quelle erqsome...

brain purge

I delivered a paper last night; it went way better than I thought it would. Although it's based on one of my chapters, it comprised of a huge reshuffling of ideas and because of a slew of migraines I've been having lately I only really began working on it on Tuesday. It should have been a bit of a stinker. Instead, it was met with tolerable success and prompted a really interesting discussion afterwards.

That slew of migraines makes me wonder if I should get my eyes tested. I've spent the last couple of weeks in a haze of daily pounding light-sensitive headaches. It's not as much fun as it sounds.

The British Library is ace! Why had I stopped going there? What possessed me to think the cost of transport was justification? How is that possibly justification in the face of such fantastic productivity? I've put Matthew in charge of forcing me out the door the next time I try to flake out.

The last of my (self-imposed) mandatory reading list, Think Inc. by Adam Diment, came in the post last week. It is a. awesome and b. a really unexpected diversion from the rest of the series. Unfortunately Diment sort of disappeared after this one was published, which is such a shame. I wish he'd kept on writing.

We bought a rug! It's a great rug! It's chocolate and turquoise and is interestingly patterned! But it's not the size it claimed to be. Fighting with the merchant over who gets to pay for shipping it back.

We Lovefilmed Hot Fuzz last week and it is indeed as funny as I remember. I have to admit I wasn't sure it would be: we watched it at the Peckham Cineplex with a crowd that was awesomely in the mood for laughing, and that's infectious. I was a bit worried my memory of an awesome flick was in fact a memory of the feeling of being around so many people having a good time. But it's hilarious. I want to watch it again.

I've started knitting the Julia socks, which is the pattern I received in the Socktoswap, in the yarn I receifed in the Socktoswap. If you have never tried Sundara, DO IT! It's a beautiful thing.

One of my cats has been nibbling on my aloe. Yeti, I'm looking at you. I hope it was tasty.

My friend from long ago who I met up with last week (who is lovely, by the way, we had a really fun time and I'm planning on introducing her to my favourite veggie hot spots across the city) has a fantastic new blog, Chairity Case. She's very modest, but I think it's awesome.

jammy christmas crumpets

On cold mornings, a jammy crumpet and a sleepy cat are really all you need to keep warm, no? Mozzie will occasionally protest that she's a bit too hot, she'll stretch and lazily decide she might want to move over to the couch instead, but she can generally be persuaded to stay put. Of course, some times, the lure of Yeti curled up on the soft fleecy quilt I made for them over comes her and I am left to huddle under my Hap Blanket all by myself.

It has been a very busy week -- with more sewing and lugging and hauling than I could possibly repeat here (though I do a fair attempt, here). The craft fair at Bentley Priory was great fun and I just about managed to finalise the last of my Christmas purchases, though my Christmas knitting still has a bit of a way to go... I'm redoing that stripey cardigan for Matthew and making him a few other things -- fast things, but still, not so fast that the anxious dread isn't slowly creeping up on me. Fortunately, I've decided I am only knitting for him this year. Everyone else can suck it.

Unfortunately for Matthew, Lou has just released her German Christmas Market gloves and hat set and I am tempted to cast on IMMEDIATELY! They look awesome in person and the gloves are super warm (that Manos makes for excellent fingers). I've been working on a super secret sock pattern, which I should be able to release in the next couple of days -- I can't wait! 

Incidentally, I just saw that Ali has tweeted about the German Christmas Market still being on. I wonder if I should use this afternoon for a quick visit to see what might be found. Lou managed to snag a fantastic hand-made candle when she and Aneet went a couple weeks ago and spent a good deal of time dribbling excitedly over some German Christmas ornaments...

We haven't got our Christmas tree yet, but that might be the push we need. Then I can spend my chilly mornings with a jammy crumpet and sleepy cat under the glow of twinkling coloured lights. Hurrah!

11/30 good things

Today, though not wildly productive, has been a very good day. I've done lots of little things, though I still have several that need doing. But overall, it's been a very good day.

I awoke early and walked over to the hospital in East Dulwich to have some blood taken (nothing serious, all part of my yearly check-up).

I reread another chapter of Dark Wanton -- I am loving it second time around. The way Cheyney layers his characters, and sets them on their paths, is genius. He has a knack for doubling meaning, so now everything every character says is fraught with possibility.

I went to Wandsworth and bought some frankly delicious fabrics, including some gorgeous nursery fabric to make a set of towels and bum wipes for my downstairs neighbour. I must take pictures of them when the sun is still up and I'm not relying on poor-quality lamplight. While in Wandsworth I discovered an amazing second-hand shop and may (just may) have found an integral part of Matthew's stocking.

