Speechless.

Bring Out Your Blog...

I'll take the Dementia Trousers of Power, please.

And if I can find those in the petites section of The Bay, I'll be very, very happy.

That's a real gear name in World of Warcraft, no joke. Although I could swear that one of my former bosses wore those....

I'm not going to apologise for not posting for so long, because my mantra has always been to post only when there's something to say beyond what I had for dinner and how exhausted I am. However, dinner panic and exhaustion have pretty much been my life for the past month and a half, hence, no posts. But tonight, we give you the Major Life Change and the Almost FO, both very worthy of public sharing. Also, dinner, because it fit into the Objects that Are Funny to Nine Year Olds category, and we make exceptions for that kind of thing around here.

I have been a freelance writer and editor for nine years, ever since I got lifted out of my life by severe pre-eclampsia and the very early delivery of a very ill baby. Since then, especially when I came to Canada four years ago to marry Spiff, I've had to transform my view of work life. Namely, it had to be something that could work around the needs of a certain little monkey who has, at times, required advocacy only a mother-on-the-rampage like myself can provide, as well as accommodate minor details like non-working immigration status and brain surgery.

It's been a wonderful learning experience in some ways, but after all this time, I've realised that I am the antithesis of separating work life from home life. (Direct quote from Twinkie and Spiff: "Are you ever not working?") Thus, I have decided, after all this time and a spate of t-shirts suitable only for Victoria's Secret models and/or people who need to hide a lot of unidentifiable stains, to finally re-enter the world of speaking human at the coffee machine, leaving the job at the office, and wearing decent pants paired with necklines my mother would accept on a lenient day after a few glasses of wine. (Hey, I have to preserve the feminine appeal somewhere, dude...and frankly, the "work pants," they are not doing it for me, you know?) I'm keeping up the freelance fibre writing, though, and oddly, a day job gives me more time for that. Who knew?

My upstairs neighbour came to my door tonight
with two glasses and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot
for Spiff and me in his hands, because I have a new job.
Unluckily for him, I came to the door braless, in pyjamas, and unshowered.
(The heart note is two years old. Spiff wrote it. I can't throw it out.)

Yep, I have to stop wearing pyjamas to work. (Okay, I wasn't really working tonight, but the pyjamas kind of stayed there all weekend.) So I'm on a mission to find pants. Skirts, too, but let's be serious, dude, this is Canada, it's freaking cold, and I will be wearing the pants, yo. (I will wear the skirts only if Spiff asks nicely and hands me something very good to drink when I get home. Also, dinner.)

As you can see, I wear jeans. Jeans are not pants.
(I am also the LAST person to post about Rhinebeck. HA!)
And I am way too short for the professional woman's working wardrobe.
It takes a photo with two hunky men like these dudes to remind me
how many inches need to be cut off from Working Girl Pants. Ouch.

I have to tailor absolutely everything I get for work because I am very nearly a midget. And now that I'm measuring in centimetres, the Pants-Chopping Adventure feels even worse. 30 centimetres! Auuughhhh!!! Off with her legs!!! Snowfall and pants crises are so much more dire in Canada. No wonder people are so nice here. You have to be in order to handle the shoveling and the tailor's bills.

So, tailoring trauma aside, rumour has it that I also knit. And that I've been knitting along on a Lacy Waves top with Sivia Harding, who has finished hers in fabulous fashion and even offered to help me finish mine because she is a wonderful woman who understands that people like me figure out after the fifth rip that you need to read even rows from left to right on some lace charts but not others.

After a massive swatch (also known as a shrug),
I "got" the lace pattern for the sleeves. And then promptly fucked up
the selvedge stitches on the decreases. So the sleeves are
finally done, but...I've knit them a total of six times. Each.

I now have one piece to go for this sweater. The final piece for this bane of my existence but not Norah's fault at all lovely sweater is the lace insert, also known as The Boob Coverage. Which my mother claims I badly need. Except that it's the lace pattern I had to practise for several months, again, only combined with cables this time. Ahem.

Stronger knitters are rolling their eyes at me now, or perhaps just quietly snickering into their merlot, because I am whining about the fact that simple lace and cables combined are so tough. But they are tough for me. Mainly because I forgot that in order to do them together and not have to rip everything and/or throw yarn and needles across the room, burn dinner, and order takeout plus a bottle of something very strong, I had to change direction on the even rows. Heu...oups.

No, I'm not kidding. I really forgot that part. After three tries, no less.

My friend Beth got me these post-its when I had my head opened.
They are still extremely useful, for all sorts of reasons.
(If you can't read the fine print, it says, "Light travels faster than sound.
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.") Yeah, that.

Just a note for all of you knitters who aren't very lace-oriented: while you are knitting the lace insert, it helps a lot to lock up anyone in your family who might ask you (a) what time it is, (b) what's for dinner or (c) where their pants are. But I finally got the hang of it, remembered essentials of basic chart reading, found my cable needle under a stack of inappropriately lowcut t-shirts, and got back to knitting.

Look! It's a lace and cable elf ear!
Which will eventually be a lovely neckline
if I can just convince the small person in the house
to stop telling knock-knock jokes while I finish it.

The next post is going to show an appropriately boob-covered modeling shot of an FO, come hell, high water, or bad career wear choices, dammit. Meanwhile, here's the Oh-My-God-She-Still-Cooks part of dinner, which is not covered at all, and has been pronounced by the giggly nine-year-old in the house to require a bra:

They were supposed to be knot rolls. They are now Breast Rolls.
You're welcome.

December 2, 2007 11:01 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (41)  | Print