Quick announcement

I just listed quite a lot of knitting magazines on ebay. There are back issues of Interweave Knits, Rowan and Vogue Knitting, some going back to the 80s and early 90s. I would love to make some money on them, but mostly I want them out of my apartment, so I set the prices wicked low (nothing over $5.00).

Take a look.

Bonus incentive: If you end up buying some of these and let me know you came from the blog, I'll pay shipping.

Thanks!

Fine, universe. FINE.

Today's horoscope:

Do you have big plans for the future? If yes, it's time to start laying the framework so you can make those plans come to fruition with a minimum of frustration. This might include some organizational type stuff, like getting your files up to date, or some big picture work, as you brainstorm what you want your life to look like. If you don't have big plans for the future, now's the time to start thinking about some, ASAP!

What I Did This Summer

This. I did this, over and over:



(from here, the place where awesome is born)

I don't even know what to call this post.

I spent this past weekend out of town with friends and in addition to performing a dramatic reading of the crazypants religious material left on our car at Wegman's — the gentleman, whose photo clearly indicated that it had been taken in 1986 and whose bio read, in total, "Tony Alamo is probably the greatest patriot the world has ever known," put forth the idea that Satan-via-the-Vatican-controlled politicians are trying to make humanity extinct, which is why they so shamelessly flaunt God's will that girls marry at puberty — which, um, is considerably less funny since I googled him after typing that second em dash and learned that he quite literally practiced what he preached,* I also had reason to start a sentence with "when I had bedbugs..."

I don't know if I've ever publicly said that I had bedbugs, now that I think about it. I did. It was three years and four apartments ago and I'm not exaggerating even a little bit when I say that it was one of the lowest points in a life containing at least the standard amount of loss and heartbreak and that one time I knocked a car window out with my head. (If you don't know much about the bedbug explosion that currently has New York in its thrall, this is a short piece that will bring you up to speed.)

My experience with them was pretty typical, I think, with two exceptions:
1) I was super-sensitive to the bites. Some people don't have much more than mosquito bites, but on me, they were the size of nickels, dark enough that they looked more like blood blisters than bug bites and both hot and hard to the touch, like I had m+ms under my skin. And crazy itchy.
2) I had them for an entire year because I kept getting my apartment treated, but there were people in the building who refused,** so they kept coming back. I cried a lot that year.

Since I didn't know the friends I was with this weekend back then, I got to explain that while having bedbugs was a terrible awful genuinely bad bad bad experience, it did lead to the events that have become one of my favorite New York stories.
Salient point the first: Bedbug treatment involves exterminators coming to your home every three weeks, turning all of your furniture upside down and spraying everything with poison. It's very traumatic, but, luckily, exterminators — and I met a lot of 'em — are almost universally kind people who will tell you all kinds of disgusting stories about horrible infestations if you're the kind of person who finds that fascinating and/or comforting and then, when they notice that you're a woman living alone, will turn your heavy furniture right side up again even though they don't have to.
Salient point the second: During that year, I interviewed for a job at Penthouse.

So. A couple of months into My Year of Demoralization and Despair, I was getting my apartment sprayed for bedbugs. Again. At this point, the process was familiar: the guy or guys would show up, I'd ask them about their most disgusting exterminating experiences while they sprayed, then we'd all leave together and I'd go to the movies to avoid being poisoned to death. That morning, it was a team of two African-American men, one probably in his fifties, the other in his mid-twenties. They were extremely polite, almost deferential in a way that tends to make me very uncomfortable. The older man went into my bedroom, while the younger guy got started on the living room. He didn't seem inclined to chat, so I was awkwardly sort of straightening things on the other side of the room when he started laughing. I look over, he's holding up the two issues of Penthouse that I had bought to prepare for my interview, then stuck in the drawer of my coffee table and forgot about.

