WorldCon

This WorldCon has, at the very least, been wonderful for me. It may turn out to have been life-changing.

For one thing, I got to see all kinds of old friends, including my beloved former students Kurt Adams and Inez Schaechterle -- with whom I've hung out for much of the con -- and my editor/NYC buddies Ellen Datlow, David Hartwell and Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden (most of whom have also edited me at one time or another).

I got very satisfying strokes for the panels I moderated, especially the one on "Faith and Science," which went very smoothly despite the potential for catastrophe. I went to excellent panels and presentations. I got a lot of knitting done.

But I also got a lot of very specific reinforcement about my own identity as a writer. For instance:

* At my first panel, someone showed up with, I swear, a copy of every book and story I've ever written, asked me to sign them, and then gave me a beautiful piece of fluorite to thank me.

* When I was wandering around the Dealers Room, someone told me that "Gestella" is "the best werewolf story ever written."

* Only ten people attended my reading, but one of them was Cory Doctorow, a Much Bigger Name than I am, who appeared to genuinely love the reading and told me it reminded him of some of Kelly Link's work. She's an Infinitely Bigger Name than I am.

* I didn't expect many people to come to my signing today. It was a group signing, and Carrie Vaughn was signing at the same time; I figured she'd have lines around the block and I'd be twiddling my thumbs, so I brought my knitting. Carrie -- sitting next to me, as it turned out -- indeed had long lines, but mine weren't bad. I signed solidly for the first half hour. After that, it got a bit spottier, but not enough for me to get any knitting done. There were a few people who had multiple copies of my books, and someone who had a copy of my very first story, published in 1985 in Asimov's, and someone who said that he's bought anthologies simply because they contained stories I'd written, and several people who heaped praise on "Gestella." And towards the end of the hour, Mega-Infinitely Bigger Name Than I Am Carrie Vaughn turned to me and said, "Susan, I just want you to know that 'Gestella' blew my mind, and as a writer of werewolf fiction I tell other people to read your story, because I think it's definitive."

Holy crap.

* I've always been deeply moved and honored that Jo Walton, whose work I admire tremendously (and who's also much better known than I am), has said glowing things about my work in print. I was very excited to learn that she'd be at Renovation. I looked forward to meeting her in person. I was flattered when she asked if we could have tea together and hang out for an hour between panels, and more than a little startled when she said that one of the reasons she came to the con was to meet me, "because you don't travel much, and I knew you lived here."

Jo proceeded to give me a bracing pep talk. She reads the blog (hi, Jo!), and, among other things, said briskly, "It's perfectly obvious from your blog that you spiral down into depression and then pull yourself back out, but you need to get to more cons. The external validation's really important." We talked about cons: WorldCon and World Fantasy are often impossible because they conflict with teaching. Lately, the only cons I've attended have been WisCon and Mythcon, and even that's been spotty. I'm going to Mythcon again next year; I've been waffling about WisCon. Jo recommended the Fourth Street Fantasy Convention, which I've heard about but have never gotten to. Inez and I are talking about sharing a room there next year.

After tea with Jo (coffee for me, actually, which may have been unwise that late in the afternoon), I went home to help Gary get ready for dinner, since we were having Inez and Kurt and Kurt's wife Shauna over. I babbled to Gary about all this. Before I'd even told him about Jo's depression comment, he said, "You need to get to more cons. This is doing you more good than all the meds you've ever taken. It's all about connection and community."

Yep.

I know this probably sounds like a lot of insufferable bragging, but I've effectively been in exile from my community for a long time. Part of that's geographical; a lot of it's been self-imposed; and it's been reinforced and deepened by my increasing marginalization within my department. Some people there admire the fact that I write, but as far as I can tell, none of my English Department colleagues read my fiction, or particularly like it if they do (other university friends, especially in the music department, have been loyal fans and a wonderful cheering section). Various of my colleagues clearly think I'm a little strange -- one person I like and admire once called me a "fanatic" to my face -- and between all that and the fact that the job's become more difficult and less rewarding for all of us, leading to a universal nosedive in morale, I haven't felt deeply affirmed at work. I know some of that's my fault, especially because I'm terrible at certain kinds of political games, but blaming myself only makes me feel worse.

Church has filled in a lot of the holes -- faith's really a huge antidepressant -- but it can't do everything.

The recent three-year grief-fest hasn't helped any of this, of course (and that's not my fault, and I think my reactions have been entirely human and understandable).

So I went to WorldCon figuring that I'd see some old friends and that nobody else would know who I was, and that would be okay, because it would be my fault, because I haven't been writing much.

