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Reverb 10: Days 7-10

Catching up with Reverb 10 after a busy week.

December 7 – Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Author: Cali Harris)

Oh, does this prompt pain me! This has been a year where I have really wished for more community in my life, or at least more friends, because the closest friend I have lives 75 miles away, the closest friend after that lives 350 miles away, and then there are my Texas friends, clocking in at, oh, 1900 miles away (give or take).

I am lucky that I have my family close by, because we are a close family and I spend a lot of time with them. My cousin Amanda is one of my best friends and we try to get together whenever she is up in the Bay Area (she lives in San Diego) – when she was up last time, we had a mini gals-night-out with my sister and our other cousin to Thai food and the new Harry Potter movie.

But in terms of community… Next year it would be great to find a knitting group, or maybe even a beading group (?). It has long been a bummer that I don’t share any common hobbies with any of my friends. I wish ANY of them had hobbies, true fact. But weirdly enough, I apparently have enough hobbies for us all. I actually think it’s super weird when people don’t have hobbies. I mean, what do you do with your free time? Do you seriously sit there and stare at the TV? How lame! I’m not saying I never do that, but it’s pretty rare: I’d rather be productive during TV watching than just sitting there like a big ole couch potato.

Anyway, I would definitely like to find a group of people that share my interests and I can become friends with. It’s hard to make friends the older you get, but it’s not impossible. I’m just really tired of kind of doing this by myself. Also another thing I want to do next year is stop being such a lurker on blogs and Ravelry and whatnot. I read so many blogs but I hardly ever comment. I would like to grow the readership on my own blog, and that is something you have to do if you want to do that.

December 8 – Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (Author: Karen Walrond)

I don’t even know how to answer this question without sounding either pompous or pathetic. Or – sorry for myself, because I do sometimes wonder why people even like me at all, since I’m stubborn, set in my ways, and easily annoyed by little things.

But: I’m not easily irritated by big things, and I’m there when you need me, and I show up at the hospital when you’re there to buy you food, I’ll hold your finger together when you’ve chopped it open even though I would rather faint because you’re bleeding like a stuck pig on the kitchen floor (and the counter and my shirt), I can fix a toilet, I can take a great picture, and I can draw like my life depends on it.

What else? I’m extremely educated in politics and economics, I can bake a mean cake, create a most delicious cheese ball, and knit beautiful things.

I don’t have a heart of gold, I like sporadic revenge, and I believe in saying MERRY CHRISTMAS at Christmas time instead of the PC-bullshit Happy Holidays. I’m not interested in making things equal (unless you’re talking about between my sister and I!), I’m interested in doing what’s right. I believe people should work for they get instead of wait for a handout from their government. I believe in the freedom to live your life the best way you know how on your own two feet.

And I hate lima beans with a living, glorious passion.

December 9 – Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

Probably the Authors Under the Stars Gala I went to last month with my dad. I’m not super social, and I try to go to these things when I can because it helps me develop my under-developed skills. Anyway, this was a fancy party at the new library, which was a lot more “upper class” than I’m used to – I mean, all the guys were wearing suits and most of the ladies in cocktail dresses and heels (myself included). There was champagne and a dozen local, published authors. My group ate dinner with Julianne Balmain, who writes mysteries under the pseudonym Nadia Gordon. It was a very fun evening! Following the dinner, there was a talk with T.J. Stiles, author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, which one both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award (I believe only two or three other books have managed the same feat). That was very interesting and next year I hope to read the copy my dad bought at the event. At any rate, it was fun to hobnob with people I normally don’t and eat food that I didn’t pay for and generally pretend I am rich.

December 10 – Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

I don’t really make a lot of big huge decisions, I generally let my life play out as it should. But the big thing that I did decide to do (other than accept a job offer at my current job) is blow a big wad of cash on my trip to Texas in July/August. It maybe wasn’t the wisest decision financially, but it was the RIGHT decision. Being able to be there for my friend on the day she was supposed to be married before the bottom fell out of her life, that was really important to me. It was good to see my girls; I really miss them.

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Make

December 6 – Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

The perfect question for a craft-heavy blog, yeah?

