knitcrit

end of semester, end of year

2011-12-13T20:35:00.010-05:00

The semester is over and the grading is FINALLY done - I'll miss one class terribly and have kind of already forgotten about the other two. This is the first semester where I've really felt strange and sad about the distance I feel from most of my students. I guess I should say that exceptional or otherwise lovely students make an impression on me and I am quite invested in them and their learning progress, but for most students - and especially the "do I have to bring the reading to class?" type students in my 1001-level introduction course - I no longer feel the burning need to be the after-school-special heroic educator who Makes A Difference in their lives. Which is not to say that I am not doing my best - I am - but at the same time I am no longer spending the entire subway ride home obsessing over what I should have done differently to Better Reach Them. I have a child, a husband, and the desire to occasionally connect with friends and/or do some reading or writing in my "area of expertise." This leave limited resources available for going into teaching overtime.

Let's see - in other news, I'm on a search committee for a new hire in our department and I have to say that I have been pretty stunned and saddened by the extent to which identity politics seem to have shaped the attitudes of my committee members. Good lord. Probably I shouldn't say too much here, but it's depressing. We had almost 400 applicants for the position.

I had a book launch on December 9th. I was dreading it primarily because I was sure no one would come, but as it turns out the (small) room was full and several of my dear teachers as well as the colleagues I like the most showed up, so that was cheery. On the whole, I guess the talk I gave went well, which is to say I do not look back on it and feel full of regret.

Knitting content: the Maile sweater I made for a friend's dumpling-adorable little girl has finally been gifted, and therefore can be posted here:

Gah. SO cute.

I no longer have the capacity to note yarn type or needle size or much of anything other than I knit this in a worsted and it came out in the 3-6 month range, which was pretty much what I had hoped for. I had it on about 15 dpns to deal with the sleeve construction, but after about four rows the sweater had advanced far enough beyond the armpits to work on a circular again, so even with that pain in the neck, it was a pretty simple and satisfying knit with great results.

I've been thinking a lot about archiving - there's no shortage of digital mediums available to make me feel bad about not recording these early years of my life with db, and I have at least done a great job keeping an organized and well-edited photo series of her (and her parents) over on Flickr. What feels most attractive to me lately, though, is keeping a simple, handwritten diary. I think - because of my job - I associate the keyboard with a standard and type of writing that keeps me from using this blog as a record of db's early years, but a simple paper notebook might feel like a place I can write whatever comes to mind - and I could keep up with images over on flickr. Which is not to say that knitcrit is closing up shop - I love this blog even if I don't have much time for it of late. I just think there might be something to writing simply on paper. Let's see what happens.

And there you have it - the last post before the new year!

ETA: One of knitcrit's elite group of readers who also happens to live with her just read the above post and yelled "No knitcrit! Don't go!" Knitcrit would like to reiterate that she isn't going anywhere - and she even aspires to more than six posts and three knitting projects in 2012 since that is the year that she gets tenure. Oh yeah, baby.

Of posting and preschools

2011-10-23T19:39:00.008-04:00

I have been thinking about what keeps me from updating this blog. There are the usual answers: too much work, exhaustion, perfectionism, laziness. But I also think it's because I named it knitcrit and despite meditations to the contrary, I have it in my head that posts should include some knitting content.

If I had time, I would knit a sweater for a New Zealand penguin.

So, there's some knitting content! Moving on.

Oh - wait - more knitting content: I went to Rhinebeck this year, and I am sorry to say that IMHO (as they say) it is a tad overrated. All those idyllic photos over on Ravelry are a little misleading. Yeah, there's a lot of yarn and it's kind of fun to move through the crowd knowing who the knitting stars are and the names for the many knit-especially-for-Rhinebeck sweaters, scarves and hats, but in the end, it's supposed to be about the fiber, and I guess since I live in NYC, it's not too hard to get my hands on a wide range of yarn, and that makes the stuff on offer at Rhinebeck underwhelming. As Todd observed, Rhinebeck is really all about the fleece. He's right, I think - there were some serious piles of seriously beautiful wool for sale. And actually, there was a pretty high entertainment value in seeing how interested Todd got in the fleece rating system. Maybe all the estrogen in the home is finally getting to him.

And of course it is is always fun to see sheep, alpacas, and llamas. Db loved the angora rabbits, and we all loved watching the sheep competition. Real suspense and drama there, let me tell you. And I clearly suck at sheep evaluation, as all of my favorites were eliminated almost right off the bat.

Possibly the main reason I found the whole thing a tad overrated was simply because we went there with db and it took two hours to get there and over three to get home thanks to a huge traffic jam in Sleepy Hollow caused by some annual Halloween festival that shut down the center of town. So it was five hours of driving, three of it with a toddler who had not napped at all. That's enough to dim the glow of even the cutest alpaca.

Let's see. Other reasons for failure to post have to do with awareness of audience and fear of writing something prosaic and lame. Since the trip to India but maybe even before that, writing has not seemed natural to me. This is a big deal. For years I prided myself on writing, wrote reams for fun, liked to think that my writing was humorous and smart, loved the process of putting my thoughts in words. Maybe it was the book. That's a pretty good narrative, eh? The book killed my passion for writing! Does that happen?

And yes, I am certainly busy, but no more busy than a lot of friends who still manage to maintain humorous, wise, inspiring, informative, and/or entertaining blogs.

There is also the fear that even though I don't use my name other easily google-able information, some terrible ex-boyfriend or current student will find this blog. The thought of that is enough to make me step away from the keyboard.

And something has happened with my laptop's fan so that most of the time when I sit down to write, I'm serenaded by a raspy whirring noise that gets louder and quieter at random intervals but never goes away. Plans are afoot to replace the laptop, but it's slow going and in the meantime every minute I don't have to spend feeling like I'm typing directly behind a jet engine, the better.

Plus, since having db, my capacity for ironic commentary has taken a serious nosedive. Knitcrit has nothing to critique. Db is so...um...perfect. I love her to distraction. Often all I feel capable of doing is posting a bunch of photos of her without comment, because what can one say, really? She's just so awesome. Except of course when she isn't - but when I've had it with her, I am much more interested in watching something from Netflix than exorcising demons through the production of cathartic prose. Plus I think sitting around assisting in the construction of block towers and reading Dr. DeSoto a billion times in a row has done a lot to take away any edge I might have once had.

We started the preschool application process. It's not quite as bad as Nursery University would have you believe, but that's probably because we're not applying to any of the really exclusive preschools - like the one run by Barnard, for example, which had a website so backwards and full of hoops that we gave up on it pretty early on, only to learn later this year that it's the chosen preschool for Sarah Jessica Parker's progeny, which explains a lot.

No, for us it's just the normal Upper West Side preschool process, which means we've applied to five - or is it six? - schools. FYI: you are "supposed to" apply to at least 10. Because what if you don't get in to your first six choices?

Application fees to date: $400. Oh, yes. We went to our first parent orientation and as I sat there listening to the (relatively speaking) likable director of the preschool discussing how they are not like other preschools because they really do believe in a play-based curriculum I couldn't help but feel panicked and annoyed at the same time. Panicked because in many ways this preschool is my first choice because it gives the most time for the tuition dollars and annoyed because all the parents there were doing their absolute best to exude a "we're not like all those crazy Manhattan parents" vibe when in fact I know that if it came right down to it, they would climb over the cold, lifeless body of my daughter if it lay between them and admission to, say, PS 9 or Trinity.

We could, of course, leave Manhattan. Though of course since we had to move this summer and spent about $4,000 to do so, that might not be the best choice right now. Plus I haven't really driven a car since 1995. And I don't know how to operate a gas pump. And being in the cavernous emptiness of the suburbs makes me feel like the rapture has happened and I didn't make the cut or I have somehow, perhaps owing to some genetic quirk, managed to survive the detonation of a neutron bomb. And db loves going to our local sushi restaurant so much.

Maybe everything will work out and db will get in to one of the preschools. Or maybe my mother is right and we shouldn't be sending her to preschool until she's four. As she said to me on the phone the other day, "You didn't go to preschool!" I think the implication there was I turned out fine, which is I think the closest my mother has ever come to voluntarily complimenting me.

So that's a positive note to end on. Post!

Archie goes to India

2011-09-08T21:00:00.012-04:00

Classes started before Labor Day - one of the less charming things about my school - and after five or six or however may years it has been at this point, I sort of feel like things are under control. Which of course prompts simultaneous feelings of guilt and boredom, because I apparently somehow still don't know how do be a normal adult.

Some good friends recently had their second child - a boy - and I managed to finish an Archie Vest for him the day before he left (with mom, dad, and big brother) for nine months in India. It gets cold in northern India and stunningly loud vests are a special part of the Indian male's wardrobe - a yarn seemingly made entirely of sparkly plastic plastic "fiber" was especially popular last winter. I thought Archie evoked these subcontinental masterpieces while still managing to be wearable.

My swatch was knit to gauge but goodness gracious, blocking increased the size significantly - I knit it for 6 months and I'd say it's an 18 month size now.

I knit it in the round until the armpits and added the buttons at the shoulder because folks on Ravelry noted that the neck opening was quite small. I think I used Artyarns superwash sock yarn, but honestly I don't remember and in the rush to finish it labels were misplaced. Oh well. I loved knitting it but I'm not doing anything in such a small gauge again until after I get tenure.

A particularly - exceptionally, actually - gifted employee at M & J Trimmings helped me find the buttons. I think they are perfect.

Let's see. I've wanted to use this blog as a place to record charming moments with db. She's two now, and generally incredibly fun.

Todd and I agreed that today she woke up from her nap it seemed that her language abilities had taken another leap.

For the first time, db used "I love" without prompting - it was quite sweet to see, even though the recipient was her toy giraffe, who she hugged as she made her declaration.

When classes started and she saw that I was leaving for the day, db grabbed one of her Hindi-English books and requested that I read it, referring to it by the Hindi title rather than the English one. She normally requests these books using the English title, so the clever girl had strategized that if she requested the Hindi version, Mama would not leave since Dada can't read Hindi.

And so much more! But I am tired from a long day of teaching - obviously, given the not overly polished prose - and must sleep.

Moving on, in, up

2011-07-01T21:13:00.010-04:00

Cousin Liz had a girl a few weeks ago, and after I finished turning in grades for the Worst Semester Ever and Todd and I signed a lease for a new place that we found through the Worst Real Estate Agent Ever, I got to work. It's a six month size and wow, a tiny sweater in Malabrigo worsted superwash flies off the needles. Malabrigo's superwash is amazing - I kind of don't believe it's a superwash.

The pattern is a Ravelry freebee called Striped Smock Top. Clearly the designer focuses her creativity on pattern writing rather than naming. Donna at the yarn store rightfully talked me into buying the yellow yarn.

It still needs a button. The orange and red were leftovers from two aviator caps that I knit for friends who just had twin girls. We visited them last weekend and I don't know what was more exhausting - the simple thought of twins or keeping db calm for the last hour of the car ride back to the city. To be fair, db is remarkably easy for an almost two-year-old: she flips through mountains of books, "reading" them out loud; imagination play with toys and stuffed animals can go on for a very long time. Even saint-like hopefully genius children have their limits, though, and db's carseat maximum is about two hours. Not bad for a city kid who is so unaccustomed to cars that she now thinks that they exist solely to go to the beach, since all five car trips we've taken since arriving back in the states have been to the ocean or homes with pools or by rivers.

And I say "hopefully genius" because without a scholarship or a high score on the so-called "gifted and talented" exam, her mom and dad really are going to have to move to New Jersey.

Speaking of maxing out carseat time, one of the beach trips was to visit a friend in Montauk. In theory this was a good idea; in practice the heavens opened the moment we arrived. We sort of managed to get to the beach in between storm fronts, but it was so cold db wore her rashguard over pants and a shirt and we had to keep her from getting hypothermia splashing around in the surf. And then on the drive home we hit rush hour traffic going into NYC and the fried clams I ate immediately prior to departure began to disagree with me violently and the only thing that seemed to keep db calm was a recording of sweet old songs that Woody Guthrie composed for his children. I think we listened to the album at least 15 times in a row. Every time I thought I couldn't take it anymore I would ask myself if another round of "I want my milk and I want it now" was better than the cries of an understandably sick of the car toddler and of course we all know the answer to that question.

On the brighter side, I am kind of excited about our new apartment. It has a dishwasher and a third bedroom that we'll be using as a home office. If I think about it, the fact that these two features make me happy suggests that I have finally developed a terminal case of adulthood.

But on the brightest of the bright sides, my editor wrote to me today saying my book is in. My. book. is. in. It's on Amazon! Look at it. Tenure incarnate. Eight years later, my book:

And for the record, that lady on the cover is not dead. She just looks dead. Read the book to find out more.

She's alive!

2011-05-13T20:19:00.006-04:00

This happens with blogs. The long hiatus, often followed by a lengthy (or mercifully brief) explanatory confession to the blog gods, complete with reasons for absence and oaths/promises/best laid plans to never, never, never let things go for so long again.

Basically, we got back from India and ended up hospitalized for food poisoning. Thanks very much, Continental Airlines. Five months in India without so much as a single funky day in the bathroom, and then some suspect overcooked eggs at 35,000 feet and eight hours later, after the drama of trying to find our prearranged car at the airport and a totally illegal and terrifying ride on the Jersey Turnpike with db on my lap, we got home and had about an hour before the uncontrollable barfing began. And then uncontrollable diarrhea. It was kind of like labor after the castor oil kicked in. But maybe worse because in this case there was an actual baby requiring care and after a few hours of this insanity, we were both unable to stand upright.

We called Todd's parents, who had actually come over to see us but left because I was so sick. I got sick about two hours before Todd, so I didn't know that they had left because I was retching in the bathroom. I don't really understand why their thought process was more along the lines of "daughter in law is desperately ill after 18 hour nonstop flight with one and a half year old. Must leave" rather than "daughter in law is desperately ill after 18 hour nonstop flight with one and a half year old and therefore likely could use some help." Actually, I do understand. It has a lot to do with the Chiropractic Lifestyle (tm) worldview, or as I like to call it, the church of the holy spine. Illness is in your head. Ignore it. It will go away. And if it doesn't and you die, you won't be around to call attention to the fundamental insanity and lack of humanity inherent in such a worldview.

So we called them for help, twice, and they basically said stop whining, have some tea and get a better attitude about the dry heaving. In fact, you are not really dry heaving. So we called my mom, who while crazy in her own way, definitely understands that both parents being unable to stand up is a Situation, and she immediately got in the car and drove down to the city to take care of db.

While waiting for the upstate cavalry to arrive, we were lucky enough to get some help from Laura, our pre-India babysitter. It was Laura who took me to the ER and later, after Todd passed out on the way to the bathroom, it was Laura who called the ambulance that brought him to the ER. Why hadn't Todd sought help sooner? Well, it would seem that while you can check out of the Church of the Holy Spine, you can never leave. Practically speaking, this means that you will keep saying you are fine (in between dry heaves or crawls to the bathroom) until you wake up strapped to a stretcher.

Todd and I got to share the same room in the ER, side by side on his and hers drips. It was lovely. Depending on the kind of person you are, the ER room in an NYC hospital will either destroy or restore your faith in humanity.

Anyway, we were eventually discharged and we spent the next two weeks trying to get over jetlag (so much harder with jetlagged toddler), unpack, and get ready for what turned out to be the worst semester I've ever had not counting my first year of teaching, which is in a class by itself, or perhaps a class shared only by acute food poisoning after an 18-hour flight with a toddler.

Basically, 120 students is too many. Prior to this semester, I never had more than 60. So a smart professor would have maybe done away with some of the writing assignments. But that would not be me. As a result, I have been hopelesly behind since January, and until the spring semester ends this Wednesday, I do not anticipate catching up.

Plus - post for another time - the new owner of our building has been systematically not renewing leases in order to convert livable nice two bedroom apartments into illegal four bedroom apartment shares (8 x 10 bedrooms, anyone?), so in March we got our not unexpected letter saying get out at the end of May. I negotiated a slightly later move out date, but the stress of teaching plus page proofs plus having to move AGAIN caused hives and insomnia and general shittiness beyond my ability to convey in a single humble blog post.

On the bright side, db is now night weaned and sleeping in her own room.

So there hasn't been much spare time here, and much of my non-work time has been spent watching 30 Rock, The Wire, The Amazing Race, and (oh, the shame) Outsourced. Joss Whedon, save me! I did actually knit a Tiny Tea Leaves for db out of some brown Blue Sky Alpaca that I bought a long time ago and perhaps I will post pictures another day, now that I am apparently blogging again.

And yes, about the blog. It occurred to me recently that because I am busy, I have no record of my days other than iphone videos and photos and that most of the reason I haven't posted in so long was that this was supposed to be a knitting blog. Well, f*ck that. I could, I suppose, set up a "personal" blog and use it as a venue for long, photoless, humorless posts about My Life, but why have two blogs when one is more than I can handle?

Plus, there are about six friends' babies due this summer, so chances are pretty good there will be some knitting.

Staying warm

2011-01-04T11:43:00.012-05:00

Am I sorry to see 2010 go? I'm not sure. It's been a kick watching db become a little person, and my book, the product of so many years of work, is all over but the page proofs. Then again, these two very wonderful things also took a very serious piece out of my backside, and being in Delhi has been laughably, absurdly hard.

Knitting is happening again, amazingly. I saw Camilla on a blog and fell in sweater love for the first time in a long while, and as it happens I brought the silk/alpaca that was originally purchased for db's baby blanket with me. Held double, it makes gauge for the pattern, and about 1/3 of the way through the torso, I'm feeling very pleased with it. It's a fast knit, and with any luck, I'll be able to wear it home on the airplane.

I’m knitting it on 7 circulars that I managed to track down here in Delhi. I can't find the photo that I took of the receipt, but I wouldn't lie about something as serious as knitting needle prices. Everything else in Delhi may be ridiculously, infuriatingly overpriced, but I paid a whopping 58 rupees (TOTAL) for 5 pairs of circular needles. At 44 rupees to the US dollar, I think we can forgive them for not feeling quite as good as Addis.

It's freezing here in Delhi - not technically freezing, but close enough. In order to beat the cold, people burn coal in these little stoves that are generally made out of clay-lined metal buckets. A recent and all too rare foray into the world of field work resulted in one ball-busting grandma potter teaching me exactly how these small ovens are made. Here's a photo of us with our work.

I love that someone in Delhi will eventually purchase my little stove. Also, I would like to note that (1) the clay mixture we were using was 1/3 cow dung and (2) that the ball-busting grandma is so nicknamed because she spent much of the afternoon explaining to me that while it takes me a year of classroom instruction to teach my students anything, in less than 30 minutes she successfully taught me how to make a heating stove out of a bucket, some wires, and a big pile of clay.

The city is filled with simply amazing knitwear, much of which seems to have been extruded from the bowels of some large, hairy acrylic monster. On the bright side, a fair amount of baby knits are still done by hand, often with spectacular results. People here can be a little touchy about having their kids photographed (and maybe that’s true in America, too – I wouldn’t really know), but a few proud Indian knitters let me document their work. Some particularly sparkly store bought stuff is also included.

Also awesome: the handknit vest.

This is a typical specimen. Indian men are obviously very comfortable in their masculinity.

Noooooooooo

2010-11-23T11:18:00.008-05:00

This morning our lovely cook/nanny called us with some exciting news: her daughter-in-law, who lives with her, had a baby boy last night. We knew that a baby was coming, so this was not unexpected, although it was on early side. The surprise is that the baby had to be delivered by cesarean section, and that means that unless the maternal grandmother wants to stay with the in-laws and help out, we have lost childcare and cooking help for the next few weeks.

Hence the Noooooooooo.

The internet came back today after a week of server problems (apparently when the guy who deals with broadband goes on vacation, no one else at MTNL is capable of solving server problems), and I was wondering what the next crisis would be. Now I know. The most devastating part of this is the timing - I am supposed to finish proofing my copy edited manuscript by 1 December. Which basically means I am screwed.

Let's try to cheer ourselves up with some recent photos of everyday Indian absurdity, shall we?

But before '88 he was a really nice guy.

I guess we wouldn't want any vehicles running over those manhole covers.

And a recent photo of db - playing in our sort of probably clean enough local park, which is closed from 8 am to 6 pm. That's right. 8 am to 6 pm. Don't try to understand. Unless you want to go totally mad.

The Aviatrix hat is snug, but still wearable, and great for fending off intrepid end-of-season mosquitoes.

Hmmmm.

2010-11-09T10:48:00.003-05:00

Spotted in the Catholic bookstore in Connaught Place:

But if God is eternal, wouldn't all his knitting projects also be eternal, and wouldn't he therefore have to cast off forever?

ubersuckage

2010-10-23T11:57:00.005-04:00

Oh, the grumpiness.

On October 3rd, my birthday, we had some friends over for pizza and scotch (it was supposed to be pizza and beer, but whoops, liquor store is closed on Sunday despite the fact that Sunday is not the primary day of worship for about 99% of the Indian population) and made fun of the Opening Ceremony for the Commonwealth Games. Earlier that day, my big special birthday breakfast at the imperial hotel was ruined by a call from the nanny saying that she had just locked herself out of the house. Leaving db in the house. Alone. So one minute Todd was lovingly piling his plate full of cold cuts and I was ordering my omelet and the next minute we were running through the well-appointed, jasmine-scented hall, crying (me), yelling for a taxi (Todd). In the cab, the driver said to me "Madam, if god is good, then baby is okay." Which he probably thought was reassuring but which actually just made me cry harder.

As it turned out, our nanny Sunita, who had come specially on her day off because it was my birthday, got locked out because although there are SIX locks on our front door (post for another time: paranoia in Delhi), not one of them allows you to simply close the door without also locking it. Sunita went out the door to call down to the building super to send someone to buy onions (we were out of onions, again not her fault but mine because I was still figuring out the delivery system for what seems to be the only organic vegetable dealer in all of Delhi), and the door closed behind her. We only have one set of keys because that is all our snakey, distinctly unlovable landlord gave us, so we don’t have a spare for ourselves, let alone the Sunita.

So this would have been a huge disaster had Sunita not put db in her crib/playpen – just as she should have – right before going to request onions. Consequently, db was alone in the house, but she was safe in her playpen, incapable of pulling the TV on herself, eating the mothballs that one has to stick in the shower drains in India to discourage bugs, poking her eyes out with stray pencils, etc. But I did not know this until we got home.

So in the end, everything was okay, though we couldn’t go back to The Imperial because there was a special event at one of my field sites that I had to attend, and at that point there wasn’t really time to do anything other than head off to work.

Other highlights of the past month included me being laid flat on my back for about a week with a terrible cold followed by a frenzied house-hunting stint because about two weeks after we moved into this apartment they began renovations in several of the other apartments in our complex. This would be a nightmare anywhere, but in India, where all construction work is done by pickaxe-wielding, barefoot, malnourished villagers from Bihar, even a relatively simple construction project will become extremely loud and more or less eternal. Then we learned that an elevator would be installed and they started cutting marble for flooring behind the building and I flipped and spent a long, hot, miserable, pointless week riding around Delhi on the backs of various barely competent realtors’ motorcycles (sans helmet, of course) looking at a lot of unsuitable places, after which we got the hell out of Delhi for the Commonwealth Games and went to Mauritius via Dubai for ten days of blue skies and ocean.

There was a large stuffed tiger in our hotel room. We don't know why.

And now we are back. After a bit of soul-searching, we decided that sticking it out made the most sense, and so I bought a HEPA air filter to protect db from any construction dust that might make its way into the apartment, and here we are. The uberpisser is that my book’s copyedits came back and now I have to spend the next month going through them, making final decisions on how my book will appear to the world, which is daunting and exhilarating at the same time – and how I will manage to concentrate through all the construction noise is completely beyond me.

And to conclude this inarticulate whine, I can only marvel at how I have no motivation to do anything other than watch movies we download via bittorrent. I have two knitting projects with me, including one for a new baby boy who will outgrow said project within three months if I don’t get going, but I just can’t seem to care. Ditto for writing. I haven’t done yoga in two months, either: I have become a big, boring, constantly tired and unhappy blob. Here’s to hoping I rally sometime before January.

Delhi ate my brain and then pooped it into an open sewer

2010-09-25T11:04:00.004-04:00

Ah, Delhi. Who knew that you would be ravaged, wrecked and otherwise generally destroyed by the upcoming Commonwealth Games? It didn't have to be this way - with the right management, you are capable of producing wonders like the Delhi Metro: built on budget and on schedule, clean, fast, beautiful, air conditioned. But the Indian government has had seven - SEVEN, count 'em - years to get ready for the games and it's come to this: the entire central part of the city is a torn-up dengue-mosquito breeding construction site from hell and the games are a week away. Today in a rickshaw I passed one of the games venues and noticed that the games countdown clock had stopped working: it's possible the clock just broke, but it's equally possible that someone disabled it since at this point all it's doing is reminding everyone exactly how hopelessly behind schedule everything is.

I wish I could conjure up the energy to say more, but setting up a household in Delhi has basically rendered me catatonic, and all writing energy has been directed towards field notes. I considered setting up a blog for posting my field notes, but for now anyway I think that's a little more pressure than I need, given everything else.

No knitting has happened except the hour it took to put the finishing touches on this sweater, modeled by a walkin', talkin' ever-changing, ever-charming db. This was my first knitting kit: it was a gift from a friend and while I normally don't use variegated yarn, I am happy with the result. The yarn was, I think, misti alpaca sportweight 50 pima cotton/50 silk: nice to knit with amazing drape; it's also incredibly soft, and what I like most about it is usually a yarn this soft has pilling issues (Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, anyone?) but this one is wearing like iron. The pattern was Spring Garden Tee by Alana Dakos (aka Never Knot Knitting).

I hope I get my blogging grove back soon - I do genuinely love writing, but so much happens in a day here that I generally don't know where to start. That and after a while I find that speaking Hindi puts a real damper on English. Not that my Hindi is setting the world on fire, either. So basically I don't speak anything well at the moment.

Sleepless in Delhi

2010-08-17T22:34:00.004-04:00

Also photoless in Delhi because the little drive I use to connect my photo card to my mac is in New York and right now finding an apartment that won't kill my daughter is a slightly higher priority than finding a way to upload photos. The past two months have been mad: getting an Indian research visa ended up being the living, breathing, monstrous embodiment of the soul of Kafka, just beating out getting IRB approval for my research project for that title. Finding a subletter who would not pee on our sofa or sell Todd's DVD collection to support a crack habit was also time consuming, and then there was the small task of packing for a five-month trip to India with a one-year-old in mind. So much could be written, and will be written, but at the moment I've been up since 2:30 am local time (and it's now 8 local time) and I think I need to have some protein and drink a lot of tea in order to have any hope of making it through the day. Db and Todd are still asleep, as they were for pretty much the entire night. I guess I should just be glad that someone will be functional today.

And knitting has, remarkably, been happening, though not on the 14-hour flight from Newark to Delhi. I actually put some knitting in my carry on and didn't even think about it - much less touch it - for the entire flight. I am not sure why I thought I would be doing anything other than keeping db from climbing me and the seat and all the other passengers as though they were here own personal Mount Everest.

Independence Day Sweater

2010-07-04T15:54:00.008-04:00

Blogging on July 4th? Do I not have a life? In fact, I do have a life, but it starts on July 5th, when we head up to the Adirondacks for ten days of lakeside fun with the blood relatives I actually like. Hooray!

In the meantime, the Mossy Cardi is finished, and it is a stunner.

It only seems that this blog has been taken over by Brooklyntweed.

Perfect buttons.

Still maybe not quite worth the $60 in yarn, but close. Which is saying a lot for a baby sweater.

It's extremely wearable, too - I tried it on db and the off-center opening really works - nice drape over the baby belly. The problem is of course that it's a little big on her, and she's almost one, and the baby for whom I knit it will turn one in May...best not to think too hard about this. Especially since I chose to knit the one year size. I guess I can blame it on sleep deprivation.

Oh, well. Just keep looking at the pretty sweater.

Chicken sitting! Chicken knitting!

2010-06-15T15:12:00.006-04:00

Things have been - how shall we say - busy here at Knitcrit central. Busy. Like the chickens in one of db's favorite books. Busy busy Chickens. What are they doing? Chicken walking...chicken talking...

Excuse me. Db cut three teeth this month and each one of them took a great big meaty bite out of my sleep. In the past 30 days, while db was cutting three teeth and my babysitter was out of town at a yoga teacher training, I turned in my grades and completed an idiotic but totally necessary Institutional Research Board application so when I go do my research in India this fall, it will be with the approval of a small group of people who have never been to India and know nothing about it. Most importantly, though, I mailed off my manuscript to my editor at University of California Press! I think hearing it hit the floor on the other side of the mail drop wall at the local post office will be one of the moments that stay with me the rest of my life, right up there with the moment that db's head was out but her body was still in and I looked down at her and thought "cute head. lots of hair. boy or girl?"

Speaking of babies, an old friend of mine just had a little boy - or rather, his wife did - and I decided that I'd knit him a cute little asymmetrical cardigan. Behold the Mossy Jacket, a freebie on Ravelry.

The yarn is a beautiful Irish wool with a hint of angora - it's actually not that much fun to knit and even just thinking about hot water while standing within 10 feet of it might cause it to spontaneously felt, but it looks absolutely beautiful, and is perfect for this pattern. Officially, the yarn is Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed Chunky, and at $20/skein it certainly lives up to its name. Last time I bring stuff to the counter without checking the price first.

It's being knit at the 1 year size - now that I have my very own baby, I totally get that there is very little point to knitting anything smaller than a 3-month size. Tiny babies look best in tiny baby onesies and they barf on everything, anyway.

And on that note, it's over and out. Db is asleep and it's time for her mom to take a nap.

Cardigan Confessional Redux

2010-05-08T17:53:00.008-04:00

I had this plan to make db a blanket; loyal readers will recall that there was a lot of pattern research and swatching and hand wringing and finally a decision to make db a blanket in Blue Sky Alpaca Silky Alpaca (50/50 silk/alpaca) in the most beautiful silver-gray color imaginable.

But then my aunt gave me a hand knit blanket that I had made for her son, and Todd's mother gave me the blanket made by Great Aunt Nettie and Todd's mother's friend gave me a hand crocheted blanket and THEN the mother of one of my oldest and closest friends gave me a jaw-droppingly stunning hand knit blanket.

The photos are from January, which is a sad meditation on how busy I have been these past few months. Anyway. How many hand knit blankets does one baby need, particularly given the fact that all we ever put her in anyway are those overpriced Halo sleep sacks because we are paranoid about SIDS?

I did make some limited progress on the silk alpaca blanket, but upon realizing that I had made a slight error 20 rows after the fact, I kind of lost interest and drowned my frustrated sorrows in a little worsted-weight instant gratification - so there was the aviator cap phase and also the pink top-down raglan, which is now finished and adorable.

Cute, eh? Db is currently obsessed with buttons, so I am leaving them off for the time being.

So I decided that there were better uses for my beautiful silk alpaca; currently I'm about 3 rows into this vintage-esque cardigan for me -

http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/en/visoppskrift.php?d_nr=88&d_id=17&lang=us

It's a freebie from Drops. I'm hoping that I finish it by Christmas.

Cardigan confessional

2010-04-15T20:00:00.006-04:00

I decided that I wanted to knit db a cardigan for spring. Because spring has more or less sprung here in the city, I also decided that I needed a pattern written for worsted weight in order to have a chance in hell of finishing it in time. Enter Little Coffee Bean, a top-down baby raglan freebie pattern on Ravelry.

Yeah, I know it's pink. In fact, it's two shades of pink. Technically, the colors are "Mulberry" and "Orchid," but I think we can just call a spade a spade here. Next thing you know I'll be buying db Disney Princess products. I'm so ashamed.

Maybe my taste has been warped by extreme sleep deprivation. About three weeks ago, db's sleep pattern changed - basically, she no longer sleeps for more than 3 hours at a time and when she wakes up she almost immediately becomes hysterically upset. Teething, growth spurt, developmental leap, night terrors, hunger - take your pick. The almighty boob normally calms her down, but of course that has meant some pretty rough nights for the bearer of the boob.

Aviatrix redux

2010-03-26T07:51:00.004-04:00

I decided that db needed her own damn aviator cap.

Three hours later, after digging some leftover Malabrigo out of the stash bag, voila. I love this pattern.

Aviatrix

2010-03-23T17:47:00.004-04:00

Posting photos in haste - it's midterm week (and curse email for making students think they can ask me questions 24/7), book deadline looming, not a lot of quality sleeping going on at the moment...but despite the general mayhem involved in living a relatively normal life, I have somehow managed to knit a cute little aviator cap for a friend's incoming baby girl. The almost finished cap is being modeled by db, who was fascinated with the un-sewn-in end:

Aviatrix, a Ravelry freebie, is truly an amazing pattern. I also think it may be the only reasonably cute baby hat that will actually stay on a baby's head. I knit it in Blue Sky Alpacas worsted weight 50 merino/50 alpaca - an absolutely lovely yarn. To get gauge for the worsted version of the pattern (which is written for three different yarn weights!) I knit the body of the hat on a 10 and the ribbing on an 8.

All that remains is to sew on buttons so it has a functioning chin strap - let's see if I manage to get a finished object photo posted. I hate to bet against myself, but I don't think it's going to happen.

Now if I could only figure out how to download the medal

2010-03-06T08:58:00.003-05:00

The Wintergreen mittens were finished around 4:00 pm est on the final day of the Winter Olympics. I can't say that I really enjoyed knitting them - it could be the pattern wasn't fun, but more likely I don't like knitting to a deadline that isn't a real deadline (e.g., Christmas, a due date, etc).

I think I screwed up the thumb opening - or maybe there's something I don't understand about "work in pattern for 5 stitches, work 9 st in scrap yarn, sl 9 back to the left needle and continue working in pattern." Doesn't this essentially result in a grafting the scrap yarn into the knitting? And if so, when you remove the scrap yarn, how exactly do you pick up the top stitches? The bottom stitches are simply loose stitches - no problem. The top stitches, however, aren't really loose stitches, even though they are not stable, either. I just picked them up "doubled" - and k2 tog as I joined the yarn to make the thumb. I am sure this isn't clear but the instructions weren't either. I don't know what type of thumb this is (e.g. afterthought?), so I couldn't even look it up online.

But anyway, they are done and it wouldn't have been an exciting Olympic finish without the thumb crisis.

I'm most proud of the fact that I finished these AND kept db fed, clean, and happy AND kept to the editing schedule for my book manuscript AND did my regular teaching/meeting work AND kept to my usual yoga schedule AND didn't get in horrible fights with Todd because of all the stress.

Cunning mittens

2010-02-14T08:34:00.008-05:00

Looking at the teams over on Ravelry, I saw that (1) there was a Big Damn Heroes team and (2) one of the team members was none other than my long-lost spinning teacher from a very unhappy year I once spent in central Pennsylvania as an assistant professor. Shiny, right? So I decided to join the Browncoat Olympians and go for it. It is amazing how many hard core Joss Whedon fans also appear to be hard core knitters. I am apparently absolutely typical after all.

I figure if I do 15 rows a day, I'll have my Wintergreen mittens finished by the time the gimpy Canadian Olympic torch goes out. This cold calculation doesn't make for much Olympian drama, though of course the chances that I will actually manage to keep to this schedule are minimal. Plus of course I have dramatic back story - the Mitten Comeback - to keep things exciting.

I decided that tara is right - if I did the original gray/cream color combination even though I didn't think it had enough contrast I would always and forever think about how I should have re-knit the mittens using better colors. So I've taken the cream from the originals and added a lovely natural brown - both Blue Sky Alpaca sportweight.

The brown alpaca/Browncoat tie-in is pure serendipity.

Time for a comeback?

2010-02-11T17:05:00.009-05:00

I admit that the last time around, I thought the whole idea of the Knitting Olympics was kind of dumb. Now that I am older and possibly dumber, I am actually considering participating.

Loyal readers will recall my Wintergreen mittens tragedy, wherein I forgot the mostly-knitted project on an airplane and by the time I realized what I had done, it was Too Late. I did go and buy the exact same yarn for the project again, but on a whim decided to knit the Lillyfield mittens instead. Unfortunately, even though I was basically making gauge, it became clear about three quarters of the way through the first mitten that they were going to be immense, and so, after several months of denial, I bit the bullet and frogged the whole damn thing. For the record, Famous Knitblogger Grumperina actually had similar gauge problems with her Lillyfield mittens, and one of the reasons she is a Famous Knitblogger is she re-charted and otherwise rejiggered the entire pattern to make the mitten fit properly. I am not nearly that committed a knitter or, for that matter, blogger. Which may be why I am not famous.

I really did like the Wintergreen mitts, though, and I did pay for the pattern...you see where I'm going with this. My knitting Olympics project could be the Wintergreen mitts comeback - a potentially happy ending to a heretofore sad story.

The only question is whether or not I should use the yarn I have. If I do, I accept that the original gray/white wasn't quite high contrast enough for the Wintergreen design. In the interest of perfect closure, I should use my original yarn color choices, or should I keep the white and buy a new contrasting color? And should I play on the Yarn Harlot team or figure out the Ravelry Olympics scene?

Mittens and blues

2010-01-26T15:49:00.004-05:00

Classes start on Thursday. I am dreading them though not for any particularly good reason other than perhaps all the time I have spent on planet lactation has made me feel like an alien about to land on the hostile planet of academia. I really, really, really don't want to store my breastmilk in the department refrigerator. That's what the icepack box in my breast pump bag is for, right?

I made these cute little baby mittens out of some worsted scraps in an effort to chase the blues away. My mood was not all that improved, but they are very cute and also very warm, thanks the fair isle motif. The pattern is a Ravelry freebie, searchable under "two colour mittens" by Abigail Welbourne.

I put one on db's hand and her eyes got very wide and then she began waving her hand around in the air, staring at it and giggling. She has clearly learned how to get on my good side.