So, I'm like, oh, yeah, I had a job interview there. He gives me kind of a strange look, so I realize he thinks I meant as a naked lady, which is pretty clearly not what I'm all about, so I'm laughing at that. Then the older man comes out to find out what we're laughing about, sees the magazines and is all, "Eh, they used to be good but there's nothing good in there anymore." I tell them what I learned at the interview (the letters are all real! really!) and the older man is teasing the younger guy about being so green that he's still satisfied with the relatively vanilla pornstuffs and somewhere in there, something shifts. Proof: a few minutes after that, the older guy asked if he could use my bathroom because he'd had a huge sandwich earlier and was feeling pretty uncomfortable. I don't want to say that we transcended all kinds of societal barriers and responded to each other's essential humanity thanks to the magic of porn, but he did go from calling me ma'am to telling me about his poop in five minutes flat.

Epilogue: I didn't actually want to edit Penthouse, but couldn't resist applying when I saw the listing. I was not offered the job.

*Whoa: I just googled him right now to see if he had an active ministry and it turns out (not surprisingly, really) that he's a convicted sex offender. The wikipedia entry outlines a very dramatic life story involving a religious compound in Arkansas, polygamy, prison, sequined denim jackets and the spectacularly named Birgetta Oyllenhammer. It also includes a photo of one of his pamphlets on the windshield of a car, exactly what happened to us.

**I know, I know. Shock and dismay. This part of the story always trips people up. I just think that there were people in that building who didn't feel like they were in a position to make waves. I was locked into a lease and the management company did what they were required to do, so I didn't have a legal way out. Once the lease was up, I got out of Dodge. But moving is really expensive and generally requires a kind of scrutiny to which not everyone is in a position to expose themselves. Or they could have just been lazy assholes who didn't want to have to do the work. And it's a lot of work. Curious? Enjoy this write-up (continued here) on how to prepare for/carry on during bedbug treatment and keep in mind that that's how I lived for a year.

In which I learn about gin.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to check out a new distillery in Brooklyn, just a couple of blocks from my last apartment. Started by a laid-off bond trader and his girlfriend, they're making gin from scratch, which is the kind of enterprise I can get behind.

They have gorgeous equipment:

One of the owners, talking about the wheat they buy from a farmer near Ithaca and how they process it into flour and turn that into a thin, fermented slurry that becomes the base spirit.
They were in the middle of a tour when we got there, so we tasted the product before learning anything about it. We tasted it at room temperature, chilled, and with tonic. I have to say that while I liked it as a spirit, it didn't taste like gin to me. The ginger and rosemary flavors had the strongest impact, followed by lemon peel. I didn't get much juniper flavor at all. On the tour, the guy mentioned that they refine the juniper berries so that they're only using the lighter, more aromatic notes. But the thing is, I *like* that heavy, pine-resin juniper taste and scent. That's what I want when I want gin. So I wouldn't buy this expecting it to fulfill my gin requirements. But if I were looking for something else that's aromatic and tasty and could be used in drinks that are either sweet or not, I would certainly not be averse to Breuckelen gin.

Photos excavated from a flash drive at the bottom of my purse

The theme is: Things That Will Kill You.
I don't know what these are even called: fake body outline cutouts where you put your face there? It's one of those .... of DEATH.

Scary basement piano, ready to eat you

Dolls are scary generally, but lots of them in formation? AHHHHHHHHHH. If you installed this lamp in your home, it would inch closer and closer one night while you were sleeping and then they'd all KICK YOU TO DEATH WITH THEIR COLD, POINTY FEET.

"Ha ha," I said, when I saw this chocolate on my hotel bed. "The way they wrote 'good night' makes it sound like drugged chocolate that will put you to sleep." And we laughed.
And then I turned it over and OMG IT IS DRUGGED CHOCOLATE THAT WILL PUT YOU TO SLEEP.

"Go stand over there and I'll take your picture."

That's something you hear a lot when you go anywhere with my dad.

Sol LeWitt show, MASS MoCA

Church

I like storefront churches in general, but this one is my favorite.

More scenes from a commute

Abandon hope, all ye who enter this airshaft

While I was taking this picture just down the block from my office, someone walking by told me the text on the walls was from Dante's Inferno.

This makes me want to learn origami

from here

Scenes from a commute

To which I can only say amen

My girlcrush and birthday twin Maureen Johnson posted the following manifesto on her blog today. Or possibly last night. Either way, even though she devised the manifesto in reaction to people who use the internet only for person promotion, she might as well have titled it Why Stephanie Blogs.