I posted this image in the previous entry, because it shows the last two things I’ve made:

Yep, I finished two shawls last month. I’m pretty amazed, all in all! This year that has beaten me down in spirit has also beaten me down in the ability to knock projects out at the rate that I was making them last year or the year before. Last year I completed 26 projects.  (And if you click that link you’ll notice that I thought 2010 would be a great year! Oh, the blissful ignorance.) This year I have only completed eight.

First up is Multnomah, a garter stitch shawl that I started back in September for my mother’s October birthday. Alas, I wasn’t able to complete it until the weekend before Thanksgiving, but she loved it anyway.

I used almost an entire skein of Sanguine Gryphon Eidos for this project. It was a skein I ordered over a year ago and my mother had admired, so I always planned on making her something out of it.

After I finished the shawl and had pinned it out, I immediately cast on for the Damask shawl. I worked on it fairly solidly throughout the following week, and since I had a four day weekend for the holiday, I made the command decision on Saturday to stay home from the shopping crowds, and I actually finished the shawl. I wasn’t expecting it to be such a quick knit, but it did kind of knit itself as it was a fun and interesting pattern, especially in the Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Envious. That was the yarn from the Loopy Ewe sock club lite package.

This took a startling amount of pins – each eyelet on the bottom had its own pin. One thing that surprised me about the pattern was that it had nupps in it, which I hadn’t noticed from the picture and was a nice surprise. I like knitting nupps.

And so that’s what I’ve made recently.

I have some things I’d like to make still, and some ongoing projects that have been neglected, such as my Brandywine shawl, and a new shawl – Whipporwill. I’d like to get back to knitting socks, but I seem to have lost interest a little in those. Not that I don’t love a handmade sock, but I’m a little more interested in shawls for the moment.

As far as something I’d like to make, I would like to find the patience to make another sweater, so we’ll see. I did make two this year, which for me is not shabby at all.

Making: It’s what I do, and have done for the great majority of my life. If I couldn’t make/create, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.

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Reverb 10

I’ve decided to participate in Reverb10, in which you update every day during the month of December, reflecting back on what the year was like for yourself. I’m a couple days behind so this first post will be a bit of a catch up.

December 1 – One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

Relentless.

My God, it was one thing after another this year. Seriously, I have spent probably most of this year a complete emotional wreck thanks to all the upheavals in my life and I am still waiting for things to calm down. I need a vacation. And not the enforced one that being unemployed for two months brought me, oy vey.

December 2 – Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

I do a lot of things each day that don’t contribute to my writing, and no, I can’t eliminate a lot of them, since they are day-to-day things, like a commute that is triple the time it used to be, a longer work day, etc. I do however have DVR, so it’s not like I can’t turn off the TV, or pause it, and open up the WordPress dashboard on my computer.

December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

Picture this: 2:30 a.m. Sunday August 1. The humidity is still shocking and we’re covered in sweat from our walk down the cobblestone street from the bar. Inside it had been loud on the second floor, with strobing lights and so many drinks and my ears are ringing. It has been over two hours since my midnight Bloody Mary and we’re finally leaving downtown San Antonio to head for the 24-hour Taco Cabana. We are walking down the street in front of the Alamo, where it is dark but for the twinkling lights in the trees and the neon signs of the bars on the opposite side of the street. It is quiet except for the murmuring conversation I am having with my friend. “You will find someone else,” I tell her. “Someone who isn’t a lying cheating piece of scum.” Had things gone differently, the day earlier, she would have been married. She has taken off her shoes and is tottering down the street barefoot, drunk. This is why I came to San Antonio; this is why Texas will be a part of me forever: my friends, my dear sweet friends.

December 4 – Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

Can’t say that I felt much wonder this year. I did try some new things, did almost fall off a cliff, did spontaneously fly off to Texas for that weekend, and mostly just tried to survive. Next year, hopefully, I can add a bit of wonder to my life.

December 5 – Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

I let go of some people I thought were friends but weren’t (old coworkers). These people really knifed a lot of us in the back, and I can forgive them, but I don’t ever have to speak to them again, either. Letting go of excess baggage in your life is one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do.

Tomorrow, sneak peak: