August 2007 Archives

by Emily

I'm sure that lots of folks out there relate to the experience of having a trip coming up and being at an awkward, just-started or almost-finished state with a project. Whenever this happens to me I feel an itch to get either well-established in the project, or completely done with it, before I leave, so I won't have annoying dribs and drabs to see to either during the vacation or when I get back from it.

So it is with the lace shawl whose humble beginnings I posted about a few weeks back. It's now nearing its completion, with the center section completely done and the edging well on its way. Seeing it come off of the needles as I work on the edging is extremely satisfying, because it's the first time I've been able to see the pattern laid flat. For a long time, due to the insane number of stitches in every round toward the end of this baby (738, actually), the shawl looked more or less like this:

And while I trusted that the beautiful lace pattern and delicate star shape was in there somewhere, it was still less than gratifying that I was basically adding row after row to a giant, jellyfish-like lump. With that in mind, it's a lot of fun to watch the shawl gradually released from the needles one stitch at a time, as I knit them together with the edging-in-progress. This is the first freed repeat of the bunch, with David's fingers helping to approximate blocking:

Pretty neat! I currently have 28 repeats of that little scallop completed, with another 21 repeats to go. Considering that David and I leave for New Hampshire on Monday, it's definitely a photo finish, but I've been averaging nine repeats per day for the last three days, so I think there's a good chance this little confection can travel with me to New England in a blocked, ready-to-wear state. In the meantime, the whole exercise is feeding into my love of counting down to things - so really, everybody wins. Stay tuned!

by Emily

Alright already! Enough of these pastoral images. We're now back in the city (for another few days, anyway) and what better way to celebrate our urban lifestyle, than to memorize some Charles Bukowski?

too much

Brawley was a good sort
normal as a heating pad
then he
got a few miles on him
started worrying about
aging

popped vitamin pills like
peanuts

when I visited him
his place was filled with
iron

he pumped and pumped iron

and
with each successive visit
I noticed him
turning
more bulky and
blue:

a metallic
lump

his eyes
withdrew
into his
forehead

his smile
bent
like a
rubber
band

he greased his
body
and stood in front
of
mirrors

I no longer knew
who he
was

he just
pumped and
pumped

and
mirrored and
mirrored

he told me,
"you ought to
go for it, I've
been
re-born."

"see you later,"
I told
him.

now when people
ask me, "you seen
Brawley
lately?"

"not really," I
tell them
and we move on
to more
interesting subjects

like
Nuclear
Winter.

Like nuclear winter! Blammo! I tell you, the man knew how to end a poem. He's like a fatalistic mule pushing steadily and unassumingly toward a land mine. He thinks nuclear winter is a better topic of conversation than his old acquaintance. What a devastating thing to say about somebody! Hoowee. This was going to be my August memorization poem (yes, I am aware that August is almost over, but better late than never), and I do love its evocation of that particular stage in dealing with an addictive personality, when you realize that you're just weary of the whole shebang, and "no longer know who he is," and by comparison to saying another thing about this person's obsessive and unchanging behavior, talking about impending nuclear winter seems like a companionable and productive way to spend an afternoon.

But then I considered whether I wanted a "telling-off"/"putting-down" poem to enter into my personal repertoire. I already have so many memorized songs to suit that purpose, after all: "Like a Rolling Stone," "It's Alright, Ma," "I Don't Believe You," and even some that are not by Bob Dylan. I thought it might be an overly negative thing to ingest in the way that memorization entails. Then, on balance, I decided that negativity is a part of life and that beautiful expressions of it should be carried around with us along with beautiful expressions of positivity. And just so that I wouldn't forget that again, I decided to memorize the poem that reminded me of it, too:

ruin

William Saroyan said, "I ruined my
life by marrying the same woman
twice."

there will always be something
to ruin our lives,
William,
it all depends upon
what or which
finds us
first,
we are always
ripe and ready
to be
taken.

ruined lives are
normal
both for the wise
and
others.

it is only when
that life
ruined
becomes ours
we realize
then
that the suicides, the
drunkards, the mad, the
jailed, the dopers
and etc. etc.
are just as common
a part of existence
as the gladiola, the
rainbow
the
hurricane
and nothing
left
on the kitchen
shelf.

What a gorgeous poem. I love the cadence of it; despite the prosaic word choice and the conversational tone, I would never mistake this for anything but verse. It strikes a beautiful balance between absolute ease of expression ("there will always be something / to ruin our lives, / William") and chiseled, taut language. I love its progression from the theoretical ("ruined my life") down through the spectrum of experience (gladiolas vs. dopers), and lovingly separates away each layer of experience until it is left with the most concrete, basic fact of our shared humanity: being hungry. We can all come up against "nothing / left / on the the kitchen / shelf," and when we do, we will all be in the same boat. Have compassion for yourself and others, gruff Chinaski seems to say, because you and they are just poor human animals wrapped up in beauty and ugliness, needing to eat and excrete.