Upstate is a different land

2010-01-12T17:52:00.007-05:00

Growing up, I never understood why Democratic candidates would always win New York's senate seats, this despite the fact that my parents and everyone I knew voted Republican. I didn't understand about the New York City factor until I was older.

A recent trip upstate to visit my parents reminded me of my conservative roots, which I manage to repress most of the time here on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which is pretty much the bleeding liberal heart of the western world. So yes, I am aware that I've been away from Kansas for a while, but even still, I couldn't help but find this envelope - here photographed in the wild, sitting on top of my parents' stack-o-mail - a little disturbing.

Is it me or does that Eagle's beak look a little longer and more predatory than is strictly necessary? Ready to peck out the eyes of filthy illegal immigrants, perhaps? To feast upon the steaming entrails of freshly disemboweled MoveOn members? To pick clean the bones of Obama's dead on arrival attempt to reform healthcare?

On the bright side, The Land of Upstate is home to some spectacular winter sunsets.

Holiday madness

2009-12-30T19:04:00.011-05:00

Db is very small and I am still on paid leave; therefore, it was actually possible to knit her a fine Christmas ensemble in less than one month:

Yes, I should have been editing my manuscript rather than knitting this. And yes, db does have a neck somewhere under those jowls.

The dress is the Ravelry freebie Kaia Babydoll knit in the 6 month size for my 85th height percentile 5 month old daughter. I knit it in Zara (red) and Aurora 8 (gray); the red was held doubled and knit on 9 dpns; the gray was held single and knit on a 7 circular.

Modifications included knitting long sleeves. Basically, I followed the pattern but put the sleeve stitches on a holder; after I knit the dress I picked up and knit the arm stitches, picking up 8 stitches in the armpit and knitting in the round. I also did a k1p1 rib on the collar because it looks neater than a single garter stitch edge. To make it long enough, I also did one or two more skirt increase rounds than the pattern called for.

The necessary soaker is another free soaker pattern on Ravelry, searchable as Wool Diaper Cover by Cynthia Combs. Obviously I didn't pick the pattern because of its pithy name.

Todd's family has a disturbing tradition which involves the family patriarch (or whoever has had enough holiday wine to be suggestible) putting on a Santa suit and scaring all the babies and small children at the party. The small children receive awful plastic gifts to compensate them for their trauma; tiny babies, however, receive nothing more than a crippling blow to their developing subconscious.

Db looks annoyed, which of course makes me proud. The crying baby on the left is db's new cousin - the lucky recipient of the flower hat, pirate hat, and nautaloid toy of blog posts past.

Db's adorable mary janes were also knit by me using the Tiny Shoes pattern by Ysolda Teague. Perhaps my daughter has exceptionally narrow patrician feet or perhaps I didn't quite pay enough attention to the gauge, but the medium size was immense. I knit one on December 23rd and despaired; on the morning of the 24th I did a little emergency surgery, taking a pair of scissors to the bottom of the bootie, frogging the bottom half, and then doing a three needle bind off after the 5 rounds of garter stitch called for in the pattern. I then knit the second bootie in a mere hour and a half (including all finishing) and wove in the ends of the dress while Todd loaded the car. Rock star finish.

Creepy materialism-teaching visit from Santa notwithstanding, it was actually the least painful Christmas Eve party ever because of db:

knitcrit: baby baby baby baby baby. babybaby?

annoying libertarian relative: baby babybabybaby baby!

knitcrit: baby baby.

strung out on Valium relative: babybabybaby babybaby baby. baby?

knitcrit: baby baby baby. babybaby! baby baby baby.

Babies - the new, non-alcoholic way to survive the in-laws' annual Christmas Eve party.

bottoms, tops, and a disturbing bustier

2009-12-14T13:51:00.007-05:00

We haven't been so much with the blogging this past month here at knitcrit mission control, though there has been a fair amount of knitting and also a fair amount of criticism, the latter mainly taking the form of yelling at the TV whilst helplessly watching the public option die a slow, painful death. The former, a much more pleasant subject, involved knitting a soaker to go with Topaz out of the leftover light green - baby girls don't sit like ladies (the bulky diaper gets in the way, I suppose), so one way to help them pull off the dress is to provide a coordinated underlayer. In this case, the soaker I knit to go with Topaz also looks very cute with db's monkey onesie.

This was a freebie on Ravelry, searchable under the name "Fancy Pants." I had no idea what a soaker was before about three weeks ago and it turns out there's quite a range of soaker patterns out there, so I can't say that I had any reason for choosing this one - I can't even remember how I found it, actually.

For the past few winters, Todd has worn an embarrassingly ugly black knit hat emblazoned with the ASCAP logo (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers). In some ways, this is the type of hat that one can indeed get away with wearing on the northern fringes of the Upper West Side, but I finally got sick enough of looking at it to make him probably the millionth Koolhaas to be worn on the streets of New York City. No matter - it looks great, of course - it's really a bulletproof pattern.

Db wonders why her dad gets the cool hat.

And finally, as I begin to contemplate my return to work at the end of January, I find myself looking at this this lovely image and wondering what exactly I find to be profoundly wrong with it. Besides everything.

Tropical Woodins

2009-11-18T16:54:00.011-05:00

About two weeks ago, the final knitted gift for the final May baby was finally finished, boxed, and shipped to Singapore where it arrived just in time to help its recipient hone her hand-eye coordination skills.

Woodins was Knitty freebie from a few years back and while I absolutely love the finished product, knitting the log got a bit tedious after the novelty of being able to tell curious subway commuters that I was knitting a log wore off. The woodins themselves also got a little tiresome after the 3rd one, but since I knit them after the log I was motivated to finish mainly because the thought of all that log knitting going to waste was unbearable.

I lightly felted the log and the Woodins - it was a little awkward doing it in our building washing machines because you can't control the wash cycle, so I had to run two complete loads and just fish the Woodins and log out of the machine just before the spin cycle started. I was of course using hot water which meant that I needed a variety of tools - chief among them a pair of kitchen tongs and a long metal pole from an ikea shelving unit - to fish the pillowcase containing the log and woodins out of their scalding hot bath. The process of fishing the items out of the machine got me several aghast (and therefore rude) stares from someone who turned out to be the mother of one of the building residents; feeling awkward, I tried to explain myself and ended up in one of those totally annoying situations where I realize that my conversational attempts to be pleasant and diffuse an awkward situation have in fact made me look like an idiot.

The Woodins were supposed to have very cute little leaf tails, but I knit them up and then looked at them and realized they were very cute little choking hazards and decided not to sew them on.

Baby Pope of the Fuzzy Purple People, Pray for Us

2009-11-10T09:58:00.009-05:00

We're just back from the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Montreal. Having db at the conference was a lot easier and more fun than I thought. People sure do love babies - I had the distinct impression that, if given a choice between attending a paper session or kissing db's tiny soft adorable baby feet, probably about 99% of the conference attendees would select the latter, without hesitation.

Somehow, we had made it to November without a handknit winter hat for db; I briefly considered buying one for Montreal, but quickly realized that were I to put something store bought on her head, I would regret it forever and secretly regard it as indicative of my failure as both a knitter and a mother. Plus of course I love knitting dorky hats for babies too helpless to resist having them put on their tiny bald heads. So I bought a ball of the fine 50% merino/50% angora Cloud Nine (Cascade Yarns) and by the time we pulled up to our friend's house in Montreal, I had produced a hat that kind of makes db look like the child-pope of the fuzzy purple people.

I couldn't stop laughing at for the whole first day it was on her head, and had Montreal not gotten unseasonably warm and therefore not good fuzzy hat weather, I probably would have continued laughing over the next few days, too.

Speaking of weather, the friend we stayed with is a climate scientist who so completely embodies the absentminded scientist archetype that he had seven, count'em, SEVEN expired jars of aspirin and ibuprofen in his medicine cabinet.

The collection ranges in vintage from 2002 (an excellent year for ibuprofen) to 2008 and had been moved from at least one apartment in New York City to two different apartments in Montreal.

The internet (so reliable...) says that the US military (again, so reliable...) has done tests on ibuprofen that indicate that the medicine retains full potency for at least a year after the expiration date and that older medication loses potency but does not turn into deadly poison (which was our concern). Todd went for the 2008 ibuprofen; he's still alive and well as of this writing.

I had a job interview at the conference, about which I am deeply, deeply ambivalent. My current job has a crap sabbatical policy and a high teaching load, but other than that, I am very happy at it. The potential new job is at one of the richest and most selective liberal arts colleges in the country, located in rural Vermont in between the Green Mountains and the Adirondack Mountains. The nearest real city is Montreal, actually - three hours by car. In terms of cost of living and school for db, the job would be a real improvement, and the teaching load is much lighter and the sabbatical policy much better. The school is so rich that it OWNS ITS OWN SKI SLOPE. Anyway, I think I interviewed very, very well and now I am afraid I am going to have to go give a job talk in January. It's too early to be having this crisis since they won't announce their short list until mid-December, but I can't help but wonder if I would adjust to the rural life and vastly improve my skiing skills or go absolutely out of my mind because the nearest good sushi would be a 3 hour drive away.

Topaz complete!

2009-10-28T15:32:00.005-04:00

Not too much to say about this uneventful, cute little knit.

It's surprisingly wearable - normally I think dresses look stupid on very young babies, but db pulls it off, I think.

The rather pricey Hanna Anderson tights, however, are immense - I will definitely have to knit a pair of matching green mary-janes to conceal how big the feet are.

Fast, easy and cute. Should it be babywear?

2009-10-11T11:06:00.005-04:00

The back side of Topaz is complete - it took longer to find a moment to photograph/blog it than it did to knit it. It's a shock to knit with a worsted again - in this case, the Malabrigo called for in the pattern - rather than a DK or sport weight. I can't remember the last time I knit with a worsted, actually. I understand why knitters with less of a protestant work ethic than myself love Malabrigo - it's fast, easy, a single (ply), and has just enough variegation to entertain without challenging. But whatever - the finished product is going to be awfully cute.

This is a very hasty photo - in person, the shoulder straps are actually the same width and the hem is straight. My major modification was to knit the straps in seed stitch - the original pattern calls for stockinette, which rolls and looks like crap.

Db is finally asleep. I say finally because we all woke up late and I was feeling cranky about having not accomplished anything and so after breakfast even though db was clearly sleepy I decided to give db some face time/play and tummy time (I resent that I have to use that stupid phrase, but I can't think of another that would both convey the concept and be wise and ironic) so I could feel like I had accomplished something before noon, and of course db reacted like a normal baby, which meant she got overstimulated and therefore uncharacteristically cranky and unable to fall asleep on her own, forcing me to bouncy walk her around the apartment until she calmed down enough to fall asleep on her own.

I am not sure if blogging about my failure to accomplish anything before noon counts as an accomplishment.

Third's a charmer

2009-10-05T19:50:00.008-04:00

The third and final hip knit item for my incoming niece is complete:

Nautie, short for Nautiloid, a 2006 Knitty pattern.

Maybe taking all the pictures of db has made me overinclined to slavishly photograph anything that strikes me as cute.

And Nautie is a very cute prehistoric beast, and so much cooler than a run-o-the-mill dinosaur.

Knit on #3 dpns from scraps of Zara - or it was supposed to be knit from scraps until I decided that it needed a yellow face and therefore a quick run to the local yarn store was in order.

It took longer than I thought it would to knit this guy - having a baby really cuts into one's leisure time. The only modifications I made were picking up stitches to knit the head rather than knitting it separately and sewing it on (duh) and embroidering the pupils on the eyes rather than using black felt. This should make the eyes completely child safe and also prevent unsightly black felt shedding all over the white of the eye. Because no child should have to live with black lint in the whites of a stuffed toy's eyes.

And now, finally, on to something for my daughter - about which more when she lets me near my laptop again.

quickie

2009-09-24T11:20:00.008-04:00

I knit a tiny newborn size hat for my incoming niece:

Between this and the pirate hat, she'll easily be the coolest baby in Portland, which given the hipster population of Portland is really a meaningful title.

The hat was made on #5 dpns with scraps of Zara from baby projects past - the beautiful green is, alas, discontinued. I used the proportions of the hospital hat that db wore right after she was born - basically, I cast on 70 stitches and knit random stripes in the round in a 1x1 rib for 3.5 inches; I then switched to stockinette and reduced as follows: k8, k2tog for one round; knit one round; k7, k2tog for one round; knit one round; continue in pattern until you reach k4, k2tog round, at which point eliminate the knit rounds. When only 5 stitches remain (you'll have to improvise at the very end since the pattern of reductions only gets you to about 8 stitches at the end - for the final round, I think I k1, k2tog to get the final stitch count down to 5), change colors and knit about 1.5 inches of i-cord.

The flower itself comes from this Knitty pattern: http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall07/PATTflowerpower.html

Having a baby has given me great insight into the uselessness of most baby knits - I can't imagine a newborn hat staying on unless it's knit in 1x1 rib and for slightly older babies, unless the hat ties under the chin, I don't see it staying on, either. Or maybe my hat-despising daughter is exceptional (well, of course she's exceptional in every way...) and she's given me a warped perspective on babywear.

Together with the pirate hat, I think this is a great gift, which is to say a gift I'd like to receive. It's amazing to look at the tiny flower hat and the pirate hat together - babies' heads really do expand at a disturbing rate during the first three months. The only thing that immediately strikes me as more disturbing (crossing my legs as I type) is the thought of pushing out a three-month-old size head rather than a newborn-sized head.

Arrrr

2009-09-19T20:19:00.008-04:00

The baby pirate hat is finished - icord around the edges and a good blocking on a cereal bowl worked wonders for both the evenness of the colorwork and the curling of the earflaps.

Db was obliging enough to model the hat - and I do mean obliging, since she absolutely hates having anything on her head. It's a bit large for her eight week old head - I figure it's about the right size for a three month old, which is about what I was going for, amazingly enough.

Basically, I knit this free earflap hat pattern

http://heyjulie.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/babykids-earflap-hat/

on 100 stitches (the jolly roger is a 20 stitch pattern from this pattern: http://cmeknit.blogspot.com/2006/10/skull-flap-hat.html) and made these few modifications which make sense if read alongside the original pattern:

I used Zara (salmon) and Aurora 8 (gray); it was exactly enough Aurora 8 - hardly any leftovers. Knitting the hat with two colors of Zara would be safer since Zara has more yardage. I knit the non-fairisle parts of the hat on threes and the fairisle on fives. Gauge for the threes was 6 stitches per inch and gauge for the fives was 7 stitches per inch.

Increase to 19 stitches for the earflaps; after knitting both earflaps, cast on 15, knit the first earflap, cast on 36, knit the second earflap, cast on 15, join to work in round. 104 stitches (which becomes 100 stitches after one round if you follow pattern's advice of k2tog four times on the first round after the join). Begin working the jolly roger motif after knitting two or so rounds in the base color.

After the jolly roger motif is finished, knit one or two rounds in base color and then decrease every other round as indicated in the pattern (knitting a round in between every decrease round) until there are 68 stitches on the needle; then decrease every round until 5 (?) stitches remain.

Finish with 3-stitch applied i-cord; tassels are 4-stitch i-cord.

Rage, rage against the pale pink blight

2009-09-06T11:05:00.011-04:00

Despite a recent trip to the local second hand store with several bags of the most egregiously pink baby gifts, I still feel as though there's way too much pink in db's wardrobe. Not that pink seems to bother her.

She's just started smiling.

On the one hand, it's very gratifying to finally have an interactive baby after six weeks of newborn aloofness. Adorable aloofness, of course, but still. On the other hand, I feel strangely sad about db's passage from newborn to baby - she's totally different now. Probably this won't be the last time I marvel at how much she's changed.

I've also been forced to take it really easy for the past few weeks because of the abnormally long hard labor, and one can only watch so many episodes of the Sopranos before cabin fever sets in. The solution to both problems was, obviously, stenciling. The internet is full of free stencil images, and a few trips to the local art store and several swipes of the exacto knife later, we've begun to build a onesie wardrobe befitting a thinking, hip baby girl (as opposed to a wardrobe befitting a Barbie dream mansion-esque baby girl):

I'm quite pleased with the results so far.

Probably db is, too.

The stencil patterns are all from this website: http://www.kittybuttons.com/stencils/categories/index.html

Instructions on stenciling here:
http://www.melissaclifton.com/tutorial-stencilb.html

In other thinking-hip-girl-baby wardrobe news, I'm knitting an earflap hat for Todd's brother's incoming baby girl. This is the swatch of the jolly roger motif:

The pattern is a highly improvised combination of this free adult-size hat design:

http://cmeknit.blogspot.com/2006/10/skull-flap-hat.html

With this free baby hat pattern

http://heyjulie.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/babykids-earflap-hat/

I'm knitting it in Zara (salmon) and Aurora 8 (gray) merino. So far, so good, except of course the earflaps curl. I'm hoping blocking and applied i-cord will solve the problem but thinking maybe I should have done the earflaps in garter stitch. Oh, well. It's amazing what acute sleep deprivation will do to one's perfectionistic tendencies.

This just in from the baby bunker

2009-08-25T10:23:00.003-04:00

Today the daughter, or, as we call her here on Knitcrit, db, is one month old. I have learned a lot about babies in the past four weeks; I have also learned that there is no end to the number of ugly-ass pink baby outfits that China can churn out. Is it rude to beg relatives - and particularly in-laws - to lay off the pink? Or at least lay off the pink velour?

I can almost imagine doing non-baby care related things again - I am planning a new small project for Todd's incoming niece (description forthcoming) and I am making some progress on db's blanket (recall: October deadline). The gift for the last of the May babies needs to be felted and then it's done. I've never felted before and fear a disaster, either with the project or with the washing machine. Knitty has a good discussion of how to felt but I'm open to other sources of information if there's anything good out there.

For db's fall wardrobe, I am thinking of Topaz from Knitty:

It looks like a quick, fun, wearable knit. I don't harbor any illusions of db appreciating it, though, if her reaction to her first knits is any indication:

It's a Girl!

2009-08-09T14:36:00.007-04:00

Contrary to the freely volunteered (which is to say, largely unsolicited) opinions of friends, family members, and random New Yorkers on the street, it was in fact a very active, carried- high-and-all-in-the-front girl. She arrived at 7:27 pm on Saturday 25th July and weighed in at 7 pounds, 11 ounces. About the 77 hour labor that preceded her birth I will not say much at this moment since said daughter is maybe finally asleep and I want to get this post done before she wakes up.

Isn't she adorable? I can't believe how bonded to her I feel already, and that is saying something given how hellish it has been establishing breast feeding. Two choice bits of information on that front: (1) She came out of the womb sucking so hard that she'd sucked her upper lip into her mouth, causing the doula to exclaim "I've never seen such a powerful suck before! Wow!" and (2) Mastitis.

