Best Quote I Heard All Day
Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.—Ellen DeGeneres

I must be very normal. Perhaps writing this blog is the only abnormal thing I do.

I’ve been in a totally crabby, depressed mood, functioning in survivor mode just to get through the day. Thank God for Johnny H. He’s been my comfort.

The good news is, I bought a new car. A cheap car (Hyundai Elantra) but a new one, nonetheless. Don’t want huge car payments right now.

The Blog Redesign
I wish I could say that this is Priority #1 in my life. It isn’t. As long as I can make entries, right now that has to be sufficient.

Was I pissed off about the comment on the blog’s lack of design? For sure. Let’s get one thing straight—I don’t lack the ability to redesign the blog nor do I lack the technical know-how. It’s the time factor. Oddly, I seem to think that on the weekend the house should be cleaned, the laundry washed, the shopping done, the book written, and the current project knitted upon, which activities preclude my spending huge amounts of time at the laptop reworking the blog.

That’s not to say it doesn’t need it. It’s a mess. At this point, I may be able to spend a weekend on it when I return from Florida in May. I miss being able to put up my photos, at the very least. I could run the blog from www.knittingcurmudgeon.com while I work on MovableType. That way, I could put my graphics back up and publish some of my pictures. Maybe I should. What do you guys think?

Yer Birthday
So my dear friend QueerJoe, in a lame effort to be amusing, suggested to his readers that they all come over here and remind me about how old I will be this Sunday, April 25th.

I’ll be 54. There, I said it. I don’t fucking believe it, however.

I somehow have this picture of myself being ageless. I mean, what does being 54 mean? Here’s some qualities I have that fit into the AARP picture:

:: A widow
:: A grandmother
:: White-haired (yeah, I dye it blonde, so bite me)
:: Comfortable shoes are beginning to appeal

Here’s a few that don’t fit:

:: I love rock
:: I still find Caddyshack hysterically funny
:: My blood pressure is perfect
:: I still say “fuck” all the time
:: I have no sense of decorum
:: I think the Red Hats are assholes

Will this list stand the test of time and continue to be valid in ten years? More than likely.

I am not an AARP member…but John is. Heh. Next year, when I turn double nickels, I plan on taking every fucking senior citizen discount I can. Elly and my Grandma Carsten have set fine examples of what older women can be. I’m sure I’ll be as irascible as my mother when I’m 80. Grandma threw the doctors out of her room two days before she died and told them to leave her alone, she was dying. She was the best.

I hate the cult of "crone," by the way. That's even stupider than the Red Hat nonsense.

Sock Season
With about 1/3 of the last Ran sleeve to go, I put it down to start some socks. I always knit a pile of socks in the summer. In fact, there’s usually a sock on the needles at any given time no matter what the season. I never count socks as Projects. Socks are like Kleenex, kinda. Disposable. You make them, you wear them out, you make more. I have any number of pairs in varying degrees of decomposition, the oldest pair being about 5 years old.

I almost always make them from fingering weight sock yarn, I always use the same basic plain vanilla pattern of 60 sts, I sometimes put different stitch patterns into the instep, but by and large, they’re pretty simpleminded.

Socks never bore me, for some reason. I suppose it’s because they’re action-filled, knittingwise. Other than socks (and endless Wallabys for Liz when she was little because she loved them and I could never say no to her), I never knit the same thing twice.

Maryland Sheep & Wool (and Spinning as an Ancillary to Knitting)
This festival is looming and I still haven’t decided whether I’ll go. I probably won’t, since I just blew a ton of cash on the car, but I would encourage anyone who can to do so. It is absolutely wonderful, particularly if you are interested in spinning. I bought my Schacht double-treadle wheel there five years ago.

I’m forever spinning this merino/silk/angora, it seems. There’s still piles of it in my spinning basket and I’m going to have to A) figure out what I want to use the finished yarn for; and B) what color I will dye it, since it’s white.

I have done very little spinning the past year but when I do it, I remember just how much I love it. I sat down at the wheel the other day for about 20 minutes, set up a new drive band, oiled the wheel, and spun a few odd yards. Then I pulled out my high-whorl spindle and fucked around with that. For some reason, I have never really been able to use spindles to my satisfaction. I own three, including a lovely Hatchtown low-whorl. But I do agree with Priscilla Gibson-Roberts—high-whorl is the way to go. If you are interested in learning, her book is superlative.

Lately, it seems that I’ve bought overall more in the way of spinning books than knitting books. I recently bought Alden Amos’s Big Book of Handspinning to round out my spinning library. It’s the ultimate compendium, although probably not for a beginner. Might be a bit overwhelming. I’ve been reading bits and pieces of it, and learning a lot.

And now to spin myself back into the reality of my rare and handy work day.