Hair today, gone tomorrow. Er, I mean today.

This morning I had my first real haircut since April 2005, three weeks before Sylvia was born. (In April 2006 I went to one of those cheap-o places in a strip mall just to get the ends trimmed and evened out, but that doesn't count.) It was time for a change. I am fortunate to have a regular stylist whom I trust enough to be able to tell her "Do whatever you want." My only caveats are that I don't want to blow dry my hair, and I don't want to put any "product" (gel, mousse, hairspray, etc.) in it. Really--I want something as simple as possible that doesn't look like a soccer mom's hair helmet.

So she cut off about six inches (I'd really hoped to make another donation to Locks of Love, but unfortunately they require at least ten inches) and turned my all-one-length 'do into this somewhat-layered oh-so-sassy 'do. Because this (watch until the end) is no longer an option for me, I guess I'll just have to buy more yarn!

Attention, all Browncoats out there!

I'm adding this to the List of Geeky Things I Must Knit. Heck, I think I'll even put at the top of the list. That's right--it's even ahead of the Dr. Who scarf.

Evil!

At the behest of Gina, I took the "How Evil Are You?" quiz.

You Are 30% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well. In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

How Evil Are You?

One of the items on the checklist took me back to college:"You've made a prank phone call." You bet I have. During our senior year, Beth and I lived in the apartment below Rob and Dan. This was university housing, so the layout and furnishings of each apartment were identical, down to the telephone on the kitchen wall. On a number of occasions, when we knew Rob was home alone and on the opposite side of the apartment from the telephone, we'd call upstairs, listen to him walk across the floor, then hang up as soon as he reached the telephone. We'd do this three or four times in a row--and, amazingly, he kept falling for it--until we had to stop lest we bust our guts from laughing. I'm pretty sure we're going straight to hell for that one.

Lest you think editors and English teachers are too picky

This article just made my day.

First, the red-pen-wielding word nerd in me delights in seeing this sort of thing called out. (Now if only people would stop using everyday as a noun and stop putting scare quotes around words like ladies and gentlemen, particularly on the doors of public bathrooms, then I'd be happy. Mostly.) Second, the professional wordsmith in me has yet another argument in my "So you don't think editors are needed? Oh, yeah?" arsenal.

So take that, all you anti-editor "ladies" and "gentlemen" out there who write poorly everyday and think comma placement (and spelling and grammar and other punctuation and style...) doesn't matter. Take that indeed.

Cranky

In all the time I've written this blog, I haven't done a "let me vent about my job" post yet. It's time.

I am a professional wordsmith (freelance editor), which means that what I do for a living is fix other people's bad writing. And believe me, there is a lot of bad writing out there. Mostly this just annoys me, but when I have an opportunity to get paid for fixing it, then I don't mind it so much.

Being a freelancer has its ups and downs. I get to work from home and set my own hours, but I don't get any paid benefits. My current client is the online publisher ABC (who, a few years ago, bought the online publisher XYZ, for which I was the in-house copyeditor a few years before that). I do the work, I send them invoices, and they pay me thirty days (their terms, not mine) after I invoice them.

Unless we're talking about my most recent invoice, which was paid a whopping three weeks late. I invoice at the beginning of the month, so I should have been paid on 1 September, but I very generously waited until 5 September (Tuesday) to ask about my missing paycheck. "Oh, it's probably delayed because of the holiday weekend," I was told. "If you don't have it by Friday, let me know." Excuse me? If I don't have it by one week after I was supposed to get it, I should let you know? Ahem. Okay, I let that one slide. I even let it slide through the next weekend. On Monday the 11th I asked, "Where's my paycheck?" and was told, "I just asked about it." No more news was forthcoming, so I sent another query on Wednesday the 13th and was told the next day that:

[here is where it gets good]

The word from the payroll department is that the invoice was fumbled, and the check will be sent out tomorrow. One of the key people in the chain between me and payroll was out of the country the week of August 2, and apparently the interim setup dropped your invoice.