"The internet is made of people. People matter. This includes you. Stop trying to sell everything about yourself to everyone. Don’t just hammer away and repeat and talk at people—talk TO people. It’s organic. Make stuff for the internet that matters to you, even if it seems stupid. Do it because it’s good and feels important. Put up more cat pictures. Make more songs. Show your doodles. Give things away and take things that are free. Look at what other people are doing, not to compete, imitate, or compare . . . but because you enjoy looking at the things other people make. Don’t shove yourself into that tiny, airless box called a brand—tiny, airless boxes are for trinkets and dead people."

Now go here and read the whole post.

The hard part is getting it out of my brain.

Yesterday, while I was walking home, an extraordinarily vivid and crystal-clear idea for a sweater leaped fully formed out of the murky, roiling depths of my subconscious and into the front of my brain where I could see it. There were crossed fronts and draping and pleating with a high armscye, well-fitted shoulders, and narrow sleeves to keep the whole thing from sliding into schmatte territory. But even though I could see the finished garment as clearly as if it had materialized in front of me, I couldn’t quite figure out what the pieces would have to look like to get that effect.

So when I got home, I took out some scraps of jersey fabric and cut out little sweater pieces to play with.* I never quite achieved the shining grail-shaped beacon of knitwear as it exists in my mind, but I’ll get there. Or not. Definitely one of the two.

*I have a feeling that this is the kind of thing that seems totally normal and just plain sensible to me, like making scale models of my apartment and all of my furniture whenever I move so I know that everything will fit in the new place,** but not to other people.
**I told my mom about it the first time I thought to do this, and she told me that when she first moved into the house I grew up in, she made scale models of of all of her cabinets and everything that would go in the cabinets. I assume, though I didn’t ask, that she meant dishes and her mixer and that sort of thing, not, like, cans of soup. Regardless, in both our cases, we’re talking about 2D models. 3D models would be a completely different level of The Awesome.

I've had this song stuck in my head all day.

Not that I'm complaining.

Fellini goes to the bank

This morning, I had to get blood drawn for my annual checking-in-on-myself and since part of that is a cholesterol test, I couldn't have anything to eat or drink beforehand. So I left the house pretty early for me and went to a lab where they take my insurance, did the whole thing, this isn't the interesting part of the story. It's just to explain why I was wandering around downtown Brooklyn, uncaffeinated and unbreakfasted, in a vulnerable and easily confused state after having my blood harvested before 9 a.m.

I went into an unfamiliar branch of my bank afterward, but there weren't any tellers in their little cage. I was clearly looking a little confused because some dude in a suit asked if I needed help. I said I just needed to deposit a check, he said he could help me, and then everything went ... weird. He took me through a rabbit warren of cubicles and sat me down at a desk and we embarked on a completely bizarre conversation I could not hope to replicate, but know this: at one point he drew a diagram for me about how a debit card works. Except that he just wrote $100-$50=$50, which is the part of the whole system that I am pretty clear on. When he had asked if I knew how debit cards work, I said um, maybe because I thought there was going to be a lot more to the answer. It was exactly like someone asking you if you know how electricity works and you said um, maybe because you know that there are currents involved and sometimes hamsters running on wheels but then the person who asked you VERY SERIOUSLY AND NOT UNKINDLY showed you how to plug in a lamp.

Oh, right. THIS happened.

By the greening of my thumb...

Last week, I noticed that one of the sweet potatoes I'd had hanging around the kitchen for a while had sprouted. I had an extra flowerpot with soil in it already, so figured I had nothing to lose by planting it. It was the work of about a minute to lop off the sproutiest part, scoop out a cavity in the soil, and cover it up again. This is what it looked like last Wednesday, all purple stalks and tiny, pretty leaves.

And this is what it looked like this morning before I left for work, after a single week:

I, for one, welcome my new plant overlords.

Fun with math

+

=

I have to confess, I haven't been feeling particularly inspired lately, but I know that one thing that tends to perk me up when I'm feeling doldrum-y and lackluster is to revisit topics and projects that I would usually get excited about, like...

