Crochet Me = Quirky
Greetings from Colorado. The magazine is nearly there. I’m happy with it, and that feels good.
As per what seems to have become tradition, I’m away from home and CrochetMe.com is snafu. It’s up, but quirky. One of said quirks is that I’m unable to post a blog update about it. If you wouldn’t mind, please spread the word that I’m on it, and am working as closely as I can with tech support to smooth out the kinks. I’m also not getting Cme email, nor email notifications of comments here. Le sigh.
I’m wiped, and will soon collapse on the sofa to watch Battlestar Galactica on DVD and drink hot chocolate.
Normal verbosity to resume soon.
Bah. Humbug.
There are two things I don’t like about traveling for work: one is being away from home, and the other is CNN. I loathe CNN like a 15-year-old boy loves Led Zeppelin. One of the many reasons I hate CNN is that as a traveler in North America, I’m assaulted by it at nearly every turn. It’s broadcast throughout the airport. Every airport. And it’s often the only all-news network available in a hotel. The problem I have with this is that at some point between fifteen years ago and now, CNN stopped broadcasting the news. Now it’s as if all they do is broadcast mostly drivel with a little bit of news, but they use expert writing and dramatic graphics and music to make us think the drivel is news.
My brain stops working when I watch CNN in the same way it stops working when I watch Gossip Girl. But I watch Gossip Girl (not recently, though) because I want to turn my brain off. With CNN, which I turn on because there are, say, a half-dozen current world events I want to learn more about, all I get is a stream of teasers for a multitude of segments all on the same over-reported topic, and all to come several hours hence, peppered with a repeating loop of “top” stories that are neither breaking news nor in any way more important than the events I’d wanted so intently to learn more about. So then my brain rapidly comes to attention and I’m flooded with thoughts about how this is appalling and must certainly reflect very poorly on the future of our informed citizenry, and then all I’m left with are my own opinions and no news.
CNN means I start every trip grumpy.
Hmph.
10th May Weekly Roundup
There are tiny yellow birds in my neighbour’s Japanese maple. Pretty.
It’s fifteen days since my last (the first, really) weekly roundup, but at least I didn’t ditch the idea altogether. Such terrific fun ensued from the last one, I’ll have to stick with it for a while.
My grandmother-in-law is in the hospital again, and that really, really sucks for her. She’s 90 and with-it and funny and her body is slowly betraying her, month after month. She’s in physical pain that makes her so unhappy it’s hard to even try to convince her it will all be okay. So we spend time with her; it’s all we can do.
We saw Iron Man last night; it’s as awesome as you’ve heard (and was sponsored in part by Burger King! And Verizon! But I’m over it). Go see it. And sit through all the credits at the end. Also saw Atonement this week. It’s brilliant. Possibly the best film adaptation of a book I’ve ever seen. And I loved the book, so was extra critical of the movie.
The magazine is going to press this coming week, so I’m off to Colorado tomorrow. I’m looking forward to tying up all the loose ends and sending this baby out into the world. And unlike for the Spring issue, when I got food poisoning on my way to Colorado and was barely coherent during the days leading up to press and that’s why my editorial is so short and vacuous, for the Summer issue I’ve already written my editorial. Lesson = learned.
I have not knitted or crocheted or spun for fun in weeks. I’ll be packing my Model Citizen scarf and a sleeve from the Gathered Pullover tomorrow. It’s good to have easy stitching on hand during the stress of press. I’ll also pack The Satanic Verses, which is the next book for our book club. I haven’t started it yet because I’ve been on a sci-fi kick and I’m not ready to move on. But it’s time to dive into some heavier literature. If even only for the sake of not flaking out on the club. For book-clubbing is good.
The best distraction from hours and hours of editing PDFs this week was certainly all the talk of big glasses. Note, though, that I’m not into posting embarrassing photos of my adolescent self just for kicks. I really do think big glasses are a trend that should never come back. They looked terrible then, and they look terrible now. I’m surprised by how many people mentioned wanting to burn old photos of themselves wearing big glasses. I always thought photos are only burned over bad breakups. And so, you see, we have to not burn those photos! We have to show those photos to as many people as we can, so contemporary and future generations won’t look back on childhood pictures and want to burn them. We can make people happier! Do it. Post a photo of yourself in big glasses.
I’m going to start packing now.
An Open Letter to Hipsters
You look ridiculous in those massive glasses. They’re different from sunglasses, you know, because we can see the entirety of your face through the lenses. And through those lenses, your face doesn’t look so great. And you know how funny it feels when you smile and your glasses move up and down? We can see that, and it looks funny, too.
Also, your ironic donning of those huge glasses is at the expense quite specifically of me.
Cut it out. On behalf of everyone who has overcome their adolescence to achieve some sort of happiness in adulthood, I implore you.
UPDATE: Amy and Drew have stepped up with big-glasses photos of themselves from decades past. When individuals pool their efforts, change is possible. Post your photos, people, and let me know.
UPDATE THE 2nd: Vashti has joined the brigade.
Our Bathroom = Famous
I was wondering why so many people were favouriting this particular Flickr photo. Turns out it was design-blogged. Cool!
