TAKING BACK [THE KNIT]

AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!! I had this 3/4 of the way typed up and AOL froze ...

My other entry kind of went like this (this is the condensed version): I'm lazy and there's a ton of shit I need to do. I need to take pictures of Lelah #2 with the halter top, which I can't do until I make I-cord for the eyelets. This top has been done for about a month. I need to take WIP pics of my afghan, so you ladies may admire it. It looks beautiful and I can hardly believe that this is coming from me. I've got two panels done so far, and I'm laboring away at the third. Aran knitting is super tedious. I need to finish Clappy, which I have been working on for 3 months, on and off. I need to do all of this by the end of the week. If I don't feel free to leave me hate comments. I just need to stop being lazy about stuff. I also need to type up a pattern and a chart for people. (Someone wants to do my "TONI" illusion scarf, isn't that wonderful?)

Reno this weekend was wonderful. I was really tired, it was super hot, and dancing in high altitude sucks, especially when I'm as out of shape as I am. It's really nice to dance out and have everyone there just to have fun. Competitions are great, but the atmosphere is totally different. It's also nice to see Scottish Country Dancers and Irish Step Dancers, as we're usually segregated from each other. I had a huge description of the whole weekend, but really it all boils down to that.

Three of my friends have asked me to knit them stuff lately! It rules. Although it's hard to knit for other people that I'm not super close to because I don't really know what they'll like. (I'm listening to Misfits - Where Eagles Dare right now, and all I can think about is how good the Atom and His Package version is!) Anyway, yeah. I like to knit for other people, so this is definitely good. (OHMIGAWD, the radio show I'm listening to just had a Futurama bit in the bumper. Actually two. And they're from one of my favorite episodes- The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings. Who can resist loving HedonismBot?)

I was watching MTv's "MADE" today -- that's never a good intro -- and they transformed a hardcore girl into prom queen. Oh man. The whole show she's got straight edge band shirts on, and she looks super scene. I think she's from California, too.  Anyway, basically the took her and removed her personality. No longer was she the girl that no one likes at school who is in-your-face and gets in fights, blah blah blah. They dyed her hair and put her in new clothes. Now, I know that this is all stuff she wanted, but oh man. And it just reinforces the fallacy that everyone who is different wants to fit in, even if they don't want to admit it. I definitely didn't want to fit in during high school. Watching that show made me so glad that I decided not to go to my senior prom. I really would have been miserable. I hated everyone at school save maybe 10 people. And shows like that make it seem like kids like me really would be happy and everyone would love us if we dressed and acted "normal". Fuck that, I wouldn't love myself. All that goddamned show does is take someone with a personality who is unique and gets rid of that in the process of making them prom queen or captain of the football team or a rapper or whatever. I think the one point I believe in my life is that you can be WHATEVER you want to be WITH your cool-ass personality. You CAN be hardcore AND prom queen. You don't need to dye your hair and change your clothes and act differently to do it. It's all about attitude. Anyway, I need to not rant about this anymore because I'm getting pissed off. I'm just a big believer in letting people be who they are. I may hate them and wish they would change, but it's their prerogative to change. Then again if they didn't want to change the show wouldn't make them do it. I don't know. I just think it sucks that kids think you have to fit a certain stereotype to achieve your goals. Also, it seriously pissed me off that they continually referred to her as punk. NOT the same think. AT ALL.

Random thought: I love hearing different variations of the same song. I've heard 2/3 different versions of Tiger Army's Nocturnal, and it's really interesting to hear how little things will make songs sound totally weird and new.

I was just looking at the newest Spun, (which I know is months old, but hey I'm a little behind in life) and the Rainbow Hot Pants caught my eye. Definitely going on my to-knit list. I wear boxers and soccer shorts all the time, and I can only imagine how comfortable knit shorts must be. The only thing I'm not sure about is the rainbow part. I really like it and think it makes the shorts super cute, however I doubt how much I would wear rainbow shorts. I'm just more of a solid colors type girl.

I'm back to crazed, constant knitting, after my little hiatus. I'm (finally) working on the aran afghan for my mom, which is coming along well so far. It's the patter from Knitty Gritty, with like 7 different panels to be sewn together at the end. The only good thing is that all the panels have garter borders so that seaming is going to be a breeze! Even for me! I'm working on my second panel, and I love cables so much. Since there are only 7 panels in the design but I'm making a 16-panel blanket, I think I'm going to design a couple using the new book I bought the other day! It RULES! It's the first book I've bought dedicated to stitches as opposed to patterns. And I'm falling in love with all the different cable patterns in it. It's kind of inspiring me to be more creative and it's giving me lots of ideas ... All I've done the last couple of days is sit with it open in front of me, and just browse through stitches. I love it.