But yeah - 77 hours. For real. By which I mean real labor - strong, extremely painful, regular contractions that progressed quickly to 5 minutes apart and then continued for three days and three nights. And the best guess the doula and midwives have is that she had too much room in my pelvis and so my contractions wouldn't force her head down onto the cervix properly, and this made me EXTREMELY - we might even say INSANELY - slow to dilate. As in, my daughter had so much room in the pelvis that when the midwives would attempt to check her position vaginally, they would feel the top of her head shaking back and forth (in a "no" gesture - as in "no, I will NOT leave the womb"), which meant she had tons of room up there - a crazy, abnormal amount. Which means that, combined with a genetically-bestowed large pelvis, maybe all that yoga opened things up a little too much. Oh, the irony. With a regular doctor I would certainly, absolutely have been c-sectioned, but my midwife team was just brilliant and in the end, I was able to deliver vaginally, so there's a happy ending to the labor story. Plus, I don't have stretch marks at all and I can fit into my old clothes already, so those are some nice consolation prizes.

But mainly, I love my little girl! I really do. It's amazing. I'd post a picture of her in her hat and booties, but the hat was too big and the booties were too small. Already, she rebels.

And she also has great comic timing:

Hahahaha ha hahahaha

2009-07-17T09:54:00.007-04:00

From a July 16th, 2009 New York Times Business section article on the many, many Indian businesses whose logos and products transparently imitate American brands, pg. B4:

As Gary Locke, the commerce secretary, told a group of Indian executives visiting Washington this month, "U. S. businesses need assurances that when they come to India, they'll be operating in a secure and reliable environment for intellectual property."

Well, Gary, U. S. businesses can rest assured that the environment in India will change when hell freezes over. There's some security in such certainty, no?

Booties, booty

2009-07-10T11:56:00.011-04:00

I knit a pair of the ever-popular Saartje's Booties to go with that cute green and white baby leaf hat I designed a few months ago.

They're quick and easy (may they be a harbinger for my labor), though I would have preferred stockinette booties to garter ones. Ysolda Teague's Tiny Shoes is a great stockinette bootie pattern, but I knit about half a bootie using Tiny Shoes before I concluded that the pattern definitely doesn't work in cotton - there needs to be more elasticity and around the top than cotton allows.

Knitting for the incoming baby is now officially finished, and probably this is a good thing since I am just starting my 39th week and the baby has obviously dropped.

Midwife: (poking at knitcrit's cervix) Hmmm...whoa - that head is REALLY low. Don' t you feel like you're sitting on a bowling ball?

Knitcrit: Not really. (Feeling profoundly un-earth-motherly) Maybe I'm not very in touch with my body...

Midwife: Or it could just mean you have a good, wide, open pelvis.

Knitcrit: That would be nice.

Midwife: And (poke, poke) you are really effaced. No dilation yet, but the cervix feels really thin. The baby's head is right there.

Knitcrit. Huh. Okay. But I'm not going to go early, am I?

Midwife: Well, I wouldn't expect a call from you this weekend, but if you start to dilate at all over the next day or so...(tapers off in meaningful way)

Noooooo. I do NOT want to have the baby early. I really, really don't. I feel absolutely fine and there's still lots of summer fun to be had before the official due date arrives on the 23rd. Yesterday, after the visit to the midwives, Todd and I went into full panic mode and made a beeline to Island Beach just to be sure we saw the ocean at least once this summer.

As you can see, the baby has definitely dropped:

Now that I think about it, I guess I can tell the baby is sitting really low when I do yoga - the primary series of Astanga is largely designed to open the pelvis and the hips, and lately, when I do Astanga, I feel that my pelvis is very open and yet also very full of something. Which turns out to be baby head.

I keep meaning to do a post of my observations about being visibly pregnant in NYC, but now that I am apparently ready to drop I am thinking the best use of my remaining time might be getting baby shower thank you notes written.

We're not fully moved in yet, but the apartment is definitely functional. Look at tiny Saarje's booties in mammoth new apartment:

In the old apartment the booties would have filled half the living room.

Karma: Not Always a Bitch

2009-06-30T16:39:00.011-04:00

We're still moving into the new place - today I mounted the shelving for spices and I am not sure what made me happier - using power tools at 9 months pregnant or the fact that for possibly the first time in my adult life, getting spices will not involve one or more of the following:

1. Reaching into back of dark, overcrowded cabinet while trying not to disturb living or dead cockroaches and also hoping that this will be the time that I will put my hand on the Turmeric. Which it is not.

2. Looking at tightly packed sea of identical spice jar tops wedged in small ugly white shelving unit and wondering whether or not that's the Cinnamon way in the back and then wondering whether or not I can extract the possibly-Cinnamon without precipitating avalanche of spices onto kitchen floor and then, after the crashing and rolling of jars has subsided, wondering why I always think that I can extract a single jar from the small ugly white shelf without precipitating an avalanche of spices. And it wasn't the Cinnamon.

3. In an effort to avoid the dark, overcrowded cabinet cockroach random grab (tm), removing every single last thing from the dark, overcrowded cabinet only to discover that the Cardamom must be in the small ugly white shelving unit.

Behold the dawn of a new era:

And there's three more just like these on the other side of the stove area. And the spices are alphabetized.

But I digress, if in fact one can lead with a digression. This is supposed to be a post about karma, and the ghosts of knits past. Early on in the revival of my interest in knitting - so I think we're talking about 9-ish years ago - I completed my first ever baby sweater for my Aunt's firstborn (though she's technically my aunt, she's actually only about 6 years older than I am. Whoops! Surprise!). Perhaps two years later I completed a baby blanket for her second. And now, years later, at my baby shower last Saturday, I opened a package from my aunt and was delighted to see that my efforts had been none too shabby, if I do say so myself:

Not the most exciting sweater pattern, but it's a pretty color, unisex, and classic, and the buttons are just adorable. They're ceramic, handmade, and the kitty stripes match the yarn perfectly.

And the blanket:

Again, feather-and-fan is not exactly groundbreaking baby blanket material, but the yarn I chose - it seems to be an extremely soft cotton-something blend with beautiful drape - pushes the blanket into above-average status, I think. So I guess my baby won't have to wait until I finish the alpaca blanket in October to have a hand knit blanket from its mother.

I was going to put the blanket and sweater in the newly repurposed Ikea kitchen unit (old purpose: providing counterspace and holding pots and pans; new purpose: changing table and baby clothing/linen storage), but I randomly smelled them to see if they were musty and as it turns out, because, I guess, until very recently my Aunt and her family lived in my grandparents' house, the blanket and sweater smell like my grandparents' place, and particularly, somehow, my grandparent's place from 30 years ago. Hormones must be making me uncharacteristically sentimental because I decided that I didn't want that smell to go away, and so I put the knits in a plastic bag for the time being.

My aunt also made a card that features a picture of me from about 30 years ago. I don't know if I'm proud or worried that at age 7 I looked this unthrilled with and clueless about being a mother, but in any case I think the picture is hilarious.

Personally, I would have captioned this picture "What am I supposed to do with this thing?" but I guess my aunt wanted to be encouraging.

This picture was clearly taken before La Leche League had firebombed all Chinese factories that dared to accessorize plastic baby dolls with bottles (so my 7-year-old self can't be blamed for not breastfeeding), but shouldn't we perhaps be more concerned that my 7-year-old self seems to think that proper baby care includes depriving the child of clothes and human contact?

Finally free from striped sweater jail

2009-06-18T15:06:00.008-04:00

I must preface this post by saying Ash and Turner, I love being able to give dear friends handknits and the all the griping that will follow this disclaimer is mainly for posterity's sake, just in case I ever feel tempted to make my own child a sweater like Alexander's. Which is to say I loved the finished product. It was just the process...

Everyone on Ravelry who noted that this is the most BORING and ETERNAL knit ever is right. I am still trying to figure out why this is the case. In terms of product, the sweater - an online freebie from Drops called b14-27 Jacket - is a clear winner. It is wearable. It is effortlessly unisex. It is adorable. It is not without reason that it's a reasonably popular knit on Ravelry. In terms of process, the sweater has novel, clever construction, being knit sideways from one buttonband to the other, and yet it is simple enough to knit while listening to music, watching movies, etc. It is easily adaptable to a wide range of yarns. It is endlessly customizable. All of these things make it potentially a great knit. And yet...

The pattern is written for alpaca, but I used Zara merino on a size five addi circular. Zara has more stitch definition than alpaca and I think it worked quite well with the pattern. However, the sweater is a huge yarn hog - it consumed nine balls of Zara and is quite heavy as a result. This is not really a problem for a sweater knit for a Canadian baby, but I think the fact that it sucked up yarn and never seemed to grow may have been the reason I felt like I would die before finishing it. It was boring right up until the last green stripe, which is saying something since I had exactly this much green yarn left:

So broken was I by the end that I didn't even care that it was looking likely that I was going to have to buy more Zara in a no doubt different dye lot. I think maybe I believed that there wasn't enough green yarn left in the world to finish the sweater and it therefore wasn't worth getting upset since I was clearly going to spend the rest of my life and my child's college fund searching for and purchasing ball after ball of green yarn. And when it turned out be just enough green yarn, my immediate thoughts were more along the lines of "Now where are those damn brown buttons...?" rather than any elatedness over having completed the green stripes without having to switch dye lots.

The last third of the sweater was knit over a one and a half day marathon session immediately following the submission of my final grades. I took a good hard look at the sweater and then my belly and realized that if the sweater wasn't finished before my baby came, it was NEVER getting finished. And then I grabbed two seasons of Buffy and sat on the sofa and only got up to pee (a somewhat more frequent occurrence these days) and order food for delivery.

The ends were woven in and the buttons attached sitting in Central Park on a particularly golden day. My brain was possibly not entirely recovered from the marathon knitting session because I sewed on the three buttons and held up the sweater to finally, FINALLY admire the finished product only to realize that I had sewn the buttons on the wrong side of the sweater.

Nooooooo.

But the good thing about knitting is mistakes are always correctable, if not always painless.

The postal service employee I dealt with when I finally got the sweater boxed up and sent to Canada was uncharacteristically spectacularly helpful, so at least the door didn't hit me in the ass on the way out. And it really is a beautiful sweater, and it will look smashing on Alexander, so all is well that FINALLY ends well.

Except in the course of knitting this sweater I have also sadly learned that my love for my unborn child is not quite up to the boundless maternal ideal since I am absolutely certain that I will not suffer this sweater again, even for my own flesh and blood. Oh well. Better to know one's limits sooner rather than later, I guess.

Keys to the Kingdom

2009-06-09T15:35:00.004-04:00

These?

These would be the keys to our new apartment. Our new apartment that is twice as big as our current apartment. Our new apartment with laundry in the building. Our new apartment that is located in our current beloved neighborhood. Yes.

Now all it needs to do is pass the $325 bedbug sniffing beagle test before we move in. The apartment checked out fine on the bedbug registry, but in this case, an ounce of prevention is worth about a million tons of cure. Landlords are legally obligated to pay for bedbug extermination, so on the off chance that - god forbid - the apartment is infested, at least we'll have some legal protection and some time to kill the bastards before we move in. And by "bastards" I of course mean the bedbugs, not the landlord or the realtor or anything like that.

But the main thing is, we have the keys. The story of how we got them will have to wait until I have recovered from the process of getting them, but believe me, it's a fine tale, and exceptional even by New York real estate standards.

Keep yer illiterate hands offa me

2009-06-05T10:08:00.007-04:00

Possibly it's just the third trimester rage talking, or maybe I just really miss grading papers, but this pamphlet copy - extracted from a larger collection of advertisements dumped in my lap on the first day of my $300-ish "natural childbirth" class - made me particularly happy that we own a paper shredder:

Motherhood is wonderful but we often underestimate the physical demands of being a mother. Dr. Knitcrit says: Awkward, redundant sentence structure. Also, we seem to underestimate the utility and necessity of commas. We are carrying the baby all of the time which puts a lot of pressure on your shoulders. Dr. Knitcrit says: We? You? Which is it? Pronouns must agree and strictly speaking, the second person should not be abused in this manner, even if it is used consistently. Maybe breastfeeding is causing tension in your shoulders. Dr. Knitcrit says: Maybe. But your writing isn't helping, either. Lack of sleep can cause emotional stress or anxiety. Dr. Knitcrit says: Well, so long as it can't cause both. Is it getting harder and harder to ignore the knots and pains in your body? Dr. Knitcrit says: Not as long as your prose provides the welcome distraction of righteous indignation. Well let us spoil you just a little with a massage designed for the needs of a mother. Dr. Knitcrit says: Again, do not fear the comma even though at this point it actually kind of fears you. Studies have shown 1 hour of massage can help replace 4 hours lost sleep or a more relaxed Mama is a more effective mother for her child. Dr. Knitcrit says: (1) footnote the source (2) Studies have also shown that this statement - and please note that it is a "statement," not a "sentence" - is completely incoherent. (3) Numbers should be written out.

$100 = 60 minutes
$145 = 90 minutes
Dr. Knitcrit says: Would you accept a copy of Elements of Style lieu of cash?

Obama's speech in Cairo

2009-06-04T21:27:00.004-04:00

Other than evoking the golden rule in its final minutes (and what preceded the "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" made it less banal and useless than it otherwise might have been), this speech was truly masterful. Unbelievable, actually. And it truly sucks that it was blocked in Iran.

The Disgruntled Lamb

2009-05-31T16:41:00.010-04:00

The first of three May baby projects was completed on schedule (though the recipient arrived two weeks early). The other two May babies were obliging enough to come late, but I'm still not done with their knits. Teach them to be accommodating.

For Leo the Early, I knit the Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigan by Jennifer Little of Looking Glass Knits (free Ravelry download). I'm pleased Leo turned out to be a boy, even if he was two weeks early - I chose unisex colors, but the sweater is better for a boy than a girl, conventionally speaking (and please don't revoke my third-wave feminist badge for saying so).

I hate to say it, but I'm ambivalent about both the pattern and the product. I knit it in the 6 month size and in retrospect, perhaps the 9 month size would have been smarter. That was my fault. I also wish that I had opted for a darker green, but there wasn't a good option available in the Rowan Wool Cotton; I think this makes the lambs look a little washed out.

The pattern calls for duplicate stitch for the lamb heads and legs and between that and how far between lambs the white yarn has to be carried, it's nearly impossible to finish the inside satisfactorily. Sure, the lambs are cute on the outside, but it just torments me to think of their dark, twisted innards. I could have opted to do the lambs in intarsia rather than fair isle, but I wasn't confident about my ability to twist the yarn properly to avoid unsightly holes, and the pattern itself called for fair isle with duplicate stitch.

Additionally, there is no relationship between the duplicate stitch chart for the lamb heads and legs and the photos of the sweater provided in the pattern itself, so I had to disregard the chart and figure out a way to stitch the cute lamb heads. If you go to Ravelry and look at other versions of this sweater, you'll see what I mean - lots of sheep that look like they've spent a little too much time grazing in the pastures of Chernobyl. My attempts at non-mutant sheep came out pretty well, I think:

The pattern's color chart for the yoke of the sweater won't print clearly on a black and white printer, so without easy access to a color printer, the yoke of the sweater must be knit within range of the computer. Even reading from the computer screen, the image quality of the schematic was also extremely poor, making it more or less impossible to read the row numbers (and I have better than 20/20 vision - I could have been a fighter pilot if it weren't for the math thing. Or, come to think of it, the girl thing).

The pattern also calls for evenly spaced increases in the green part of the yoke sweater, but it leaves it to the knitter to do the counting necessary to ensure even distribution without also providing proper increased stitch count after each row. Without the final stitch count, it takes some math to figure out the best way to place the increases. I also think I lost my (useless black and white) copy of the pattern, so I don't have those row count numbers anymore, either.

But anyway, it's done and given and I never have to knit it again. Todd absolutely loved it, though, so I might consider knitting our baby a fall hat that incorporates the sheep motif. Or maybe I will just try to finish the baby blanket by October, since even I don't think I'll have it done by the end of July at this point.

Justice, New York Real Estate Style

2009-05-24T14:05:00.005-04:00

Todd and I have been looking for a slightly more baby-friendly apartment - our tiny 4th floor walkup without laundry in the building has served us well, and if we had to, we could make it work with a baby, but it seems that because of the recession the Manhattan real estate market has actually been taken down a bit, with the upshot being we can probably afford a bigger place with elevator and laundry in a desirable neighborhood for about what we are paying now.

Suburban readers of this blog are probably still reeling at the thought of no laundry in the home, much less in the building. To this mind-boggling concept I will add that searching for an apartment in Manhattan also involves checking potential buildings at this highly informative website:

http://bedbugregistry.com/

Bedbugs. Oh, yes. They are coming back and they are taking over Manhattan. Part of the reason for the comeback is at this point, the only pesticides that will consistently kill them are illegal (officially, anyway) in the United States. Bedbugs don't spread disease, but they are gross and their bites itch. And I know this because I have lived with them in India. Many of them, actually.

So far, Todd and I have escaped the plague, though one of my colleagues at work was not so lucky, and this became a source of concern because my office is next door to his office. My office mates and I went in on a - I kid you not - bedbug sniffing beagle to sweep our offices for potential contamination:

http://www.acexterminating.com/

The beagle gave us the all-clear and has subsequently cleared my colleague's office, too. Beagles are apparently 98% accurate when properly trained. So far, so good.

Anyway, the point is, we've been looking for a bedbug-free two bedroom for about two weeks now and have possibly come up with a good situation, but we won't know if we have it until after the long weekend. There have been some tragedies along the way which are still too fresh to be funny, much less blog fodder, but this I can report:

We were chatting with a realtor who told us something that we had already heard from another realtor, namely, that the Coldwell Banker group was going under. Mostly I think that real estate agents in New York City are bloodsucking bedbugs in human form whose "profession" consists largely of collecting upwards of $2,000 to $4,000 (or more) to unlock doors of vacant apartments and then stand around looking at potential renters/buyers like they are taking too long. So my sympathy for Coldwell Baker employees is limited.

Anyway, this realtor, who worked for Coldwell Banker, mentioned that the current theory among employees as to why Coldwell Banker is shutting down is as follows: at the height of the real estate boom in NYC about three years ago, Coldwell Banker rented a very, very expensive set of office suites somewhere in midtown. Now that the market has crashed and rentals and sales are not bringing in as much revenue, the rent for the office suites - which Coldwell Banker is locked into by the terms of its lease - far exceeds the revenue that the company is bringing in.

Which means, as alert readers may have already deduced, that Coldwell Banker, a real estate company, is going out of business because it made stupid decisions about the real estate that it chose for its headquarters. Which is a rare instance of deeply satisfying poetic justice in my book, almost making the past two weeks of apartment seeking stress worth it.

There is a first and last time for everything

2009-05-15T19:41:00.010-04:00

About a month ago, I was tipped off on an 80% off store closing sale at Cadeau Maternity. I got there bright and early and emerged, dazed, two hours later, saddled with two massive bags of high-end European maternity clothing and enormous feelings of inexplicable yet also somewhat explicable guilt - inexplicable because all these fabulous items had cost me a mere, totally within my budget $240 and somewhat explicable because my Calvinist-esque upbringing could serve as a case study for proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Weber was absolutely correct about everything he said in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

Walking home from a meeting this past Thursday, a woman in the fashion industry stopped me on the street and asked to take my picture - she worked for a maternity design firm, and she took my picture even after I had nearly scared her off with a panicked, slightly guilty monologue about how the only reason I perhaps looked good was because Cadeau was having an 80% off sale and if it weren't for that I would never be worthy of such attention and praise.