My apologies. The check is being sent from [the West Coast], so I would guess that you'll have it within 10 days.

*blinks*

As you can imagine, I was less than thrilled by the prospect of waiting another ten days for a paycheck that was already two weeks late. So I requested that it be sent to me by FedEx or another overnight courier. No response.

Well, the check finally did arrive--last night. Yes, the check that I should have had at the beginning of the month, that then was supposed to be sent out on Friday the 15th (according to the quote above), was actually cut on Monday the 18th and mailed on Tuesday the 19th. Needless to say, the first thing I did this morning was scamper to the bank and deposit that sucker.

When I spoke with my contact/handler at ABC this afternoon (we have a weekly "touch base" phone chat), I expressed my dissatisfaction about this whole thing and asked for some reassurance that this was a one-time snafu that wouldn't happpen again. The reply: "I will certainly do whatever I can to get a late pacycheck to you, but I can't guarantee that anything will happen." Gosh, that certainly inspires confidence, doesn't it? So when your late payment of my invoice causes me to be unable to meet my financial obligations, would you write an excuse note for me to give to, say, my mortgage company? Thanks.

Gratitude

I remember life before e-mail and the Internet were part of our world. (Well, maybe the feds and super-geeks were using them for a while. By "our" I mean "you know--regular non-fed non-super-geek people like you and me.") I've used them to keep in touch with (and sometimes reinitiate communication with) old friends, to make new friends, to learn more than I ever did in a classroom (what would I do without Wikipedia and my RSS reader?), and to swap postcards and yarn with complete strangers. And now they've helped me acquire two back issues of the very excellentInterweave Knits.

I stumbled upon Knitterature (via a comment in my friend Beth's blog), where I read JD's offer of two surplus copies of IW (Winter 2005 and Spring 2006--the two right before my own subscription started) to anyone who wanted them. I asked if they were still available, and they were. She sent them to me (refusing anything in return), and they arrived yesterday.

I've already flipped through both issues and done the "Could I knit that?" and "Would I wear that?" interrogation about each piece. (This, of course, is followed by the "Can I afford the yarn called for in this pattern?" to which the response is invariably "Are you kidding?" Why does IW think their readership is able and willing to drop hundreds of dollars on materials for a project? Gah...) I'm most drawn to the Bi-Color Cables piece (since I'm now, you know, a bona fide expert on cables...heh). I'm pretty excited about giving this a try.

But mostly I am very grateful to JD for her generosity! Thank you!

How does your garden grow?

My gardening experience has been mostly of the vegetable type, but I've always had a fondness for English cottage gardens bursting with flowers. We're making plans to build some garden beds in the spring (our yard is mostly shady, though, so we'll be pulling up the plants in one of the few mostly sunny spots: daylilies and a leggy rose bush we inherited from the previous owners), and I hope to put in lots of flowers there. If the flowers don't take, then I may have to resort to something like this. (Via Craft.)

*sits back and waits to hear Gina squee when she sees the cute little squirrel*

A good yarn

Via today's issue of the Craft blog comes this tale of a truly obsessed knitter. I will 'fess up to having a fairly keen interest in yarn, but both my stash (woefully small) and my speed with the needles (woefully slow) keep me from being in the same category as this knitter. I think. I hope.

One of the greatest headlines ever written

I was delighted to come across this via Bitch PhD the other day.

All these years the government has been denying all that Roswell UFO stuff? Yeah, right. Now we have proof of the government's lies! :)

Arrr!

Avast, ye landlubbers! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

If'n ye be needing a primer on pirate speak and pirattitude, watch this video...

...then get yerself over to here for more information! (And if'n ye be in a hurry to get your message across, then pick up some Pirate leet speak here for quick chats.)

And if'n ye be of the knitterly persuasion and want to add a little yarn to your celebrations, look here for several ideas. Get a good start on swag for next year!

Geek overload

Ever wonder what would happen if the original Star Trek series met Monty Python? Now you know. (Thanks to my friend Todd for pointing me toward this awesome clip.)