What I discovered instead is that people in my field know my work and admire it. People I've never met know my work and admire it. People I admire, blazingly successful and famous and talented people, know my work and admire it. I've written things that matter to other human beings.

It is very difficult to communicate what this feels like. Like floating in airless space and then finding yourself standing on solid ground in a beautiful forest? Like being a ghost and then regaining a body? (Good heavens: am I empathizing with Sauron and Voldemort?) Those are cheesy metaphors, and unsatisfying besides. Let's just say that I've found my country again, or my planet, and learned that I was always welcome there.

So yes, I'll definitely try to get to more cons. I'm exhausted, and I'll be grateful to get back to a normal schedule when WorldCon's over, but I'm going to be very sad when everyone leaves.

In the meantime, I may buy myself a token of citizenship. Y'know how in some fantasy stories, people think their adventures Elsewhere were just a dream, until they discover that they still have a coin or a key or a crown they were given there? The fluorite rock would work, but I can't keep it with me all the time, so I may indulge my shopping obsession and buy a ring. Laurie Edison makes gorgeous jewelry and sells it at cons. It's pricy, so I've never bought any of it. But today I tried on a series of rings and both Laurie and I went, "Oh, wow," at one particular one with a shiny blue stone that looks like opal but I think is something else I can't remember at the moment.

If that's still available tomorrow, I may spring for it, as a sign of renewed commitment to my SF/F citizenship. If it isn't available, I'll cart the fluorite around, maybe, or get some smaller thing. Either way, I'll be registering for Fourth Street.

This is an exceedingly long post. Thank you for bearing with me!

My Worldcon Schedule

Worldcon begins on August 17 and will be held at the Convention Center. I don't see the knitting panel here, but will make inquiries. Note that I'm moderating both the Nevada-as-setting panel and the religion panel, which should be interesting. I've moderated faith discussions at WisCon, so I hope this will go as well. In any case, I'll be busy that weekend!

Wed 12:00 - 13:00, Welcome to Reno (Panel), A02 (RSCC)

An introduction of what to see and do in Reno by locals!

Arthur Chenin (M), Karyn de Dufour, Margaret McGaffey Fisk, Richard Hescox, Mignon Fogarty, Susan Palwick

Wed 18:00 - 19:00, Nevada as a Setting for SF & Fantasy(Panel), A03 (RSCC)

Nevada's mountains and deserts have provided a fertile landscape for writers and movie makers for over 150 years. Join regional writers to learn more about the books and movies that helped to define this area.

Susan Palwick (M), Colin Fisk, Connie Willis, Mignon Fogarty, Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Thu 11:00 - 12:00, When Faith and Science Meet (Panel), A09 (RSCC

Many SF tales, from Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star" to Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz to Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, deal with the intersection of unexpected discoveries on the faith of the characters. Cultural discourse often presents religious faith and science as polar opposites, and certainly there's a long history of conflict between them. But many people of many faiths have happily and successfully reconciled their beliefs with a scientific worldview, and SF/F is no stranger to spirituality, either. Both Joanna Russ and David Hartwell have described SF/F as essentially religious. This panel will present a civil conversation -- between people who respect both faith and science -- about how the two inform each other, both in SF/F and in the rest of the world.

Susan Palwick (M), Eric James Stone, Laurel Anne Hill, Moshe Feder, Norman Cates

Thu 14:30 - 15:00, Reading: Susan Palwick (Reading), A14 (RSCC)

I'll probably read some short chapters from Mending the Moon about my invented comic book, Comrade Cosmos.

Thu 22:00 - 23:00, Short Talks about Art (Talk), A03 (RSCC)

Susan Palwick, Light and Shadow: Family, Pulp Fiction, and the West.

Kelley Caspari, Susan Palwick

I'll be reading a short essay, originally published in NYRSF three hundred years ago, about my grandfather Jerome Rozen, a well-known pulp artist who painted some of the original covers for The Shadow.

Fri 11:00 - 12:00, KaffeeKlatsch: Fri 11:00 (KaffeeKlatsch), KK1(RSCC)

Howard Tayler, Susan Palwick, Ken Scholes

Sat 12:00 - 13:00, River and Echo: The Evolution from Victim to Hero (Panel), A05 (RSCC)

Irene Radford (M), Lee Martindale, Susan Palwick, Charles Oberndorf

The description got cut off, but I think the title works fine. As a longtime Whedonphile, I'm delighted to be on this panel.

