go to bed. I slept through the ridiculous midnight ball-dropping nonsense. It was so nice and quiet sleeping in my cozy bed. I should do that EVERY year!!!

And No One Was Injured

Last night was a fun night for me. I managed to not stay in my room all night, as is my usual Saturday night activity. Instead I went to my friend Erik's apartment and we did nice wholesome things like throwing desk parts out of windows, watching South Park, eating marshmallows and coconut cake, and making candles. Does it sound much more interesting than sitting home alone knitting socks all night? I think so.

Candle making is a rather lengthy process. This was the lesson we learned last night at Erik's. He wanted to try his hand at making candles and I wanted to not be bored, so sometime around 10:00 PM, we began. (On a bit of a side note, do not begin your candle making adventure late at night. Trust me, it's better to start early) First, we melted the wax in a makeshift double boiler, using a large thermometer to make sure we had the proper temperature. The instructions were quite clear that we shouldn't let the wax exceed a temperature of more than 225 degrees Fahrenheit, lest we risk flames or explosions. And who would want to cause one's own apartment to explode? No one, that's who.

Next, we performed the first pouring of the wax. The wax is poured into the whatever mold is being used and the wicks are then set in. The random game of pick-up sticks at the right is really just to keep the wicks from falling entirely into the wax. Balancing the wicks and the sticks in a manner that would stay in place was by far the biggest pain in the ass of the whole process. After the candles set, it was smooth sailing for the subsequent pourings as far as the wicks were concerned.

After the wax set for about half an hour, we reheated the wax for the second pouring. This was similar to the first pouring, except less wax was used and those pesky wicks were already in place, making it so much easier than the first time around. As the wax cooled (this time for two hours), a deep well formed in the middle of the candles. This is the best shot of the wells I could get. Somehow, I failed to take a picture of the finished product...just imagine the well filled in and the wick sticking out like it's supposed to and you'll have a good idea of how the finished candle looks.

And here is Sir Erik displaying an object that was once granulated wax and was transformed into a thing of usefulness. He looks kind of mystical there, holding a ball of fire. I got several shots of him looking as if he's conjuring the element, but this one was the first and my favorite of the bunch. His casual demeanor belies the excitement he'd previously expressed about transforming raw materials into something that can be used. He was thrilled at the concept. I told him I felt the same way the first time I made a pair of mittens.

Buffy-fest

I learned today that I can knit approximately 50 rounds on a sock whilst watching a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon of my own making (it's good to have every season on DVD). I started with the last few decrease rounds of the heel gusset and ended with the fortieth round on the foot, which is only a few rounds away from the beginning of the toe decreases. The photo shows where I was when I started knitting today. It's the back of the sock, so it's a little tough to see that it's in the mid-stages of heel gusset construction. Soon, very soon, I shall have a new pair of socks to keep my squat little peasant feet warm. I can't wait.

Note: The yarn used is Wildfoote Luxury Sock Yarn by Brown Sheep in the "colorway" Brilliant Bouquet. It's not easy to tell (even on the larger version of the picture), but it's a 4-ply yarn and each ply is a different color: red, green, blue and purple. It's this stranded coloration that makes me somewhat hesitant to call it a colorway, as that word implies some sort of variegation created in the dyeing process, not the spinning process. Whatever it should be called, the picture belies the fact that it gives a fantastic color effect with very subtle color pooling of the strands, similar to, but a bit different than the typical variegated yarn.

Slacker

Yes, I'm a total slacker. I never blogged last night. I was way too tired to even think, let alone write. Oh well...I'm sure the internet did fine without me.