Last weekend = sooo much fun. It's nice to be away from home for a weekend to just hang out with friends and go to shows. I mean, not that I don't do that every weekend, but I usually do it in Sacto and not San Jose. I met a lot of fun people, and saw a LOT of good bands. My friends are such amazingly entertaining people. Lindsey rules soooo much for letting crash at her house, and her mom and sister are super cool too. I will have pictures of all the excitement (they are HILARIOUS!) as soon as Toni uploads them or I get my camera back from her.

This weekend, I'm spend in Reno so I can dance at the Reno Celtic Celebration. It's always amazingly fun so I am super stoked to go to it. Lots of good music, and we get to see Irish dancers for once. I see Highland dancing all the time, so it's nice to see something a little different. Well, a lot different. The only thing that bothers me about Reno is that in the city of Reno, straight edge is classified as a street gang because the edge kids there are (supposedly) super violent and beat everybody who isn't edge up, blah blah blah. LAME. I don't really know what goes on, so I can't say whether it's valid or not, but either way it's stupid.

As  I  was about to start typing, my friend shut her hand in the refrigerator door. And I almost fell of my chair laughing. Now she's writing me notes like we're in school. What a SPAZ! (She's the one in my pictures that's the darkest and in almost all of them.)

I'm still stuck in my not-knitting rut. I just haven't felt like it too much, so I haven't really done anything much. I did start working on the retroknits butterfly bag which I'm going to do totally differently.

I'm spending this weekend in San Jose at a friend's house so that I can go to a 3-day fest that one of my other firends helped to book. Day one was good, today is metal/metalcore so we're not going. If we do go it will be to see one band, because they are our buddies. Metal is not my favorite thing by a long shot so I'm glad. And tomorrow's show will be super cool. I'm excited. We'll be going out to dinner in a little bit and finding a place to eat has been interesting because I am SUPER SUPER SUPER picky and I eat a lot of meat, and one of my friends is vegetarian. Anyway, I hope everyone's weekend is as good as mine is going!

I know it has been a while, but my computer's back so I can revert back into my life of obsessively blogging and spending (WASTING) time on the internet. And also I was told my cd burner works now; if that's true my life is going to be so much better. I'm downloading Windows Media Player as I type this, and soon enough I'll be download all the insanely good music I lost. (And trust me, the first thing I'm going to do is burn everything to cd so that I have it if my computer goes retarded again.)

The last couple of weeks to a month have been AMAZING! Since I've been back from Hawaii, I've seen at least ten new bands, and I've basically gone to a show every other day or so. I'm going to be broke if I continue at this rate, but hey I love music, what can I do? I haven't got a lot of knitting in because I don't really have anything going at the moment. I need desprately to go to the LYS because there is a ton of stuff I want to kniw but I only have  scraps lying around.  My stash is pretty depleted. I think I only have single balls of stuff left, and unless I want to knit a bunch of hats or something, that really won't get me too far. I ripped out my Bad Penny which I had the body all done in red Lamb's Pride because I didn't like the color for a top and I don't think that yarn fit the pattern very well. I'm thinking about redoing it in cotton with a green varigated yarn (so it's kind of camo-looking) and then solid green for the collar and cuffs. But who knows if I'll be able to even find anything like that. And I'm dying to knit the afghan my mom wanted last year, but she hasn't picked out a yarn. So I've taken a little knittng vacation, I guess.

I think I'm too lazy to type up all my stories from Hawaii and graduation and all that unless you guys are dying to hear them.

My computer is totally fucked, and that's why I haven't been updating. AND IT'S KILLING ME! I'm at my friend's/neighbor's right now, to check email and all that and I figured I needed to let you guys know. I think my dad is taking my computer to work with him tomorrow to get it fixed, but god knows how long that will take. In the mean time, know that I think about you girls all the time and I wish I could be reading your blogs and posting here. So until I can get that fixed I'll still be missing you guys!

PS- I knit a second Lelah. Halter top, in off-white. Pictures ASAP.