Sat 14:00 - 15:00, Autographing: Sat 14:00 (Autographing), Hall 2 Autographs (RSCC)

Yarn on the Hoof

Driving to church today -- a route that takes me through a flat, ugly part of town, with lots of dismal strip malls -- I happened to glance to my left and saw, standing at a fence . . . two llamas! I goggled at them for a minute, thinking maybe they were huge, misshapen dogs, but quickly realized my error. I think maybe they'd been sheared recently; one reason they looked so weird is that large swathes of hair were missing.

I wonder if somebody around here is making llama yarn. Although, given the recent heat, they might have needed a shave to cool off, poor things. Anyway, they were grazing in a nice little enclosed meadow which, when I scrutinized the area as closely as I could on my drive-by, included some barn-looking outbuildings. I've never noticed this before. A lot of Reno used to be farm or ranchland, and there are still pockets of grazing land where you least expect them: a herd of cows munching away next to a bottling plant or self-storage place, say.

On my way back from church, I drove by the meadow again to see if I could get a photo of the llamas (llami?), but I didn't see them. I'll keep looking.

I turned the heel on my mother-in-law's first sock today. I'm afraid I may have made it a smidgen too long, and the thing looks huge anyway because it's made from relatively inelastic yarn, but I've learned that socks that look too big often fit fine. I hope to have them finished and mailed off to her by the time I leave for Albuquerque in twelve days.

The socks have created a delay in the scarf-weaving project. However, last night I had an epiphany and realized that instead of using thirty different bobbins for the warp (talk about a headache!), I can use a smaller notched piece of cardboard as a roller for all thirty warp threads at once. If that works, it will greatly simplify things. The moderator of the small-looms group on Ravelry thinks it should work, so that's heartening.

I'm still toiling away on the book, of course. For some reason, my left hip's been killing me for the last two days -- usually my right one's the culprit -- and I think that too much sitting time may be part of the problem, so I'm trying to get up and move around (limping like Quasimodo) at least every half hour. Swimming and using the elliptical has helped somewhat. I've also temporarily traded in my backpack for an extremely tiny pouch purse to lighten my load. I have to lug a fairly heavy backpack around when I go to Albuquerque (which I'm determined to do without checking, and paying for, luggage), so I want all the muscles rested and healed before then. I'll also have a rolling bag, of course, but I can't fit everything in there, and the backpack's the next best thing, as long as I'm walking okay.

Ah, aging. Remember when you bounded out of bed in the morning with no thought as to whether your joints would behave themselves? I'm infinitely happier now than I was in my twenties, but I could still do without the achy-creakies.

Back to Knitting

Two years ago, I think, when I was completely infatuated with knitting socks, I distributed sock questionnaires to everyone I know. Yesterday, my mother-in-law's completed questionnaire arrived in the mail. She'd just found it on her desk. Luckily, I already had some sock yarn of exactly the weight, type and color she wanted (orange cotton, sport weight), so that worked out very well. I started her first sock this morning.

I'm continuing to research weaving; today I was tempted to buy a small, inexpensive loom, but then my clips and clothespins arrived and I decided to go back to Plan A for the scarf, mostly because I'm curious about whether it will actually work. I'm not going to start with the Sedona scarf, though. I'll do at least one other first, and will tackle the red rock scarf when I feel like I have at least a clue about what I'm doing.

The hospital was very slow today, but after last Friday, that was relaxing. I came home, took a long nap, and then wrote a bit. Now Gary and I are going to watch some television on DVD (True Blood, one of our favorites), and I may have a smidgen of my Kahlua.

Oh, speaking of over-the-top genre narrative, last week we saw Super 8 and thoroughly enjoyed it, although the image of a truck causing a train derailment was a bit too close to recent events here in Nevada. We highly recommend the movie, however: it has a solid story and believable, interesting characters, something of a rarity in these days of yowsa special effects. (It has those, too, but they're secondary to the story and characters.) I'm always grateful and relieved to see any film that doesn't make me leave the theater shaking, or scratching, my head and asking, "Why did anyone decide to spend the GNP of a small country on that?"

Today's Effort

A little crooked, but it was fun to make. As Gary said, "Hey, you're only using a cardboard loom."

Today I started planning an insanely ambitious scarf, which is probably beyond the reach both of a cardboard loom and of my beginning weaving skills. Everything I've read says that to make a scarf on a cardboard loom, either the cardboard needs to be as long as the scarf, or you need to make the scarf in loom-sized sections and sew them together. Seems to me that if you have your warp on bobbins, and have a way to clamp the finished cloth to the bottom of the loom as the project advances, you should be able to weave a scarf in one piece on a workably-sized loom.