I'm rather annoyed right now. I've been reading a book (which will remain nameless) for nearly a month now. Normally, it does not take me this long to read a book unless it's uninteresting, exceedingly long or I have no time to read other than a minute or two here and there. This book is fairly short, fairly interesting and I've had enough time that I should've finished it by now. The problem I'm having with this book is twofold: First, I really want to start reading the book my friend gave me for Christmas; second, while the book is interesting, it strays far off its proposed topic. It's a non-fiction book concerning Eastern philosophy. I'm intrigued by Eastern philosophical ideas (namely Taoism) and thought it would be a good book to get my feet wet, as it were. However, instead of focusing on Taoism, the author uses the book as a soapbox from which he spews forth his own socio-ecological-political philosophies and beliefs. I don't mind reading that type of material, but for the love of all that is holy the man needed to NOT write it under the ruse of Taoist ideas. In the beginning of the book, the principles mentioned and examples used did mesh rather well. Yet less than a third of the way through, the author started going so far off-topic with whatever aspect of the human race that was pissing him off at the moment that it made little to no sense when he finally did circle back to the subject of the chapter. I mean really, if I'd wanted to hear about how the government sucks or how we're raping the natural world, etc., I'd talk to some of my neo-hippie friends or go to Ithaca or something. I really wanted to read a book that would help introduce me to Taoism, not a 257-page rant about how much the Republican administration of the eighties and early nineties sucked....TELL ME SOMETHING I DON'T KNOW!!! I guess I'm going to have to find something else to slake my learning thirst.

The Day After...

I'm so glad it's all over for this year. All the Christmas bullshit can wait for 365 more days (yes, it's 365 because 2008 is a leap year) before I'm forced to worry about it again. I'm so excited about the prospect of no more holiday stress. The day went well and I had a good time, but it's nice that it's finally over with. I did get the one thing I asked for, which was digital camera so I can post pictures here and elsewhere online...those pictures will be coming soon once I learn how to use the stupid thing. I'm getting there, it's just difficult for me to use technology. I prefer my cameras to use FILM not MEMORY CARDS. However, it is more efficient to post photos online with a digital rather than a standard camera, so I finally relented and joined the 21st century. Other than that one thing I asked for, all my other gifts were quite lovely. I received a very pretty sweater, a bath set and bag, socks, pajamas, a manicure set and several other things that I know I will enjoy immensely. My main joy of Christmas, though, is when my family likes the gifts I've given them. Everyone liked their gifts this year and I couldn't be more happy with that. My brother LOVED his Johnny Cash T-shirt and my mom thought the giraffe picture I got her was beautiful. My dad is sure to enjoy his Hickory Farms box of tasty goodness and my grandmother was tickled with her hand-knit dishcloths and the berry candle I gave her. All stupid, rampant holiday greed and gluttony aside, I did have a nice Christmas.

Finally

It's 11:40 PM and I've finally finished the knitting I set out to do for Christmas. All that's left is some end-weaving and I'm completely done with the gifts. I've decided that it can wait until tomorrow. As it's late and I must get to bed, I'll cut this extremely short and leave you with one question: If holiday fruitcakes are so reviled, why do manufacturers keep producing them? I mean, does anybody eat really eat them? Ok, it was more than one question, but I'd still like answers. Until (possibly) Wednesday, that's all for now.

And So It Begins...

Noise, noise, noise. All I hear is early Christmas noise. My sister and her family are in town this weekend from Carlisle, PA for their holiday time with us. I don't know who is louder, the adults or the two toddlers. It's ok, though, as I love seeing my little nephews. Anthony (4) and Noah (2) are very cool little dudes. They were very excited to open presents, not caring whose presents they were opening. The MagnaDoodle was a big hit, as were the various "Cars" toys. Now, though, they have forsaken those lovely new toys to watch their father play with the huge remote control Hummer my brother gave him. I won't get into what I got from them, as it's not interesting to anyone but myself. All in all, it's a hectic and kind of nice time right now. And this is yet another wee short blog for my one lonely reader. Sorry, dude.

Tori

"Gas lights glowing in the streets, twilight held us in her palm as we walked along." ~from Gold Dust by Tori Amos.

"A soul-quake happened here in a glass world. Particle by particle she slowly changes." ~from Concertina by Tori Amos

I daresay, these are two of my favorite lyrics by Tori Amos. There are many great ones to choose from, but the two above strike me as particularly special. The woman is a lyrical painter.

