Tag Archives: life

smart.

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Hello, friends. Rooster here, typing to you from the smartest phone I’ve ever had. It was time to trade in my trusty Razr, and while six months ago (when I bought that phone another battery) I was looking for something simple, this time around the lure of the internet (all the time) and the explosion of texting/social networking among friends old and new made taking advantage of this upgrade offer to get something shiny and fancy a no-brainer. And whoa – I can even blog from this thing!

I am attempting to add a photo, also taken by my new blackberry curve. Here we go! Regular laptop blogging will resume shortly. Happy weekend!

one more row.

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I knit one more row on my shalom today. Boh napped. I managed to snap a picture.

Things are going to be crazy (and thus, sporadic around here) for another week or so, but after that, I’m really looking forward to catching up in blogland. I may not be commenting/responding as quickly as I usually do, but I’m still reading. (And Boh is still napping.)

also, i haven’t done the dishes.

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For me to let the dishes pile up like this, something has to be going on. I haven’t even picked up my knitting this week. And I haven’t yet written my conference paper. (Well, I’ve written a page of it.)

I wrestle with categories in all parts of my life and work, and while I’m unsure exactly how much I want to say about my week here in this space, which is somewhere between private and public in ways that mean a lot to me, I also feel like you’ve all been here as I’ve tried to think about and work through some very personal things, especially in this last year. So it seems only appropriate to tell you that I’ve started seeing someone. He’s been smiling at me for weeks. The occasional conversation turned into the occasional email, which, last Wednesday, turned into a lecture, dinner, a movie screening, and tea (all in one afternoon-into-evening). So much is unexpected and surprising about this for me: there are many things about us that are quite different, and yet, we have great conversation and chemistry.

I probably won’t say much more about this. I don’t know what it will become, how it will develop. But my real-life community can see me grinning (and is giving me a good-natured hard time about it), and as you all are also part of my community, I wanted to tell you too.

So there it is: the reason the dishes have piled up, that my work is not getting done, that I have no knitting, or even silly Boh pictures to share — and the reason I’ve been smiling all week.

oh-nine.

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Well, here they are: the 2009 knits still in my possession. This year I knit 3 sweaters (4, if I manage to get the GYC butons on today), 3 pairs of socks, 10 hats, 4 baby gifts, 2 pair of toast mitts, 4 shawls, and a cowl (in a pear tree).

I took a look at my oh-nine goals, and I’m feeling pretty good about my fibery progress this year. I wanted to finish 28thirty, and I did. I wanted to knit toe-up socks, and I did. I wanted to successfully knit a short row heel, and I did (though the pair isn’t done). I started knitting socks on 2 circular needles. I wanted to learn how to ply on my drop spindle, and I did. I wanted to spin a 3-ply sock yarn, and I did (though I did it on the wheel, not the spindle).

Things I didn’t quite get to? Cabling without a cable needle, knitting more of the sweaters on my list.

Things not on the list? I knit my first “real” lace shawl, for my friend H’s wedding. Oh, and I bought my wheel, and learned to spin on it.

In life beyond knitting, this was a huge year for me. 2009 contained some of the best and some of the hardest moments of my life. I’m pretty sure I fell in love this year, and those of you who read regularly know that I also had my heart broken. (Apologies for the passive voice, but I’m not sure it is totally fair to say that he broke it. Heartbreak was certainly the result, but the experience of trusting someone enough to allow myself to become more codependent than I imagined I’d be — and then dealing with the aftermath — was very much about me.)

I’ve spent quite a lot of time in my head this year, wrestling with my own dreams and expectations, and I imagine that will continue. It isn’t always easy, but it is important, I think, to keep doing it.

This year I started canning. I discovered a passion for pickling. I found yoga. I taught my first section, gave my first lecture, did archival research for the first time as a grad student. I made a home here, and then set about making it anew, slowly reclaiming places that had been “we” places for me.

2009 was not what I expected. I’m not sure I’d change it, but I’m rather relieved that it is time for 2010.