Hey, party people in Vancouver!

I just saw socks on Supurlfluous (02/05/04 entry) that I simply must make for myself. The yarn (Sheepjes Invicta Coloris) is available at a yarn shop on Melville Street in Vancouver. If you buy one ball of it (about $15?) and send it to me, I will (a) pay you back for the yarn and postage, or (b) send you something cool of equal value. If you're up for this, leave a comment or send me an e-mail so we can discuss the details. Rock on.

Artificial Lifeform Intended for Sabotage and Online Nullification

(It's my cyborg name. Thanks to Bagatell for the link.)

No knitting (or '80s heartthrob movies) last night. A quick beer with Danny after work turned into three beers and dinner and a couple other friends. I managed to extract myself at about 10:30, when I went home, played with Bea for a while, knit (purled, actually) one measly row on my sweater yoke, and fell asleep. Bill and I have dinner-and-drinks plans tonight, too. I hope to get some good solid knitting time in over the weekend. Especially if it continues to be miserably cold and rainy. (As you [may] know, we live in a rooftop apartment. Our roof is made of tin or some such material, so heavy rain is very noisy. It's a terrible sound on a weekday morning when one has to haul one's butt out the door to go out to work, but it's a beautiful sound on a weekend when one can stay inside and be cozy.)

There's a good piece in yesterday's Guardian about language: "Has swearing lost its power to shock?" (Warning: If you really don't want to read the f-word, the c-word, or any blasphemy, don't click.) It's especially interesting in light of the "Nipplegate" scandal involving Miss Jackson. How does "appropriate" change over time? How important is context? (I just read that, because of the response to the Superbowl flash, an upcoming episode of ER has been cut so as not to show an elderly patient's breast. I guess a breast is a breast is a breast on mainstream U.S. television: bad, in other words. Shame on them.) The author of the Guardian piece says that the c-word has become so common in Britain as to be nearly inoffensive. I've been away from North America for two years, but I'd be very surprised if Canadians are desensitized to the c-word. Most Canadian newspapers won't even print the f-word. Anyway, it's hard for this feminist to accept that the use of the c-word as a "casual expletive" is "almost meaningless," and the author's connection of the word's use by (male) football fans to its use by (female) spectators of "The Vagina Monologues" is just plain weak. Still, an article worth reading.

And speaking of language, this is the message displayed on the screen of the ATM next to my office when you withdraw money: "Please take cash and slip." Danny and I were laughing at this yesterday and miming "Oh, there's my cash! I'll just put it in my wallet and -- WOOAAH!"

Ah, that still makes me laugh! Have a great Friday, everyone.

This is a karate dojo, not a knitting class! *

I spent a little time cranking out my top-down raglan last night. In fact, I sat for two hours knitting with Beatrix asleep in my lap, lucky me. I'm still working in black -- haven't even joined to work in the round yet (remember, it's a V-neck). It's quite a thick fabric. I'm not very happy with my raglan increases (k1ktbl of one stitch), but I'm not ripping now. I think I'm going to call this the Hurdle Sweater. Of course I want it to be wearable, but it's OK with me if it ain't a work of art. I just need to know that I can do it. Actually no, I do know that I can do it; I just need to do it. And then wear it. And then say, "Why, yes, I did make this!"

* Those two hours on the couch last night were spent watching The Karate Kid. That Ralph Macchio was such a cutie. Now I want to see The Outsiders again, with its bevy of '80s dreamboats. Oh, how I loved all of these bad boys.

By the way, I chose to go home and knit on Monday night instead of going to see Whale Rider. When I left work it was cold and raining outside, and when the weather is like that, well, I wanna go home.

I did the calculations for a top-down raglan and cast on with Patons Canadiana. It's worsted-weight acrylic; according to the ball band, I should get a gauge of 20 sts./10 cm on 4.5 mm needles. And yes, I did. However, if I were to knit a sweater at that gauge using those needles, the resulting dense fabric would be able to stand up on its own, and I probably wouldn't be able to bend my arms while wearing it. Not what I'm looking for! I tried again on 5 mm needles, and it wasn't much better. So now I'm using 6 mm needles, and the fabric seems OK. (It's very solid yarn -- feels more cottony than woolly.) No photos yet, as it's just a few inches of black stockinette. I have three balls of black and one each of a couple of greens and a couple of blues. This will be my first sweater! It'll have a V-neck and stripes! Beyond that, I have no idea what's going to happen! OK, enough exclaiming.

