brainylady

Thanks for all the sock advice! I just went ahead without any gusset increases, and the sock fits. I'm working my way up the leg; I'm just going to knit until I run out, since I don't want to waste a scrap of precious Koigu. The bad news is that I have to stop working on the sock for a while, as I've sustained a bit of a knitting injury! I use the index finger on my left hand to push the right-hand needle through each stitch, and since I've done that about 80 million times over the past three or four days, I've developed a very painful little spot on that finger. Boo hoo! And all I've got on the go at the moment is two pairs of socks with these tiny, pointy needles, so... I'll just have to start something a little chunkier, I guess. Or read some Proust, if I have any hope of catching up with the other Prousters... (Here's a progress report, ladies: I started Swann's Way last night, read six pages, and fell asleep.)



I really enjoyed watching Far from Heaven. It's a perfect film for anyone who has ever seen a Douglas Sirk film and thought, "Why don't they make movies like that anymore?" Visually stunning, with a perfect score, and while it certainly critiques the perfect appearances of the 1950s middle class (as Sirk did), it does so without making fun of the characters. At first, I was giggling at some of the lines ("Say, Pop, whaddya know about that?"), but the characters had depth beyond their beautifully styled surfaces. If you're not familiar with the films of Sirk, click here to read a bit about two of his best melodramas, "All that Heaven Allows" and the glorious "Written on the Wind." (Make sure you scroll down and look at the film stills. In Sirk's films, the mise-en-scene was almost another character.)

It's another cold day (9 degrees). On Thursday, Bill and I went to the gym just to sit in the hot tub. Last night we finally dragged our butts out of the house at about nine o'clock and went to a bar to play cards. It's so strange that the city is so dead. Today, well, Beatrix is running wild. If she ever has a nap, I might whip up a bulky hat for Billy. For some reason, he doesn't care to borrow my Kittyville hat when he's cold. Harrumph!