Best Quote I Heard All Day
Even if God is dead, you're going to kiss his ass--Tony Soprano

Welcome to Sopranoland. Lovely view of I280, Newark, courtesy of my cellphone camera and taken from a NJ Transit train.

And welcome to my commuting life. You can be sure that I have a cup of coffee in my hand, my knitting bag next to me and my ears plugged into my iPod (I call it Shirley). Because it's an hour and fifteen minutes from Hoboken to Dover, if the train doesn't break down. Which it has, twice this week going into work. Fuck you, NJT.

So the shawl gets knitted on the train, alternating with a pair of socks. Hey, ya can't do fancy shit all the time.

How Do You Say in Your Country?
Well, I've slogged through about 160 pages of Slovenian English over the past week and a half.

I am beginning to appreciate my handle on English. It's a miserable fucking language and the Slovenians do pretty well, except that everything is written in the passive. So, OK, we Amurricans like to be active.

Oh yeah, and they write great convoluted sentences:

Driver of the vehicle which nowadays has mobile unit installed with PDA device (Blackberry, etc.) after toll payment can be sent to Control Center to make quick and efficient payment solution for logistics manager that could enter such data into system.

Pages and pages of this. That's why they're paying me the big bucks. To tell you the truth, I really love it, although it's damned hard work trying to figure out what the fuck they're saying technically sometimes.

I'm working with some Slovenian developers, all kids under 25 and all wonderful people. Of course, I've taught them swell American words, such as "fucktard." They bring out my maternal instincts, dontcha know.

I was thinking today on the train going home how much I treat writing as I do music. My father envisioned me as a professional musician, so I began violin lessons at about the same age as I learned to knit. And my parents were great classical music devotees, so all I heard until I was 10 was mostly opera and symphonic music, with a soupcon of Baroque thrown in.

When I read a poorly written and poorly spelled sentence, it's as if I heard a bad note played by a mediocre musician. I don't have perfect pitch but I do have relative pitch and an excellent ear. And that's why I am a good editor and writer. Notes have to be played on key, writing has to sing like Elisabeth Schwartzkopf.

So much for my quick post tonight. I'll write about some fiber crap this weekend. I'm about to warp the loom, so that might be of some interest to people other than Merrick. And of course, there's the ever-present, rare and handy Melanie shawl, which continues to grow. Sans mistakes, thank you Jesus. See ya on the weekend.