In other news, our neighbor spends a lot of energy hating the homeless folks that camp next door. I feel like taping this poem to his expensive sports car, but that would be annoyingly self-righteous. Also, he would totally know who did it. He has seen my library.

by Emily

by Emily

by Emily

by Emily

by Emily

by Emily

The official Sepia Salax summer '07 camping and canoeing trip just wrapped up, and boy was it gorgeous! Infused with fresh air, exercise, relaxation and systems suddenly unaccustomed to the August rains of Portland, we are back in town and ready to put in a good...uh...two weeks' worth of hard work before our next vacation. So, um, yeah. Life sure is hard over here at Slash We Apostrophe.

We spent a glorious few days camped out at Hosmer Lake, a stunning part of the Cascade Lakes region of Central Oregon. Based on our experience driving out there, I have two pieces of advice for people heading eastward from Portland:

1. If you are heading out via Highway 26, for God's sake keep an eye on your gas tank. Especially if you, like us, are traveling at night. If you, like us, decide that you probably don't need to buy gas in Sandy, feeling, like we did, that half a tank should be enough to get you to the next town or pump, then you may, like us, have to turn around shortly after the peak of the mountain and drive thirty miles BACK to Sandy, because all the other gas stations on the mountain do indeed close at approximately mid-afternoon o'clock. Then you will be pulling a Jack Kerouac-style coast down the mountainside, trying to preserve gas by using your car's native momentum. OK, so we were never coasting on fumes, but it was still more exciting than I really had in mind.

2. Getting on the Cascade Lakes Highway, which leads to Hosmer and the other lakes in the area, should happen RIGHT OUT OF BEND. If you find yourself leaving Bend on 97, turn around, go back and look for that highway! Don't just keep driving for another hour until you find the signs for the CLH, because you will then be picking it up on the wrong end, and will be forced to drive all the way around Mt. Bachelor in the wrong direction. On the plus side, doing this will give you the impression that you are truly out in the middle of nowhere, miles from any human habitation, when in fact Bend is just a scant 32 miles from Hosmer Lake if you pick up the highway in the correct place. Not that this happened to us.

Once we were there, though, it was so beautiful and relaxing. There was MUCH canoeing, including a quietly breathtaking morning canoe on the day we left, which let us witness the mist rising from the lake waters, the ducks asleep with their heads tucked under their wings, and the fish jumping wildly. It was the greatest.

Much knitting, exploring, reading-aloud and cooking-over-the-campfire was also enjoyed by all. Many more photos to come, and maybe even videos!

by Emily

The official Sepia Salax summer '07 camping and canoeing trip just wrapped up, and boy was it gorgeous! Infused with fresh air, exercise, relaxation and systems suddenly unaccustomed to the August rains of Portland, we are back in town and ready to put in a good...uh...two weeks' worth of hard work before our next vacation. So, um, yeah. Life sure is hard over here at Slash We Apostrophe.

We spent a glorious few days camped out at Hosmer Lake, a stunning part of the Cascade Lakes region of Central Oregon. Based on our experience driving out there, I have two pieces of advice for people heading eastward from Portland:

1. If you are heading out via Highway 26, for God's sake keep an eye on your gas tank. Especially if you, like us, are traveling at night. If you, like us, decide that you probably don't need to buy gas in Sandy, feeling, like we did, that half a tank should be enough to get you to the next town or pump, then you may, like us, have to turn around shortly after the peak of the mountain and drive thirty miles BACK to Sandy, because all the other gas stations on the mountain do indeed close at approximately mid-afternoon o'clock. Then you will be pulling a Jack Kerouac-style coast down the mountainside, trying to preserve gas by using your car's native momentum. OK, so we were never coasting on fumes, but it was still more exciting than I really had in mind.

2. Getting on the Cascade Lakes Highway, which leads to Hosmer and the other lakes in the area, should happen RIGHT OUT OF BEND. If you find yourself leaving Bend on 97, turn around, go back and look for that highway! Don't just keep driving for another hour until you find the signs for the CLH, because you will then be picking it up on the wrong end, and will be forced to drive all the way around Mt. Bachelor in the wrong direction. On the plus side, doing this will give you the impression that you are truly out in the middle of nowhere, miles from any human habitation, when in fact Bend is just a scant 32 miles from Hosmer Lake if you pick up the highway in the correct place. Not that this happened to us.