So today I ordered clothespins to use as bobbins and some kitchen clips -- the kind designed for bags of potato chips -- to use as clamps. Since we're talking about thirty bobbins, rewarping the thing whenever I need to weave a new section is going to be a hefty piece o' work. But looms with fancy rollers and whatnot cost approximately my annual salary (okay, that's a slight exaggeration), and I think cardboard and tapestry looms are better for freeform weaving, anyway.

So, the scarf: Longtime readers will recall that last July, my sister and Gary and I drove through Arizona's red rock country on our way from my cousin's funeral in Flagstaff back to our hotel in Phoenix, where he and his wife lived. We stopped in Sedona, where I bought some gorgeous orange laceweight yarn that reminded me of the color of the sandstone formations. I've since tried to knit with the stuff, but it's just too fine, and keeps defeating me.

But if I weave with it, especially in conjunction with other, thicker reddish-orange yarns, I think the results could be really pretty, and might even look something like the layers in the rock formations.

Or, I could just make a giant mess of expensive yarn. It's a toss up. But what's life without risk?

Tomorrow's the formal beginning of my sabbatical, and also the first day of my state-mandated paycut, and also the first day of our new, drastically unimproved health-insurance package, with its huge deductible.

I gotta say, I've been in better moods (although I'd feel infinitely worse without the sabbatical).

And on that note, back to work on the book.

Diagonal Lines

Today's challenge was to weave cloth with diagonal lines, otherwise known as twill. The white portions of the cloth here came out nicely, I think, although the fabric isn't reversible. The twill pattern I used with the brown yarn is reversible, but the yarn keeps it from being very visible (even when, as in this case, I kept the weft yarn farther apart than I normally would). For any stitch I want to show, I need to use very plain, non-fuzzy yarn. In this group, that means the white: the brown and orange both do best with simple tabby stitch (one over/one under).

This morning I tried a piece alternating groups of white and brown warp threads, as per mbj's suggestion, but I was also attempting twill and did it completely wrong, so alternate warp threads on the reverse side wound up completely outside the weft. This looked like the macrame project from hell, so I didn't take a photo of it. I did bring it to tonight's church knitting group; the only other person who showed up said she liked it, so I gave it to her.

The knitting group's going to be very slow through the summer, I think, but I'll just hang in there and hope it eventually catches on.

A Little Woven Thing

Last night we finished watching the second season of PBS' Craft in America, which regularly makes me cry because everything the artists are making is so beautiful. One of the artists they featured was a weaver, and I became intrigued, so last night I read an article about how to weave on a homemade cardboard loom, and this morning I made one and produced the above object, a 2.5"x4.5" bit o' fabric (rug for a mouse?) which won't make anyone cry except in pain: but hey, it's my first effort, and considering that I have no idea what I'm doing yet, I think it could have turned out much worse. It's no object of beauty, although I had fun playing with the different colored yards, but it's an honest-to-goodness piece of dense, solid, tough fabric.

Anyway, making it was fun, and I think I'm going to try to produce more objects (coasters? placemats? maybe even scarves?), because among other things, it's a nice break from knitting -- I love knitting, but other ways to play with yarn are nice too -- and it will help use up scrap yarn. I realize that everybody else in the world went through their cardboard-loom phase in elementary school, but I seem to have missed that class.

Obviously I don't already have enough hobbies.

Equally obviously, I have a lot to learn, like what to do with the warp threads. Oh, mbj, turns out that scratchy wool I bought at the art store makes a pretty decent warp, and I bet the yarn there's for weavers.

Our local art museum school is offering a weaving class in September. If I'm still interested then, I may sign up for it.

Oh! And speaking of yarn, there's going to be a knitting panel at Worldcon! And I'm on it! What fun!

Random Updates

Our local paper's been updating Amtrak crash news several times a day. The death toll's now at least six, with five passengers still unaccounted for.

The conductor who died was a 68-year old woman named Laurette Lee who lived in South Lake Tahoe. She sounds like a genuine character. You can read moving tributes to her here and here.

The truck driver's name hasn't been released yet, but that part of the story keeps getting stranger. He was leading a three-truck convoy: the other two saw the train and expected him to stop, but he didn't. He tried to brake, though, because there were major skid marks. So the "unconscious at the wheel" theory is out, and I guess we're back to the distraction theory, although everyone said the train was very visible. You can see a long way in the desert.

I don't think I'd be following this so closely if I hadn't met one of the people on the train, but now I feel connected to the story. I hope the guy I talked to is okay, and I really hope the person he carried to safety is okay.