Fours

I stumbled upon the blog Mei Flower while working my way through the list of SP8 participants. (I made it about halfway through the list, by the way. Not bad, considering there were several hundred participants!) I added Mei's blog to my RSS reader about a month ago, partly because she's a great writer (and laugh-out-loud funny at times), and partly because I'm interested in reading about her teaching exploits, since many of them ring true with me (I've taught my share of apathetic students and dealt with far too many political/scheming/slacker colleagues.) And I kind of like that her name, Mei, is also part of my daughter's name. :)

Anyway, she posted a meme that I thought was interesting, so I've filled it out myself. Consider yourself tagged.

Four jobs I have had in my life:

• Waitress
• College instructor
• Sales clerk (at a local music store--I got a huge discount, so I saved no money but left with a terrific music collection)
• Editor

Four movies I would watch over and over:

• When Harry Met Sally
• My Neighbor Totoro
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy (who knew that a blockbuster hit could actually be good?)
• The Philadelphia Story

Four places I have lived:

• Grand Forks, North Dakota
• Swansea, Illinois
• Coos Bay, Oregon
• Ependes, Switzerland

Four TV shows I like to watch:

• The Office
• My Name Is Earl
• The Daily Show
• The Colbert Report

(And believe it or not, these are the only shows I watch--I am not big into TV.)

Four places I have been on vacation:

• Paris
• Flagstaff
• Nova Scotia
• Vermont

Four websites I visit often:

• Wikipedia
• Google Labs
• Postcrossing
• Weather.gov

Four of my favorite foods:

• Chocolate (I'm a chocolate snob, so I much prefer the good stuff...but I'll stoop to Hershey's if I'm desperate)
• Pasta
• Cheese (the stinkier, the better)
• Lion Bars (I know this overlaps a bit with the first item in this list, but these are the Best Candy Bars on the Planet and deserve their own mention)

Four places I would rather be right now:

• On the beach in Bandon, Oregon
• In Canyonlands National Park, UT
• In Paris, eating cheese and a fresh baguette in a city park
• In Waitsfield, Vermont

Knitting from hell

Today my friend Gina posted a delightful rant about a number of what-were-they-thinking? knitted items she's seen online. (Apparently, Elann.com is one of the worst offenders out there. They may sell great yarn at cheap prices, but--whew!--their idea of "fashion" is iffy sometimes!) I think Gina should take over the You Knit What? blog--she certainly can find the material for it!

And if she's ever at a loss, she can check out this site: the Museum of Kitschy Stitches. I came across this a few weeks ago and haven't quite been able to get it out of my head--and that's not a good thing. Take a look. The images on the main page alone are pretty vomit inducing.

Hats off

When I started this blog nearly a year ago, some of my early posts (see here and here) featured hats that I'd made. It's time for a sequel, and once again Sylvia is the model.

I'm a big fan of the Jester Hat in The Yarn Girls' Guide to Kid Knits: Patterns for Babies and Toddlers by Julie Carles and Jordana Jacobs. I've probably made at least a dozen of these. Last year I made one for Maggie, the daughter of my friend MAC, and Maggie loved her hat so much that the tassels fell off. (Of course, it didn't help that I used a less-than-adequate tassel-creation-and-fastening technique. I've since learned a much better one that yields sturdier results.) So I decided to make her a new one for this winter, figuring that her head is surely bigger. She's four and a half now--still in the exploding-growth years--so that's a fair assumption. But then I thought, "Hey...I wonder if I could make a triple-pointed hat?" So I winged my way through this and in the process created my first pattern! (I probably ought to write it down, eh?) As you can see, I ran out of orange yarn after I finished the first point, so I used different colors for the other two points and the tassels. I hope Maggie likes it! (With luck, I'll put this in the mail this week or next. So if you read this before you get the package, MAC, just feign surprise, okay?)