Dumb

As our most greedy and gluttonous of holidays creeps ever closer, only one thing seems to be running through my mind: I picked a really dumb time to quit smoking. The stress of Christmas is increasing as the day nears. All I want is a nice, tasty Camel Light. Ah, sweet nicotine, how I've missed you this past month since I left you for pinker lungs. I really should've written down the day I quit, so I can have a monthly anniversary. I think it was November 20. I miss the stress-relief smoking provided. However, I don't miss the stinky breath, the stinky hair, the random burns because I'm clumsy, or the general shitty feeling I had when I was smoking. I don't miss getting smoke up my nostrils or in my eye when lighting up, nor do I miss having the smell stay on my hands long after I put the cigarette out. What I don't miss clearly outweighs what I do miss, so I know it's been a good thing. But sometimes all I really want to do is have a smoke.

Anyhoodle, back to Christmas bullshit. I can't wait til it's all over and I can relax. I daresay, it's driving me completely mad. I must read go read other blogs that are much more amusing than this one. Of course, it won't make this post any longer than the meager few sentence it is, but it will distract me from my Yuletide issues. Goddamn, I hate Christmas.

Saddened (A Wee Short Blog)

I was driving home from work, listening to songs from Tori Amos' Scarlet's Walk. "Strange" came on shortly before I turned onto my road and I was listening and singing along as I always do. The lyrics made me think about one of my exes and how unimportant I was to him. It made me sad...I cried a little. He made such an effort to "catch" me and it still hurts that he made no effort to keep me. I felt like I was just playing the part of his girlfriend instead of actually being his girlfriend. Oh well, that's over now. It'll all be ok...it has to be. :)

More Eventful Than Yesterday

This morning was interesting. I got up at the normal time, did my normal morning activities, went out to my car and there it was--a nearly flat tire. Eep! Luckily, my uncle was over at the garage he and my dad share (and in which an air compressor resides). So, I very slowly drove over the snow- and ice-covered driveway to the garage and asked my dear uncle to save me. He laughingly obliged, slightly over-filling my tire so that I could make it to work. I thanked him profusely and was on my merry way.

Things were going great until after I had turned onto Clemens Center Parkway. For those not familiar with the parkway, it is a four-lane roadway that cuts through Elmira. One can get almost anywhere in the greater Elmira area via the parkway. My destination from the parkway was, as it is every day, the highway. I had turned onto the parkway and was going along in the right hand lane and was nearing the traffic light on Cedar Street. Suddenly, this woman in a silver-ish Nissan starts veering from the left hand lane into my lane. The bitch didn't even bother to look and see if anyone was in the lane before she changed lanes and nearly side-swiped my car. Had my reflexes not been so quick, I'd probably be in the hospital right now because the back end of her car would've hit directly on my driver side door. So I beeped my horn, flipped her off and mouthed the words "learn how to fucking drive, bitch," which she saw because she kept looking in her rear view to see my reaction. Then, after witnessing my reaction to her piss-poor driving, she had the nerve to give me dirty looks. She acted like I was the person driving like an ass and she seemed more annoyed with me than I was with her. I mean really, do you think it's appropriate for a person to get more annoyed with someone else's reaction when you've just nearly totalled their car because you were too busy not paying attention to notice a whole entire vehicle in the other lane than the person who was nearly hurt in the first place? I don't think so. Well, I got past her after the light and again went on my merry way until I realized that the bitch was following me. Oh great, now I had to deal with an idiot road-rager on the way to work. Happily, when I arrived at my destination (the highway), she managed to (safely) get into the left hand lane and went ahead of me. Well, she was keeping pace with one of the more irritatingly slow vehicles in my lane as if to stick it to me by being a lane-clogger. Whatever, she was ahead of me and I didn't have to worry about her rear-ending me or trying to run me off the road. I got to work a few minutes late (due to flat tires and lane-cloggers), but I was happy to be in one piece.