I've printed out my next chapter and have begun the long slog. I have HEAPS of work to do, but I'm really rather excited about where it's heading. I've started formulating abstracts for the next 4 chapters as well, so I'm feeling pretty well like I'm nearly on top of things. I still haven't heard back from my supervisor, but fingers crossed it's because he's been struck dumb by my brilliance and NOT (as I fear) rendered incredulous by my vacuity.

I currently have two cats vying for attention and cuddles, eager to tell me about their exciting adventures outside, where there is RAIN, well SORT OF, it's really just DRIZZLE, but it still made them WET and actually, now they're kind of HUNGRY, so they're going to go EAT, but not before they tramp UP AND DOWN THE SOFA with DAMP, MUDDIED PAWS. I'm sure they never used to be this vocal.

Matthew has made his famous chilli tonight and it smells so good! I'm very excited about this one, as I convinced Matthew to add a pinch of cocoa powder, an intriguing suggestion from La. It smells fantastic.

Also, you know those two bags I posted about yesterday? They were both snapped up overnight! How awesome is that? Lou and I nearly fell over when we saw!!

05/30 smashing glass at midnight

...is not fun to wake up to. Especially when you're tucked up and asleep and not expecting to hear any sound but for those in your dreams for hours to come. Fortunately, it was just the Mozcat knocking over a drinking glass on her way out the kitchen window and not something more sinister, though perhaps strangely fitting, to be awakened by a heart-jangling crash in the middle of the night, given it's Guy Fawkes today.

So, it appears, my NaBloPoMo has already failed, which kind of stinks. I had great plans to post yesterday, but alas was held up with the making of Sock-Perfect WIP bags, swooning over button choices with Lou and meeting up with Arianna for coffee and a sneaky piece of apricot-almond loaf, a Ray's Jazz Cafe specialty for which I have a particular love. And I'm afraid, that's about as 'taking it easy' as this week is going to get. It's back to Bond and his various issues with the Name-of-the-Father.

Actually, I am practically frothing to get stuck back into it. My friend Judes called me yesterday evening and something she said sparked an enormous brain wave. I think I might just have the rest of my thesis mapped out, with each of the series I'm focussing on slotting with unusual ease into each chapter. Oral, anal and phallic stages in the development of the individuated subject's libidinal economy, here I come!

3/30 like a sluggish slug

Matthew sometimes accuses Mozzie of falling into her slug pose. She will lay herself down the length of your legs, stretch her head flat and tuck her paws invisibly under herself and luxuriate luxuriously. Both girls do this, but Mozzie, says Matthew looks like a slug. A grey, furry slug. I protest vehemently on her behalf every time, of course, because 'a grey furry slug' sounds like it should be mouldering on a compost heap, and Mozzie does not moulder. She smolders. And she luxuriates as she does it.

It's been a whole week since I was last able to go for a run -- every time I have thought, Ah yes, now might be the hour, I have been headed off by poor weather, snuggly cats or an unusual streak of prioritising my deadlines over things I actually enjoy.

Even though I announced to Matthew that this week I would be 'taking it easy', I have thus far finished up and sent off three freelance projects, sewn up three Sock-Perfect WIP bags and read most of Dark Wanton for a third time. I have also been eating my weight in popcorn, cabbage and half-price Green&Blacks chocolatey chocolate ice cream, so it is no wonder I'm left feeling slightly shakey, dehydrated and in need of exercise!

Like a sluggish slug.

sleeping kittens

I can't really call them kittens any more. Look at how fat they are! But they'll always be kittens to me. Great big lumpbeast kittens, who still facesnuggle when it's too hot to curl up properly. Aw!

Also,  found a new use for yarn scraps. All my bits of thesis are now carefully bundled. It's a rare smugness raining down on me for this spot of organisational genius.

what the cat dragged in

Is this some sort of prize? Did Mozzie win a fight and carry this back as her trophy? It's our neighbour's cat's collar, too -- the one with the really crap taste in music. Had Mozzie finally had enough and took Suzie hostage? She could be trussed up in some abandoned shed somewhere, with Mozzie holding her ransom and this is the proof. She'll only let the cat go if my neighbour vows to throw out his sound system and denounces sports radio for good.

What a clever girl she is.

pear drops and gumdrops

May I present another list of brainworms:

1. There's a piece of grit on my computer sceen right where the Ravatars scroll by in the Ravelry forums. Until this morning I'd been wondering why so many people had something in their teeth.