I’d better take a new photo now that we’ve actually finished the bathroom. We have a proper light fixture and mirror now.
This is by far the most lovely room in our house. Time to spend some deco time on the rest of the place.
A Day in My Life: Weekday Version
I kept track of what I did yesterday. Here it is, in horrifying detail:
7:40AM: Wake up. Let out the dog, make coffee.
8:00: Drink coffee. Continue swatching the eye-poppingly beautiful yarn I bought from Yummy Yarn at Got Craft on Sunday. (Simple stitches seem too blah; complex stitches too involved. A perfect yarn challenge. I have not yet figured it out and have a hunch motifs may be in order.)
8:30: Check email. Catch up on new content on CrochetMe.com.
9:00: Book flight to TNNA in June. It’s expensive, and involves a 4:15AM trip to the airport. At least that means I won’t really get jet lag. Wonder yet again why this wonderful trade organization put an article in their acronym.
9:15: Look over design options for a couple of new departments in the magazine. Reply to Kit, the designer, about them. (Kit makes the world go ’round.) Departments are the sections of the magazine that appear in each issue. For example, Vickie Howell’s Crochet Around Town column about Austin in the Spring issue is the first instance of that new department. In the summer issue, we’re tweaking our departments overall and introducing some new ones. I’m really excited about them.
9:30: Start second-round editing of pattern PDFs. Our summer issue is going to press next Wednesday, the 14th, and we’re in the home stretch. At this point, each pattern has been edited several times by several different people. Up to the point that I arrive in Colorado next week, I’ll be scrutinizing PDFs—mostly for wee details like commas and typos, but very occasionally for an “Oh man, if we change this and that it will be so much easier to understand!”
10:30: Eat breakfast. This is much later than usual. We didn’t have milk and I forgot to make myself something else earlier. Laugh at me, whatever. The man bought milk; I remembered finally to pour some over cereal. Read article about sustainable development in Vancouver Magazine over bran flakes, oat cereal, and half a banana. Then back to PDFs.
11:45: Need a break! I added a nifty feature to the comments section of the blog so you can @reply to other comments directly, Twitter-style (click the swooshing arrow icon in someone’s comment to do so). (I’m becoming much in love with Twitter.)
12:00PM: Yoga wake-up for fifteen minutes, check email, pass another PDF back to the office (Toni, the assistant editor, uploads new versions via FTP, I take them, edit them, and email them back to her), shower, dress. I usually do this (save for the PDF edits) when I, shock of shocks, wake up, but this morning I needed yarn time instead. Also, this was a great head-clearer after all the pattern editing.
1:00: Back to the PDFs. Set iTunes to shuffle my top-rated songs. There are 293 songs on the list; make mental note to be more discriminating in my doling-out of 4- and 5-star ratings.
2:00: Eat lunch. This is two hours later than I usually eat lunch, but I ate breakfast really late today. Continue with PDFs over a bagel and salad. Notice that I seem to have succeeded in my long-term effort to learn to like red bell peppers. Raise eyebrow at relatives who continue to call me a picky eater.
3:00: Walk the dog with the man. This season smells amazing.
3:30: Yet more PDF editing. Ain’t no glamour in it, kids. Also, did some emailing. Recall that I found my reading glasses last week. Put them on, enjoy the subtle relief.
5:00: Allow my laptop battery to run down completely. Use time it takes for computer to restart to empty and fill the dishwasher.
5:15: Answer some emails. Start on another PDF. Get fed up with Adobe Reader, which suddenly decides never to place the cursor where I want it. Quit editing for the day.
5:40: Skim NY Times headlines.
6:00: Work on private project for a bit.
6:35: Go out to dinner at The Reef with a friend who’s in from out of town. Eat self into coma (mmm. Yam fries). Proceed down the street to Sweet Revenge. Have chamomile tea and can’t resist ordering apple pie. Take most of the pie home.
10:30: Return home. Spend half an hour folding laundry and returning some semblance of order to the house. Flip through the man’s high school yearbooks to relive some reminiscences that came up over dinner. Laugh.
11:15: Get ready for bed. Read for a while. Fall asleep.
How does your day go?
Why I Love Vancouver: Reason #8
Casa Gelato, originally uploaded by kpwerker.
La Casa Gelato. 218 flavours of gelato in a big pink building. This afternoon I ate mocha gelato out of a handmade waffle cone and watched the train go by. On a hot day this summer, I’m going to eat a scoop of wasabi. Other favourites: chocolate-sambuca, cinnamon-coffee, espresso-walnut.
Also, this is the prettiest season, what with all the crabapple trees in bloom.
A Day in My Life: Weekend Version
Over coffee this morning I’ve been catching up on some blog reading. Robyn posted about a day in her life, and suggested we all follow suit. I’ve always been fascinated by Robyn’s balance of her engineering day job and prolific designing career, and it was really cool to read about her day. Since I’m absent-minded and we’re going to press on the magazine soon, I figured I’d post about my day in two parts: a weekend day (yesterday) and a work day (hopefully tomorrow).
So, yesterday:
8:00AM: Wake up. This is late for me; I’m usually up around 7:30. Make coffee, read email.
