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.

HEY GIRLS! I'm baaaccckkk! I have been back in Sac since Tuesday, but I haven't been home at all! I haven't even unpacked yet! I have a ton of pictures and a ton of stuff to talk about (although nothing knitting related because I haven't knit in 3 weeks, insane, I know!). I'm about to hop in the shower and then go to yet another graduation party! I just wanted to let everyone know I've been thinking about you (and I really have been!) and I'll have all the juicy details about my trip sometime soon!

I graduated this afternoon! I'm about to be on my way to grad night, and I leave for Hawaii tomorrow afternoon. (I think I'm going to be in Honolulu) So nothing new until I get back on the 21st.

Happy knitting while I'm gooooonnneee! I'm going to miss you bloggers, and I hope I can make it to a computer.

I just haven't posted because I haven't really knit. And like I've mentioned before, life's been pretty crazy for me lately. I'm having a party for my graduation on Sunday, I graduate on Monday, and I leave for Hawaii on Tuesday night. So I've been doing a lot of cleaning, laundry, and organizing. Also lots of shopping, and pretty soon I'll be packing! Time has flown, and I can't believe I'm leaving in less than a week. My last day of school was yesterday, so I've a couple of days to get stuff done. But it's hard! I had to go back to school today to pick up my graduation tickets, and ended up getting there too late so I'll have to go back again tomorrow. The bad thing about my trip (I know, I know. I can't really complain about a week in Hawaii) is that I'm going to be missing 5790435843 GREAT shows while I'm gone. I just keep telling myself I'll have more fun there than I would at those shows. And as I type this, I'm missing Social fucking Distortion, who're playing in Davis tonight. What a bum out!

And since my life has been so stupidly crazy lately, I'm not going to get to go to the City on Saturday to hang out with Christine, Lily, and some others. I've got to go to 2 graduation parties and get my nails done. UGH! I was so looking forward to this, goddamn it! So like I said, have fun ladies! I'll be with you in spirit. (I'm sure I'll end up sitting at some party thinking, "FUCK, I wish I was in San Francisco!")

I have 5 scarves in progress at the moment (a Clappy scarf, ribbed scarf done with Homespun, a cabled scarf done with varigated worsted, and a couple of others) and I'm at the point where I just want to get done with them because I'm so sick of them. And since I'm suck of them I don't really want to work on them, so I'm not making much progress. So I decided to go one by one and finish each one. The cabled on is first. Then clappy. I wish I could knit in my sleep or something!

I had quite a weekend.
Friday night: hung out with Toni, Bart, and Joel. We went to the Jazz Festival, had Chinese food and Baskin Robbins, almost went to a Jazz bar after some girls hit on us (we weren't sure if they hit on Bart and Joel or Toni and I, ahahah!), went to an old abandoned ice factory and had the shit scared out of us by a bum. FUCK BUMS! They are the scariest people on the planet! It was quite a night!
Saturday: slept until 1, went to wcww for a show, hung out and got pizza, bitched about being single and lonely, came home. At the pizza place I scored some great magazines for collaging.
Sunday: Slept late again, got in the shower, got out to find Toni, Ben, and Candice getting out of the car to come to my house. We were supposed to have dinner together and they shower up at about 4:30. So I opened the front door in just my towel. HAHA! The looks on their faces were priceless. Anyway, got ready and left for the place we planned on eating. Got there, found out they are closed on Sunday. Went somewhere else. Ate, etc. Went to my old friend Chris's house with my dad and watched "The Thing". Watched an old live tape of the band SOD. (Metal + hardcore = me thinking of Christine!)
Monday: went shopping with my mom, aka the walking ATM card. Spoils: 2 skirts, 2 pairs of shorts, 3 tank tops, 2 halter tops, a polo shirt, and a pair of boxers. Now I have some clothes to wear in Hawaii! There are pictures in my YahooPhotos (link to the left) in the "other" and "shows" albums if you want to lurk me. My computer's just too slow to upload them anywhere else at the moment.

And I've just been plugging away at the same old projects. I think the next thing I'm going to do is re-knit the boobholder without the pouffy sleeves and with a few other adjustments. I'm simply dying for a shrug for some reason, though.

but someone just thought I was a substitute teacher and not a TA. WOW. I should have just said yes. Silly honest me.

I did my senior project yesterday and did all right - 85% overall. NOt as good as I would have liked but apparently the judges thougt that knitting groups and blogs don't help the community. It may not help my local community, but they sure as hell help the knitting community. Whatever though, fuck them. I don't want to rant about this, so I'm just going to stop now! Sooner or later I will post my paper which talks about blogging and myspace. You guys will get a kick out of it.

Bad Penny update: I just put the sleeves on waste yarn and I'm making good progress on the body. I think for the ribbing I'm going to Kool-Aid dye some yarn. I think yellow will make a good contrast color. I've never dyed with Kool Aid before so I want to give that a try.

Dude, 1100 people have visited this blog just in May! That's INSANE! 1100 visitors and like 1600 page views. I cannot grasp that concept. I mean, I know it smostly the same peope over and over, but STILL! I feel popular. =)

Gotta go, maybe more when I get home. Although I am going to the Senior BBQ to get my yearbook and the school play! (That sounds so cute, huh?)