...Naturalism
I love the natural history of the Victorian era, that attitude of exploration and sense of wonder at just what the hell is out there in the world. And I love the cabinet of curiosity-style quasi-organization — sea urchins spines next to volcano dust! — exhibited in this collection of microscope slides.

I love natural history in general, learning about something in the world I never knew existed, like this totally bananas Stone Forest in Madagascar. (sidenote: why am I not going on scientific expeditions to Madagascar? as always, I blame you.)
And I am completely head over heels for regions of the world no one knows much about, where new species are discovered all the time (I'm looking at you, Greater Mekong region of southeast Asia!), so reading about the lemurs and geckos and insects that have adapted to live in this landscape really gets my nerd on.

{smooch}

...Food
Plain frozen yogurt (a container of drained tart yogurt, 1/4 c. sugar, slug of vanilla, run through ice cream maker), shown here drizzled with pomegranate molasses

Smitten Kitchen's mushroom bourguinon over egg noodles, which was really delicious. This might be my new go-to dinner during cool weather for non-fancy company who don't eat a ton of meat but are okay with beef broth. Actually, that description could work for pretty much anyone I ever cook for, but I'm already planning to make this in early April for a good friend who will be coming back to New York after having been in Bangladesh for a couple of months (presumably) not eating delicious French-style mushroom stew. I think the only change I made to Deb's recipe was to use a mixture of portobello and crimini mushrooms and to add the pearl onions right at the beginning so they braised in the wine/broth mixture. Also, I didn't reserve the mushroom stems for another use; I chopped 'em up fine and tossed 'em in with the carrots. And I used about twice as much broth as the recipe called for because I like a lot of broth, so it doesn't sit on top of the noodles the way hers did. This is what passes for following recipes exactly where I come from.

These outstanding glazed maple cookies. I'm amazed that I didn't eat all of the dough before I got any of them baked, since I kept pinching off a bit every time I glanced at the bowl. I actually did follow this recipe exactly, other than flattening the cookie balls with my palm instead of a glass. Edited to add: The second time I made these, I made a couple of changes that worked really well. First, I baked them for 9 minutes instead of 12-14, at which point they still looked raw on top, but were golden on the bottom and perfect once they cooled. Also, when reducing the syrup for the glaze, I added a bit of heavy cream (maybe a few tablespoons?) and cooked it until it was the consistency of honey. It ended up being much more like caramel, texture-wise — smooth and glossy and, well, creamy — instead of the original, thinner glaze. It was less than ideal for transporting them, since so much of the glaze came off on the parchment paper between layers, but no one seemed to mind.

Fresh sauerkraut
I'm using the directions from here, as well as the advice of a recent acquaintance who's a preservation and fermentation expert, and experimenting with fermenting my own sauerkraut. It's been going for about a week now. I tasted it a few days ago and it had started getting a little tangy already. I don't like dill, so I have caraway seeds, cloves and junipers berries in there.

I didn't make it myself, but this bowl of cheddar grits with roasted root vegetables and a deep-fried soft-cooked egg deserves a moment in the sun. (from Bark)

...Making Stuff
I finally finished those damn gloves. They're gorgeous, but the knitting was so fiddly and annoying that I don't think I'll be able to full embrace them until next year.

I finished the Cardigan of My Dreams, but it needs a belt, so am holding off on taking a modeled photo until I finish that. I'm pretty happy with it, especially with the fit through the shoulders and back. I need to remember to be careful about the width of the upper back going forward — narrowing it by a few inches did wonders for getting a good fit.

Late winter/early spring is the time of year when I always start thinking about sewing and bemoaning my lack of skill and making half-assed attempts and getting frustrated, but I really do think I may make some progress this time. I attempted a muslin of this Built by Wendy dress, but it didn't fit (good through the waist, but too tight at the hips and shoulders), so I traced off the pattern again, combining two sizes. I have a couple of Betsy Ross skirt patterns that I would actually feel fine working up without a muslin — I'm perfectly comfortable with darts and interfacing — but I will have to conquer my nemesis the zipper [shakes fist]. And my other nemesis, being different sizes in my different parts.