2. My neighbours and their 'taste' in music is growing more irksome by the day. As if listening to Sports Radio at eight in morning isn't bad enough, I've already had to go next door and politely enquire if it was their reggae I could feel pounding through the floorboards. I've got a far more intimate aquaintance with Mariah Carey's greatest hits than I ever, ever wanted. My knowledge of Jamiroquai is better than I care to admit. Quite frankly, all those happening beats that pierce through the thin membrane of concentration I construct each morning need to stop. 

3. I'm not sure I like Typepad's new set up. It seems to slow my computer down and slot in carriage returns where they just aren't required.

4. I have been getting real knitting done, real knitting! Lots of it! There are pictures and everything. Not here, of course. That would require forethought and organisation. Or maybe just a separate post.

5. Yesterday morning, I found my cat on top of the window. Our windows tip outwards when they're open, so they kind of create a small ledge and apparently that is IRRESISTIBLE when hit with the need to survey the land.







She is such a weirdo.

mishing the mash

I'm on a vegan foodie blog kick at the moment -- it's to distract myself from the general collapse that is my real-world life* -- and today's run are fanflippingtastic**:

Tofu for Two
Seitan is my motor
Megan the Vegan

I've linked to my favourite recipes/recipe inspirations (though this bagel post very nearly won out for SIMM, mmmm) in the hopes that this way I'll remember to go back and test them out. (ETA: Must try out these orange-cranberry scones.)

*I am being slightly over-dramatic, but it's all getting a bit heavy. The lesser of the various evils floating around at the moment, though no less heart-breaking, include having finally managed to get down to work -- real work, with coherent sentences and everything -- I somehow switched off my computer and lost an hour's writing. A whole hour of edits I now have to try to remember because my stupid computer's stupid autrorecovery isn't stupid working.

**I'm trying to cut back on the swearing. I should have been an eighteenth-century sailor. (It's not like I'm partial to syphilis or scurvy, but I reckon I'd have got on pretty well.)

You'd never know it looking at her, but either Yeti's snoring is getting worse or she's been farting up a storm most of the afternoon.

fingers in many craft-pies

I've gone a bit multi-crafty in the last week. My blue socks and the second Karenina are stitching up swiftly, but it was Yeti's first birthday on Monday, something that naturally required festive crafting, and I had two Swap-bot deadlines which both involved homemade items and I decided to make variations on the same theme for each.

Maylin sent me some catnip when back in Secret Pal 10, which I've been keeping away from the kittens ever since they worked out how to open the drawer the baggie was stashed in and spent the night gallivanting about the kitchen giggling at dust bunnies and gnawing on the pepper plant. But Yeti's a year old now, so she's old enough to handle it.

I stuffed a small knitted cylinder with a washed and shredded empty coffee bag, to give it a crinkly-pouncey effect, then inserted a small fabric pouch filled with catnip and stitched the cylinder closed and betassled each corner with various lengths and weights of scrap yarn. She seemed a bit frightened of it at first (perhaps some sort of feline Lacanian response to the realisation of desire) but it now threatens to replace the fish.

Juju taught me to crochet a couple of years ago and while cautiously fascinated, it didn't quite take hold. All I could manage was a series of pathetic circles, none of the sleek flowers or dainty granny squares that piqued my interest in the first place. They were quickly frogged, the yarn left to wallow in my sewing tin. However, this week I realised that those pathetic circles could make for some rather fun brooches, particularly if felted as as to hide the mistakes (and cover the requirements for one of  the swaps), so I broke out the crochet hook to try again.

I came out with two kind of miniature Day-at-the-Races hat things and an abstract octopus, and I'm actually rather chuffed with them.

I somehow forgot that mohair with a touch of nylon won't felt no matter how many times you try it, but I do rather like how over the top and frilly this one came out. The buttons are sensibly cloth-covered and seem to act as a nice contrast to the general flamboyance.

This is the only one that really felted properly, and it's created a quite pleasing, dense fabric. Those little legs were at one time nearly 3 cm each. I like to think the button gives it a bit of an alien quality. A skewiff alien quality, but an alien quality all the same.

I got it half right with this one: the base bloomed more than felted, but the top half is a cotton blend and thus did bugger all. I think by this point I was so excited by the prospect of this crochet thing actually working that I was simply grabbing yarns left and right with nary a thought to their feltability. The button is a gorgeous old leather one that must have been off of some old granddad's cardi.

What's even cooler than getting the hang over using my crochet hook for anything other than picking up lost stitches is that I cut, hand-sewed and attached the backings I(made from the fabric of an old cowboy shirt) without spilling (much) blood and without emailing Alice in tears.

All I can say is this is very exciting. Who knows what's next, rug-hooking? Stuffies? The possibilities are endless.