knitting in the dark

It’s not a lot right now, but maybe it will stick and we can have a real winter for a little while…

Do you like the slightly ghostly streetlight photo?

Not like in Seattle, where my parents live - they’ve had plenty of snow:

Enough that my mother made some snowmen (which her dogs tried to eat):

One of whom got chased off by some neon alien finger puppets (my mother is hilarious, or at least I think so):

Then she sent me an email, subject: SnowBodies - The Exhibition:

“Celebrate the wonder of the snowform. A phenomenal look at the phenomena we call The Snowman.”

I wonder how many other young ladies similar to my age are such close friends with their mothers… it’s a very different friendship than those I have with other young ladies my own age, but my mother and I talk on the phone nearly every day. She gave up on “mothering” me a long time ago. And our senses of humor are nearly identical and shared with very few other people…

I scored big off the sale racks at Anthropologie this week. Last fall or early winter there was a black corduroy dress that I believe was called the Madeline jumper and I wanted it A LOT, but it was way out of my price range because I am cheap careful about how I spend my hard-earned money (I am a freelance theatrical designer in NYC, after all). One of my mother’s friends from highschool has a brilliant shopping motto: “Put it down and walk away.” I’m really very good about forgetting about these things usually… but I sort of regretted not buying this dress. And this week I found it on sale for about 25% of the original price! The zipper needs replacing, so the kind person at the cash-wrap gave me another 15% off! And I found a beautiful red all wool sweater with a fantastic collar for 1/2 price but it was missing buttons (therefore another 15% off). I don’t think I’ve ever been happier about spending $80 than I am with these two purchases. I’m slowly trying to transition my wardrobe away from t-shirts and GAP jeans and every little baby step counts…

or maybe just to keep writing here…

I really enjoy the online knitting community considering no one I know in the real world knits anymore (except my mother, her sister, and their mother)

No knitting since I’ve been in the theatre all day every day…

This is on a ten-minute break during our first 10/12 Tech yesterday - THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE at CENTERSTAGE. One of my favorite things about working down here is that their artist housing is right across the street so instead of the hour-long commute I have while home I just walk across the street. The downside to this is that my apartment always has a view of the friendly neighborhood prison:

And for my usual “this is what the window looks like when I wake up” shot:

Maybe I should take one of these shots every day… except that I only enjoy them when I’m not waking to an alarm.

This year I avoided having turkey on Thanksgiving, as usual. Instead, I went to the apartment of a friend from prep school and we played his new Nintendo Wii for about six hours straight - we did take a short break to make some sauce and italian sausages.

Now that Thanksgiving has passed I can start seriously thinking about Christmas without looking like a lunatic. So, has anyone ever used Patons’ Kroy Sock Yarn? It’s so inexpensive that it has to suck… but I’d really like someone to tell me that I’m wrong about that so I can make gift socks for even less money than I do already.

This is what I want for Christmas: Canon PowerShot SD600. I already know I will not be receiving one though because my younger brother is getting a new digital camera from my parents and I am getting his hand-me-down. This actually thrills me as my digital camera is OLD and CRAPPY (a whopping 2.1 megapixels!).

Today I am wearing the very first sweater I ever knit. I can’t find a picture of it anywhere on my computer, so I’ll have to take one soon. And I made orzo with garlic, basil, and parmesan - my favorite - it’s like macaroni and cheese for grown-ups!

I’m working on Eunny’s Endpaper Mitts as my subway knitting… I’m almost halfway done with the first one. Colorwork is so satisfying… pictures soon.

I did very little work today (I did spend a few hours drafting, but not much). Instead, I made wonton soup because I’m feeling sick.

It was so tasty! And the recipe I used makes about 6 extra servings’ worth of wontons, so I froze them and will be eating this for dinners all month. I’m so proud of myself - I tend to cook the same things over and over and this was a new idea; yay!

My friends and I never need help finding things to talk about… but we’ve known each other for so long that sometimes we forget to talk about things that are actually important in life. My mother bought me Table Topics conversation starters for my birthday in August and it’s become our new favorite game.

A card came up recently that said: “what’s your biggest pet peeve?” and I had a hard time choosing just one. But rush hour on the D train this morning reminded me: I really really hate it when a person’s hand is loosely latched onto a vertical pole in the subway and they let their hand slide down and touch mine especially when they allow this to happen multiple times… Yuck. Just hold on a little tighter please. I hate touching the pole to begin with - but a strangers hand? No thank you! And to top it all off - I had to watch this man pick his nose for a full 25 minutes…

When I visited China in 2004 I had a name chop made in a small shop on Liulichang in Beijing. That street doesn’t exist anymore… shortly after I visited they demolished that area to ruibuild and modernize. It’s amazing to me the history that is being torn down in that part of the world in the name of progress. But it certainly makes me glad that I was able to see that street lined with bookshops and art supply stores and (fake) antiques and glad I bought my chop there as a reminder of my visit. I didn’t need it necessarily, but it was one of very few items that I was interested in procuring as souvenirs while I was in China. Besides this chop, I also bought a necklace made of coral from the South China Sea, a navy silk brocade shirt with silver dragons, some paper cutouts that are now framed and hanging on my wall, and a “I climbed the Great Wall” t-shirt.

The people in the store where I bought my chop loved that I wanted western characters carved rather than a translation of my name into Chinese characters (which had already been done by my guides “Christina” and “Peter”… I believe they translated Lauren into “Lang Rong” which means something like “bright and clear”). I bought this particular chop because it was a) square shaped instead of round and b) carved with traditional Chinese iconography - I wanted a beautiful and not merely fuctional object.

Here are the front and side views (apologies for crappy photos):

The front of the stone has a fish jumping out of the water at the bottom and the side has a large flower that continues onto the front and top of the piece. And, finally, the stamp impression itself which I’ve been using recently to label books that I loan to friends:

I’ve used that particular orientation/combination of “L” and “P” to label art for years. And red has always been a particular favorite color of mine.

I am a world-class procrastinator. I will do anything to avoid working on a project I want to avoid - even work on other projects that I had previously been procrastinating. Today I did not even need to look so far… I simply did laundry for the first time in about a month. And had dinner with my flatmate and some of his friends. And now I’m writing a post here.

There are just so many updates: Saturday I had an informal interview with Helane, owner of The Point. I don’t have time to work any regular schedule for them, but she kept my phone number and information for fill-in hours over the holidays and the store manager actually called me earlier today to see if I could knit a commissioned sweater for them by Christmas. Can you imagine getting paid to knit? It’s a dream come true. I knit and work in the theatre and people pay me to do these things. Lucky me.

Monday I noticed a mural on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn that I hadn’t noticed before (I think it’s new actually):

Some of the details are really beautiful…

Then for the rest of Monday I was at The powerHouse Arena loading in the dance show.

Their current exhibit, “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn: A Hip Hop Retrospective” is really good.

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I stayed the night with my current beau - V. And when I woke up the view out his window was beautifully washed out like an old black and white photograph due to all the rain we had Wednesday morning:

I have had a long day - I have pictures and announcements that will be following soonish. I did not get to knit even one stitch today as I was busy in various theatres in NYC all day. But I’m going to bed now… and all I have to say about tomorrow is GO VOTE!!!