Over the Labor Day weekend, I started--and completed--a baby hat while visiting Jan's mom. I based it on the simple baby hat in Debbie Bliss's Baby Knits for Beginners, but added my own touches: two different yarns and a funky topknot. The dark-green bottom is cotton, and the multicolored part is some ribbon yarn. Both weren't easy to work with at first, since I kept poking them in the middle with my needle, thus separating the strands. But eventually I got the hang of it! This one is a gift for a friend (and former boss) of mine, who recently adopted a daughter from China. I haven't met her yet, so I have no idea what her head size is, but I think she's three or four months younger than Sylvia, so I'm guessing this will fit her. Eventually.

Here's a hat I started--and finished--last weekend, while visiting my parents. (Out-of-town travel seems to be good for my knitting!) It's basically the same pattern as the previous hat, but in a smaller size. The bottom is a Noro yarn (Iroha, I think--I've lost the label) that's mostly cotton with a bit of cashmere and nylon thrown in, and the top is regular ol' wool. I'm sending this to a friend who's expecting her second child in October, so it's slightly-bigger-than-newborn size (which is why it looks so tiny on Sylvia's head).

Ninjas!

I so need to get one of these.

Ninjas are cool. Someone once said that you could make any movie better just by adding more ninjas to it...even movies about ninjas. I agree. The addition of several ninjas could have even rescued a mind-numbingly boring film like Driving Miss Daisy. And My Dinner with Andre? Just think what that would have been like if Ninja Burger had delivered their meal.

There are few things cooler than ninjas. Except maybe pirates. (Avast! Talk Like a Pirate Day is less than a week away! Prepare yourselves!)

A totally non-knitting post about the news

So for the last day or so, the media have been talking about nothing but the death of Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin. (War? What war?) Amid the accolades and proposed honors for Irwin was this piece by feminist scholar Germaine Greer. (I'm not familiar with her work, even though I've slogged through stuff by other prominent poststructuralist feminist scholars, including Judith Butler and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Did I understand them? Nope. Did I fake my way through seminar discussions and essays about them? Yup. I suspect Greer's work is equally incomprehensible.)

In this article, Greer clearly wants to ruffle some feathers. This quote in particular really stands out:

There was no habitat, no matter how fragile or finely balanced, that Irwin hesitated to barge into, trumpeting his wonder and amazement to the skies. There was not an animal he was not prepared to manhandle. Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress.

Her tone throughout the article is a bit harsh--partly, I think, to épater les bourgeois--and I don't agree with everything she wrote. But this quote...well...

After The Crocodile Hunter became a runaway hit, I tuned in a few times just to see what all the fuss was about. I like most animals (not too keen on the crawly-gooey types), so I figured I'd learn something. Instead, I was rather astonished (I almost wrote appalled, but that's far too strong a word here) to see scene after scene in which Irwin harassed some animal. Sometimes his antics struck me as profoundly disturbing. I wondered how someone who claimed to be an animal-loving conservationist could be so mean to the animals. (At the same time, I wonder how anyone who claims to love animals can still eat them, but that's another topic...) Think about it: for many of these animals, being surprised or startled is often a precursor to impending death--theirs or another animal's. Compound that anxiety with someone yelling in your face while cameras and lights are pointed at you, and I suspect you wouldn't be happy about it, either.

SP9

Secret Pal 9 signups officially start today (1 September) and go until the end of the month. I happened to be online yesterday afternoon when registrations opened up, so I signed up right away. Looks like I was one of the early birds, 'cause I'm already listed on SP9 Participants list, which currently has twenty-three names on it.

(By the way, if you're reading this, like knitting or crocheting, have a blog, want to get to know some other blogging knitters and crocheters, and haven't yet signed up for SP9, hie thee to the SP9 website!)

Yo, pudding!

This is a real product. You can buy it online, have it sent to your house, then get all Bill Cosby on it. Personally, I find it a little frightening.

Speaking of Bill Cosby, check out this...uh..."interesting" theory for what happened to the famous multicolored sweaters he made popular on The Cosby Show.