In writing news, I've been churning out 1,800 words a day (a bit over six pages) for almost three weeks now. That's a lot, at least for me, but I have to maintain this pace if I'm going to have a complete draft by August. No one's holding a gun to my head -- my editor's very understanding and patient -- but I want the blasted manuscript off my desk and on someone else's, and I know I'll have to do at least one rewrite after I finish the draft.

At church today, I got a key for the next knitting night this Wednesday. One of the people who was there last week can't make it for the next two weeks, though, so I hope other people show up!

No Kahlua yet. Last night I felt like tea instead. Tonight my back's bothering me -- I worked out for an hour both yesterday and today, and may have overdone it -- and I took a Relafen, which I don't want to mix with alcohol. But the Kahlua will keep.

My pretty twin-leaf lace scarf is done. Time to go block it!

Church Knitting Group

After trying, without success, to find a night when more than two or three people were available, I finally just decided to have the first meeting tonight. My only firm RSVP was from our Senior Warden, and I knew she'd have a key to the church, so I didn't worry about whether I needed one too.

In retrospect, that was a mistake. She was late, and the church was locked tight, except for one door in the back -- the entrance to a women's AA meeting, it turned out -- which I never would have found if a kind AA member hadn't led me there. So I managed to get into the building and unlocked the front door, and then the Senior Warden showed up. Classic!

There were only three of us. I'd brought extra yarn and needles and various books, including Knitting for Peace, which I bought today just for this purpose. Two of us had brought food, so we served ourselves and started eating, and then it occurred to me to offer a prayer, which the others seemed to appreciate.

I asked if they were interested in charity knitting, or knitting as spiritual practice, or both, or something else; the Senior Warden said cheerfully, "Oh, it's summer. Let's just knit."

So we knitted. Actually, I knitted, and the Senior Warden went back and forth between knitting and crocheting, trying to find a pattern she liked, and our third member read a crochet book and finally crocheted a little bit, and we chatted about nothing in particular -- although there was a long string of cat stories (the Senior Warden was sad because a beloved elderly cat had to be euthanized last week) -- and all in all, it was mellow and pleasant.

We're going to do it again next week. I hope more people come. And I hope to have a key by then. If we keep meeting regularly, a direction will emerge. Or not. Whatever happens, I'll know some people at church better.

Headless Susan and the Button Scarf of Doom

Here's another one: much longer than the first, as you can see. I knit this from mystery wool. My local art-supply place sells unlabeled yarn in varying quantities, and I got about a bajillion yards of this stuff for $7 (after knitting the scarf, I still have at least a third of the yarn left).

I think the zig-zag pattern's fun. Finding matching buttons was surprisingly hard, since most of the tans I found were grayer than I needed. Also, since it's cheap, scratchy yarn, I didn't want to get really fancy buttons. But these match nicely and weren't expensive at all, even if they're a bit monochrome.

Since it's cheap, scratchy yarn, I'm keeping the scarf, which will also have to be worn with a turtleneck so as not to chafe my neck to bits. But it will be a nice warm thing for winter (modelling it was a bit much this evening; we got into the low nineties here today, and although the desert cools off when the sun goes down, it's still not turtleneck-with-a-wool-scarf weather).

I may very well use this same pattern, in a shorter length and in much nicer yarn, for some Christmas or birthday gifts. It knits up quickly, and my loved ones who appreciate funky stuff would like it, I think.

Another New Scarf

This is Barbara Walker's Twin Leaf Lace, from the first treasury, worked up in a lilac sock yarn with a seed-stitch border. It won't be a button scarf, since it will most likely be a gift for someone with arthritic hands. Pretty pattern, eh? I love the three-dimensionality of it.

Bits and Pieces

In no particular order:

* I've been making small but steady daily progress on the new draft.

* We had a lovely dinner tonight with a friend of mine from the hospital, an RN, and her husband. They have comp credits at one of the local casinos and treated us to a splendid meal at a fancy steakhouse there. Yum! It was really fun, and we hope to reciprocate by having them over here for dinner soon.

* On the way home, we stopped at Home Depot so Gary could buy various home-improvement items. While I waited for him, I started wondering if any hardware could be converted to knitting use. And, indeed, it turns out that o-rings used for plumbing repair are perfect stitch markers (although I'm not sure they're much less expensive than the stitch markers sold by knitting suppliers, which are already very reasonable).