The outfit, in all its decadent, guilt-inducing glory:

Swatch isn't just a well-marketed crappy plastic watch

2009-05-08T18:57:00.016-04:00

Like parenthood, this freaking baby blanket project offers ample opportunity to learn and grow. Happily, unlike babies, yarn can eventually be bent to my will.

I bought and swatched the Estonian Lace baby blanket pattern, and it just doesn't look all that great:

It's probably a brilliant pattern, but it needs to be knit with a tightly plied, springy yarn (cotton or wool - I bet Zara merino would look great) - something with a lot of give but also something with a lot of stitch definition. Also, obviously, lighter, unsaturated colors are better for most small lace patterns with surface texture - darker and saturated shades make it hard to see these textures.

With this lace pattern in particular, a springy yarn is essential in order to knit the 3 into 9 portion of the pattern on a small enough needle to ensure crisp definition of the lace pattern as a whole. I am not sure if I am being clear enough, but basically, I can't knit the alpaca on a needle small enough to both keep the knitting tight enough to preserve the crispness of the lace AND successfully execute the 3 to 9 stitches - the alpaca doesn't have enough give.

Alpaca in general has fabulous drape, but by definition this means it's not going to hold most small or tight lace patterns well (in laceweight, alpaca may perform more crisply, but not in worsted or sportweight). So for the past few days I've been scouting for a pattern that will make the most of what is best about alpaca. I actually really liked this pattern on Ravelry:

But it is only in Danish. No thank you.

Still, the idea of a solid, drapey square center with a slightly more open and angular lace border seemed like a good idea for the alpaca. Coincidentally, Brooklytweed just posted an improvised blanket based on this principle, and while I don't love the bias garter he used for the center or the feather and fan pattern he used for the edge, I like the basic idea.

So I went through my Reader's Digest Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet stitches and, after swatching a bit, decided that perhaps the humble moss stitch was the best choice for the center panel. Moss stitch in alpaca has amazing drape; it looks slightly lacy when blocked, and (bonus for blankets) it's reversible.

The below swatch has moss stitch at the top and bottom; the bottom moss is done on a 5 and has better drape than the top moss, which was done on a 3. From top to bottom, the swatch contains moss on a 3, garter on a 3, stockinette on a 3, Feather Lace (p. 105 of the Digest) on a 5 and then on a 3 (no difference in quality of lace despite change in needle), stockinette on a 5, and then moss on a 5. I like the Feather Lace and I think it works in the Alpaca, but again, I don't want that much openwork in the body of the blanket.

For the border, I think I will choose something from this massive great free online collection of charted Victorian borders:

http://www.knitting-and.com/homework/#EIC

I think the alpaca will look best in something somewhat open and angular - something that will look great as a silhouette and echo the diamond-like angular quality of moss stitch. These are three initial possibilities, but with a knitted on border I have lots of time to decide.

This one -

from http://www.yarnover.net/patterns/laces/beyer/b2.html - is also an option (minus crochet loops at bottom edge), but it's not possible to modify it to be a knit-on border like the others, and that makes me less excited about it - it seems I'd have to knit the whole border separately and join it to the square using mattress stitch, and that has a lot of potential to go wrong or to look lumpy. Probably.

The first in a series of posts on knitting the most exquisite pooping surface imaginable

2009-05-02T18:37:00.014-04:00

I spent $119 on a special order of Blue Sky Silk Alpaca in an absolutely stunning silver gray (it shines in a way that defies digital imaging) and now I need to find a baby blanket pattern worthy of it.

Not that this will be the blanket used to take our baby home from the birthing center - that honor goes to some no doubt acrylic heirloom thing my in-laws are insisting upon. I figure choose your battles - Todd and I get to make decisions regarding name and vaccination schedule, so if they want me to wrap the kid in acrylic for cab ride home, well, fine. After that, only silk alpaca for my baby. And yes, I am aware that babies spend half their time leaking out of their diapers and the other half barfing and that maybe something machine washable might have been a better choice, but I hate the way superwash feels and I don't like knitting with cotton and I don't think I even need to say why acrylic is not an option.

Besides, having a kid isn't practical, so why should the yarn for its blanket be?

I was originally thinking about this pattern:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/alpaca-baby-shawl/people

But now I don't like it as much.

Then I was thinking about using the Stripes and Torchon Lace shawl pattern and just making it more of a square:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/stripes-and-torchon-lace

but I swatched up the central diamond pattern and worry that the lace is a little too open (dime for sense of scale). I knit this on a 5:

Then I thought of doing a lattice only portion of the Hanami stole pattern:

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/boojum/hanami-stole

But now I think it may be a little too Eddie Bauer Home for my taste...

Then I found this one on Ravelry and I think I love it:

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/KnitYoga/starflower-estonian-lace-baby-blanket

But isn't Estonian lace supposed to be a nightmare to knit? The Ravelry knit along chat for this pattern involves discussions of the best way to knit 3 into 9 stitches every 8th row - that means a lot of pulling and twisting, for sure. Probably not fun, and the pattern is $5, so I'd have to buy it to see how bad knitting it would actually be. Then again, after $119 it's a little ridiculous to balk at $5.

What should I do?

Vacation

2009-04-16T17:22:00.011-04:00

We're just back from a restful visit to St. Lucia. Normally I wouldn't spend a week in such a conventional vacation spot, but this year I figured what with the pregnancy, locations involving jet lag, malaria, and/or dysentery were out, making Caribbean paradise a reasonable choice. The view from our guesthouse:

We stayed at La Haut, a guest house and (I use the term loosely) restaurant on a working plantation. (What makes it a "plantation" rather than a "farm" is not clear to me).

We had a tiny rental car - much to the fancy resorts' chagrin, all beaches in St. Lucia are public, so we just drove from La Haut to all the local beaches and managed to not get sunburned while snorkeling. Todd, whose first snorkeling experience in the Dominican Republic was marked by barfing in the water and then not even being able to effectively swim away from his own vomit because he didn't have a prescription mask and was therefore totally blind, reports that snorkeling is much more fun when you can (1) actually see the fish, thanks to a new prescription mask, and (2) are not totally sick from a boat ride on extremely choppy water.

The grounds of La Haut, as the name implies, are carved out of the mountainside; it actually reminded me a lot of the place we stayed in Coorg, minus the leeches and, alas, the good food. Inexplicably, though the colonial history of St. Lucia is French and, subsequently, English, the only tasty thing on the menu at La Haut were the solidly Germanic potato pancakes. Seafood was, ironically, out because the three types of fish they serve to tourists are numbers one, two, and three on the Forbidden list, meaning they all contain enough mercury so that even thinking about them too much would be enough transform an otherwise healthy fetus into a stillborn thermometer.

Other than the food, St. Lucia has very little to mock or otherwise revel in - the requisite roaming catamarans full of sunburned drunken tourists were somewhat in evidence, of course, but otherwise St. Lucia is ho-hum, beautiful and boring like my Noro Scarf.

Slightly quirky highlights included the resident donkey family: Killer, Nunchuck, and baby Kiran. Or I think those were the names - on the first or second day a grinning plantation worker came up to me and introduced me to them, but he had a very thick Creole accent and that was what the names sounded like. Baby donkeys are ADORABLE.

In theory, the island is tropical. I say in theory because I did not see a SINGLE flying insect on the island, and that includes a rainforest walk. My theory is that the pesticides they use on the banana and cocoa plantations are a little too potent.

No disturbing bugs. Except for this ant band.

Fear the ants.

And finally, on the beach that fronts the actually somewhat tasteful $500/night Hilton beach resort (imported white sand!), a little English girl noticed that I was drinking coconut water - I had just purchased a coconut from a random, sweet and I think a little bit retarded older local guy - and as I was sitting there, she came up to me and asked:

Little English Girl: Does he (indicating the older local guy, who at this point is walking away down the beach, presumably towards his pile of coconuts) have any more?

Knitcrit: Probably - why don't you run and ask?

Little English Girl: (pause; then, having considered other practicalities:) Can I charge it to the room?

In this case, even I, Knitcrit, can't find a reason to be critical

2009-04-03T12:48:00.004-04:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, my first book contract, from one of the best academic presses in the country, has arrived!

Delighted doesn't begin to describe it - and because I actually managed to negotiate in an uncharacteristically savvy fashion, I seem to be on my way to getting a counteroffer from another one of the best academic presses in the country, which means, I think, hope and possibly also pray, that I may be able to dink a few things in the contract a bit more in my favor. But even if I can't, this is the document that will basically get me tenure and which will also bring a project I dearly love and believe in to a wider audience.

Also, on an unrelated note, unbloggable gift knitting has led me to conclude that I hate duplicate stitch and will never use it agian.

I would knit this if I weren't pregnant

2009-04-02T07:48:00.008-04:00

I recently discovered a semi-new zine called Metapostmodernknitting. It's run by a group of friends who are librarians at some fashion library in LA, and many their patterns are inspired by/ knock-offs of designer pieces. I like this one a lot.

Knitting something for myself in my current state is stupid, right? Then again, if I started it now, at the rate I knit it would probably be finished by the time I get some semblance of my old body back.

Dollhouse perhaps not deserving of being sent to attic after all

2009-03-21T16:11:00.003-04:00

Okay - "Man on the Street" was a very good episode, and the first to give me hope for the series as a whole. Many spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen the episode yet.

The ideas the episode explores are grounded in characters and relationships rather than in a bad, philosophy 101-esque allegory - in particular, I think this episode offered some thoughtful exploration of the question of whether or not people ever genuinely connect with/love one another or whether they just love/connect with what they want people to be. Pretty much any of the developing relationships on the show toyed with this issue in one way or another, with the romance between Ballard and Mellie being the most obvious.

Through the assignment in which Echo is engaged at the start of the show, the episode also invites consideration of fantasy, and whether or not there's any such thing as an innocent or victimless fantasy - and thank god the episode didn't offer a preachy answer at the end.

Plot-wise, the reveal of Mellie as a doll (it was obvious she was a doll) was much better than I thought it would be - first, Adelle pretending that Mellie was a normal civilian cast doubt on what seemed to me to be Mellie's obvious status as a doll, which made the reveal of Mellie as a doll more exciting than it otherwise would have been. Additionally, because Mellie had been set up at the start of the episode as the "real girl" that Ballard is missing out on as he pursues Caroline, it's satisfying to see that in reality, she's no more real than Caroline, which calls into question the very categories of fantasy and reality. Whedon did the same trick with the categories of "good" and "evil" in Buffy and Angel, and if Dollhouse also turns out to be a meditation on power, I won't be disappointed.

That an FBI agent would trust, shag, and confide in his pasta-baking neighbor all in one episode we shall overlook and forgive in light of the strength of the episode as a whole.

Finally, in terms of the potential of the series to go somewhere interesting with both plot and characters, it is excellent that we can't know if the "person on the inside" is an actual person, Adelle's creation, or Caroline/the emergent Echo herself. That is quite interesting - much more interesting than Alpha, though it's good to have him/it in the mix, too. The idea that the DollhouseS could have some larger purpose also has potential.

And of course, finally, the fact that this was actually a true ensemble episode helped it along a lot. Hope that trend continues.

For the first time since the series started, I am interested to see what happens next week.

If the baby is not really cute, at least its hat will be

2009-03-17T11:12:00.011-04:00

I am so pleased with my newborn hat.

So cute. And probably the first thing I've designed that I really like. Good omen?

Stats and (loosely speaking) pattern (and yeah, I am almost certainly not the first person to come up with the idea of putting a leaf on top of a hat):

gauge: 2 x 2 inch square is 15 by 22 in stockinette (15 st wide by 22 st high)

Makes one newborn hat; bottom band circumference 12 1/2 inches (ustretched); 5 inches from bottom of band to top of hat (excluding i-cord and leaf).

Supplies:

1 ball green Mandarin Petit by Sandensgarn
1 ball white Mandarin Petit by Sandensgarn
4 #1 dpn

Cast on 108 stitches with white. Knit 2 Purl 2 rib for 8 rounds. Knit 4 rounds. Join green, knit 3 rounds (to avoid ugly "step," use jogless jog at end of first green round). Join white, knit two rounds (to avoid ugly "step," use jogless jog at end of first white round). Join green, work one round in k 1 green, k 1 white. Knit two rounds in white. Knit one round in k 1 white, k 1 green. (I carried the yarn up) Knit in white until piece measures approximately 3 1/2 inches.

Decrease top as follows: *k 15, k 2 tog; repeat from * until end of round. Yeah, I know there are three stitches left over after your final k 2 tog. Feel free to figure out a better starting stitch number if you are anal and want to make a PERFECT baby hat. Otherwise, k 3 remaining stitches in round. That said, look at the decreases. I bet you can't tell where I fudged.

(and no, I didn't hide the fudge decreases with the leaf)

K one round.

*K 14, k 2 tog; repeat from * until the last repetition, at which point you fudge slightly and K 15, K2 tog, and then K remaining stitches in round (I think from now on 3 remain).

K one round.

*K 13, K 2 tog; repeat from * until last repetition, at which point you fudge again: K 14, K2 tog, and then k remaining stitches in round.

K one round.

Continue decreasing as indicated as described above (also continuing with fudge factor on last repeat) until you complete a round in which you only K 2 tog. At this point I think I had five stitches left. Work white in i-cord for 1 round. Join green and work i-cord for approximately 8 rounds. Make 1 stitch using the method of your choice for a total of 6 stitches on the needle. For the excellent double-sided leaf (no purl side! reversible!), Use "Just a Leaf," an excellent Ravelry free pattern by Hink.

Weave in ends (duh).

mmmm. yarn.

2009-03-07T20:01:00.005-05:00

Knitcrit: (fondling recent purchase in the unseasonably warm March New York sunshine) I love the colors of yarn I picked for my new project.

Todd: I love the way you look at yarn. It's like Homer Simpson looking at a cheeseburger.

I've started a little something for my own baby to take the edge off the other projects - It's going to be a newborn baby hat somewhat like the one I knit for a friend's baby a while ago. I'm thinking white with light green stripe near the brim and then green stem and yellow flower on top. If it's a boy, hell, it's my boy, and yellow is a manly color.

The original hat pattern is in a worsted held double, so I did some math to take the gauge way down to fine cotton (7 st/inch) - hopefully it will all work out when I get to the decreases at the top. For proportions I consulted The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns by Ann Budd, but I was not convinced that her proportions were right - this just could be wishful, fearful thinking by someone for whom discussions of baby head circumference have recently taken on a whole new meaning, but isn't 16 1/2 inches kind of big for a newborn's head? Right now what I've got on the needles will be about 14 1/2 inches (unstretched) and that seems much more in keeping with what I've found online about newborn head size. I'd hate to be wrong on this for many reasons, but if I am, better to find out sooner rather than later. How big are newborn heads?

And we was both jumpin' up and down yelling "Kill! Kill!"

2009-02-27T10:53:00.009-05:00

The main reason I remain anonymous on this blog is because I like to have a corner of the world where neither students nor colleagues can find me. Even with this cloak of anonymity, because I am untenured and also not stupid, I don't generally indulge myself in posts of the "Venting about IDIOTS at work" genre. Sure, the chances of being found are very, very small, but why risk it?

But I have to say that recently I was at a meeting with a member of my department whose presence generally makes me believe that, given the right weapon and conditions, I am in fact capable of disemboweling another human being. Now, one of the best things about being an academic is that most of the time, one does not have to deal with the idiocy, attempts at social climbing, and generally aggressively careerist tendencies of one's colleagues. Perhaps an aggressive colleague might impact one's ability to get tenure, but in this context I am also fortunate to be at a school where the faculty is unionized, and this means that the tenure process is completely transparent. In other words, it is not possible to be struck down because someone on the anonymous tenure committee doesn't like the way you dress. So most of the time I am capable of ignoring the idiots; sometimes I am even able to laugh at them.

So, like I said, I was at a meeting for an academic program at our college that is near and dear to my heart. I have been mulling over how to constructively make changes in it in order to attract more students, but this is tricky because the people who have been running the program a while differ from me in their ideas and outlook and I don't want to capsize the boat from too much rocking. I can't risk being too specific here, but suffice to say that the faculty member whom I'd happily disembowel was at this meeting even though s/he is not part of the program for which the meeting was called. S/he has a long history of emailing everyone in the department whenever he or she accomplishes anything. In other words, things that normal people would just add to their CV this person makes into press releases. The latest thing in his or her life - as we all know from a recent email - was a fellowship to participate in a conference supported by an online idea sharing site called ted. This website is actually a fun place to browse - it's kind of like NPR lite. Edutainment with self-help icing and a dollop of management gurudom in the style of The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. In other words, it's not an academic resource.

So anyway, after attending this conference, my colleague, who runs two different self-help style seminars and is the kind of person who identifies as a "visionary" or "reformer," has decided that now s/he is going to take our college by storm. In an effort to spread the gospel of ted, s/he made us all watch a ted-based video of a popular writer on religion in America who is not only a dilettante but who is also someone whose ideas about religion (hint: core idea is that all religions are about "love") are, I truly believe, at best impotent and at worst ideas that contribute to rather than help end religious violence. HIVES. This popular writer gives me HIVES and there I was at a meeting listening to my messiah wanna-be colleague stomping into the meeting like some latter-day godzilla, representing the academic program that I have quietly been trying to change in a stunningly idiotic, impotent and actually dangerous way.

Did I mention that s/he now carries a new backpack with the ted logo on it?

So as I sat there quietly in the aftermath of the video, feeling the veins in my forehead pop out and telling myself that this was not the time and the place to take a stand, I felt the fetus begin one of its thunk-thunk-thunk-on-the-uterine-wall sessions. Normally the fetus is only active in the evening, so this sudden mid-day foray into uterine gymnastics was unusual. It could have been a response to the sudden rise in my blood pressure and adrenaline levels, but I prefer to think that that's MY child in there, ready to tear its way out of the womb to assist in the takedown of the messiah-complex colleague from hell. With apologies to Arlo Guthrie, I have chosen to believe that at that moment, the fetus and I were both jumping up and down yelling "Kill! Kill!" The two and a half months of morning sickness are now officially forgiven.
_____________________________________________

Thanks to everyone for the good wishes on my pregnancy, by the way. And I am still knitting pretty things but none of them are postable because they're all gifts for blog reading friends due in May. An update on the ongoing Lilyfield mitten tragedy is in the offing, though.

enh.

2009-02-14T08:09:00.006-05:00

Well, I can at least say that the pilot episode of Dollhouse, Joss Whedon's new show, didn't disappoint me. After months of reading variations of the same interview and looking at two different reviews of the pilot before it aired, I figured what I would see was what happens when Joss Whedon does what he has to do to "bring in viewers." It's obvious that the first episode was created to beat potential non-Whedonites over the head with all the Mysteries! And Wonders! To Be Revealed! If You Please Please Tune In Next Week! Rather than a slow, intelligent, sexy rolling out of characters and issues, I felt like episode one was primarily written to get us all on board with the mystery of the main character's Mysterious Past, with almost no significant attention given to the more interesting mysteries clearly embedded in the show's concept, e.g., the question of what we are beyond the sum of our memories (which is so very Samkhya) and the potentially deeply satisfying critique of a consumer and self-help culture that encourages us to buy and think our way free of our horribly scarring or otherwise unsatisfying pasts. I do not feel seduced by the world or the characters of Dollhouse because they are all trying much too hard to tell me that they have interesting things to say, which, as we all know, is never sexy. Plus, the show was completely devoid of any redeeming humor. And Eliza Dushku is...well, very pretty, but I'm not alone in wondering if she was really the best choice for the lead.

