I HAS ALWAYS DEPENDD ON TEH KINDNES OV STRANGERS

Remember this picture? Well, I had to lolcat it. And now, back to you in the studio.

Best Quote I Heard All Day

We of the craft are all crazy. - Lord Byron

Well, your devoted writer is undeniably nuts. And fucking proud of it, too.

A childhood friend of mine, one whose friendship I cut off because she turned into a miserable, angry, self-absorbed alcoholic floating down the River Denial, once said to me:

"Mar, you and I have sinfully underachieved. We could have been brain surgeons and look at us now. Pathetic."

My answer to her was: "Speak for yourself. I'm fine with what I do."

With the 40th high school reunion in six days, I can hold my own with the fucking brain surgeons of our class of '68.

Las Vegas Brights...again

Well, this is what I work on that I can show you because you ain't getting any pictures of the Rock Sox until the book is done and published. (That's moving along nicely, by the way. It's gonna take a while but I keep eating away at it.)

When will this madness stop? When I've knitted up the entire ball, probably. What will I do with it? I dunno, drape Cleo's toidy with it. Or perhaps wear it. For now, it's a relatively mindless project. Yes, the pattern stitch is pretty easy once you've done a repeat. The key to this lace pattern are the delayed decreases.

Huh? What she say? Delayed decreases? WTF?

The decreases are not done at the same time as their corresponding yo's. You know how you get the ole "yo, k2 tog"? That's not always the case, nor can it be for specific lace designs. Ducks ain't always in a row. Sometimes in the next row.

Gonzo Knitting

More and more lately, I've been realizing that some bizarre concept of journalism exists perhaps only in the minds of journalism majors, whose career goals are likely to be the next Katie Couric, God forbid. The real thing is ebbing away. With the awful loss of Tim Russert this week, a true journalist of the Morrow caliber, the breed is becoming extinct. If anything happens to Keith Olbermann, I don't know who we'll turn to for a sane voice, a journalist who fights for what's right, rather than for a cushy network job mouthing platitudes and doing stories about eco-friendly bikinis.

In the face of Russert's death, I am reminded of how small a microcosm knitting is in the world and how inconsequential writing about knitting and fiberart is, as well as writing about mobile asset management software. As much as I love this blog, arguably the writing I do on Swing Time is harder, more evocative, and hopefully more helpful to my readers.

Longtime Tontant Weaders know who my literary heros are. Dorothy Parker. John Lennon. Hunter S. Thompson. Duke lately more than the others because the older I get, the more I'm ready to kick the establishment, knitting or otherwise, in the ass.

So where do I go from here? A good, responsible writer always asks that question at frequent intervals. With a reprieve from my crushing work schedule, I've been thinking and rethinking. And came up with the thought of doing the occasional podcast or video, since Blogger now allows you to upload videos.

Neal will walk me through this because he is, after all, Super Jeenyus. And Super Audio Engineer. It could either be disastrous or a hell of a lot of fun. Me in person on the blog? An odd concept. But perhaps a rare and handy one.

Kthxbye.