I think I'll go and look up something in my new Chicago Manual. ::she glances dreamily at its orange cover:: Well, right after I take one more of these quizzes (but then I'm going to stop, I swear!):


Dorothy Parker writes you, you wonderfully urbane,
witty boozehound, you.

Which Author's Fiction are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

It all comes back to knitting.

A one-act play on the long-anticipated arrival of the Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.) in the office of Alison and Danny, performed via the office messenger system.

DANNY: The fifteenth edition is here! How exciting!

ALISON: Yes, I'm drooling on its pages right now!

DANNY: Me too! I know what I'm doing this arvo. [a few minutes pass] This edition is so much better than the last one!

ALISON: I want to marry it.

DANNY: I'm already taking it to dinner.

ALISON: Well, I'm going to be making it breakfast... ;)

DANNY: Dirty! I'm going to expose its contents to an audience of 100 million prudes!

ALISON: I'm going to treat it with respect and escort it around town.

DANNY: Hmm. Well I'm going to show it true style and buy it a Versace faux fur jacket! This orange acid free thing just isn't working.

ALISON: I'm going to polish every one of its spendid pages once a week and knit it a protective cosy.

DANNY: You always find a way to throw my lack of knitting prowess in my face, don't you! Hey! We both have a copy so there's no competition!

ALISON: That's true. Yours will be flashy and crass, and mine will be stylish yet subtle.

DANNY: LOL! Subtle as a ton of bricks in its tea cosy. Mine will be changing her name to Chic Styles.

ALISON: Not a tea cosy! A custom-designed sweater befitting a book with which I hope to spend the rest of my life!

DANNY: That's what you said to the fourteenth edition right before you knitted her a blender.

ALISON: A blender?!

DANNY: you know, the thing you make cocktails in.

ALISON: How could I knit a blender? You've lost me.

DANNY: It was a joke. Now you want to knit one, don't you? I think it'll be impossible, though.

ALISON: Yes -- wouldn't want the fuzz getting into my cosmopolitans.

DANNY: True. But imagine the glory if you did come up with a pattern!

ALISON: My ticket to the Yarn Ball of Fame!

DANNY: And maybe even that giant woolshed in the sky.

Here's my favourite language spin of the day: Justin Timberlake tore the front of Janet Jackson's costume during the Superbowl halftime show, exposing her breast, and then called it a "wardrobe malfunction." (Between Kylie and Janet, that boy is an ass-grabbing, bodice-ripping menace!)

The Taipei International Book Exhibition was held this weekend. I went on Saturday afternoon. It wasn't as much fun as I'd hoped it would be; it was hugely crowded, and nearly everything was Chinese or Japanese (not very "international," if you ask me). Still, it was cool to see cover designs from other countries. There were a few novels I was interested in, but I settled on one: Why Girls Are Weird by Pamela Ribon. I think this book will follow Proust perfectly, don't you?

On Saturday night, Bill and I went out for drinks with some friends, and there was a young American woman who has been in Taiwan less than a week. I cannot tell you how glad I am that I'm not going through that again. I asked her how everything's going, and she said, "It's great! I really like it here." And I thought, "You wait, sister." (I'm not knocking Taiwan, but if you've ever done something like this, you know that it's often a rough adjustment. The honeymoon phase ends, and a point will come where you are overwhelmed; the novelty of being in a foreign country wears off and you ask yourself, "What have I done?") Hmm. That sounds really negative. I really just felt so glad to have made it past all that. I get the same feeling of thank-god-it's-not-me relief when I see a Westerner standing on the street with his or her Lonely Planet Taiwan book. (And if that is you, best of luck, my friend.)

I haven't knit since finishing my mini-ringel socks. (Thanks for all the pro–mismatched striping comments!) I have seven balls of Patons Canadiana that I bought in Canada for a sweater (nothing specific in mind at the time); I think I'll start a top-down raglan with it tonight. That is, if I don't go to see Whale Rider. Lucky me! I have to choose between something good and something good.