I worry about Dollhouse only because historically Whedon has been at his best when developing interesting questions within the context of evolving relationships with fundamentally sympathetic characters, and he is at his worst when all the characters march relentlessly towards some supposedly great climax in the season finale (think Buffy season 7 or pretty much all of Angel).

But of course I will keep watching. I didn't really get Firefly when it aired (much of this had to do with the fact that Fox made Whedon et al air the episodes out of order in an ill-advised effort to hook viewers) and when episode 1 of Dr. Horrible aired the internet was full of moaning and groaning about how it wasn't "dark" enough, and then of course things were good and grim by the third episode. So let's keep our fingers crossed.

Diary of a First Trimester

2009-02-10T19:57:00.011-05:00

Weeks 1-4
Mr. Clearblue Easy, ovulation monitor extraordinaire, tells me what I already know - I am generally not so much with the women's intuition, but I have always known that I am a textbook 28-day cycle, except of course when I am in India, where my body has a history of going into Deep Survival Mode. Once, during a 13-month stay in India, my period stopped for eight whole months, which I realize is horribly unhealthy but it was largely beyond my control, though I have to say that health issues aside, one of the major bonuses of no period for 8 months was not having to deal with culturally sensitive issue of disposing of used tampons.

Near the end of the 8 month shutdown I got horrible acne for the first time in my life and ended up having a breakdown in a South Delhi doctor's office. "Sometimes," he tentatively suggested to his red-eyed, twitching patient, "our bodies react to stress in this way." Stress? Like the recent umpteenth breakup in a series of breakups with the Boyfriend From Hell? Or the fact that I have been living in a cloud of rickshaw exhaust for the past 12 months? Or the fact that for the past three months I've been living in Sindh, where they are just starting to get over that massive earthquake so there is basically never electricity and it's over 120 degrees because Sindh is a desert? Or are you perhaps referring to the amoebic dysentery I seem to have contracted?

Anyway, zygote probably formed on Halloween, or thereabouts. An auspicious and appropriate beginning, for sure. I love Halloween and frankly, pregnancy is creepy.

Positive pee stick test just before heading out the door to Sunday night trivia - I confess to testing mainly because I had been avoiding alcohol even though I didn't know if I was pregnant, and I was kind of sick of it and really wanted a Guinness. Pee stick dialogue:

Knitcrit: I think it's positive. Holy crap.
Todd: Uh, that does look like two lines.
Knitcrit and Todd: assorted happy exclamations and kisses
Knitcrit: This is so great. Except now I can't have Guinness. For nine months.

Week 5

Dear embryo,

Guess what? A sushi place just opened up in the shop space in our building that has been vacant since we moved in. And now I cannot eat there for nine months.

love,
Knitcrit

Week 6
First ultrasound confirms my uterus has been colonized by pulsating white blob. I am given a good and endearingly old fashioned extended lecture by my doctor on the importance of good nutrition. In what will become a recurring thought process, I wonder what the hell doctors did during monthly checkups before the invention of the ultrasound.

Week 7
Morning sickness rears its unspeakably ugly head. Interestingly, I feel absolutely fine in the mornings. Nausea only begins to torment me around noon and remains bearable until early evening, at which point I am reduced to retching heap of despair. The joke that my morning sickness is on Indian time will remain funny for approximately three more days, after which nothing will be funny until week 14.

Week 8
I try not to hate the embryo and instead try directing my helpless, retching rage towards the placenta (which was technically responsible for the nausea, anyway). Misery was also somewhat mitigated by the cathartic defacement of my prenatal vitamins. A little Sharpie action resulted in a satisfying revision of the annoyingly named "Baby and Me:"

I think "Life sucking embryo and me" about sums things up.

Week 9
A random evening sampling of some festive Organic Valley Egg Nog that Todd had purchased on a whim revealed that it was in fact the only thing that would stave off nausea long enough for me to fall asleep at night.

After figuring out that this fine but seasonal beverage was truly the only thing standing between me and total hell, we pretty much bought out the local supermarket's supply. I have no idea what I would have done if my first trimester had not coincided with the holiday season.

Week 10
Observed: one of the many other things that totally blows about the first trimester is of course, you don't look pregnant, which in my case meant that no matter how sure I was that this was going to be the commute where I would lie down on the cool, smooth floor of the subway car and perish in a pool of my own vomit, to my fellow commuters I just looked like one more professional female sporting a slightly too large briefcase and an unpleasant expression on her face. Fantasies entertained on first trimester commutes included (1) barfing on seated passengers' shoes (2) stuffing a pillow under my coat so people would just give me a seat and (3) crying out "I'M PREGNANT TOO!!!" whenever a visibly pregnant lady or a lady with a small child was offered a seat.

Week 11
I reminded my doctor that I'd be seeing Dr. S for my Chorionic Villus Sampling and he basically reiterates what he said when he recommended her - that she's got tons of experience, that he trusts her, that she was doing CVS back in 1994 when he was finishing his internship, etc etc. And then he pauses and says "and, uh, I don't want to use any stereotypes but...uh...she does come across as a bit of a ... JAP. But don't let that throw you. She's really excellent."

I can hardly wait to meet Dr. S.

Mandatory genetic counseling session involves listening to doe-eyed college student explain, with pictures, how many chromosomes babies should have. Three of one kind=problem. FYI. Just in case you don't have an internet connection.

Week 12
Dr. S comes in to puncture me after I've been prepped by the no-nonsense yet sweet ultrasound technician - and she clacks in wearing tall boots, a short skirt and a big, practiced, totally fake yet clearly well-intentioned bedside manner smile. Certainly in her mid-40's, but looks 10 years younger at least. Thin. Pretty. Very New York Professional Female. This is a woman who has been sticking needles in the bellies of 30-something neurotic, demanding New York Mothers a very, very long time.

After she does the test - which didn't hurt at all - she tells me that slight bleeding or even heavy-ish bleeding and/or some cramping is possible and probably not a cause for alarm, and that I should call my doctor if I bleed and am worried; she concludes by recommending "Tylenol or a glass of wine" to deal with any pain, and she clacks out. It was hilarious. And somehow very comforting.

Week 13
Test results confirm fetus is not mutant. I celebrate with big frosty non-alcoholic beer with egg nog chaser.

Week 14
I hate egg nog.

An extremely beautiful oven mitt

2009-01-16T11:03:00.007-05:00

Checking gauge might have been a good idea. I am proceeding with the at this point possibly very delusional hope that the mitten won't be too big for the tiny, thin bones of my should-have-been-a-pianist/osteoporosis-here-I-come hand.

But the pattern itself is very pretty.

Maybe felting would shrink it enough? Does alpaca even felt? Or maybe I need to think about who among my friends has big hands.

I have also started one of three baby projects for one of three friends due in May. All three are Canadian - two, however, are living in exile from their homeland, so that kind of blows this theory I was working on where the sex lives of Canadians are largely controlled by the extreme Canadian weather.

Filatura deCrosa has recently come out with a new line of colors for its (machine washable) Zara merino line. It's a bit hard to see from the photo, but there's a lovely heathered twist mixed in with the colors.

It's quite disheartening to think of them covered in baby puke.

Mmmm. Noro. Pretty.

2009-01-07T18:59:00.004-05:00

Not much else to say - I re-wound one of the balls of yarn to get brown stripes at both ends of the scarf, though in retrospect this fit of anal retentiveness might not have been in the spirit of the design. Now the ends are slightly mismatched, which is way more annoying than the quirky charm of totally mismatched. Of course I will wear it anyway - in fact, I broke it in today by taking a walk across Central Park to check out a few exhibits at the Met. It was a cold, gray, rainy January day, and the scarf kept me warm and dry, if not exactly cheery.

It's a Wonderful Life with the Wife

2008-12-24T12:47:00.004-05:00

Until last night, I had never participated in the time-honored tradition of viewing "It's a Wonderful Life." Todd, aghast at the possibility that he had married a philistine, bumped the film to the top of his Netflix queue, and it arrived just in time for Christmas. The general message of the film - should there be other philistines reading this blog - is that every person matters, and we never really know how much good we do, or how many lives we touch. An easy sentiment to sell, obviously, though that being said I do think it's a good film, with a remarkably strong script and well-directed, extremely fine acting.

The second half of the film involves George - the discouraged, suicidal protagonist - being shown by his guardian angel how different life would be for many people in his hometown had he never been born. The many predicable tragedies include the death of George's brother at age 8 and the town's descent into poverty and vice under the thumb of the Evil Capitalist Rich Man whose empire is only kept in check by George's humble savings and loan. All well and good. But what of the George's loving wife Mary? Had our hero never been born, what tragedy would have befallen her? This was the only tragedy that I didn't see coming, which probably did a lot to heighten my shock and incredulity. Her fate? Spinsterhood! And what do spinsters do? Apparently they wear glasses and work as the town librarian. Horrors! So...Mary's fate involves developing her mind and achieving financial independence rather than churning out 4 kids. Close call for Mary. Thank goodness George opts to keep his Wonderful Life.

Beautiful but boring

2008-12-19T10:53:00.006-05:00

As promised, some photos of the post-mitten-tragedy healing project:

It's the Noro two color striped scarf, colorways 245 and 268, four balls. Photographing the colors accurately proved to be much more challenging than the knitting itself. The stripes that look black are really deep purple; otherwise, thanks some quality time spent in iphoto, I think I've got the rest of the colors about right.

Halfway through, I am bored, which I take as a sign that I have healed and am ready to start the Lilyfield Mittens.

Getting back on the wooly horse

2008-12-14T13:22:00.007-05:00

I've got a little therapeutic no-brainer of a project going on right now - something to give me instant knitting pleasure after mitten tragedy - pictures in a day or two, after I dig out from under a mountain of final grading. It is a bad time of year to be a professor.

In other news, I finally got myself back to the yarn store to buy replacement alpaca for my re-knit of the Wintergreen Mittens, but I am finding that I lack the heart to restart them. Instead, I was thinking maybe I'd try my hand at either Eunny Jang's Anemoi mittens:

Or maybe the Lilyfield Mittens:

Which do you think would look better in a gray/cream combination? I'm leaning towards Lilyfield at the moment, but I am not sure I love the cuff - solid 1 x 1 ribbing might look better.

Wintergreen Mittens

2008-11-24T18:17:00.006-05:00

Why no photos of my progress on the Wintergreen Mittens? Because when I was coming back from the %^$#@&^ AAA conference, I forgot them on the plane. By the time I realized what I had done, it was too late. Apparently a ziplock bag containing two balls of exquisite alpaca yarn and one and a half beautiful mittens (one was completely finished and SO beautiful...) looks like garbage to a plane cleanup crew. So my mittens are gone. I am hoping posting this will help me move from anger to acceptance.

BSJ

2008-11-18T22:21:00.002-05:00

I realize that the world doesn't need another Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby Surprise Jacket; nor does the world need extended commentary on how completely freaking amazing the construction is.

This particular BSJ was knit on a #5 out of just over one skein (oh well...) of Dream in Color's Classy in the color Blue Lagoon. If it weren't the worst point in the semester I would have rounded out the look with a pair of Saartje's Booties, but it is just not to be.

Suffice to say that I enjoyed knitting it and I hope little baby Gwyndolyn enjoys wearing it.

If he weren't my student, I would feel REALLY smug

2008-11-12T21:47:00.005-05:00

Quizzes are a necessary evil - occasionally even the most dedicated student benefits from this most primitive of motivational tools. While I eschew the pop quiz, I do give most of my students a set number of quizzes over the course of the semester to - ahem - inspire them to make my class a priority.

So, grading a stack of quizzes this afternoon, I saw that an Obama-supporting student had used the 3 or 4 minutes he had to wait for his slower classmates to finish to decorate the back of his quiz with a big American flag anchored in Obama's name. Not to be outdone, his neighbor, a backwards-baseball-cap wearing type who, to his credit, had the courage to identify himself as a McCain supporter during our post-election class discussion of the candidates, decorated the back of his quiz with the following slogan:

[name of my college] LOVE'S MacKain

Yup.

I made a leaf!

2008-11-04T09:35:00.004-05:00

Most of this was accomplished waiting for a late flight from Chicago last night. It remains to be seen if this mitten gets finished waiting in line at my polling station.

The definition of insanity

2008-10-28T14:07:00.006-04:00

I know that I was - er - cranky about the pattern errors in the last Kate Gilbert design I knit, but I decided that as long as I knew that it would probably mean a whole new world of pain, it would be okay to try another one of her patterns. It's a basic seduction - dysfunction - seduction - dysfunction cycle. Currently we're in a seduction phase and all is well.

I've had my eye on the Wintergreen Mittens for a long time - I think they are pretty and I was also curious to learn the color cable technique, this despite the fact that in 16 years of knitting, I have never done colorwork (Sheldon looks like he involved colorwork, but it was really just stripes. Honestly.) So why not learn colorwork the hardest way possible - in the round, with cabling thrown in for good measure?

So far, so good. The yarn is my favorite: Blue Sky Alpaca sportweight.

Benny the not entirely super Super

2008-10-24T09:12:00.007-04:00

Benny is the superintendent for our building. As supers go, Benny is okay, especially given the fact that we're in a rent stabilized apartment, which often means that the landlord has given the super explicit instructions to ignore any tenant request that does not have the word "fire" in it. He's quick with disaster management (e.g. sudden torrential ceiling leaks, of which we've had three), and over the three years that we've been in the building, he's really developed his amateur general contractor skills, most notably during the epic re-painting of the entire common space of the apartment building, which involved smashing what we affectionately referred to as the "barf-tastic" stucco finish on the walls, hanging sheet rock, and painting over the entire new surface in what Benny said was "linen white" color paint. Benny is originally from Puerto Rico and even though he's clearly in his late 50's and has a bit of a beer belly, he still strikes me as the kind of man who could really take care of himself in a fist fight, which is why, in one of my brief conversations with him about the building renovations, I was charmed by both the fact that he bothered to note the official shade of white he was using and his pronunciation of it: "leeenaan whayt."

Our downstairs neighbors have had a problem with a very slow leak in their bathroom ceiling and because there is a proportional relationship between the level of threat and the speed of response, it took Benny a while to address the issue. I was pretty sure that because our bathtub has a hole in the tilework right where the cold water faucet comes out of the wall, water from our showering was dripping down to the space underneath our bathtub - to our neighbor's bathroom ceiling, in other words. Sometimes when I get in the shower I honestly think to myself that this could be the time that the weight of my body causes the rotted-out wooden floorboards underneath the bathtub to give way, causing the entire bathtub to fall through the ceiling into our downstairs neighbor's bathroom. In fact, several months ago Todd drew a line on the wall to chart any new sinking of the bathroom floor.

Benny stopped by a few days ago to address the issue of our neighbor's ceiling leak. Noting the hole in the tile, he did what he had actually done a few months ago when he stopped by our apartment to fix an unrelated bathroom problem: He stuffed toilet paper in the hole. Oh, yes.

To be fair, I think this time he mixed some caulk in with the toilet paper. I can't really tell and I don't want to poke it because I'm afraid of pushing it into the hole. We'll just have to wait and see if the seal dissolves after a few showers.

Dr. F!

2008-10-11T10:29:00.004-04:00

I've been busy, but not with knitting (and not with several conference papers, either, but I digress). Rather, together with some friends and my clever composer husband, I have made my first and perhaps last amateur video.

Here's a bit of back story: Basically, during the Hollywood writer's strike Joss Whedon created a 45-minute piece called "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog." It was distributed for free for about a week on a website and then it was moved to itunes, where you can go and download it for a nominal fee (I recommend you do so - it's pretty funny). Dr. Horrible is an aspiring villain seeking membership in the Evil League of Evil; the show is basically the story of his quest to get there; along the way, there' s a love story and lots of great musical numbers. Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog was also a not entirely veiled critique of the current power structure in Hollywood - so Dr. Horrible is clearly a symbol of Joss Whedon/writers and artists, and the "hero" (really the villain) Captain Hammer is clearly a symbol of studio executives, and corporate interests more generally.

The show did very well, and in preparation for an eventual release of DVD, Whedon and his people have created an internet-based contest where fans are invited to create a character who is seeking entry into the Evil League of Evil and a three minute maximum application video. The best ones will be included as DVD extras. I am of course a huge Whedon fan and the idea for this script came to me in a flash - I literally wrote it in an evening and wrote the song lyrics the next morning. Todd wrote the brilliant music for the song. Of course, with the number of entries, we have a snowball's chance in hell of winning - but I honestly wrote this because it came to me, I loved it, and I really wanted to see it done.

And now it is!

On the pleasures and perils of being a joiner

2008-10-02T10:26:00.008-04:00

I'm not much of a joiner, but I have to say that I'm glad I decided to become a part of the Anthropologie Knits group on Ravelry. For the record, I actually have fundamental problems with Anthropologie - there was a critical shopper column in a long-ago New York Times that pretty much summed it up perfectly: Anthropologie sells you the history you wish that you had - Grandma's attic, if Grandma were an elderly hipster incarnation of Martha Stewart (okay, the Critical Shopper didn't put it quite like that, but you get the idea). To this I would add that the price point of Anthropologie suggests that their other major mission is selling hedge fund managers the soul they wish they had. Still, there is no denying I like Anthropologie's bohemian-esque style, though I refuse, for reasons both practical and ideological, to pay hundreds of dollars for it. The solution? The Anthropologie Knits group harnesses the taste and browsing efforts of many people who feel the way I do about Anthropologie's price point, and the result is great tips on patterns that look like Anthropologie sweaters. In preparation for fall, the group has been posting possible patterns for a knit-along, and I'm feeling quite torn. I've wanted to do Rambling Rose (but in one color - like this one on Ravelry) for a long, long time, but someone in the Anthropologie Knits group suggested Oblique by Veronik Avery. I don't think the pictures on Knitty do the sweater justice - this version on Ravelry, however, is inspiring. Basically, I think I like Oblique a bit more, but I know that I am not a huge fan of actually knitting lace (wearing it, sure) and the Oblique pattern doesn't have charts, which means that the lace will be even more challenging/self-loathing-breakdown-inducing.

As Indians say, "What to do?"

of course.

2008-09-29T20:09:00.006-04:00

The BRILLIANT graphic is not a pac man or a fortune cookie under duress; nor is it a baby carriage or a caution against jumping face first into a hammock. In fact, it is a highly creative representation of a corner.