* I'm in the process of trimming monthly expenditures, since this is my last month on full salary (next month is paycut plus the furlough that's being applied each of the next two years, plus sabbatical reduction). I reduced my Audible subscription from two credits to one each month; I'd been planning to cancel it entirely, but Gary said I should keep it. Then I started cancelling, or asking how to cancel -- since not all organizations make it easy -- my four small monthly donations to Modest Needs, the Humane Society, Doctors Without Borders and First Book. Modest Needs allows you to cancel a pledge from the website; I sent the others e-mail explaining that I'll reinstate my pledge when I come off sabbatical, and will also make occasional one-time donations during the sabbatical year as I'm able, but that I need to cancel the automatic pledge for the next twelve months. (I'll still be doing my ten percent tithe on discretionary purchases, so that's where one-time donations will come from.) This is prudent and fiscally responsible, but made me feel so wretched that I decided I really need to cancel the Audible subscription entirely too, as long as Audible can assure me that my wish list, and the books I've already purchased, will remain accessible. I've been stocking up on audiobooks in preparation for sabbatical, so it's really a purely symbolic sacrifice.

I'm not a big fan of "I can't have fun if anyone else is unhappy" thinking -- see recent yarn purchases, for instance -- but I decided I just wasn't comfortable buying audiobooks every month if I wasn't also, you know, helping starving cats and buying mosquito netting for field hospitals.

Note: In some quarters it's considered very tacky to talk about money, and especially to admit to charitable donations (that whole "when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret" Ash Wednesday thing). However, I've come to the conclusion that our society would be a lot healthier if more people were comfortable discussing finances, and I think an open discussion of how and where and why we give -- or don't -- is part of that. And I certainly talk openly about how much I shop, so this is just balance, yes?

Haul

Here's the haul. Between the fifty percent discount and the gift certificate from my sister, I got all this stuff for just under $150. That includes a lovely book of lace-shawl patterns, fifteen skeins of yarn (including some alpaca), two circular needles (including an ebony pair), and two sets of buttons, one handblown glass and one bone.

My yarn vault is very full and very happy.

The owner of the shop is closing just because she's tired and wants to do other things, but she'll still be active in local knitting groups. And she isn't closing until all her stock's gone, so she'll probably be there for a while yet.

Needles

Today I went to see the new doctor, who's also a medical acupuncturist. (He told me that in fact, the insurance companies are pulling him off primary-care panels and listing him as a specialist, which means that I should list his nurse-practitioner as my primary-care person.) I like him a lot. He took notes and checked my records on a laptop, but made plenty of eye contact. When I told him why I wanted acupuncture -- for sinus and gastric issues, two of the conditions for which the World Health Organization recommends acupuncture -- he promptly asked for the history on both. When he found out that I'm not taking an acid blocker because I'm nervous about osteoporosis, he said, "The risk of not taking the pills is greater than the risk of taking them," and then he told me that not all of them interfere with calcium absorbtion at the same level. He said that Zantac is pretty benign that way, especially if I also take both calcium and Vitamin D -- which I already do -- so I'm back on that as of this evening.

After he took my medical history, he asked me what I do for a living, and then what I do for fun. As he was positioning the needles for the acupuncture, he said, "So, do you feel as if you've been able to do what you've wanted with your life?"

Nobody's ever asked me that broad a question: not psychologists, let alone any kind of internist. I was very impressed. This guy seems to have a firm grasp on both Western and Eastern medicine, is comfortable using both, and also pays attention to the Whole Person. My only quibble is that his voice is so soft that I often can't hear him, but I'll just have to ask him to speak up. (He works out of a medical spa, which has a very cushy waiting room with aromatherapy and soothing music and deep, fluffy chairs: it feels like the lobby of a high-end hotel. That's different from my usual experience, too, as was the fact that he came out to get me himself and conducted the entire visit without a nurse.)

The acupuncture was fine. He's very deft at needle insertion and was very solicitous about whether I was comfortable, putting a pillow under my knees and covering my feet with a blanket because they were a bit chilly. I'm going back for another acupuncture session in three weeks. I don't notice any effects from it yet, but I think it takes a while.

So that went well, I think. I also found the office much more easily on this second visit!

On a less happy note, this evening I facilitated a Literature & Medicine session at the VA and learned from some fellow knitters there that my favorite yarn shop is closing. This is really terrible news, and I hadn't even known about it. Evidently everything's half price, so I'm going to go over there tomorrow morning and load up on whatever's left (I still have part of a gift certificate my sister gave me for my birthday, but I'm sure I'll go over that).

Button Scarf

Here's the new button scarf. Turns out it's long enough to work as a short scarf without buttons, but I think the buttons add visual interest, and they're fun to play with. I couldn't get my webcam to include my face in this photo, but it's probably the best shot of the scarf itself.

I'm experimenting with different ways of buttoning the scarf. The advantage of the lace pattern is that almost any point on the scarf can serve as a buttonhole.