Work was work. It was about the same as yesterday, only time seemed to move more slowly today. I called my very awesome dad shortly after I got there to inform him of the issue with my tire. He told me to drop it off at his workplace and swap vehicles, or call him if my tire was flat again. Finally, 5:00 rolled around and I was able to clock out and go home. Yeah, I wasn't quite as able as I thought because the tire was FLAT AGAIN!!!!! Goddamn! I called Dad again and about 40 minutes later, I was rescued for the second time today. Dad brought a portable air compressor thing and filled my tire enough so he could take the car back with him and fix my tire. I took his big truck and finally got home an hour and a half after I clocked out of work. I'm not complaining about being home so late from work, though. My dad's going to be later than normal because of my stupid tire. And because he's the best, coolest dad in the entire universe. I'm really lucky to have such a handy father who loves me so much.

That was my day.

BO-RING!!!

My life lacks excitement right now. My days consist of work, internet, knitting and sleep. Wow!!!! I'm a barrel of laughs for the entire family!!!

While the general blandness of my life is perfectly fine for me, it makes for very, very little blog fodder. I don't write about work and even if I did write about work, there's nothing fun or interesting going on there. The only interest there comes from me wondering who my secret Santa is and really, that can only take a girl just so far. I can't even write about what I'm knitting as even my knitting is boring. It's all garter stitch washcloths and socks (though I really can't fault the socks...socks are ALWAYS fun). For the sake of cheap Christmas gifts, I'm making my grandmothers both some washcloths out of cotton I already had. Not even the yarn is exciting! I had to put the plain sock aside to make the aforementioned cotton nonsense, so I can't even break the monotony with a heel turn or a toe decrease. GRRR!!! All my exciting knitting is taking a back seat to the knitter's version of a lobotomy.

Still, I'm writing a little something. This is mostly because I really need to write on something that isn't on MySpace. I also decided that I really need to write more here because it's a waste of space otherwise (and no one else should be able to take my MinxyLand name due to me deleting all the shit I've written here). Also, I figure that if The Professor can blog to keep himself on track with his dissertation, I can certainly blog for the hell of it. Using his reasoning for blogging to keep the proverbial fire under his ass (haha, I almost quoted him perfectly on that), knowing that someone is reading this does indeed help with keeping posts going. They may not be much, but I'm thinking that the more I write, the better I'll be at coming up with topics. The topics themselves may not be interesting or at all relevant, but I say fuck it. I have one reader and I don't think he'll mind if my blogs suck.

Snow Day

Tufts of lovely white snow cover the porch, the lawn, the hill across the road. The bare trees now are half-covered in a layer of frozen goodness. This is why I love winter--the utter beauty in leafless trees and dead lawns being concealed by wonderful snow. It's as if nature is telling us to look at something new and brilliant while the plants rest for the season.

I love snow and cold weather. Most people think me insane when I say that I love those two things. Snow they usually understand, because it's pretty. It's the cold that makes people wonder about me. So I tell them that I suppose I'd almost be required to at least like cold weather as there can't be snow without cold. Otherwise it'd just be rain and while I like most forms of precipitation, there's something special about snow. It's fluffy, fun and fantastic. But, alliteration aside, snow is a link to a happy time in my life: Christmas vacation and snow days.

Winter days off from school were always a favorite of mine. My sister and I (and my brother when he was old enough) would suit up in our snow gear and play for hours outside. Lop-sided snowmen, snowball fights and even a doomed-to-failure igloo were among our many chilly exploits. The coldness never bothered me. Truth be told, I enjoyed the crisp feeling of below-freezing air in my nose and lungs. I could've stayed outside forever back then, but Mom wouldn't let us. She seemed to think that food was a good thing for growing children, so she made us come inside for lunch or dinner. (That was my other favorite part of snow days, going into the warm house after playing in the cold snow. Both activities were equally exhilarating to me.) So we'd go inside, hanging up our snow pants and coats, laying our snow-crusted mittens and hats next to the wood stove to dry in the warmth. Mom would have sandwiches or soup waiting for us. These are the things I think of when it's cold and snowy. Winter has always made me happy.