In India, especially in the north, many people enjoy chewing betel nut, often in a preparation called paan. Betel nut is a mild stimulant and pretty tasty, I have to say, despite the fact that it temporarily dyes the mouth a lurid red color. It's also possibly mildly carcinogenic, but so is breathing in India, and at least the betel nut is all-natural and locally produced. Anyway, the procedure for chewing betel (or paan) is to stick it between the cheek and the gum. As your mouth fills with bright red saliva, you as a chewer of betel are faced with a question which, since I am actually going to type it without clever little "*" edits, may inadvertantly bring a certain subset of googlers to this post. That question? Spit or swallow. And in India, if you choose to spit, it's either particularly satisfying or particularly polite - I never made it a priority to learn which - to spit in a corner if at all possible. Which is why, despite the sign, it looks like there's been a bloody murder in every corner of the New Delhi Railway station.

Ecce Alpaca (or, if you prefer, yarn porn)

2008-09-26T11:25:00.006-04:00

Increasing levels of appreciation for my new alpaca sweater prompted this happy purchase:

Blue Sky Baby Alpaca is my favorite yarn, period.

Being a relatively unprolific knitter has its advantages - I can more or less justify buying obscenely expensive yarn because I go through it so slowly (witness the aforementioned 3-year-old green alpaca sweater).

It's brilliantly soft and smells like baby alpaca - musty and living, though without all the actual barnyard animal funkiness. Blue Sky baby alpacas must maintain excellent personal hygiene.

The love between a boy and his turtle...

2008-09-21T09:23:00.008-04:00

...surprisingly best expressed in the lyrics of The Cure classic "Why Can't I Be You."

you're so gorgeous i'll do anything!
i'll kiss you from your feet
to where your head begins!

you're so perfect!
you're so right as rain!
you make me make me make me
make me hungry again.

everything you do is irresistible
everything you do is simply kissable
why can't i be you?

i'll run around in circles
'til i run out of breath
i'll eat you all up
or i'll just hug you to death

you're so wonderful!
too good to be true!
you make me
make me hungry for you

everything you do is simply delicate
everything you do is quite angelicate
why can't i be you?
why can't i be you?

you turn my head when you turn around
you turn the whole world upside down
i'm smitten i'm bitten i'm hooked i'm cooked
i'm stuck like glue!

you make me
make me hungry for you

everything you do is simply dreamy
everything you do is quite delicious
why can't i be you?
why can't i be you?
why can't i be you?

you're simply elegant!

Sweater Rescue

2008-09-18T18:19:00.013-04:00

Approximately three years after I started knitting it, I have a new fall sweater:

Prior to its release last week the sweater had been living under our bed, wrapped in plastic, all knit except for the top part of one sleeve. I started this project back when I still thought it was a good idea to design my own sweaters using the free demo of Knitware. Somewhere in there I sort of lost faith in my design vision (fitted stockinette raglan with picot edging = boring) and then there were many friends' babies and the wedding shawls and the alpaca was forgotten.

Because 100% alpaca ain't cheap, I had originally gone digging under the bed with the intention of cannibalizing it to make Camden (sans sleeves), but then I thought it was an awful lot of knitting to just rip out, and so I decided to finish the sleeve, sew it up, and see what I thought. And I think it's pretty nice. Nice enough to keep after all that freaking seaming, anyway.

Stats:
yarn: Misti Alpaca Worsted, color 7300
needle: # 5
pattern: made using Knitware
yardage: exactly enough:

In other words, after knitting the remaining portion of the sleeve and seaming, I had this much left:

Rock star finish.

Hint: this does not mean "do not force-feed pacman"

2008-09-14T17:47:00.009-04:00

I've got Delhi on my mind, what with the recent bombings. Scrolling through photos of the last trip, I came upon this one, taken at the New Delhi railway station.

Based on the BRILLIANT accompanying graphic, any idea what this sign is forbidding? I would be willing to bet a large amount of money - five dollars - that no one will figure it out, but amuse me with your guesses and I'll give you the answer in a few days.

For a change, a post that does not warrant the "gender" subject tag

2008-09-04T18:24:00.010-04:00

For now, let's just have a posting about innocuous, pretty baby knits, shall we? I've finally put the finishing touches on the Koko Kimono from Minnies for Cousin Liz's little girl. The pattern was a snooze to knit in mostly a good way and I am mostly pleased with the results, though it is true that I am much more fond of knitting with variegated yarn than I am of the resulting rainbow knits. It looks a bit more pastel in the photo than it does in real life.

Not much for a baby girl not to like.

Immediately after this picture was taken I was reprimanded by a park employee for having draped the sweater on a bush. Because what would happen if everyone decided that they could go draping their baby knits all over the shrubbery of New York City parks whenever they felt like it? Defoliation! Deforestation! Global Warming! Apocalypse!

In other news, I am rather proud of this photo:

It's the lily pond in the Conservatory Garden, and I love it even though Claude Monet more or less ruined water lilies for all eternity.

Actual spit-flying-from-mouth Ranting

2008-09-03T22:37:00.005-04:00

Knitcrit can only say...ummm...you have got to be fu*king kidding me. KIDDING me. Fu*king KIDDING me. I am currently watching Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention.

So far she's said that McCain ROCKS because he's a WAR HERO. And as a MOTHER of a soldier, she totally wants McCain to be president because he's a PROVEN LEADER. etc.

And now she's going on and ON about being a MOM and from a SMALL TOWN. She's JUST LIKE YOU. She's an OUTSIDER.

And we're so inspired by her being a woman and all. Women can TOTALLY do anything! Because look at what a great mom Sarah is!

Or in the slightly more eloquent/less pissed words of Slate:

The Sarah Palin candidacy could have been a moment for women to celebrate, in glass-ceiling terms if not policy advances. But it never should have stood for the notion that the only way a woman is going to make it to the White House is if she's the best mom in America first.

http://www.slate.com/id/2199131/pagenum/2/

Indeed.

2008-08-22T18:58:00.001-04:00

(too small? click image for big)

Whatever else you may say about Singapore, you can't say that they didn't warn you

2008-08-22T17:52:00.007-04:00

Gum is illegal; the punishment for drug possession is death by hanging...Singapore boggles the mind a little bit, and going directly to the shining skyscraper wonderland of Singapore from the absolute chaos of the capital of the World's Largest Democracy scrambles the brain all the more. What can be said of Singapore? Take a lot of oil money and a competent, benevolent dictator and you get a equatorial city with drinkable tap water, no malaria, and acres of delicious street food that can be enjoyed without subsequent dire consequences. Cabs have working seatbelts. Everyone speaks English because schools in Singapore are English medium. In short, Singapore is paradise: so gorgeously perfect that you kind of forget that it may be a tiny bit dull.

Unless you trespass, which apparently has very exciting consequences.

This just in from a Paharganj internet cafe....

2008-08-10T05:35:00.004-04:00

Knitcrit checks in to assure her - ahem - elite group of regular readers that other than her apartment's internet connection, all is well in Delhi. The connection iteself went down on August first, and after many calls to the landlord and the service provider, Knitcrit grew weary of pushing the boulder up the mountain and just gave up.

I might have tried a little harder to get things back on line were it not for the fact that our upstairs neighbor, in whose apartment our router and modem are located, is rather eccentric. By eccentric of course I mean completely insane, which itself would still be a manageable situation if he weren't an insane man with a vision. The vision involves merging his current business with what he hopes will be his legacy. The current business, the exact name of which I do not want to use because I don't want him to find this page (even completely insane people have feelings), involves scanning the client's fingerprint. After this, a complex mathematical calculation is performed, from which a person's future is determined. The legacy-in-the-making involves opening a college where students will be fingerprinted - then, of course, their natural aptitutes will be calculated. It's like the SAT but without all the tiresome multiple choice (and possibly just about as accurate as the SAT, but I digress...) Then the student will be placed in an appropriate course of study. All students, however, will study the art of communicating with animals, which so far as I can tell involves singing into a machine that our upstairs neighbor has invented. So, like I said, the crazy I can handle, but because our neighbor has figured out that both Todd and I teach on the college level, he really wants us to join the faculty of his college. Which means that every time we went upstairs to try to solve the connection problem we had to figure out some way to escape a discussion of what we might contribute to his institution. Which became very tiresome. Hence this dispach from a sweaty backpacker internet cafe.

Tune in about a week from now, when Knitcrit and Todd will be in glorious Singapore, swimming in our friend's condo's pool and enjoying tasty cocktails and a working internet connection.

You maaaade me feel shiny and neeew

2008-07-30T02:00:00.009-04:00

There has been some knitting of late, much of it accomplished yesterday during a three hour, ten mile journey (yes, south Delhi traffic is that bad, and is made worse this time of year owing to the arrival of massive packs of Ganges-water-bearing Kanwaria pilgrims).

I was in an air conditioned chariot of luxury because I thought it would be the best way to get to a potential field site in the extreme south of Delhi; as it turned out, the chariot may not have been the best choice because it had to sit in traffic and could not perform illegal u-turns; a rickshaw could have merrily broken many traffic laws and gotten us out of some of the worst backups.

The journey also dragged on forever owing to a series of wrong turns that were partly due to circumstances and partly due to the fact that the driver was an amazingly passive aggressive creature who had obviously recently crawled out of a dark, life-hating level of hell. But I digress. Look at the lovely colors of the Dream in Color Superwash, photographed in the brilliant, blindingly hot subcontinental sun:

This is none other than EZ's famed BSJ, which I have named in knitter code so that the non-knitter for whom it is intended will not suspect anything. I held off starting it until I could confirm that a stateside friend could get me another skein - a bit of post-trip Ravelry sleuthing indicated that one skein of the Dream in Color wasn't enough. So far so good, and the pattern notes linked on the Ravelry page are helpful, though everyone who has knit this classic knows that it is nothing so much a cross between knitting and origami, and so impossible to intuit, even for an accomplished sweater-knitter like myself - it's just a big blob of knitting until the very end, and then, fold fold fold, and suddenly, out of nowhere: sweater!

Pain; excitement; mystery - it's like losing my sweater virginity all over again.

Existentialism incarnate

2008-07-24T23:46:00.010-04:00

Displacement, isolation, meaninglessness, confinement? I feel you, Mr. Gorilla. Sometimes being in India is like that only.

You don't say....

2008-07-22T04:11:00.004-04:00

<--"remove outer packing before consumption"

Jay Mata Di (or, Victory to the Mother)

2008-07-14T02:09:00.006-04:00

Technology: neither evil nor good, but rather, a force to be reckoned with. Personally, I reckon that technology is currently contributing greatly to the great potential that Delhi men of a certain (young) age and socio-economic status have to be entitled, penis-bearing, big huge jerks.

Exhibit A: cars

It's now common knowledge that the burgeoning Indian middle class is buying cars in record numbers, creating more traffic than most roads in India can handle, especially when you throw in all the livestock and cycle rickshaws. About a week ago, Todd and I were taking a cycle rickshaw on a somewhat crowded road when a car packed full of 20-something Indian males pulled up behind us and proceeded to lay on the horn non-stop. As in, they were going to sit on the horn until the rickshaw got out of the way. Car horns are loud and sit exactly on the threshold of pain; drivers in their AC-infused bubble don't have to deal with the sound, which might account for some of their ability to hold the horn down for indefinite periods of time. Of course, our poor guy, pedaling as hard as he could, couldn't pull over because, well, the road was packed with cars and rickshaws. The horn was loud. And constant. So I turned around and looked at the car thinking perhaps they would lay off the horn if someone made eye contact with them, which of course did not happen, at which point I decided to do a little impromptu anthropological experiment to see if in fact the bird carries meaning here in India, with Todd joining me in this experiment.

I can report that the bird has, in fact, landed in India, if the drivers of the car behind us are any indication. So there was cathartic flipping off all round, and then our cycle rickshaw-walla finally got an opening to pull over and the terrible boy-men screeched by, on their way to wherever it was they were in such a hurry to get to. Except, amazingly, they drove to the end of the road, pulled over, and waited for us to catch up, at which point the one in the passenger seat frantically rolled down his window (not wanting to let out the precious AC air before we arrived) and shouted a heavily accented but passable "Suck my d*ck, you whore!," after which the driver hit the gas hard enough to squeal the tires and they were off in their little middle class chariot of a Maruti, frantically rolling up the window as they sped off towards Delhi gate. So we can conclude that internet pornography may not be such a bad thing, since it has clearly enhanced the English vocabulary of untold masses of emergent middle class Indian males.

Exhibit B: Cell phones

Just last night I was negotiating a fare with a local cycle rickshaw driver. It was taking longer than usual because Sunday is everyone's day off and for a remarkable number of these poor laborers, Sunday is the day to drink hard and heavy, so that by 8 a very high percentage of them are quite drunk. The cycle rickshaw guy was actually explaining that he couldn't take me (good call, methinks) and he was trying - kindly - to give me walking directions to my destination when a little group of young emergent middle class Indian men with their cell phones came walking across the parking area.

Here I must emphasize that this parking lot was nearly empty and that it had, by urban Indian standards, a cavernous amount of free space. So this pack of cell-phone wielding boys came closer, their leader somewhat oblivious of his surroundings because he, like many cell-phone owners, was engrossed in some riveting bout of text messaging (or maybe a really good game of snake. Hard to say). He got to where I was standing and without skipping a beat proceeded to push his way between myself and the rickshaw driver, uttering an indignant "excuse me," as he went. Because clearly walking behind me in the aforementioned cavernous amount of free space would have been too inconvenient. Or unmanly. Or something.

A new fearsome Hindu goddess needs to be created - one who wields a cell phone and car keys in addition to a sword and a severed head. Young men would be required to perform puja to her regularly, and at the slightest sign of abuse of technology, the Mother who giveth the accouterments of bourgeois living would take them away, possibly raining down a healthy dose of impotence or smallpox for good measure.

Masala

2008-07-06T02:15:00.015-04:00

I've landed in Delhi and am thoroughly enjoying the sauna-esque climate and stomach-on-the-edge-of-a-nervous-breakdown. Aaahhh, Delhi Belly. How I have missed thee.

To compensate for the verbosity of the last post, Knitcrit proudly presents a series of recent India photos with minimal commentary:

First, lest the knitblog police force me to change my blog name to Critknit due to lack of knitting content, there's been some heel-turning on sock number one:

Pomatomus is still surprisingly easy and still fun. Knitters: does anyone know anything about a slightly-larger-than-lace-pattern-size hole on one side of the patterned part of foot? It happened right about the time I stopped the side decreases for the gusset. I really don't think I made a mistake. Anyway, I'm choosing to ignore it. Socks go in shoes, right?

English-language newspapers here continue with their hard-hitting coverage of the issues that matter most:

This chicken DARES you to eat her:

Anyone else think this product is vaguely pornographic or do I just have a smutty mind?

Just in case your body isn't producing enough on its own:

Doesn't this make you never want to eat a popsicle again?

Possibly only two regular blog readers will understand this, but still, check it out! I found the dargah in Mysore that has haziri - though there they call it tawaf karna. I was thrilled to find this - it's a good story, actually, but we're favoring pictures this time, so here's the sign that tipped me off:

Dedicated and clever readers: Normally I can deduce intention behind slightly ill-chosen Indian English words, but in this case, I admit to being totally baffled. Probably these helmets are actually made in China, home of the truly inexplicable English word choice, but still - any ideas on the intention behind branding a helmet as "deletion?"

Like many young men on the street in Mysore, these helmet sellers were cheery and possibly a little drunk. Photo concept theirs, photographer me:

My new gold earrings! I love them!

Shanidev street shrine - possibly Knitcrit's new post-dissertation project since the Unani thing appears to be tanking hard:

And finally, even with a month and a half to go, I am still absolutely confident in naming this the best photo from this trip to India:

Perhaps not exactly the rant you were hoping for

2008-06-22T23:08:00.021-04:00

The anecdote: I'm a big fan. The tiny story that hits every level of an issue in a pitch-perfect manner - no cumbersome plot issues, no surprise endings, no character development - just a nugget of juicy multivalent goodness waiting to be unpacked by, say, a deeply disgruntled yoga student knitblogger.

The anecdote featured in this post is, as befits an anecdote, short, but since the lead-in is a bit long, I've taken the liberty of breaking up the prose with recent photos from my burgeoning collection of fabulous hand-painted ladies' and men's room signs. Professor Knitcrit knows that nothing maintains audience interest like pictures.

Let the games begin.

Today the regular coconut water man wasn't standing in his usual spot directly outside the yogashala and so the usual post-practice pack of sweaty, ethnic print cheesecloth-draped yogis was not, mercifully, in evidence. Because I cannot live without coconut water after practice, I made my way to the coconut stand on the corner near the flat Todd and I are renting in Mysore. Several yoga students were there enjoying all the potassium-laden goodness, and as I stood there I overheard a woman whom I hardly know but whom I loathe chatting with a guy I also hardly know but whom I also loathe.

I loathe the guy because years ago he taught at the schmanciest yogashala in NYC; I visited there once to see if it was a good place for me to practice and in the course of our very brief conversation I mentioned that I hadn't practiced in a while due to an injury and his eyes got this glazed look and he proceeded to give me a sermon on how in Astanga there are no injuries, just openings, and that the best thing to do when, say, one has torn a hamstring so badly that it is too painful to sit normally for nearly six months, is to keep in practicing yoga. Thanks, coach. Also, you are a maniac.

It is not at all surprising to me that this particular dude is now on an all-raw food diet and maintains a little shaved brahmin-esque topknot. Anyway.

I loathe the woman because early in our time here in Mysore, Todd and I went to one of the yoga haunts for breakfast and were forced to interact with people because of the group table setup. So this woman and her boyfriend were chatting about the usual three topics here: food, digestion, and what we might loosely term Indian philosophy, a catch-all term encompassing discussions of "ego," WWKD (what would Krishna do), Sanskrit classes, and upcoming kirtan sessions. I was attempting to participate in this conversation when her boyfriend (who, incidentally, is the son of a pastor, has "make a joyful noise" tattooed on his lower back, and in general exhibits all the signs of being a classically screwed up estranged preacher's kid) mentioned that in their last "philosophy" class, their teacher had talked all about what a darn shame it was that when the "Muslims" came to India, they destroyed many finger-lickin'-good Sanskrit texts.

Which was pretty much the same thing as pushing the big red angry sermon button in the middle of my chest.

And so in the Om-curtain draped environment of Tina's breakfast joint, I proceeded to impart all the wisdom of my Intro to Islam class as well as a good chunk of my South Asian religion class. Salient points included:

(1) When the "Muslims" came to India, they did not find a bunch of non-violent vegetarians singing kirtan. They found empires. Hindu empires. Jain empires. Empires that had armies. Empires with deified kings and temples in which the central enshrined deity shared the name of the ruler. Deified kings whose patronage of tantric forms of Hinduism was intended to augment their power. In short, empires in which there was no distinction between the religious and the political. As Richard Eaton has shown, most temple desecrations performed by Muslim rulers took place in temples that were clearly symbols of political authority for Hindu kings. The wars between empires in India were political in the modern sense of the word, and they were political on both sides. Indian history is not the history of a bunch of fanatical Muslims declaring jihad on a bunch of non-violent love-filled Hindus. Full stop.

(2) Slightly limp but nevertheless true: horrific acts of violence have been perpetrated in the name of and using intellectual tools and systems from every so-called "world religion."