The first time I sewed on the buttons, the edges of the button end tended to stick out in unsightly ways. And then the buttons started coming loose, because it turned out I'd never learned how to sew a button on properly.

So today I read an internet tutorial on the proper way to sew a button, and now I think they're much more secure. I ran out of the yarn I used to knit the scarf -- although the tutorial said one should use thread, anyway -- and I didn't have thread in the right colors, but I had some old embroidery wool of my mother's that matched.

I used a different color wool for each button. If I decide that's too goofy, I'll redo them again, but right now I like the effect.

Here's the "wrapped around the neck twice for maximum warmth" style, which I'll normally only use if I'm outside in cold weather (although it's once again rainy and chilly here, and I could've sworn I saw fresh snow up in the mountains).

I'm really happy with how this came out. I tend to love knitting things but to be a little bored with the final products, so I'm enjoying having so much fun with a finished piece.

Reorganized Yarn Vault

This won't mean much without a "before" pic, but believe me, it's a huge improvement. All of my needles are now in the basket on the top shelf, next to the button basket.

I'm sad to report, however, that Mom's beloved button basket is getting pretty crumbly, and may soon have to go to the Great Craft Room in the Sky. After at least four decades of service, though, it's earned a rest.

Cold Rainy Windy Night

Happy June, everybody. It's been really chilly and windy here all day, with rain since late afternoon. We always need moisture in Nevada, but I gotta say that I'm craving warmth and sunshine.

I got a slow start today. I've hit a rough patch in the book, as I knew I would, and while I'm doggedly plowing ahead, I'm in "this is garbage and no one will ever want to read it and who am I kidding saying I'm a writer" mode. Every project goes through this phase, and I know that, but this one feels especially bad. That's typical too -- "this is the worst thing I've ever written, and more than that it's the worst thing anyone's ever written, and I should just give back the advance and take up finger-painting" -- but it's never fun, and knowing that I always go through it isn't, at the moment, reassuring me that I'll indeed come out the other end. Y'know how it feels when you're in the middle of a bad cold or a bout of the flu, and can't even remember what it feels like to feel well? This is the writerly version of that.

So, anyway, I moped around in the Slough of Despond for too many hours, and then finally got on the elliptical for thirty-five minutes, which helped. Then I took New Tiny Computer to the computer shop around the corner. They're going to update the browser (it's running an old version of Google Chrome, and I can't figure out how to load a newer one because I'm so clueless about Linux), and also order and install a new battery. The battery life on this thing will never be brilliant, but it's been draining when the machine's off, which seems excessive, and I'd like to be able to go longer than half an hour without an outlet.

The computer geek in the shop beamed at me and said, "Oh, this is a great little machine!" Another computer geek at work, who actually owns one herself, said the same thing. So I think I made the right decision, and even after I pay the bill at the computer place, the entire project will come in for less than anything I could get new.

Then I went to the dollar store and bought some ziplock bags for knitting supplies. Then I got my hair cut, so I now look much less like a sheepdog than I did this morning. Then I came home, actually cleared off two small surfaces in my study -- miles to go, but it's a start -- and used the ziplock bags to sort circular needles by size. I reorganized the bottom shelf of the knitting cabinet, putting all my needles in another of Mom's baskets and untangling-and-winding tail ends of yarn, which went into their own small shopping bag for future use as gift ribbon. In the process, I found another button for the button box. The study still doesn't look as if I did several hours of tossing and rearranging in there, but after a few more days of this, maybe it will.

Then we ate dinner, and then, finally, I sat down with the dreaded manuscript and plowed through today's editing-and-revision quota, loathing every word. Back when writers still used typewriters, one of my writing teachers, Marta Randall, said that she hit a point in the middle of every book when she wanted to insert a fresh piece of paper in the machine and type, "Suddenly the sun went nova and they all died." I'm so there.

Then I knit for a little while to cheer myself up, and now we're going to watch some TV. Maybe tomorrow I'll stumble across a sentence in my manuscript that doesn't make me want to cringe with shame and crawl under a rock. Y'think?

Button Heaven!

I'm blogging from a Starbucks on the new mini-machine. It wouldn't connect at work, but my regular laptop doesn't connect at work either. It connected fine here, which bodes well for travel.

I went to my favorite yarn store to look for buttons today, but she didn't have any. "I get my buttons at JoAnn's," she said, and told me how to get there. I think maybe I was there a million years ago looking for yarn and was disappointed in the selection, so I promptly forgot about the place.