Once we were there, though, it was so beautiful and relaxing. There was MUCH canoeing, including a quietly breathtaking morning canoe on the day we left, which let us witness the mist rising from the lake waters, the ducks asleep with their heads tucked under their wings, and the fish jumping wildly. It was the greatest.

Much knitting, exploring, reading-aloud and cooking-over-the-campfire was also enjoyed by all. Many more photos to come, and maybe even videos!

by Emily

In addition to reconnecting with my longest-term ladyfriends in Seattle, David and I have been having good times with more recently-acquired buddies right outside of Portland. Our great companion Alan was turning 29, and we went with him and his partner Jen to have a celebratory hike. Last year we took a nice, slow-paced little meander below the treeline of Mt. Hood, starting at the Top Spur trailhead, wandering through some beautiful alpine meadows of wildflowers, and ending up at two mountain ponds. It was a laid-back little jaunt that was plenty scenic and not too rough. This year we decided to repeat the experience, but one thing...

led to another...

...and another...

...and soon we had gone all the way up to McNeil Point, a 10-mile leg-burner through color-strewn fields on top of the world.

I told Alan that if he wants to climb Mt. Hood for his 30th birthday next year, I'll need some advance notice.

by Emily

I don't really wear shawl-ish garments. At least, I like to have a few on hand for the rare occasions when I gussy up and wear one of the two outfits I own that call for a light shoulder-covering or lacy cravat-type item, but stoles, shawls and other swathes of flat fabric are generally not incredibly useful in my wardrobe.

All the worse for me that I am occasionally beset by the near-uncontrollable desire to knit a lace shawl. It offers completely different satisfactions from my normal, sweaterly knitting - instead of being tailored to a human body, enabling me to watch the clever shaping turn two-dimensional fabrics into three-dimensional garments, lace knitting grows or shrinks in two dimensions. Within those two dimensions, however, are a seemingly endless range of possibilities and ingenious solutions to tricky problems. I love to watch triangular and circular shawl patterns grow outward from a tiny cast-on edge, effectively giving rise to a finished product with no "start" point. As someone who relates on a deep level to the mythical/magical/symbolic potential of clothing, the tricksy "virgin birth" qualities of lace shawls are appealing to me. Not that I would want to exist exclusively in a world with no beginnings, no solid moorings anchoring me to the ground, but an occasional jaunt into a realm where cleverness triumphs over physicality - albeit in a very tactile way - is undeniably appealing. Therefore:

This shawl, from Jane Sowerby's scrumptious Victorian Lace Today, is begun from the central point and spirals outward. At the outer edge you don't bind off, but knit on a border perpendicular to the central circle, so in essence there is no cast-on and no bind-off, no end and a beginning which only exists in a single dimension, as a point. The thing is all edges, symbolically infinite, and beyond sheer delightful cleverness of designs like this, I think the spiral pattern is very fitting to the infinity theme. After all, we've been obsessing on their special mathematical and symbolic properties for thousands of years. The spiral has remarkable staying power in both its form (it can be extended infinitely outward) and its prolific presence in the natural and human-made worlds.

And now we're on to the drawbacks of the lace-shawl project: this is the last time I'll be able to see it stretched out like this, with the pattern displayed, until it is off the needles and blocked. In fact, I'm already much farther along than these photos indicate, but taking a picture of the thing now would communicate, not "graceful, symbolically infinite garment" or "shell-inspired knitting of the sea," but, instead, something along the lines of "extremely ineffective green shower cap." Sadly, as the circumference of the shawl increases, the needles remain the same size, so the growing project starts to resemble a reusable mesh grocery bag. I suppose that all of this will add to the sense of delight and surprise when I see the project blocked for the first time. Until then, intellectual flights of fancy will have to substitute for more tangible satisfactions.

by Emily

Lately I've been reminding myself what's really important.

Recently I celebrated my 20-year anniversary of friendship with my two great ladyfriends, Sara and Leah. All briefly in the Northwest, we gathered in Seattle to raise a few glasses to our long-lasting friendship. The three of us have grown into vastly different women (in case you couldn't tell that by our feet), and I feel so lucky to have them both still in my life, with our long shared history and ability to understand each other. They enrich my experience and make me laugh. Indeed. Much laughter was had by all during this little excursion. We are already hoping to do it again for 25 years.

It's so interesting to know people for your entire conscious life, because they exist in at least four dimensions for you at all times. You can chart your mutual evolution through the years and understand the underlying foundation for their seemingly disparate phases. And you don't have to talk every day to feel confident that the friendship will endure, and you will continue to weave in among each others' lives.

Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera, but Sara's fancy phone did in a pinch. And you can tell how much I love these girls by the fact that I am posting the "Thelma & Louise"-style self-portrait wherein they both look lovely and I look like a frog. That's friendship for you!

Here's to you, ladies!