We will get to the actual anecdote soon. I swear.

Somewhere in this impassioned sermon I realized that I might just be coming across like leisurely-post-yoga-breakfast wrecking maniac, and so I apologized for my tone and tried to explain that part of the reason I care so much about the topic is because the modern-day Hindu Right's re-writing of Indian history along the lines of the-Muslims-came-and-wrecked-everything-and -now-we-want-them-all-to-get-the-hell-out is used to justify recurrent horrific acts of violence against the Muslim community in India, and particularly against the poor and low-caste Muslim community.

While I was in the midst of my attempt to explain my impassioned tone, the woman checked herself out of the conversation and began copying a big list of Buddhist layperson's vows from a laminated plastic card she was carrying around into a nicey-nice little handmade paper book. Never mind actually learning something when you can copy your nice vows into your nice booklet.

And now, at long last, the anecdote. At the coconut stand, this Buddha-lovin' woman was telling this openings-lovin' guy all about a terrible Astanga yoga teacher somewhere or other, someone who had the audacity to mix up the order of postures and teach beginners advanced poses, etc, etc, etc on and on and ON about this deviant yoga teacher, and the whole time she fails to notice that if she moved her massive yoga mat bag off the bench at the coconut stand, other people (people like me) might also have a place to sit. At a certain point, another woman sitting on the edge of the bench asked me if I'd like to sit down, and, having heard the offer, the Buddha-lovin' woman pulled her bag up on her lap in a way that still didn't make it particularly easy for a person to sit down, all the while going on about the horrible unorthodox yoga teacher. I finished my coconut standing up, paid the vendor, and left.

And THAT, more than anything else, is what I despise about the culture here in yogaland. These people, like fundamentalists anywhere, have become so taken with their ideological pursuits that they do not have the ability to respond in a courteous, kind, humane way to their present situations. As in, "please have a seat." Or, "I'm sorry that you tore your hamstring."

You might at this point be thinking, okay, Knitcrit, I see how these people are perhaps a bit crazy and a bit annoying, but you seem pretty, well, mad. You are correct. Knitcrit is mad. Knitcrit is mad because she was raised in a fairly rigid evangelical environment and she can very, VERY clearly see that that these yahoos in Mysore are just as much idiotic, self-righteous fundamentalists as, say, Knitcrit's old youth group leader, whose most horrific moment was (it's a toss-up) either entertaining a bunch of high schoolers by eating a live goldfish or giving Knitcrit a long talk about how women should submit to their husbands in all things and also not aspire to becoming pastors since only men can lead. I wish he had choked on the goldfish.

Knitcrit has no use for devotion to ideology that gets in the way of people treating one another with courtesy and kindness. Ideology, including yoga, is a means to an end. Knitcrit, in case you are wondering, does Astanga not because she wants to become a superyogini enlightened bendy Sanskrit scholar, but rather, because it makes her more capable of being present, engaged, and kind when dealing with other people. Except yoga people, of course.

What exactly constitutes the "Japanese Technology" component?

2008-06-16T05:52:00.005-04:00

Perhaps the barcode on the package?

The Mysterious East

2008-06-13T02:04:00.008-04:00

Yoga: its acolytes profess its ability to impart peace of mind, immortality, magical powers, extreme sexual stamina, and/or nice triceps; however, it does not, apparently, offer protection from the common cold. Where I picked up this delightful illness is uncertain, though if I were a betting sort of girl I'd put my money on the Yogashala itself, since both of the presiding teachers have been sick and the combined breathing and sweating of 60 or so ardent and tightly-packed yogis gives the practice room a moist, warm atmosphere that I can only imagine strikes cold viruses as heaven (or, perhaps, samadhi) itself.

I am pretty tired of blowing my nose at this point, but perks of the cold include discovering this fabulous product while I was assembling the ingredients for tea:

Coorg Honey. Coorg is a region about two hours from Mysore in the lovely Western Ghats, mountains known for their old growth jungle. Todd and I actually visited a working coffee plantation/guest house about a week ago. It was stunningly beautiful:

While there we also learned that if one is hiking in a leech-infested area, the leeches will always attack the second passer-by, having been alerted to the presence of nice, warm fresh blood by the first creature to pass through their lair. This was a somewhat more painful lesson for Todd than for me given his location in our little trekking party of two, though I was given ample opportunity to hone my leech removal skills. Note: mighty Dettol is your secret weapon.

But the Coorg honey is worthy of blogging not for its Coorg pedigree, but rather, because it is, as the label tells us, "coorg ahimsak madhu"

Or Coorg non-violent honey. The residents of Coorg, themselves not only non-veg but actually consumers of (da-da-da-dum) pork are, one suspects, pandering to the Jain mafia. Or perhaps the vegetarian yoga student mafia. Hard to say. But in any case, apparently nary a honeybee was harmed to bring us this Coorg honey. Though I suspect a few leeches were trampled during the extraction process.

Mother India

2008-06-06T06:00:00.014-04:00

This just in from the English edition of the Deccan Chronicle:

No, this is not a story about my exploits in Chennai, thank you very much - if you enlarge the photo and read the story, you'll be given not only the actual full name of the poor girl who was attacked by a new-ish friend after drinking late into the night at one of Chennai's swank hotel bars, but half of her address in Chennai, as well. This so that every man in the city can stalk her, one supposes, since as a drunken debased white chick she's really just asking for it.

Appreciate, also, the random photo of the endangered species turtle accompanying the story. It's a curious fact that English-language Indian newspapers often feature grotesque or otherwise weird-ass photos that have absolutely nothing to do with adjacent stories. Eerily, however, in this case the photo caption "cynosure of all eyes" fits pretty well with the newspaper story - nothing like a titillating story about a debased white chick to sell newspapers.

Of course, this attitude towards the white chick is old, old news to an old India hand like myself; studying yoga here in Mysore for the month at the Astanga Yoga Mothership, however, is completely new to me and it has inspired the mother of all blog posts on white spiritual seeker culture in India - a culture I have observed from afar for many years and in which I am now immersed and possibly drowning. For now, suffice to say that after this month I will feel absolutely, perfectly, and completely entitled to my witheringly scornful opinion of skinny, vegan, Sanksrit-chanting, scooter driving, Om-tattooed trustafarians. Coming soon.

And yes, there has been knitting. I haven't turned the heel yet, so it's probably premature to say so, but these Pomatomus socks aren't all that difficult...

And finally, a poster for one of Bollywood's less fine recent features. Too good not to share, and sort of on topic in a Blogger labels sort of way:

<-- "She is Eagerly Waiting for you..."

I bet this debased white chick doesn't have to worry about getting attacked on the way home from the bar.

Some for the road

2008-05-24T19:28:00.008-04:00

I am of course generally worried about getting everything done before we leave for India on Monday. Specifically, though, I was worried that I'd manage to complete all the thankless tasks but I wouldn't quite make it to Knitty City in time to get yarn for my summer knitting projects. Chalk one up for Professor Slacker - my grades are still not submitted, but my knitting needles will be very well-dressed for summer.

Gender-neutral jewel tone superwash goodness from Dream In Color, purchased to make Elizabeth Zimmerman's ever-popular Baby Surprise Jacket - also meant to be surprise for an occasional reader of this blog, so no more on this project for now:

For me, two skeins of Shi Bui's superwash merino in the romantically named Color 1675 - it's slightly variegated and manages to be cheery and earthy at the same time (it's a bit brighter in the photos than in real life). This will become Cookie A's Pomatomus, inshallah, unless pattern sends me off the deep end, in which case it will become the slightly less challenging Monkey, also by Cookie A.

And finally, because billions of hip young knitters can't be wrong, I'll be knitting my first pair of Jaywalkers with this pretty self-striping yarn - superwash merino, of course.

Now that I have yarn for said projects, I can get back to worrying about whether or not I'll get everything graded in time. Just so long as there's something to give me insomnia.

Also coming to India: the wedding shawls. They're not done yet. The new unrealistic goal is finishing both of them before our first anniversary. And then I will never knit lace again.

Attention TSA: not letting me take knitting needles on the plane will actually be much more dangerous for passengers than just letting me get started on my new socks. (Alert readers will note that I have used the words "TSA" "dangerous" "knitting needles" and "inshallah" in the same post. Let's see what happens next.)

Simone de Beauvoir, look out

2008-05-23T10:00:00.004-04:00

An emergent cultural critic from one of my classes this semester writes:

And women are the only ones performing these rituals for several reasons, some of which being that they are more emotional and sensitive, thus more qualified to received [sic] faster mercy and response from God.

What does he mean??? Women are NOT emotional and sensitive!!!! I'm SO pissed right now. In fact, I am so pissed I'm going to hunt this student down and shoot him in cold blood. And then God will forgive me because I'm a girl.

Is "f*ck off, you idiots" clear enough?

2008-05-15T20:12:00.015-04:00

Earlier this academic year I applied for a small summer research grant from my illustrious institution. I got the news that I didn't get the grant several months ago, but I did not get around to actually reading my rejection letter until today. The first paragraph reassures me that many worthy proposals could not be funded, and it then presents the comments of the reviewers, which I reproduce verbatim:

The committee observed that because the text of your proposal was not sufficiently clear. The proposal did not communicate your ideas and plans effectively enough.

Perhaps the committee. Would have had an easier time, understanding my proposal if, it had contained many grammatical errors. I thank the committee for it's 'helpful feedback' and, I look forward to discussing there helpful comments with the, Office Of Sponsored Programs, as suggested in the closing paragraph of the rejection letter.

Putting off grading final papers takes many forms

2008-05-11T14:00:00.009-04:00

Extreme disillusionment with the drop stitch lace tank (and subsequent frogging of the same) greatly contributed to getting the Koko Kimono from Minnies done prior to my impending India trip. Cute, no?

The burning question - and possibly the only active thought I've given this gratifyingly simple and drama-free pattern - is what to do with the i-cord closures.

The pattern calls for garter stitch i-cord, but having knit one, while I understand that it's supposed to match the garter stitch border of the kimono,

when compared to a straight-up stockinette stitch i-cord, to me the garter stitch i-cord resembles nothing so much as a evil worm-like parasite not unlike those that will almost certainly take up residence in my intestines this summer. Less rainbow-colored, perhaps, but still...lumpy. Ugly and therefore malevolent. You know.

So I'm torn: ugly thing that makes better design sense, or pretty thing that breaks garter stitch continuity of border? Because of course if I make the wrong decision, no self-respecting 6-month-old girl is going to wear the thing.

Orientalism

2008-05-08T16:29:00.010-04:00

The summer trip to India grows ever nearer, and I have to say I'm looking forward to it despite the obvious drawbacks including but not limited to the scorching reality of summer in India and the fact that gold prices have gone so through the roof that there is pretty much no way I can justify (or possibly even just afford) finally buying the Golden Necklace That Got Away - the one that I fondled in the Connaught Place Mehrason's back in the summer of 2005 but did not purchase, concluding that it was "unnecessary." Idiot. All gold jewelry is unnecessary, which more or less makes all gold jewelry necessary, if you follow (and if you don't your brain simply hasn't been subject to enough heatstroke yet).

A few days ago I was shocked to see that my favorite little katie roll joint had been painted a lurid shade of orange and re-christened "the kebab factory." The sweet little chalkboard menu - sweet because an employee unfazed by his or her lack of actual talent had drawn a bird at the base of the menu - was gone, replaced by a menu of great, ominous breadth. After waiting for 5 or so minutes for an employee to appear at the take-out counter, I ventured into the bowels of the restaurant (dining area in basement = bad sign) looking for someone to take my order. Kebab Factory 101, should future potential customers wonder, is as follows:

1. Banarasi Chaat is only served at dinner. The other kind of chat (the name eludes me) is served at lunch and consists of chunks of boiled potato covered in a lumpy, brown, and (perhaps mercifully) tasteless sauce.
2. When you order paneer tikka, what you will get is a katie roll filled with some kind of saag and shredded (canned amul?) paneer.
3. It will require three employees to complete your order: one to cook, one to ring up the order downstairs, and one to stand around staring at you.
4. For all of your trouble, you will be given five plastic spoons at no extra charge.
5. They deliver!

Being there reminded me of everything I love about India: the extreme awkwardness and extreme graciousness, the good intentions, the grand ambitions, the lack of resources, and the complete and utter incompetence. All that kept it from being authentically Indian, actually, was the terrible food.

Sometimes a burqa seems like a pretty damn good option

2008-04-19T18:22:00.008-04:00

Fresh from the insult and injury that is commonly referred to as "clothes shopping," Knitcrit would like to take this opportunity to scream SCREW YOU, RETAIL DEMONESS AND ALL OF YOUR UNHOLY, HEADSET-WEARING, "CAN I START A DRESSING ROOM FOR YOU?" MINIONS.

All Knitcrit wanted was a pair of white, ivory or stone-colored dressy-ish professional looking pants (read: not rumpled chinos).

Bloomingdale's: Desirable, but price point for single article of clothing is approximately equivalent to my monthly rent. Having entered there in the past, I have abandoned hope of finding things remotely within my budget. Plus, how much of that $500 do the Chinese prisoners see? Not much, I bet.

Century 21: These pants are perfect. Except they're size 14. And they have a spot on the hem.

Banana Republic: The home of affordable corporate secretary wear. You can almost hear the heels clacking in and out of the boardroom. Fabric is generally crap, with poor drape, making panty lines almost certainly inevitable, regardless of panty choice. Likely to give students impression that I am their secretary, an attitude actually present in many students today and therefore not one that needs encouraging.

Benetton: Unlined white pants.

Montmartre: Perfect ivory pants! Oh. Wait. $430. Never mind.

Ann Taylor: Lined white pants, nice Italian wool, but at this quintessentially middle American store, they have so radically skewed their sizing to accommodate the quintessentially middle American big ass that a SIZE ZERO is too big on me. And okay, I'm on the slender side, but I come by it naturally, and anyway, this is Manhattan, for Christ's sake - it's not like there aren't hundreds of thousands of rail-thin 21-year-olds skulking around looking longingly in the windows of the ubiquitous New York slice pizza joint. Where do THEY get their pants?

JCrew: I fought my way through mounds of day-glow paper-thin cashmere cardigans and the 16-year-olds who love them only to discover that JCrew does not have white, ivory, or stone pants, though navy is on offer. Unsure what they are thinking - what would go better with day-glo paper-thin cashmere cardigans than white pants?

I guess this is probably a sign that anyone who works with dry erase markers as much as I do probably shouldn't be buying light colored pants anyway.

A little bit of Bollywood makes the election ever so much more bearable

2008-04-12T10:35:00.005-04:00

Knitcrit was horrified to see a below-average-even-for-youtube level of discourse in the youtube comments thread for this video; apparently for many viewers the Bollywood dancers superimposed on Obama’s mouth and body were taken to be some kind of meditation on his secret identity as a Muslim. This would be laughable if it weren’t so incredibly and dangerously stupid.

I came upon the below translation of the lyrics to the song while reading through the atrocious youtube comments; interestingly, the translator translates “gori” as “beautiful woman;” hindiwale know, of course, that “gori” literally means “whitey,” and is used to refer to the (desirable) fairness of a woman; more generally, the term and its masculine counterpart are sometimes used in a derogatory manner to refer to Caucasians. I suspect this was the point of the video – mocking Obama and his young white liberal lovers.

From the film Mela

Aaja Aaja Aaja Aaja Aaja Aaja Aa
Come...
Chori Chori Hum Gori Se Pyaar Karengey
In secret I'll love a beautiful woman
Chupke Chupke Dil Ki Baatein Yaar Karengey
Very softly I'll speak my heart
Aane Waali, Kab Aayegi Koi De Bataa
Can't someone tell me when will the one who's coming will arrive?
Dhoond Rahe Hain, Jaane Kabh Se, Hum Uska Pataa
God knows how long I've been searching for news of her
Aaja Aaja Aaja Aaja Aaja Aaja Aa

Mahiyaa, Mahiyaa
Beloved, beloved
Jaldi Se Aa Ja Sun Mahiyaa
Come quickly; listen, my love!
Mahiyaa, Mahiyaa
Beloved, beloved,
Doli Mein Le Ja Sun Mahiyaa...
Take me away in a wedding palanquin; lover, listen!

Despair and Home Improvement

2008-04-10T09:58:00.017-04:00

Grumpiness abounds here at Knitcrit mission control; garden variety annoyances were recently transformed into a massive jungle of despair by the news that my academic arch rival got a major grant for which I also applied and which, needless to say, I did not get. The academic arch rival in question, I hasten to add, is probably unaware of her title; it was conferred upon her years ago when my spies heard her badmouthing me at a conference. Her genetic predisposition to seek and destroy competition combined with the fact that she has now effectively kicked my ass in grantwriting 101 has, I think, doomed me to being the lesser, other, and/or unconsulted academic opinion on our shared topic.

Whoever said that the best revenge is living well has, in recent years, become my personal hero (though I do have a true story about an ex-landlord, a washing machine, and some creative letter-writing that might contend for the title of best revenge, come to think of it. Another time). Unfortunately, working as a hedge fund manager is pretty much the only easy way to live well in Manhattan; for the rest of us, it's a high art.

My most recent triumph in this regard was switching our office and bedroom. Technically, we live in a two bedroom apartment. I say technically because in Manhattan, a room is, legally speaking, any space that has at least one window. Thus, the "room" that we used as a bedroom for nearly the first two years of our lease was a bedroom in the purest sense of the word - it was a room almost completely occupied by our bed, with the remaining floor space filled with two dressers. Going to bed meant opening the door to the room, taking two steps forward, and lying down. I couldn't open the bottom two drawers of my dresser because they were blocked by the bed. Making the bed involved standing in the middle of the bed. And so on.

This living situation was necessary because when we moved into the apartment neither of us had a job in the strictest sense of the word, and we therefore needed to use the larger second bedroom for our shared office. It's a wonder we managed to get married at all after sharing an office, actually.

Knitcrit: Can I interrupt you for a minute?

Todd: What?

Knitcrit: Will you read this for typos? I have to send it out right away.

Todd: (grumbling) Yeah, yeah, sure (reads, approves, returns to desk, puts on headphones and begins listening to work-related music at high volume).

Knitcrit: Todd. Todd? TODD! (throws pencil/paper clip/crumpled piece of paper at him to get his attention because it's just too hard to get up and walk the three feet to his desk because that would entail the effort of trying to roll the desk chair over the necessary traction-producing Red Ringum).

Todd: (pulling off headphones) What?

Knitcrit: Will you turn the music down? I can't concentrate. Sorry.

Todd: (in a tone suggesting otherwise) It's okay.

Knitcrit: (in a tone suggesting lack of actual gratitude) Thanks.

Ah. The office. It was overflowing with books and bitterness.

Note Red Ringum looming in the foreground.

When I got my actual job, I got an actual office, making it possible to move all of my books and files to work. Todd's actual job does not, alas, come with an actual office, and so the solution was to move his office to our old bedroom, repaint, and move the bedroom into the nice room with actual light and something resembling enough space for a bed, two dressers, two end tables, and a little desk for my laptop:

My career may be ruined, but at least I can now make the bed while standing next to it rather than standing on it. What revenge.