Their yarn selection's indeed very limited, but their button selection's fabulous: an entire wall and a half of everything you could think of. After much agonizing -- and a consultation with one of the clerks -- I bought three large, red, asymmetrical buttons for the scarf. I'll post a picture when it's done.

I'll definitely be going back there. I had to restrain myself from buying far more buttons than I need at the moment. One project at a time!

I am going to start a button box at home, though. Fun!

Buttons, Anyone?

The homily went fine; the mom of the baby being baptized even asked for a copy, so that was a nice compliment. I preach next on July 24, on Jesus' parables about the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew: mustard seeds, pearls of great price, hidden treasure.

Meanwhile, today I decided that the new scarf will need buttons so it can be used as a longish cowl (since it will be too short as a scarf), and that sent me off on an idea about using small bits of yarn to knit skinny necklace-like scarves fastened with buttons -- one loop gives you a necklace, wrap it around a few times and you have something more like a scarf -- which sent me on a button hunt. Lace would work well for this, since it provides lots of natural buttonholes. Of course, it may be a daft idea, but I'll try a few of them and see how they come out.

It turns out there are a lot of different kinds of buttons, and a lot of places to buy them on the internet (well, of course). Looking at all of them quickly made me dizzy, and anyway I don't think trying to match yarn color to monitor images is very safe, so I've decided that I'll only buy buttons in person. I stopped by Franklin's on my way to the second church service, but they didn't have anything very interesting, or anything that worked with the current scarf. Next I'll try the yarn stores in town. Do thrift or antique stores sell buttons? I guess I can call and ask.

This new little side hobby could waste hours of time.

Also, if I don't find anything I like in town -- or maybe even if I do -- I may take a road trip to a button shop near Sacramento (if they have a storefront rather than just being online, which I have to check). It looks like they have an amazing selection.

I have some antler and horn buttons a friend got in Alaska for me, so now I'm trying to figure out what yarn they'll go with. Also, check out this totally cool art-deco button (sorry for the blurry image; my phone's camera doesn't do well with close-ups of little things). I've had this since I was a child; I don't even remember if it came from my mother's button box or from a grandmother, but I loved it as a kid and have kept it all these years. Very occasionally, it pays to be a pack rat. There's only one of it, and it doesn't go with any of my current yarn. I'll have to buy special yarn for it.

Hey! A reason to buy more yarn! Bwah hah hah!

I wonder if my July 24 homily will wind up being about buttons.

Scarf Info for Maggie

Since you asked, the pattern is Barbara Walker's Indian Cross Stitch (third down on this page) although mine doesn't look nearly as neat or pretty as hers. I only wrap three times rather than four, which may make a difference, because I found four times too loose.

It's an easy pattern: four rows of garter stitch, a row where you wrap the extra stitches, and a row where you slip them (dropping the wraps), cross and knit. That part's a little tricky, but not inherently difficult. It's not TV knitting, though.

The yarn's a variegated sock yarn with short color repeats. I don't remember what it's called; I got it on clearance at a yarn store in Massachusetts two years ago, and have long since lost the label. I think the pattern would work fine with any yarn, but the short color repeats really make it pop, producing the "school of tropical fish" effect mbj noted. Fingering's a good weight, too. I think it would work really well in Plymouth's Happy Feet yarn, for instance.

I'm really sorry that I don't know what this yarn is -- although I think it may have been the last skein of a discontinued style or colorway -- because I suspect I'm only going to have enough of it to make about twenty-five inches of this thing, which isn't long enough for a scarf. A short table runner? A collar fastened with a pin? I'll figure something out.

Meanwhile, the baby sweater is going tortuously slowly, because I have to rip one sleeve, and I hate ripping, so I keep working on the scarf instead. The baby was just born, but this is a six-month size, and I don't think I'll be seeing his mom for a while, so I have time.

In an act of supremely foolish self-confidence, I finally ordered the wool for Gary's sweater. He wants a cardigan, and it has to have pockets, and he'd also like cables. He says the cables are optional, but I found a cardigan-with-pockets pattern with cabled sleeves, so that's what I'm going to attempt. Given how long the baby sweater's taken me, I shudder to think how many decades I'll be working on this one.

This is one of those sweaters you knit in pieces and then sew together, and I can't sew to save my life, but the owner of my local yarn shop will help me (if I ever get the pieces finished). The other day I ran in there in a panic about the baby sweater, and called out, "Florrie! I need you!" the minute I got in the door. Another patron, sitting and knitting at the front table, started laughing and said, "You have no idea how often I've heard people run in here and say that exact thing! I've said it myself."

Thank goodnesss for yarn stores.