8:20: Coffee has sufficiently started clearing the cobwebs, so it’s now safe to send some emails. Send the first of what will be many emails about a new book I’m working on. I’m very behind the original schedule for this book, for two reasons. First, I’d front-loaded the schedule because I thought we’d be going on holiday in July and I wanted everything to be done before then; turns out we’re going later this month, so I can work on the book after we travel (we’re going to London. I’ve never been. I’m very excited). So I let things slide schedule-wise, but I don’t feel good about it. Second, I’ve had trouble committing. Not to the project. But to decisions. The hardest (and simultaneously most exciting) part of my job is committing to designs that will be in the book (or issue of the magazine). With every commitment I make, the final product becomes more concrete, and there’s less room for flexibility. I’m happiest on a wide-open road of options and potentials, so steadily decreasing my own flexibility is a challenge every time. This is a good thing, not a complaint.
8:45: Blog about a desk I want, and about working from home.
9:45: Yikes! Running late. Pour a bowl of Cheerios and eat quickly.
9:55: Shower, dress.
10:30: Run out the door. Miss the bus (not so much because I was running late, but because this particular bus never, ever comes on time).
11:30: Arrive thirty minutes late to meet friends at Cafe Bojangles. Apologize to an embarrassing extent. Drink coffee, eat bagel, talk for three hours.
3:00PM: Return home. Follow up with said friends via email.
4:00: Walk the dog. Read. Take a nap.
6:15: Go to bus stop again, this time with the man.
6:45: Bus arrives after thirty minutes (*shake fists at Translink*).
7:05: Eat yummy dinner at Noodlebox with two friends.
8:30: Go to Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design undergrad show, where we meet up with more friends. Get overwhelmed by so many hipsters and artists and young people with blue hair and huge eyeglasses and self-important-looking middle aged people all packed into small and large spaces. See some cool design. See more mediocre design. Realize I’m getting grumpy because all the design pieces are accompanied by written explanations, and for the most part the writing is bad; there are many inappropriately-placed commas. Share disgust with the man over one particular piece that attempted to represent statistics through sculpture, on the premise that statistics are ambiguous. Rail against the apparent assumption that going to art school means you don’t have to actually understand the subject you’re artistically commenting on. Decide it’s time to move on from design to go view fine art. Experience great relief that fine art pieces aren’t accompanied by explanations. Enjoy viewing art.
10:30: Go to Comox Long Bar and Grill. Enjoy funny conversation over a pint of pale ale. Throw some darts.
1:30AM: Return home.
/end navel-gazing. Today we’re going to Got Craft.
Home Office Plan
Speaking of very very special things I want desperately, there’s one other thing on the list. I want this desk. And I want it for my home office, even though I don’t have a home office. I have an office in our detached garage (read: our detached garage is my office), and I do work from home.
But I’ve been working from home for about five years now, and I gotta say, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It can be quite lonely, even though I sure do love not having to go to meetings or being distracted by random conversations. But also, the man doesn’t have an office job, either. He’s a student, and that means he’s home a lot, too. His office is in the basement. (His office used to be my office, but we switched.) And so I only ever have work time to myself when I’m working in the garage or when he’s at school (where he also has a desk). But I need a lot of change, and so I’m often compelled to work from inside the house, and that’s where it all starts to slide rapidly downhill.
First, I don’t like to work when there’s another person around, unless I’m in a proper office. So I sort of get in a perpetual state of annoyed. Second, I don’t have anywhere to keep my work stuff in the house. Which means things like yarn colour-card binders pile up in inconvenient places, balls of yarn can be found in every corner (beyond the yarn I have around for non-work projects), and papers pile on any and all surfaces. This drives the man nuts, understandably.
And so I’ve decided what I’d really like to have is a home office, in addition to my garage office. I mean, tons of people who work out of the home have a home office, too. And in my home office, I’d like that beautiful, beautiful desk.
The end.
Face-squinching Desire
My PowerBook spent a day in the shop this week, and there’s only one thing that would have made it more bearable. An iPhone. Never have I wanted an object as much as I want an iPhone. I’ve actually dreamt of owning one. An iPhone would have had my calendar right there, waiting. It would have enabled me to continue checking my work email without using the awful Outlook webmail interface. I figure an iPhone will be for me like the book Penny* always carried around, that made her even smarter than she already was.
Now, you just shut it, you iPhone-toting Americans. I’m not denying myself an iPhone in some twisted effort to technologically martyr myself. I’m coveting an iPhone in Canada, where you can’t get one, and I’m too timid to buy one in the US and hack it here.
But, see. It looks like Rogers might actually start selling it soon. And I’m having a confused reaction to the news. On the one hand, yippee! On the other hand, will it end up costing over 20% more for voice + data plans than it does in the US? What will data cost when I’m south of the border? Will I still be able to afford Smarties and maple syrup?
Mobile phone services in Canada leave a lot to be desired. I hope Apple forces Rogers to make their iPhone plans palatable to people like me who have waited (im)patiently for a year, and will happily become new Rogers customers just for the iPhone.
* Undying pop-culture love to the first commenter to call out this reference.
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