And now for the gratitude

First, thank you to everyone that commented on my quitting smoking post. I really appreciate the support, encouragement and advice! I will be revisiting those comments come January.

As evidenced by the lack of blogging and, uh, any other form of communication, I've been a little busy since that last post. But I did finish the semester. My last semester of library school. Ever.

Which means I am officially a master's degree-holding librarian! Or will be in January, when the degree is actually conferred. In the interim, addressing me as Master is optional, but encouraged.

I didn't knit much at the end of the semester, but I did finish a pair of socks last month.



Basic stockinette, the usual recipe, details Raveled. Pretty, pretty, pretty.

I've got some double secret gift knitting to show off, too. And some pretty new yarn. Coming soon...

We interrupt the planned expression of gratitude

For cheese. Lots and lots of cheese: Valencay, Stichelton, Calcagno, Cappucetto Rosso and Captein Gouda.



My friend Bryan just gave me this for my birthday. With the most excellent advice of BFF Quinn's friend Siri (cheese pusher extraordinaire), he picked out some of the best damn cheese I've ever tasted. And I've tasted a LOT of cheese.

I can't even begin to say how awesome this is. Thank you!

Edited to add - This is the same Bryan I had this conversation with on Friday:

Me (extraordinarily excited about the arrival of X-Files Season 1 at my apartment): Guess what I got today!?!?

Him: A vampire movie? A zombie movie?

Me: Better.

Him: Yarn? No, yarn, DELIVERED by a zombie?

He knows me so well...

On quitting

I am by nature somewhat anxious. I agonize over important decisions, and unimportant ones. I worry about stupid things I said or did. Or things I haven’t done yet. I have trouble sleeping. Etc.

Stress management literature suggests various behaviors to help deal with these feelings of anxiety – deep breaths, calling a friend, going for a walk. Since none of these suggestions have been AT ALL effective for me, I once asked a friend for his suggestions. He answered: drink, smoke and eat. Heh. I can do that!

But as I’ve gotten older, the appeal of drinking has begun to wane (somewhat). And I found that I genuinely enjoy eating healthy, mostly natural foods in smaller quantities. So that just leaves smoking.

And sweet Jesus, do I love smoking.

I love that it distracts me, that it gives me something to do with my hands, that it soothes me, that it breaks up every work day with a much-needed excuse to step away from my desk. I love the aura of danger and reckless self-neglect and frank stupidity that surrounds it. I love lighters and ashtrays and the way a cigarette looks between my fingers. I love the way smoke curls up from my hand and my lips. And the tingling warmth that spreads through me when I take that first drag in the morning.

But as much as I love smoking, it doesn’t love me back. When I started smoking, cigarettes were less than $3 a pack. Not anymore. A $7 pack a day is a staggeringly beautiful skein of yarn in the first week. It’s a hot pair of boots in the first month. It’s a tropical vacation at the end of a year.

And quitting smoking means I probably won’t get bronchitis twice a year. It means I won't have to huddle outside on a frigid day, clutching a cigarette between numb fingers. The constant smoker's hack will dissipate. If I quit now I probably won’t get what I – charmingly – refer to as “puckery butt mouth.” It means the backs of my teeth won’t be stained brown within weeks of each dentist visit. My sense of taste and smell will improve (imagine if bacon could taste EVEN BETTER!!).

And most importantly, it means I’m much less likely to get cancer and die.

So for all these reasons, I am quitting. My quit date is January 8, 2009.

Wish me luck.

This ain't your MA's Wool Festival

Whoa. I've been to MA Sheep and Wool a few times now, so I thought I was kind of prepared for Rhinebeck. I was not prepared.

I was in fact dazed and overwhelmed by the number of vendors, the lines, the sheer number of people. And the yarn. Good god, the yarn. I think the yarn haze explains why I spent two days there and emerged with almost no pictures. And why it's taken me almost a week to write something semi-coherent about it.



My knittahs Jenny and Sarah were most excellent company on the trip, and not just because they can always be counted on to say "Yes, you DO deserve that hand-dyed sock yarn!!" Though that didn't hurt.

So what did we do in NY, besides buy yarn?

I watched Jenny entrance passersby with her spinning. I know she convinced at least one person to buy a spindle (or as I think of it, lured another member into the coven).



We stood in line for an hour to buy Socks that Rock. Turns out, knitters make excellent company. Best damn line I've ever stood in. And well worth it for these pretties...



We saw a lot of bloggers.... I completely forgot that reading each other's blogs does not actually mean I know someone in real life and totally hugged Kristy of Eleven Stitches when I ran into her on Saturday. Sorry about that. Your Venezia really was stunning.

We ate next to Franklin Habit at a diner. We stalked the Yarn Harlot. I felt kind of bad when she totally busted me right after I Kinneared her...



Until I saw this picture on Ravelry. Heh.

We enjoyed ourselves immensely at the Ravelry party, where we scored goody bags, free beer AND a sweet spot in the heated tents with the always-charming Susan of Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm, and her equally charming family.



We ate a whole lot of greasy food...



And I even did a little knitting...



I have the second sock about halfway done and I'd like to finish it before I start something else.

But damn, all that pretty new sock yarn is calling to me...

Guess what I did tonight?

Yup - had fun with Photoshop...AND...more importantly...

...took crappy pictures of the Yarn Harlot...





Jealous?

The wrong week to quit sniffing glue

So this week kind of blew in a lot of ways. And I’m missing out on both a friend’s pig roast and a blog fodder GOLDMINE (aka the Salem zombie parade) this weekend because I have too much to do (I realize that blogging doesn't help with the "too much to do" problem).

Plus, I keep whacking into things (while sober, thankyouverymuch), so I’m covered in large multi-colored bruises. I’ve decided to consider them a festive dash of contrasting color rather than a clear sign that I’m a little jammed up and distracted because of it.

But enough bitching. Let’s talk about knitting. Specifically, holy fuck it’s Socktoberfest!! I love Socktoberfest! My favorite time of year in New England AND a gazillion knitters making socks and talking about socks and posting lovely pictures of socks.

And I just happen to have started the most perfectly fall-liscious sock…



The usual – basic stockinette, 72 stitch cast-on, Meilenweit Megaboots Stretch, size 2 needles. But do you see those colors? Mmmm…


And I’m only a tiny bit bitter that October is stupid busy this year...Because since classes have been cutting into my knitting time, it seems only fair that knitting should start cutting into my class time. There are at least two other sock knitters in my Collection Development class (including this blogger), and they've been happily knitting away through the lectures and discussions. So finally I just started knitting too.

Sweeeeet...Three solid, blissful hours of sock knitting every week…

And, uh, learning. Lots and lots of important learning.

It's not lurking

...at least not according to Knowledge Management jargon.

In KM, lurking is called "legitimate peripheral participation." Which kind of begs the question: exactly what would constitute "illegitimate" peripheral participation?

In any case, my classes this semester are taking up a lot of valuable knitting and blogging time, and the work/school schedule looks pretty brutal through the end of October.

So if it seems like I'm not posting as frequently or not commenting over the next few weeks, just remember, I'm still participating in the knitblog community.

Just, you know, peripherally.